Commander

You'd probably be able to use the fear strategy on it. Don't really know honestly as I pretty much put it on the borderline of cheap stratagies speaking of cheapness...let's get onto Episode 8: ----------------------------------------------------------- Episode 8: The hax level is too damn high So this is probably not going to be a super interesting one (spoilers) but I decided to grind up a couple new members. Meet Leonardo the Blastoise, Pumba the Emboar, Curse the Spiritomb, and Countdown the Forretress. And since our reserves box is getting a little bit cramped, I decided to put some Pokemon into retirement. Shaggy the Swalot, Mahagony the Trevenant, "Kawaii Bear", and pretty much all the Pokemon you haven't heard from since Ep 7 like Lord Yum-yum. Also, I'm getting rid of Cain's Nidoking's Sludge Wave for Sludge Bomb. That thing be super annoying (sometimes it was a blessing though). So anyways, I decided to give Sigmund the go around this run...and it went pretty badly the first go around. Vs Sigmund So basically this is the major picture you should imagine. Cain spammed Sludge Wave dealing massage damage to Emboar/My Pokemon and his enemies take pretty heavy damage. Emboar was able to KO Raichu with Head Smash, Cain's Nidoking finished Luxray off in turn 2 with sludge wave before my Emboar died. I think Spiritomb took down Electivire, I just know Discharge was being spammed and my Pokemon were not having a good day. Nidoking did eventually knock Electivire out or something before both Nidoking and half my group was dead. Basically, Cain was doing the work while my Pokemon were getting beat up until finally it was down to his Lanturn and Rotom. His Venomoth and my Lilligant combined efforts to defeat the beast with Giga Drains and it eventually was taken down. Rotom really couldn't do anything at that point as it slowly got its butt kicked. ...Also, I feel like Doubles AI is smarter then singles...seriously, Sigmund on the first fight made a brilliant switch to dodge a Dig attack due to his Levitating Pokemon. Seriously, the bloody "AI is shit" flag is a false proven statement as we've seen. It may not be perfect, but it does a decent enough job at high levels. Pic of team at this point: I also noticed I missed quite a few newer event trainers so that weird random level gap should be fixed in the next update (I might wait until Radomus to get the Rival battles fixed). Onto interesting stuff: ------------------------------------------------------------ Vs Bennett Again, I didn't have a super high level team as most of my Pokemon were ready to go for Serra so I brought some oldies to help. The battle started with Jack (Grumpig) barely living a bug bite, while spamming 3 power gems to KO Larvesta. That thing is a little bit scary. Next came out Scyther who used Swords Dance (yikes) but thankfully, Sparkplug para haxed that Scyther with a Discharge and KO'd it eventually with a Quick Attack not even taking any damage. (Seriously, that Scyther could've on shotted my team). Next came out Heracross who used a Close Combat on Creepy Bird. Creepy Bird then took it down with one Air Cutter (or maybe it had to use quick attack, same dealeo regard less). Next came out Villv...Vivill...Satan Butterfly against Pyroar and that thing exchanged a Hurricane for a Flamethrower with both barely surviving. Nala fainted to a bug buzz, but Creepy Bird took it down with a Quick Attack. Next came out Butterfree and Manectric hit it hard with a Discharge before fainting to a boosted bug buzz. Creepy Bird came back in, got hit pretty hard with a Giga Drain, hit it hard back with Air Cutter, then KO'd it with a Quick Attack. Next came Venomoth so I switch out a couple of Pokemon as fodder in order to heal Creepy Bird up. I had my ace in the hole, Forretress who just had to use Explosion to win should worse come to worse. Creepy Bird pulled through though tanking two Bug Buzzes and finishing the Venomoth off with a Quick Attack after two Air Cutters. Creepy Bird FTW! Here's a pic of my underleveled Pelipper who kicked butt: And a pic of that team: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Vs. Serra Believe it or not Serra was kind of easy for me, though I had an Ace up my sleeve: Blastoise. I used a Revive just simply not wanting to have to do the fight all over again and I can buy those at the candy store anyways. The battle started with Countdown (Forretress) against Mega Abomasnow...when my master plan failed miserably. I was able to get a toxic spike up when I saw that beast had focus blast. Let's say Countdown counted his seconds before being knocked out. I sent in Pumba (Emboar) to OHKO that Mega with a Flamethrower. Next came out Mamoswine and my trump card Blastoise came out. Mamo released a super powerful Blizzard attack which did pretty heavy damage on Blastoise, but Mirror Coat one shotted the oversized pig easily. Next came out Cloyster and Sparkplug activated its Sash before being nailed by Waterfall. Cloyster fainted to the Poison damage. Next came out Glaceon so I decided to sacrifice Spiritomb (Curse) in order to remove that dangerous crit hit trigger. After being one shotted, I decided to send in Emboar who OHKO'd Glaceon with head smash. Next came out Vanilluxe so I sacrificed Manectric to heal up Blastoise. Blastoise tanked a crit hit boosted Frost Breath and then spammed a bunch of Mirror Coats while Serra wasted all her items. Unfortunately due to the accuracy drop, Blastoise wasn't able to land any hits after a certain point and I had to stall out for the poison damage. Next came out Frosslass, but Blastoise was unable to outlive a Crit boosted shadow ball as I was hoping. I then sent in Emboar and realized I forgot it didn't have Sucker Punch...so I decided to use a revive on Curse since I was so close to winning anyways. Emboar died so I sent Curse out to Sucker Punch Frosslass killing it. Cheap, but if Emboar had Sucker Punch, I would've easily won this fight. Here's a pic of that team: And with that we've past the halfway point. \o/. Even better news is that I will be a little bit more detailed in the next few updates as some bigger changes are going to happen (such as Noel getting a team vamp). Expect a poll within the next update for his team.

