Heya,
I stared playing with Red Version and have always been involved with Pokemon in some fashion sense. but I have a friend who is strongly into it and I wanted to start playing again. being an avid CCG player I have some questions about the mechanics of the game and would appreciate any advice or insight:

1. I am not going to raise all of my Pokemon to level 100, but i am interested in competitive(still casual for the most part) with human trainers. How do you have Pokemon appropriately level to actually fight other people? It would seem like there would very often be a level disparity preventing fair matches. it seems to me Level 50 all is what I will have to go withy, but are there level brackets I should train different sets of Pokemon to?

2. Are there general Stat trends to be assumed from different types of Pokemon? I am not intimately familiar with all 482+ but is it reasonable to assume Electricity has high speed and spedial attack, rock is slow with a high defense, and middle ground is found by Pokemon with 2 types?

3. In general, should EV training be used to enhance stats that are already high or to reinforce low stats?

4. How important is the speed stat? Going first is a great advantage but all that comes from the number is whether it is higher or lower than the opponent. So you don't gain the added benefit of having an incredibidly high defense. The higher dense is the more resistant you are, the higher your speed (after surpassing the opponent) doesn't matter.

5. Is it better to use stat increasing moves or stat decreasing moves in a general sense?

6. Is it better normally to increase your attack stat to get a good hit or use both of those turns to attack?

7.Tips on choosing moves? STAB is important but I want to go for unexpected moves as well. Should more accurate moves be favored to the more pwerful but less accurate ones? Are there status affects that just aren't worth the time inflicting?

8. Tips for creating a well rounded team: Should each pokemon be a distinct type and serve a role(stat-wise?)?

Thanks,
-Chance ^_^

Hey welcome to Psypoke (i guessed as its ur first post, your new here, so am i =D

1. I hate to say it but i think you may have to raise all your pokemon to level 100 if you dont wanna be flattened, rolled up and tossed aside by Psuedo Legendaries (dragonite, Salamence, Garchomp, Metagross) everyone raises theirs to lvl 100, well as far as i know everyone trains to 100

2. You could look at it like that i mean electric pokemon (raichu, Luxio) have pretty good speeds but others (ampharos, magnezone) have actually pretty bad speed so its probably best you don't assume by type but look up stats on pokemon comparer on Psypoke. It will show you which pokemon has good stats

3. Im not too sure about EVs myself so i cant answer that

4. Speed is a pretty cool stat to have but there are great slow pokemon (Snorlax, Tyranitar, Machamp, Hippowdon) but these pokemon make up for it with terrifying attack and defense. You basicxally need a pokemon with a great Overall for example like i said earlier, Dragonite, Salamence, Tyranitar, salamence and Garchomp are thought of a psuedo legendary or Powerhouses and at least one these are found on every team because of their terrifying stats. However, many people dislike people using legendaries (rayquaza, mewtwo) as there is not much skill involved and they cause a lot of upset in competitive battling (i dont do competitive battling but i still dont like using legendaries)

5. Depends, stats like Dragon Dance, Swrods Dance and Calm Mind are essential to a great team because they up more than one stat are one stat twice. Most people tend to use stats to increase their own i mean very few people use tail whip or growl.

6. Difficult question, i tend to use stat upping moves rather than all out attack because this gives you time to work out your opponents moves and style of battling, abling you to counter it

7. In evey team you see, even in my team, people choose flamethrower over fireblast or ice beam instead of blizzard because it is more accurate, both ice beam and blizzard have same chance to freeze the opponent and flamethrower and ice beam hit nearly every time whilst blizzard and fire blast have a chance to miss, wasting a turn. Moves such as toxic which damages the opponent more and more every turn is a very powerful move to use(unless ur against steel) whilst will o wisp causes a burn and a burn sharply reduces ur oppoents attacki and special attack. Moves such as thunder wave and sing arent used as much because it does only little difference to the game, these are probably thought of as bonuses, you would rather have a thunderbolt which does big time damage and a 10% chance of paralysis rather than a thunder wave which can still miss and can only cause paralysis

