Top 10 Tips for Beginners in Pokemon

Seriously! Don't miss out on shinies. I have only caught six shinies in my life, and two of them are the red Gyarados and the shiny Metagross of ORAS.

To show you the usefulness of moves of different types, let's take Conkeldurr as an example. It is a Fighting type, so you might want to only give it Fighting-type moves for STAB. However, that leaves you vulnerable to Psychic, Ghost, Flying, and Fairy types.

That's why instead of four Fighting-type moves, it is better to have only one Fighting-type move and have Knock Off to deal super effective damage against Ghost and Psychic types, Ice Punch for Flying types, and Poison Jab for Fairy types.

There are some cases, however, where you might want to use two moves of the same type, but that serves a different purpose. To go back to Conkeldurr, I can have Drain Punch as my main way to deal damage, as well as recover, and Mach Punch in case the opponent is at low HP and I need to go first on the next turn.

Of course, if you are playing any games from Sun and Moon onwards (until they may or may not bring them back in the Sinnoh remakes, because who knows?), HMs are not a thing anymore, so you don't have to worry about that. However, in the games where HMs are a thing, I recommend using an HM slave, which is basically a Pokémon that exists in your party only to use HMs.

For example, in ORAS, I used a Slaking who learned Strength, Cut, Nature Power, and Rock Smash. It was surprisingly useful in moments where I had to use it in battle, but its main purpose was to use those HMs to help me progress through the game. The reason why I recommend doing this is because HMs are often not very good to use in battles, even in a playthrough (Surf and Fly being exceptions). You can't make your Pokémon forget about those moves until you find an NPC who can make your Pokémon forget those moves, or in the case of older games, you are stuck with those moves forever.

You should train your Pokémon equally to have your stats well spread. It not only makes the game easier since you are not reliant on only one Pokémon, but also, it is just more fun if you ask me.

Having a full team of six and learning how to use each of them in the situations they are strong in is way more fun than just playing with one Pokémon through the whole game, at least in my opinion.

You can do that if you want a challenge or just want to have fun. In fact, with double types, you might do something cool with your team.

However, if you want to be as strong as possible in your playthrough, this is not optimal. You are better off not having more than two or three Pokémon of the same type to cover the whole type chart.

In other words, learn your type chart. Don't use a Ground-type attack on a Flying type. It's a bad idea.

This is useful for both playthroughs and especially competitive play.

It is utterly miserable when you work super hard, such as gaining badges and evolving your Pokémon, and then you forget to save. The fact that you have to redo everything alone is a pain, and even more so if you caught a legendary, beat the champion, or found a shiny Pokémon. It just makes it more frustrating.

When I was younger, I thought status moves, which are the moves that make no direct damage, were bad because I didn't see the point of not directly attacking. However, I now know, and want to let you know, that those moves can be some of the most useful moves ever.

Poisoning the opponent is super useful in the long term. Burning your opponent with Will-O-Wisp makes physical attackers hit much less hard than usual. Paralyzing an opponent makes them much slower, and it can also prevent them from attacking. Boosting moves like Swords Dance or Dragon Dance raise your stats, allowing you to sweep your opponent.

Status moves can be very useful in playthroughs. They actually make the infamous Whitney and her Miltank much easier to beat. They are even more useful in competitive play, where they are so common that Taunt, a move that prevents the opponent from using status moves, is considered very good.

So yeah, don't underestimate those moves.

You should always consider the stats of the Pokémon you use to choose the moves it learns. The most obvious thing to look at is the offensive stats. Let's take Salazzle for example. This is a Pokémon with a much higher Special Attack than Physical Attack. Therefore, Sludge Bomb, a special move, is a way better move for it than Poison Jab, a physical move.

However, you might want to look at the defensive stats and Speed stats as well. For example, Close Combat is a Fighting-type move with very high power but lowers the user's defenses. Therefore, a Pokémon like Infernape, who is really fast but has low defenses, relies on outspeeding its opponent and killing them in one hit to prevent them from killing it. However, a more defensive Fighting-type like Conkeldurr, who is slow but can tank a lot of hits, might prefer Drain Punch, which has lower power but has no drawback and even gives you more HP back.