Pokemon Database Battling Basics - Issue #2 Moves and Coverage
==Building Pokemon - Moves and Coverage==
Building Pokemon sounds a little...cold? Well, I guess it's what we do here. Anyway.
Pokemon have different stats. Some have high attack, some have high speed, some have both. What stats a Pokemon has can affect what job the Pokemon can do. Giving loads of attacks to a pokemon with low offence isn't a great idea when it has many better options. This is what I'm here to explain. What do stats mean in terms of what a Pokemon is built around.
Before we get into it, I should point out that this topic covers a few aspects. If you’re confused about something, skip it and focus on what you can do understand. You can always come back if you realise something’s wrong.
---Stats relating to moves---
Well, let's take a Pokemon at random. Let's say...Gengar. Y'know, that shadow Ghost thing? Yeah you know. Here is it's page: http://pokemondb.net/pokedex/gengar. If you scroll down to it's base stats, you'll see it's HP, Attack, Defence, Special Attack, Special defence and Speed. I'm going to at least assume that you know what stats are, if nothing else. Gengar has a base special attack of 130 and base speed of 110. These 'base' stats are the average stats used to benchmark it in comparison to other Pokemon. Generally, stats over 100 are considered good, stats around or over 120 are great, and stats higher than 135 or so are awesome. using that as the benchmark, Gengar has very good speed and great special attack. However, his defence, special defence and HP is pitiful, so he won't be taking many attacks. So what does this mean? It means Gengar should focus on being faster than other Pokemon and hitting them with special attacking moves.
Sound like gibberish? Don't worry, I'll clear it up. Because Gengar has low bulk, it will only take an attack or two to defeat it. However, because it has very high special attack, it can deal a lot of damage. So that's what you focus on. You deal damage before you can take damage. Simple enough, right?
In practice, you only use Gengar against enemies you know it is faster than. Like I said before, it doesn't take much to beat Gengar, so using it against faster Pokemon that attack first isn't a good idea since Gengar could get knocked out before it even does anything! Luckily, Gengar is very fast, meaning a lot of things are slower than it. Only use Gengar against slower Pokemon or Pokemon that can't hurt it (like normal types).
You should also know the difference between special and physical attacks. Physical attacks use the attack stat, and special use the special attack stat. Gengar should then use special attacks like Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb, as these are special moves, and avoid physical ones like Fire Punch. You may be tempted with the large amount of powerful moves that are physical, but I promise you it's never worth it.
Is this basic enough for now? I hope so. Let's give another example, just in case. A defensive pokemon. Chansey. Chansey has very high Special Defence and HP, but very low Physical Defence. Thusly Chansey can take a lot of special attacks but very few physical ones. But what does this mean for you using Chansey? Well, you should avoid facing off against Pokemon that use physical attacks, but actually try to take special ones. This is a little confusing, and I'll explain why in more detail in a later article, but the basic reason is if you have a Pokemon like Gengar who can't take attacks, you partner it with a Pokemon that can. But what moves should you use? On a defensive Pokemon, you should use moves that help Chansey defend against and weaken stronger Pokemon. These include healing moves like Wish and Soft-boiled to restore HP, and status moves like Toxic and Thunder Wave to hurt opposing Pokemon to beat later on.
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Coverage
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Now you have an idea of what moves types to use on your Pokemon, we can go into coverage. Coverage refers to the amount of Pokemon you can beat or severely damage with the limited 4 moves you have. 4 moves really isn't enough to beat every single Pokemon, so we should try and beat the most that we can with the moves we're given.
First of all, it's normally not advisable to use the same type of attack more than once without a good reason. Garchomp shouldn't have both Dragon Claw AND Outrage, just one or the other. Having two moves of the same type doesn't add to your coverage, and usually doesn't help you beat any more Pokemon than before anyway. There are exceptions, but stick to this general rule for now.
So what would you pick? Let's imagine an Alakazam. Alakazam's main move would be Psyshock, but we want more moves than that. Well, we know they should be special, since Alakazam's Special Attack is higher than its Attack. And since it's fast and offensive, and not defensive, they should be powerful, direct attacks. First of all let's see what Moves Alakazam can learn. http://pokemondb.net/pokedex/alakazam#dex-moves This is the list of moves Alakazam can learn. From this list, we should pick out the special attacking moves. But there are a lot of those, so what do we choose? To answer that question (from myself, apparently) we first look at Alakazam's weaknesses. Just bare with me here. Alakazam is weak to Dark, Ghost and Bug types, and Steel and Psychic types resist Psychic attacks. So we should probably use moves to beat these types, since they give Alakazam trouble. We can use Focus Blast to beat both Dark Types and Steel types. We can also use Shadow Ball to beat Ghost types. Unfortunately Alakazam doesn't learn any good moves to beat Bug types, so the last move is just down to preference. You can use Grass Knot/Energy Ball to do damage to bulky water types like Suicune, or use Substitute to escape attacks. It's your choice. But the point is the main move are used to beat types that Alakazam normally can't. This is usually how coverage works.
