If I wanted to do have a Pokémon battle against another trainer instead of an NPC from the game, how would I do that? If I don't have any real hardware, only the emulator...

@vaporeon_ citra apparently requires somebody to set up a server to emulate “local” wireless play

it would purrobably be easier to use pokémon showdown instead

@aescling What's Pokémon Showdown?

@vaporeon_ @aescling https://play.pokemonshowdown.com Battle simulator :)

@amy @aescling I kind of want to try it out, but also I worry about embarassing myself because I'm not familiar with the format at all...

@amy @aescling Can I somehow play against you specifically, so at least I fail miserably against a friend who knows I've never done this before and not a random stranger who would've expected a good battle?

@vaporeon_ @aescling We can play a battle with random teams if you like :)

@amy @aescling Sure! One moment

@vaporeon_ @aescling My account name is monorail

@amy @aescling Still trying to get a username for myself that this thing accepts... So many of them are already taken...

@amy @aescling OK, the name of my Pokémon Mystery Dungeon character works... Now to find Monorail...

@vaporeon_ @aescling If you tell me the name I can challenge you

@amy @aescling WadieTheEevee

Actually I clicked on "Find a user" and it let me challenge you, but now: which format? There's a long list and I don't know which to choose

@vaporeon_ @aescling Random Battle works

@amy @aescling I can't reply, but really close indeed :3

@vaporeon_ @aescling Oh whoops ha ha

@amy @aescling What does terastalization actually do? Just changes the type of a Pokémon? So that if I terastalize e.g. a Grass type to the Poison type, then Fire-type moves won't be super effective against it anymore?

@vaporeon_ @aescling Yep :) You get STAB for both the new type and the old type, as well. If you tera into a type the pokemon already had, then it gets 2x STAB instead of 1.5x

@amy @aescling Does that website have an option to exclude the latest generation of Pokémon? I've never played the newest Pokémon game, nor seen the corresponding anime, so it's slightly confusing to have lots of Pokémon that I don't even recognize...

@vaporeon_ Yeah, check this out :)

@amy Wow, SleepPowder is a powerful move...

@vaporeon_ In general, gen 1 sleep is really fucked ha ha

@vaporeon_ It can be up to 7 turns long, you'll never wake up on the turn that you were put to sleep, and you still lose the turn that you wake up

@amy What's the difference between "Random Battle", "Unrated Random Battle", and "Free-For-All Random Battle"?

@vaporeon_ Unrated means "It doesn't count towards your ranking" (but games where you challenge your friends never count, that's only for matchmaking)

I don't know what Free-For-All is

@vaporeon_ Oh, Free For All is 1v1v1v1 apparently!

@amy I see that there's a tab "Teambuilder", can I make a team and then challenge my friends with that team?

@vaporeon_ Yeah :)

@amy So Z-moves are illegal?

@vaporeon_ They're legal if you're building a team for a gen 7 format

@amy Oh! So I just needed to select Gen 7 instead of Gen 8

@vaporeon_ Yeah :)

Draft is a kind of league format where you and your friends would, ahead of time, take turns claiming access to different pokemon one at a time, then have scheduled battles with teams built from pokemon you chose. It's cool but it's a commitment, you'd have to find a group

@amy Sounds like a lot of effort that I'm not willing to commit to... What would I need to choose to just play a team with Vaporeon on it against my friends, without committing to scheduled battles?

@vaporeon_ Anything Goes if you don't want any restrictions at all, Ubers if you want to be able to use any pokemon but with some basic rules to keep it competitive like "Only one of any given species" etc, OU if you want to ban some of the strongest pokemon (many legendaries, etc)...

@vaporeon_ Of the standard tiers the general power level is like this (strongest at top)

Ubers
OU
UU
RU
NU
PU
ZU
SU

@amy What do the abbreviations mean?

@vaporeon_

Overused
Underused
Rarely used
Never used
(Doesn't stand for anything, it's just a joke about saying "Pee-yew!" when something smells bad)
Zero used
Subzero used

@amy I just searched for Eevee , and it says "LC" next to it... What does that mean?