Differences between Gym and Contest Styles

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So I've been curious about this for a while, but what do people perceive the differences to be between Gym battlers and Contest battlers? It's been hinted at a few times in the anime that there are differences but nothing explicit has ever been stated.

I'll post my own thoughts on this topic later on because I want to hear what other people have in mind first.
 
Well generally in Gym battles you're just going for the KO, in Contests you try to take out their points OR go for the KO.

The funny thing is so many Contests end with a KO that they generally feel like regular battles. Most of May's Contest ended with her completely KOing the other Pokemon entirely, which I suppose makes sense since the writers told us she was using Ash's battle style in all her Contests.

Some coordinators like Zoey do battle differently though, and I think Sinnoh coordinators make more of an emphasis on their appearance than others.
 
Certainly true to some extent. It's really nice to see Hikari developing her own style of battling instead of copying Satoshi's.

Though I think the differences run deeper than that. Contests require alot of preparation in terms of style and uniqueness - Coordinators spend most of their time coming up with unique and pretty variations of moves. Style's most important if they want to pass the preliminary rounds. As for battling, having both points and a time-limit means that Pokemon don't inherently need alot of power to compete - they can win simply by being defensive and utilizing moves smartly. Efficiency is also required in that a wasted movement or attack is a waste of time and points.

Gyms require more power and less finesse. Strategy obviously plays a role too, but being strong and tough enough is important. Battles also tend to be longer because win by KO is required.

Obviously you can use aspects of one style to help fortify the other, but there will be limited success - toughness, for example, means relatively little in the Contest Arena if they're down on points in the end. It also partially explains why Hikari may have been defeated by Sumomo with relatively little difficulty and why Satoshi, a clearly more experienced trainer, fell to Nozomi during his contest appearance.
 
Yeah, most of what you said is true.

What I want to know is, do the writers forget their own rules sometimes? There are some Contest battles, if you ignore the point bar and audience...looks just like a regular battle.

Do you think even they ignore the distinction sometimes?
 
I think that part of the problem is that Contests weren't actually made distinctive until midway through Hoenn. Up to that point, the writers treated them like regular battles, albeit with an appeal round at the beginning. It wasn't until much later that Contest battles were made less about hitting the opponent, and more about turning the opponent's attack against them. Sinnoh has been handled much better in this regard than Hoenn, or even Battle Frontier were.

It didn't help that May, who had a more gym-like approach to battling than Contest-style was who we saw the most of in Contests.
 
Matkin22 said:
I think that part of the problem is that Contests weren't actually made distinctive until midway through Hoenn. Up to that point, the writers treated them like regular battles, albeit with an appeal round at the beginning. It wasn't until much later that Contest battles were made less about hitting the opponent, and more about turning the opponent's attack against them. Sinnoh has been handled much better in this regard than Hoenn, or even Battle Frontier were.

It didn't help that May, who had a more gym-like approach to battling than Contest-style was who we saw the most of in Contests.
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Agreed.

The introduction of contests were done with Haruka in mind and alot of the style at the time seemed to be mostly focused on the Appeals. Which are cool, don't get me wrong, but they don't make contests that different. If anything, just having the appeals sort of weakens it since the battles are one on one, which causes underusage of certain Pokes, and they use the same one throughout the bracket. Up through AG there was alot of Haruka simply ignoring the stylistic portion of the battles and plowing on through, using power to overwhelm her opponents. Which worked to some degree but failed her against more skilled coodinators. Actually, Haruka could've used a few more solid rivals throughout AG to help facilitate usage of style in her battle tactics.

Shinou has been much different. Hikari's losses have shown us, I think, that she's not focused enough on the stylistic element (perhaps why she lost at the appeal round) and definitely needs more training (we've seen plenty of Satoshi training but no Hikari. What's it gonna take?)
 
Dawn was actually doing more Contest training early on in D/P than she is now. The weird thing is she practiced appeals that she never used (like the Buizel frozen in ice appeal from the Zoey/Shellos episode), and as far as I remember, she never used Piplup's Bubblebeam appeal from D/P 7, either, did she?

I think Dawn's problem is she practices things but never fully uses them in her Contests, and then does something stupid like Ambipom's Swift attack that she did not practice at all and then she wonders why she screwed up.
 
Matkin22 said:
I think that part of the problem is that Contests weren't actually made distinctive until midway through Hoenn. Up to that point, the writers treated them like regular battles, albeit with an appeal round at the beginning. It wasn't until much later that Contest battles were made less about hitting the opponent, and more about turning the opponent's attack against them. Sinnoh has been handled much better in this regard than Hoenn, or even Battle Frontier were.
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I don't know.... I mean, Grace seemed to pull it off pretty well, even if her battle against Haruka ended with her getting KOed (I forget if there was a KO when she battled Shuu).
 
The Grace Contest is the first one that tried to explain the difference between battles. Drew and Ash had a battle just to prove just that as well.

Come to think of it, more Contests did tend to end in KO'd than points.
 
I think it's more of a difference in how you raise your pokemon than the actually gyms and contest. With contest youu have to have a mixed team. Some pokemon fit more for the appeals, while the other more for the battles. With gyms you just have to focus on how to make your pokemone stronger. The two have one huge similarity through all there obvious differences many pointed out. Tactic. In both contest and gym battles it is relevant for the trainer to have good tactics and strategy to counter opponents and make attack combinations. That aspect is highly stressed throught the series, which is why the differences in the two are not as blatant as they should be.
 
In battle, it's all about who is standing when the dust settles, even if both sides look like survivors in a train wreck. That will not cut the mustard in contests. One side has to look good, the other has to pale in comparison.

After all, you don't see Ash's power battlers trying to score quick KOs in contests, right?
 
kelvSYC said:
After all, you don't see Ash's power battlers trying to score quick KOs in contests, right?
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Arguably the only "power battler" Ash used in a contest battle round was Sceptile. I'd have to say that battle against May's Blaziken was more about strength than technique.
 
Anyone think Kenny is a "power battler?"

All his Pokemon are evolved forms, which is unusual. I know Drew/Harley used evo's too, but it seems to me Kenny is going for pure power.
 
Scott85 said:
Anyone think Kenny is a "power battler?"

All his Pokemon are evolved forms, which is unusual. I know Drew/Harley used evo's too, but it seems to me Kenny is going for pure power.
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This might do something with my speculation that Kenny has something with gyms
 
I mean, power battling could potentially win the contest. Swellow (as a Taillow) was said to have "natural contest talent" in one episode. Still, I'll stand by "Win" vs "Win Pretty".

I'd like to see a contest battle where the judges decide that the KOed Pokémon won because the other Pokémon got the KO in a profoundly "ugly" way (say, the attack lost them all of their points just as the blow landed or something).
 
Scott85 said:
I doubt that. He's just trying to impress Dawn.
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But you have to note how Ash had to show his badges to Zoey without any interest from her to see them and compared to that Kenny told Ash to show him his badges
And Kenny thought it's cool Dawn met Cynthia
And Dawn said in the first Kenny contest that it seems weird that he likes contests so much or something like that
Also how could it be Kenny had Prinplup at his first contest? (we see that at Kenny's flashback to his first contest) maybe he tried gyms first than decided to do contests around the same time Dawn started?
I think it's likely with all that gyms/contests thing... but we'll see
 
He might be more battle oriented I assume, or his Pokemon just evolve quickly. I think if Kenny was doing Gyms he would have said so in his previous appearances.
 
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