Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Pokemon Tabletop. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Trouble With Pokemon Leveling/Stat Distribution; Tried to level pokemon, and then fight with them. Strangeness!
Topic Started: May 25 2015, 04:18 PM (1,220 Views)
krovasteel
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
So this is my first time posting on here, forgive me if I seem ignorant or thick headed.

I am very used to competitive battling in Pokemon games, hand-held and otherwise.

I have found a very disconnected relation to this Tabletop version and I would really love to remedy my issues.

Here is some backstory to the campaign and the DM's structure.
His own version of the Pokemon universe (obviously), with the timeline intact but certain characters and events varying wildly.
There are 4 of us, starting out at level 15 trainer and with 6 level 30 Pokemon.

Two of us and the DM have played level 1-5's before with very few pokemon.

Character creation was a nightmare (re-made my character 6 times now due to mistakes)

But I was 100% confident in my pokemon rearing capabilities that I did research on moves, and the DM having pulled the 7-8 move limit off (IKR?) and giving free reign on Egg/Tutor moves
as long as there were Tutor points, Only Limiting TM/HM moves.

So I built my Shiny Charizard (Black and Red BAMF) He let us have one due to back story, (father was a charmander breeder)
Other than aesthetics in a game played in our heads, this altered the creation process 0.

Please comment on any and all mistakes without fear of me being offended or butt-hurt. I am NOT Perfect.
My classes: Ace Trainer/Mentor/Type Ace Fire/Enduring Soul, Party member Researcher Caretaker
Charizard- Level 30
Modest Nature +2 SpAtk -2Atk
Abilities used on Charizard
Expand Horizons(Mentor)/ Top Percentage (Ace-Trainer)/ Re-Balancing(Caretaker) / Last Chance (Type Ace)
This gave Charizard 7 base tutor points, with 3+4 Bonus tutor points
+1 All base stats from Top%, +2 Hp +2 SpAtk Re-Balancing 2 T-pts
End Stats
Hp: 15
atk: 7
Def: 9
Satk: 34
sdef: 10
Spd: 30
Accuracy Training Fire Blast
Sig move Fire Blast
Lessons( Adv mob Sky, Adv Mob Land, SKill train)
Tutor: Fire Blast, Solar Beam, Focus Blast

Abilities Intimidate and Solar Power
Type ace + Blaze

Now I have a Ton of other moves from his leveling, since the move cap was non existent
But I fought our other party member in a friendly duel.
Having helped them build their pokemon they chose in competitive fashion
And the rest of my team (Skarmory, Excadrill, Dragonaire, Infernape, Vaporeon)
It was a brutal slaughter. All my pokemon except skarmory and Vaporeon had 30 Speed +1 CS From Ace Trainer. And large supply of type coverage moves.
But we noticed that it was pretty much a who went first Wins rock paper scissors style combat style all of our pokemon were overpowered glass cannons.

Could someone list a stat distribution guide to PTU or something?! We made the mistake of building our pokemon based on the video games, considering your pokemons in those games got bonuses to all stats.

Thank you so much.










Edited by krovasteel, May 25 2015, 04:19 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Doxy
Member Avatar
The PTU Guy
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
First of all, what do you mean by "Sig Move" for your Charizard? The Feature "Signature Move" only applies to a Trainer's OWN Moves (such as the Moves a Martial Artist learns).

Secondly, well, you hit the nail on the head if everyone built like a glass cannon. Just give your Pokemon a little bit more HP, Defense, and Special Defense. An extra 10 points in those stats will do wonders for your Pokemon's ability to survive hits.

Third, by taking off the Move-List limit, you guys pretty much broke the game. I just cannot put into words what a bad decision that was. You voided your warranty, customer support cannot help you on this. Proceed at your own risk.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kairose
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Tip #1: Always increase HP. It's the only thing that scales with level even without putting points in, but you'll need more to actually survive more than one hit.

