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i poked around and didn't see a thread pertaining to the ranked battles/PVP in this game so i figured i'd make one! :0
edit dec 9th: the DLC spoiler embargo applies to this thread! any new (or newly returning) pokemon or their megas should be kept in spoilers until december 23rd as per our forum's spoiler policy.
first off, a rundown of the PVP system in this game for anyone who needs it:
and now my original comments after Z-A first came out lol:
anyway! how are you all feeling about the new battle system in the context of battling others? have you battled your friends yet or taken on the ranked ladder to get the greninjite for the current season at the time of writing? have you put together any fun movesets or teams? i'm actually still putting together my first online battling team (i'm trying to use my playthrough flareon even though i know it's not the best pokemon in the world just because i want to lol), so i haven't gone up the ranks yet, but i've heard from others that getting to the necessary rank K for the mega stone actually isn't too bad/is pretty casual and fun, so that's good even if you aren't super great at the game. discuss :3
update: i altered some of the information in this post to reflect the changes to the rewards table and laddering as of season 2.
update 2: i updated this post to have links to a z-a damage calculator and a speed breakpoint calculator, as well as changing some of the wording to future-proof when new ranked seasons happen. might have to do a big update again after the DLC though...
edit dec 9th: the DLC spoiler embargo applies to this thread! any new (or newly returning) pokemon or their megas should be kept in spoilers until december 23rd as per our forum's spoiler policy.
first off, a rundown of the PVP system in this game for anyone who needs it:
in link battles, up to four players including yourself can participate. the person who takes the most KOs in a match is the winner. it's sort of a spiritual successor to the battle royals in SM/USUM but a looot has changed!
for a typical link battle, you bring a total of 3 pokemon to the match. all of them are automatically set to level 50, and no repeat species or hold items are allowed on the same team. when any one of your pokemon faints, you get temporarily knocked out of the match and have to wait to respawn. you can switch pokemon up to 3 times but no more before fainting, so you have to think about when and why you are switching to not waste any switches. once a pokemon of yours faints and you get temporarily knocked out, your whole team is healed and the switch limitations are reset when you respawn. rinse and repeat until the 3 minute long match is over! when the match is over, the player with the most points (AKA with the most KOs) will win. ties are treated as all players in the tie winning with the same ranking (so if there is a 3 way tie for first place at 5 KOs for example, all three players will be considered to have won first place)
there are also items scattered about the battlefield including green healing items, red attack/special attack buffs, blue defense/special defense buffs, and mega power orbs. trainer health is not a concern and you do not personally take damage as the trainer by opponent attacks, similar to in-game trainer battles and not wild battles.
when doing ranked battles, you will ascend letters Z-A just like in the in-game battle royale. unlike SV and SWSH's system which involved getting streaks of win to climb the ranks, climbing the letter ranks in Z-A is based on points. for first place, you get 30 points. for second, you get 20 points. for third, you get 10 points. for fourth, you get 0 points. however, there is more to earning points than getting KOs and placing well overall in the battle; you also get various bonus points for doing different things during the match. you can easily view a table of these bonus points on serebii. once you go up a letter rank, you cannot drop back down. you will earn any rank-up bonuses instantly upon ranking up instead of at the end of the season, including mega stones. the pokemon allowed on the ranked ladder may change between seasons.
private battles do not interact with the ranking system but let you open up a private battle room that your friends can join via link code, similar to how you join union circles or tera raids in SV. when doing private battles with friends, there are effectively three different ruleset options instead of just the one for ranked. "normal rules" which are the rules used for ranked, "casual rules" which allow a single special pokemon, and "no restrictions" which do not set levels automatically to 50 and have 0 restrictions on duplicate pokemon or hold items. both normal and casual rules have 3 pokemon and 6 pokemon variations, but no restrictions only has a 6 pokemon variation.
in your PC, you can press X twice to toggle to your battle teams and drop the pokemon you want to battle with in there for quick and easy access in both ranked and private battles.
for a typical link battle, you bring a total of 3 pokemon to the match. all of them are automatically set to level 50, and no repeat species or hold items are allowed on the same team. when any one of your pokemon faints, you get temporarily knocked out of the match and have to wait to respawn. you can switch pokemon up to 3 times but no more before fainting, so you have to think about when and why you are switching to not waste any switches. once a pokemon of yours faints and you get temporarily knocked out, your whole team is healed and the switch limitations are reset when you respawn. rinse and repeat until the 3 minute long match is over! when the match is over, the player with the most points (AKA with the most KOs) will win. ties are treated as all players in the tie winning with the same ranking (so if there is a 3 way tie for first place at 5 KOs for example, all three players will be considered to have won first place)
there are also items scattered about the battlefield including green healing items, red attack/special attack buffs, blue defense/special defense buffs, and mega power orbs. trainer health is not a concern and you do not personally take damage as the trainer by opponent attacks, similar to in-game trainer battles and not wild battles.
