This is posted at the request of Archaic who thinks you all need to start online battling. 
1. What is NetBattle and where do I get it?
NetBattle is an online Pokemon Battle simulator! It allows you to make your team, or any team, to your specifications and battle other people online. It is strictly battling and you must input your team when you download it. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, simply transfer your team from your GBA game pak.
Netbattle is NOT illegal. It is not a copy of any ROM data or otherwise. The creator and development team do not make any profit and it has been programmed from scratch to look exactly like a regular link battle. I repeat once more: IT IS NOT ILLEGAL.
www.tvsian.com or www.netbattle.net are the only two sites that have the official Netbattle install files. Both are the same site, which is run by the creator of NetBattle and his development team. Do not download it from anywhere else but these two sites. There are virus infected versions running around.
2. How to make your team
Once you have installed NetBattle and load it up, click the Team Builder link on the main little box that comes up. Next, you will need to switch NetBattle's Team Builder to "Full Advance" Mode, otherwise you will only be able to use the 202 Pokemon that can be obtained in Ruby and Sapphire
Click on the Version menu after the Team Builder has loaded up and select Full Advance. If you wish to make a RBY or GSC team, simply select those modes. You must do this if you wish to play a version prior to RS/FRLG/E otherwise Team Builder will still ask you for EV spreads and the like.
When you have finished switching to Full Advance mode, you can begin to make your team and trainer information.
1. This is the icon that will be displayed beside your name on the Trainer List once you have completed building your team and joined a server to battle. It doesn't matter which one you choose at all, so pick your favorite out of those listed. You cannot have a custom icon as of the current NetBattle version.
2. Your very basic Trainer Information. Your User Name will be the name you are known by and battle as on the servers. Try to be somewhat unique as standard names have already been registered on the bigger servers (Example: Don't try to pick 'Ash' as your trainer name because there is a good chance that is taken). Remember that password you were asked to pick? Well, whenever you join a server if the name is unregistered it will automatically register with that password. The password is saved by NetBattle so you don't have to enter it at all. If you get a message when joining a server that the passwords don't match, simply change your User Name to something more unique and try again.
Graphics is what your team will look like to the people you battle and what you will see yourself. From Japanese Green to the new Emerald graphics, all of the generations are there. If, say, you pick RBY graphics and use a Raikou on your team, Raikou will be shown in it's earliest form, which is its GSC sprite.
Extra Info is where Trainers normally put their preferences such as No Ubers, Unrated Only and No 2v2. These are just some of the common ones. Try to keep your rules to a minimum, because people don't like seeing a huge list of restrictions when looking for fun battles.
3. These are automated win and loss messages. If you win, your win message will be displayed and vice versa with your loss message.
4. These are your Pokemon Storage Boxes, though you do not need to use them. I'll discuss them in a second or two.
When you have finished entering all your Trainer information, you can begin building your team.
1. This is where you select your Pokemon. You can either try to find it on the list or simply begin typing it's name and it'll auto search for you. When there is a valid name entered, such as Salamence, click the 'Switch' button right next to the box to bring it up. You need to do this, obviously. Your Nickname will automatically be the name name of the Pokemon species as it is in the actual game. Feel free to change it, of course, and be creative. NetBattle allows much longer Nicknames than the actual game does for creativity reasons.
2. After clicking the Expert Button you can change all your Natures, EVs, IVs and Hidden Power types. I'll explain that screen after I finish with general team creation.
3. This is where you select moves. Feel free to scroll down the list and check off the moves you would like, or simply begin typing them into the boxes provided below as they use the same auto-complete system as the Pokemon species box.
4. The arrow pointing to the left will replace the current Pokemon entirely with what you have selected in your box. The arrow pointing to the right will copy your current pokemon entirely and place it into the box. It will still be on the current team. This Box feature is handy for saving Pokemon that you would use on many different teams or when you don't want to keep creating the same Pokemon over and over.
Now, it's time to discuss the Expert Button and window.
Once you click the Expert Button, this window will pop up.
1. This is where you can change your IVs. It is advised that you leave them all at 31 unless you are using Hidden Power as everyone else will anyways.