Tip #2: Avoid spreading your points too thin. Ideally, you'll be able to put little to nothing in 2 or 3 different stats, so that you don't end up too weak overall. Adding to 5-6 stats leads to a balanced, but not very powerful pokémon, while 1-2 stats leads to a pokémon that's powerful in a narrow area, but can't make effective use of that power.

Aside from generally following those tips, there are three different builds I like to use:

Glass Cannon: This is pretty much what you built, but with more HP. Choose an attack stat, using Attack Conflict if necessary. Roughly 1/3 of your points should go into each of HP, Speed, and the chosen stat. If I wanted to build your Charizard as a glass cannon, it would have: 24 HP/7 ATK/9 DEF/29 SATK/10 SDEF/25 SPD. This would make it slightly weaker and slower than your build, but the extra 9 points in HP gives it an additional 27 hit points, so it's more likely to survive the first hit, and get a second one in.

Wall: This is exactly the opposite of the previous build. Terrible at inflicting damage, but incredibly hard to hurt. For this build, roughly 1/3 of your points should go into each of HP, Defense, and Special Defense. Charizard is a poor example for this, but with Impish Nature (+Def/-SATK) and Rebalancing (+2 HP & SDEF) it's doable. That would give Charizard the following stats: 24 HP/9 ATK/24 DEF/10 SATK/26 SDEF/11 SPD. This takes significantly less damage than the glass cannon, but also has lower damage output, so it would want to get moves like Toxic and/or Will-O-Wisp as soon as possible, although I reiterate that Charizard is poorly suited for this build.

Tank: This one is a bit of a combination of the two. It's a little more thinly spread, but it results in a wall-like pokémon that still has a high damage output. Choose an attack stat, again using Attack Conflict if necessary. Roughly 1/4 of your stats go into HP, Defense, Special Defense, and the chosen stat. That makes it so that you hit hard while still taking very little damage, but you're still going to act late. For Charizard to use this build, change it's nature to Quiet (+SATK, -SPD), Sassy (+SDEF, -SPD), or Relaxed (+DEF, -SPD), and it's final stats look something like (example is Relaxed): 21 HP/9 ATK/21 DEF/24 SATK/20 SDEF/9 SPD. Not quite as strong as the Glass Cannon, or as tanky as the Wall, but still hits hard while not taking a lot of damage. Charizard isn't the best pokémon for this build either, but it's much better than Wall Charizard.

The mixed sweeper poké edge also makes mixed sweepers viable, especially if the pokémon has access to Twisted Power, but I'm not sure how best to use those yet. Additionally, BSR sometimes forces me to make fast tank builds that have one of their defenses left low. These are risky, but as long as you can avoid mons with strong attacks that would hit your lower defense stat, they can still work out.

In the case of the Charizard you shared stats for, I think building it as a glass cannon was the right choice, but you should have given it a little bit more HP so it could have a better chance of surviving the first hit. Glass cannons aren't always the best way to go here, but depending on the pokémon and trainer, it can still be a good choice.

Edit: I think he means "Signature Technique", but he didn't specify which effect he applied to it, so I don't know.
Edited by Kairose, May 25 2015, 05:06 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
krovasteel
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Thank you so much, and I in-fact did mean Signature Technique for pokemon, and it was Fire Blast.

I felt like my Charizard was way too over powered versus their team. As well as my other pokemon builds. Discussing it and looking at it, Her character and pokemon were designed for full contact battles with more than one pokemon.

I think our builds are fine and you helped me isolate some ideas.

