"I realised that totems are the game's best tutorial"

Pokemon really likes to hold your hand and really stipulate on stuff that is really simple but does a poor job of explaining more advanced mechanics. After 23 mainline entries we can't skip catching tutorials but you could play the games for years and never learn about IVs. This also extends to general battle strategy.I'm sure we all remember having Typhlosions with Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Flame wheel and Fire Spin right? We cringe now at the thought now but why on Earth wouldn't 8 year old me have a moveset like that? A turn spent on set up is a turn not spent hitting things! We also never had more complex battle strats demonstrated to us in game until the elite 4 but this wasn't the case in Gen 7.When my younger sister played through US, she couldn't care less about weather effects, but seeing how totem Lurantis and Castform took advantage of the sun exposed her to the idea of team synergy; Totem Togedemaru had such powerful walling capabilities that she just caved and used a ditto to match it's kit which was her intro to PP stalling and the fight with Totem Kommo-o taught her that super effective hits aren't enough when the enemy has good type coverage.I felt this was a lot better than most gyms which would have ice types with nothing but Ice type moves and I hope the Gen 8 games have this method of slowly adjusting players to smarter battle plans. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2Q4rZRY