Rating Basics

Blast

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http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/holly-offense.3536724/#post-6183912

hey I just discovered this thread and I've been rating off and on for a while now. I'd appreciate it if somebody let me know how I did n_n
Heya Can, it was already sorta covered in the thread itself, but while I think you did a pretty good job pointing out general weaknesses I think the issue with the suggestions is that they made the team lose so much power. When you rate it's important to look back at what you've done to the team and see if you're taking away anything important, which in this case is the team's strongest immediate hitter and setup sweeper (although I guess having SD Otter helps with the latter).

It's a bit hard to think of suggestions just because that team in particular is so weird, I suppose SD Otter and AV Magmortar > one of the Normals and Lanturn could work, but it's pretty hard to suggest changes without both replacing multiple members and / or changing the playstyle of the team.

I do encourage you to keep rating though, just keep what I said in mind and I'm sure you'll do great. Like I said when you're suggesting to replace a mon just ask yourself what it does for the team, and if it does something important, make sure you cover it. Hope I helped!
 
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/switch-switch-and-switch-a-voltturn-team.3535042/

Decided to get back into rating so here are some of my recent rates [:
Since im an OU rater i'll just answer for this rate. First you mentionned the fact that Chansey is clearly not a good pokemon for that kind of team since he's decreasing momentum and is slow, i really support this, then you suggested to replace it with Latias which fix its weakness to water such as Keldeo / Rotom and also comon threats like Charizard-Y or Landorus-i.

Then you also did an amazing work saying that Talonflame SD is a good suggestion, his team was being too passive and he doesnt even have Hazard to support volturn spam, now he will be able to have a solid win condition while still having momentum, nothing wrong here too. Same for keldeo sub CM that provides better staying power and a true stallbreaker in addition to cover his little weakness to bulky ground.

But the fact is that your forgot a major point of rating, when suggesting to replace a pokemon you have to dress a list of cons / drawbacks, in this case latias was a good change but did you also check what it could bring as drawbacks in return ? You suggested Ferrothorn as option over scizor but atm the team struggles more against Latios / Latias especially if they are running Hidden Power Fire, same for psychic types such as Alakazam or Reuniclus, Alakazam can just 2HKO ferrothorn, and reuniclus can just setup on this and 6-0. The best thing after having suggested Latias would have been to change scizor's set into a bulky trapper (U-turn + Pursuit + Bullet punch) allowing him to be less weak against Latios / Latias since he can force them to DracoMeteor then trap, and also against Alakazam because he wont be able to switch out. You could also optimize Attack Ev to be able to 2HKO reuniclus (no Ev attack doesnt with leftovers recovery) with uturn and then be able to rotate with Landorus-T which would have been enough to pressure Reuniclus.

Solid rate otherwise, keep up the good work and i hope i helped.
 
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I want to try rating teams. Here are some of my recent rates:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/olympus-balanced.3533540/#post-6137051

Would definitely appreciate some advice or critique on these, thanks in advance!
Hello Nanar's trainer, well first this is a solid rate overall, you started by suggesting Rock Tomb instead of Swords Dance which make him safer against Talonflame and Charizard Y since he's lacking of solid answer for those threats, adding Rock Tomb will also prevent some threats such as Altaria or Dragonite from setting up then finish especially in end game where the team will seriously be weakned.

Then you suggested to put Magnet Pull instead of Analytic on Magnezone for obvious reason, Analytic Magnezone is outclassed by Magnet Pull variant in any way, but here is the mistake, regarding this team you can notice that he cant do anything against Scizor SD since it can outspeed Magnezone and kill him with superpower or even knock off if weakned. Suggesting Magnet Pull was a good thing but you could have suggested a Speedy Magnezone, at least one that can outspeed Bulky SD Scizor which is only played with 16 Ev speed max, it would have been better for his team in addition to still be efficient.

Suggesting Choice Band for Azumarill is optional but still good since he doesnt have good reason to use Assvelt anyways and it also brings another stallbreaker as you said. Though AssVelt prevent him from getting swept by Altaria DD or Dragonite DD in end game since CB Azumarill can be locked and then decrease momentum.