when doing ranked battles, you will ascend letters Z-A just like in the in-game battle royale. unlike SV and SWSH's system which involved getting streaks of win to climb the ranks, climbing the letter ranks in Z-A is based on points. for first place, you get 30 points. for second, you get 20 points. for third, you get 10 points. for fourth, you get 0 points. however, there is more to earning points than getting KOs and placing well overall in the battle; you also get various bonus points for doing different things during the match. you can easily view a table of these bonus points on serebii. once you go up a letter rank, you cannot drop back down. you will earn any rank-up bonuses instantly upon ranking up instead of at the end of the season, including mega stones. the pokemon allowed on the ranked ladder may change between seasons.
private battles do not interact with the ranking system but let you open up a private battle room that your friends can join via link code, similar to how you join union circles or tera raids in SV. when doing private battles with friends, there are effectively three different ruleset options instead of just the one for ranked. "normal rules" which are the rules used for ranked, "casual rules" which allow a single special pokemon, and "no restrictions" which do not set levels automatically to 50 and have 0 restrictions on duplicate pokemon or hold items. both normal and casual rules have 3 pokemon and 6 pokemon variations, but no restrictions only has a 6 pokemon variation.
in your PC, you can press X twice to toggle to your battle teams and drop the pokemon you want to battle with in there for quick and easy access in both ranked and private battles.
as of season 2, the reward pool for ranked battles has been substantially updated to actually be useful! before, playing more ranked after hitting rank A was practically useless because you'd only earn like, a handful of mega shards between matches, but now playing ranked is a viable way of grinding money, bottle caps, and rare apricorn balls, which is nice because the only other way of doing that in the game is the singleplayer infinite Z-A royale in the postgame.
rewards are based on your placement in a battle (1st/2nd/3rd/4th) and do not change based on letter rank. you can find a list of these rewards on serebii (scroll down). you are heavily incentivized to win 1st place which has a whopping 49% chance of dropping some kind of apriball and a 40% chance of dropping a couple bottle caps or a gold bottle cap, but 2nd place also has some decent odds for these rewards. on the other hand, 3rd/4th place drop to giving vitamins and feathers respectively. as such even though you cannot lose points while laddering, you're still encouraged to actually win your matches!
rewards are based on your placement in a battle (1st/2nd/3rd/4th) and do not change based on letter rank. you can find a list of these rewards on serebii (scroll down). you are heavily incentivized to win 1st place which has a whopping 49% chance of dropping some kind of apriball and a 40% chance of dropping a couple bottle caps or a gold bottle cap, but 2nd place also has some decent odds for these rewards. on the other hand, 3rd/4th place drop to giving vitamins and feathers respectively. as such even though you cannot lose points while laddering, you're still encouraged to actually win your matches!
when battling online, you will get to see everyone's trainer name, online rank, Z-A royale card photo, and up to three titles that they've selected to display on their card. if you don't remember how to take a new Z-A royale card photo, you simply go into the menu for the in-game Z-A royale and press Y to change the photo, which will open up the camera wherever you're standing to take a photo.
the titles are the coolest bit of customization in my personal opinion. when going into the link play menu but before selecting to battle, there is a "Titles" option on the right side. opening it will let you swap out which three titles you want to display on your online profile. these are essentially achievements that you can show off to others. everyone automatically has the "Novice Trainer" title but you can earn many more. most of them come in three colors - bronze, silver, and gold. you can find a list of these in detail on serebii (warning for very mild/soft story spoilers for some of these)
the titles are the coolest bit of customization in my personal opinion. when going into the link play menu but before selecting to battle, there is a "Titles" option on the right side. opening it will let you swap out which three titles you want to display on your online profile. these are essentially achievements that you can show off to others. everyone automatically has the "Novice Trainer" title but you can earn many more. most of them come in three colors - bronze, silver, and gold. you can find a list of these in detail on serebii (warning for very mild/soft story spoilers for some of these)
generally speaking, Z-A ranked battles are fast-paced and require you to keep up momentum as much as possible, including knowing when it's time to let your pokemon faint so you can jump back into the action fully refreshed and able to take more KOs. what pokemon are best depends on the season, but it is very usual to make a team of three that complete a type core such as fire/water/grass or fairy/steel/dragon that will let you swap out your pokemon when they're about to be hit by a super effective attack and let you tank it with a pokemon that resists the move. mega evolution is an obviously popular mechanic, though there is an argument to be made that saving your mega gauge for plus moves may be more effective in some scenarios, so consider what mega pokemon you add to your team carefully.