8. For my team i have:

Umbreon: Great defence and so is good for giving status afflications such as Toxic and also has high defence meaning u can use curse to up umbreons stats and then use baton pass to past the stats onto like a Garchomp which would make garchomp the definition as the destroyer of worlds

Espeon: Speical Sweeper: uses special moves, only psychic as it has vgood special attack

Charizard: Physical Sweeper: uses physical moves

Swampert: Mixed swepper: uses both

Salamence: uses physical moves but to counter ice t hads fire fang rather than flamethrower due to salamence having a high attack stat and fire fang being a physical move

Lucario: for the hell of it

Hoped i helped, basically look for a team that can cover as many types as possible but still inflict a large amount damage

If you're battling on Diamond and Pearl's Wi-Fi, there is an option to adjust all your Pokemon's levels to 100 during a battle but they'll revert to their original levels afterward. If you're battling in real life, including Diamond and Pearl, the level of an opponent's Pokemon would really just depend on each opponent and how far they were willing to train their own Pokemon.

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2. Are there general Stat trends to be assumed from different types of Pokemon? I am not intimately familiar with all 482+ but is it reasonable to assume Electricity has high speed and spedial attack, rock is slow with a high defense, and middle ground is found by Pokemon with 2 types?

Maybe this held some weight back in the days of Generation I, but it's not really applicable now that we have five-hundred Pokemon. There are so many different, distinctive Pokemon now that you really can't generalize stats based on typing anymore. While Electric Pokemon do tend to be speedy, there are exceptions such as Ampharos and Luxray. And, while Rock and Steel Pokemon tend to have high physical Defense and low Speed, Pokemon like Lucario and Aerodactyl are speedy with weaker defensive capabilities.

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3. In general, should EV training be used to enhance stats that are already high or to reinforce low stats?

Again, the best answer that I can give is that you have to determine this on a case-by-case basis. Pokemon who are meant to tank should compensate for their weaknesses. This is why people maximize Blissey's horrid Defense and Shuckle's pathetic HP. Pokemon who are speedy and have good Attack and/or Special Attack should probably focus on maximizing (or close to it) Speed as well as the Attack stat in question.

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4. How important is the speed stat? Going first is a great advantage but all that comes from the number is whether it is higher or lower than the opponent. So you don't gain the added benefit of having an incredibidly high defense. The higher dense is the more resistant you are, the higher your speed (after surpassing the opponent) doesn't matter.

While bulky Pokemon don't necessarily need Speed, there are Pokemon who don't have the gift of being bulky. Clearly speed is important for those types of Pokemon that are relatively fragile. However, now that every thing is hitting so hard in Diamond and Pearl, even the bulky Pokemon who have maximized Defenses have to be wary about taking too much punishment.

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5. Is it better to use stat increasing moves or stat decreasing moves in a general sense?

These moves have very different purposes in a battle. Moves that drop an opponent's stats are generally good for forcing switches (which is a great way to get Pokemon who have used their own stat increasing moves to switch out). Stat increasing moves can help a Pokemon sweep or sponge hits, so stat increasing moves are more popular in general. However, as I said, the two sets of moves have very different approaches and both are viable; it really just depends on your personal preference.

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6. Is it better normally to increase your attack stat to get a good hit or use both of those turns to attack?

Again, this isn't something that is universal for every Pokemon. In general, stat boosting moves are more popular, but you have to be careful and use prediction to get them off safely. Of course, this only applies to stat moves that boost one stat by two levels (Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, etc.) or moves that boost two stats by one level (Dragon Dance, Calm Mind, etc.) Moves like Swords Dance will result in a positive net damage for a Pokemon after one attack (two unboosted attacks are roughly equal to one Swords Danced attack), while moves like Calm Mind are part of a slightly different strategy that is both defensive and offensive.

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7. Tips on choosing moves? STAB is important but I want to go for unexpected moves as well. Should more accurate moves be favored to the more pwerful but less accurate ones? Are there status effects that just aren't worth the time inflicting?