I don't get the point of suggesting Iron Head on Kyurem-B, i mean he doesnt struggle against Clefable with CB Azumarill / Magnezone and Excadrill, this is pretty useless, while you could suggest to use Hidden Power Fire which would have been a decent Scizor's lure since he's pretty weak against it, especially Offensive version that can outspeed Magnezone.

Then you could suggest to use 36 Ev Speed on Latias, his actual spread hit 259 which means he doesnt even outspeed jolly Breloom and Mew (Can taunt and then wall Latias), while with 36 Ev speed he will be able to outspeed both assuming Mew is running a classic spread.

I hope i helped and good luck in the futur. My nanar is best don't forget it tho :D
 
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Hey, Analytic just a few nitpicks.
You could have tried Special Defensive Skarmory over Manaphy (Eh, I wouldn't say Sdef Mana checks Landorus, Scald does not ohko, while Earth Power is a 3hko, mana has troubles coming in, then again, what actually stops Landorus), it gives the team a steel resist that doesn't die from Superpower like Heatran and a defogger, while at the same time helps against Mega Diancie and opposing Mega Gardevoir (since you also changed Victini to Heatran, who dies to Focus Blast), oh, it also helps thanks to Counter against Mega Metagross, who has many opportunities to come in here, especially since Vicitni checks non-eq versions.

Victini in that team acted as a stallbreaker, as such I agree that Heatran would be a better fit (after changing Empoleon) but i don't think that changing Rock Slide would be the way to go with Landorus, Stallbreaker Talonflame totally destroys Heatran sadly, and manaphy cannot come in after a swords dance boost, also, scald fails to 2hko if leftovers, otherwise if no item with Acro, Scald has a very low 8.6 chance to 2hko, Rock Slide also helped the team against Mandibuzz, and; most importantly, a lure for Tornadus-Therian, which is troublesome, especially versions with Focus Blast/Superpower that can trouble Heatran.
I would have also considered to give Thundurus 76 atk evs, this way Latios would have been ohkoed 100% of times after Stealth Rocks support.


Other than that, great stuff (consider using the Hide function when posting calcs), keep up the good work!
 
Hey, Analytic just a few nitpicks.
You could have tried Special Defensive Skarmory over Manaphy (Eh, I wouldn't say Sdef Mana checks Landorus, Scald does not ohko, while Earth Power is a 3hko, mana has troubles coming in, then again, what actually stops Landorus), it gives the team a steel resist that doesn't die from Superpower like Heatran and a defogger, while at the same time helps against Mega Diancie and opposing Mega Gardevoir (since you also changed Victini to Heatran, who dies to Focus Blast), oh, it also helps thanks to Counter against Mega Metagross, who has many opportunities to come in here, especially since Vicitni checks non-eq versions.

Victini in that team acted as a stallbreaker, as such I agree that Heatran would be a better fit (after changing Empoleon) but i don't think that changing Rock Slide would be the way to go with Landorus, Stallbreaker Talonflame totally destroys Heatran sadly, and manaphy cannot come in after a swords dance boost, also, scald fails to 2hko if leftovers, otherwise if no item with Acro, Scald has a very low 8.6 chance to 2hko, Rock Slide also helped the team against Mandibuzz, and; most importantly, a lure for Tornadus-Therian, which is troublesome, especially versions with Focus Blast/Superpower that can trouble Heatran.
I would have also considered to give Thundurus 76 atk evs, this way Latios would have been ohkoed 100% of times after Stealth Rocks support.


Other than that, great stuff (consider using the Hide function when posting calcs), keep up the good work!
I edited the rate, the reason why I didn't suggest Skarmory is because it made him slightly weaker to switching in on Thundurus but I see what you mean.
 

Reymedy

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Hello.

