Rating Basics

I just checked your first RMT, and I really enjoyed your great attention in detail to help somebody unfamiliar with EVs x_x. Newbies require the most amount of attention, and you gave him just that. Your Dragonite EV changes and the reasoning behind it is excellent. My only recommendation here is that Pokemon with 4x weakness to SR should not have an even HP number. So if you see Talonflame / Charizard Y / Volcarona with an even # HP, make sure to have that fixed.

GJ, brother!
Thanks again for the feedback! :] And I appreciate you giving me the heads up about how Pokemon with a 4X weakness to Stealth Rock should have an odd HP number instead of an even one. I'll keep that in mind!
 

Inflikted

Orco2
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I gave a quick rate to a team which was simply...replacing Donphan with Excadrill. It turned out to be more "difficult" than i thought because I wanted to add something other than "Donphan is a bad outclassed pokemon, use this instead". I was also unsure about the Excadrill set, so I suggested trying two different ones, I don't know if it's ideal. So I would like to have some feedback to improve my rates.

Here's the post: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-arcanine-greatness-currently-1600.3511258/#post-5580173
 
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I gave a quick rate to a team which was simply...replacing Donphan with Excadrill. It turned out to be more "difficult" than i thought because I wanted to add something other than "Donphan is a bad outclassed pokemon, use this instead". I was also unsure about the Excadrill set, so I suggested trying two different ones, I don't know if it's ideal. So I would like to have some feedback to improve my rates.

Here's the post: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/xy-ou-arcanine-greatness-currently-1600.3511258/#post-5580173
Hey Inflikted, your rate was alright and changing Donphan was the right move, but what you swapped it for wasn't ideal. Just because Excadrill is a Ground type spinner doesn't mean it's always interchangeable with Donphan, in fact your change only made you more weak to Rotom-Wash. Being able to OHKO it isn't "dealing" with it because you cannot reliably swap in and once you swap in, it swaps out. A better change would have been offering up Latias over Donphan as it beats Rotom-Wash, still gets rid of hazards and can't also beat Mega Venusaur, which was kind of a problem to kill before. Also always be sure to know what you want to change before posting, offering up two suggestions of the same Pokemon now can create different problems of their own for the team (if the OP needs a Ground immunity the OP might choose AV over Air Balloon because he didn't realize he had that problem, etc). Keep trying man :]
 

Inflikted

Orco2
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Nog Yea Latias was by far the superior choice, I don't know how I didn't immediately think of it (I literally slap Latias on half of my teams ._.) and I just replaced a bad pokemon with the one that directly outclasses it without considering better choices. Thanks for the input!
 
Ok so let's try to help someone here

Rob.

Nice rate man! I guess that it's pretty ok but Im not pretty sure that AV Slowbro is the best solution to the Landorus problem in Tele's team. It has already Latios has a decent check and his real problem is probably with Knock Off Landorus and AV Slowbro can't really switch-in on it neither so yeah I think that that change is pretty pointless. The other on Scizor though, is good I guess and with a faster EV spread Tele can actually lure Heatran and Rotom-W and then Sword Dance with Scizor when they are OHKO'd by Scizor's Knock Off so I'd actually prefer there a faster Scizor as well, even if I think that Defensive Scizor works okay in his team. In general, anyway I wouldnt suggest to rate a solid team as Tele's because you can't always find ways to cover its weaknesses without opening it at other weaknesses. TBH so I'd suggest you to rate decent teams with some problems but with good potential. In this way you can train yourself to find the team's problems and to find the best ways to solve them. That wasnt a bad rate though, and even if I think that the suggestion about AV Slowbro wasnt rly good, the one on Scizor was. Keep your rates up, and remember that if you have any problem with you them, you can post here and we will try to help you out.

asterat

Ok im looking at your first rate and even if it isn't that bad, I have something to say about it. At first, I don't think your suggestion about M Venusaur was rly good for his team. It's true that his team really struggles against Water-type mons but M Venusaur doesn't rly fit well in a Sand team because of sandstorm itself which make quite useless Venusaur's recovery. TBH Mega Garchomp was fitting way better in his team. However, the suggestion about Clefable was nice since it is generally better than Sylveon but I'd use it with 96 EVs in SDef and with a Calm nature to prevent to be 2HKO'd by Greninja's Hydro Pump and to check Keldeo as well better. With this simple change his team is less weak to Water-type mons (Rotom-W already checks Azumarill pretty well) and avoid to use a M Venu that can't rly recover his HP in sandstorm and therefore can't really check water types. My personal advice is, when you rate a team, to look at the team itself. It can sound like a stupid advice but you don't have only solve the Team's problem but you have to find ways that fits with the Team itself as well!

