[WIP] Predictions in competitive battling

[Charlie Brown]

Today, I wanted to talk about something basic but really important; something present in every single play we make.. It's pretty much there, on every single play that we make. As you could read on the title, yes. I'm going to talk about predictions in battling, a bit of theory and some examples for all of you to understand. With that said, let's get to the point here.

Cleaning up the wording here, removing some of the fluff to get to the point :P

First of all, there are a couple of things that I want to explain about the basic concepts of competitive battling, I'll try to keep it clear for all of you.

For clarity/clunkiness.

I have a Latios with Fighting type Hidden Power (HP). [...] There's no point on using HP Fighting against Bisharp

I would add (HP) in brackets after the first use of Hidden Power, so it's super clear what the acronym is referring too (even though it's pretty commonly used).

because it could screw me over with Sucker Punch, however. It doesn't really have a great chance against Lando.

'However' should be moved to the start of the next sentence. Also, Landorus > Lando.

You have a Latios with Surf and your opponent has a Mega Diance. This two Pokemons are on the same speed tier

Diance --> Diancie
This --> These (since plural)
Pokemons --> Pokémon (since Pokémon is also used for plural)

analize

--> analyze

Alright, this is something that happens all the time. I really mean all the time. Since you are playing with another human being, most of the time. He/She will try to predict your plays. However. This is a tricky situation, since there's a lot of situations where your opponent would do the opposite thing. Overpredicting is, in a few words. Reading too deep into your opponent, sometimes it could work. But some other times, it won't work.

I think this part is too wordy so the message isn't that clear. If you could condense this into a sentence or two that would be better, because at the moment it's a bit hard to follow.


I think this is a good start but some examples (battle replays, even screenshots?) would be really helpful. If this article is aimed at people who are relatively new to competitive battling and looking to improve, I think it can be a lot clearer through the use of specific examples. Your examples were good but didn't really illustrate your points to me (as someone who may be part of your target audience for this article).

imo the article at the moment is very general so it says things but the points aren't really driven home, but hopefully some specific examples can help to strengthen this!

Let me know if this doesn't make sense! Definitely a good start though 8)

 

[Charlie Brown]

Alright, noted! thanks! I'm having a lot of problems to find a battle that I like enough for this. Serious problems. I been looking for one since you told me, nothing good so far. I'll add the changes at the end of the article, when it's ready for release. I just need that replay to move on, the last thing that I feel like it's relevant is pretty brief for it's own place. It's not that spot-on neither, so I don't want to give it as a fact.

Can always do a battle with someone else to get the right sort of replay from it? ie staging a specific battle for this

 

[Pebbles]

can i perhaps help you with creating a cover image for this? {:3}^_^:)​

 

[Pebbles]

Of course! :)

any pokemon you prefer i use on this cover?:)​

 

[bobandbill]

Alright, I think this is the final part of the article.

Corrections in the spoiler tag! Things in strikethrough ought to be removed, and just in red and bold added. Blue and bold is a comment of mine to explain stuff, and should also be removed.

NOT POINTED OUT - make sure it's Pokémon, not Pokemon.

Please bug me when you catch me online next so I can explain some of those changes one-on-one. Stuff to work on would be your use of commas and run-on sentences, which aren't the simplest concepts to get with English imo. Note that it's useful/helpful with one l, not two.

The content itself seems good. I'll think on if anything should be added regarding double battles - if so I'll tackle that.

Spoiler:

With those two things already explained., I would like to say that, knowing the movesets that each Pokemon usually runs is a helpfull thing as well. You can't really rely on this, in fact. You shouldn't. However, it's usefull for predictions. Try to take logical conclussions conclusions. A Stealth Rock user won't have a Choice item (Scarf/Specs/Band) - it's just a terrible, counter-productive idea as can be. This is something that you're going to learn with the time. If you know the common movesets, you can make better predictions overall. You won't have many surprises. What I mean with, you shouldn't rely on it is your opponent being creative all the time. People sometimes can be a bit creative, or they just want to adapt a Pokemon to their team. So it's hard to tell the moveset of some Pokemons. These last two sentences don't really make a new a clear different point to what you already wrote.

