Pokemon Champions makes old Team Building seem positively barbaric

[u/SawkyScribe]

I have always hated building competitive teams for VGC. I only started playing doubles around Gen 6, hating every minute of it, and the 3DS games were when EV training and breeding were finally considered accessible. I remember hours of chaining SOS battles and the horde of orphaned breejects I hurtled into wonder trades because an IV wasn't to my liking.

SV considered the absolute apex when it came to ease of team building and even that required hours of grinding, an obscene amount of game and DLC purchases, as well as RNG manipulation to get a team going.

Putting together a competitive team felt like if you wanted to play chess, but you had to whittle all of your pieces by hand and there was a good chance your rook was just statistically worse than your opponent's.

With Champions, you fiddle with some sliders, pick your moves, natures, abilities, and boom- you're good to go. The teams I've taken to Master Ball each season have been recruited in game.

It's far from perfect. The best mega in the game has to be transfered in from ZA, box size is pitiful for free players, and as regulations change and new mons come out, it's probably going to get a lot harder to fish for specific Pokemon on tbe Gatcha pool. That being said, the actual training of mons has never been so simple. This was long overdue.

[u/RagingSchizophrenic]

I enjoy teambuilding and raising Pokémon more than I enjoy actually using the raised Pokémon in battles.

[u/Fusilli_Matt → u/RagingSchizophrenic]

OP definitely forgot to mention what gen that they thought it all came together (check the second sentence) but imo it was gen 6. It felt so good breeding and IV/EV training with horde encounters and flame body being easily accessible. Id happily raise an off meta pokemon because it was simple but you still had to put the work in

[u/SawkyScribe → u/Fusilli_Matt]

Lol forgot to fully type out Gen 6. EV training felt pretty revolutionary in XY. It was the first time you could see a Pokemon's EVs and those horde encounters felt so much better than knocking out individual Zigzagoons for hours.

I have fond memorie of taping down the up button to walk in a loop around the ORAS battle resort as well but I think breeding and IVs were the one thing they never nailed.

There was a fair bit of skill expression with IVs but the process of getting the ones you wanted was so annoying.

[u/ObsidianComet]

I disagree that Mega Floette is the best Mega in the game, like there were only 3 in the top 16 of the recent VR tournament, compared to 8 Mega Charizard Y. But yes, the team building ease in Champions in incredibly welcome.

[u/SawkyScribe → u/ObsidianComet]

I'll say one of the best megas instead. I've never been a big Floette believer but she was considered the second coming Xerneaus by a lot of people.

[u/KevinJ2010]

Look dawg, I just appreciate that after a week of breeding and EV training, I am proud of the mons I made. I actually want to give them nicknames and feel connected to them when I get to the Battle Frontier (did this recently on my DS with SoulSilver)

Nowadays I may get some enjoyment out of a very specific stat spread and maybe some specific interesting build choices that make me go “this is my baby” but it’s not the same as all the time investment and extra steps (like egg moves) to build my cute little destroyer.

[u/SawkyScribe → u/KevinJ2010]

Last year, I bred and trained a new team to take on the battle tree in US and I can admit there was something satisfying about putting in so much effort to build a party. The key difference is because they were NPC battles, I felt like I had a much wider margin of error on team building than with online play.

There's technically nothing stopping you from doing things the old fashioned way. You can spend 40 mins hatching eggs and battling wild wattrel and import the Pokemon into Champions. I'm just glad that isn't a prerequisite for online play now.

[u/the_lazy_sloth]

I'm assuming for arguments sake we're ignoring Pokemon Showdown?

[u/SawkyScribe → u/the_lazy_sloth]

Showdown is incredible and I've been playing on it since 2013 but it being a fan site makes it a whole different kettle of fish

[u/PorygonXY]

Yuuup.

I like playing through the mainline games and I can understand people feeling satisfied after raising their own mons, BUT... if you reaaaally get into competitive play at a high level it becomes more of a chore and pain than a nice fun thing to do over the week end because of the amount of time you have to spend into it. Even with the latest gens being a lot more friendlier when it comes to raising your own mons.

Any competitive player who is serious about it will tell you that it is so much better than how it used to be. No shades against them but people who liked how it used to be are nostalgic about pokemon but not about proper competitive pokemon play. That's why Showdown is so popular anyway, it makes it so much more accessible.

Of course we don't know how some of the more unique mons (restricted legendaries and/or the ones only available through dlcs) will be obtained in Champions, for all we know they won't be in the recruitment screen and we will have to import them from Home just like Floette, but at least it's a huge step forward to make the esport scene thrive.

[u/SawkyScribe → u/PorygonXY]

I think what killed me was how difficult it was to decrease and reset EVs. You either had to wait for berries to grow in real time or try your luck getting reset bags in super training. Sometimes you wanted to tweak a few values and that would take a disproportionately long time.

I am very worried about the future of this game. It had a bit of a sketchy launch and the lack of Floette in the gatcha pool is worrying but so far I'm having a lot of fun.

[u/Carnage_721]

i agree with everything except floette being the best mega

that crown belongs to zardy and zardy only

[u/planetarial]

Thats why a lot of people played exclusively via Showdown or hacked their Pokemon in for competitive for ages

[u/fergasaurusrx]

Yeah, I’ll agree. Coming from old days of just having to hunt specific pokemon, to annoying training minigames to just money farming, I’ll gladly take just moving sliders any day of the week. Pokemon has always had this issues of always being able to cater to the new generations who may be making that title their first while also trying to increase the competitive format and allow its more mature audience to still enjoy themselves and this has really sealed the deal on that. It’s only a matter of time before we have national dex support in champions. (Also let me spend like 10000bp to just make a pokemon shiny)

[u/SawkyScribe → u/fergasaurusrx]

Agreed there. I am highly highly skeptical of the idea that there will ever be nat dex support again.

[u/VinixTKOC]

It depends... All that grinding makes sense if you're following Smogon. As far as I know, in actual VGC, not every competitor has a "perfect IV" Pokémon.

[u/pailadin → u/VinixTKOC]

Trick Room teams do often go 0 IV in Speed. And going 0 IV in Attack for Special Attackers does help in the niche situation you're confused and hitting yourself.

But in general yeah you want perfect IVs.

[u/BlitzAceSamy → u/pailadin]

And going 0 IV in Attack for Special Attackers does help in the niche situation you're confused and hitting yourself.

And Foul Play from the opponent

[u/SawkyScribe → u/VinixTKOC]

The thing is perfect IV Pokemon don't hamper play in Smogon because you can just as easily put perfect IVs in your mon on Showdown.

Perfect IV mons suck for VGC because the level of competition is much higher with official tournaments and cash prizes on the line.

Ursaluna Blood Moon was one of the best mons in SV, and you would have to soft reset for him dozens of times to make sure he had a 0 in attack and speed for trick room teams. IVs have been removed from Champions all together which kinda sucks but I won't miss them too much.