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I ATTAC

8 (15.4%)

I PROTECC

6 (11.5%)

Waiting on the third one

2 (3.8%)

Waiting on the third AND fourth one

1 (1.9%)

GET WELL SOON ZYGARDE

5 (9.6%)

I am a concientous objector and abstain from taking up arms

30 (57.7%)

Total Members Voted: 51

[xaritscin]

i can defend the claim about Aipom being replaced by that hand cat/lemur or whatever it was. but old Noctowl and Politoed looked unfinished or not detailed enough, their final designs have much more work done. the Leafeon prototype looked bad, much like the legendary beasts, i cant defend that thing. our Leafeon looks way better.

many of those may have been left out because they didnt have enough detail or their concept wasnt cohesive enough. also, there were a lot of cat-like designs so they must have thought "we may have to revise some of those designs, too many cats and not enough variety".

still there's some designs that were detailed enough to be considered for the final game.

[Sirus]

IVs and EVs are both numbers that affect your pokemon's stats.

IVs are hidden values that are inherent to each individual monster, and cannot really be changed except for certain very rare items (and even then only in later games). Having one or more stats with max IVs can turn a merely average pokemon into something more powerful.

EVs start at 0 in each stat with a freshly-caught/freshly-hatched pokemon. These values increase when a pokemon earns experience, based on what type of pokemon they earn experience from. Each pokemon can only earn so many EVs, and each stat has a certain cap, so it's impossible to max out all EVs no matter how much a pokemon battles. This, by the way, is where the rumor about rare candies resulting in worse stats came from; if you glitch yourself infinite rare candies and raise your monsters to max level right away, they will lack the EVs that a more honest player would earn, and thus have worse stats.

EVs were once hidden in much the same way as IVs, but more recent games offer ways to see your pokemon's EVs and even train them outside of battle.

Basically, unless you want to get competitive you can almost always ignore IVs. Figuring out which IVs each pokemon has is a somewhat painful process with a great deal of uncertainty built in (you basically get different messages based solely on how many max IVs you have, and little else). Since you're playing OR (good choice) you have access to Super Training for easy access to EVs.

[Sirus]

Yes in Omega Ruby, I have no idea about Ultra Moon. If you visit Super Training, you can use the graph on the bottom screen to get an idea of where your EVs are going and what your final stat distribution will look like. You can also use certain punching bags to completely reset a pokemon's EVs, giving you a fresh start.

[Culise]

Ultra Sun/Moon, if they didn't tweak the interface from Sun/Moon, should have kept the EV and IV radar plots. On the summary screen of a Pokemon, if you press Y, the stats in the upper-right change to show EVs, including if you've maxed them out (change from yellow to blue).  Once you unlock it in the post-game, the computer will also have a Judge button that lets you see a radar plot of your Pokemon's IVs as well, including a one-word description.  It still doesn't give you precise numbers, but it is quite helpful nonetheless.

Also, in the latest gen, you don't have punching bags, but they did keep the EV-reducing berries.  Feeding these to a Pokemon makes it friendlier and reduces whichever EV is mentioned in its description by 10 points. 

[umiman]

I decided to look through the thread, and though they're mentioned a lot, I don't actually see any explanation as to what IVs and EVs are. Anyone mind explaining (since looking it up will include me being bombarded with far more information than I want to know)? Asking in the context of someone who hasn't played a Pokemon game in almost a decade (last I played was Pearl, and briefly at that) and trying to get back into it, starting with Omega Ruby. I think I figured out what STAB means ("same-type attack bonus"?), but that's about it- wasn't focused on the technical details when playing these as a kid (I still haven't really figured out what natures are, but those seem up-front and I shouldn't need to ask) and even if I was I would've forgotten by now.

Also I suppose I should ask if there are other technical things that I should know about but didn't mention above.

Hmm... Depends how competitive you'd like to be but I can give a quick rundown.

STAB: A move will do 50% more damage if it's the same type as your Pokemon. So a water Pokemon using a water move will do more damage than a fire Pokemon using a water move. It doesn't matter if it has dual-typing either as as long as it has the type, then it will do bonus damage.

This is important because this means you generally want attack moves of your pokemon's type instead of randomly throwing stuff on it. That being said...

----

Coverage moves: There are instances where it is a good idea to have non-STAB moves on your Pokemon. In most cases this is referred to as coverage. To give an example, water moves are good against ground and rock but kinda shitty as an attacking type due to only those two super effective things. So as coverage, people will also give that Pokemon say... an ice-type move so it can also hit flying, dragon, and grass as well.

This is called coverage and helps to cover weaknesses.

----

Damage types: There's two. Physical and special. Physical attacks use the attack stat and special attacks use the sp. atk stat. Physical attacks are mitigated by the defense stat and special attacks are mitigated by the sp. def stat. So some Pokemon are better at physical and some better at special. Some are also better at blocking physical and some better at blocking special.

