Quote Originally Posted by Ultima Shadow View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Skyblade View Post
I wouldn't recommend getting into competitive battling. It's...not fun.
Totally disagree with you. It's great. Have you actually given it a serious shot? You don't HAVE to build every pokemon like the Smogon sets to do well.

It will be important to keep track of certain speeds, like... Garchomp who has just slightly above 100 speed should usually make use of that and put enough EVs in speed to outspeed max-speed base 100. But things like that aside, you can often put points where you feel like. You just have to use some common sense, like... bulky pokemon that function better as walls should have their EV's in HP and defense rather than speed and attack etc. Smogon can be good as a general reference at times, but you certainly don't need perfectly min/maxed to outspeed exactly that specific pokemon while being able to survive attack x from another pokemon.

With a team where I had non-"standard" sets on 4 out of 6 pokemons, I still placed 3rd at a X and Y tounament. And I've swept a whole competitive team with an insane set that Smogon would never put on their site for being too ridiculous.


Also, the actual battling IS fun once you have your team(s) - whenever your pokemons are mainstream or not. It's the number one way to keep enjoying the game after finishing the main story.

So yeah, if you ask, I totally recommend trying competitive battling out. If it's not for you, then it's not. But it can certainly be a hell of a lot of fun, just like any other competitive game.
Yeah, you're kind of proving my point here. Whether you choose Smogon sets or not, you need to know Speed tiers. You pretty much need to know damage rolls, and what has the potential to one-shot you. You need to know how to maximize coverage and cross coverage. You need to learn a completely different strategy for swapping Pokemon and how to support as a team. And you need to understand the insanely complicated concepts behind momentum that turn Pokemon almost more into a version of Go than the game we're familiar with.

Or you can just get demolished by every competitive trainer you meet, I guess that's always an option.