I'm going to show you a replay now, from a battle that I had some days ago. I'm going to point out at key predictions - or mis-predictions - on some turns. Giving some examples of predictions, you're going to see if I was right or not, since you can always see the next turn. I would like to thank user Castform for battling with me and allowing me to use this replay. In the article, make sure to put 'Castform' in italics and link to his profile via his username.

With that said, here's the replay. I had this battle on PokèCommunity Showdown Server, which I'm going to link can be found here as well. Don't tell the reader you are going to do something, because it's already written and done by the time they read the published article.

First of all, let's take a look at the teams. T starting from 'turn zero', we could say.
My team is: Hydreigon / Metagross / Clefable / Talonflame / Tangrowth / Starmie
While Castform's team is: Volcanion / Latios / Manectric / Gliscor / Bisharp / Tangrowth

Right off from the start, I can see that he doesn't have a hazards setter, even if Gliscor can learn it. Nobody runs it, so pretty much. He doesn't have one. While, Meanwhile on my team., Clefable has Stealth Rock. This isn't common, but I feel it works decently enough. not common. But decent enough. Volcanion can be a problem for me if it has Choice Specs, as it pretty much destroys Clefable. Another problem of mine is Bisharp, however. It's one of those Pokemons that you tend to play on mid/late game. Leading with a Bisharp is a bad idea. So my only worry is Volcanion. Look at the battle and see how that goes. He leads with Manectric. A good lead, but it can't really get through Clefable at full health. I managed to get Stealth Rock up, on in the early game. This is generally regarded as Something pretty important, so we can say that I made the right move.

On the second turn, I make a risky play. That luckly, luckily didn't ended in a terrible move. Sending Starmie was a bad idea on my side. Why? Gliscor tends to carry Knock Off, so Starmie won't like that at all. This is where knowing the moveset of a Pokemon can save you. Turn three was also risky, u. Using Psychic when your opponent has a Dark type Pokemon around is risky as well. However, I'm sure that Castform thought that I would use Hydro Pump, to kill Gliscor. A bit of over-prediction there as well, on both sides. On turn four, there was a bit of a conservative play. I know that he won't let Volcanion die. So I just use Recover, trying to keep my Starmie alive, as it's still usefull for me.

Let's move a bit forward on the battle. Turn fifteen to sixteen. Bisharp gets into the field, which is it's a safe play for my opponent. S, since he could expect me using Psychic again. On the next turn. I expect that he's going to use Pursuit, as Starmie is dead one way or another. So I try to risk and hit Bisharp with Hydro Pump, I thought it would kill it, but sadly it doesn't. At least, I scored some damage and I didn't let Starmie die without a reason. I made a terrible move sending Metagross there. I don't even know what I was thinking, l. Luckily I noticed before it was too late.

On turn twenty, I made another bad move. another bad move from my side. Draco Meteor forces me to switch, given Bisharp was too weak. The move that I shoulda should have used was Dark Pulse, since no matter what. H, his team can't really switch into Hydreigon. You can see what I mean from turn twenty four. I started to spam Dark Pulse, and his team didn't had any reliable switches into it.

On turn thirty, the proper move would be Stealth Rock. Not that important, but it's helpfull anyway. Moonblast won't hit any of his Pokemons hard enough to be relevant.

I'm pretty sure that, there's a lot of situations that I didn't hadn't pointed out. But since you can see the replay, feel free to take your own conclusions about it. I highlighted the plays that, I thought they could explain what I mean with predictions, making safe moves, taking risks and so on.

I'm sure that, this is a nice way to start making better predictions in a battle. With that said, I can't really do all the work for you. Practice is the way to go here!

With that said. It's time to say goodbye and wrap this up. Stay tuned for the next article, t. Thanks for reading!

[/QUOTE]

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

Took bobandbill's edits and put in a few of my own. Just for separation, my edits are in green so we can differentiate between the two.