For your first question: STAB moves are essential on almost any Pokemon in the game. The reason for this is that, many times, the boost provided by STAB will outweigh moves from another type that do not receive STAB. You really need to look at an attack's power and how attacks that do not receive STAB cover types that do resist the STAB moves.

For example: you might think that Ice Punch (which, in DP, is a 75 BP physical Ice move) on your Miltank would be a nasty surprise for an enemy Togekiss. But, in reality, after a max power Return's STAB boost (102 * 1.5 = 153), Return would do more damage against Togekiss or, indeed, any Pokemon whose typing makes it take neutral damage from Normal moves and 2x damage from Ice moves. Secondary and tertiary attacks, respectively, are there to cover Pokemon that resist/have immunity against STAB moves (e.g. Rock attacks on a Ground Pokemon) and to exploit 4x weaknesses (which is pretty much the only thing Hidden Power is good for besides helping out Pokemon with horrible movepools).

As for the rest, again, it depends. Unless you plan on using Hail or Rain Dance, Ice Beam and Thunderbolt are generally preferred over Blizzard and Thunder. But Blizzard, Thunder and Hydro Pump are useful on Pokemon who really need the boosted power. These are Pokemon who are generally fragile and don't have a lot of attacking power. There are also special cases such as Jirachi, who likes the 60% paralysis chance that he gets from Thunder via Serene Grace. Fire Blast is a bit of an exception from the other three because it has high power (120 BP) with respectable (85%) accuracy.

Status effects are almost always worthwhile. Sleep and freeze essentially disable an opponent unless it knows Sleep Talk or two or three uncommon novelty moves (Snore to attack while asleep; Flame Wheel or Sacred Fire, which is only found on one banned Pokemon, to attack while frozen). Burn is great for crippling physical attackers. Paralysis shuts down sweepers who rely on their speed. Toxic wears down tanks. The only status that you should avoid is regular Poison because it only saps a pitiful amount of damage after each turn. However, it works great against in-game opponents such as the Gym Leaders and Elite Four because they usually don't have Leftovers on anything... and they also usually have the intelligence of a bag of rocks.

Status infliction moves versus damaging moves that have a very low side effect to inflict a status is non-comparable. Status moves are great choices for Pokemon whose purpose is to support their teammates, and they always work. People do not use moves like Thunderbolt because they have 10% chance to paralyze; they use these moves because they have high power and accuracy. They're different types of moves entirely.

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8. Tips for creating a well rounded team: Should each pokemon be a distinct type and serve a role(stat-wise?)?

Yes, if you're playing super-seriously, but winning with teams of Pokemon that are all one type or one role can be fun, challenging and still possible depending on what type or role you pick. Winning with a mono-Water-type team is by no means impossible.

Thanks for the replies! They were very helpful.

1+. With lvlv. 50 and 100 All is the only difference between a lvl 30 and 100 pokemon the EV's, IV's and moveset?

3+.When is a good time to begin EV training? It seems like it isn't very managable till late in the game or when you have finsished because then you have the resources to gain access to certain areas. And I have the feeling I might need alot of those berries to clear EV's and then Protein and stuff to tell when my EV in a certain stat is filled.

9. How much time do people spend recapturing Pokemon to get the desired combination of Nature and Ability? And I suppose gender only matters for breeding and moves like captivate. Is there a trend for people to play with a certain gender? Or is it a roughly 50% spread?

The pokemon has adjusted stats. EVs and IVs are taken to account. If the pokemon has 252 EVs and 31 IVs, you'll see the affects exatly as the same as thet would be if trained to level 100.

3+. Any time, but I would recommned after you have beaten the game. FR and LG requires breeding center which is after E4, Emerald has Grandpa IV in Battle frontier, in Dp you get berries.

9+. usually people breed, but legendaries rare exception. I usually set limits how good IVs and Nature I want. (Tip: Synchronize helps immensely).
Gender ratios can be different in different pokemon. Usually they shouldn't matter. (Unless something like Gallade, but it is determined by breeding.

And just to know... look at my sig.