Dang, Hardcore is starting to get a reputation around here. Honestly, how challenging a run is won't make it any more or less popular. My own run is more for updates on how far I progress (so that people can get ready or wait for a major update). If you're having fun playing and writing it, people will read and enjoy it as well. I can't make choices for people, but I can inform them. It would be very possible to do a run like this for Hardcore as long as the Pokemon picked are spread out or most are available early as you really need a full team to fight leaders. Both modes have pros and cons and it could be a huge debate which one is more polished or better in terms of battles.

Wasn't that due to an exploit? I really need to stop making assumptions anymore because there will be that guy to prove me wrong. If I really wanted to make the Solaris fight unwinnable, I would've made all of his team lv 75 (and then somebody would prove me wrong).

His team level average is 48, but they range from 44 (Excadrill) to 50 (Garchomp). Nobody has had an easy time with him even with fully evolved team and very strong Pokmon. I don't really see how you can win this cutting away anything that could possibly beat him (Dusclops was my bulkiest Pokemon but loses about 75-85% of its HP on Solaris's strongest attacks).

Ah the Taka and Zel fight. In the official game its 6v6, but due to the leveling in Hardcore, its 6v9 which is a one of a kind experience to hardcore (you'll never see opponents have more Pokemon than you in the official game). I made sure it wasn't overbearing and actually possible to get past hence the leveling. Also, you should've seen the days when that Chatot had boomburst...it needed a nerf for sure.

Here's my philosphy on illegal moves, "Don't do it to make a Pokemon stronger, but to make the overall experience more enjoyable." The illegal moves likely won't be dropped (there's 2) until around E19's release when Field AI is implemented. Pulse Muk's water pulse is to avoid the Ground type exploit, but Shadow Claw on Dusknoir is to avoid EQ spamming. The latter may be changed back after a couple tests if I'm able to make Bulldoze work on it. That's it though. Everything else is legal and will likely stay that way. As for the underlined part, that is completely untrue. Anything illegal would be something you'd normally have to deal with (iirc GF has even done illegal stuff with NPCs, but are quite subtle about it). Outside of Pulse Muk, they are temp fixes until I can find an alternative.

Cain got a slight level debuff, but it'll be hardly noticeable honestly. Still amazing job beating Solaris with an electric mono...let alone soloing it (I didn't think it was possible). And don't remind me of that Excadrill. All of Solaris's Pokemon are good, but Excakill can slaughter things at this point in the game. Solaris is brutal...also, could you do me a favor and check the misdreavus event. For some reason on my test, the boulder didn't appear oddly enough (if it works on yours, I won't do a quick fix for it).

Let's be honest here: normal Florinia was a complete joke to begin with. She's a pushover once you have a counter for that Cradily (though Stockpile would be way too OP for this Florinia fight). I had an unknown audience for this mod, but I knew I had at least some type of audience who had an unknown skill level and tastes. Some things sound better on paper and even tests are just tests and cannot always provide accurate results. Florinia was such a situation. And as you can tell, I severely underestimated player skill level and Pokemon strength the first go around.The hard part was keeping/fixing some of the leader strategies in order to make a better fight. I had to sacrifice sandstorm, but it's a small loss (though if Cacturne was too OP it would've gained the move).

