Paperblade

Speed invest your Mawile. Spiritomb is base 35 and Geara's isn't even a speed boosting nature. Mawile is base 50. Megamaw absolutely 1v1s that thing. EV reduction berries are cheap and EV training is quick and easy in rejuvenation I also consider this whole video a total rejection of your suggestion that breeding an entirely new team is in any way required for any given fight considering I used the same six mons for every single fight. You just have to be willing to change movesets and EV spreads and for good measure, an entirely different team vs. Geara (which, again was the same 6 mons vs. every fight) which uses a psychic type against Spiritomb

I want to throw in my piece as disagreeing with the OP completely. Their complaint is predicated around the assumption that they shouldn't have to engage with the game on its terms and try to figure out how to use it to their advantage, and should simply be able to just ignore an entire game mechanic The two main examples from Ch. 15 are especially indicative of this, since both Fairy Tale and Haunted Field boost moves strong against the teams of Melia and Geara respectively. In fact, Fairy Tale is best for Steel Types as it makes them good against both Fairy and Dragons, which makes up a majority of Melia's team. Her singular Steel type is then extremely soft to dark types, as it's a slow Ghost type. Geara is even more obvious because, as a ghost specialist, the ghost boost on this field becomes a double-edged sword. In fact, Haunted Field has been nerfed from V12, where it nerfed Dark, Psychic, and Fairy type moves which would have made this fight completely overwhelming. I don't think it's fair to the rest of the players to balance the game around people who want to play the game like this. If Intense is too much for you, you can go down in difficulty if they truly don't enjoy Intense, but if Intense is significantly nerfed it's a loss for people like me that enjoy it. This isn't to say Intense is perfect--it's not clear at all what you are signing up for when you select it at the game start (including hidden mechanics like the AI having an accuracy boot) and some fights are a bit overbearing, but in general complaints like these seem to come from people who aren't the intended audience of the mode

Truant'interacts incorrectly with sleep. How it should work: Your sleep counter goes down every turn until you wake up, You should also be able to attack the turn you wake up provided you didn't use Snore/Sleep Talk the turn prior How it's currently working: You loaf around every other turn, and during these turns your sleep counter doesn't decrease. and you won't wake up. This means you can be asleep for ~5-6 turns max.

Gren's early game is way better than most starters. Protean echoed voice rolls over early game fights Also physical non-Crest empoleon is mostly worse than bibarel imo.

not doing exact numbers since there's no way half these ideas are balanced Wishiwashi: At the start of Wishiwashi's turn, if it's not schooling, recover ~33-50% of its max health -lets it always utilize schooling form's much better offenses, but healing low enough that it's not invincible Dodrio: Whenever Dodrio acts, it also uses the move in its last moveslot at reduced effectiveness -Dodrio's dex always talks about its ability to execute complex plans because of its 3 heads, so that's the flavor justification. Might need to be limited to only attacking moves because a free SD (or Roost) every turn would be super busted

it evolves by leveling up charjabug on terajuma island if you have a spare rare candy (which you probably will?) you can push Snover up to 41 to learn Blizzard, then level it back down to 40. Valarie has no way to change the field back and icy field neuters her team since it turns off swift swim and makes her water moves way less threatening. Her lead shouldn't be able to OHKO Abomasnow unless you're like 0 HP/Def IVs and a -def nature It's definitely annoying on a blind playthrough since your only options to improve your team are likely gonna be the pokemon in the jungle itself

GREG GREG GREG GREG wrt Gren, my experience is that it's the best early game starter I've used so far (haven't used Torchic yet) because protean Echoed Voice + its speed just lets it win any singles fight and it's an amazing Hidden Power user. It falls off a bit after Valarie or so because the 50-60BP moves that were fine before just to hit stuff super effective stop cutting it, and there's not a ton of fights where Mat Block can put in a ton of work so you are stuck with Surf and Extrasensory + like, Night Slash or Hidden Power? But once you get Dark Pulse and Hydro Pump it gets a third good move and a huge power boost and there are more fights where Mat Block is excellent as time goes on (Erick, Florin, Venam, Lorna, Eli&Sharon 4, Defense Mechs) The real weakness of Gren however is that it has no setup move and its special attack is just serviceable, so it's more of an offensive support mon (you could run Spikes on it for example, which autobreaks sturdy and sashes and just helps secure KOs). And this lack of power really hurts as we move into mons where having cheaty EVs is the norm. For example: Lvl 85 252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hydro Pump vs. Lvl 86 252 HP / 252+ SpD Steelix-Mega: 252-299 (82.6 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO And Mega-Steelix's special bulk isn't amazing, 75/95 is a bit above average but not terribly so. This ignores the field since the field is incredibly negative to Gren's damage--special water moves that aren't Scald are horrible on Desert Field. gren can also get blizzard now, which is strictly better than ice beam if you are patient enough to reset for misses I also wouldn't rank mons based on their ability to solo the game under these conditions, there are a lot of minor things that add up to give Gyarados an advantage that wouldn't really matter in regular gameplay, like its ability to flinch/freeze hax things letting it cheese its way past even fights like Erick.

