What are some good Smogon articles/resources?

Question

I'd rather not have the absolute basics of the basics; I know about EVs/IVs/etc... and the only thing I struggle with is teambuilding and the actual competitive battling. Articles/threads that are not on Smogon are appreciated too, same goes for resources/sites like Pikalytics.

Syl!

Comments

If you want to read a nice Smogon article look at X's profile

Answer 1

The damage calculator is always a handy thing to have open. You can use it to see if you should switch out or stay in and do damage.

The Flying Press articles are always helpful and you can learn a thing or two there.

Smog Archives put several key Pokemon in the spotlight, helping you with teambuilding

Viability rankings are one of the most important pieces of info a competitive player can have, since it shows you which Pokémon are most viable in the current meta.

Metagame threads and Metagame discussion threads are also handy. You can get the latest buzz in the competitive scene.

If you have a Pokemon you want to use, always be sure to read its Strategy Dex entry, to see if it is viable or not.

You also have Pikalytics

Serebii.net's Pokemon of the Week have useful detailed analyses and sample sets to help you.

Answer 2

If you want teambuilding guides then here are a couple articles for you

https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue28/teambuilding
https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue39/synergy-cores-teambuilding

They are rather outdated for gen eight but it doesn't really matter as you can simply try to learn the meta. Most principles also apply, just with different Pokemon

As for actual battling competitively, articles are barely gonna help you with this. You'll have to learn it firsthand by playing the tier you want to so you can find out for yourself why a certain Pokemon is being used a lot. Doing it firsthand also allows you to learn how to predict, which is what this game is all about

Comments

Dang, that was quick haha. Thanks! I've been on Showdown since like 2018. I'm not super active on there and i mainly play OU and i still didn't learn most of the things. Predicting is actually one of the things i can do though.

Answer 3

https://www.smogon.com/forums/
Smogon makes a lot of resources to help people get better at competitive battling. The competitive battling FAQ contains a some basic advice. The resources subforum contains one thread for each of the popular formats. After you choose a format to play, reading the resources for that specific format will help you become a much better player. They also have a Trainer's School subforum in case you already clicked those other 2 links and want more help.

https://www.smogon.com/articles/getting-started
This is an introduction to competitive battling written by 3 Smogon Forums users. It talks about the essentials of teambuilding and battling against other people and describes even more resources like Smogon's Discord servers.

https://www.smogon.com/dex/
This is where you can find good movesets and advice written by people in Smogon Forums. You can copy their movesets if you don't know how to make your own.

https://www.smogon.com/stats/
This tells you what other people are using. You can see what movesets are worth using and worth preparing for, and what Pokemon your opponents are likely to lead with.