Smogon University.

[Haddez]

There is a big debate that has been going on in the Pokemon community for the past few years. It is all because of Smogon University.

For those of you that don't know what smogon is, it is a website that has got countless strategies for each pokemon and also tells you what pokemon would be best to team them up with.
There are also things called 'tiers' that categorize pokemon into the amount of times it is used and how strong it is. Many of the best players go to this site for tips and tricks to make there team as strong as possible.

Now for what the debate is all about.
Many people (including myself) believe that Smogon has ruined the online for Pokemon. Since it gives you all the information you need for you Pokemon the trainer doesn't have to do any actual training. They just find the move-set for each Pokemon and look at what EV's they need to make it more effective then they grind it out until there team is done. While I accept that this is involves a lot of work to me it feels like cheating.
I feel like a good trainer wouldn't need to be told what moves to use and how to train there Pokemon.

When you go to play a game of Pokemon online about 85% of the time you come across a team that someone made using Smogon. I was playing someone earlier today that had used Smogon for there team and the battle was not fun at all, the first 6/7 moves they spent 'setting up' once they had done I died in one hit and because of his set up I always went second, making him unbeatable. This is just one of many experience I have had with people like this, all of them have been bad. The people that use Smogon seem to use the same 15-20 Pokemon making most matches the same which makes them boring.
This has made me want to stop playing Pokemon all together.

At this point I would like to say that I am not bad at Pokemon, when I play someone who hasn't used smogon it is always a fun and entertaining fight but I come out on top most of the time.

I am sure their are many great reasons for Smogon being a good thing but I am struggling to think of any.

So what are your thoughts? Is Smogon a good thing or a bad thing?

 

[Enethil]

To me, Smogon is a negative thing, everytime someone wants to battle me with Smogon rules, I just say Get lost (or something even worse), You should be able to play Pokemon however you want, not how someone tells you to play.

 

[Whitney]

To be honest, I miss Pokemon when it was more about fun and choosing your favorites. I know general things about battling, what stats mean etc., but I can't say I'm one to get super involved when it comes to strategy and setting up the "perfect team". I have fun, and do what I want.

If people like to be more competitive then cool, but personally, I feel like Pokemon shouldn't be something that's overly-competitive, which is what it has become. I've never heard of Smogon until now, but it seems to feed that competitive streak that's rampant in Pokemon now, especially since battling has been made more complicated over the last couple of Gens. I don't like people telling me how to play or patronizing me for how I do play, as elitism in games is something that annoys the shit out of me.

 

[Darkfire]

Smogon was an inevitability
with a series this consistent from game to game and made for battling others it was gonna happen in some way or another
I personally don't like competitive battling especially competitive training(which is why the only way I do competitive stuff is when I use Pokemon Online)
Other wise I just use the Pokemon I catch on a normal play through(or if I am trading in a new "starter")

 

[newmaster95]

I personally don't really care for it, but that's because, honestly, EV training and strategy is all sort of a pain to deal with, and I'm lazy. -.- I just sorta let my guys level how they do, teach them moves that feel they would be beneficial later, and make up my strategy on the fly.

 

[GinkgoPete]

I personally think it is a good thing ,but people abuse it. When I go on Smogon I use it to make a Pokemon that I have built into a team decent because certain Pokemon are just new to me e.g.: Recently I made a steel pkmn team and I didnt know how I should train my Empoleon (my first empoleon turned out terrible) so the website helped me and in the end i felt much more satisfied with my team.

On the other hand there are ,like you said, people that are just going :"Oh I suck at pokemon let me just copy a guide 100%" ,but these people have been arround before Smogon and all that Smogon does is make the info more accessible so those people dont have to google for 5 minutes. While I dislike these copy cat style trainers I think they are more enjoyable to fight than I-will-just-spam-legandaries trainers,because those people dont even attempt effort they just use the legendaries insane stats and high damage attacks (or they play Darkrai *ugh*)

Sorry for the long reply , I got a bit carried away...as I do

 

[xxaa]

This "competitive" battling ruins Pokemon IMO. What happened to, "Pokemon are not tools of war"?
In the end, every trainer becomes a Team Rocket Grunt, disposing of "unqualified" Pokemon. In search or perfect Iv'd Pokemon. Why not just catch a Pokemon and fight with it online? If everybody did this, it would still be "competitive".

