nonsensei

I think the first time I played, I ended up using Trick Room approach & after I set it up, a Gigalith using Nature Power. Though, I got it to a decent (20 something) IVs & EV trained for atk & HP. But I think even if you fail to sweep through the whole team with that, you can clean up the rest. Make sure to use Amplified Rock on your Trick Roomer & Sharp Beak on Gigalith, I guess..?

Things go pretty fast if I don't have to run around collecting items & progressing story events, so done with chapter1-2 battles. Which means Venam, Rorim B. & Novae, Keta1, Madelis1 and finally Keta2 incoming. I skipped the battles directly before & after Venam coz they're either not even full team or just low levelled... or both. I will just leave a link to the playlist coz 5 embed is a liiittle too much, I guess. Venam: the only real difficult with her is the field damaging your 'mons which doesn't concern me, so after a bit of wearing down, I just sent in Seviper with Venoshock & be done. Rorim B. & Novae: this was pretty difficult until I picked up Intimidate Arbok & focused Rorim B. down first while letting Charjabug with atk down attempt to do dmg. Keta1: that goddamn Lucario... similar strat as above, but I needed that def down from Rock Smash to finish it off next turn. I gotta say Ariados learning Swords Dance & priority moves this early is pretty nifty, though. Madelis1: not sure how I feel about this fight, but the key point is having 2-3 'mon remaining on both sides to take out Shadow Mewtwo. Keta2: Hidden Power Ice being useful (yes, I trained a special attacker version of Seviper). I took Swalot to outlive Lapras coz I didn't really have anything to destroy it, the rest is just whacking each other. (Highlight of the bundle at Madelis1: Me: "Oh, the A.I. can't be dumb enough to Fake Out a faster 'mon also having it.", then the A.I. goes doing just that.)

And here's the Souta fight. Ugh... of course my only flying type doesn't learn Sky Attack through egg moves. I initially intended to just go full throttle Counter/Mirror Coat with Nidoqueen & Tentacruel (which is plenty functional & I still consider justified, though), but Red Card removing the insanely fast Hawlucha opened up a way to a bit less cheesy approach. Anything besides Braviary getting dragged out into Counter was fine since that's the only one that would go down with a single hit, anyway. After that, putting the next target to delayed sleep, providing Scolipede a free 2HKO (it's either Thundurus or if dead, Hawlucha) & weakening the next since it outspeeds anything by then. The rest is straightforward. I will be revisiting act1 battles on intense mode with this done, then progress with the rest. (Rock, ground & steel type leaders incoming, uh-oh..)

Finished the alter timeline arc, so it's Kenneth, Melia & Melanie incoming. Kenneth's proved to be another tough fight, especially coz Lucario's Psychic somehow hit Alolan Muk when I tried to switch it in which made me misinterpret some mechanics on the field. And as such, it turned out to be revenge killing back & forth for the most part. I quickly realised dark is still immune to Psychic afterwards, but I was lazy to backtrack. RIP Melia. This field doesn't help her too much, at least not against me, so she got pretty much run over. This was actually a first try after I came up with the strat, but it went flawless. Luckily, almost her whole team is affected by Toxic Spikes, so I was looking for a chance to pass a speed boost to Aevian Milotic to set it up for a sweep that I was always looking for. And it turned out to be very much successful. I removed Corviknight in the beginning coz I knew she would send it back once the screens expire to set them up again, giving me free turns to target her other 'mons with my guaranteed crits. This was satisfying.

If you're heading to Souta, then no need to go to Scholar District. You just head north to Rose Theatre after taking the train.

Halfway(?) into chapter12, so here comes Vivian & Valarie: Vivian gave me a pretty hard time. Decided to just poison stall Tyranitar which meant waiting out on double PP Stone Edge to run out first. Then switching around using immunities to get the right match ups. Gosh.. Valarie is such a dork. Anyway, this fight was surprisingly tough coz I hardly had anything to hit super effective dmg. Took me several approaches to get it done. (I just knew that Extrasensory I kept on Roserade for ages would eventually be useful!)

About that.. notice how the evil spirit thingy disappears from his sprite when he comes back & he himself states that he feels like a different person after Nastasia pieced him together. I might be reading too much into this, but I suspect that it will have plot relevance later on.

Aaand chapter11 done. I excluded the Zetta vs. Aelita coz that doesn't have much to do with my mono Poison. One of my first tries, nothing too hard since no pesky fields to make my job 10x harder. I didn't even realise I was using an underlevelled Weezing. This was actually a first try, similar to before, easy without fields around. That said, his team is pretty solid... except for that last one. This was surprisingly smooth despite both Aelita & I going up against a weakness. Praise Infiltrator Crobat & Dark type's immunity to Psychic.

