Welcome to the Pokemon Thread! Generation VI has formally started with the release of Pokemon X and Y for the Nintendo 3DS.
Let this OP serve as a helpful aid for new players and as a resource for veterans.
1. Announcements & Events
2. What's New in Gen VI
3. How to Make a Competitive Team (by Speed Racer)
4. FAQ
5. Friend Codes
This is for stuff going on in the pokemon world and little things people on this forum put together.
Patch 1.2: Visit the eShop to download a new patch that fixes a few bugs.
Torchic : Until January 15th, 2014, you can go online and get a free Torchic that is holding the Mega Stone necessary for Blaziken's mega evolution. Just head into the game and hit up Mystery Gift.
Pokemon Bank: This is due to launch December 25th 27th we have no idea because Nintendo apparently cannot handle the server load from just one country. Whenever it comes out, it will include a free, month-long trial. Transferring from Gen V is through this app, so mark your calendars.
Celebi: People that use Pokemon Bank prior to September 30th, 2014 will get a Celebi that knows Hold Back. This is basically False Swipe only I assume it's Special instead of Physical, so kinda meh except it's a EVENT EXCLUSIVE MOVE.
Let's get right into the meat of this: the new generation. While Gen Five played things a bit more conservatively, Six is really mixing things up. Here's the blow-by-blow, and if you've missed a few generations since you last pokemon game, then just scroll past this and catch up on older changes first.
- Full 3D Graphics: Yowza! The first pokemon to abandoned its cherish sprite tradition and go for fancy polygons and whatnot. No doubt the game will look pretty awesome with the 3D cranked up.
- New Region: Kalos, a region based on France.
- Enhanced Online: The bottom screen now serves as a hub for multiplayer. You can easily trade/battle with friends or strangers, and even help someone out in single-player battles via O-Powers. If you're feeling bold, you can try Wonder Trade, letting you send away a pokemon and get something totally random from someone else in the world.
- New Type, Fairy: Designed to rein in dragons a bit, Fairy is so far super effective against Dragon, Dark, and Fighting types. It is not very effective against Fire, Poison, and Steel. Fairy is weak to Poison and Steel while resisting Fighting, Bug, and Dark. They are immune to Dragon moves.
- Other balance changes: Steel loses resistance to both Ghost and Dark, Ghosts are immune to switch-prevention effects like Shadow Tag, Electrics are completely immune to paralysis, and so forth.
- Mega Evolutions: Certain pokemon can evolve even further. In reality this is more like different forms than legitimate evolutions, as they revert to their original species after the battle ends. Mega evolution requires a specific held item, and you have an option to active the mega evolution while in a battle. What happens depends on the pokemon. Some get new abilities, other get different stats, and some like Mega Ampharos even get a new type. Mega Pokemon are designed to be on par with legendaries (though it's worth noting that some legendaries wind up in Tiers well below Ubers) and you can have only one Mega Pokemon on your team.
- Horde Encounters: Sometimes you fight a whole swarm of wild pokemon at once, typically pokemon you'd expect to operate in a herd mentality (a herd of Tauros and Miltank is the obvious example). Obviously this is be a bit more challenging since you pokemon has to endure several attacks at once.
- You can ride pokemon, which I guess replaces the bike? No idea if this is limited to specific pokemon yet.
- There will be an app called Pokemon Bank, which allows you to store pokemon on Nintendo's servers. It is the largest pokemon storage yet, allowing for 3,000 pokemon to be stored. The catch is that it's a paid service with an annual fee of five bucks, but there will be a month-long free demo when it launches.
- HATS AND CLOTHES. You can buy different outfits for your player character. This is also the first Pokemon game to feature different skin color option for your character.
- Sky Battles: These are optional battles that, at least so far, are like normal battles except only certain pokemon can participate. In a nutshell, if the pokemon's battle model is floating/flying in the air, it can Sky Battle. Yes, this means a Farfetch'd cannot do a Sky Battle. Yes, this is incredibly silly.
- Pokemon-Aime: Feed and play with your pokemon, which increases a new stat called "Affection." High affection gives you bonuses to XP gains, crit chance, evasion, and even perks like surviving a lethal hit or recovering from status effects.
- Super Training: Finally, at long last, proper EV training, complete with ways to track your progress for a particular pokemon. Play minigames to boost those values.
- MORE POKEMANS: around 70 new critters, not counting the 20 or so known mega evolutions.
