Skill with Individual Pokemon

[Dre]

Basically I'm just curious if people feel that they more skill with certain pokemon than others. For example, they may be particularly good with gengar, because they're good at chain-switching and catching explosions.

For example, I feel that the pokemon I have the most skill with is Rhydon. Lately, I've started to understand the pokemon a lot more, and now I'm doing a lot more damage with him.

In a way, I sort of 'main' him, in the sense that I'll always pick him over golem, and try to practice playing to his strengths. He's a pokemon that I 'study' more than others, if that makes sense.


What pokemon do you guys feel you have the most skill with?

Also, what pokemon do you think takes the most skill to master? What I mean by master is the amount of skill to use it at it's maximum potential.

[t3h Icy]

Sort of.

Any given turn only gives a player 9 different options, but there are many different variables to consider each turn. Even though it's simple to calculate some things, it's hard to get a grasp on how to plan out matches long term, but when playing with the same team, Pokemon, and movesets repeatedly, it sort of grow subconsciously when to use certain moves and when to switch. Some example include knowing what pairs of moves put Pokemon in certain ranges, how to pressure the opponent in specific situations, etc.

Of course though, people plateau quickly and it's hard to tell apart players' individual skill with certain Pokemon due to all the luck and other factors in the game, not to mention it's a team game, so the affects of one Pokemon are hard to tell in the long run. An example is Gengar who just needs to exist to pressure the opponent, and that's hard to tell when Gengar is being useful or not.

From personal experience, I've been really "skillful" with Alakazam in that I know what damage ranges I should be doing things, when to switch him in and out, and how he's affecting my opponent's decisions at any given time and based on all sorts of factors. Or differently, I'm probably one of the best players to ever use Aerodactyl due to lack thereof, because I figured out some tricks I can do with him and how to use him appropriately. Of course though, he's still a terrible Pokemon, but he's fun and challenging to play.

This topic also coincides a bit with quality vs quantity teams. WaterWizard uses approximately 87 million teams rather than sticking with the same one all the time, and relies on little tricks and reads to beat people, rather than all the mathematics and probabilities going on. On the other hand, I generally stick to one team and occasionally make very slight variations if I need a counter of some sort (so I'll tweak a couple moves and maybe replace one Pokemon, but otherwise my team is the same and plays the same way too).

[Dexter]

I seem to be better at using random crap uu pokemon than OU's

[Dre]

Aerodactly actually has a place in the current meta as a niche pokemon to wall tanklaxes. Aerodactly can rest loop him, and his high crit rate helps him penetrate lax's reflect.

[t3h Icy]

I'm really concerned about the skill levels of PO players if it's a part of the RBY metagame, lol.

[Dre]

The skill level is irrelevant. It's part of the meta now, and so you have to have a way to counter it. Otherwise people will bring their tanklax in on your standardlax, beat it 1v1, then threaten the rest of your team.

[t3h Icy]

lol. I won't derail this thread though.

I think the Pokemon that requires the maximum skill is probably Gengar since his existence plays into many turns and more crucially around Explosion. Since Normal is the main Physical attacking type and Gengar is immune, he can hop in at anytime to take them. He's also not bad at jumping in to threaten a Pokemon with his own Explosion or Hypnosis. With that in mind, it's important to take him into consideration most turns of the match, and sure, both players do have to worry about him, he's detrimental to the player with him if they're only going 50/50 on the reads (since he takes up a slot on only one team).

Gengar has very high maximum potential, but requires the player to out-read the opponent, which is a bit unrealistic at the highest levels of play (since most people are roughly the same). He's awesome against newbs though. On top, he's also luck based, in particular with Hypnosis, his CHs (if they're to be relied on), and speed-tying Tauros which is often a make or break in the match-up. Also Confuse Ray to a lesser extent.

Tauros is probably one of the easiest Pokemon to use, although he has a few tricks as a revenge killer and early pressure, but it's a bit risky to use him like that. Otherwise, he's pretty brainless to use viably.

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 27, 2012 22:14:25 GMT -8 Dre said:

Aerodactly actually has a place in the current meta as a niche pokemon to wall tanklaxes. Aerodactly can rest loop him, and his high crit rate helps him penetrate lax's reflect.

There are better walls for Tanklax; the best is probably Tankbro (Surf/Withdraw/Amnesia/Rest). Tankbro not only stops Tanklax's sweep, but threatens to reverse it.

There's also Rest Rhydon, if you want a Tanklax wall that also does other things.




On-topic, I think the pokemon I'm best with is Starmie. Just can't get enough of it! ;D

Starmie's an interesting case, actually, because there are lots of different Starmies and they all play differently. So in total, "Starmie" requires an awful lot of skill to master in its entirety.

[Isa]

Why do you feel the need to go over ~630 Defense with Slowbro? =p Reflect is probably the better choice, as it gives you a quicker immediate boost, and frankly - the strongest unboosted physical attack that's not a Boom or a CH does ~27% to Slowbro, which is a Hyper Beam from Snorlax. You really don't need to waste three turns to decrease that number.

[jorgen]

The main idea behind Withdraw should be winning PP Wars against other Slowbro. You know, because that totally happens.

Lax is my bread and butter, if it gets Frozen I'm usually doomed, though with it I can put continuous pressure on the opponent. Imo RestLax is BestLax, lets you be more aggressive with it instead of dancing around the hits and status that Lax should be able to tank.

That being said it really does not take that much skill to be good with Snorlax, and usually I find that I'm p. bad at predicting rhydon v. eggy switch-ins or being too ballsy with bslams on Counter Chansey. I guess the thing I have with Snorlax would be more accurately called "comfort" than "skill."

[t3h Icy]

Snorlax is one of the easier Pokemon to use, though he's quite a bit better with good prediction. His versatility is what makes it difficult to be "skilled" with him. That's assuming being skilled with a Pokemon is to be able to use him viably in many ways, though they can be argued. I'd say that players that stick to only a single set, regardless of Pokemon or number of viable sets, and are successful, then they are skilled with that Pokemon. An example is effectively using a single set of Chansey, and not really dipping into any of the others.

(In my opinion)

[magic9mushroom]

Jan 17, 2013 9:09:16 GMT -8 Isa said:

Why do you feel the need to go over ~630 Defense with Slowbro? =p

I don't, in most cases. I was listing the single best wall for Tanklax, though - Withdraw's 64 PP allows Slowbro to easily stall Tanklax out of Rest, whereas Tobybro dies to a single critslam and Reflectbro is left with only a few PP. And, hey, if at the end you've got 999 Defense instead of 636, that's not exactly a BAD thing.