Formulating Strategies
A pinch of logic, and a few eye openers
Introduction: Since there are so many tournaments, and people are often left puzzled as to what went past them, they are left in awe. Amazed how a stronger level pokemon could lose. Well, not many people are aware that level isn’t always better. Brains are better than brawn. If you plan out your strategy carefully, no doubt you will easily outsmart your opponent! At one point you may think so factors are negligible; but in reality, it’s those ‘little factors’ that had paved way to your defeat. Since I don’t plan on participating in the current tournaments (time issues) I’ll be glad to assist anyone. In a nutshell, you’ve come to the right place if you want to learn about competitive battling in PMD games, and naturally PMU.
The Bird"s Eye View
PMU is an MMO, which means changes are always occuring. Developers are constantly changing and altering moves to meet the requirements of the players, so everything won’t stay the same. You cannot expect to win all the time simply because you use the same team or moves repeatedly. This is where your ‘Birds Eye View’ instinct comes in, it is always recommended to know what moves have been altered, and what are ‘buffed’. This will help you in battling your friends in the arena, as well as in dungeons. Usually the following thumb rule is applied.
Know your nature, know your move. Your strategy comes knocking at your door’
Since natures aren’t yet implemented in PMU, moves gain a huge importance. It can be annoying when you battle with your friend, and find out, that your beloved ‘Psycho-cut’ has been altered with a hit freeze (You pause for after you attack; note: this counts even if your attack misses) Testing out your moveset is always best! Keep on practicing and practicing with your friends. You may not achieve perfection, but at least you’ll become better at each step.
Know Your Battlefield
The only way to battle competitively right now is the Arena. Which means; creating familiarity with your battlefield is very important! Consider it this way; a war waged in Mars is obviously a defeat for us. When it comes to PMU, the arena is remapped often, so you should go about it. New tiles can create problems for people who don’t go into the Map Editor much. You might be amazed to know, that you can actually go under the rocks in the current arena, they are space rocks; though at first sight one may have trouble in recognizing.
The arena has four entrances. North, South, East and West. Statistics have proved that 8 out of 10 people enter from the East side. Perhaps because the pokemon storagee is nearby. You can prepare well if you know what side the enemy is going to attack from. This technique might be similar to camping, but it is helpful when your opponent uses Sandstorm, creating visual problems for people with high numbered glasses like me. Yes, there are a lot of problems, but you can easily find a solution. The current arena:
Practice? But how!?
A good way to test out your team is by using an online stimulator. This was very important for me, since the third generation was released back then, and it had to wifi battles. This can still be very helpful. The majority of competitive Pokemon battling is done over simulators. This was very important in the first three generations, as it was the only possible method of battling competitively against a large variety of opponents. You can test out your teams here, and get a brief idea of what exactly you can face.
Though I only have a drizzle team right now, and people may call me ‘predictable’ but with time, you face so many different opponents, that you eventually learn their weaknesses and can easily counter their attacks. I’d like to share a personal experience here, I remember, that my initial team had Gallade in it, and I still use it. Why? Inspiration is the answer. Some of the famous online simulators that I use to test out my teams: Pokemon Online, Pokemon Laboratory, Shoddy Battle, etc.
What to Expect
Outsmarting a handheld device or AI (Artificial Intelligence) is completely different when it is contrasted to outsmarting a real life person. You may win in dungeons easily, but bear in mind that you won’t be able to predict other people very easily. You have to think ‘What would I do if I were in their place’ and in this manner, you can predict their next move, and counter. Choosing Pokemon because they are cool or your favorites is not exactly the best way, if you solely want to win. Your opponents will be using whatever Pokemon they feel give them the best chance of winning, and in order to be competitive you should do the same. Except if you think your favorite pokemon has been a dear partner since a very long time. In this case, use that, you may know more about that pokemon, and how to overcome it’s weakness :!!:
Blaziken Case Study
Lets say, I’m using a Blaziken. Keeping in mind, it is an OP pokemon, which means it has over-powered abilities. Here is a recommended moveset for it. Dual types are always helpful. The best offense is the best defense! It’s wide variety of abilities, and move pool tend to give you an upper hand. Blaziken has high attack, and good Special attack, meaning; Physcial moves can be deathly and fatal when landed by this chicken. Dual types not only give it a different move opportunity, but also stab variety. Lets start with the moves:
Swords Dance:Swords Dance pumps up Blaziken’s solid Attack stat to a frightening maximum of 734. When Speed Boost is thrown into the mix, Blaziken suddenly turns into a potent sweeper that only becomes harder and harder to revenge kill as time
Hi Jump Kick: Hi Jump Kick is Blaziken’s main sweeping move: after a Swords Dance, it will OHKO all common Pokemon that do not resist it, save for the bulkiest of pokemon, which are quite an impressive feat.
PThunderpunch: As Levy stated, thunder punch can help to counter water type pokemon, you may also use protect, but thunder punch is greater, it not only attacks the opponent, but also
Flare Blitz: Flare Blitz rounds out Blaziken’s coverage and has the potential to be Blaziken’s most powerful option by far. It gets STAB on top of its naturally high Base Power, and with sun support becomes so powerful
The moveset, and the pokemon do not really match PMU, but this was just an example, you can easily counter this moveset by a water type. But this is where partners come, an electric type partner would be recommended to finish the doubt for water type threats. A perfect team can only be constructed with practice. Learning from different opponents is important. They can show you how to overcome possible defeat.
Moves
There are many different types of moves present in PMU, and they have been named accordingly. This is just to aid you so that next time you don’t go all crazy about what people are saying in Global/Local. It was one of the problems I faced when I first joined PMU, and this helped me greatly. These aren’t all, just some basics.
LOS: line of sight, moves that go in a straight line, that is visible. Examples can be ice beam.
Glide: Moves that can be used while moving froth and attacking (personally, I really like these in terms of arena)
AOE: Area of Effect, a huge move that covers a large area, and naturally hits more foes (but that depends on accuracy too!)
Spray: A traingular like move, that looks like a spray being projected. Scald is an ideal example.
Have your say~
If you have anything you want to say, that will be helpful to other players, it will be put up here. Keep in mind it has to be accepted by me first. It should we reasonable too. Here’s what Levy has to say:
Many things are different; Speed doesn’t matter, stalling has almost no effect and the strategies are too different. If you want to get better at battling in PMU you should rather do the following;
- Know you and your opponent’s weaknesses.
- Train your dodging skills in the arena before battling for real.
- Find out a good moveset, which you can still dodge and go offensive with.
Keep changing your moves, test things out and train your dodging skills until you’re ready.
A good level is still required for all this to let it work out (you’ll have to take a hit or 2 if you wanna survive in a massive fight).
Comments and Suggestions? Thanks for reading! Special thanks to Fokkussu for helping me test out various moves. Credits to smogon for help. And Of course, Levy and Agunimon, for the suggestions.
Topics for discussion, kindly PM me or post here for further discussion topics. [/size]