Hello, and welcome to
Pokemon Training 101! I know this is written not terribly much like an article, and more as a guide, but then, that’s really the purpose- to act as a guide to being a trainer in the world of pokemon. This will be my first series of articles on RarityGuide, and I couldn’t think of a better place to start than with this (whether that’s good or bad, I leave up to you). At any rate, I consider there to be six essential elements to training- understanding what composes your pokemon, understanding how to influence your pokemon’s abilities, understanding how to influence your pokemon’s growth, and understanding how to assess, team, and coach your pokemon.
So- what is training? Well, training is the process of developing your pokemon into a team, and learning how to work with them to win at battles. This can be simple or complex, depending on how focused you are on bringing out the full power of your pokemon both individually and as a team. When you train your pokemon, you are also training yourself, learning the ins and outs of directing your team in battle.
Many people simply pick six ‘mon that they like and make a team out of that. Is there any thing wrong with this? Well, not exactly. There are some potential issues- you could wind up with a team whose members all share one weakness, you could wind up using a lot of low-powered pokemon, and you could wind up using pokemon that don’t work well together. The details of that, we’ll get into later, but the relevant point at the moment is that
there is nothing wrong with just choosing six you like. You just shouldn’t expect to win tournaments or competitive battles through that method.
Now, I know a lot of people will say that the bolded statement is wrong, but you have to keep in mind that this is wholly a result of your perspective. If you place no value at all on whether or not you win, then you will have no issue. The degree to which you care about winning, however, will have a big influence on how important that statement is to you. You have to be aware that not all ‘mon are equal, even the fully evolved ones- but I’ll get into that later.
Picking pokemon that complement each other, be it in covering resistances, blocking different tactics, or using tactics that benefit one another is a major part of the game. A well-chosen team will, unfortunately, usually beat a well-loved team that is not chosen with strategy in mind.
That’s something to remember, Pokemon is a game about strategy. It’s an unusual kind of strategy, not at all like a tactical map game, but it’s still strategy. Setting yourself up with weather effects, entry hazards, buffs and debuffs, and other less-definable effects immensely changes the game in a given battle. Fighting a rain team is nothing at all like fighting an entry hazard team, and both of those differ from facing a sweep-focused team.
In this series of articles, I hope to give you the basis for understanding what your pokemon are, what their numbers and types and moves and abilities mean, and how to choose the right ones for you- or how to make the ones you chose better at what they do (namely, battling).
Just keep this in mind- training is about learning your ‘mon, learning how to choose and use them, and learning how to work with what they give you.
Thanks for your time, and I’ll see you next in
Pokemon Training 102- Pokemon Composition.