crest beheeyem doesn't care about anything Nidoqueen does and can just set up with cosmic power/nasty plot/recover/energy ball. Boosting Recover's PP is appreciated but not necessary I'm pretty sure if you only bring one pokemon Nidoqueen doesn't even use toxic spikes there might be other stuff that solos but I think most of the stuff I've had sweep ryland had something else turn off sand first so it wasn't a true solo

gyarados has beaten every fight through the 13th gym on intense with no items "solo", and the rest are likely coming soon I say solo because two are used for doubles since it's buggy moxie and other stuff that lets you just get stronger and stronger through a fight is just super broken the game also has a pretty good split between singles and doubles challenging fights, although the ones generally considered most difficult are more often doubles That said, most late game stuff is gonna be pretty broken. There's already stuff that can already solo fights like Intense Ryland and I wouldn't really want the game to get much more insane than that

It's worth noting that the Crest doesn't give a 50% boost like Strong Jaw. It's only 20%. Life Orb is better for pure damage purposes, the real benefit of the Crest is the priority boost

update, I forgot that you can get zygarde-10%

pokemon families not obtainable at all right now: every mythical and legendary except for Phione, Type: Null, and Silvally Magikarp Dratini Bagon Timburr Ferroseed Rufflet Honedge Hawlucha Klefki Mudbray Mimikyu Jangmo-o This includes associated evolutions. Wynaut is also not obtainable because the item required to breed it from Wobbuffet isn't available yet On top of that, there are some pokemon that are only currently obtainable from the mystery egg or as starters, making them mutually exclusive within their respective groups Families only obtainable as starters: Treecko Torchic Chimchar Snivy Chespin Froakie Only obtainable from the mystery egg: Togepi Larvitar Drilbur The mystery egg can't be soft reset (it's rolled at the start of the game), so if you get a pokemon that is otherwise obtainable from it you'd have to restart your file or change it with debug. These pokemon are all going to be obtainable through other methods eventually though.

Grookey would break the game on a fundamental level by turning off terrains in every fight. The others are just really good at what they do.

Both crested and mega pokemon have a pretty wide range in power level. There's some that are still pretty weak for both (Crest Magcargo and Mega Audino). A lot of crests have pretty insane power gains but they are also buffing pokemon who are otherwise terrible, so even something like Ledian is still just a bit too good--its attacking power is insane but its speed tier is still just 85 with very bad physical bulk. On the other hand, around half of the mega evolutions are to pokemon who are already decent, if not great.

devs have confirmed on discord that the official terrains (grassy/psychic/misty/electric) are being separated from the other ones so that the gen8 Surge mons aren't such a problem. Even if you made all of them available super late, Grookey starter would be a problem

Long Reach reduces accuracy by 10% on Forest Field, so it might be related to that? Anyway, error with Emergency Exit works (because the official games are more inconsistent about it ) So how it works in the official games is if passive damage brings it below 50% it should immediately trigger even if holding a sitrus berry or something like that (and still consumes the berry). But if an attack is what brings it down and it recovers over 50% before it reaches its turn it stays in. Instead in rejuv, it always retreats.

Rage Powder doesn't always work on enemy mons.

Honchkrow is one of the best flying types in the game. The AI doesn't really play around Sucker Punch (well, before 18.2, maybe it does now) so there are fights where it can just solo. It also has useful utility like Tailwind and Perish Song I'm also a fan of Dodrio but it's extremely frail. Dual STAB/Swords Dance/Jump Kick is a strong moveset though and its offensive stats are great. For Grass it kinda depends on if you want something offensive or bulky/utility mon. Bulky/utility is easier to come by as Tangrowth and Amoonguss are free. The good offensive Grass types are almost all starters or from the Mystery Egg if you want one early (Serperior/Sceptile starter, Venusaur if you can get it sun support; Breloom from mystery egg), with the exception of Lilligant. Roserade is also a good all-purpose grass type, it gets Toxic and has good offensive stats

Gigantamax forms are confirmed to be implemented as custom megas

I don't know about a full defensive team, but there are plenty of good bulky/defensive mons (shadow slakoth, crest beheeyem, snorlax, amoonguss, hariyama, sableye, sylveon, golisopod, to name a few). Sticky webs are also very strong for supporting these mons

I think the potions are useful info to have, even if it bloats

I'm seconding that Aster&Eclipse 1 is a huge difficulty jump. Fern is completely useless as his pokemon are outsped and OHKO'd by either enemy and he only has 3 of them. After clearing out every single trainer (including sidequests) available before this fight, I have a party of 3 at levels 15/18/19 which is not enough to essentially 1v2 this battle. Without access to even Grand Hall trainers at this point, we're left with the Peridot Alleyways to grind levels, which sucks isn't great when I'm trying to get pokemon up to 18ish just to stand a chance vs. these leads. I will say I like that vitamins max out the stat's EV

Cherrim becomes a fine special tank if you want that, but its mechanics are pretty straightforward and much more balanced than ledian

It hitting 4 times makes it attack stat comparable to Zacian-Crowned (Level 85 Zacian-C has 559 Attack with its ability factored in, Crested Ledian has the equivalent of 576). What "balances" Ledian is that there are no punching moves that it gets STAB on (instead it gets Iron Fist), its HP/Defense stats are still awful, and its 85 Speed means it's reliant on either Mach Punch or Agility to outspeed a lot of stuff (or have webs/tailwind). But I've gotten to Venus's Ledian enough times with 3-4 mons still up only to have it sweep me that I will say: Ledian Crest is pretty insane.

Are the pokemon that made it through Dexit going to be able to obtain moves they can only get through TM in SwSh? Examples being new Nasty Plot mons