My best piece advice for that situation is to make a decision based on where to do what'll be best for you. If you want to get early feedback to make better adjustments, it would be better to release it early (which is a big reason why Reborn released its game in episodes as it wouldn't be nearly as good without it). Generally, I believe holding off to better polish the game will leave much better results...and Rebornians are very patient people (well most of the casuals are). We will wait no matter how long it takes. The only reason I'd be against holding off is if you'll be burned out causing far more delays than the intended release. A polished game will have a much greater impact than a rushed one with quick updates. The tortoise always beats the hair in the end.

The main reason why Arclight and Adrienn are so little involved storywise is probably due to them joining the league after the Reborn game was already pretty far in the works (about the halfway point iirc...actually it might've been close to Episode 9 or 10). Heck, there wasn't even a gym in Coral Ward originally iirc. Arclight replaced Sigmund in league much later which at that point was kind of too late imo. He might be E4, he might be a post game fight. As for the whole E4 and facing 5 leaders in a row, it'll likely be more based on how balanced your team is as you can heal inbetween battles. You'll slowly reach your peak in strength by the time you reach the top so that'll also mean you'll have a good team. If you run an unbalanced team, it'll really hurt you just like in the actual league.

I hate to say this, but it's probably a good assumption that this project is dead. I'm going to request this topic be locked in order to see it not being kept revived given that the original creator hasn't been on for over a month and the DL links are broken. If somebody else wants to take a shot at doing this, it's probably safer to make a completely new topic.

\o/ I can agree with there being so many good ground types available like AnimeFg said. My Nidoking is slow as molasses, but leveling it up to learn Poison jab pre-Cal was worth it (even though he really hasn't used it that much). Dugtrio is another good option because barely anything will outspeed it. Onix is honestly only good for setting up Stealth Rocks and that's all it did on my Hardcore test of new Shelly. Golem is so much better (and Graveler too). If you go for Fire Types, pick up a Litleo. Pyroar has been saving my hind on my own Hardcore run...even outspeeding a certain demon known as Excadrill. If you don't like Pyroar Rapidash gets some really nice moves for Serra and Noel aka Fire Blast and Flare Blitz. Emboar is another good option found a little bit later down the line. Dual weather is bad as that means you won't be able to use certain Pokemon in certain situations. I'd go for Sandstorm is you want to use ground Pokemon such as Sand Force Dugtrio, Sand Rush Sandslash, etc. Again, you might be a little ignorant of the colorful rainbow of pokemon available to you. (Camerupt will still be quite useful for quite a few fights ahead and Lava Plume makes Shelly pitifully easy).

Assault Vest would be worthless on Cacturne. You're supposed to have a lot of hard, fast hitters to stop her from setting up as most of her team has hazards. Grotle has Stealth Rock and an Eviolite to help Bulk it up while Cacturne is usually speedy and dodegy enough to pull off that Teeter Dance. If you're not faster than Cacturne (which most Pokemon aren't) you'll have a bad day. Can I just say I'm very impressed you didn't need to run a Poison or Fighting type to beat her as Florinia's team is not weak at all. But yeah, just saying a battle was enjoyable or fun is good enough. You'll start to pick up patterns how Leaders go about their selection such as the lead. Cacturne is the lead to try and stop Toxic Spike and hazard users but a hyper offensive or fast mon will make short work of it. Kind of glad she didn't feel overwhelming (old Florinia was viewed as too weak so she got a major buff).

I'm just looking at that title screen video and I'm seriously amazed. Reborn is really becoming a happening place for fan games. Now I gotta make decisions which fan games to play. Seriously, like wow. That pretty much puts any title screen GF has created to shame. I haven't read through it all, but I will. And there's a manga...Yes!

Hmm...for Florinia since you won't have any bulk (Swirlix is about it), you're going to want some hard and fast hitters as one turn of her Pokemon living makes them all the more threatening. She has only a couple very strong attacks, but she's not an offensive leader which you'll quickly notice. 4 Status Effect Moves (Well five depending if you count a certain one), 2 Hazard moves, 1 Weather Changing, 2 Stat Enhancing Moves, and 1 Recovery Move. Herdier is definitely something you want with Ice Fang (Fire works, but nothing on her team resists Ice) and you might want to poison one of your Pokemon and have Facade in order to dish out Max Damage since you won't have any evolved Pokemon. I don't know about Mr. Ice Cream, but it could work.

