+- Pokemon Forever (http://pokemonforever.com)
+-- Forum: POKéMON (http://pokemonforever.com/Forum-POK%C3%A9MON)
+--- Forum: Competitive Pokemon Discussion (http://pokemonforever.com/Forum-Competitive-Pokemon-Discussion)
+---- Forum: Competitive Discussion Archive (http://pokemonforever.com/Forum-Competitive-Discussion-Archive)
+---- Thread: The ABC's of Competitive Pokemon (/Thread-The-ABC-s-of-Competitive-Pokemon)
The ABC's of Competitive Pokemon - Jediverrilli - Oct 5, 2014
The following is a list of terms and abbreviations that are used in the world of competitive pokemon battling. This list is to help those learn the meaning of the many terms involved in the game.
Generations:
RBY (Red, Blue, Yellow)
The first generation of pokemon games. Introduced in 1997 in North America it introduced the world of pokemon to our young hearts and minds.
GSC (Gold, Silver, Crystal)
The second generation, most notable for its splitting of the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense, in addition to adding two new types of Pokemon: Steel and Dark.
RSE (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald
The third generation; it introduced abilities, natures, revamped the IV system, and made stat experience into Effort Values.
DPP (Diamond, Pearl, Platinum)
The fourth generation and it is famous for changing attacking mechanics so that physical and special moves were differentiated individually rather than by their type. It introduced a particularly large number of quality Pokemon by giving many lackluster Pokemon new evolutions, while introducing many new attacks that gave many Pokemon from previous generations a chance to shine.
BW (Black, White)
While it introduced no new (well, known) game mechanincs, it brought with it 155 brand-spanking new Pokemon. It also upgraded a lot of Pokemon through the Dream World, which gave many past Pokemon a second or third ability they previously did not have access to. A new battle mechanic, the Team Preview revolutionized how team leads played out in games.
Commonly Used Roles
All of the definitions of the commonly used roles are listed below, along with an example to gain a better understanding of the definition.
Attacking Lead
A Pokemon in the lead position who attacks immediately and generally does not do any setting up whatsoever.
Baton Passer
A Pokemon who uses Baton Pass to pass the boosts it accumulates through setup moves such as Swords Dance and Agility to a more suitable teammate.
Cleric
A Pokemon who uses Aromatherapy or Heal Bell to cure itself and its team of status.
Dedicated Lead
A Pokemon used mostly or only as a lead, to the general exclusion of the other five team members from the lead role.
Dual Screener
A Pokemon who uses moves like Reflect, Light Screen, and Wish with the intent of passing them to another Pokemon.
Glass Cannon
A Pokemon who has high offensive power but is very defensively frail.
Mixed Sweeper
A sweeper who uses both physical and special offensive moves to do damage. Mixed sweepers are referred to with the Mix prefix.
Phazer / Pseudo-hazer / Shuffler
A Pokemon who uses moves that may force the opponent to switch, such as Roar, Whirlwind, Perish Song, and Yawn.
Pivot (Defensive / Offensive)
A pivot is a Pokemon that is generally only used for switching. Due to good defensive stats and a solid defensive typing, they can usually take little damage as they switch in, and the opposing switch they force allows the player to switch again safely to another Pokemon. An offensive pivot will force a switch by threatening KO on the opponent, thus obtaining momentum, whereas a defensive pivot will be difficult to break past, and thus will slow the opponent's momentum.
Physical Sweeper
A Pokemon who uses physically offensive moves to do damage and bring down an opponent's team. Many carry Attack boosting moves, like Swords Dance or Dragon Dance.
Rapid Spinner / Spinner
A Pokemon who uses Rapid Spin to remove entry hazards.
Revenge Killer
A Pokemon whose main purpose on a team is to revenge kill or trap certain threats, usually those who your team lacks a solid defense against. Generally characterized by high Speed and frailty.
Special Sweeper
A Pokemon who uses specially offensive moves to do damage and bring down an opponent's team. Many carry Special Attack boosting moves, like Nasty Plot or Calm Mind.