Things that could be improved :

- Sometimes your rates are a bit superficial. Especially the latest. I see you going through the team and changing sets. While you do a good job at justifying these changes, I feel like they are very "superficial". For instance, the first rate you link, you edit the Hippo set by changing a move, but I never felt like you were totally aware of all the consequences. Toxic over Whirlwind means that this user will have to bring his Excadrill everytime a CM Clefable starts doing its thing for instance. You say it helps against Gyarados, but is that so ? Whirlwind it is a safer way to punish the switch if you have Rocks up, and you still apply "pressure" to stuff like Skarmory/Ferrothorn (especially Ferrothorn given that this team has 0 way to soak Leech Seed) by trying to prevent their switch ins.
What my point is, I don't say "Toxic is a bad option", I simply stress that it's a debatable one. It has good sides, and bad ones. I'm wondering why you're trying to change stuff like that when this team has tons of other issues to fix. For instance, this Hippowdon EVs spread means that Thundurus/Manectric won't have any issue 2HKO'ing it, which is most of the time, bad. You should have fixed that first of all.
I have the feel that you made a bunch of little changes, as you were noticing them, but never went deep into an analysis of how the team is supposed to build a gameplan, or what the threats were (Serperior is indeed a big threat of the first team, and Toxic on Hippowdon or not, it'll probably still sweep the whole team).
- You rarely change a Pokemon, obviously you should NOT be trying to change a Pokemon unless it is really needed, but this observation kinda supports my previous point that your rates may look superficial at time.

Things I liked :

- Your formatting is very clear. Keep the good work coming there (the rates are sorta long, but well).
- Your changes are interesting, you're not trying to add a glue to every team, or repeating the same things over every RMT.

Basically, try to make a quick list of some threats before you start your rate. It'll help you focusing your changes over the things that really matter, it'll make sure that your rate is trying to accomplish "something".
Anyway, a very promising and passionate rater ! I'm looking forward to see how you can improve your rating.
 
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Reymedy

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Hello, I've rated after a long time and I'm looking to get back into the swing of things.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/mega-gyarados-offense.3539194/#post-6243722
Hello, your rate is looking decent as you're putting a lot of care in your formatting.
Thus, I'm gonna straight up go for the heart of your rate, and I think I could give you a bunch of advices to help you improve :

- You should organize a bit differently your rate. You're kinda being redundant by saying that now Latias is supposed to check safely Thundurus, and then propose Celebi to.. further help against Thundurus (among other things). On top of that, something I've noticed from this rate and your older rates, is that you tend to do a check-up of the sets used and try to improve them by proposing the common set/spread instead. While this is not bad, rating is not about telling the OP to use the most used sets and the spreads from the analysis. You got to have a little added value.
I think that you would greatly benefit from doing a quick list of threats before your rate (I see that you list threats there though, thats good) and put it at the start of your rate. This way, you explain to the OP what is the pupose of your rate (ie = fix these threats) and you make sure that you never forget about it yourself (helps to avoid redundancies and "check-up" rates).

- About your choice to add Celebi and remove Azumarill, while it is fixing the threats you mention, I dont think that you made the team that much better. It's an interesting option I give you that, but you should have noticed that this team has bigger issues right now. The first thing that caught my attention is that this team lacks a Steel type. I'm not saying that you should tell the rater "yo dude, you got no steel, so I'm gonna add a steel for the sake of it", but the lack of steel should ring a bell and help you to notice that the team is unbalanced. By removing the Fairy, you turned this flaw into an even riskier one. Dragons will most likely crush him, and if they don't, then something else will abuse the lack of crucial resistances.

I don't really have a "perfect" rate to give you, because the team has too many issues to fit my tastes and doesn't respect the basics of an ORAS team. However, I think that Talonflame needlessly increase the Defog-dependency. I get it that it benefits from the removal of RotomW (even though, we're not 3 days after the release of XY, no one lets his RotomW die to EQ MGyara anymore) but a lot of other sweepers could benefit from that just as much and would need less support (*hint* a Pokémon with a Steel stab).
I also think that if you want to further improve the team, you should probably exploit the glaring Keldeo paranoia. I mean, he got Azumarill, Latias, TornadusT AV, Gyarados and a priority Brave Bird. I think it's obvious that stuff right here are redundant and not used to their full potential.