Spoiler:

With those two things already explained., I would like to say that, knowing the movesets that each Pokemon usually runs is a helpfull thing as well. You can't really rely on this, in fact. You shouldn't. However, it's usefull for predictions. Try to take logical conclussions conclusions. A Stealth Rock user won't have a Choice item (Scarf/Specs/Band) - it's just a terrible, counter-productive idea as can be. This is something that you're going to learn with the time. If you know the common movesets, you can make better predictions overall. You won't have many surprises. What I mean with is, you shouldn't rely on it is your opponent being creative all the time. People sometimes can be a bit creative, or they just want to adapt a Pokemon to their team. So it's hard to tell the moveset of some Pokemons. These last two sentences don't really make a new a clear different point to what you already wrote.

I'm going to show you a replay now, from a battle that I had some days ago. I'm going to point out at key predictions - or mis-predictions - on some turns. Giving some examples of predictions, you're going to see if I was right or not, since you can always see the next turn. I would like to thank user Castform for battling with me and allowing me to use this replay. In the article, make sure to put 'Castform' in italics and link to his profile via his username.

With that said, here's the replay. I had this battle on PokèCommunity Showdown Server, which I'm going to link can be found here as well. Don't tell the reader you are going to do something, because it's already written and done by the time they read the published article.

First of all, let's take a look at the teams. T starting from 'turn zero', we could say.
My team is: Hydreigon / Metagross / Clefable / Talonflame / Tangrowth / Starmie
While Castform's team is: Volcanion / Latios / Manectric / Gliscor / Bisharp / Tangrowth

Right off from the start, I can see that he doesn't have a hazards setter (Do you want to explain to your audience what a hazards setter is? Some readers may not understand this terminology.), even if Gliscor can learn it. Nobody runs it, so pretty much. He doesn't have one. While, Meanwhile on my team., Clefable has Stealth Rock. This isn't common, but I feel it works decently enough (Why does it work decently enough? Elaborate.). not common. But decent enough. Volcanion can be a problem for me if it has Choice Specs, as it pretty much destroys Clefable (Why does it destroy Clefable?. Another problem of mine is Bisharp, however. It's one of those Pokemons that you tend to play on mid/late game. Leading with a Bisharp is a bad idea. So my only worry is Volcanion. Look at the battle and see how that goes. He leads with Manectric. A good lead, but it can't really get through Clefable at full health. I managed to get Stealth Rock up, on in the early game. This is generally regarded as Something pretty important, so we can say that I made the right move.
(Overall this paragraph is good, bu I think you need to look over this paragraph for elaborations. There are multiple times where you'll give an opinion about something but not back it up with any actual evidence to support your claim which leaves the reader questioning why your opinion goes a certain way.)

On the second turn, I make a risky play. That luckly, luckily didn't ended in a terrible move. Sending Starmie was a bad idea on my side. Why? Gliscor tends to carry Knock Off, so Starmie won't like that at all. (Why? Were you carrying an item or something that would be gone once Knock Off was used?) This is where knowing the moveset of a Pokemon can save you. Turn three was also risky, u. Using Psychic when your opponent has a Dark type Pokemon around is risky as well. However, I'm sure that Castform thought that I would use Hydro Pump, to kill Gliscor. A bit of over-prediction there as well, on both sides. On turn four, there was a bit of a conservative play. I know that he won't let Volcanion die. So I just use Recover, trying to keep my Starmie alive, as it's still usefull for me.

Let's move a bit forward on the battle. Turn fifteen to sixteen. Bisharp gets into the field, which is it's a safe play for my opponent. S, since he could expect me using Psychic again. On the next turn. I expect that he's going to use Pursuit, as Starmie is dead one way or another. So I try to risk and hit Bisharp with Hydro Pump, I thought it would kill it, but sadly it doesn't. At least, I scored some damage and I didn't let Starmie die without a reason. I made a terrible move sending Metagross there. (Why was it a terrible move?)I don't even know what I was thinking, l. Luckily I noticed before it was too late.

On turn twenty, I made another bad move. another bad move from my side. Draco Meteor forces me to switch, given Bisharp was too weak. The move that I shoulda should have used was Dark Pulse, since no matter what. H, his team can't really switch into Hydreigon. You can see what I mean from turn twenty four. I started to spam Dark Pulse, and his team didn't had any reliable switches into it.

