Pokemon Trainer: an In-Depth Analysis & Guide

[Retro Gaming]

Do Pokemon take less/more damage from elemental attacks which they are weak to in the Pokemon Games? (Ex: Squirtle taking more Electrical Damage)
Thankfully, No. That would be another unfair mechanic aimed directly at the P. Trainer.

I think you should include the findings for the resistances and weaknesses of the Pokemon to the Fire/Water/Grass trio, Card. There was a thread floating about it somewhere.

 

[Seison]

Hey Card. Great guide (which I think I may have said before) but I was wondering, do you have any vids of your PT?

http://youtube.com/user/mynameisnameis

if the above link is your youtube page (It has some Card matches in it so I thought it might be yours) it'd be nice to see you get some PT vids up there.

thanks

 

[Card]

I think you should include the findings for the resistances and weaknesses of the Pokemon to the Fire/Water/Grass trio, Card. There was a thread floating about it somewhere.

Yea, I probably should.

Hey Card. Great guide (which I think I may have said before) but I was wondering, do you have any vids of your PT?

http://youtube.com/user/mynameisnameis

if the above link is your youtube page (It has some Card matches in it so I thought it might be yours) it'd be nice to see you get some PT vids up there.

thanks

Nope, that's not me. I don't have any video recordings either. To be honest I haven't played Brawl in a long while, personal reasons. Although I may be going to a tournament next month so I'll have vids then.

 

[Airgemini]

This is a very well written and helpful guide.

 

[Magus-Cie]

I didn't see it anywhere, but because of Ivysaur's short stop animation, quite a few times I have been able to use Bullet seed in leiu of a dash attack. Just thought it might be something to stick in the guide if it proves useful.

 

[Superhacker75mil]

Since the pictures and well-written descriptions are so good, you should try and update this more, Card. I realize that it's not always easy to be around boards when there's life to be living (I myself will be a functional non-entity in Smash for a number of months soon, in a couple of months from now), but we gotta' make this board as awesome as possible to encourage PTs out there, and keeping this guide as current as possible is key.

- Squirtle's forward air, while being quick, powerful, and having high priority, still has takes a bit of time to end and is extremely easy to shield-punish/grab these days. Opponents expect a Squirtle aerial assault and therefore f-air should be saved for combos out of f-throw (quick, early-percent combos in general) and killing. B-air's range makes it your real go-to attack that can keep you safer from retaliation if you space it carefully enough combined with an unpredictable ninja approach.

- Ivysaur's Bullet Seed actually does not need to properly overlap Ivysaur for the launch hit. It tends to pop people up from an Ivy-head away, which is frankly amazing. Still, everyone knows how dangerous it is, and people are learning to DI or block the first hit, so it's important to recommend unusual approaches for this move, such as mindgaming your dash-ins or using it while falling from the air (air-dodge + Bullet Seed). Down-throws into Bullet Seed can apparently be effective, too.

- Charizard's forward air is extremely dangerous to use when close to land because of it's large landing lag and surprising inability to inflict knockback or even stun if the opponent is not close enough to the flames. It's frankly terrible for approaching. Therefore, it's hard to call it his best move when moves like up-smash, up-tilt, down-tilt, and b-air are so much more useful. F-air is really only good for edge-gimping (where it's actually pretty great).

- Squirtle's down-air is important for avoid dangerous frontal assaults/projectiles from opponents because of how you can just barely get that tail on them to suck them into the attack. Getting over them and dropping the down-air's tail can help net you an unexpected kill since Squirtle tends to be up in your face, not so much above you, and it will still get that final knockback hit that will send them flying.

- Razor Leaf is important to keep from edgehogged with Ivysaur, but you should add that forward-airs are also really important because of the wide, sweeping hitbox it possesses. If you've got time and space on your second jump, and the opponent miscalculated the invincibility frames slightly, make certain to use fair because it will save your *** AND maybe net you a kill on a high percent opponent. Ivy's floatiness in the air helps with this. Ivy can drop real low when right at the edge before Vine Whip won't reach, so don't be afraid of f-air's small lag.

There's lots of these little things that would be a good idea to add to your guide, since the game has evolved for PTs and it's important to keep them alive against the high-tier competition. I'm sure you're aware of some of the inconsistencies or unmentioned elements yourself...if you have time, use it.

 

[Falcoboot]

Thanks for the help with my Squirtle and Charizard game!!!
I shall not be defeated like the last tourney.

 

[MysticKenji]

Squirtle's dair is 6 hits.
Ivy's ftilt is 7 hits.

 

[The Milk Monster]

I don't wanna' read through 11 pages to see if this has been mentioned about Ivysaur, but at very low percents, an up throw can combo pretty well into a bullet seed then so on.

 

[theEffinBear]

Science: I Hear It Works

****** Important! ******​

Whenever a fresh Pokemon is sent in, the Pokemon will have exactly 2:00 minutes until they become tired and fatigued. Here is the catch though; Whenever the Pokemon performs a Smash Attack, Aerial Attack, Special Move, or Tilt Attacks, exactly 0:01 second will be removed from the Pokemon’s current 2:00 timer. Running, Walking, Jumping, and Throwing your opponent has no effect on the timer.