I hope I helped you, and feel free to ask if you need further explanations. You improved your rates quite a lot since the last time I checked them, you're on the right tracks.
 
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haven't posted here in a long time but wanting to get back in the swing of things, my oras knowledge isn't the greatest but i think i can help a little with the basic principles of team rating

Hello, I've rated after a long time and I'm looking to get back into the swing of things.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/mega-gyarados-offense.3539194/#post-6243722
the team you rated was an offensive team based around a mega gyarados / talonflame partnership and enabling either one of them to sweep, and your goal as a rater is to make sure this goal is made simpler. irregardless of the team you're rating, this should be in the forefront of your mind when rating a team and the changes you're making should never detract from this, otherwise it's not really the same team. the changes you have made do a good job of making this end goal simpler, so i'd agree with your changes for the most part

while this is an offensive team that relies on keep momentum, it's also important to identify individual threats that cause major problems to a team [thundurus in this scenario] and do what you can to nullify the threat in question. changing azumarill to celebi does a good job of helping against thundurus, however it does not ensure the op beats it entirely. nasty plot sets stay in for free, while celebi also draws in a multitude of other threats, such as talonflame, bisharp and tornadus, all of which threaten your team to some extent and are checked by azumarill without killing your offensive momentum. every change you make has a counter change, as you should aim to make sure changes you make don't open up bigger holes

for your other change(s), i would agree with them. increasing latias' bulk allows it to take on thundurus and mega manetric better, while your garchomp and talonflame changes help against the threats you listed that celebi could check better than azumarill. sometimes even small changes such as ev spreads can be as important as pokemon changes, and here i think is a good example of that

just my two cents, admittedly my oras knowledge needs more work but i think you're on the right track. from what i can see in your previous rates you're definitely improving, keep on rating!
 
hey there, i've noticed you have been rating a lot recently so i'll try to help you out as best i can. for your first rate i can see that you have made a lot of changes, however i'd disagree with the way you went about rating this team. you've analysed each individual pokemon on the team and ways to help them act as better individual members of the team, but when you're rating a team it is important to look at the bigger picture and see how the team functions -- if you continue rating teams like a checklist very quickly you're more likely to automatically change pokemon or sets just because you prefer another, regardless of whether that change makes the team function better. for instance this team is purely hyper offense that has no entry hazards, or furthermore a way to prevent / remove them, not to mention there are certain pokemon that single handedly 6-0 this team, such as thundurus. honestly certain teams that need too much help to make them function are not worth your time as a rater, maybe it's better to redirect them to battling 101 for more teambuilding help

i think your second rate was better in comparison, as you have actually identified a threat in mega gardevoir and suggested a change [assault vest raikou] to beat it. however i'm not too sure on your keldeo change suggestion, you say that changing conkeldurr to keldeo gives his team a little more speed, which is true, but why is this so important? not disagreeing with the change per se but why in particular is a lack of speed a problem for this team? the defensive core of conkeldurr / heatran / rotom seems to cover most of the common threats that are faster. additionally you say keldeo helps against mamoswine, which is true, but the team already has a max defense rotom-w plus conkeldurr for a worst case scenario for dealing with mamoswine. if anything i'd argue that keldeo breaks up the defensive core, as losing conkeldurr means he is much weaker against opposing keldeo, who can fish for scald burns against venusaur and specs variants can get past rotom-w with no sdef investment quite easy. another thing to mention is your next change, is that if you are adding keldeo over conkeldurr and raikou over rotom-w you still don't have a problem with heatran [you have keldeo + landorus-t + roost latios], so i don't understand the earthquake suggestion on latios. i don't think this change is necessary, and if you don't want latios to be a sitting duck against bisharp you could've recommended hidden power [fire] instead of earthquake which hits harder without compromising bulk and means that ferrothorn can't hazard stack against you, which is important given that ferrothorn already forces venusaur out 1v1 and the team lacks a way of removing hazards

