Which do you think is better? If we had a super smart computer that could play pokemon as perfect as it could be played, better than any human, would it make something that looks more like borat's team (vaporeon, cloyster with explosion, exeggutor, zapdos etc) or would it make a more defensive team with a heal beller and skarmory etc? I ask myself this all the time and I always go back and forth. Right now I'm thinking it is the more defensive teams that are better. I really hate the inconsistency of teams that look like borat's sometimes. They don't feel like they always perform as well as I want them to, and they seem to end up into more 50/50 situations than a defensive team. Also, thanks to the heal beller, you can recover from bad luck easier. Whether it is a para, or a freeze, or sleep, or poison, a heal beller is there to press the restart button and put you back at neutral, which I really miss when not using a heal beller. I think both kinds of teams are good and you can find success with either one obviously, and that no matter which kind you use you are not going to beat a better player than yourself, but when talking about what is mathematically the best team (idk if that team has been created yet or not) I think, whatever team that may be, is going be a more defensive based team. Any thoughts?
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GSC OU Offensive based teams or Defensive based teams?
- Thread starter Roostur
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I think a super computer would play the stallest team ever, because it relies on optimal mathematical plays, there are less mindgames (which is an area where the computer might struggle if it doesn't have any data on the player), and it needs less predictions: it can play the maths. The computer thing is an interesting question, Chess computers are better than humans, which means the game is pretty much "solved" mathematically, but poker computers in no limit hold'em are inferior to poker players, therefore the game isn't rly "solved". Pokemon I feel is sort of a mixture of the two, you have the chess strategy (what are you doing with your pieces) with the poker rng/mindgames.
That being said, just because a computer would (imo) pick a stall team, doesn't mean it's the best choice for a human being, simply because the capacities and abilities aren't the same.
That being said, just because a computer would (imo) pick a stall team, doesn't mean it's the best choice for a human being, simply because the capacities and abilities aren't the same.
To answer the question, I don't think there's any substantial leaning one way or the other. I personally prefer more offensive teams tho.
One thing I want to point out that Peasounay kinda touched on is that I think it's easier to portray more defensive teams as "perfect" because they're overall more strategically sound, having plans that cover a wider variety of scenarios and in greater depth than offensive teams. What this overlooks is that offensive teams tend to be effective by disrupting those perfect plans, creating unaccounted situations and gaining tactical leverage over the course of a battle. You could even describe it as being more improvisational. This means that although they seem less perfect, they're still roughly on par with defensive teams a lot of the time
One thing I want to point out that Peasounay kinda touched on is that I think it's easier to portray more defensive teams as "perfect" because they're overall more strategically sound, having plans that cover a wider variety of scenarios and in greater depth than offensive teams. What this overlooks is that offensive teams tend to be effective by disrupting those perfect plans, creating unaccounted situations and gaining tactical leverage over the course of a battle. You could even describe it as being more improvisational. This means that although they seem less perfect, they're still roughly on par with defensive teams a lot of the time
I think most people prefer offensive teams. They are faster, more aggressive, and the battles don't take as long. But the key factor to me when determining what teams are good is consistency. When I play a defensive team I feel like if I play optimal I will win. If I lose I feel like if I just would have made the more optimal plays, the more mathematically superior plays, I would have won. That's how I feel every time I've lost with a defensive team. Whereas I've had a lot of losses with offensive teams where I watched the replay afterwards, noticed I did everything right, but when I had to make a coin flip decision, it just didn't land in my favor. And that sucks. Of course luck can ruin everything no matter what team you play. If your opponent freezes all you pokemon, including your heal beller, then that just sucks. Any team, no matter how good, will lose to extreme bad luck. Thank God that doesn't happen too often. But with offensive based teams you won't just lose to bad luck, which seems to be much more common with offensive teams, but you'll lose to 50/50 high risk/high reward situations. You are forced into coin flipping a lot more with offensive teams. This makes them less consistent, and less consistent to me in pokemon means worse.
But like I said in the original post, a good player with an offensive team is still going to beat your defensive team if he is just playing better than you. So it is mostly preference.
I prefer the more defensive teams personally. My favorite feeling is taking out an opponent's vital pokemon and then just reacting to everything afterwards. He thinks he still has a chance but it was all over when he lost that pokemon. It's really relaxing.