User @Speed Racer put a lot of time and effort into make a guide for competitive play. It is quite long, so long that I had to make a Google Doc to contain it all!
However, it is well worth reading if you wish to dip your toes into the wild world of pokemon battling against other human beings! While eventually online simulators will update for fast and easy Gen VI fighting, there is something warm and fuzzy about taking the time to breed and train team from scratch. I know simulators takes a lot of the bullshit out of it, and that's all well and good, but give the "true" experience a spin. It can actually be pretty engrossing if you really get into. Eventually you'll be eagerly anticipating the third "special edition" of the game just because a move tutor gives your favorite pokemon one awesome move. You might reflect on how this happened, but you'll probably be too busy breeding new gimmick teams to care.
I beat the Elite Four. What now?
Depends on what you want to do. First off, go to Lumiose Station and get your ticket from Sycamore. This will take you to a new post-game city that features the Battle Maison, Friend Safari, and some other TMs from the store. You can then work on your Pokedex and catch as many pokemon as possible, or you can start building a team for fighting. Oh, and buy FABULOUS HATS, I guess.
You can also go catch legendary pokemon. Zygarde is in Terminus cave, and Mewto is in the Unknown Cave (near Pokemon Village). One of the three legendary birds will appear in the wild based on your starter (Chespin/Articuno Froakie/Moltres, Fennekin/Zapdos), but it works different than other legendaries. While they roam in tall grass in a random route, they run away REALLY quickly and the best way to catch one is to encounter it ten times. At this point it will show up in the Spirit Den and will not run away. The other two birds ya gotta trade for (or wait until the Bank is out and transfer 'em).
What should I do for competitive battling?
Read Speed Racer's guide, as it breaks down things nicely.
As for where to start, getting a Battle Maison team is the best bet. This will get you BP which will buy all sorts of useful shit. Your first item should either Power items (useful for EV training if you wanna do it the old way) or something like a Life Orb (which is useful for many pokemon). Keep in mind that a Battle Maison team is different from a competitive multiplayer team. The Battle Maison is a shithold where anything goes: none of the clauses and rules established for competitive multiplayer exists in the Battle Maison. Expect pokemon with evasion up the asshole, and to have your winning streak ended by a one-hit KO move. You'll do much better in the Maison when building your team so long as you remember that it's a place where honor dare not tread, and only the scummiest gang of rogues can survive.
Can you please explain breeding in a huge fuck-off image?
Can do!
Holy shit.
I know, right?
How does Pokemon-Aime work?
You have Affection, Fullness, and Enjoyment. Affection is the thing you're aiming for, as it gives that pokemon boosts to XP gains, crit chance, evasion, and even a chance to gain a focus sash effect at high enough affection. Affection is gained via hearts, which are gained by petting (2-3 hearts), pokepuffs, and random shit like looking at the camera the way your pokemon wants (don't bother, it's a random occurrence and the camera is finicky). The easiest way to gain affection is to play games at the highest difficult to earn pokepuffs. Just do this until the pokemon's enjoyment is maxed, and proceed to stuff the thing full of pokepuffs. Once it's fullness is maxed, you switch to back to games. That's the cycle in a nutshell. The most efficient way to earn puffs is playing the Hard difficulty of whichever game you're best at. In my experience, unlimited has a poor time-to-puffs ratio, even if you're good.
Is Affection the same as happiness?
While the two might be linked, Happiness and Affection are two separate things. Which is...kinda weird, but don't think about it too much.
How do EVs work? IVs?
Speed's competitive guide covers this. The main advice I have is to put 252 in two stats (typically Attack or Special Attack and then Speed; defenses if they're walls) and then 4 points in uh...whatever.
Honestly I would not worry about IVs if you're new to this. Maybe ensure that key stats aren't awful (again, typically attack stats and speed).
What the fuck does this term mean?
Lingo for pokemon
Bulky: A pokemon with higher-than-average defensive stats. This can be a relative term; eg Alakazam wouldn't be considered bulky, but maybe you trained an Alakazam with high defensive stats.
Entry Hazard: Effects that fuck with pokemon when they switch in. Stealth Rock is the biggest one, but (Toxic) Spikes and Sticky Web are others. These are removed by Rapid Spin (clears your side) or Defog (clears both sides).