SPOILER ALERT: Sorry I've just been so inactive. I'm trying though. If somebody wants to bother or interact with Citrine or just wants to get out of the dorms situation, just RP and I'll go along with it.

Okay, here we go. This is going to be a long, long post since it's the beginning to the end of Ep 7 (from Taka to Aya long). So let's get it started: Episode 7: Chatots and Garchomps and Nidos OH MY! So...we're just going to skip that embarrassing moment of an Aster and Eclipse battle. I may have used a revive due to bringing a level 5 Budew. I may have regret not training up Leon now. The one time that HM slave would've been useful. The battle was kind of easy (probably should've used Eviolite Rhydon, but oh well). The Taka battle got a little revamp so please avoid if you don't want spoilers. Vs Taka So Taka decided to be a little troll and use Swagger with Klefi. I know Flamethrower barely wouldn't kill so he used up all his Potions before switching to that Floatzel (Klefki was in red). Don't really know what happened, but it had something to do with Dig, Levitate from Solrock and probably Solrock dying. I just know that Grim, tanked a Crunch and nailed it with Will-O-Wisp. Grim...then began to potion spam again (due to his tiny health, a super potion pretty much gives him nearly full health) and I started calling him the Potions master since we'll be seeing that a lot. The Floatzel eventually died and then the battle kind of dragged out for a long time with a lot of Will-O-Wisps until Cradily. Cradily managed to KO the rest of my team and all I had left was Venomoth (Gypsy). Venomoth actually nailed it down to the KO range, but it barely lived an Ancient Power. Killing Klefki would rely on luck, but then a miracle happened, he switched to Klefki who died to a Signal Beam then Cradily died to a Signal Beam letting me win. Talk about lucky. The only thing bad about this fight is Aerodactyl...who I hate to admit it, kind of sucks...but I'm not going to change it...err...I just gave it better moves and removed its Choice Band. His team is a lot better now and on par with his E3 fight. Here's the team after that battle: --------------------------------------------- Vs Solaris I'm just going to tell you about my first attempt. I was actually so damn close to winning. Like if I had Grim use Shadow Sneak instead of Will-O-Wisp hoping to live, I would've won.I didn't realize Pyroar would outspeed Excadrill which made me so made. My successful attempt was so intense and let me tell you that without Sturdy/Counter, this fight is balls to the wall hard as Solaris can just destroy you so easily. (This took about 15 attempts btw) Alright so in the successful run, I had to use the Sash for Nala (she could outlive if min damage) as an Occa Berry let Scizor live...the one time I wish Unnerve worked for them. Scizor then went down after a full restore. Those full restores are what make this fight so hard. Next, Solaris sent out T-tar who was the major problem for my team. I decided to send out Cologne who basically used Moonblast and survived a Rock Slide Super Power onslaught. Eventually, Solaris did use up all his Full Restores on T-tar which is very important. He eventually did switch from T-tar into Mandibuzz who basically finished off Cologne with an Air Slash. Manectric came in and took down Mandibuzz and one shoted Gyarados with Discharge. (If you don't have a fast electric type...Gyara is super dangerous). So then Garchomp came out...unfortunately and I had Dusclops Will-O-Wisp for a very long stall battle (I wanted Excakill out to get rid of it ASAP). When Garchomp was down, Solaris had to be that Guy and send T-tar back out. T-tar wasn't the problem, but I had to stall out 8 turns. Basically, I will-o-wisped him without choice as that thing hit too hard. I then chose to revive Manectric just in case I needed an extra turn...let me tell you, it was close. T-tar when down then Excadrill came out. Grim and Sparkplug were able to ding it a little bit with Shadow Sneak and Quick Attack, but Excadrill shot down all of my Pokemon one by one until the sand faded (thank god!) Nala with 1 HP came in and finished it off with Flamethrower. I don't have any pics because I thought Solaris was gonna say something. Oh well. And yeah, I had to use my Sash up for this but totally worth it. Pic of team: -------------------------------------------------------------- Vs Cain Cain actually got a little nerf...and I actually forgot what happened most of the fight (though it was close). It was raining so I think Creepy Bird barely took down Venomoth after a potion Spam. Gengar gave me a ton of trouble but Grim was able to finish it off with Shadow Sneak. Samurott went down to Manectric with two Discharges. I forget how Nidoking went down but it took out a couple members (I think Jack took it down or close with Psyshock). The highlight was Gypsy (who earned the name Haxmoth) too down a Muk with max sleep time from Sleep Powder and Psybeaming away by living two Ice Punches. Somehow. The battle ended with Sunshine taking down Weezing with a couple Psychics (and of course it gets poisoned in the process). --------------------------------------------------------------- Vs Fern Nala one shotted Ferroseed with Flamethrower. Shin put Krookodile to sleep after taking a crunch, Giga Drain to waste all of Fern's potions before a Quiver Dance Giga Drain to KO it. Nala Flamethrower spammed to KO Scizor after take a couple weak attacks. Haxmoth was able to take down Mega Sceptile with a Signal Beam to confuse it and when it hit itself, it went down to a Second Signal beam. Serperior came out next and nailed Gypsy with a Leaf Storm while it tanked a Signal Beam. It missed its Second, but landed its third leaving Gypsy in the Red, but Gypsy was able to KO the darn thing (this ended me on my first attempt). Roserade came out, but Grim's Wil-o-Wisp and Jack's Psyshock took care of it rather easily. While both these battle are hard, they aren't the main event. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Vs Aya This battle is hard, but I had a brilliant strategy. (It would've been better if Shade handed out Shadow Ball instead of Claw). I had Grim use Will-O-Wisp while Happy used Minimize (which is doubled on that field). After a long onslaught of healing, setting up, confusing, and stalling, I believe both Pokemon went down while both Grim and Happy were pretty healthy (actually both were poisoned due to Toxic Spikes...which is evil on that field). So next came out Gengar and Dragalge. I switched Grim out for Stoutland who laughed at the double shadow Ball while I had Happy set up a charge beam on Gengar. I decided to heal Happy's poison while Stoutland barely survived a Slude wave to land a Crunch and Dragalge killed him with a Dragon Pulse. I sent Grim back out to KO Gengar with Shadow Sneak before Grim died to something (probably Shadow Ball). Next came out Hudson against that Drapion. Drapion decided to be an idiot and Target happy, but happy dodged with ease letting Hudson land an Earth Power on that Drapion. Drapion decided to be a douche and use Confuse Ray on Hudson and Hudson hit himself instead of KOing that opponent. I sent Nala in who finished the job and I believe dodged or live a Hydro Pump. Next came out Venusaur and Nala was able to land a Flamethrower (or two) at the Venusaur before dying to some attack. Blissey slowly spammed Charge beam. Next came out Jack who put a pretty big dent in Dragalge with Psyshock before going down. Happy finished Venusaur off with Charge Beam. While I probably could've stalled this one out, I decided what the heck and used a revive on Stoutland (mostly because Happy was poisoned). Stoutland finished Dragalge off with Retaliate ending the battle. (Yeah, yeah, I know I'm cheap using revives, but I didn't have the right team for this). Here a pic of the team for that battle: ------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry if some of my battles aren't super perfect or anything. This section didn't need any real adjustments so nothing really needs to be described. Also, I have some amazing explanations for those inconsistencies: Cain's Dewott: Corey's Pokemon: Solaris:

Arbok is better for a suicidal lead honestly (I had one from the very beginning and that run is up to Radomus now before the field effects were implemented). Intimidate with Screech, Acid Spray, Glare, and Bite. It won't do much but it helps when you need to set another pokemon up. (It was part of my Para-Leech-Bulk combo which could plow through almost anything in Doubles). I haven't really used Koffing so I can't say anything about it. Self-Destruct is a trump card on Corey's field should worse come to worse.

Ah Florinia, if you don't run a Fire or Flying type on your team (right now you can get Fearow, Tranquil, Pidgeotto, Noctowl, Pansear, Numel, Litleo, and Slugma) it'll be a bit tricky. There's a lot of good event Pokemon but I feel your team is capable enough to take her down. If not, pick up some early game evolution and bring them in to increase your power a bit. Raticate is one who did me wonders with Sucker Punch and Hyper Fang. That should get you down to Cradily as long as you're careful not to let her chip down your HP with her movesets. If Cradily is your problem...use Stockpile to your advantage. Once it uses all 3 stockpiles...it can't use it anymore. If you throw a couple screeches its way, it'll be frailer than a Cacturne to an X-Scissor. Most people recommend picking up a fighting type which will make short work of it.

Generally, I believe this should belong in the Gaming General since this section is more along the lines of personal type of stuff. It's kind of like how we don't like runs of other fan-games in the fan-game expose forum. Anyways, good luck on your run.