Now looking at your second rate, it looks better even if I don't like much the ways you give your advice. I mean, I think you should give just 1 or 2 ways to solve certain problems to avoid that the user that has posted the team can understand at best your rate. Sometimes when you give 2 much solutions they aren't understood all. Anyway, I guess that your Tangrowth advice was quite bad itself because even if it checks Excadrill very well it doesn't fit his team well (it has already Amoonguss as Grass-type and having 2 Grass-type opens him even weaker to certain threats like Charizard Y). The Landorus-T advice to check Excadrill was pretty okay, though and as well as the Thundurus one.

In summary, your rates aren't bad even if you have still to work a bit on them. My first advice to you is to look at the team well after rate it, so you can find out ways to solve the team's problems that fit well with the team itself as well. Keep them up though, and best luck with your rates!
 
When I rate, I almost always rate teams in ubers but I realised it would probably be really useful to get one of my rates checked by someone, as I would like to know if I'm doing anything wrong, and if I am, how I can improve :) I'm going to tag Edgar (not discounting the other team rater's abilities to play ubers, dgmw) but if someone else who plays ubers would give me feedback that would be lovely as well!

Rate here, bop

Full team
(if needed)
 
When I rate, I almost always rate teams in ubers but I realised it would probably be really useful to get one of my rates checked by someone, as I would like to know if I'm doing anything wrong, and if I am, how I can improve :) I'm going to tag Edgar (not discounting the other team rater's abilities to play ubers, dgmw) but if someone else who plays ubers would give me feedback that would be lovely as well!

Rate here, bop
Full team (if needed)
I don't know how to rate teams better to be honest, in my opinion, a good rate always comes from someone who has a good teambuilding basis and for that you need to have a decent amount of experience (which I assume you have), I find kinda hard to explain how to give "good rates", but yeah. I looked into this rate, you do pretty well for the most part, identifying main problems with the team etc, but something you have to look out for is changing a lot of the team's main structure, like on that rate you changed the Arceus and Xerneas set and gave suggested a very sub-par Palkia set (for my liking anyways). You changed 3 out of 6 mons of that team since the Palkia set is entirely different, I think the major improvement would be using Grasseus over E-killer and probably Choice Scarf Zekrom over Palkia since it's a backup Kyogre and Ho-Oh check since Tyranitar is pressured, especially with his set, but you can't do much about that. I don't think the Xerneas set should have been changed as he does need a win condition and Life Orb dies relatively quick. After that, I think all you had to do was suggest another item for Tyranitar like Leftovers, Chople or Lum Berry and suggest the optimal Giratina-O set as his seems very...well, not good. Standard set like Defog, Will-O-Wisp, Dtail, etc.. Anyways, obviously keep rating. But the best advice I can give I guess is keep building teams and if you want to, when you build teams use examples of good teams made by good players such as Dice or Hack since they usually build very solid teams. I'd say 80% of the good rates come from personal experience.
 
I don't know how to rate teams better to be honest, in my opinion, a good rate always comes from someone who has a good teambuilding basis and for that you need to have a decent amount of experience (which I assume you have), I find kinda hard to explain how to give "good rates", but yeah. I looked into this rate, you do pretty well for the most part, identifying main problems with the team etc, but something you have to look out for is changing a lot of the team's main structure, like on that rate you changed the Arceus and Xerneas set and gave suggested a very sub-par Palkia set (for my liking anyways). You changed 3 out of 6 mons of that team since the Palkia set is entirely different, I think the major improvement would be using Grasseus over E-killer and probably Choice Scarf Zekrom over Palkia since it's a backup Kyogre and Ho-Oh check since Tyranitar is pressured, especially with his set, but you can't do much about that. I don't think the Xerneas set should have been changed as he does need a win condition and Life Orb dies relatively quick. After that, I think all you had to do was suggest another item for Tyranitar like Leftovers, Chople or Lum Berry and suggest the optimal Giratina-O set as his seems very...well, not good. Standard set like Defog, Will-O-Wisp, Dtail, etc.. Anyways, obviously keep rating. But the best advice I can give I guess is keep building teams and if you want to, when you build teams use examples of good teams made by good players such as Dice or Hack since they usually build very solid teams. I'd say 80% of the good rates come from personal experience.
Thanks a lot, I'll keep all of this in mind next time. But you're saying that keeping the team(structure) the same is more important than making an extra change ? Also thanks for the feedback on the content if the rate, it's all very useful :) I'll go edit in the optimisation of ttar/girao/aegis in today I have no idea why I didn't do that as I usually do m_m
 