On turn thirty, the proper move would be Stealth Rock. Not that important, but it's helpfull anyway. Moonblast won't hit any of his Pokemons hard enough to be relevant.

I'm pretty sure that, there's a lot of situations that I didn't hadn't pointed out. But since you can see the replay, feel free to take your own conclusions about it. I highlighted the plays that, I thought they could explain what I mean with predictions, making safe moves, taking risks and so on. (Because you did skip a good majority of turns, maybe you can rephrase this paragraph into a challenge for readers to comment on the article and leave their own evaluations on how you're predicting went? Sort of something along the lines of "Look at turns x - x: how did you think I faired?" :P)

I'm sure that, this is a nice way to start making better predictions in a battle. With that said, I can't really do all the work for you. Practice is the way to go here!

With that said. It's time to say goodbye and wrap this up. Stay tuned for the next article, t. Thanks for reading!

Overall very good - keep up the awesome work! (:

 

[Pebbles]

i tried to do something with clefable but did not work out :|

so hope this is ok

 

[bobandbill]

i tried to do something with clefable but did not work out :|

so hope this is ok

Couple points - if that Leafeon image isn't official then it needs permission and credit to be used. Meanwhile, the Prediction text is a little hard for me to make out - could it be highlighted more?

More edits (because I hadn't previously looked at the first half):

Hello there guys and girls! Archy here with a bit of wise advice for competitive battling for all of you. Today, I wanted to talk about something basic but really important. It's pretty much there, on every single play that we make. As you could read on the title, yes. I'm going to talk about predictions in battling, a bit of theory and some examples for all of you to understand. With that said, let's get to the point here.

This again reads as too rambly an introduction. I understand that you want it to be relateable and friendly, but there's a balance to doing that and getting to the point. I'd drop the 'As you coul read from the title, yes.' line for instance, and drop the last sentence here as well (don't say 'let's move on', 'let's get to the point', etc, as that highlights to the reader that you're delaying that.

I'd drop 'wise' in the first line too - while ideally this advice is wise, I don't think we should overstate what we are offering and let the content speak for itself.

Risk versus Reward section - content is good. Make sure to have a line of spacing between the two paragraphs.

There's no point on using HP Fighting against Bisharp, because it could screw me over with Sucker Punch, however. It doesn't really have a great chance against Lando. The safe play would be sending Lando in, there's no need to run that risk when the reward can be achieved with a safer play.

Change to the following:

There's no point on using HP Fighting against Bisharp, because it could screw me over with Sucker Punch. However, it doesn't really have a great chance against Lando. The safe play would be sending Lando in, as there's no need to run that risk when the reward can be achieved with a safer play.

Also - could 'Landorus-T' be just shortened to 'Landorus'? Maybe Lando is a more common shorthand, but. Alternatively, introduce that in the text (when you first mention Landorus-T, do it like so: '...Landorus-T (Lando)...').

However, let's imagine a situation where the reward is really big. However, this play carries a big risk.

'However,' twice in a row is repetitive. Try for the second sentence 'The catch is that this play...'

This two Pokemons are on the same speed tier, your team has nothing against Diance.

These (plural form) instead of This, Pokémon with the accented é (no s). Add in a 'and' before 'your'.

Taking down Diance means that you can win the battle, let's say

Drop ', let's say'.

This is something that takes time to be familiar with, it's not something that you will learn from one day to another.

Make into two sentences (...with. It's not...).

after all, sometimes you are betting.

After all (missing the capital).

Just going to throw up my suggested rewrite of the Overpredicting (change to Over-predicting!) section as it has a lot of incomplete/choppy sentences:

Alright, this is something that happens all the time. Since you are playing with another human being, he or she will usually try to predict your plays. This is a tricky situation, since there's a lot of cases where your opponent would do the opposite thing. Over-predicting is reading too deep into your opponent, where the obvious answer may not be the right one.

Consider this example. It's the first turn of the battle, and your opponent sends a Garchomp. You send a Clefable. The logic and obvious answer would be to expect a switch, since your opponent has a Heatran on the team. However, Clefable can't really take Garchomp down with a single hit. Let's imagine that you are trying to prepare yourself for Heatran, it's the obvious move, right?

