dondon151

E15 slightly altered the overworld weather mechanics and it's become more tedious to manipulate sunny weather so that I can buy ice creams from the vendor outside the Great Hall. So I remembered that the candy store had an ice cream vendor, except there's a kid standing in front of it complaining that he doesn't have enough money for the machine, and supposedly the only way to get rid of him is... to manipulate sunny weather and buy an ice cream. You can't just give him money for some reason. Also, does the machine sell the item one at a time or in bulk? Because if it's the former, while it makes more sense, there's not much functional point to it. (In any case I need a reliable way to buy Berry Ice Creams or Lemonades or Moomoo Milk in bulk before Ultra Potions start showing up in marts and I'm not sure what's faster and easier than manipulating the ice cream vendor to show up.)

Yeah, I know it's a double battle, but in previous runs it would be a single battle because I would normally only have Combusken at that point. I'm assuming that if Kricketot is fainted and I have no other Pokemon aside from Combusken, it would still turn into a single battle. Also, the Scraggy and Scrafty have randomized abilities. This is yet another really annoying thing about speedrunning Reborn; many enemy trainer Pokemon will have randomized abilities that can significantly affect the outcome of battle. Even some important trainers such as Victoria and Fern have random abilities, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Blaziken can still solo more boss fights than any other starter, though. I personally do not want to see Blaziken or Speed Boost removed because it's a super important Pokemon for the speedrun route, and any other option is less reliable and/or more tedious. The most annoying thing about using Blaziken in the speedrun route is that Wide Lens cannot be reliably found and a lot of strategies rely on HJK to be done quickly, which basically means that the game can't be done in a single session (although there are a handful earlygame battles that are potentially run-ending and Blaziken and Diggersby require amazing IVs plus a perfect nature and their HAs so it's not like that would be a great idea to begin with). The idea to reduce the frequency of Torchic's HA is bad because people will just reset for Speed Boost or use the Ability Capsule near the Mosswater Factory. The only issue with having a clearly superior Pokemon available as a starter is that it marginalizes Reborn's philosophy of always axing OP Pokemon (especially when they're not OP). It's hard to justify good Pokemon and moves not being available early when the best Pokemon is available from the very start. However, I don't really like the concept of always axing OP Pokemon because it's not like Blaziken is an auto-win in most difficult battles.

It turns out that a side benefit to sacrificing Kricketot for a Potion heal during the Julia battle is that if I leave it fainted through the Obsidia Slums, the Pokemon Gang fight is a single battle (I'm pretty sure), which is good.

The plan is that Combusken sweeps all of Julia's Pokemon. Her final Pokemon is her Electrode, and Combusken will faint to her Electrode's Aftermath. So I need another non-fainted Pokemon in my party in order to not black out. Alternatively I can set battle style to shift, switch in fodder vs. Julia's second Voltorb (which she sends out third to last), get a free Potion heal, and then send Combusken back in. I'm not sure if L19 Combusken can outspeed a L13 Voltorb, though.

Yes but which of these involves the least amount of time? I just need a fodder Pokemon so that the game won't cause me to lose when Combusken suicides from Aftermath. The battle is hard enough as is with a L19 Combusken that has 31 atk IVs and a +atk nature. Combusken loses half of its HP from OHKOing Julia's Voltorbs and her Emolga has Nuzzle, Acrobatics, and Static to screw things up.

I'm brainstorming ways to reliably Combusken solo the Julia fight and I'd like to know if either of these items are available as hidden items. If not, what's the most easily obtainable Pokemon before Julia? I think it's Kricketot; it requires neither a battle nor PokeSnax and it's a single talk event that's not too far out of the way.

Negating a ground weakness is pointless when neutral attacks possibly OHKO Pikachu anyway...