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STABs
‘I’m gonna STAB YOU!’
‘Oh noes! What shall I do!’
*walks away*
‘...aw’
Ahem, anyway, STABs. STABs in Pokemon means Same Type Attack Bonus. This refers to a boost in power you get when a pokemon uses a move that matches the type of the pokemon, like a Fire Type using a Fire Type move like Flamethrower or Roserade using Leafstorm. If the Pokemon’s type matches the type of the move used, that move becomes 50% (1.5 x times) more powerful than usual. Therefore, it’s a good idea to have at least one move on most pokemon that gets this STAB.
You may be thinking; ‘then why not make every move a STAB attack?’. Well, this goes back to coverage. Having too many attacks of the same type, even if strong, limits the amount of Pokemon it can beat. Having one or two STAB moves is enough for pure power and blasting past foes.
An example could be Infernape. Infernape is Fire and Fight type. Let’s give it Fire Punch, Close Combat, Thunder Punch and Earthquake. Fire Punch and Close Combat are fire and fighting type moves, and thus get the STAB power. Thunder Punch and Earthquake are coverage moves, and allows Infernape to beat Pokemon it usually can’t.
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Power Vs Reliability and Downsides
At this point, you may be wanting to pick the strongest moves you can for each Pokemon and roll with that. But using certain moves has downsides. You have to weigh up certain factors before rather than mindlessly pick things out that have a huge base power.
First of all, does the move help your coverage? Picking something like a one shot nuke such as Giga Impact may seem cool, but it really doesn’t help much more than one of your STABs in terms of power and it doesn’t beat many opposing pokemon what it could already beat besides.
Some moves have recoil, which means they’ll hurt the user of those moves an amount. Recoil moves are often used due to their high base power. But adding one where you don’t need one just means you’ll be taking unnecessary damage. If you’re doing well with standard moves, there’s not much reason to go to they’re big brothers and take recoil. Additionally, defensive pokemon really don’t need these moves, since they won’t be doing much damage anyway and the recoil hinders them later.
Likewise, certain moves drop stats after being used. Superpower, Leaf Storm and Overheat are examples of moves that decrease the user’s stats after using them. These moves are still used, but you must again decide whether or not they’re actually useful. Pokemon who like to stay in and not switch out probably shouldn’t use these moves, and the same goes for defensive Pokemon.
2-Turn Moves and Recharge are also generally less than useful. If you use Fly or Dig mid-battle, your opponent just gets a free turn to do whatever they want. They can switch to a new Pokemon, heal or boost their stats. It’s just usually a waste. Recharge moves are the same. Hyper Beam for example leaves the user unable to do anything, which means the opponent still gets a free turn anyway.
Boosting Moves
Moves that boost stats (like Dragon Dance, Agility or Calm Mind) are some of the most loved and useful moves in the game. Some offensive pokemon are judged on whether or not they have a good boosting move. While using a boosting move can take away coverage from a Pokemon, they usually make up for it by powering up what moves are left. Some aspects of boosting moves will be covered in a later article about switching and free turns, and some more when we delve deeper into roles and viability. But I’ll cover some of it now as well.
The benefit of increasing stats is that a Pokemon that lacks a certain quality gains that quality, and thus becomes much better at it’s job. An offensive Pokemon not beating everything in one hit? Boost its attacking stats. Taking too much damage? Boost your defensive stats. Not fast enough? Boost your speed. Moves can patch up flaws in pokemon if you can use them properly.
There are downsides and procedures of course. If you’re boosting your stats, then your opponent is most likely just hitting you while you do it. So you have to make sure that your Pokemon isn’t going to get knocked out while you use your boosting moves. This is normally done by sending your pokemon out against another that can’t deal much damage, so there’s no risk of getting your lights punched out.
You should also only use boosting moves if they’re actually helping with what the Pokemon does. Giving Swords Dance to a Pokemon using only Special Attacks isn’t very useful. Boosting the speed of an already very fast Pokemon just wastes a turn. There are better things to do with your time than that.
Next Time!
Well, that’s it for today. I’m sorry if i keep saying ‘in a later article’, but if I include everything here, it’ll go off topic and become quite complicated. This is only the basics, remember? Anyway, next article is about EVs and Natures, which should be interesting...okay no it’s still boring, but very useful. If you want your dessert ya gotta eat yer greens first.