For kicks, I tested out whether dash attacks and jabs affect stamina. Short answer is: yes, unfortunately, they do (though only the first jab -- subsequent hits in the jab combo don't affect stamina at all). Jabs, dash attacks, tilts, smash attacks, aerials, and special moves all affect stamina. If you use an A or B button move while unconstrained*, you lose 1 second of stamina.
*I'm counting "shielding" and "hanging on the ledge" as "constrained", because grabbing, spot-dodging, rolling, and ledge get-up attacks still don't affect stamina.

HOW I DID IT: I set up some 2-minute matches and tried out various moves in isolation. The results that give new info are listed below.

• Dash attacks: ran Ivysaur back and forth, doing 30 dash attacks (doing nothing else but turning around) in the first minute, and then waited for the flower to droop. Droop time was at ~32 seconds remaining.
• Jabs (repeatedly press A): did 20 AAA jab combos with Squirtle. If all of them hit, head-hang time was at ~22 seconds remaining. This remained the same when I did 20 AAA jab combos on the air, with head-hanging time still at ~22 seconds remaining. When I tried 30 AA jab-combos (omitting the last hit), droop time was ~32 seconds remaining.
• Jabs (hold A combo): pressed-and-held A 20 times with Squirtle for 20 jab combos. Droop time was again ~22 seconds.
• Jabs (hold A forever): pressed A and then held it until I'd counted out exactly 60 of Squirtle's initial jabs. Droop time was at ~62 seconds remaining, or ~1:02 on the clock.

So basically, the dash attack and the first jab both remove 1 second from the stamina clock, though the second and third hits don't; as always, this happens regardless of whether you hit anything. I also tested out spot dodges, rolls, grab-n-pummels, throws (or at least the up-throw), and the ledge get-up attack, and none of them affected the stamina either: droop time was always 0:02 seconds remaining. (The combat walk also looks even less useful for Squirtle now, unless your mini ninja turtle is already fatigued.)

The other strange bit is how all the times up there end in ~2 seconds -- 32, 22, 32, 22, 62, whatever. Even when I tried a match and gave NO controller input at all, droop time was 0:02 seconds remaining (by the announcer's countdown at the end of the 2-minute match). So your starting pokemon has only about 1:58 stamina to start with, not a full 2:00 -- but if you play a 3-minute match and switch so your second pokemon comes out and is controllable at exactly the 2:50 mark (pausing during switch so that the game loads without affecting gametime), this pokemon will now droop at the 0:50 mark. This indicates to me that the stamina countdown actually begins before the match starts, as soon as your pokemon appears during the announcer's countdown to "GO!". Probably won't affect much in the long run, but kinda interesting.

Some other notes on methodology: I used Squirtle for all my tests besides: a) dash attack and b) the pokemon-switch in the paragraph above. I'm assuming that Ivysaur and Charizard behave the same for jabs, i.e. that the first jab takes a second off the stamina clock, but that Ivysaur's flurry-of-vines and Charizard's second claw and wing swipe follow-ups don't affect stamina; I'm also assuming that Squirtle's and Charizard's dash attacks both take 1 second from their stamina clocks, just as Ivysaur's does. If anyone wants to test those directly rather than assume, be my guest.

/RtEB
p.s. Hello! I am new round these parts.
p.p.s. I am also planning to take Pokemon Trainer and Ganondorf to a small tournament soon.

 

[blueshirt314]

This guide is great. Thanks to this, PT is now my official favorite character, and I've practiced with all three Pokemon to get them up to a level I'm satisfied with. I love watching my friend's faces when I use Pokemon Switch to evade a Final Smash... it gets pretty funny, cumulating with a controller being thrown after they miss with Kirby's Cook or something similar where they think they have me finished. :D

And no one else in my community uses PT, so no one knows how to play against him. It's hilarious.

 

[brentlouis]

ivy's ledgehop nair is useful

 

[PltnmNgl]

How often do you update the thread, Card? We seem to keep coming up with new AT's and findings about moves. Ivysaur's semi-spike for instance.

 

[Onomanic]

That quite the in-depth guide. Looks helpful to a PT main

 

[Mac Matrix]

In waiting for Brawl the Pokemon Trainer had always been one of the new characters to the game (besides Sonic) that I wanted to play and test and safe to say that I think he's great, and I plan on getting good with him.

I'm just posting this with regards to the thing about stamina. In the guide it says it takes 2 minutes for the Pokemon to show a 'tired' idle pose, however upon scouring the Smash bros Dojo site I came across this.

When playing as the Pokémon Trainer, if any of your Pokémon take on a tired appearance in their idle pose, it’s time to swap them for a new Pokémon. Pokémon start to look tired when they have about 30% of their stamina left, and when they are completely exhausted their attack power diminishes.

http://www.smashbros.com/en_uk/gamemode/various/various38.html

So, has this been discussed before? If so I apologise >< but I just noticed how it says it takes 2 minutes for the Pokemon to grow tired in the guide, and not for their attack power to drop.