you're making a solid effort with your rates and i appreciate your enthusiasm for rating but sometimes i feel like sometimes you're making redundant changes when you don't have to. try to identify a problem and then go about fixing it, if the team doesn't need changing to accomodate a certain threat then there's no need for a change. additionally you should try applying your changes to the individual teams you are rating more often -- particularly in your 3rd and 4th rates you suggest moveset changes and ev spread changes to say you hit a certain pokemon or outspeed a certain pokemon. this is all well and good but the same can be said for every team with a sub optimal set, and identifying that doesn't necessarily make you a good rater. why is outspeeding clefable important? why is being able to beat bisharp important? etc etc. apply this more within your rates and i'm sure people will be more accepting of your changes. don't be discouraged though, just my two cents. it's a habit and you'll grow into it as you rate more

good luck rating!
 

Celticpride

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Hello, recently I decided to start rating teams again. My previous rates were honestly pretty mediocre but I decided that I wanted to improve my rates. This is one that I did today that I would like to have looked at

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/mega-swampert-rain-team-suggestions.3542748/#post-6311330

Thanks in advance and for taking time to read this! :]
While I'm not a VGC aficionado, hopefully I can help you a little bit (we don't have any VGC raters on staff to my knowledge). I also looked up your last rate before this just to have a baseline for the improvement you mentioned. From looking at that I can say you did really improve. Getting rid of those "Thundurus: looks good" type comments was a great step in the right direction, because if something looks good there's really no need to comment on it. In addition, when looking at any team, the parts don't function in isolation so evaluating them one by one doesn't really help. Everything can "look good" while still not actually function well together. Which your latest rate was quite different and much improved! The change to offensive Scizor was really well explained, although you may want to consider using hide tags for the calcs to improve presentation (I'm super nitpicky about that personally). You also suggested changing some Pokemon out which is always a positive; you should never be afraid to do that kind of thing. I also think you clearly made the team better with both those changes. Going to Specs Latios to stay under the item clause was also a particularly nice move.

The one thing that did stick out somewhat was that you mentioned a spread of 252 HP / 252 Attack, and later on mentioned running max speed. IMO, just mention all the EV related stuff in one place to keep in nice and succinct. It's also easier for the reader to evaluate changes that way.

Overall much improved from your previous rating. Your rate was very strong technically in terms of presentation and explaining things well. Again, I'm not great at VGC but your changes seemed to be explained well enough to the point where I could understand the purpose behind them. Nice job!
 

p2

Banned deucer.
Hello, I've recently picked up team rating, and I realise some of my rates are kinda bad, but I want to improve my team rating a bit. This is one I did recently that I'm happy with and I'm just looking for an opinion on it. Thanks to anybody that takes the time to read and rate it!
 
Hello, I've recently picked up team rating, and I realise some of my rates are kinda bad, but I want to improve my team rating a bit. This is one I did recently that I'm happy with and I'm just looking for an opinion on it. Thanks to anybody that takes the time to read and rate it!
going to try and monitor this thread more frequently, i'm not involved much in rmt anymore but i'll contribute something given the influx of new aspiring raters. don't be afraid to post rates here if you're looking for improvement or direction, i'm sure myself or other official team raters can help you out!

you rated a balanced team, and started by identifying the weakness to common physical attackers [bisharp / lopunny / scizor] and suggested changing his landorus to a bulky garchomp set to help with this. i do agree with this change for the most part as garchomp does fare against these threats quite well, with rocky helmet + rough skin limiting the attacking opportunities of physical threats. the only thing i would say about this is that the team loses it's revenge killer, and the immediate answer to offensive physical stat boosters, which can be played around through priority and the team's defensive core.