Thanks a lot, I'll keep all of this in mind next time. But you're saying that keeping the team(structure) the same is more important than making an extra change ? Also thanks for the feedback on the content if the rate, it's all very useful :) I'll go edit in the optimisation of ttar/girao/aegis in today I have no idea why I didn't do that as I usually do m_m
Only if that suggestion completely changes the way the team functions and np, keep it going :]
 

aim

pokeaimMD
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past WCoP Champion
i've only seen the first rate but i like it a lot so far. you helped him better deal with opposing sand teams and fixed his team quite a bit. i feel chansey is bleh on that team but that isn't something that I will put off. maybe one change could have been lum berry on gyra over leftovers to take on keldeo with no fear of burns as it is his only water resist. tbh i would have added maybe azu over chansey as a check to keldeo/greninja and water resist but that is just preference..
 
Hey TheEnder I like your rates. Your style is easy to follow which is good. You've also done a great job of explaining how your changes will improve the team which shows your knowledge of the metagame, and in turn gives the player asking for a rate a better understanding of the metagame. The only problem I saw was in this rate, where your suggestion was untrue.

There are some threats that stand out in particular as problems to your team. These are Mega Charizard X, Mega Venusaur and opposing Talonflame. Exchanging Talonflame for Physically Defensive Heatan would not only make these pokes much less of a problem, but also give your team a much needed Stealth Rock setter. With it would aldo give your team a way of phazing CM Clefable and taking on Mega Scizor, just like Talonflame did for you.
Physicially defensive Heatran cannot take on Mega Charizard X and Mega Venusaur. Mega Charizard can OHKO it with Earthquake and Mega Venusaur can 2HKO it with Earthquake. There's also the problem of Heatran not being able to do anything to Mega Venusaur or Mega Charizard X except Roar and maybe Toxic Mega Charizard X if you want to take the risk of getting poisoned. Also, try not to change to many Pokemon because that alters the way the team is played. If the teams aren't well built it's easy to refer them to B101.

Everything else is pretty good, keep up the good work :].
 

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
I do like the idea of this team as from what im seeing you have a good core of bop mons which hole punch teams and then a reliable sweeper in mence. Hidden power ice on zam seems nice as u can stop mence in its tracks with your sash. A simple change I could suggest is that superpower seems redundant coverage with EQ and u can put in something like fire fang to ruse forry on the switch or heck even facade in the event you get burned. Another simple change u could make is to run surf over grass knot on helio as hyper voice already does a really high amount to swampert and with surf you can ohko nidoqueen with a little but of prior damage which seems important because nidoqueen can put in work against you. Other than those small things It looks like a pretty solid Offenseive team.


Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang


Heliolisk @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hyper Voice
- Surf

252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Surf vs. 40 HP / 0 SpD Nidoqueen: 260-307 (78.5 - 92.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 252-300 (71.3 - 84.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dinos-doges-and-one-mans-quest-for-dat-ass.3533459/

This is my first rate and I wanted to get some feedback to improve in the future so hammer away at me with whatever you got im here to learn.
 
I do like the idea of this team as from what im seeing you have a good core of bop mons which hole punch teams and then a reliable sweeper in mence. Hidden power ice on zam seems nice as u can stop mence in its tracks with your sash. A simple change I could suggest is that superpower seems redundant coverage with EQ and u can put in something like fire fang to ruse forry on the switch or heck even facade in the event you get burned. Another simple change u could make is to run surf over grass knot on helio as hyper voice already does a really high amount to swampert and with surf you can ohko nidoqueen with a little but of prior damage which seems important because nidoqueen can put in work against you. Other than those small things It looks like a pretty solid Offenseive team.


