Spiritomb's Haunted House

Battling Strategies

This is my stance on some popular strategies, and my (hopefully) improved vresion of it. Note that this is ONLY for Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/Fire Red/Leaf Green. No Diamond/Pearl !!

The Basic Idea

There are three basic strategies that most people use:

Pick-6
Lots of types
Battle Roles

We will go through them one at a time.

Pick-6

This is where, basicly, you pick 6 pokemon you like and give each of them the best moveset you can think of. They have no connection to each other; this is a sloppy way of team building. Don't do it.

Lots of types

This is where you pick 6 types of Pokemon (types as in Water, Grass, and Fire), pick the best Pokemon of each type, and give them the best moves. This isn't as bad as Pick-6, but isn't as good as preferable. They do, however, go rather quickly.

Overall, the best 6 types are:

Ghost or Dark
Rock or Ground
Fighting or Psychic (try to get both)
Fire
Water
Electric

This is overall the best choice of types, I think. If anyone finds a better combo, please e-mail me!

Battle Roles

Now, THIS is competitve! Essentialy, you have two really offensive Pokemon (One physical and one special) and a really defensive Pokemon. Then you have 3 spaces left for clever strategy. We'll go over some common roles.

Physical Sweepers

These guy's jobs are to power up a little, and then they rampage with a variety of physical moves. They need Speed, and then Attack.

Some examples are:

- Salamence
- Nature: Jolly
- Dragon Dance
- Earthqauke
- Ariel Ace
- Brick Break/Slash

- Zangoose
- Nature: Adamant
- Swords Dance
- Shadowball
- Ariel Ace
- Brick Break/Slash

Special Sweepers

These blokes are like the Physical equivalent version, EXCEPT they need Speed first, then Sp. Attack.

Some examples are:

- Alakazam
- Nature: Timid
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Fire Punch
- Thunder Punch

- Gengar
- Nature: Timid
- Hypnosis
- Psychic
- Giga Drain
- Toxic/Faint Attack

Tanks

If Sweepers are swords, then Tanks are the shield! They need high Defense, Sp. Defense, and Hit Points. They need to last forever as well, so lots of PP is required.

Some examples are:

- Registeel
- Nature: Adamant/Brave
- Iron Defense
- Amnesia
- Metal Claw
- Rest

- Dusclops
- Nature: Adamant/Brave
- Shadowball/Shadowpunch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Curse/Confuse Ray/Toxic
- Rest/Brick Break

BP'ers

The job of a Baton Passer (or BP'er) is to power up with moves like Agility, Calm Mind, Bulk up, and Substitute and then use Baton Pass to one of your weaker Pokemon. They need HP and defenses especially.

Some examples are:

- Vaporeon
- Nature: Quiet/Modest
- Surf
- Baton Pass
- Substitute
- Wish/Acid Armor

- Ninjask
- Nature: Adamant
- Agility
- Baton Pass
- Swords Dance
- Secret Power/Slash/Silver Wind

Shufflers

A shuffler is a Pokemon that uses a status-inflicting move, like Toxic and Will-O-Wisp, and then they use Roar or Whirlwind to force them to switch. Then they do it again, and again, and again until the opponent's whole team is paralyzed, or poisoned, or burned, or even asleep! Then they switch out to a BP'er to power up, who passes it on to a Sweeper. In other words, they make life easier.

Some examples are:

- Jolteon
- Nature: Modest/Timid
- Toxic
- Thunder Wave
- Roar
- Thunderbolt

- Butterfree
- Nature: Sassy/Quiet
- Toxic
- Sleep Powder/Parlyz Powder
- Whirlwind
- Psychic

Drainers

Take a Venusaur, teach it Leechseed, Poison Powder, Razor Leaf, and Giga Drain, then make it hold Leftovers, you have a Drainer. They need a LOT of HP, and mostly healing moves like Leechseed.

Some examples are:

- Venusaur
- Nature: Relaxed
- Leechseed
- Razor Leaf
- Toxic
- Giga Drain/HP Fire

- Ludicolo
- Nature: Sassy
- Rain Dance
- Surf/Giga Drain
- Leechseed
- Toxic

Heal Bellers

Shufflers, beware! For I present Heal Bellers, also known as Clerics. They're the ultimate counter to any Shuffler.

Some examples are:

- Blissey
- Nature: Modest
- Heal Bell/Aromatherapy
- Softboiled/Recover
- Psychic
- Thunderbolt/Icebeam

- Miltank
- Nature: Adamant
- Heal Bell
- Shadowball
- Brick Break
- Milk Drink

Okay,I think that's enough on Battle Roles.

Picking an Effective Moveset

The most important part of Pokemon, whichever strategy you use. I will teach you to make an effective Pokemon, without bombarding you with numbers and math problems. We'll take this Crobat for an example.

Crobat
Nature: ???
???
???
???
???

Not very defined yet, is it? We start by looking at our Crobat's base stats:
Crobat's Stats
We find that the highest stat is Speed at 130, then Attack at 90. That's perfect for a Physical Sweeper, isn't it? So we know the stats now. Now the movepool:
Crobat's Movepool
So now we know Crobat pretty well now. Let's get to work on Natures.

Natures

Natures work by increasing one stat and decreasing another stat. They are assigned randomly to every Pokemon in Advanced forward. We can use them to our advantage by lowering a stat we don't need, and raising a stat we do need. I will help you pick a nature for our Crobat here. Before you go on, go and look at Psypoke's Nature Chart.

We already know that Crobat's best stat is Speed at 130 base, then Attack at 90. Now, most people would say, "Raise Speed! That's his best stat, so let's make it better, right?" Wrong. Instead, we want to raise the second best stat - why? Crobat is fast enough to out speed most commonly used Pokemon, so it's not such a big concern to us. However, it's Attack is a lot lower. We'll raise that instead. If we wanted to raise Speed, we might give it a Jolly nature, which raises Speed and lowers Sp. Attack, one of Crobat's worst stats. Or, we might give it an Adamant nature, still lowering Sp. Attack, but raising physical Attack this time. That seems a lot more suitable to me.