Pokemon DB Battling Guide: Tactics

==Battle Tactics: Prediction==

Good prediction is a valuable skill to become a successful Pokemon player. It helps you overcome a bad team match-up and can be a determining factor of the battle itself. For this reason, it is important to predict effectively.

-What Are Predictions?-

Predictions are making educated guesses on your opponent's next move by analyzing their possibilities. They are often game-changing, sometimes working in favor for you or working against you. It could be switching out your Pokemon, choosing a certain move, etc.

-Learning more about Types / Movesets-

You're probably familiar with the old Grass beats Water type of thing and what moves to put on which Pokemon, right?

But it's really important to understand what kind of moves the OPPOSING Pokemon would have and the role of YOUR Pokemon. By knowing more about stats and type match-up, you gain more insight about what you should do in certain situations. Having a certain knowledge of what your moves do and when to use them can really help you out. Getting to know the metagame can also be really helpful because it allows you to get a good guess about what moves a certain Pokemon would have. It can also help you identify the standard sets with certain EVs and see if you can outspeed or take a hit. Then act accordingly.

For example, let's say that a Talonflame revealed Taunt on its moveset. You can assume that this is probably a Defensive Talonflame set and would NOT carry something like Flare Blitz or Swords Dance. You then might guess that he would have Roost, Bulk Up, and Acrobatics as his other moves.

Here's another scenario: You send in your Sp. Atk sweeper against a Gastrodon. You then use a STAB move (that Gastrodon is neutral to). It only does a bit less than 20%. From this, you can assume that Gastrodon probably has invested heavily into its Sp. Def. With that knowledge, you can send in a Physical sweeper.

-Play Styles-

Knowing movesets are helpful... but it is important to understand play styles as well.

Stall teams generally want to play conservatively because they are mostly on the defensive. The key to this playstyle is analyzing your opponent's moves and choices. Because of this, you can see what variation of a Pokemon your opponent is using. Try to avoid making unnecessary predictions when playing stall because this play style prefers to have scenarios where there is a minimal amount of risk.

Offensive teams contrast greatly from stall. When using play styles such as Hyper Offense, your goal is to get your fast, yet frail sweepers to set up and then clean up or weaken your opponent's team. For this reason, you would play aggressively to get an advantage. Often, offensive teams rely heavily on predictions to be successful.

For Balanced teams, they rely mostly on a mixture of predictions and plays depending on when it is appropriate to do so.

Given this knowledge, you can then act accordingly to different play styles when you see them.

-Analyzing Your Opponent-

It's probably not as important as the other two, but you have to understand what your opponent does. Even if it is as simple as analyzing why he sacrificed this Pokemon, it will help you gain a better understanding of what your opponent is planning. Maybe your opponent is planning to set-up and sweep or trying to stall. You can also see what predictions the player makes. Like if the other player goes for a risky prediction meant to attack the Pokemon switching-in, you can assume that your opponent is an aggressive player. You might have to play carefully for the rest of the game.

-The Golden Rule of Predictions-

Here are the main three points:

 - Avoiding unnecessary predictions when you are significantly ahead. (ex: You have four Pokemon and your opponent has two. Two of your Pokemon has full health and you have SR set up on their side of the field. In this case, you would play conservatively, taking as little risks as possible.)
 - Taking any risk to win when you are significantly behind. (ex: You have one left Pokemon and your opponent has three. You are guaranteed to lose if you don't take a risk. It's better in this case to take the chance.)
 - If both players are both balanced in terms of advantage, analyze your risks and your rewards for a certain prediction. Make sure that your risks for a incorrect prediction are little to none.

-Test!-

Oh no! It's a pop quiz!

Don't worry ; it won't take long! This will just help test your knowledge and how well you grasped the topics. I'll give you a series of battle replays. Before you start them, I will ask you to stop at a certain turn and guess what would be the right decision. Answers are in the replay. Explanations are at the bottom.

1) I'll start off with an NU Battle:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pokemondatabase-nu-16761
My Gurdurr has Bulk Up / Mach Punch / Drain Punch / Knock Off with Guts. My KlinkKlang has a Shift Gear set with Wild Charge / Gear Grind / Return, while Granbull is Choice Banded. Go to turn 23 and pause it.
What should I do?


2) An interesting battle with Shining Yin, who is a great player at Monotype (HO Steel vs Balanced Normal).
My Bisharp has Focus Sash and has an Offensive set with Swords Dance / Sucker Punch / Knock Off / Psycho Cut. My Jirachi is Scarfed with dual STABs. My Heatran has an offensive Air Balloon set, but it is NOT max speed. My Lucario is max speed and has Close Combat / Extreme Speed / Ice Punch / Swords Dance.
Press Play and then Pause. Click Go to Turn and type in 14. You can go back to understand the situation, if you want to.
What should I do?

3) Another Monotype Battle! Yay!
This one was Offensive Bug vs Offense Fire: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/origin-monotype-135038
Click Play. Then Pause.
Look at the team match-up and pretend to be my opponent. Can you guess what my win-con (like a certain Pokemon that can help win the game) would be?
Go to turn 9. Then Pause.
What should I do?

-Explanations-

1) Miltank was a real problem for me because it was heavily invested into Defense. I could continue to set up Shift Gear because Miltank can't do much too it, but it might have led to stall with Leech Seed + Milk Drink. Klinklang would've been beaten by Leech Seed before I could defeat Miltank. For that reason, I went into Gurdurr.

2) Here I knew that Lopunny would be a Mega. I also knew that it would have Fake Out (as shown by turn 16). Now, Lucario can have Steadfast (to boost its speed from a flinch) and Inner Focus (to prevent flinching). Obviously, Lopunny would not want to use Fake Out. If I had Inner Focus, I could KO with Close Combat. If I had Steadfast, I could outspeed the next turn and KO with Close Combat. This is not a good situation, so Loppuny would either use Hi-Jump Kick or Return. I knew that Jirachi could survive an HJK or a Return, so I switched it in. I was really surprised by Power-Up Punch, though. I used Zen Headbutt because Jirachi has Scarf to outspeed Lopunny-Mega. I then revenge killed with Bisharp.

An interesting alternative would to be sacrifice Lucario and then go into Bisharp. From there, I could use Psycho Cut. However, I would lose my best check to Ditto / Chansey, leaving to a very different end-game.

3) I knew that Volcarona could sweep the team if Heatran was gone. Armaldo could also sweep because it gets Rock STAB or even Heracross-Mega (which has Rock Blast) if I managed to get Speed Boosts from Scolipede on it.

But on Turn 9, Heatran used Lava Plume, instead of something like Stone Edge or even Toxic. It should be a priority for my opponent to quickly dispose Volcarona. I then realized that he wasn't well equipped to beat Volcarona, so I set up Quiver Dance and used Roost whenever I was low on health.