PBR Movesets guide

[chaos-lord]

This repo contains all of the various movesets and metagames used for PBR. In order to submit a new set, if you are not approved and given access, make a fork of this repo, then make your changes there and submit a pull request with your additions for approval.

General good advice for set building:

• Avoid making mons that are walled by large chunks of the cast, especially if they are defensive, have immunities themselves, or have healing abilities. This avoids what we call a "cancer match", a match where neither side can hurt the other, causing the match to go to time without many meaningful deicsions from either side.
• Be sparing with reusable recovery in general: even weak recovery can easily lead to cancer matches on mons which cannot threaten all other mons with significant offensive power. Draining moves and Leech Seed are usually an exception to this, as they will bring the match closer to finishing with their damage; but do not rely solely on Leech Seed for bulkier mons, as it alone will not outdamage recovery.
• You should almost always have at least 2 moves capable of dealing damage, with 3 often being preferred, especially if the mon's 2 attacks have a flaw that can lead to them failing to properly defeat foes (e.g.: low PP, Sucker Punch, Focus Punch).
• Ensure your mon is not unable to hurt a specific type combo: for example, a mon with Normal/Fighting/Ground coverage should be avoided, as they cannot damage the Drifblim line or other levitating ghosts.
• Be very careful with choice items. Try to ensure that the mon cannot find itself in a situation where it will be flailing helplessly against a mon that cannot seriously damage it back. Reference other choiced sets where possible to determine what is acceptable.
• Try to keep attacking moves within a reasonable range of power of each other. If one move is massively stronger than the others, the mon will have little reason to use anything else; likewise, a move that is massively weaker will be rarely ever used.
• By default, all moves have unmodified PP, and this should only be changed in extreme circumstances to avoid cancer.
• Most holiday sets are shiny, as they used to have to be shiny; this is no longer the case. Feel free to add non-shiny halloween sets.

Move order:

We have a move ordering standard, which both helps viewers know what move is best and avoids awkward scenarios in commitment and sticky inputs. The general move order is:

• Fake Out always goes in slot A.
• Otherwise, the top slots are used for the mon's most powerful attacking moves against a type-neutral, equal defenses target under normal circumstances, after accounting for accuracy. These are usually the mon's STAB moves.
• Coverage attacking moves go after that, again in order of power.
• Status moves come afterwards, in general order of usefulness
• Sacrificial moves always go in slot D.

The power for variable-power moves (such as Gyro Ball and Electro Ball) can be guesstimated based on the mon. Moves based on weight can be assumed to have 60 power. For two-turn moves, use average damage per turn.

Balance:

When balancing mons statistically, it is best to follow these guidelines unless the metagame species otherwise in the Metagame Guide below. The standard balance target for the normal metagames is a Charmeleon with 31 in all IVs and 0 in all EVs except HP, which has 200 EVs, with a moveset of Flamethrower/Dragon Pulse/Ancient Power/filler. Average mons should 3HKO each other. A good shorthand is to multiply a mon's final HP and average defense stat together to calculate an approximate bulk, and to do the same for a mon's attacking stat, (level * 0.4), move power and STAB to calculate its ability to do damage. In this instance, that Charmeleon has an approximate offense power of 1,117,200 with Flamethrower and an approximate bulk of 48,813. Note that these numbers can only be compared to other numbers of the same kind, not against each other. (A damage calculator is better for that, but this Charmeleon would do roughly 42.5% to itself if it hit neutrally with Flamethrower.)

Speed makes things more complicated. The average speed in the standard metagames is 170; anything faster than that is "fast", and anything slower is "slow". 205 is considered "very fast" and 120 "very slow".

Exact balance is not a massive concern; the match analyser, as flawed as it is, does cover you to an extent, and being a bit off overall does not doom the game or anything due to PBRs format. However, massive deviations from this, which we have received before, will be rejected, since they make it hard to find matches; some exceptions are listed in the Metagame Guide.

Metagame Guide:

• HW_standard: The Halloween meta with spooky themed sets. About 25% weaker than standard.
• • Should be split into traditionally Halloween stuff and "TPPCon", focusing on references when possible.
• Standard: The normal metagame with simpler movesets. Avoid complex gimmicks and items where possible and choose simpler items where needed for balance.
• XM_Standard: The main Xmas meta with holiday themed sets. About 25% weaker than standard.
• Anime: A metagame with sets based on mons from the anime. Balance is less important in this metagame.
• Costume: The Halloween equivalent of Little Cup, with baby Pokémon with sets themed around fully evolved Pokémon. As a Little Cup metagame, the level of all mons is 5.
• HW_Apokealypse: The Halloween equivalent of Ubers. Features full-powered Legendaries and other powerful mons with a theme of various disasters and disaster movie tropes.
• HW_Token: The various token match metagames avalible in Halloween, Astonish, Metronome, Shadow Force and Nightmare.
• Little Cup: A metagame which contains first-stage evolutions freed from needing to be designed to balance with far stronger fully-evolved Pokémon. Has a base level of 5 instead of 100.
• • Smaller pokemon does not necessarily mean weaker sets and moves. Many Pokemon have a variety of powerful moves that are available to them. Check existing sets for examples.
• Middle Cup: A cup that contaims various middle evolutions allowed to fully optimise. Has a base level of 50.
• PWT: A special metagame that has sets from NPC trainers from the official games, runs and more.
• • Unlike other metas, this meta ensures that specific teams do not mix, allowing for themed matchups. When adding to this meta, be sure to add a new PWT tag to every mon of the trainer you want to add.
• • This meta is flexible with balance and does not follow normal move order, instead copying it instead from the source material.
• Prima: Uses sets suggested by the official strategy guide. Does not care about balance and does not follow the normal move order. Should not be added to.
• Runmons: Uses sets taken from TPP's runs. Does not care about balance or move order. Only mons of some notability should be added.
• • Useless mons may receive edits to make them not cancerous.
• Shiny: Special sets that rarely appear in matches with the normal metagames. Balance doesn't matter as much, but make sure the sets are special.
• Stadium 2: Uses Stadium 2 rental sets. Does not care about balance or move order. Do not add to this, as it is complete.
• Token: Various token match metagames.
• • Includes Metronome, KAPOW, Input war, OHKO, Rough skin, Seismic Toss and Starter battles, including the PBR 1.2 starter battles.
• Ubers Doubles: The doubles-only version of Ubers, special in that it selects from a list of team members that only appear together. When adding sets, be sure to add a team style tag to every mon. Balances to Ubers levels.
• Ubers: A Metagame which allows legendaries and competetivly powerful mons to play without the power restrictions usually required to balance them with weaker pokemon.
• • This set can be very finicky, as it's based more on a "higher level" of play and less on actual uber sets from Gen IV. Take note of what other Pokemon sets do and how powerful their moves and items are before making your own.
• • Beware of stall sets--these are very prone to creating cancer matches.
• XM_Dinner: A metagame where everything is themed about food or other things found on the dinner table. It is played on Xmas.
• XM_New year: A metagame where the mons are themed after dates in the calendar.
• XM_Nuclear Winter: The Xmas equivalent of Ubers, and balanced accordingly. Themed around disasters.
• • This meta shares a lot of sets with HW_Apokealypse.
• XM_Token: Contains the Xmas token metagames: Metronome, Snowball and Present.
• Advanced: A more complex version of Standard, which allows a wider variety of items, moves and strategies.
• • Separate from Ubers, which contains more competitive-accurate movesets and a higher power level.