General Pokémon Thread

[Serza5]

Pssssssssst there's no need to quote if the post is directly above the one you're about to make.

[rolesfamily]

Oh sorry bad ProBoards habit there

Omg did I just blaspheme?!?!?!

[Reality]

Pokemon is a strange subject for me. I of course loved red, then yellow, then silver, then gold, but since I can never find people with the games, everything else got a lukewarm reception from me.

Until 2010, when I literally stumbled into a condemned pokemon battle simulator. It was like another world. There were 26 of us who were on practiacally every day for 2 years, all lined up behind these 3 moderators who just couldn't part with their authority. All we knew about the actual admin was that he was some german guy who was reputed to have no keyboard, so we took all the time we wanted with the most over the top discussions and flat out ridiculous battles possible. Only three of us actually knew anything about competive pokemon, and as one of those three, I used my knowledge of the metagame and EVs to consistantly win.... But we still had fun, since Me, greasy mollusk, and umberguardain were as hipster as hipster gets, making new teams out of the most low profile pokemon pracically every session. Fond memories of things like rock polish camerupt, sword dance meganium, and the like kept it fresh. We also made brackets and hosted tournements all the time. These were the summit of who we were. We had monocolour tournaments, mono type tournements, tm and egg move less tournaments, mono generation tournaments, and of course, RNG determined team tournaments. Nothing is as satisfying getting a surprise KO on starmie with your sucker punch bonsly. Our "main teams" all eventually assumed their own levels of gimmickness. But it actually made me a far stronger battler than I ever dreamed of, since I learned about chronically underused strategies such as dual screens, thunder wave, and heal bell+rest. Even though there was an apparent skill gap, every battle was fun, since Every body would use whatever, and even people using stock teams liked to throw in some flavor pokemon/moves. Shutting down a zapdos with a stockpile dewgong, unleashing swift swim relacanth on Infernape, taking out glass cannon's with a choice scarfed primape, the three of us did something that websites like smogon can never do. Usage, awareness, and immediately acting on stuff, will always be far more important than a stat difference, even one so big as between the weapons in TF2(tangent alert). You really can use make smart choices with crappy odds. The high point of my stay was when us three decided to make a taskforce to destroy the "plague" of Bronzong and hetran. Even though umberguadian turned coat on us, my block snorlax and mollusk's reversal hitmonlee made an impression that lasted. I got so involved in this place that when I thought of myself, It would be like "OMAR wants to have a mayo sandwich now,"with nearly 2 hours passing beforeI noticed that I
had used my username in real life. Even though every one of us knew that one day, the server really would be taken down, it was still a sad parting.

When Black and White came out, I had already kissed the pokemon games good bye... not that they aren't good games with massive replay value, but I was spoiled by the magic of community, and setting up items like life orb and choice band/ taking a classic RPG approach you could breeze through. But I made a mistake. I followed bing, which took me to the smogon sponsored, Pokemon Online. Simply put, it has too large of a playerbase for the experience I was looking for. It's like the tumblr of competive, if you say something, it's just swept up in a avalanche of nonsense. Having spectators for every tournement, isn't nice when they come from anywhere.... And they're just so much less personal when they are queued to cope with demand rather than a event that at least 3/4 of the player base will contribute to. But the worst things was, the zombies. Smogon's import tool+ general acknowlegement, led to dozens, eaasily 190-360 people at any given moment, all using very, very similar teams. It's pretty clear that the majority of them did not understand the nuance's of the politoed core.... but it was a horror in its own right. Do I have specific pokemon in mind when I make a team? yes, I don't like having 4/6 of my team vulnerable to latias, or having only support pokes to chase out gliscor, but this was differnet. It was beyond mandatory. You had to know this team"s best options in order to play against it freely, sure some had calm mind jirachi or tentacruel, but that wasn't the point. Victories came, but they felt too easy, I switched to different tabs, but they were everywhere, and never, even in the smallest reaches, could I find a talktive community. I ended up using a protect+disable ninetales for a time, and being able to tell the item and get a free switch to a status inducer (venasaur or celebi) made me despise the community more and more. Yes, there are a lot of people NOT using rain, but of 700-1200 users online, how many are? Winning irritated me more even the traditional gimmicks (full baton pass teams, iron head jirachi). The main thing was freedom. You were no longer allowed to make heavy duty UU or NU tiered teams... just because people acknoledged the centralization. Even if I saw another thing, say a sand team, it would be easy to guess and punish each pokemon's moveset, and spread, based on how it was "usually used+context of team". Even the dedicated UU and NU tier had problems, with a huge proportion of scarf heracross and scrafty, in the one, and well Nu's main teams are sad in my opinion, 4 atk 252spdef 252 hp eviolite curse/iceshard/earthquake/rest piloswine taking only 38% from the main Choiced pokes "super effective water/figthing moves" I don't take credit for this piloswine build, I saw it in an ou battle, which I lost, and personally I think it is versatile enough to use anywhere(Ubers isn't a tier), bar the usage statistics.