2. Select the Nature you want by using the Drop down menu. You can see how when I selected Adamant, to the left it showed which stats were upped and you can check how many actual stat points they were upped by. It is advised that you leave level at 100. You can also select the correct trait if the Pokemon in question can have more than one as well as set the correct gender and, if you want, you have the option of using a shiny sprite. Simply scroll down the list to get the correct Hidden Power type and it will change your IVs so that you can have a 70 power HP.
3. Simply slide the bars around to set your EVs. It is advised that you click the Snap check box below to make sure that all your EVs are divisible by 4.
4. Always keep Snap checked. Clear EVs wipes the board, Unlock all makes them all slide, but this is bad. Keep everything Locked so that NetBattle doesn't try to change EVs as you're sliding.
5. This feature allows you to save EV spreads, but it is rather useless as it only takes seconds to make and you can save the entire Pokemon anyways using the Box system.
Repeat this process 5 more times and you're ready to battle. Save your team using the Save button. It will auto-load every time you load NetBattle, now. Click Done and get back to the main menu. If you have a team of 6 Pokemon completed correctly the Battle button should be active.
A list of all currently active servers will be shown as well as how many trainers are on each one at the given time. Normally English speakers play on Smogon and the second ranked server is for Portuguese speaking players from South America. I myself play on Smogon, obviously.
Simply highlight the server you want to join and click the 'Connect!' button.
You will see this, basically, when you sign on. When viewing the server list any user with a * after their name is a Moderator. These people can kick and Temp Ban people for up to a maximum of 24 hours (1440 Minutes).
Users with ** after their name are Administrators. These people have the same powers as Moderators, but can also SID (permanently) ban troublesome users. As you can see, I am an Administrator for the Smogon server.
You can also chat with everyone on the main server using the text box.
1. When a person is hiding their team from view and they have Ubers on their team, the number they use will be displayed in this area. Make sure you watch for this as 95% of users hide their teams. You can do this from the main menu, in the options.
2. This shows what their team is. As you can see, my team is Advance+ which means I can use all 386 Pokemon. If there is a picture of a RBY cartridge, please do not challenge them with your Advance teams as it will only allow Challenge Cup (random) battles. This is very annoying so respect people's wishes. 95% of people play Advance+ so this shouldn't come up very often.
3. Speed is your latency (lag) to the server. Any number under 300 is good and standard for broadband internet. The Smogon server is on a T1 connection, so chances are it's you and not the server if you are experiencing heavy lag. Users that max out at 9999 are under extreme lag and should not be battled because it will take forever. This only seems to happen with dialup users from countries on the other side of the world, like China.
4. The 'Estimated Power' of your team is basically pointless. More standard Pokemon will warrant a higher power. Don't judge a team by it's power though.
5. Your battle record. If you continually battle with unrated, your wins and losses will not be counted. Ties only happen when two users agree to call a match a draw. Disconnects and when you close the NetBattle client in the middle of a rated battle or if your connection disconnects. DO NOT DISCONNECT FROM THE SERVER WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE. YOU WILL BE BANNED. It is very annoying when people disconnect to avoid losses.
6. The selected battle mode. You can select through tons of modes, such as Advance Mode (which is single battle 6 on 6, the standard), Advance Double Battle and even challenge cups. If your team is legal in RBY (use RBY mode to make your teams) you will be able to select from RBY Standard and so on.
7. The Terrain that the battle will be taking place on. This feature is only there due to moves like Secret Power. It rarely matters what the terrain is. In fact, it never matters since no one should use Secret Power, ever.
8. You may select what rules you wish to play with. A quick rundown for those unfamiliar:
Sleep Clause: You may only put one of your opponents Pokemon to sleep at a time. When your opponent uses Rest, this does not matter. You have to induce the sleep, not them. If you put a Pokemon to sleep and they switch, and you continue trying to use sleep moves, they will always fail. This rule is enforced on Smogon which means you will not be able to unselect it.
Freeze Clause: Same thing as Sleep Clause, but for freezing.
Self-KO Clause: You cannot use Explosion, Selfdestruct, Destiny Bond or Momento with your last Pokemon. This is mainly used in Tournaments to prevent people from exploding with their final Pokemon to create a draw situation.
Apply PP Ups: Pretty straight forward. All moves on all Pokemon for both trainers will have the max possible PP.