Spinblocker
A Ghost-type Pokemon who is used to stop the opponent from using Rapid Spin successfully.
Stallbreaker
A Pokemon that immediately threatens stall not for breaking down walls, rather for preventing the Pokemon commonly found on those teams from executing their standard strategies and thus hindering or entirely shutting down the team's defensive core.
Status Absorber
A Pokemon who can avoid, remove, or use to its advantage one or more status effects, usually by using the RestTalk combination or specific abilities.
Suicide Lead
A lead Pokemon, who usually pack low defenses, that tries to set up entry hazards quickly and prevent opponents from doing the same, usually by Taunt, before dying.
Supporter
A Pokemon who uses non-offensive moves which benefit the team.
Tank
A Pokemon intended to take either physical or special attacks and hit back, but does not have to do so consistently over the entire course of a match.
Trapper
A Pokemon intended to corner the opponent and put them into a "lose-lose" situation, where it is dangerous for them to both switch out or stay in and attack, through the use of moves like Pursuit, Sucker Punch, or the aid of a Choice Scarf.
Utility Pokemon
A Pokemon who is capable of performing a large variety of tasks, and is usually tailored to one specific task that the team requires. Often, this will be because of a combination of good base stats and a wide movepool.
Utility Counter
A defensive Pokemon capable of being tailored to switch in and counter a variety of different threats, but not all at once. Primarily added to a team to counter a specific threat while also dealing with miscellaneous other threats.
Wall
A Pokemon intended to take either physical or special attacks extremely effectively and consistently over the course of a battle.
Wallbreaker
An offensively oriented Pokemon meant specifically for crushing walls rather than sweeping. This is usually done with extra powerful offensive stats and commonly use both physical and special moves in their moveset.
Common Move Combinations/Movesets
BoltBeam
Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Any meshing of Electric- and Ice-type coverage is generally referred to as pseudo-BoltBeam coverage.
ChestoRest
Using a Chesto Berry and Rest in tandem to wake up instantly after using Rest.
EdgeQuake
Stone Edge and Earthquake. Any meshing of Rock- and Ground-type coverage is generally referred to as pseudo-EdgeQuake coverage.
EndFlail
Endure and Flail.
EndRev
Endure and Reversal.
EndSalac
Endure and a Salac Berry.
Paraflinch
Utilizing both paralysis and flinches to keep an enemy Pokémon from being able to attack.
Parafusion
Utilizing both paralysis and confusion to keep an enemy Pokémon from being able to attack.
QuakeEdge
A synonym to EdgeQuake.
RestTalk
Rest and Sleep Talk.
SlideQuake
Rock Slide and Earthquake.
SmashPass
Shell Smash and Baton Pass.
SubCM
Substitute and Calm Mind.
SubPunch
Substitute and Focus Punch.
SubRoost
Substitute and Roost.
SubSalac / SubLiechi / SubPetaya
Substitute and either a Salac Berry, Liechi Berry, or Petaya Berry, respectively.
SubSeed
Substitute and Leech Seed.
SubSplit
Substitute and Pain Split.
Completive Terms/Commonly Used Terms
Auto-Weather
A Pokemon whose ability creates a weather effect, such as sand, rain, hail, or sun, when they are brought into play.
BlizzSpam
Using Abomasnow or Snover to abuse their Snow Warning ability to constantly use 100% accurate Blizzards.
BP
Base Power of a move.
BST
Refers to the total number of a Pokemon's base stats.
Double Dragon
A strategy revolving around using two or even three Pokemon with a similar set of checks. The idea is that while one of the Pokemon can be used to weaken the enemy's checks, the other(s) can power through the weakened checks and sweep.
Dual Screens
Refers to Light Screen and Reflect together.
Entry Hazards
Any of the attacks which deal damage as a Pokemon switches in - Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes.
EV
Effort Values.
The maximum amount of EVs a Pokemon can have in total is 510.
