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hi guys. for a while now ive been looking to get into the competitive side of Pokemon battling, but i have absolutely no experience playing even against humans, because until now ive only ever played pokemon casually. so if anyone knows any good websites that would help, or tips they would like to share, or hell, offer straight out offer tutor me on Competitive battling i would much appreciate it.

For good strategies and move sets, check out Smogon University.
If you want to battle against other players, you can go on Pokemon Showdown.

Just my two cents, rather than using the pokemon "they" say are the absolute best, use the ones you actually like, but can still keep up in battles. Most people nowadays run the same pokemon with the same strategy and same movesets. It's usually when someone comes in with something they aren't familiar with that you catch them off guard and win.

Also where are you talking about battling? In game, or in battle sims like Showdown?

I see Smogon University as a jumping off point. They have good strategies, but they aren't the best since everyone knows them. It helps to be creative so your opponent can't guess what move set you're running.

If you're doing In Game competitive battling it'll be a bit more work since you need to breed, ensure the nature and IV's are good, make sure you have the proper egg moves. Sometimes it's fun, other time tedious.

You may want to look into KYM Pokemon General for some tips hidden in the pages.

• Smogon, as Midnight Gengar said, will give you a good going set of commonly used movesets for just about every pokemon. You can usually gauge how "good" one is by looking at their tier system: NU (Never Used), RU (Rarely Used), UU (Underused), BL (Borderline), OU (Overused), Uber is the general trend you'll see anywhere, but which ones are used or banned from a tier varies based on the website.
• Serebii has a Pokemon of the Week for generations going back to Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. It gives you options as opposed to one or two standard movesets. Of course, there was the welcomed special/physical split in Gen IV, and new moves appear in each generation, but a lot of sets will work competitively regardless.
  • Gen III
  • Gen IV
  • Gen V
  • Gen VI
• If you want to get experimental, I like using:
  • Type Coverage Calculator – It'll let you put in types of moves and will show you what pokemon you can hit for Super Effective damage, neutral damage, Not Very Effective Damage, or No Effect.
  • Damage Calculator – This will give you pokemon sets that are commonly used and will let you guess at how a pokemon will fight against another pokemon while considering abilities, natures, moves, weather, entry hazards, etc.
• Bulbapedia is good to know exactly how certain things work. For example, one thing people didn't notice is that partially trapping moves (e.g., Bind, Wrap, Sand Tomb, Infestation) now sap 1/8 of your opponents HP per turn instead of 1/16. With Binding Band, that increases to 1/6 per turn. So now, between Power Split, Rest, and Infestation, I have a Shuckle which traps pokemon, essentially Burns them but affects Special Attack and Physical Attack, and Rests to restore HP while the opponent hits for fairly weak damage on a Pokemon with high defenses (Sticky Web is my fourth move. Stealth Rock would also be an option.)
• Serebii will let you look up everything about Pokemon, but I find it to be better organized. For the Pokedex, you can look up any move a Pokemon can learn along with its stats, potential abilities, and a lot of other information.

You'll also want to look into IV, nature, ability, and Egg Move breeding and EV training, but that would take another post to explain fully.

Briefly, EV (Effort Values) training is fighting against certain Pokemon to increase your stats in a certain area. For example, a physical sweeper would probably want most if not all of its EVs in Speed and Attack.

I'd suggest this thread on Smogon for concise information.

Breeding is eugenics with Pokemon, but inbreeding is encouraged. Basically, you can breed to inherit natural potential for stats (IVs or Individual Values), get unique moves only learned from a parent (i.e., Egg Moves), abilities (often passed down from the mother, sometimes the father), and natures (which affect stats usually at the expense of another.)

I'd suggest this Bulbapedia page for more information.

I think the best way to learn is to do though. Just do some Free Battles, see what others use, and see how you can win with your favorite Pokemon. You'll lose a lot, but if you're smart, you can easily beat teams of legendaries with relatively "average" Pokemon.

If you're going the route of breeding for IVs and egg moves I highly suggest this video as a starting point

In general she has a few good starter videos on the subject

thanks, its really helpful to have a good starting point for learning about this stuff. now i will do some research and make a team to start practicing with on Pokemon showdown. and see where my team goes from there.