HM Slave/Mule: A pokemon that can learn multiple HMs, making them useful for getting around the world. Not used to fight much, although they can be useful as they tend to be Water or Normal types and thus get STAB on the better HM moves (Strength and Surf/Waterfall)
Parafusion: Confusing and paralyzing a pokemon, leaving them with a very small chance of attacking. Typically forces a switch.
Pseudohaze: Haze is a move that resets stats, effectively clearing buffs and debuffs applied to pokemon. Moves that force a pokemon to switch, like Roar or Whirlwind is called a "pseudohaze" because it effectively does the same thing, as buffs and debuffs clear on switching out.
Spinblocker: A pokemon that prevent Rapid Spin from being used. Always a ghost-type, typically defensively-oriented.
STAB: Same Type Attack Bonus. A pokemon that uses a move that shares type with that pokemon will have its base power increased by 50%.
Suicide Lead: A member of team that goes out first and isn't expected to do much more than set up entry hazards or disrupt/scout the enemy team. Typically fast or possess an ability like Prankster.
Sweeper: A pokemon that, when properly set up, will mow down the enemy team without breaking a sweat. In other words, it "sweeps" your team like a broom.
Wall: Basically the opposite of a sweeper. A tough pokemon with a combination of defensive typing, stats, and moveset that make it hard to KO.
Super Training is confusing! How do I do it?
You can Super Train in two ways: punching bags and training events. Events come in four difficulties for each of the six stats, with the fourth event being unlocked when a pokemon completes its training. Harder events award more EVs, but they can be difficult or even impossible for untrained pokemon. As a pokemon gains EVs, they get better at events, so the quickest (but expensive) route is to pump a pokemon full of vitamins and then jump into the harder events. The fourth difficulty tier of events does not award EVs (because the pokemon has maxed EVs), but has a chance at giving you an item (includes evolutionary stones). All events can award punching bags.
The second way is punching bag, which is a quick boost to stats that is also semi-automated. There are three bag sizes that will provide EVs for a stat (small = 1 EV, medium = 4, large =12), and you tap them to get the Pokemon to bop it. After a number of taps (not many, even a large bag takes under 20 seconds), the pokemon will destroy the bag with a finishing move and gain the benefits of the bag. The pokemon, if left unaided by the player, will slowly hit the bag on its own. If it accumulates enough hits, an exclamation mark will appear above its head, meaning the pokemon is one tap away from finishing off the punching bag. There are also other punching bags with different effects, mostly ones that enhance your pokemon's ability to do events. These tend to be fairly useless with the exception of the x2 multipler to EVs you get from the event. There's also a white bag that will wipe a pokemon's EVs entirely. Useful!
You can get punching bags from events (as I said earlier) and from pokemon. When a pokemon has a happy face while training on the default generic punching bag, you can tap to find more bags (a pokemon can also find bags on its own, but it takes longer). After a duration, some pokemon will fall on their side, and they won't train. One tap will right them, and they'll be in a happy state. Hooray!
Where is Rock Smash?
Ambrette Town, outside near the aquarium.
What HMs do I need to beat the game?
From what I remember: surf, strength, and cut. You also might want a pokemon with fly, obviously.
However, Rock Smash will get you a lot of TMs that can prove useful. Ditto with Waterfall (which is a good move in its own right anyhow)
LUMIOSE CITY IS THE FUCKING DEVIL.
This isn't a question, but I feel ya. Poke Paris is pretty goddamn shitty, especially for the major city of a pokemon game. Try this map.
What are some useful websites?
Note: Due to the difficulty in hacking X/Y AND a worldwide release, non-Japanese players have never gone into a generation so blindly. Information is spotty and still in-progress, but it's getting there.
Global Link Site: A fancy Nintendo site that has a load of features if you sync your game with it (press the gray button at the top of the PSS screen).
Bulpedia: Basically the biggest load of ANY kind of pokemon information on the internet.
Serebii.net: I don't really like the Serebii guy, but it's a good source of information and is another alternate pokedex should others be down.
Smogon: The site for competitive multiplayer. Has tier listings as well as decent articles and information on how to begin assembling a team. Also has individual critques of each pokemon's competitive capabilities, complete with some suggested movelists.
Pokemon Showdown: A very popular battle simulator complete with features like replays. It actually has a really nice, clean pokedex if you need one. Not updated for Gen VI yet.
If you wish to be added, please PM or @ me in the thread.
Bold is a Friend Safari with dittos!
The old days of my oppressive list are done! Check out this google doc and edit in your information or whatever.