as for EV spreads, you can't really go wrong with simply maxing out two stats with 252 EVs, though you can get more detailed if you want. hp/attack/defense/special attack/special defense do exactly as you'd expect, though damage calculations in this game are different than the typical turn-based pokemon game, so if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of damage ranges and whatnot, you can use the Z-A damage calculator by theAstrogoth. speed on the other hand affects move cooldowns (not how fast they execute, just cooldowns) and there's a calculator for that on pokeos, as well as a list of breakpoints. if using a pokemon with a lot of high-cooldown moves, it may be worth investing some into speed. after hitting rank C, you can buy vitamins at pokemon centers for 5,000 pokedollars (instead of the usual 10,000! nice!) which makes EV training a breeze.
of course there's a lot to consider other than stats. priority moves fire off almost instantly, allowing for quickly stealing KOs from weakened opponents. moves like bounce and dig are extremely hard to dodge for your opponent if at all and provide a brief window of invulnerability as well. certain moves have ares of effect or let your pokemon charge forward, damaging everything in their path. it's a lot to consider! there are training dummies located in the Justice Dojo if you need to quickly and consistently test out moves without finding wild pokemon or mega crystals.
additionally, it may be worth considering whether or not to use an alpha pokemon. due to their bigger size and hitboxes, an alpha pokemon will be more vulnerable to enemy attacks, but will also have a wider area of effect for its attacking moves. for instance, it may be useful to use alpha metagross instead of normal metagross because its heavy slam becomes much harder to dodge. hunting for extra small (XS) pokemon may also be useful in certain cases to dodge moves (such as the eeveelutions. yes glaceon is actually meta relevant in this game at least at the time of writing)
as for EV spreads, you can't really go wrong with simply maxing out two stats with 252 EVs, though you can get more detailed if you want. hp/attack/defense/special attack/special defense do exactly as you'd expect, though damage calculations in this game are different than the typical turn-based pokemon game, so if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of damage ranges and whatnot, you can use the Z-A damage calculator by theAstrogoth. speed on the other hand affects move cooldowns (not how fast they execute, just cooldowns) and there's a calculator for that on pokeos, as well as a list of breakpoints. if using a pokemon with a lot of high-cooldown moves, it may be worth investing some into speed. after hitting rank C, you can buy vitamins at pokemon centers for 5,000 pokedollars (instead of the usual 10,000! nice!) which makes EV training a breeze.
of course there's a lot to consider other than stats. priority moves fire off almost instantly, allowing for quickly stealing KOs from weakened opponents. moves like bounce and dig are extremely hard to dodge for your opponent if at all and provide a brief window of invulnerability as well. certain moves have ares of effect or let your pokemon charge forward, damaging everything in their path. it's a lot to consider! there are training dummies located in the Justice Dojo if you need to quickly and consistently test out moves without finding wild pokemon or mega crystals.
additionally, it may be worth considering whether or not to use an alpha pokemon. due to their bigger size and hitboxes, an alpha pokemon will be more vulnerable to enemy attacks, but will also have a wider area of effect for its attacking moves. for instance, it may be useful to use alpha metagross instead of normal metagross because its heavy slam becomes much harder to dodge. hunting for extra small (XS) pokemon may also be useful in certain cases to dodge moves (such as the eeveelutions. yes glaceon is actually meta relevant in this game at least at the time of writing)
and now my original comments after Z-A first came out lol:
anyway! how are you all feeling about the new battle system in the context of battling others? have you battled your friends yet or taken on the ranked ladder to get the greninjite for the current season at the time of writing? have you put together any fun movesets or teams? i'm actually still putting together my first online battling team (i'm trying to use my playthrough flareon even though i know it's not the best pokemon in the world just because i want to lol), so i haven't gone up the ranks yet, but i've heard from others that getting to the necessary rank K for the mega stone actually isn't too bad/is pretty casual and fun, so that's good even if you aren't super great at the game. discuss :3
update: i altered some of the information in this post to reflect the changes to the rewards table and laddering as of season 2.
update 2: i updated this post to have links to a z-a damage calculator and a speed breakpoint calculator, as well as changing some of the wording to future-proof when new ranked seasons happen. might have to do a big update again after the DLC though...
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