Tyrantrum @ Choice Band
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Head Smash
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang


Heliolisk @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hyper Voice
- Surf

252 SpA Life Orb Heliolisk Surf vs. 40 HP / 0 SpD Nidoqueen: 260-307 (78.5 - 92.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 252-300 (71.3 - 84.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dinos-doges-and-one-mans-quest-for-dat-ass.3533459/

This is my first rate and I wanted to get some feedback to improve in the future so hammer away at me with whatever you got im here to learn.
Hey Wanka, nice rate here. You don't change the overall team structure too much and help improve it with reasonable explanations. Just have a small thing to say about this rate. Fire Fang and Head Smash do pretty similar damage to Forry, so maybe a suggestion of Crunch would have been more optimal to hit Bronzong which otherwise 'walls' Tyrantrum.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 252-300 (71.1 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 219-258 (61.8 - 72.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bronzong: 178-210 (52.6 - 62.1%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bronzong: 146-172 (43.1 - 50.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Also, looking at his team he just gets ravished by Hydreigon so a suggestion Spdef Gligar would probably have been a good thing to include.
Finally, a small thing on formatting, you can use hide tags if you want so the sets don't take up too much space.

Nice rate, keep it up!
 

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Hey Wanka, nice rate here. You don't change the overall team structure too much and help improve it
with reasonable explanations. Just have a small thing to say about this rate. Fire Fang and Head Smash do pretty similar damage to Forry, so maybe a suggestion of Crunch would have been more optimal to hit Bronzong which otherwise 'walls' Tyrantrum.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 252-300 (71.1 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 219-258 (61.8 - 72.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bronzong: 178-210 (52.6 - 62.1%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyrantrum Fire Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Bronzong: 146-172 (43.1 - 50.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Also, looking at his team he just gets ravished by Hydreigon so a suggestion Spdef Gligar would probably have been a good thing to include.
Finally, a small thing on formatting, you can use hide tags if you want so the sets don't take up too much space.

Nice rate, keep it up!
Yeah I just recently figured out how to do hide tags lol. But thanks for the feedback
 

Trinitrotoluene

young ☆nd foolish
is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Analytic, thanks for keeping this thread somewhat alive. however, i don't like your rate that much. yes, you stated a few weaknesses that the op's team had, but you never actually suggested anything to fix them. all you did was either piggyback off another user or suggest changes without giving any proper justification beyond the fundamental info that most people should already know. using an example from your rate (thundurus outspeeds mega diancie and hits hard), you didn't do anything to get the op to consider your suggestions at all. rather, all you did was tell him something he probably already knew. this is bad because you want the op to consider your suggestions, not throw them aside. another thing you should do when making rates is that you should step back after making a suggestion to see how your changes affect the team you're rating. if you find that your change opens up new weaknesses, then go on and fix those too.

about the team itself, a simple change that you could have suggested to improve his team was mental herb > focus sash on scolipede, which would give scolipede the opportunity to pass its boost(s) to heracross, even in the face of mons w/ taunt.

tl;dr: justify your suggestions, and don't use the fundamental information people (should) know as justification.

once again, thanks for submitting your rate here and sorry if i sounded a bit cold in this post. if you (or anyone else, for that matter) have more questions about team rating, please feel free to vm / pm them to me. have a nice day!
 
Analytic, thanks for keeping this thread somewhat alive. however, i don't like your rate that much. yes, you stated a few weaknesses that the op's team had, but you never actually suggested anything to fix them. all you did was either piggyback off another user or suggest changes without giving any proper justification beyond the fundamental info that most people should already know. using an example from your rate (thundurus outspeeds mega diancie and hits hard), you didn't do anything to get the op to consider your suggestions at all. rather, all you did was tell him something he probably already knew. this is bad because you want the op to consider your suggestions, not throw them aside. another thing you should do when making rates is that you should step back after making a suggestion to see how your changes affect the team you're rating. if you find that your change opens up new weaknesses, then go on and fix those too.

about the team itself, a simple change that you could have suggested to improve his team was mental herb > focus sash on scolipede, which would give scolipede the opportunity to pass its boost(s) to heracross, even in the face of mons w/ taunt.

tl;dr: justify your suggestions, and don't use the fundamental information people (should) know as justification.

once again, thanks for submitting your rate here and sorry if i sounded a bit cold in this post. if you (or anyone else, for that matter) have more questions about team rating, please feel free to vm / pm them to me. have a nice day!
Thanks for the rate!I didn't feel bad at all,I'd prefer people to be cold and harsh when it comes to criticism,all it's gonna do is make me a better rater :)
 

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