Training Pokemon Y

[Paragon Fury]

You know its kind of sad. I want to play Pokemon Y more....but in order to do more end game content and vs. other players, I'd have to spend more time grinding and training than I do in WoW in order to get even a half competitive team that wouldn't get totally wiped.

Its kind of funny when you think about it. Billed as a kids game; requires just as much effort if not more than a major MMO to get the most out of.

To wit; to get a semi-competitive Gardevoir I'd have to spend hours trying to breed a Female Ralts with the right egg moves, a good nature and at least decent IVs then get the right EVs trained into her and then level her and grind out the end game to buy the TMs needed to finish her off. And I'd have to do this 5 more times for 5 other Pokemon.

Just a tiny bit daunting when you stop to think about it.

 

[JoJo]

There's some shortcuts one can use but yeah, it does take some dedication to raise a team. I've got about 12 fully trained pokemon in my team which I raised last year, breeding for perfect IVs was the most painful part I found. If you're looking for a place to get some breeding cast-offs to speed up your training, I can't recommend this place enough:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Pokemongiveaway/

 

[Euryalus]

IV breeding is bullshit. I really wish they would just take it out and add something less time consuming. I still need 2 pokemon for my 6 pokemon team and I've basically given up. I just don't care to grind anymore you know?

 

[Paragon Fury]

In order to make my team complete, with alternates I'd need to repeat the process for:

Female Gardevoir
Kingler
Tyhplosion
Steelix
Weavile
Jolteon
Toxicroak
Tyrantrum


That'll take a long time.

 

[Leemaster777]

I'd actually say that building a competitive team has never been easier.

With the Destiny Knot and Everstone, passing on natures and good IVs are much easier. Horde battles make EV training quick as hell (as long as you're willing to put in some initial legwork to make it easy every time). The Super Training screen makes telling how close you are to maxing out your EVs simple. And obtaining good breeding subjects is criminally easy, between the Friend Safari and Wonder Trade. And hell, anyone that breeds regularly almost certainly has some breeding rejects lying around that they'll happily give you.

Let me put it like this. Until this generation, I never bothered with IV training. Ever. But with how easy it's become, I finally took the plunge, and it wasn't really that bad.

Really, the hard part isn't getting good Pokemon anymore. It's ACTUALLY becoming a good online player. Learning good prediction skills, keeping up with current teambuilding trends to know how to counter them, and successfully crafting a team with as few weaknesses as possible is where the TRUE difficulty lies.

 

[Guffe]

I never bothered with competitive Pokemon.
The closest I have done pokemon in not just doing the story mode is "become a gym leader" just using one type with 1 pokemon being another type, and the Nuzlock(?) challenge. Then again I haven'y played the games since gen III which is a shame... They seem so good, but you'd need the right machine to play :/
Waiting for them to be transfered to the WiiU

 

[Avalanche91]

I still don't pay much attention to IV's. Most I do is breed the pokemon I want in the nature I want and have them checked by the judge to see which is best. Getting perfect IV's is just too much of a hassle for me.

Still doing reasonably well. Won a doubles battle against someone opening with a shiny Arceus and a shiny Kyogre using a team of OU's, UU's and even some NU's just moments ago and I was so proud I furiously boasted about it in this comment.

 

[Fractral]

Yeah, breeding for perfect IV's is a hassle. To get my competitive team of 6 pokemon fully bred and trained took around 60 hours in game. I'm glad I did it- if nothing else they wreck everything in unranked- but I don't think I'll be doing any more until I get Alpha Sapphire.

I'd actually say that building a competitive team has never been easier.

With the Destiny Knot and Everstone, passing on natures and good IVs are much easier. Horde battles make EV training quick as hell (as long as you're willing to put in some initial legwork to make it easy every time). The Super Training screen makes telling how close you are to maxing out your EVs simple. And obtaining good breeding subjects is criminally easy, between the Friend Safari and Wonder Trade. And hell, anyone that breeds regularly almost certainly has some breeding rejects lying around that they'll happily give you.

Let me put it like this. Until this generation, I never bothered with IV training. Ever. But with how easy it's become, I finally took the plunge, and it wasn't really that bad.

Really, the hard part isn't getting good Pokemon anymore. It's ACTUALLY becoming a good online player. Learning good prediction skills, keeping up with current teambuilding trends to know how to counter them, and successfully crafting a team with as few weaknesses as possible is where the TRUE difficulty lies.

Quoted for truth. I had a friend who tried to breed the perfect Shiftry on Black; getting 5 perfect IV's required huge amounts of luck and took him hundreds of hours- to put it into perspective, he ended up breeding more shiny pokemon than perfect IV ones. Now, in Generation 6, with a few good Ditto and the right items you can breed a perfect IV pokemon in a (long) day.
I still can't play ranked online; my prediction skills are abysmal and my team outdated (not to mention banned under smogon rules). Beating up the newbs who decided to try free battles is about all I can manage.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

I recently built a new team of 6 from scratch for VGC, all 3-5 perfect IVS with egg moves and natures etc. I even MM farmed for a shiny for one of them.

Including the shiny, it took 15-20 hours. Piece of cake compared to wow grinding, which I've been doing this week.

 

[Goliath100]

It always bother me that people are complaining about IVs. Mostly because the argument always boils down to an lazy, entitled attitude. Namely that they shouldn't need to put in any work into their team.

 

[Paragon Fury]

When you've got luck like mine, getting IVs that don't suck is a massive undertaking.