Most Skilled Trainer in the Anime?

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Which trainer has the deepest bag of tricks(strategies),highest battle iq,best planner,smartest decision maker on the battlefield?

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Sawyer

 

[Audino1008]

Obviously Cameron

 

[Imtnt]

Paul, Cynthia and Sawyer in some order based on nothing but their character / battles..
Ash if we want to highlight gimicks and new moves out of the box.
It might be Paul so I voted for your fav character

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Paul, Cynthia and Sawyer in some order based on nothing but their character / battles..
Ash if we want to highlight gimicks and new moves out of the box.
It might be Paul so I voted for your fav character

Ash is clearly the best in the entire show in terms of thinking outside the box but as far as efficiency and in game strategies go I don't think those are his strong suits.

 

[Imtnt]

Ash is clearly the best in the entire show in terms of thinking outside the box but as far as efficiency and in game strategies go I don't think those are his strong suits.

It depends, cause he got skills and tricks partly was training for. And he reacts to whatever comes to him and that counts abit.
I think if he wouldn't keep Lucario back vs Steven for example if not planning his way out. And it worked against high ranked champion. Not that it was the smartest to start with Dracovish but he did the job Ash wanted (though the animation suggests nothing much).

The fact Paul knew already what Steven is going to bring and train Ash for it won't take that from Ash - but it is a fair extra point for Paul, so.

 

[Nicolas721]

Conway, Diantha, Bea and Katie have too few battles to be analyzed properly. As for the others my ranking would be:

1. Sawyer: He studied his enemies very carefully and was able to plan on advance. While he lacks some experience, he started off pretty good.
2. Paul: He uses a lot of strategy can is able to turn his enemies on their heads. However, he also uses a lot of brute force, specially when he loses his temper.
3. Cynthia: She's like Ash in that she pours a lot of heart in her battles, but she's also very versatile and has many tricks under her sleeve.
4. Ash: On theory he is a bad battler, as he priorizes his Pokemon's feelings over everything, barely changes his teams per saga, almost never uses status moves or secondary effects and is taken down to his last Pokemon fairly often. However, he manages to compensate that with quick thinking that knows how to combine moves or use the Pokemon's shape.
5. Gladion: He mostly relies on brute force. The only strategies I remember from him are using the Fire Memory to resist moves and using Counter.
6. Alain: Brute force all the way, and mostly uses only one Pokemon...

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Conway, Diantha, Bea and Katie have too few battles to be analyzed properly. As for the others my ranking would be:

1. Sawyer: He studied his enemies very carefully and was able to plan on advance. While he lacks some experience, he started off pretty good.
2. Paul: He uses a lot of strategy can is able to turn his enemies on their heads. However, he also uses a lot of brute force, specially when he loses his temper.
3. Cynthia: She's like Ash in that she pours a lot of heart in her battles, but she's also very versatile and has many tricks under her sleeve.
4. Ash: On theory he is a bad battler, as he priorizes his Pokemon's feelings over everything, barely changes his teams per saga, almost never uses status moves or secondary effects and is taken down to his last Pokemon fairly often. However, he manages to compensate that with quick thinking that knows how to combine moves or use the Pokemon's shape.
5. Gladion: He mostly relies on brute force. The only strategies I remember from him are using the Fire Memory to resist moves and using Counter.
6. Alain: Brute force all the way, and mostly uses only one Pokemon...

Alain’s Charizard is a Gary Stu

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Conway, Diantha, Bea and Katie have too few battles to be analyzed properly. As for the others my ranking would be:

1. Sawyer: He studied his enemies very carefully and was able to plan on advance. While he lacks some experience, he started off pretty good.

Is that the biggest reason why you have Sawyer over all the other trainers?

 

[Nicolas721]

Uhhh....yes? That got him farther in his first tournament than Paul in the Sinnoh League.

(In all seriousness, both characters are great and the differences would be minimal.)

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

You could also say that about Cameron and Trip if he wasn't matched up with Ash so early in the Unova League.Correct me if I'm wrong but the only time Sawyer planned ahead was when it involved battling Ash,he was always shown with his notebook writing down notes to learn the ways of a pokemon trainer.Paul didn't need to do all that also it was either stated or implied on different occasions that Paul had planned ahead for future battles not just for Ash.

 

[AJ9730]

1) Ash: He's the most unique/unconventional and it's hard to replicate his battle style. On the other hand, current Ash is extremely skilled enough to replicate a traditional strategic style
2) Cynthia: Formerly second strongest trainer in the world. Champion with the most experience.

