Alright, as some of you may have seen, I've recently become obsessed with metabattling on NetBattle.
Who cares
I love battling, though there aren't many people on that actually are up for battling, while there's usually around 80 or so, a lot of them are afk.
I really don't ever see that. I'm on during the primetime every day, and most people are either battling or chatting. A minor few (usually mods) idle, while the rest are changing teams
With my current team set-up I almost never lose;
To newbies.
the only time I ever do is when I get frozen on an unlucky ice beam or I'm on the bad end of a crit, though you can't really take those things into consideration when building a team; it's just the luck of the draw, chi.
Everybody loses once in a while. If you're blaming your losses on this, then you really need to get of your cloud, because you have no idea what you're talking about.
However, for as many teams as I beat, there's always one or two teams that completely own my team;
Oh ok.
my friend took a while to set up his army (that's what he calls his 6 poke team, his army, which I kind of like
) and was able to stop my team cold, never even having to send out his Starmie. That means I was taken down by only 5 pokes, and I consider myself a very successful predictor.
Maybe you should take back that last sentence if you lost to five Pokemon.
So anyways, I've been thinking (and no, it doesn't hurt ^_<); could there be an ultimate team?
NO
Now I know that every pokemon has their weakness (in short, a pokemon that "stops them cold"),
That is essentially why you have five other Pokemon
but that's true for a lot of things like chess and checkers as well; no strategy is without it's failures, but a what a strategy CAN do is minimize their chance of failure.
What if the strategy is extremely flawed?
By using some math (statistics, to be exact), along with the bright minds here at SWF, I bet we can develop the statistically best team.
I really, really doubt that. I'm not saying the people here are stupid. However, Smogon has the largest Pokemon community, which usually leads to the most intelligent Pokemon community. I realize that I am a tad biased because I work a tad for it, but it's no lie.
Now, it's important to realize that, while half of battling is what pokemon you have, the other, and possibly more import aspect to battling, is prediction.
I'd say a lot more than half is prediction
However, by gathering some data, such as the most commonly used pokemon, their moves, stats, weakness, etc., I bet we can find some overlap and create a team that minimizes failure.
A lot of Pokemon teams are good, and that's probably as far as you're going to get. Most of the battle is about the battler, not the Pokemon.
Let me reiterate, we're trying to build a team that can
minimize failure, since I believe that pokemon's design disables any undefeatable team.
One of the first logical things I've read this post
Along with building the team we can gather data based on how its used as to what the majority of people do when given a certain situation. For example, we play a bunch of matches and jot down on Notepad how often someone expects a switch into a Sponge like Blissy or Snorlax and Focus Punches them.
Isn't stuff like this pretty obvious? Oh ok, Heracross switches in on Claydol. Hera Focus Punches on the switch to Skarm (if he has one). However, this would only apply if you actually know the team. I really don't see the point of Focus Punching a celebi if you don't even know the rest of the team. Prediction is based on the opposing team's pokemon and what you think they're going to switch to.
I'm willing to do it by myself if no one is willing to do it, but what I really need help with is the development of the team.
Whatever. I still want to point out a team that minimizes being swept or being walled by another Pokemon isn't that hard. The team only gets you that far
I've seen some really bright minds here who really know their pokemon, like Shadow Nataku, Marc, and drcossack, to name a few. I'll ask on Serebii for their input as well, so perhaps we can collaborate and come up with a final team.
I really wouldn't suggest Serebii for battling help
Now, the only rule I'd put on it is the ban on ubers, legendaries, and hax items (Scope Lends, BrightPowder, Kings Rock, etc.).
Now this is sentence is almost completely stupid. Notice I said almost because the only logical thing you clause are ubers. Legendaries aren't that hard to defeat. They're not that hard to beat if your team is built correctly. Hell, only half of the legendaries are even really useful. Pokemon like Entei just plain suck. ;(
Now I realize that a lot of metabattlers have legendaries such as Zapdos and Suicine, but I've always looked down upon them; they're for people who can't think strategically, IMHO.
Uh, who says Legendaries don't require strategies? It's not like you can just Thunderbolt Blissey and expect to win.
There's always an alternate to them, such as Vaporeon instead of Suicine.
Not really. Lets look at Zapdos. Spikes resistance, three good possible movesets to choose from, awesome stats and being able to dodge ground attacks are some of the few things. Find me a Pokemon that can be used over Zapdos that can fill the same role. Plus, Vaporeon is played extremely differently from Suicune ;(
We can make a team that allows for legendaries as well, but I'd much rather prefer to simply use NU, UU, and OU.
NUs and UUs are crushed in standard battles. Plus, legendaries fit into the OU category.
We could also attempt a pure NU, UU, or OU team, but the problem with that is that there is no clear line distinguishing NU from UU or UU from OU, but there is a clear line distinguishing legendaries and ubers.
Actually there pretty much is. First of all, by just battling (not newbies mind you) you can find out which Pokemon are the most common. Masquerain, hell, you don't see him on an OU Team. However, there are exceptions such as Entei, which you would classify as NU after reading the above statement, so you have to look at his stats. He is way overpowered for NU or UU
Well, is anyone up for brainstorming?
Not after this post
I realize that, at the core, what pokemon team and strategy really depends on the person, as it should be, but if you toss favor and preference aside, what do you get?
You get a Pokemon Team. Hell, I often use Pokemon I dislike, because they fit the team more, and without them I'd be screwed.
That's the answer I want to get to the bottom to, and I'd like some help from more knowledgable people, chi