Hidden Power is mostly about hitting stuff with 4x weakness that you otherwise don't get to do due to movepool restrictions or stuff that resist your other moves with 2x, at least. In either case, I only see the 50 base power a nerf. However, I'm curious & couldn't find results on a quick search, can the new Hidden Power hit 4x or is it just always 2x dmg? If it's the latter (and probably is), then it was made virtually useless. (for endgame, at least)

Okay, these siblings were annoying as hell to fight. Starting with Flora, in the beginning I needed Alolan Muk to wake up right away... or Power Whip to miss which was rather wishful coz in intense, our opponents seem to have a +10% accuracy. (No, I'm not polarizing, I've literally never seen a 90% move miss). That poison on Ludicolo made things go in a weird direction, but nothing too off course. And changed Roserade's nature to Nature Cure to ensure the final stretch against that annoyance of a Prankster Whimsicott. Florin just attempts to wear you down, so I took a similar approach instead of trying to stomp it. That Cross Chop crit in the beginning is essential, but I got 50% chance with Scope Lens, so wasn't too bad, then letting the DoTs run wild while picking out the potential threats with my other 'mons. I kinda wished I could set Aevian Milotic up for a sweep, but alas...

I was merely attempting to point out a few things that needed some sort of adjustment in case IVs are removed. And yes, I also use like 20 active members in my mono Poison run by the endgame, not to mention retired members & some niche ones, so I know the pain. I'm not quite sure why you'd want RNG in your Hidden Power when you want it removed from the IVs. I'd think more in a similar system as nature change where you can choose it yourself for a price.

Things that come to my mind just on a first thought that would be heavily affected by removing IVs: 1) Hidden Power - The way it's implemented in Legend Arceus just kills off the point of this otherwise handy move. We'd either need an NPC to set its type for instance if IVs are out of picture. 2) Trick Room - Yep, there are cases where you don't want perfect IVs. Or at least, there's this one case.

You could get a hidden Moon Stone for your Nidorino at Goldenleaf. It's hidden in the garden southeast of the town that is/was guarded by a trainer. It should be somewhere at the bottom. You should grab it when you get back, at least.

Nice Trick Room, Amanda... It would a shame if I brought my own slow 'mons & buy time until it runs out. That Heat Wave crit at the end, though, oof. And since these are pretty much back to back fights, I also got the Erick fight. He gave me a pretty hard time despite my initial assumption that I'd have it easier since Murkwater counts as homeground to me as well. Pretty much nothing I had was safe to switch in besides Nidoking. Good thing I had an old prototype in my PC. I had to adjust Muk's EVs to get a result where Electivire *just* dies by Murkwater on the 3rd turn. Then playing on Erick being dumb & keep targeting Scolipede with protect.

The right strat for another rematch.

Toxtricity siblings make their first appearance & they're on a roll. And damn, I really like the Aevian variant. Not much to say about the fight, though. I pretty much just overpower his status-heavy strategy.

And here comes Amber. Oh boy.. this was close. That specially bulky Alolan Muk is the MVP this time around. Pretty much my only option for priority moves. Then tricking the AI into using a Shadow Ball to safely pass some speed to Drapion. If you ask why not Knock Off, that's coz I usually keep Drapion around as a Sniper critter, but Night Slash without crit *just* didn't finish off Chandelure which was annoying, so I delevelled it a bit to learn Crunch instead. The rest is pretty straightforward. I tried quite a few approaches with bulky 'mons, as you can see in the Amber battle I got them around, just didn't quite work out. I certainly didn't try the Ariados approach, though. Maybe I will give it a shot later. Thanks for the tip.

I started a mono Poison run & I felt like I wanted to share my endeavours here if that's alright. So.. I know this is a weird place to start, but I started my run on normal difficulty as I've never tried a mono challenge before, but it was oddly smooth sailing, so I decided to try out intense mode to see how hard it is. Well.. it was hard, alright. In the end, I decided to just nope Aerodactyl's Tailwind with a Quick Claw RNG check at the beginning of the fight & it finally worked out somehow. Milotic doing godlike job around the end, removing the 2 probably biggest threats. And if anyone wondering, I got Toxapex through mytery egg and often plays major roles in double battles. I will eventually dig up my save files to redo previous battles on intense, but for now I will just keep progressing.

Awesome.. I guess I should backtrack my save files to pre-GDC. I was already before battling Flora/Florin by the time I noticed it. Although, I don't recall ever seeing a stench one through my tedious breeding process & did a bit grinding in safari after reading this to no avail. Are there any special requirements? Update: I went to check East & West Gearen sewers as well, got 10+ encounters in both area without any of them having stench. No encounters, no ability capsule option, no breeding, Koffing line's hidden ability seems to be just MIA.

On the Galarian Weezing topic, I just can't seem to get Misty Surge ability which is pretty much the only reason I'd run it. Is this supposed to be a bug or something intended?