Anyway, I stormed out way before X/Y gen came out, and while I read up on the new mechacnics recently, I don't really intend to go back. It was only about average fun at best on smogon, and I'm not so hopeful as to expect a repeat of my 4th gen experience. I will laugh at gamefreak's additions to the game, which are a mixture of things we joked about on a long forgotten german server, steel/ghost, plant/ghost, flying/fighiting, pokemon with 150 atk/ 150 def/ 30 spdef/ 30 spdef with an ability to convert all the physical points into special points, dual type attacks, and a new type(we always thought it would be Food type though)! The rest of the additions look laughably like anti meta pokes, far more so than the now quaint torment hetran, I couldn't beleive how many had high spdef or an immunity/resist to water.

I'm not hating on pokemon, or the competive community, but instead people trying to get into a niche place without taking the time to learn how things work. Also my general distaste for BIGNESS. I consider all the main titles to have made thoughtful additions, and even the oldest have amazing replay value, and I'm still amazed at the degree of balance and the number of tactics that the game engines gives players. Although why make exceptions; such like Bleach handicapped itself from being something great, to something with "moments" at best, the now poisoned main community in Smogon, has only itself to blame for its fall from grace.

[Master]

I'm going to be honest and say that while that was a good read, I'm not hardcore enough to completely understand the bulk of it. While I am a little more serious about Pokemon than the average fellow, I'm not what you'd call a tournament player.

[Serza5]

I can't say there's many people who go full competitive, although that could be me just meddling with all the more casual ones. The competitive lot sure do have the most charming grey aura around them, especially considering what you've said about them, but I wouldn't be so surprised if half if not the vast majority of them where noobs that only take teams off Smogon.

Regardless tis always a shame to see someone be put off from a series by a community. It's never nice to have a bitter taste of something because of they way fans act about it.

EDIT :
Silly thing but un-used type combo list :

A ghost/fairy sounds pretty awesome tbh

[Haruka]

A question: does White requires WEP connection?

[Master]

I don't get you're asking, Haruka.
If you're asking about WiFi, then obviously, if you want to use the internet features, then yes, you'd need WiFi.
If you're asking about WEP, depends on your DS, if you have the original or DS Lite, then you'll only be able to connect to WiFi networks that are open or WEP encrypted, otherwise, if you own a DSi onwards, you can connect to WiFi networks with more modern encryption, such as WPA.

[Haruka]

I was wondering if White was still using a WEP connection or if it was already supporting WPA. That's what I wanted to ask.

@Serza I would like to see a Fire/Ice.

[RibShark]

I was wondering if White was still using a WEP connection or if it was already supporting WPA. That's what I wanted to ask.

I believe Gen 5 supports WPA on DSi upwards.

[Master]

Essentially, it supports what the system it's being played on supports.

[Dart]

Seems like the Looker missions are coming to wiiu
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/28/ ... -adventure

[Serza5]

Idk if it's going to be like that? Since the screenshot is all there seems to be.

Trozei 2 however : http://serebii.net/trozei2/
Tis' a title I wanted to try so this new one for the 3DS looks swell

[sonicbrawler182]

[Henchman1028]

Ah, never liked Pikachu.

[Rayfist]

So a Pokemon detective game, aye? These could be similar to the detective missions in Lumiose City post game, ehhh, sounds a bit sketchy to me.

[Master]

[Haruka]

Am I the only one that finds that hilarious?

[Serza5]

Reminds me I still need to catch Mewtwo, Moltres and Zygarde haha.

[Master]

Hence why I thought to share it, Haruka, relevant, and funny!
Yup, it's funny to think that you'll be able to do that with some of Pokemon's most powerful and lore wrapped 'mons.

[Dart]

probobly a stupid qthing to say but i'm willing to trade ANYTHING for a Ho-Oh, so how about it?