 

[Haddez]

This "competitive" battling ruins Pokemon IMO. What happened to, "Pokemon are not tools of war"?
In the end, every trainer becomes a Team Rocket Grunt, disposing of "unqualified" Pokemon. In search or perfect Iv'd Pokemon. Why not just catch a Pokemon and fight with it online? If everybody did this, it would still be "competitive".

Also just because a pokemon IV's are not good that doesn't mean the pokemon wont be.

My brother has an Arbok, it had rather average stats when it was an Ekans, he now has it at level 80 and it is capable of beating 3 of my level 80s with out a struggle! If you are a good trainer it does not matter what the stats are.

 

[xxaa]

This "competitive" battling ruins Pokemon IMO. What happened to, "Pokemon are not tools of war"?
In the end, every trainer becomes a Team Rocket Grunt, disposing of "unqualified" Pokemon. In search or perfect Iv'd Pokemon. Why not just catch a Pokemon and fight with it online? If everybody did this, it would still be "competitive".

Also just because a pokemon IV's are not good that doesn't mean the pokemon wont be.

My brother has an Arbok, it had rather average stats when it was an Ekans, he now has it at level 80 and it is capable of beating 3 of my level 80s with out a struggle! If you are a good trainer it does not matter what the stats are.

How do you know that Ekans has bad Iv's?
I said online battling. All those "good" trainers have pokes with at least two perfect IV stats. This is true

 

[LightningLord2]

I don't think everyone's like a Team Rocket Grunt, it's actually closer to Silver - all the good 'mons are taken to be sold for a high price in Team Rocket's game corner, leaving the grunts with the trash.

Back on topic, I think it is a good thing that there's one community dedicated to competetive play that people can go to.

Finally, Smogon rules include Ubers, where you're free to use anything you want to (if you include the unofficial metagames of Streetmons or even Hackmons, you can go even farther).

 

[Banned]

I think it's bad for the community, I never use those, because I like to play fair games.

 

[GinkgoPete]

I think it's bad for the community, I never use those, because I like to play fair games.

How is it unfair just because you dont have to know as much about Pokemon to stand a chance online

 

[Banned]

I think it's bad for the community, I never use those, because I like to play fair games.

How is it unfair just because you dont have to know as much about Pokemon to stand a chance online

That's not true at all. xD I've been playing for 8 years. I've beat Gold, Yellow, Red, FireRed, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Pearl, Platinum, and Black. Infact I've beat Gold like 8 times, Yellow 3 times, And Sapphire and FireRed like 5 times. I understand IVs, and EVs. I had a level 93 Blastiose on Fire Red, I caught all the legendaries that you can catch without events in each of those games, and I've beat trainer Red on Gold. There's no way you could possibly tell me I don't know Pokemon. xD

 

[GinkgoPete]

How is it unfair just because you dont have to know as much about Pokemon to stand a chance online

That's not true at all. xD I've been playing for 8 years. I've beat Gold, Yellow, Red, FireRed, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Pearl, Platinum, and Black. Infact I've beat Gold like 8 times, Yellow 3 times, And Sapphire and FireRed like 5 times. I understand IVs, and EVs. I had a level 93 Blastiose on Fire Red, I caught all the legendaries that you can catch without events in each of those games, and I've beat trainer Red on Gold. There's no way you could possibly tell me I don't know Pokemon. xD

When did I ever say that you dont know anything about Pokemon? Also playing a game for 8 years doesnt make you a prodigy and also showing of with a lvl 93 Pokemon just puts a huge negative on your side of the argument.

 

[Banned]

That's not true at all. xD I've been playing for 8 years. I've beat Gold, Yellow, Red, FireRed, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Pearl, Platinum, and Black. Infact I've beat Gold like 8 times, Yellow 3 times, And Sapphire and FireRed like 5 times. I understand IVs, and EVs. I had a level 93 Blastiose on Fire Red, I caught all the legendaries that you can catch without events in each of those games, and I've beat trainer Red on Gold. There's no way you could possibly tell me I don't know Pokemon. xD

When did I ever say that you dont know anything about Pokemon? Also playing a game for 8 years doesnt make you a prodigy and also showing of with a lvl 93 Pokemon just puts a huge negative on your side of the argument.

I just said how long, just because it was relvent. By the way, the reason I never had a level 100, is because I always restart when I get mostly everything, and I only remember my Fire Red team, because it was the most recent.