I don't feel good for throwing a potential spanner in the works however I just want to know now if it takes 2 minutes for the Pokemon to grow tired, and not for all their stamina to go. maybe it's something that can be tested. O_o

 

[Angroc]

What about mentioning the difference in Withdraw time? It seems that Charizard to Squirtle is 4 seconds, Squirtle to Ivysaur is 3.5, and Ivysaur to Charizard is 3.

 

[mood4food77]

ivysaur's dtilt can kill at around 150%

just pointing that out

 

[Rdebo]

This thread has singlehandedly made me want to switch to PT...
I was looking for another character to play other than like...zelda and dk..and I <3 pokemon, just didn't really know the nuances of PT...
thanks Card
=]

 

[PkTrainerCris]

I think you should add the fact that when your pokemon are showing signs of fatigue they are not already fatigue, that just means that they are runnig out of stamina (until 30 % is a good portion)... so you can actually kill and send th oponent far away when your pokemon starts to show signs of fatigue

 

[Zero_Gamer]

I've been interested in PT for awhile now and I think I'll second or third him. This forum board needs a thread on jab-release data because PT has a lot of peculiar grabs. All of the pokemon can infinite jab release Ness and Lucas, and I think that Squirtle and Charizard can infinite jab release Wario too. I've yet to test it on others, but I suspect that Charizard can jab release lock Marth too, maybe more chars also!

 

[Retro Gaming]

I did a test with Charizard, and I believe only five characters land outside of his grab range (Luigi, Ike, etc.) I'm not saying it's inescapable for everyone though, most characters can easily roll, spot dodge, jab, or something else out of it. I've been meaning to see how some characters with easy-to-grab jabs turn-out, though (Marth, Peach, Olimar, etc.)

 

[Solid Rage94]

Nice guide but did you know that if you hit the enemy with just the first part of Charizard's Bair then it's a metor smash (slightly)

And squritle's Water gun is useful only on those recovering if you jump out and hit them with the un-charged version then it's kinda useful

 

[PkTrainerCris]

The slight meteor smash is the Bair

 

[Solid Rage94]

The slight meteor smash is the Bair

...oops sorry my bad i'll edit that:embarrass

 

[Straider]

thx for the guide .

 

[Wii4Mii 99]

Very nice guide. ^_^

 

[-Giga-]

Wow, great job! This has cleared up a lot with me. Thanks.

 

[Speed Demon 64]

Thanks for the guide. I've started to see the greatness of PT. Initially, I thought that Squirtle was just a crappy speed character with terrible specials and less than deacent smash aattacks. I thought that Ivysaur was bad because he gets KOed at about 120% and I thought Charizard was just a crappy version of Bowser. But then I played with them more and now I have realized the potency of PT. Squirtle's air attacks are really annoying, Razor Leaf and Bullet Seed(espessially Bullet Seed) are really annoying, and Charizard is really annoying in general. However, I still belive that Bowser is better than Charizard(Fire Breath>Flamethrower, Flying Slam=Rock Smash, and Whirling Fortress>Fly) I am greatful to people for liking PT. I want to see PT in at least the Middle Tier.

 

[Falcos_feather]

One of the most precise guides iv'e seen.. good work!

 

[Slurpee]

This is an excellent guide, but I just had one thought...

It's about Water Gun. I've been aimlessly thinking of a way for it to be useful, and in the small chance you get this oppurtunity, it is. You see, Water Gun is practically useless if the enemy has forward momentum on you, and a well placed aeriel can pretty much always substitue it. BUT, if the opponent uses their recovery, and are in the free falling state, you can use it to push them back away form the edge.

Just a thought.

 

[PkTrainerCris]

thats the primary use of water gun, it gimps some recoverys pretty easy, like ness',lucas' and link's, and can push away somo characters who think its funny using a move that makes them go on the free falling state on the edge, like mach tornado

 

[Steeler]

i'd like to see this thread renovated and redone by someone that actually plays brawl, lulz. i'd take this project on if i were up to the time it would probably take...and if it didn't mean i'd have like...a freaking monopoly on a lot of the important pt board threads lol.

 

[Charizard92]

I was actually thinking of doing that, but again, the title says it all: Yet another ****ing guide to PT. Should I or shouldn't I?

 

[OmegaXF]

Very nice thread. Convinces me

 

[cutter]

Bullet Seed is seriously a candidate for most-broken move of the game.

I just did a double take upon seeing that.

 

[Charizard92]

Yeah, we are going to need a new guide since this one has gathered dust, especially since card isn't here anymore so this is just let here to decay. OK, which Regular is going to write a new guide?

 

[Adriel]

I wouldn't call myself a regular, but I'll write up a Pee Tee guide one day.

 

[Charizard92]

Once I get some spare time I'll write one, and you guys are free to help edit (not free to yell).

 

[Steeler]

if i had to take a pick, i'd choose reflex, irl, or myself (i'm a egotistical *******). just my personal opinion.

 

[Charizard92]

I know, but really, will you please write one, or help me write one?