Pokemon Database Battling Guide - Before the basics
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Hello my friends of the Database. For anyone who doesn't know me, I'm known throughout the land as Professor Xerilia among other things, but just call me PX or Josh. But anyway, straight down to the dirty work.

The users at the Pokemon Database have noticed that the amount of people who know little about competitive but still want to learn and enjoy it has dramatically increased. But I know of all people how frustrating it is to try to learn but few want to help and fewer really can. Just the tiniest details and most basic attributes are left out and it becomes very hard to learn basic things. I am slightly more advanced than most but there are things I only recently learned. That's why I wanted to do this. I want people to come together and learn so that we can all play and come together on equal footing. No elitism, no secret techniques, what's mine is yours. Ready to start? Too bad, you're about to!

How and where to start
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This is obvious, shouldn't it be? Pick up a game and a 3DS. Well, there are some problems with using the actual games. Making teams and finding items can take a VERY long time, and not every impatient battler wants to take hours to make a team that might not actually be that good. So is there a solution? Yeah, there is actually. Pokemon Showdown!

Pokemon Showdown! (abbreviated as PS!) (yes the ! is part of the actual name) is a Pokemon Battling Simulator. This website allows you to make teams online in mere minutes, with unlimited options for Pokemon, items and moves. An entire team can be made or replaced in seconds. You can make a lot of different teams for many different tiers (I'll tell you about these later). A lot of us here use Showdown as our main way of battling and testing teams. Before you learn to battle, it's probably best you get to grips with this helpful website.

Showdown has many servers. You don't really know what a server is, just know they have different designs and owners. The main two servers we use are the Main server where the most people are and our own personal server. Here are the links:
http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/
pokemondatabase.psim.us

To the right are the chatrooms. Choose one and ask for help or join in on the conversations! If you want to get straight into battling, click on team builder on the left. You'll be greeted by an empty list. Click new team. Ignore 'import teams' for now, just click 'add Pokemon'.

You should see a giant list of Pokemon in order of tier and alphabet. If you want a specific Pokemon you can just type it in. For the sake of this, let's type in and find pikachu. Next, the item. Since you don't actually have to find an item, you can use whatever you want. To keep the theme, search for Light Ball. Next is the abilities. The listed abilities are the only legal ones you can use, so pick one that works well for you. Next, the moves. Again, there'll be a list of moves you can use or search for them instead. If you want Thunderbolt for Pikachu, either scroll down or type 'thunderbolt'. Lastly are the EVs. I will talk more about EVs at a later date, but for now just know that EVs = extra stat points, with 252 EVs max in each stat and 510 totals. If you want to add a nickname, customise the gender or make the Pokemon a shiny, click the tab that says 'details'. This is how you make a Pokemon! Do this 5 more times and a team is born.

Please don't use Pikachu though.

Tiers
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For those who are used to WiFi, a few banned Pokemon and items are all you need to remember. However, in this new, highly competitive world, there's a few other things. Tiers seem complicated at first and may be confusing, but they'll be second nature soon enough.

Here is some basic backstory on tiers and what they are. http://pokemondb.net/pokebase/232042/what-are-tiers-and-why-should-i-care-about-them?show=232042#q232042

In short, tiers are specific categories to sort Pokemon based on how much their used. Don't want our little Pikachu going up against a Dialga now do we?

I'll be going into each tier specifically on it's own thread, so look forward to it.

Where to learn?
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Well hopefully here with me, though of course I'm a little limited. Two heads are better than one, and several thousand heads are better than that. The best way to learn is to first of all actually battle. Battle with friends, battle with foes, battle with random people - just battle. Doesn't matter if you lose or win. All that matters is that you notice what happens during the battle and you understand why you won or lost. Though, admittedly you might not even be able to do this. This what I'm for. I give you very basic tips and tutorials that you can use to get out there and battle. If this is the case I'm sorry to keep you waiting, I'm only one man overloaded with college o3o.

Otherwise, just talking and asking people around the site and forums for basic tips would really help you. Smogon University is good source as well, though it's a bit more advanced. Here's the link anyway. http://www.smogon.com/

What's next?
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Next lesson I'll be explaining and exampling some stuff for you to finally get started. I'll be explaining the statistics and roles of Pokemon and how to use Moves. Lesson after that is EVs, Natures and Items. Then after that, coverage. Look forward to it!