Goodstuff
A VGC term used to describe a team composed of various Pokemon that function effectively on their own, with no set theme.
Hax
An event which has a low probability of happening which critically affects the outcome of a match. Also referred to as luck in general.
HO
HO stands for hyper offense and sometimes for heavy offense, which is the same thing. It's typically used to describe a very offensively oriented team, with only minimal type synergy for defense. Teams usually consist of Pokemon with high Speed and Attack and/or Special Attacks stats and only moderate defenses. Oftentimes, these teams are supplemented with dual screens leads that allow the sweepers to set up multiple times before rampaging through the opposition.
IV
Individual Values.
The highest number of IVs a Pokemon can have in one stat is 31.
LC
Little Cup, a competitive metagame that only allows the usage of Pokemon that are in their most basic form. More information can be found here.
NFE
Not Fully Evolved, a Pokemon that is not in its final evolution stage.
NVE
Not Very Effective, a move that does lower damage due to a Pokemon's resistances.
OHKO
Short for "One-Hit Knockout", though it can also refer to moves that KO the opponent in one hit, such as Sheer Cold and Horn Drill.
OTR
Short for "Offensive Trick Room," which commonly refers to a Pokemon that can set not only set up Trick Room, but also use it to sweep itself, instead of switching out to a teammate to sweep.
Pinch Berry
A stat-boosting Berry that activates when the holder falls below 25% health. Often used in conjunction with Substitute, as Substituting three times activates the Berry if you have an odd HP stat.
The most common Pinch Berries are: Salac (boosts Speed), Petaya (boosts Special Attack), and Liechi (boosts Attack).
Priority
Any attack which will make the user always move first, unless the opposing Pokemon has a higher Speed stat and uses a priority move as well.
Residual Damage
Damage taken by a Pokemon without having been attacked, whether by recoil (Life Orb or otherwise), weather (hail or sandstorm), status effects (poison or burn), and/or entry hazards.
Revenge Kill
KOing an opposing Pokemon immediately after one of your own Pokemon has fainted, therefore avoiding the risk of switching into an attack.
SS
Sandstorm, usually induced by Sand Stream.
STAB
Same Type Attack Bonus, which increases the power of a direct attack by 50% if the one of the user's types is the same as the attack's type.
Team Preview
The screen seen before a match starts that shows the opponent`s pokemon involved in the battle. Introduced in Black and White
VGC
Video Game Championships. The official, Nintendo-sponsored events where players take their own game carts and Pokemon and compete for the title of World Champion in a series of national and international events.
Move and Item Abbreviations
BB
Brick Break or Brave Bird.
BP
Bullet Punch or Baton Pass.
BU
Bulk Up.
CB / Band
Choice Band.
CC
Close Combat in DPP or Cross Chop in ADV.
CM
Calm Mind.
DD
Dragon Dance.
DM
Draco Meteor.
DP
DynamicPunch.
DPulse
Dragon Pulse, though sometimes Dark Pulse depending on context.
EQ
Earthquake.
EP
Earth Power.
ESpeed
ExtremeSpeed.
Evio
Eviolite.
FB
Fire Blast or Focus Blast.
FP
Focus Punch.
GK
Grass Knot.
HP
Hidden Power.
HJK
Hi Jump Kick.
Lefties
Leftovers.
LK
Low Kick or Lovely Kiss in GSC.
LO
Life Orb.
MM
Meteor Mash.
NP
Nasty Plot.
Para
Paralysis.
RD
Rain Dance.
RP
Rock Polish.
RS
Rapid Spin.
Scarf / Scarfed
Choice Scarf.
SD
Swords Dance.
SE
Stone Edge.
SP
Sucker Punch or Superpower.
Specs
Choice Specs.
SR
Stealth Rock.
SToss
Seismic Toss.
Sub
Substitute.
TBolt
Thunderbolt.
TR
Trick Room.
TSpikes
Toxic Spikes.
TWave
Thunder Wave.
WoW / Wisp
Will-O-Wisp.
WW
Whirlwind.