Timber Dragon

Okay, fine, maybe not Deino. I sorta forgot about the Daycare system (frankly I never use the Daycare to level the mons I know I'll use. I'm no EV trainer but even I know that weird EVs are better than no EVs). I was more thinking about the hassle of switch training a mon with an insanely late evolution coupled with a slow leveling rate. I hadn't realized that Pichu could be obtained early (how early are we talking? Julia early?), but my logic went that since Pi(ka)chu is Electric-type, Julia wouldn't bother with her Electric attacks and would spam things like Sonic Boom instead. I respect and agree with Ame's decision to axe certain Pokemon for the sake of balance, but my personal feelings on the matter have always been conflicted. I miss Gyarados, but the naysayers had a point: with Gyarados a lot of fights were won with more brute force than stragegy. However! It wasn't a lot more. Even with Gyarados, I could still get my ass kicked, because Reborn is hard. Removing Pokemon like Gyarados is an extreme case of outclassing other mons. Gyarados I can agree with. I can even agree on Gardevoir and Magmar. Not for some of the others. Mr. Mime? Really? Just because it's useful against Julia? I can sweep most of Julia's team with a Mightyena with Howl and Moxie, and that turned Julia into a joke. Is Mightyena gonna be removed? How about Trubbish and its poison stall strategy? Prankster Purrloin? Certain Pokemon will appear on most of our teams, because the rest of the Pokemon in the area suck. Of course we're going to pick the best mon available. Sometimes that mon severely outclasses others, like Gyarados or Gardevoir. But Hariyama? Fine. Let's say Hariyama and its high attack gets removed. You know what players will do? Move on to the next best thing. Then we see that players are relying on that instead. So you remove it too. Realisitcally I know Ame won't reduce us to Bidoofs, but it seems like the only way to truly balance Reborn is for the available Pokemon in the area to be on the same playing field... which won't be true. There will always be that one Pokemon with a trick slightly more useful than others that makes it just a liiiitle better than the other Pokemon on the same level. We'll gravitate towards that, Reborn won't like it, so it'll be removed. It just feels like any advantage perdiod is grounds to think "This will make [X] gym a joke." Look, I don't know Pokeymanz down to its binary and I don't know how one mon stacks up against another. Maybe you're seeing something I'm not. Since I don't see it, I just have some concerns about taking the axing mindset too far.

All this talk about Talonflame and electric eels or whatever, and I'm just like, dude where's Pikachu? That's not a bad early-game choice. There aren't any electric-types early in the game (correct me if I'm wrong), and you won't be sweeping anything with Raichu since you don't find Thunder Stones until much later. It's not necessarily safe from Julia -- in fact, it's probably less safe compared to other Pokemon since with Pikachu's type similarities, Julia's team would be more inclined to spam their neutral, more dangerous moves like Sonic Boom or Explosion. Pikachu would give players more type variety without having a particular advantage or disadvantage against anyone at that point in the game (except for Cain's Oshawott, which is only one Pokemon out of many), or without being overpowered or underpowered. C'mon, it's the series mascot. You can't not have Pikachu early on. I also support Deino as an early addition. I know it's a pseudo-legendary and Ame already has plans to include it for much later, but here's the thing: Deino is complete deadweight until it fully evolves. But the time between level 1 and level 60+ is a huge gap between something usable and something totally useless. By the time you fully evolve it, wouldn't you be at a point in the game where such power isn't totally unreasonable?

Reborn taught me that a lot of my favorites suck and that if I wanna survive I'd better damn well broaden my horizons. It also taught me that fuck you, even my shitty taste in Pokeymanz can pull through from time to time. Shofu has Gardevoir, which was relocated precisely because of how strong it is, and I make use of Magnezone and Scrafty. Banking on Magnezone's type disadvantage to redirect Charlotte's attacks sounds clever, even if it partially relies on luck (then again, don't all strategies rely on luck in some form or another?) Some of us have suckier strategies than others, but I say as long as you're able to win (somehow), have at it, sucky Pokeymanz.

Bitch, I beat Julia and Florinia with an army of Mightyenas and fat skunks. You can manage with garbage Pokemon. I'm a pretty mediocre player so you may have to educate me on why his team sucks. I mean, aside from bringing a Steel-type into a Fire-type gym, this might be a learning experience to make me suck less.

Julia. In fact, she's so easy I'm pretty sure she's there to lull us into a false sense of security so Florinia's battle is all the more painful.

Agreed, but I think the complaints with Charlotte come from how it's not always easy to judge whether something is legitimately hard or just unfair. Yes, Reborn is hard because it's hard. It stands to reason that Ame does not make impossible challenges, and that if people managed to beat Charlotte then so can you... but good luck reminding yourself that it's winnable when you've lost ten times in a row and barely have an idea what you're doing wrong. Luckily there's a thread specifically devoted to gym leader help. It was made because this game can get pretty damn frustrating, and the community can show you angles you might not have considered before. Sanding some rough edges isn't the same as nerfing. Ame doesn't make things impossible, but she's not perfect and there will be times when she'll think, "Hmm, maybe this is a little too much..." Plus, for those complaining about gym nerfs, remember that Ame is just as likely to remove great Pokemon that would have come in handy (poor poor Gyarados). She's not out to tame Reborn at all. She wants a challenge that's balanced. If that involves making something a tiny bit softer, so be it.

It looks like everyone has their own standards for what's a legitimate challenge to overcome, and what's just plain unreasonable. I personally equate nerfing with smoothing out the rougher edges of some of those gym leaders. Not all of us know Pokemon down to its binary, after all. But making a game like Pokemon truly challenging without being unfair is a tricky, sometimes subjective balance. The drawback to having a huge number of potential strategies for taking down an enemy, is that you need to pick one. With so many options, it can be hard to judge whether it's time to abandon a strategy for something else, or if you're not fully utilizing what you already have. I haven't faced Charlotte (I started my game over to get a feel for all the new content), but based on what everyone's saying about her, she's a good example of it being difficult to judge whether you're on the right track. She's so powerful and brutal that she doesn't give you a lot of leg room to learn potential counters. We're talking about Fire-type moves OHKOing Fire-type Pokemon, and that's just her opening. There's also how Fire-types in general in Reborn can learn plenty of Electric-, Grass-, and Fighting-type moves, making Fire-type one of the most well-covered types in the game (if not the most covered). So is Charlotte truly OP or does she need some fine-tuning? And this goes way beyond Energy Ball Typhlosion. Is the solution to nerf her, or improve yourself? I really don't think there's a good answer to that. No matter what Ame does, someone's gonna complain. The most I can say to whatever she decides to do, is to just deal with it one way or the other, nerfed or OP. Ame's not gonna satisfy everyone and no one's forcing you to stick to this game. She shouldn't have to bend over backwards to accommodate something that's ultimately up to the player's skill. Even so... c'mon, some gym leaders are just plain evil.

Honor before reason, I suppose. Kiki does have an "Obey your principles no matter what" vibe to her dojo. Storywise, I don't have too many problems with her. She has some badass qualities to her despite how ineffectual they are in the end. But my main problem with Kiki is in gameplay. I just want that goddamn HM and badge so I can get on with my life and save some buddies of mine, but noooooo, I have to climb a volcano and challenge an unrelated gym leader and fight Team Meteor and let my mons soak up all that exp and then let it go to waste because I'm reaching the level cap. Is a shiny piece of metal too much to ask for, Kiki?!

I don't actively hate anyone, but Victoria rubs me the wrong way. Victoria impedes you like you're the one who she needs to worry about... despite how little trouble her battles give me, how little she helps me, and how I'm usually the one who has to help her. She doesn't help the plot like the other rivals and gym leaders, who actually do assist you (or in Fern's case, piss you off). She's supposed to be on my side, but I never got the sense, in gameplay or in plot, that I can count on her. Cain is a wonderful ally; I feel like I can trust him when he's around. Fern is a wonderful roadblock; I dread when I have to deal with his smug, asinine face. Victoria is neither of those. She's a poor ally who's either in my way because she doesn't think I can handle something, or she's asking me for help despite all the times she stopped me for one reason or another. And she's an ineffectual roadblock. Her battles never gave me trouble, and in a game where the rivals can actually put up a fight, Victoria does not have my favor. Saphira is also an iffy character with me. Her attitude intimidates me. I have an idea of what she went through under Sigmund, but when one of her quotes is "And kill anyone who tries to take [what's important] from you" and she has a Dragon-type army on her belt, it feels like she's got a few screws loose... and the strength to act on it if you get on her bad side, and Arceus help you if that happens. She just has this "I'm strong and I'll easily beat you up if you inconvenience me because the only people that matter to me are my sisters" vibe that's both grating and unsettling. If that's how she's supposed to be written, then good job -- she's a well-written character that makes you want to back away from her. Heather also grates on me. She's a well-written, believable bratty child... and believable bratty children are annoying. Okay, it sucks what happened with her dad, and Sigmund messed her up pretty good, and she's a kid who doesn't know any better, but Heather really doesn't have any redeeming qualities to back it up. I don't know if she trained that Salamence herself, and honestly I doubt it. But seriously, picture a bratty, bitter kid with massive firepower and tell me won't eventually cause some shit down the line.

Gaiz is Gyarados back?! Is it?! Oh. Okay... *updates to ep 14 despite barely touching 13*

You shouldn't need to do much grinding in Reborn if you know what you're doing. Unless you're getting a new Pokemon up to speed, what you fight generally gives you the exp you need--believe me, there is no shortage of trainers. It's actually bad to do a lot of grinding because of the obedience level cap, but if you're a little underleveled, the area around your current location usually suits you fine. You could always check out Dashie's Reborn Guide for specifics.

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Any Pokemon with a base stat total exceeding 400 is unobtainable. Your evil brings tears to my eyes.

Gyarados's physical attack stat is 125, its special attack is literally half that, and its mouth is an eternally-open maw of sharp teeth. I think the answer is clear.

Sorry for the double post, but I finally get to showcase my progress. Shelly's Hell A while back I had asked for the logic behind the Bug > Dark matchup, and I think the best answer that came up was that you really don't want to encounter a spider when you can't see it. I used that brilliant analogy to terrify myself for the match against Shelly. To prepare, I took some time for a bit of grinding on the Unowns underneath the Grand Stairway. My Mightyenas were already properly leveled (after being on the front lines for so long, they'd better be), but I didn't anticipate using them, so I focused my efforts elsewhere. Stunky evolved into Skuntank and learned Flamethrower in the process. It also learned Toxic to replace Poison Gas, but that was incidental compared to me obtaining an official flaming fart skunk. I also leveled up Frogadier into Greninja—oh yeah! Frogadier. Remember that guy? The starter Pokemon that got, like, two mentions tops because between the first two gym leaders being Electric and Grass, and my Mightyena army handling the front lines, it was pretty much worthless? Well, I wanted to evolve it to get some more brute force on my side. I didn't expect to use it much due to both its Water- and now Dark-typing against a Bug gym, but I figured I could make some use of it while Skunktank suffocated everything. It turns out Frogadier can learn, of all things, the Rock-type Smack Down. You didn't think the header “Shelly's Hell” was in reference to Shelly giving me hell, did you? Shelly, I am so sorry for how badly I destroyed you. Learning Smack Down was the most random thing ever, but with Protean giving Greninja both a Rock-typing and a STAB by using that move, I might as well have went in with a machine gun that fired bug spray pellets. I opened with my machine gun-wielding Greninja. Dwebble's Sturdy meant it survived what should've been a OHKO from Water Pulse, but that just gave me a chance to make Shelly use up all her Hyper Potions. Although Dwebble got in some good hits with Bug Bite, Greninja had become rather durable since evolving and it was a simple matter of healing when Shelly did the same. By the second Hyper Potion, I finally used Smack Down to get rid of that pesky super effectiveness. It didn't OHKO it, which meant both Sturdy wouldn't activate and Shelly used her last potion. I finished it off from there. It never got the chance to use Stealth Rock, which had worried me at first but chances are it wouldn't have made a difference one way or the other. Poor Yanmega, Scyther, and Wormadam didn't even get a chance to do anything. Yanmega and Scyther's 4x weakness to Rock didn't do them any favors, and Wormadam was… there. Masquerain was the first of Shelly's team to not be weak against Rock. Greninja took a heavy blow, but luckily, Skuntank was more than ready to finish it off with Flamethrower. The only one of Shelly's team who wasn't totally helpless was Volbeat, and that was only after Tail Glow upped its special attack way high. Even with Skuntank's neutrality to Bug, I anticipated that sort of raw power would still leave a mark, so I settled with a simple Toxic stall. Volbeat's Leftovers couldn't compete with the poison damage, and all Skuntank had to do after Toxic was sit there while I healed it and Volbeat slowly suffered. To Volbeat's credit, I settled for Toxic stall because I had the feeling there wouldn't be any safe opening for an attack; some of its moves left Skuntank in the reds, and it was only its general beefiness that let it survive Volbeat's attacks at all. But they weren't enough. Volbeat couldn't handle the Toxic, and fainted. And that was how I destroyed a gym leader who had the advantage in one sweeping try. (Well, technically it took two; I restarted after accidentally opening with Backup Stunky, who I was training in the event things with Shelly went south. Look how that turned out.) The Retiring of Brave Soldiers Completing Shelly's gym unlocked multiple Dark-type options, which was great because honestly, Biting everything to death was getting boring. There's a reason most of my strategies up until now had involved some sort of stalling or (de)buffing. With how limited my options were, I didn't have much choice. But not anymore. Having destroyed Shelly, the second half of the Underground Railnet can be traversed, the Dull Key can be collected, and the second Magma Gang quest can be finished. This means that I can now obtain Skorupi, Scraggy or Pancham, Houndour, and Zorua (and possibly Murkrow, if I can find the damn thing). Combined with Greninja, that's almost a full team right there. As those Pokemon are stronger, more useful, and more diverse, it's time to end a major chapter and lay some brave soldiers to rest. Mightyenas and Stunky, thank you for your efforts. You have Bit, Screeched, and Poisoned through first wave of battles, paving the way for the new generation, one with more strategies available to them. I now welcome my new team which, although will certainly experience rotations, will probably stay with me for the long future. I have done the necessary grinding to get everyone up to speed, and until further notice, my team now consists of: -Greninja -Skuntank -Drapion -Houndoom -Zoroark -Scrafty Shade Shelly was a landslide victory I hadn't expected, but I expected it for Shade. I mean, really. Throwing a bunch of Dark-types at a Ghost-type gym leader would lead to a pretty self-explanatory conclusion. The only notable things that happened in this battle was me forgetting Shade opens with Rotom and accidentally having Greninja in my lead, Chandelure breaking Drapion's kill streak with the brute force of a Flame Burst + burn damage, and Spiritomb getting in two Nasty Plots that would've hurt my team from raw strength alone. But in the end, our mysterious ghostly entity just couldn't handle the Dark. This battle was like the game threw me a bone, but with Cal and especially Kiki on the horizon, I know better than to get complacent. Reborn won't let me. Cal Cal was surprisingly unremarkable. Drapion and Houndoom fainted in the end, but my battlers contributed where it counted. Cal sometimes gives me problems in a normal playthrough because imo, he's a gym leader with one of the best coverage against types with the advantage. But, sticking with Dark-types means that, Infernape and Blaziken aside, no one was a huge threat to anyone, so it was just a matter of whittling everyone down. I opened with Drapion to set up two Toxic Spikes. Drapion was beefy enough to survive Infernape's Close Combats and Mach Punches during the set up, and with Infernape's Defense stats lowered from the Close Combats, Drapion finished it off. From there, a combination of simple attacking and Toxic damage was enough. The only other real threat was Blaziken. It was only a combination of Water Pulse and Toxic stall that got me through it. There's really not much I can say here except, yay team, and oh fuck Kiki's next.