Stadium Mode: This means you will see your opponents 6 Pokemon and pick 3 to use in that battle. Exactly like Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Colosseum.
Level Balance: This means that all the stats are balanced. To explain this more, it means that weak Pokemon such as Sunkern will be at around level 102 while legendaries like Mewtwo will be at level 55. It's a really weird mode and not used too often.
Battle Timeout: This is also enforced on Smogon. If you do not make a move in under 5 minutes you will lose the battle. This is to prevent people from stalling out when they're about to lose.
Unrated: The battle will not count towards your Battle record.
Show Enemy HP: This means you can see the exact number of HP your opponents' Pokemon will have.
Disallow Spectators: Regular users cannot watch your battle. Moderators and Admins can still view your battle for moderator purposes.
Use Stadium Present: This only matters in GSC battles. Present was glitched badly on the GSC ROMs. Basically a level 5 Chansey with Present could OHKO and level 100 Umbreon. It was fixed in Stadium 2, hence 'Stadium Present'.
Click challenge after you have set your rules and battle modes. Sometimes you will get a message saying that the player cannot be challenged at this time. This means that one of the following situations is true: They are in a battle. They have a challenge window open. They are viewing team builder.
If you get challenged and you don't have a challenge window up, it will pop up. MAKE SURE YOU LOOK OVER THE BATTLE MODE AND RULES BEFORE ACCEPTING. When two people agree to battle, the battle window will come up. It looks like this:
You can chat in the chat window, which also shows you what is going on.
1. The Pokemon tab. Click this to see your team and do your switching.
2. Your move window. This gets replaced when you click the Pokemon tab, but you can highlight the move you want and click Attack! to send the command. Alternately, you can double click the move you wish to use instead of highlighting and clicking the button for speed issues.
Phew! There you have it. That's a simplistic NetBattle FAQ for all you people that don't know already and for those of you who've thought of getting it, but aren't sure what to do!
If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me or simply ask in this thread. It would be helpful to the Pokemon forum if you posted all NetBattle Battle Logs in this topic as well since I am sure you've all noticed the increase in spam recently.
-skarm
1. What is NetBattle and where do I get it?
NetBattle is an online Pokemon Battle simulator! It allows you to make your team, or any team, to your specifications and battle other people online. It is strictly battling and you must input your team when you download it. You cannot, I repeat, cannot, simply transfer your team from your GBA game pak.
Netbattle is NOT illegal. It is not a copy of any ROM data or otherwise. The creator and development team do not make any profit and it has been programmed from scratch to look exactly like a regular link battle. I repeat once more: IT IS NOT ILLEGAL.
www.tvsian.com or www.netbattle.net are the only two sites that have the official Netbattle install files. Both are the same site, which is run by the creator of NetBattle and his development team. Do not download it from anywhere else but these two sites. There are virus infected versions running around.
2. How to make your team
Once you have installed NetBattle and load it up, click the Team Builder link on the main little box that comes up. Next, you will need to switch NetBattle's Team Builder to "Full Advance" Mode, otherwise you will only be able to use the 202 Pokemon that can be obtained in Ruby and Sapphire
Click on the Version menu after the Team Builder has loaded up and select Full Advance. If you wish to make a RBY or GSC team, simply select those modes. You must do this if you wish to play a version prior to RS/FRLG/E otherwise Team Builder will still ask you for EV spreads and the like.
When you have finished switching to Full Advance mode, you can begin to make your team and trainer information.
1. This is the icon that will be displayed beside your name on the Trainer List once you have completed building your team and joined a server to battle. It doesn't matter which one you choose at all, so pick your favorite out of those listed. You cannot have a custom icon as of the current NetBattle version.
2. Your very basic Trainer Information. Your User Name will be the name you are known by and battle as on the servers. Try to be somewhat unique as standard names have already been registered on the bigger servers (Example: Don't try to pick 'Ash' as your trainer name because there is a good chance that is taken). Remember that password you were asked to pick? Well, whenever you join a server if the name is unregistered it will automatically register with that password. The password is saved by NetBattle so you don't have to enter it at all. If you get a message when joining a server that the passwords don't match, simply change your User Name to something more unique and try again.