Nope. Your opponent, instead of switching or attacking, may well set Stealth Rock up. Doing hard predictions right off from the start tends to be a bad idea. As somebody who used to do that a lot, I can tell. I can also tell that over-predicting results in losing a lot of battles. Don't read too deep in the first turns, as over-predicting is something that you should do more at mid/late game, it's safer there. Sometimes it's something that can give you the advantage, but sometimes it can be the last nail in your coffin.

As for the second post, seems some corrections were missed, and some confusion made between crossed out full stops with comma replacements or the like.

With those two things already explained, I would like to say that knowing the movesets that each Pokemon usually runs is a helpfull thing as well.

helpful not helpfull. I changed the punctuation as well - please have it like this.

However, it's usefull for predictions.

useful (one l).

With that said, here's the replay. I had this battle on PokèCommunity Showdown Server, which can be found here as well.

Have an extra line of spacing between this line and the previous paragraph.

First of all, let's take a look at the teams. Turn zero.

Drop 'Turn zero.'. Formatted like this is doesn't add anything, nor is important information.

Meanwhile, on my team. Clefable has Stealth Rock.

Change the full stop after Clefable to a comma.

That luckily, didn't ended in a terrible move.

remove this comma.

Turn three was also risky. Using Psychic when your opponent has a Dark type Pokemon around is risky as well.

change the last bit to '...around is a dangerous ploy as well.' (Changed because you have 'risky' twice otherwise.

Turn fifteen to sixteen. Bisharp gets into the field, which is a safe play for my opponent,

change the full stop after 'sixteen' to a comma., and remove the comma after 'field'.

I thought it would kill it, but sadly it doesn't;

Change the ; to a full stop.

I'm pretty sure that; There's a lot of situations that I hadn't pointed out.

Remove the first four words (and even if you kept it, you'd write it as "...sure that there's a lot...").

I highlighted the plays that; I thought they could explain what I mean with prediction

remove the ; here as well.

I'm sure that; This is a nice way to start making better predictions in a battle. With that said, I can't really do all the work for you. Practice is the way to go here!

And again, but I'd also remove the first few words again and go straight to the next sentence ("This is a nice way to...")

 

[Pebbles]

i can make changes but im in the middle of moving, so got no access to photoshop right now

As for render, i found it on Google and when i researched the render itself, it took me to a japanese stuff i think, so i assumed its a render from some official pokemon art, like a poster or anything it didn't show me anything like its from deviantart so its not fanart i think​

 

[bobandbill]

i can make changes but im in the middle of moving, so got no access to photoshop right now

As for render, i found it on Google and when i researched the render itself, it took me to a japanese stuff i think, so i assumed its a render from some official pokemon art, like a poster or anything it didn't show me anything like its from deviantart so its not fanart i think

Hmm. I'd still like to look into that - if we're not sure of its origin then I'd rather not use someone else's work without crediting. I'll see if I can find something about it.

Edit: woah okay that took a fair bit of tracking. Found the source - it's fanart. https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=5478893 (They also put it here: https://pearlsaurus.fc2web.com/pokemon_493_463_472.html). Idk if we can get permission from a Japanese artist easily thanks to language barriers... =( For reference, nowhere near all fanart ends up on dA; pixiv is pretty big for the Japanese community for instance.

 

[bobandbill]

Jake's sent a message to the artist for permission at any rate, so we'll see if we get a response. (They've made stuff this month so they are active at least).

 

[Pebbles]

Jake's sent a message to the artist for permission at any rate, so we'll see if we get a response. (They've made stuff this month so they are active at least).

sorry for the trouble
I can edit the text later today, if you want i will add another render?​

 

[bobandbill]

sorry for the trouble
I can edit the text later today, if you want i will add another render?​

Yeah, I'm afraid so, unless there's a response from the creator (there's been none yet).

 

[Pebbles]

Yeah, I'm afraid so, unless there's a response from the creator (there's been none yet).

hope this is better, text wise

 

[bobandbill]

I'm content with that now, Pebbles. =)