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Priority: Some moves have priority. This means they move first regardless of speed. An example is quick attack which has a priority of +1. This means it will always go first unless another move was used with a higher priority. For example, protect has a priority of +4. There's also abilities that give your skills priority but I'll let you discover those. Priority is a huge deal in competitive battling so it's important to know about it.

----

I'll be honest and say you don't REALLY need to know too much about natures, EVs, and IVs when you're just starting to enjoy the game until you master the other stuff. Pokemon stat differences aren't that major beyond the base levels. It's way more important to know about typing, abilities, priority, and prediction.

A person who knows the fundamentals can easily obliterate someone who doesn't know how to properly play but has a minmaxed team. Look at all the Youtube videos of people using a team of Kakuna to beat someone with shiny cheated Pokemon.

Hell, it can even happen to a good player just through the sheer RNG and luck that comes with Pokemon battling. So have fun while you learn. Worry about EVs and IVs and natures later. They're really boring and grinding them is ULTRA BORING.

[Akura]

In addition to ORAS punching bags, all games since Gen III have had berries that reduce EVs and increase Friendship - SuMo at least has the means to farm obscene numbers of berries in a few days.

Spoiler: In case you *really* wanted to know breeding (click to show/hide)

The system has changed several times since it was introduced, but the basic system has been mostly the same since Platinum/HeartGold/SoulSilver(not Diamond/Pearl).

The parents must be of opposite genders and have a matching Egg Group - every Pokemon belongs to one or two Egg Groups, and the parents must match. Anything with the "Undiscovered" Egg Group(except Ditto) are sterile - typically legendary and "baby"(Togepi, Happiny) Pokemon. Alternately, one parent can be a Ditto. The species of the offspring is the same as the female, unless the "mother" is Ditto, then it's the father's species(this is the only way to breed male-only Pokemon like Tauros).

Stat inheritance works as follows: IVs for 3 stats are picked randomly, and the parent each of those 3 stats are also coin-flipped. For example, it may pick Attack, Sp. Defense, and Speed, then pick to inherit the Attack IV from Dad and the other two IVs from Mom. This occurs if the parents are not holding specific items, mainly the EV-gain boosting items: Power Weight/Belt/Bracer/Band/Lens/Anklet(NOT Macho Brace). If one holds one of those, the baby will inherit the corresponding stat from that parent, then 2 random stats from the parents(coin-flipping which parent). If BOTH parents hold a Power item, then ONE of the parents are picked to transfer the stat corresponding to their held item, then 2 random stats from random parents. Example: Mom holds Power Weight(HP), Dad holds Power Lens(Sp.Atk), then the baby is guaranteed to inherit EITHER Mom's HP IV, or Dad's Sp.Atk IV, then two other stats are picked at random and Mom and Dad coin-flip over who gives those two random stats.

Another held item to consider is the Destiny Knot, which causes 5 stats to be picked instead of 3. If the Destiny Knot is used with a Power item, the guaranteed inherit will be one of the 5(so one guaranteed, 4 random).

Bulbapedia page for breeding.

@Ninja'd by umiman(it took me a while to write this): I agree, too much min-maxing is not really fun. I never bother with Natures, honestly. Basically, each Nature changes one stat by +10% and one other stat by -10%, with some Natures that do nothing. In Gen III at least, Natures also influenced Contest stats.

Coverage is important, of course. My Mawile pretty survives on two things, coverage and massive physical power. Sadly, being Mawile, she doesn't really survive well . Iron Head and Play Rough are both STAB and have pretty decent coverage as-is(only Steel and Fire resist both). Stone Edge is risky(80% hit rate when anything <100% is Murphy's Law), but hits HARD even without STAB, and provides anti-Fire and Flying coverage. Sucker Punch gives priority and anti-Psychic/Ghost coverage, but requires the opponent to actually attack - it's anti-sweeper, not anti-wall.

[Sirus]

I tend to agree; at best I'll do some focused EV training (ORAS's Super Training is pretty nice for that) but other than that I let my pokeymans be what they are. I have no interest in competitive battling, so I don't worry too much about the in-depth mechanics and grind.

[Reudh]

Yes in Omega Ruby, I have no idea about Ultra Moon. If you visit Super Training, you can use the graph on the bottom screen to get an idea of where your EVs are going and what your final stat distribution will look like. You can also use certain punching bags to completely reset a pokemon's EVs, giving you a fresh start.

You also can in Gen 7. You gain access to an IV Judge after hatching ten eggs, who then simply adds the functionality to your computer, which shows their IVs and EVs on a five-pointed graph. Fairly simplistic, but it gets the job done.

[Greiger]

I never actively used a fairy type myself but off the top of my head faries wreck dragons (when faries were introduced I stopped using dragons because everybody and their mother brought at least one fairy online) they do 2x damage to dragons and are completely immune to dragon type attacks, just like how flying is immune to ground and ghost is immune to normal. 

