Timber Dragon

The Spritzee one would've given me a lot less trouble if I'd known what a Spritzee was. *Is unfamiliar with Gen 6* I honestly thought I was piecing together a plant with an eye.

I can't hate Bidoof. You have to admire a Pokemon who's such a derp that one of their abilities is bypassing stat changes because it doesn't notice them.

Maybe this just demonstrates my incompetence as a Pokemon Trainer, but I actually don't see what the big deal is with Gyarados (don't kill me, Vinny!). I think it's because I just don't know how to properly use one. I don't like its natural moveset; it only gets STAB on two of its attacks, and its higher end ones don't even have a 100 percent accuracy (I get nervous using those kind of attacks... I've found I can't count on them). My only assumption is to TM the crap out of it. But, TMs are in short supply in Reborn. I feel guilty for not using a resident ass kicker of the Pokeymans world, but my general incompetence means it's been collecting dust in my PC since I got it. I'd like to change that. Going by the obtainable TMs in Reborn, what sort of movesets do you recommend for a Gyarados?

God works in mysterious ways. http://askhelixfossil.com/#nhsiu3

Oh yeah, Empoleon's resistances rock (though I thought OP was looking for Grass or Electric?). He's a cool tank, but having a good Water-type isn't as high a priority as I expected in Reborn. There were only a handful of battles where it had a primary role rather than a secondary. At least its defenses make up for it. Thank you, Tempest. I'll leave it up to you to imagine what's got him all... WTF.

Don't really use Grass types, but I managed to find some use out of a Ludicolo. It doesn't have as many of the weaknesses of a conventional Grass type like Venusaur (even though Venusaur has overall better stats), although most of its moves have to be learned as a Lombre. Still, in case you're up against a Fire type thinking it has an easy win against a Grass type, you get to wreck it with Hydro Pump.

Pokeymans Yellow. Hmm... -Pikachu. In retrospect, I'm surprised how much of a powerhouse it was despite its low stats. You're not even allowed to evolve it to a Raichu, so I'm honestly curious as to how it managed to keep up with the rest of my party. -Charizard. Because Charizard. -Pidgeot. Because birdies! And years later I would learn it's a part of a species of Messiah. -Lapras. Bless its soul I never used it beyond a Surf/Strength HM slave. Talk about wasted potential. -Dragonite. Because FUCKING DRAGON. I don't even remember the last one because for all I know, it was another HM slave. Poor thing. It did so much for me, bashing rocks to let me pass and such, and I can't so much as remember its species.

Haha. That's why I held off on the update until after I beat Aya. (Cheap? Tch, I call that being pragmatic.)

So, you downloaded Pokemon Reborn. Good choice, my friend! It's a good game. Now get ready for hell. Think you'll handle this game since you plowed through the official games? Think again. Pokemon Reborn isn't a cakewalk like the official games. Pokemon Reborn hates you. It hates you, it hates me, it will kick you while you're down, it will make you its bitch, and you will love it. This is a game that's gonna make you play Pokemon like a BOSS, and you will come out of it as one... if you succeed. But success is easier said than done, for the game, now on Ep 11, makes sure that victory is earned. To give you some padding for the inevitable kick in the nuts/ovaries, here are some things to expect while playing Pokemon Reborn. Reborn sees your level grinding, and raises you a LEVEL CAP. If you're a player like me who typically overlevels to compensate for her incompetence, Reborn's first punch in the face comes in the form of a gym badge-dependent level cap that decides whether your super-powered slave creatures feel like obeying you. See, the game doesn't like the thought of you winning just because your mons were ten levels above the opponents'. That overcompensation is for sissies. You're no sissy, right? (And if you are, you won't be one for long in this game.) Sure, Common Candies reduce your level by 1 and are cheap to buy, but I think this is the first RPG where I ever complained about getting too much experience. You know limitations are strict when you legitimately complain about getting stronger. Reborn spits in the face of players who think they can win by flexing bigger muscles. As you'll read below, big muscles are are in short supply here. You will live as a hobo. Especially in the beginning, and especially especially if you decide to shell out 5500 Pokedollars for a goddamn Magikarp. For reference, 5500 is anywhere from 80 to 200 percent of your current expected finances. The game's intro is determined to keep you in a perpetual state of poverty. Potions are expensive, the trainers hurt, and you'll be lucky to get 50 dollars from them as compensation. See? They're hobos, too! Truly, Reborn hates everyone. You can generally afford what you need later, around after you beat the first gym leader and trainers generally give out more worthwhile compensation for bugging you, but going shopping~ is rarely an option. It's not just a matter of finances; it's a matter of supply. Good items are rare and, in many cases, nonexistent. TMs? Battle items? lol plz. Those things are for rich people and gym leaders. Oh, sure, they're there, but most of what's available to you won't be the good ones. Just as hobos can generally find what they need to survive--in our cases, basic healing items--we're not scrapped for the bare essentials, but the Good Stuff is currently beyond our grasp. Hyper Potions, reliable battle items like Focus Sash, TMs with strong moves, not for us! The only place we can seem to buy them is at the Department Store, in its upper levels... which, as of now, we can't even get to. Like any hobo camped in front of a restaurant, we glare disdainfully at what is right in front of us but cannot gain, our stomachs grumbling for more. We ask the heavens how it came to this, ask it for some kind of mercy, and God aka Amethyst will smile down on us and say, "No." If at first you don't succeed... ... grow thicker skin, because you probably won't succeed at first. Maybe I just suck, but I rarely got through major battles without at least half my team fainted. Because of the level cap, battles will almost never be won through brute force alone. The key to winning is *gasp* strategy! Yes, I know, shocking in a Pokemon game, but major battles require a lot more planning on your part than you'd expect in the official games. I'm not talking about simple type matchups--as you'll read below, things are harder than that. I'm talking about things like opening the battle with the right mon, because the wrong mon fainting at the wrong time can be all you need to lose. Gym leaders have no souls and receive sustenance from your hatred. Oh, the Grass gym. Feh, I got some Fire- and Flying-types. This'll be a cinch! It might be kinda tricky, but things are going well so fa--A CRADILY?! WTF?! *Smack Down. Total party kill.* FUUUUUUUU-- Yes, that is a true story, and no, I didn't heed the guy specifically warning you to get a Fighting-type for that unholy Cradily. You know how, in the official games, most gym leaders are minor roadblocks to get good EXP and an HM from? Reborn's gym leaders feel more like brick walls you need to chip away with your nails before you can proceed. For reference, that Cradily in the Grass gym is the second gym in the game, there to devour the souls of the Fire- and Flying-types you otherwise could have won with. The Cradily sets an example for each gym onward: gym leaders have moves or Pokemon specifically designed to counter their type disadvantages. The Poison dude? Plenty of Dark attacks to deal with Psychics. Fire dude? Electric and Grass to take down Water. Etc, etc. There's no such thing as the perfect type matchup. All gym leaders have something to work around their disadvantages. That means your Pokemon that would ordinarily be effective against the opponent, are actually in danger themselves. I assume Reborn's gym leaders have access to some sort of exclusive TM shop where they can teach their Pokemon anything they want, because they can easily destroy you as well as you can destroy them. Sometimes it's a battle of who can hit harder, faster. At least beating the gym leaders reward you with a raised level cap. Except... Beating gym leader =/= badge for level cap. Reborn has fun dangling your prize in front of your beaten and bloody face, only to yank it out of your reach and laugh and tell you you need to do more. It's an asshole like that. For storyline reasons, not all badges you receive are worth anything, if you receive a badge at all. Here you are, pushing your mons to the literal limits, maybe one or two levels shy of the cap, and--surprise! You find out the badge is worthless and you must continue the story, meaning, you either waste the EXP you got by stuffing your Pokemon full of Common Candies, or you rely on other team members instead of your strongest. Not receiving a badge immediately happens a few times in the official games, but in Reborn, the stakes for not getting one are higher. When Clair of Johto withheld her badge from you, it wasn't a factor that her badge was one piece of metal away between a team of obedient Pokemon, and a Brick Break to your skull. That's because other regions play nice. Reborn has Tall Poppy syndrome and gardening sheers are quickly used. Occasionally, with each update, perfectly good Pokemon are removed from the game because they're deemed too perfectly good. Look at the Obtainable Pokemon list. There's a reason many of the non-available Pokemon are the legendaries, pseudo-legendaries, Dragon-types, and other Pokemon with all around high stats, a good move pool, and/or an extremely useful ability. Scraggy is powerful enough that its event wasn't made available until much later. Magmar is powerful enough that it was removed completely. Before Ep 11, you got Magby so early and it was so good that other Fire-types were pointless. Reborn didn't like that. It was too special. Altercations/removals like are supposed to keep the game more balanced and force players to rely on a greater variety of Pokemon, we all know the real reason is because without those changes, we weren't suffering enough. This guy. This guy is Fern. Fern is not a nice person. You'll learn to want to kill Fern on sight. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, Pokemon Reborn hates everyone and so forces you to deal with his asinine, smug face. No matter how many times you sweep his Grass-/Bug-type team, he will continue to imagine how much better than everyone he thinks he is. In the end, it boils down to YOU. It's rather distressing how easily things can go wrong for you. Sometimes my victories came from the blessings of the Random Number Gods. I've lost simply because my Ace for the battle got Confused and turned self-destructive instead of being a productive member of society. But bad luck can only be blamed so much before it'll start to sink in that it's not the game's fault. Pokemon Reborn isn't hard because it's cheap. It's hard because it's hard. That's probably the worst part of it: you will become frustrated and be two steps away from rage quitting. You'll want to be angry at it, but you'll find yourself not doing so, because Pokemon Reborn isn't just hard--it's reasonable. You're not up against overpowered opponents with competitive-grade battle items or hax in general. Exclusive TM shops aside, your opponents are subjected to the same limitations you are, level caps and all. (Well, usually. Freakin' Garchomp Steelix Abra ARCEUS Gardevoir.) This game weeds out the weak and cultivates the BOSSES of the Pokemon world. It forces you to confront your own shortcomings, and will not let you progress until you overcome them, even if it leaves you a cynical pile of hate. Pokemon Reborn happily mocks people who call hax by crushing them not with cheapness or Fake Difficulty, but with utilizing movesets and items in a way you aren't. Not "can't." "Aren't." It stands to reason that these battles are winnable. Plenty of others have done it, so if you can't, it's not the game's fault. Pokemon Reborn is ugly, and it will pit you face to face with the ugliness inside you. Inside everyone. If all else fails, the answer is... lol nothing anymore. RIP Gyarados. You're on your own now, bitch. Now go to it, Champ. You'll get your ass kicked, but play your cards right, and you'll become the asskicker. And, if they already don't, then the official games won't stand a chance against the awesome might that is you. You'll have Pokemon Reborn's abuse to thank.

Fern, because it must be fun to be too arrogant to care what anyone thinks of you. Sure, I'd be the asshole no one likes, but I'd be too cocky and self-absorbed to let it bother me (chances are I'd think people hating me was a compliment).

Well, Blue was a dick and he got to become champ (for all of five minutes, but still). Fern is an even bigger dick so maybe he'll get to become an even bigger champ. I doubt it'd change anything, though. No matter how many times you stick his Scyther up where it belongs, he always brushes it off or claims he went easy on you. Bitch, I sweeped your whole fucking team--multiple times. I think it's time to reevaluate who gets the "loser" title here.

Never bothered me. Sure, it's repetitive on the meta perspective since we're so used to that start up, but it's nice to have a good fire/water/grass type from the get-go; you don't get many reliable Pokemon of those types until a bit later in the games. Plus, for newcomers, it teaches them about type advantages with an easy-to-remember triangle.

The one I was focusing on was the one to the left of the trainer with the Munchlax and Slaking, but it turned out that wasn't even the path; it wound up being a tree I think to the right of the unconscious/dead guy.

Welp, I managed to get through it... after bumping into the proper tree that made another tree disappear. Oh well. Time to grind for Serra.

I'm lukewarm to it. I never minded doing some grinding in RPGs, but I'm finding it a necessity in Reborn just from how well gym leaders and some rival/plot battles cover their type disadvantages. I'm pretty sure Reborn's gym leaders have some exclusive TM shop where they can teach their Pokemon anything they want and totally wreck their opponents. That means most major battles force me to stop so I can find a new Pokemon or two and get it up to speed. I'm on the cusp of facing Serra, so I'm currently grinding a Vulpix with Drought so I can deal with her and her nerdy son, and I might do the same with a Growlithe. It can become really tedious--I recently got past the hell that was Aya, and now I have to do it again with Serra--but if there's one thing I got from Reborn, it's an appreciation for Pokemon I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with.

Well, in the beginning stages when my patience was higher, I also noticed some of the branches on the ground disappear as well, along with some of the bushes. Does that account for anything? I've mainly been focusing on the trees, though I also kept an eye out for the bushes. Maybe I missed something. I gotta head out so I'll try again later, and I'll see if I can keep a sharper eye out.

I made an account here specifically to get help with this place (and I'll probably continue to use it because this game, annoying puzzles aside, is awesome) because it's been such a frustration. Before anyone asks, yes, I watched both nickaboo's video and the other one everyone links to. Neither of them helped me at all because no matter what I do, I just can't get the path to open for me. I remember managing to get it once, and I'm pretty sure that was pure accident, because since then, I've never been able to replicate what I did. Point is, has anyone discovered the rhyme or reason for which trees disappear and when? There seems to be some kind of pattern that I can't decipher--I can usually anticipate the disappearance of the trees north and south of the unconscious/dead ranger, but that's it--but if any pattern exists, I can't manipulate it to where I need to go. And if it's totally random, I've taken other's advice on just wandering around in a loop until the path opens. I think I've made 30+ loops since the start of my efforts, and like I said, the path opened once. It's gotten to the point where I'm honestly thinking it's some kind of glitch on my part (I'm still on Episode 10, btw). I really need some advice for this; I don't wanna end this game prematurely because Mother Nature just won't disappear when she should.