Small Gap

3) Diantha/Alain/ Paul: While we haven't seen Alain be very strategic until Journey's, I think him being able to counter Leon's G-Max Rilaboom and getting to the Master Class and achieving his rank all together brings him here. I would apply the same to Diantha based on her performance against Lance and being a Master Class Trainer. Finaly, I think Paul also fits here and I think his performance against Ash definitely would also make him a Master Class tier trainer.

Huge Gap

6) Bea

Huge Gap

7) Sawyer

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

I personally think it comes down to Cynthia,Diantha,Paul,Ash,Katie,Conway and Sawyer.

Conway used smart and clever strategies like Feint to destroy Paul's protect,Trick Room to allow slower moving pokemon to attack first and the Powertrick/Withdraw combo he used against Ash.

Katie is similar to Conway but she also was shown switching her pokemon a lot to gain type advantage.

Sawyer took notes and studied Ash as a trainer and how he operates as a battler,he's also been shown to plan ahead.

Cynthia battled smart against Ash and often switched out her pokemon,she also used in game strategies like the others above.

Diantha was shown using status moves at the M8.

Paul has the biggest body of work and pretty used all the strategies that the trainers above used along with being prone to sacrificing his pokemon via switching them out and disregarding entry hazards,scouting the opponent's team,taking advantage of his pokemon's abilities and taking what he's seen in previous battles and using it against the opponent like having Gastrodon and Electivire use Ash's counter shield strategy.

Ash is the most unique and innovative out of everyone here because he has the ability to think outside the box like using Flare Blitz underground to remove Toxic Spikes,told Squirtle to use Hydro Pump to get rid of the sand that was in his eyes after Brandon used Sand Attack,commanding Gible to bite Dusknoir's Shadow Punch and of course the counter shield.My only knock is that he lacks the kind of strategies that all the other trainers above him use and there's been many occasions where he's battled recklessly.

 

[nickdt]

Why does nobody mention Tierno... with his uncoventional battle style. He is deffo up there imo.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Why does nobody mention Tierno... with his uncoventional battle style. He is deffo up there imo.

Waits for examples*

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

My Final Thoughts (Most Skilled Battler)

S Tier
Cynthia
Paul

A Tier
Diantha
Conway
Katie
Ash

B Tier
Sawyer

C Tier
Alain
Gladion
Bea

 

[nickdt]

My Final Thoughts (Most Skilled Battler)

S Tier
Cynthia
Paul

A Tier
Diantha
Conway
Katie
Ash

B Tier
Sawyer

C Tier
Alain
Gladion
Bea

Considering Ash beat both Paul and Cynthia... he is more skilled than both of them.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Considering Ash beat both Paul and Cynthia... he is more skilled than both of them.

So that's the end all be all for being the most skilled?

Leon beat Diantha but that doesn't necessarily make him more skilled.

Brandon beat Paul but does that necessarily make him more skilled?

Were you really convinced at the time that Hoenn Ash was more skilled than Katie just because he beat her at the Hoenn League?

He's never beaten Alain

Sawyer,Cameron and Trip all managed to get victories over him despite having less experience.

Power plays a part in winning battles too.

You should at least be glad I put him that high on the list and that's mostly because of his innovation in battles which makes him unique.I could've been a real d*ck and just put him towards the bottom tiers or left him off all completely.

If I'm being more generous I'd put him in the same tier as Paul and Cynthia but not higher.Throughout the series he's gradually gotten better as a trainer but then he got reset,became competent again,felt like he regressed once again,the pattern here is that he's been up and down post DP series.Also he still makes little mistakes in battle which is something you don't see many of the trainers on this list doing.

Lastly he's lacking in the competitive strategies that we've seen the other trainers utilize in battle,Ash was starting to do that more often in DP but he didn't make anymore improvements from that point and it just wasn't consistent.

Like I said he's where he's at due to his unorthodoxed on the fly strategies,if he had all the other ingredients that the other trainers have he'd be in his own tier higher than everyone in the entire series.

 

[nickdt]

Power plays a part in winning battles too.

Wasn't that exactly what Ash used against Paul and Cynthia though... else he wasn't able to beat them.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Wasn't that exactly what Ash used against Paul and Cynthia though... else he wasn't able to beat them.

Yeah he beat Paul by the skin of his teeth and he was down to his last pokemon when he battled Cynthia.But I don't think he was in control of those matches,it was the other way around.The Cynthia battle was like a combination of the two full battles Ash had with Paul,it had strategies,lasted for 3 episodes and kind of a one sided beatdown.

Also you might want to read my previous post again I added more.