IIRC they also do double damage to fighting and dark type.  They are weak to steel, likely in a desperate attempt to make steel not garbage offensively, and I remember my charizard was good against them as well, but I don't remember if it was the fire or flying that did it.  EDIT: They do less damage to fire type, but fire type is just 1x damage to them, so just a slight advantage.  Other weakness is poison.

[Akura]

Fairy-type is strong offensively to: Dark, Dragon, Fighting.
It is weak offensively(they resist) to: Poison, Steel, Fire.

Fairy-type Pokemon are resistant to: Dark, Fighting, Bug. They are IMMUNE to Dragon. They are weak to Poison and Steel.

Generally, Fairy-types use special attacks(Play Rough is the sole physical Fairy-type attack), and have poor physical Defense. When the type was introduced, several older Pokemon were changed, namely Clefairy, Togepi, Snubull, Marill, Mawile, and Ralts(but not its male-exclusive final evolution, Gallade). New Pokemon introduced in Gen VI include Flabčbč, Swirlix, and legendary Diancie.

Just wait until you start having to deal with Mega-Evolution.

[scourge728]

I still want mega serperior with contrary still

[umiman]

Fairy was really nice for Pokemon battling as a whole. Gamefreak did a good job with them typing-wise and power-wise.

Prior to fairies, poison-type was basically never used. It was so trashcan and outclassed by everything. Now poison is viable and quite common in a lot of teams as it's one of the few things that are viable against fairy. Poison attacks always had pretty good base damage, just there was nothing to use it on.

And while Steel has always been popular, it also made it worthwhile to actually bring steel-type moves. Again, for the same reason as before.

Similarly, Dragon was always way too powerful. The introduction of Fairy put a huge balancebag in their way so guys like Garchomp and Salamance would have their ridiculous reign of terror checked a bit. They're still strong, but at least now there's some better ways to actually stop the Outrage rampage.

[scourge728]

Poor hydreigon tho

[Sirus]

IIRC the weakness to steel is actually a reference to the fae in mythology; that is, iron and steel were fatal to the touch.

I'm not sure what the non-balance reason for being weak to Poison is, unless that is also mythology-based.

[Akura]

Spoiler: Psychic (click to show/hide)

Offensively strong against(moves are super-effective against defending type): Poison, Fighting.
Offensively weak(defending type takes less damage): Psychic, Steel, Dark(is immune).
Not entirely sure on the "logic" here, especially vs Steel since the whole "psychics bend spoons" thing is prominent in Pokemon. Steel and Dark were introduced as straight nerfs for Psychic, which was massively overpowered in Gen I.

Defensively strong against(Psychic-type Pokemon resist damage from): Psychic, Fighting.
Defensively weak against(Psychic-types take more damage from): Ghost, Dark, Bug.

Spoiler: Dragon (click to show/hide)

Offensively strong against: Dragon.
Offensively weak against: Steel, Fairy(is immune).
Generally considered a very powerful type due to Gen II through V only one type resists, and Dragon-types learn plenty of Fire-type moves to counter that, though earlier games had a very small move-pool.(Note, in Gen I the only Dragon-type move was Dragon Rage, which doesn't use type matching)

Defensively strong against: Fire, Water, Grass, Electric.
Defensively weak against: Dragon, Ice, Fairy.
Most Dragon-types are reptiles, which I guess explains Ice weakness. The wide resistances, and uncommon weaknesses are probably why a severe counter was necessary. Most Dragon-types have murderous stats as well.

Spoiler: Ghost (click to show/hide)

Offensively strong against: Ghost, Psychic. Due to a bug, Psychic was immune in Gen I(and Lick, a crappy move, was the only Ghost-type STAB move anyway).
Offensively weak against: Dark, Normal(is immune). Up to Gen V, Steel, but that was dropped in Gen VI.

Defensively strong against: Bug, Poison, Normal(is immune), Fighting(is immune).
Defensively weak against: Ghost, Dark.
As of Gen VI: Ghost-types are immune to effects that block switching out(like Mean Look or Shadow Tag), and you can always flee from a wild Pokemon regardless of Speed.

Spoiler: Dark (click to show/hide)

Offensively strong against: Psychic, Ghost
Offensively weak against: Gen V: Dark, Fighting, Steel. Gen VI and on: Dark, Fighting, Fairy.

Defensively strong against: Psychic(is immune), Dark, Ghost.
Defensively weak against: Fighting, Fairy, Bug.
As of Gen VII(SuMo), Dark-types become immune to moves given increased priority via Prankster. It's not that Prankster doesn't activate, the move has no effect.

While looking up the information above, I saw adverts for the Pokemon game on the Switch. Looks... interesting, though there parts I don't think I'll like.