Pokemon DB Battling Basics - Issue #4 Roles and Items

                                                      =====Roles and Items===

Yo again! Before we get into this, I'd like to express my happiness about this being an official/approved project now, meaning I get to carry on doing these for you guys as much as possible! Thanks for everyone's support, new users or old. Even when this series is done I'll continue writing, and I hope you guys will continue to learn and enjoy.

Now, for the contents of this article, I'm going to assume that you've read the previous articles or have knowledge about their subjects. I'm likely going to reference stats and EVs but not explain why as much, because I went over them previously.

So, what is a role? If you're anything me you immediately thought of a talking frog in a plane shouting 'do a barrel roll' at you. In terms of pokemon, a role is what the Pokemon's job or objective is. Adding a pokemon with no idea why you added it other than 'it looks cool' or 'I like it!' isn't very advisable. It needs to serve a specific purpose. Each Pokemon has a distinct job to do in each team and each battle. It could be as simple as 'use stealth rocks as soon as possible' or 'wait until later in the match and do quick damage at the end'. I'm going to focus on these simpler jobs and tasks, what each role means and why they're important.

First you have your attackers. You win a match by knocking out all of your opponent's Pokemon, and the most common way of doing this is via a 'sweep' or a 'clean' as they're called. Therefore, the pokemon that are very good at this are called Sweepers or Cleaners. Sweepers (and cleaners) have very high attacking stats and high speed, usually backed up by a good ability and useful item. The sweeper's job is too KO all or almost all of the opposing team, securing a win. This is generally done as soon as it's safe to do so (i.e when your attacking pokemon isn't likely to get knocked out itself!). A cleaner is basically the same, but instead of trying to take on the entire team as early as possible, it waits until the end of the match, and finishes off what's rest of your opponent's team after another Pokemon has damaged it.

An example of a powerful sweeper right now would be Mega Charizard-X. I has high 100 base speed, great offensive stats and Dragon Dance to boost them further, making it easy to sweep right through teams given the chance. A cleaner could be Substitute + Calm Mind Keldeo, whom uses it's own great attacking stats along with substitute to take advantage of teams that have been weakened so that they can't break through it anymore.

Secondly, you have your defenders. Defenders usually come into two categories; walls and utility/support. These two can also overlap, as some very good pokemon can do both. Walls are pokemon that have very high defensive stats (HP, Defence and Special Defence). These pokemon are meant purely to be punching bags and get hit. They get hit so other pokemon don't have too (that sounds pretty cruel now that I think about it...). They can switch into attacks, take the hit and be fine. Utility or support pokemon instead have moves that either hinder the opponent or help your team, or both. These will almost always have status moves, hazards, defensive moves and/or healing and can use them throughout a match.

An example of a wall Cresselia. Cresselia has excellent defensive stats, meaning it can switch in on a multitude of powerful attacks and barely even feel them. A support/utility could be Klefki, whom has access to the many options like Thunder Wave, Light Screen/Reflect, Spikes, Switcheroo, all of which now have +1 priority.

Now we’ve covered the basics, we can go onto the types of items that these pokemon generally use. Don’t worry, we’ll go into each and every type of role individually in a later article. Doing it all today would take so long though, so I didn’t want to cram it all in now.

Items

Okay so, there’s a reason I went over roles first, and that’s because what item a pokemon is holding usually decided by the pokemon’s role! Some items directly help with the sweeping or cleaning capabilities of a pokemon. As with both EVs, natures and moves, defensive items pair with defensive pokemon and vice versa. However, unlike with the others, what items a pokemon uses is fairly often contradictory and goes via a case by case basis. Because of this, I have to stress that the following are only guidelines. I’ll go over specifics in another article, most likely the same one as the roles.

Offensive Pokemon want to hit harder most of the time. Giving an offensive pokemon with high speed and attack, and won’t be taking many hits a recovery item like leftovers isn’t very useful. Likewise, giving a pokemon with few to no attacks a Life Orb is no better. The pokemon’s item has to benefit directly.

Because of the wide variety of items, it’s difficult to say exactly which one to give each pokemon, so I’m going to give a rough outline for now.

Fast and offensive threats like the aforementioned sweepers and cleaners prefer items like Life Orb, Choice Band, Spec of Scarves. These allow them to do their job far more effectively. Many people dislike Life Orb, however the amount HP lost of using it is usually hardly relevant, because the pokemon can take few attacks anyway, so the damage output is more important. Choice Items are a whole another ballgame, and I will probably dedicate an entire article just to them in the future as well. New battlers might think to use items like the Arceus plates, or the assorted boosting items like black glasses or Miracle Seed. However, this isn’t generally advised (that’s becoming a catchphrase for this series). The boost you get from these items are 20% for the specific type, whilst a Life Orb is 30% for all attacks. And like I said earlier, the health lost is barely relevant. Life Orb is therefore generally superior. Of course, there are still exceptions. Certain Berries are occasionally used on offensive Pokemon. Lum Berry can be used to recover from status conditions. Burn and Paralysation are always very nasty for many Pokemon, especially offensive ones, and lum berries provide protection against them. Focus Sash is sometimes used as well, as to make sure that a fast Pokemon can survive at least one attack from full health, meaning they can beat pokemon they usually can’t beat otherwise.

Defensive Pokemon prefer recovery over anything else. Leftovers or Sitrus berry are the most common defensive items, since they allow the pokemon to slowly gain HP over time, or gain a sudden burst when needed. This improves longevity, or how long a Pokemon can be used and still be effective throughout a match. Certain Pokemon can also use Eviolite, which boosts defence and special defence by 1.5 times (or a 50% boost). However, this only applies to Pokemon that can still evolve, so many of the best defensive pokemon don’t get the bonus.

I will again stress that this is just a rough guideline for both roles and items. I’ll give an indepth look on both topics at a later date, since they both deserve a bigger and better explanation. I’ll also look at how roles function when combined with other roles.