Graphics is what your team will look like to the people you battle and what you will see yourself. From Japanese Green to the new Emerald graphics, all of the generations are there. If, say, you pick RBY graphics and use a Raikou on your team, Raikou will be shown in it's earliest form, which is its GSC sprite.
Extra Info is where Trainers normally put their preferences such as No Ubers, Unrated Only and No 2v2. These are just some of the common ones. Try to keep your rules to a minimum, because people don't like seeing a huge list of restrictions when looking for fun battles.
3. These are automated win and loss messages. If you win, your win message will be displayed and vice versa with your loss message.
4. These are your Pokemon Storage Boxes, though you do not need to use them. I'll discuss them in a second or two.
When you have finished entering all your Trainer information, you can begin building your team.
1. This is where you select your Pokemon. You can either try to find it on the list or simply begin typing it's name and it'll auto search for you. When there is a valid name entered, such as Salamence, click the 'Switch' button right next to the box to bring it up. You need to do this, obviously. Your Nickname will automatically be the name name of the Pokemon species as it is in the actual game. Feel free to change it, of course, and be creative. NetBattle allows much longer Nicknames than the actual game does for creativity reasons.
2. After clicking the Expert Button you can change all your Natures, EVs, IVs and Hidden Power types. I'll explain that screen after I finish with general team creation.
3. This is where you select moves. Feel free to scroll down the list and check off the moves you would like, or simply begin typing them into the boxes provided below as they use the same auto-complete system as the Pokemon species box.
4. The arrow pointing to the left will replace the current Pokemon entirely with what you have selected in your box. The arrow pointing to the right will copy your current pokemon entirely and place it into the box. It will still be on the current team. This Box feature is handy for saving Pokemon that you would use on many different teams or when you don't want to keep creating the same Pokemon over and over.
Now, it's time to discuss the Expert Button and window.
Once you click the Expert Button, this window will pop up.
1. This is where you can change your IVs. It is advised that you leave them all at 31 unless you are using Hidden Power as everyone else will anyways.
2. Select the Nature you want by using the Drop down menu. You can see how when I selected Adamant, to the left it showed which stats were upped and you can check how many actual stat points they were upped by. It is advised that you leave level at 100. You can also select the correct trait if the Pokemon in question can have more than one as well as set the correct gender and, if you want, you have the option of using a shiny sprite. Simply scroll down the list to get the correct Hidden Power type and it will change your IVs so that you can have a 70 power HP.
3. Simply slide the bars around to set your EVs. It is advised that you click the Snap check box below to make sure that all your EVs are divisible by 4.
4. Always keep Snap checked. Clear EVs wipes the board, Unlock all makes them all slide, but this is bad. Keep everything Locked so that NetBattle doesn't try to change EVs as you're sliding.
5. This feature allows you to save EV spreads, but it is rather useless as it only takes seconds to make and you can save the entire Pokemon anyways using the Box system.
Repeat this process 5 more times and you're ready to battle. Save your team using the Save button. It will auto-load every time you load NetBattle, now. Click Done and get back to the main menu. If you have a team of 6 Pokemon completed correctly the Battle button should be active.
A list of all currently active servers will be shown as well as how many trainers are on each one at the given time. Normally English speakers play on Smogon and the second ranked server is for Portuguese speaking players from South America. I myself play on Smogon, obviously.
Simply highlight the server you want to join and click the 'Connect!' button.
You will see this, basically, when you sign on. When viewing the server list any user with a * after their name is a Moderator. These people can kick and Temp Ban people for up to a maximum of 24 hours (1440 Minutes).
Users with ** after their name are Administrators. These people have the same powers as Moderators, but can also SID (permanently) ban troublesome users. As you can see, I am an Administrator for the Smogon server.
You can also chat with everyone on the main server using the text box.
1. When a person is hiding their team from view and they have Ubers on their team, the number they use will be displayed in this area. Make sure you watch for this as 95% of users hide their teams. You can do this from the main menu, in the options.
2. This shows what their team is. As you can see, my team is Advance+ which means I can use all 386 Pokemon. If there is a picture of a RBY cartridge, please do not challenge them with your Advance teams as it will only allow Challenge Cup (random) battles. This is very annoying so respect people's wishes. 95% of people play Advance+ so this shouldn't come up very often.