The move-list limit thing isn't that big of a deal right now because we are not Taking advantage in a bad way.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Giant2005
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Personally, I find that Wall Builds are the way to go.
With how much the Damage-Base scales as it goes higher, even a Pokemon with low attacking stats but high DB moves put on some serious hurting. Plus it just works out better - adding one point to an attack stat increases your damage by 1 point but putting one point into HP increases the amount of damage you can handle by 3 points. Effectively, each point you put into HP is enough to counteract up to 3 points someone has put into an offensive stat.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
krovasteel
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I started to notice the same thing. But Matching Type Effectiveness for example. 1pt in attack versus a weak enemy creates 1.5 damage. If they put 1 pt into defenses its 1 damage reduction. But if they had put that same pt into HP, it was 3 damage soaked up.
I started to see Hp>Spd>Atk stats right now.
I rebuilt some of my Mons to reflect this and I will be doing some testing.
Paralyze S-Atk base dragonair with 24/8/21/15/21/9 Good balance in HP/Eva/DR and will use his type advantages to lock down and Stall.
I'll see what the DM throws at me. We are doing a Full contact 6v6
My Charizard is still Glass Cannon Like. I might Switch out some ATK for HP. Thinking 4pts putting him at 19/7/9/30/10/30 , With 1 Base CS to Satk and Speed
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Goliathus
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I personally think that glass cannon is okay but bulky attacker is the way to go in your game full of glass cannons. The thing about glass cannon is that unless you can knockout your opponent in one hit, you are likely wasting points on attacks that can put to your attack. If we are going by "how many hits to beat your opponent, to finish an opponent in two hits, the perfect spot for your minimum damage would be 50%+1 of his HP. It doesn't matter how high you get after that unless it's over 100% because overkilling has no benefit. So, if your Mon can hit 80% of your opponent, the 30% extra damage doesn't need to be there and the attack stat contributing to that last 30% should be migrated to your defense. In a game full of glass cannon, bulky attackers can easily hit for 50%++ damage with non-maximized attack stat and still has the defense stat to tank hits. If you can tank even 1 more hit per Pokemon, you are likely going to win the war. Of course, this is more or less just a theory of mine, the actual battle has so much more factors like healing move and so on. To further the theory of "how many hits", 4 hits finish is 25+1% per hit, 3 hits finish is 33% per hit. It's worth to invest the ATK to get the 8% from 25 to 33% and also the 17% from 33% to 50%. However, the extra 50% needed to get to the one hit kill region is too much of an investment.

To me, HP is the general "tank" stat for glass cannon because you don't have much stats to spend on the defensive side but Def and S.Def are far more superior compared to HP if you are making a bulky attacker or a tanky wall. There are few advantages of Def/S.Def over HP:

1. They can tank more than 3 hits. One HP is 3 damages but a wall can likely tank more than that, making the permanent DR given by Def and S.Def a better option.

2. Def and S.Def can be boosted by Combat Stage. 30 HP stat gives you 90 HP and that's it but 30 Def has the potential to give you more. Even +1 will net you 36 Def.

3. Def and S.Def are better against super effective moves because the damage reduction is done pre-weakness multiplication. So, 1 Def is essentially blocking 1.5 damage or even 2 in scenario involving double weakness while 1 HP just tanks for 3 HP in any situation.

I would say they provide dodge rate but Speed already provides that and speed is used widely by glass cannon so I will keep that point.

Of course, HP has its own advantage like massive gain from healing move, unaffected by negative combat stage and so on so it really depends on the Pokemon's move list and so on, which I think you know more than me since you have Pokemon battling experience.
Edited by Goliathus, May 26 2015, 04:45 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Giant2005
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I think that if you are going to pull off being a Sweeper, you need some sort of gimmick to keep the Pokemon alive.
Turtwig works wonders for that due to the Sturdy Ability and Drain moves. Due to Sturdy he can't be one-shot while he is at full health and with enough Special Attack, the Drain moves can keep him at full.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Goliathus
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Giant2005
May 26 2015, 05:35 AM
I think that if you are going to pull off being a Sweeper, you need some sort of gimmick to keep the Pokemon alive.
Turtwig works wonders for that due to the Sturdy Ability and Drain moves. Due to Sturdy he can't be one-shot while he is at full health and with enough Special Attack, the Drain moves can keep him at full.
Add a Big Root and he will absorb his way to full health again and again.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop United · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR