dondon151

My in-game time after Charlotte the last time I revised the speedrun route was 5h 59m, so I think I've got your 35h completion beat there by a handy amount. This was using only Blaziken and Diggersby as fighting-fit Pokemon. Separating the tier list makes infinitely more sense from a practical perspective. The information is more readily accessible and useful to the reader. If a player is at a particular point in the game, he can do one of the following: - Comb through the entire list of Pokemon, open the spoiler tag for every one, and check the Pokemon's availability against what he's looking for (the vast majority of these info spoilers are not written; where do I get a Chinchou? Who the hell knows, I have to open up a completely separate topic to find this information) - this is your suggestion - Look up the desired list by availability, open the list, and peruse all of the Pokemon within (e.g., what are the best Pokemon before Shade?) - this is my suggestion

Excadrill being available shouldn't make Diggersby worse when the only way to obtain Excadrill at all in E15 is a 1/18 chance of a randomly determined egg. Even then, Diggersby is basically good to go once Bunnelby is captured (Rare Candy to evolve, knows Take Down at base) whereas Drilbur has to be hatched and then babied from L1. Diggersby is overall better than Excadrill anyway because it hits harder and it has the Flail gimmick that Excadrill lacks.

If Blaziken is S+ tier then Diggersby should be S tier. There's no way that Infernape and Azumarill are S tier but Diggersby isn't. It's unambiguously the second best Pokemon in the game. I picked it to complement Blaziken in my speedrun route and there's no other Pokemon that can even hope to compare to it. Your changes are a step in the right direction but still too conservative. Swampert is not an A tier Pokemon. Empoleon is not a B+ tier Pokemon. It is barely better than Blastoise (who, by the way, is too high in B- tier). Feraligatr is not a B tier Pokemon. And since we're discussing basically only starters anyway, I don't understand why we're not dividing the tier list like I suggested. Greninja doesn't get Shadow Sneak in the earlygame anyway. It either needs a Heart Scale (so it's not learning Shadow Sneak until ~L50) or it needs to be deleveled to L23 after evolution to learn Shadow Sneak. Why anyone would bother doing either to learn Shadow Sneak is beyond me.

I don't think that I'm overrating the grass-type starters at all. The dearth of water-type Pokemon early in the game does not substantially raise the value of water-type starters. Nothing in this game demands that the player needs a water-type Pokemon. There is no section in this game thus far that is unbeatable without a water-type Pokemon fit for battle. Believing that you need a water-type Pokemon early in the game traps you in the line of thinking that will result in more difficult battles against Julia, Florinia, Fern, and PULSE Tangrowth. For the earlygame, having a water-type Pokemon is actually a net negative. You have to invest EXP in this Pokemon and it does very poorly in the boss battles during this section of the game. You're neglecting the potential for the grass-type starters to trivialize any battle given a chance to set up. Bulbasaur has early Sleep Powder, Leech Seed, and fairly early Growth. Sleep, set up, sweep. Snivy has early Growth, Leech Seed, and a slightly later Coil. Seed, set up, sweep. Once it learns Leaf Storm, you can Ability Capsule it over to Contrary and murder things with Leaf Storm + Wring Out. PP is not really an issue because PP Ups exist and lategame battles give you so many free heals. Turtwig has early Curse and fairly early Leech Seed. Seed, set up, sweep. The water-type starters suck, frankly. You have Mudkip, Piplup, and Totodile all in A tier above the grass-type starters. A salient piece of irony here is that the only water-type starter who can naturally setup sweep (Oshawott) is below these guys in B tier. None of the aforementioned 3 water-type starters have the potential to open up an opponent given the proper circumstance. Mudkip, Piplup, and Totodile are actually all rather bad Pokemon even outside of the context of this game. Mudkip does not learn a single physical STAB until L51 Earthquake. Piplup is slow and otherwise unremarkable. Totodile does not learn a single physical STAB until L63 Aqua Tail (which is not boosted by Sheer Force). Meanwhile, these guys are all sitting above Oshawott, who learns a 75 BP physical STAB at L17 and picks up Fury Cutter and Swords Dance naturally. You're fixating too much on how good Pokemon are in theory and neglecting how good they are in practice. Yes, water is a better offensive type than grass. No, this does not mean that water is a better type overall than grass at all stages of the game in Reborn. Nor does this theoretical advantage nullify the individual Pokemon's characteristics to do whatever it is that they do. The grass-type starters don't care that their type coverage is bad because an untouchable Pokemon at +6 doesn't really care if all of its moves are resisted - it's still going to plow through opponents anyway. Infernape cannot do this. Infernape's STABs of choice do not OHKO all of its targets (I know that this is true because a stronger HJK from Blaziken will not OHKO everything) and either lower its defenses or causes recoil damage. All that Infernape can do is to look for a good match-up, win, and then get out. Conversely, Blaziken and Diggersby can for sure win even mediocre match-ups, and the moment that they find a mediocre match-up, the rest of the opponent's team gets opened up. I can't say this with confidence about Azumarill because I've never used it, but I doubt that it's capable of this despite its bulk because of how slow it is. Flail is by far the best coverage move to run in Diggersby's fourth slot. Here's an example from my speedrun route that demonstrates its power: Bounce does not offer appreciable coverage. A super-effective Bounce is only 13% more powerful than a neutral Earthquake or 100 BP Flail. If Diggersby is holding a Soft Sand or Silk Scarf, his neutral STABs are actually more powerful than a super-effective Bounce. Bounce only gives Diggersby coverage against levitating or flying ghost-types, of which there are only 3 lines in the game. In those cases, just switch out. It's not worth running Bounce. If you require everyone to do a "formal analysis" before you consider their opinion, then you'll miss out on a lot of good opinions. I'm not going to bother. Guess who's slower than Medicham? Diggersby. Diggersby is also not that much bulkier. Medicham has higher atk and a much more powerful STAB. It also has better coverage options and same Flail/Reversal gimmick that Diggersby boasts. I disagree. Very few Pokemon are really good for a short amount of time after they are available and then really bad. There are several advantages to splitting the tier list based on availability. The first is that the Pokemon become easier to rank when there are fewer relative comparisons to keep in mind. The second is that Pokemon that have availability at two separate points in the game can be reasonably tiered without cluttering up the tier list. The third is that Pokemon become easier to find for someone who wants to look at the tier list (actually, the list will look better when it doesn't try to accommodate upwards of 100 different evolution lines at once). The fourth is that the tier list becomes more useful to any given player who wonders at any given time which Pokemon to add to his team. The fifth is that availability doesn't become a defining factor of Pokemon ranking in the tier list, eclipsing a Pokemon's other innate characteristics. The sixth is that discussion can be organized better with this sort of breakdown. We're already talking about 8 different Pokemon at once and it's hard to stay focused this way. You don't have to worry about too many Pokemon being advocated for a tier placement higher than they deserve - this happens often enough already. Most posts in this kind of thread will recommend moving up a mid- or low-tier Pokemon because that player had a positive personal experience with that Pokemon regardless of how good it is objectively. Many people agree with my proposition and I think that it'll yield a better result in the long-term.

Now as far as the actual rankings go, there are numerous problems. I disagree with the placements of many of the starters. I made a list awhile ago (http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14387entry331350) and I think that the list in this thread vastly overrates water-type starters while underrating grass-type starters. The water-type starters are hampered by having terrible match-ups in the first two gyms and a consistent bad match-up in Fern, whom the player has to fight throughout the game. Many of the grass-type starters meanwhile have easy setup tools that are unrivaled except by the likes of Blaziken, who is the downright best setup sweeper in the game. Speaking of Blaziken, I don't think that there is another Pokemon that deserves to share a tier with him - that's how good he is. Certainly not Infernape, who doesn't have a viable setup option and doesn't hit nearly as hard. Certainly not Azumarill, who hits hard but is too slow to sweep without blowing at least 2 turns on using X Speed. Maybe Diggersby deserves to share S tier with Blaziken because Diggersby is ridiculously powerful, but while Diggersby is unmatched in power, he doesn't have an easy win button against as many match-ups as Blaziken does. Diggersby's power has nothing to do with Bounce (Bounce, I submit, is not worth the moveslot on Diggersby). The set that I run on Diggersby is Strength, Earthquake, Swords Dance, Flail. Flail is the outstanding move on the set because in Reborn, it's very possible to manipulate Diggersby's HP to have high-powered Flail readily available using Sticky Barb and Revives. A 150 BP or 200 BP STAB Flail off one of the highest atk stats in the game plows through teams. If Diggersby can't comfortably use Flail to sweep, then it can battle conventionally with Swords Dance setup into a combination of Strength and Earthquake. There is another Pokemon with the combination of huge atk stat with STAB inverting BP move (which I think is missing from the list): Meditite.

On a previous in-game tier list thread I advocated dividing the tier list by availability because that would yield more useful information. It's impossible to compare whether, for example, Kricketot or Heracross is better when Kricketot is only amazing for the very beginning of the game and Heracross isn't even obtainable until half of the game is complete. If a player were to use this tier list as a reference to answer the question, "what are my best options to use right now?" a tier list in which every Pokemon is listed cannot answer that question. It would also make more sense to rank starters and random egg Pokemon separately because choosing or receiving one excludes all of the others. The random egg Pokemon especially should be segregated because some are obtainable much later in the game and their tier status would be substantially different depending on when you receive them.

Honestly the thing that I am the saltiest about is Bunnelby's encounter rate having been dropped from 34% to 5%. I can't get behind the idea of making wild Pokemon that rare; either make wild Pokemon relatively common or axe them altogether if you don't want players to use it. It makes more sense to have rarer encounter rates in areas where there are like 8 different species. I also somewhat dislike the overall lack of options available to the player in the earlier stages of the game. I can get behind delaying good TMs and move tutors, but half of the shitty move tutors in 7th Street and Agate Circus should be available earlier.

Maybe. I've been busy playing Fire Emblem. I'm a lot less motivated to work on the Reborn speedrun route now that Bunnelby's encounter rate dropped from 34% to 5%. There are other viable, more reliable alternatives (Woobat is still guaranteed in the shadows), but Bunnelby is so much faster and more fun to route for. A 5% encounter rate is technically still usable for a segmented run, but it would be impossible to transition to a possible single-segment or marathon run.

Don't bother learning Bounce. The only thing it gives you coverage against are levitating or flying ghost-types, which are not common.

Lostelle, can I request a video for the Exp. Share sidequest? Thanks.

Well, that's unfortunate. It sucks to rely on a 10% encounter rate.

Kurotsune made a post about how the weather system was changed in the Dev Blog subforum. It's harder to manipulate weather if it doesn't appear in the weather forecast.

Does Notus use RPGMaker to get the encounter rates? If so, can someone please verify the encounter rates in Rhodocrine Cavern and Beryl Ward for me?

The EV training guide says that it's 34%, but I've been testing for close to a half hour and it appears to be far less common than that.

I wasn't aware that the OP specified only Pokemon post-Agate Circus. There are really not that many options. Look in a cave somewhere. The first Pokemon off the top of my head is Golurk on Route 3.

Diggersby is probably the best ground-type; Excadrill and Krookodile are very good as well.

The point is that I think it's rather dumb to have an event that requires you to buy an ice cream on a sunny day so that you can buy ice cream on non-sunny days. There are a whole bunch of different ways to do the Vanillite event (just one for example is that Vanillite will only appear from the machine on sunny days because it's hiding from the hot weather or something) and free up the ice cream machine on normal days. While the concept of the ice cream vendor appearing only on sunny days is flavorful, the problem is that she sells such a strong item for a certain part in the game where there are no good alternatives - the long period in the game where Super Potions don't heal enough HP and Ultra Potions aren't buyable. So everyone should want to manipulate the ice cream vendor to appear if Berry Ice Creams aren't obtainable via any other method. I also have qualms with not being able to buy in bulk from vending machines because the only reason to implement that restriction is to waste the player's time.

Thank you for being helpful and attempting to answer my question.

(Context: lead Pokemon are L15 Glameow and L70 Blaziken) Firebug Charlotte - Fake Out vs. Typhlosion, Bulk Up If Darmanitan used Rock Slide: - Send out Granbull after Glameow faints - Use Ultra Potion on Blaziken, HJK vs. Typhlosion - Send out Diggersby after Granbull faints If Darmanitan used Hammer Arm: - Send out Granbull after Glameow faints - Sacrifice Granbull, HJK vs. Typhlosion - Send out Diggersby after Granbull faints If Darmanitan used Flare Blitz: - Send out Ralts after Glameow faints - Sacrifice Ralts, HJK vs. Typhlosion - Send out Diggersby after Ralts faints If Darmanitan used U-turn: - Send out Diggersby after Glameow faints - Use X Speed on Diggersby, HJK vs. Typhlosion - Improvise from here on out After this conditional: - Use X Speed on Diggersby, HJK vs. Darmanitan - Earthquake (hits Delphox, Ninetales, Blaziken), Brave Bird vs. Volcarona - Send out Ralts or Carvanha after Blaziken faints - Swords Dance, use Ultra Potion on Diggersby - Send out Carvanha or Granbull after Ralts or Carvanha faints - Strength vs. Rotom Diggersby grows to L69. Granbull grows to L26. Split: 5h 59m This was way faster and more consistent than just trying to set up with Blaziken and getting KO'd randomly by Eruptions and Flare Blitzes. The AI didn't always pick the squishiest target in E14 and so relying on opponents to KO fodder was inconsistent. Keep in mind that you lose if HJK misses.

First of all, formatting is your friend. The difference between Speed Boost Blaziken and Blaze Blaziken is that the latter takes one more turn to set up in most cases because you need a turn to use an X Speed. In some cases the one turn makes a difference, but in other cases where Blaziken is getting some number of Bulk Ups against a physical attacker, it's taking so little damage after set-up that the X Speed is practically free. Infernape is substantially worse than all forms of Blaziken because it doesn't have Bulk Up. Yes, I wrote a speedrun route about a year ago and am currently in the process of updating it to E15, so I am very familiar with Blaziken's problem areas. (http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9358) Most Pokemon do not seem to be axed solely because they are too strong; they are axed more because they are too popular. Gyarados is also way better than Blaziken the moment it hits L20 because it gets Dragon Rage at L23, huge stats, and Moxie. Okay, this is overstating Blaziken's effectiveness to a large degree. I'm going to break this down because I've probably studied this more than anyone else. Combusken does do well in the earlygame, but so do a handful of other starters. Starters are supposed to be very strong in the earlygame because they reach evolution early and usually learn a decent STAB attack at that point. Level leads also matter more earlier in the game because relative level differences are greater when levels are low (e.g., L12 vs. L11 is much more significant than L42 vs. L41), and they're easier to build because the medium slow EXP group has a steep EXP curve at low levels. However, the Julia battle is nearly impossible without support and somewhat luck-based with a fodder Pokemon for a heal, the first PULSE Tangrowth battle is luck-based without a fodder Pokemon in the wings, and there are various generic battles that Combusken has a chance at losing early in the game (Meteor Grunt Tara's Golbat is a big one). Moving out of earlygame, Corey is pretty much impossible without support. His lead Skrelp has Water Pulse and his Croagunk has Mud Bomb, neither of which Combusken can set up on. Grinding to evolution into Blaziken doesn't solve that either because Skrelp resists both of Blaziken's STABs. If you trigger the corrosive mist field, Blaziken dies to poison and chip damage before being able to set up at all. You absolutely need someone competent to deal with Skrelp and whatever Pokemon Corey throws out until he sends out Nidorina, which Combusken can easily set up against. To get the Bicycle, Aqua Gang double battle is difficult without support and one of the Magma Gang battles is essentially an auto-lose because Blaziken can't hit a Flash Fire Lampent (unless it still has Peck fsr). This section of the game is kind of easy, but there are a bunch of random orderlies with Slowpoke that give Blaziken a hard time. Then you get to Shade, who is also an auto-lose because of Flash Fire Chandelure. Off the top of my head, Blaziken has a hard time with Aster & Eclipse on Azurine Island and a dreadful time with Aya. Later in the game, Blaziken loses to Radomus, needs an Intimidate to set up on Samson, loses to Charlotte, loses to Terra, and probably loses to Ciel. Basically every single one of the tag battles with Aya is super difficult for Blaziken to solo because Aya isn't very smart at helping you out and you have to set up against a pair of opponents. From my experience playing around with E14, I was never able to sweep Charlotte as you described because fodder doesn't last for that long and even if Blaziken OHKOs one opponent, there's still another one that gets a free attack. Her Typhlosion likes to spam Eruption from the get-go, which does a ton of damage to Blaziken even when resisted. So I'm inclined to think that you're greatly exaggerating here or you chanced upon some AI luck, which isn't to be relied on. Also, late in the game Blaziken relies almost exclusively on 90 hit moves or moves that cause recoil. The risk of HJK missing doesn't stop me from spamming it, but usually if HJK misses, you're pretty screwed because you've lost all of your boosts after sacrificing fodder to revive and heal Blaziken. Where Blaziken excels is in its ability to quickly dispatch generic trainers, which most other Pokemon can't do as easily. As far as setup sweeping goes, Blaziken is the earliest candidate, but most setup sweepers can trivialize difficult battles once they've found the right target to set up on. In the old route I used a Simple CM Swoobat to cover Blaziken's weaknesses, and I wouldn't be surprised if CM Gardevoir or Alakazam or even Quiver Dance Vivillon are too strong with the right movesets because they can just pick a special attacker and go to town. I've spent way more time routing this game than I've spent routing any other Pokemon game (taking into account proportions of game length). Vanilla Pokemon games are easy; speedrunning White with 0 EXP gain was easier.

I just tested going backwards. June 1 and May 1 and April 1 all yield the same weather forecast. On the other hand, two consecutive days in September can yield different forecasts, and I managed once to luck upon a sunny day in September, reset the game, and the weather was no longer sunny. This is incredibly frustrating.

Lileep is set-up fodder and can basically do nothing threatening except for use Confuse Ray. Outfit your lead Pokemon with Persim Berries and it won't be a problem. Once ZEL's team is done with, if you have trouble actually defeating PULSE Tangrowth 2v1, either get a Pokemon that's good at dealing with a grass and poison type offensive combo (such as the aforementioned Ariados) or grab a couple of X items and set up when Lileep is isolated.

Blaziken without Speed Boost would still be the best starter by far because it has an amazing STAB combination with strong level-up moves, one of them being Bulk Up. lol this is not true at all

I have a question. I'm trying to manipulate sunny weather in order to get the ice cream vendor to show up. The weather report predicts rain on Wednesday, high winds on Saturday, and a thunderstorm on Sunday. I set the date to some time next week. The weather report predicts the exact same thing. I repeat setting the date to some time a few weeks from today. The weather report predicts the exact same thing. In all cases, the weather occurs exactly as the weather report predicts. How would I manipulate sunny weather in this case?

Whenever people talk about Reborn's difficulty, there's a lot of talking past each other lol Half of the users pitch in with some false statement of "Reborn is not about ___" and the other half make non sequiturs about how self-imposed challenges build character or something. Fights are most easily won with full team sweeps; they're easy and consistent to do. Anyway I like Blaziken being OP because many of the fights that it wins aren't as simple as a straight Bulk Up and sweep. There are also a lot of double battles that Blaziken doesn't have an easy time with.