3. Speed is your latency (lag) to the server. Any number under 300 is good and standard for broadband internet. The Smogon server is on a T1 connection, so chances are it's you and not the server if you are experiencing heavy lag. Users that max out at 9999 are under extreme lag and should not be battled because it will take forever. This only seems to happen with dialup users from countries on the other side of the world, like China.
4. The 'Estimated Power' of your team is basically pointless. More standard Pokemon will warrant a higher power. Don't judge a team by it's power though.
5. Your battle record. If you continually battle with unrated, your wins and losses will not be counted. Ties only happen when two users agree to call a match a draw. Disconnects and when you close the NetBattle client in the middle of a rated battle or if your connection disconnects. DO NOT DISCONNECT FROM THE SERVER WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE. YOU WILL BE BANNED. It is very annoying when people disconnect to avoid losses.
6. The selected battle mode. You can select through tons of modes, such as Advance Mode (which is single battle 6 on 6, the standard), Advance Double Battle and even challenge cups. If your team is legal in RBY (use RBY mode to make your teams) you will be able to select from RBY Standard and so on.
7. The Terrain that the battle will be taking place on. This feature is only there due to moves like Secret Power. It rarely matters what the terrain is. In fact, it never matters since no one should use Secret Power, ever.
8. You may select what rules you wish to play with. A quick rundown for those unfamiliar:
Sleep Clause: You may only put one of your opponents Pokemon to sleep at a time. When your opponent uses Rest, this does not matter. You have to induce the sleep, not them. If you put a Pokemon to sleep and they switch, and you continue trying to use sleep moves, they will always fail. This rule is enforced on Smogon which means you will not be able to unselect it.
Freeze Clause: Same thing as Sleep Clause, but for freezing.
Self-KO Clause: You cannot use Explosion, Selfdestruct, Destiny Bond or Momento with your last Pokemon. This is mainly used in Tournaments to prevent people from exploding with their final Pokemon to create a draw situation.
Apply PP Ups: Pretty straight forward. All moves on all Pokemon for both trainers will have the max possible PP.
Stadium Mode: This means you will see your opponents 6 Pokemon and pick 3 to use in that battle. Exactly like Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Colosseum.
Level Balance: This means that all the stats are balanced. To explain this more, it means that weak Pokemon such as Sunkern will be at around level 102 while legendaries like Mewtwo will be at level 55. It's a really weird mode and not used too often.
Battle Timeout: This is also enforced on Smogon. If you do not make a move in under 5 minutes you will lose the battle. This is to prevent people from stalling out when they're about to lose.
Unrated: The battle will not count towards your Battle record.
Show Enemy HP: This means you can see the exact number of HP your opponents' Pokemon will have.
Disallow Spectators: Regular users cannot watch your battle. Moderators and Admins can still view your battle for moderator purposes.
Use Stadium Present: This only matters in GSC battles. Present was glitched badly on the GSC ROMs. Basically a level 5 Chansey with Present could OHKO and level 100 Umbreon. It was fixed in Stadium 2, hence 'Stadium Present'.
Click challenge after you have set your rules and battle modes. Sometimes you will get a message saying that the player cannot be challenged at this time. This means that one of the following situations is true: They are in a battle. They have a challenge window open. They are viewing team builder.
If you get challenged and you don't have a challenge window up, it will pop up. MAKE SURE YOU LOOK OVER THE BATTLE MODE AND RULES BEFORE ACCEPTING. When two people agree to battle, the battle window will come up. It looks like this:
You can chat in the chat window, which also shows you what is going on.
1. The Pokemon tab. Click this to see your team and do your switching.
2. Your move window. This gets replaced when you click the Pokemon tab, but you can highlight the move you want and click Attack! to send the command. Alternately, you can double click the move you wish to use instead of highlighting and clicking the button for speed issues.
Phew! There you have it. That's a simplistic NetBattle FAQ for all you people that don't know already and for those of you who've thought of getting it, but aren't sure what to do!
If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me or simply ask in this thread. It would be helpful to the Pokemon forum if you posted all NetBattle Battle Logs in this topic as well since I am sure you've all noticed the increase in spam recently.
-skarm