however your follow up change [changing ferrothorn to serperior] i wasn't so sure on. while you are right in saying that serperior is a good offensive partner for charizard, i'm not sure that it is the best fit for this team in particular. serperior does force out bulky waters such as quagsire etc. but it does compound some of the team's larger weaknesses, such as unaware clefable, purely physical dragon dance altaria, life orb latios and offensive garchomp. not to mention that between rotom-w / ferrothorn / weavile beat all those threats you have listed that serperior does -- ferrothorn can hazard stack and leech seed them, while rotom can burn and pain split, weavile can pick them off at low health as well. i do understand the mindset behind your changes, but this change more than anything completely changes the team from balance to more offense if anything, and as a team rater you should aim to maintain the team composition as much as possible.

for the most part i would agree with the rest of your rate. defog + spikes is redundant, while starmie fixes that issue and offers the same insurance against keldeo. what i like about your rate the most is the follow up changes you have made. certain problems may open up after you make a change, but you seemed to have made further changes to prevent this from happening. it's very easy to make a change somewhere that exposes the team to a bigger threat and make it function worse than before.

for someone who has not been rating long it's an impressive start, although one thing i would say is that i would try to limit the number of pokemon changes within a team. the team you rate you suggested change 3 team members, which may on paper make it function better, but at a certain point it's not even the same team anymore. the changes you suggested change the team dynamic entirely, which may not be suitable for teambuilders aiming to make a team with a certain pokemon or strategy in mind. if there is a certain startegy behind the team [eliminating x so y can sweep] then your aim should be to make that end goal easier. move changes or subtle ev spread alterations can be just as important as pokemon changes, and you shouldn't default to changing a pokemon to fix an issue whenever you see it fit -- always try to work with what you have and if you can't, then a change is in order.

this is all just my opinion though, most of this will come in time to the point where it's just second nature. stay active and stay consistent, and always try to challenge yourself with the teams you are rating.

good luck!
 
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DennisEG

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Hey I finished my first rate, please rate it. I used colours and sprites. I'm open for any suggestions.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/my-hazard-stacking-mlop-offense.3548751/
Hey wasup man, i can give some advice for future rates. First you need to let it know to the person who made the rmt what are the glaring weakness of his team in the first paragraph so after that you can got o the suggestions/replacing mons, the way you should do it is explained why you change X mon for the one you suggest and a short list of cons / drawbacks, and at the end you can leave an importable as you do in this rate.

So speaking about the rate you made, suggestion scarf gengar isn't that helpfull for the team because the team already struggle against stall and having two choice mon without a hazard control make you switch constantly and wearing down your pokes, so i think a better suggestion would make Hoopa-U>Hoopa as your dedicated StallBreaker/BalanceBreaker this mon struggle against offense but having speed control on Klefki and a heavy-fast hitter in Lopunny you dont really care to much about offense.

The next suggestion you made was on Heatran, but again this mon need leftovers as passive recovery if you plan is check Clefable, Roar is a partial solution because last mon Clefable you cannot roar it out so beat your team (If you dont have Hoopa-U/Bisharp alive ofc), so a Magma Storm Set would be better to handle bulky mons that stop Lopunny like slowbro that like to switch into heatran so you can trapped and killed with the combination of taunt+toxic+magma , and last slot Flash for fairies.

And last the Lando-T suggestion was great because you clearly explain that the team is extremely weak to Sand Offense , and since you already have good speed control scarf isnt than needed, also since we already replace heatran we can add rocks to Lando-T.

Hope i help you man,and keep rating !
 
I hope this is considered an opinion n_n

Anyway I am giving an opinion on the rate, which seem to be ok, nice changes, not many of them, a good looking format either. How you said Hippowdon loses momentum to the team, but it's a good change tbf, also you could consider after giving the changes "other options" giving an offensive option, like TTar + Air Baloon Excadrill (just an example tho), which gain momentum and ttar pursuit most of electrics + tornadus-t. The last change is pretty meh, I don't really like Choice Scarf Latios, but you explained pretty well why you chose that 'mon, and it's ok in this case, but Defog on the Choice Scarf set isn't that good tbh. It's a pretty positive rate, it gave you a place in the hall of fame of the rate of the week, which is pretty good; keep up with rating and do not hesitate to ask us more questions! :toast:
 

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