That's not really the same. Jynx has a 50% chance to set up on anyone whereas Alakazam has 100% chance to set up on half of the opponents. It's not like the decision of whether the opponent relies on hitting from the special side is random. It's pretty obvious that most Pokemon do better from one side or the other, and when the stat distribution is ambiguous, an opponent Pokemon's moveset is never random. Alakazam is faster, so it's not as likely to be occasionally outsped by fast opponents. It's also more likely to sweep an opponent without set-up because of higher spatk. Against opponents that require set-up, Alakazam has a pretty guaranteed win condition given one prerequisite (that the opponent lead with or send out early a special attacker) whereas Jynx has to gamble with her poor durability in order to set up. Alakazam also really doesn't need breeding or TMs to function near peak, since CM + Psychic covers 90% of what it has to face. If it cares about getting walled by a dark type, Charge Beam - which is guaranteed very early on - is a solution. Jynx, on the other hand, desperately needs NP bred in order to have sweeping capability.

It used to be that Alakazam had coverage in Shadow Ball before the TM was changed to Shadow Claw. Regardless; the beauty of set-up sweeping (especially on a Pokemon such as Alakazam who has a huge spatk stat) is that he doesn't really need coverage moves. Alakazam can set up on basically any special attacker and sweep providing the opponent doesn't have any dark types. Jynx doesn't have quite the easy set-up since Nasty Plot doesn't boost her spdef and her HP is abysmal. Lovely Kiss buys at least a turn of setup 50% of the time (75% accurate * 66% 2 or 3 turns sleep), which isn't really reliable.

Jynx is great; her problem is that some of her key moves require breeding or holding off evolution or waiting for TMs whereas Alakazam and Gardevoir learn all of their essential moves via level up.

Wow, Essentials not having that functionality is kind of dumb.

In the actual GBA games, when you create a sprite, you have to set its possible horizontal and vertical movement boundaries. Is this not the case in Essentials?

I'm well aware that this is a rhetorical question, but the lack of TM and move tutor availability is a legitimate gripe about this game.

You guys didn't notice for 14 episodes until I pointed it out I actually prefer half HP revival; it makes it easier to manipulate HP range.

I think that Pokemon that start out good but become bad deserve to be ranked higher than Pokemon that start out bad but become good. The former kind of Pokemon can be dropped immediately once they become bad, so they are never detrimental to your team. The latter kind of Pokemon require usage during their bad period before they become good, so they are detrimental to your team for some period of time. Kricketune basically allows you to skip all of the earlygame garbage and get to decent Pokemon like Bunnelby. Smack Down and Shadow Sneak are pretty weak moves. Before Froakie becomes good, it only has a smattering of weak offensive moves that don't have the best type coverage, whereas the other Pokemon in A tier are consistently good throughout the entire game. I feel like you didn't understand what I said. Zoom Lens will basically never work for Blaziken because the accuracy boost only applies if Blaziken moves after the opponent. Blaziken will almost never move after the opponent past the first turn. Additionally, you claimed that Wide Lens would make 90 acc moves never miss, which is not true, because they still have a 1% chance of missing.

I really disagree with Froakie in A tier because as I said, it's an A tier Pokemon for (currently less than) half of the game and a C tier Pokemon for half of the game. I also don't see why there's a two tier difference between Snivy and Turtwig + Chespin when they all have the same tools; namely Leech Seed and a move that increases atk and def. Snivy has worse coverage, but Chespin also has a mediocre level up movepool, with its sole fighting type STAB causing a spd drop and also not coming until move tutor or L60. Snivy is also decently bulky and way faster than either Turtwig or Chespin, so when setting up it'll get Leech Seed up and boost def before the enemy attacks during the turn. Snivy doesn't really need coverage moves either with the Coil or Leaf Storm builds. Grass + normal is fair neutral coverage, and with enough Coil boosts, everything can be powered through. With the Leaf Storm build, Wring Out should OHKO unresisted targets at +4 sp. atk, with Nature Power being situationally useful. For the current block of Pokemon, you should put Kricketune in A tier because it wrecks the first two gyms and you can just drop it when it stops pulling weight.

Zoom Lens is useless on Blaziken because it only works if the holder moves last and Wide Lens boosts 90 acc moves to 99 acc, not 100. Wide Lens would still be great, but it's tedious to get.

I'm pretty sure that several of Noel's Pokemon carry HP Fire.

I'd imagine that we will figure that out once we get there.

Guys, in order to focus discussion, please only discuss one group of Pokemon at a time (currently starter Pokemon). This way is less chaotic and it will be easier to get a consensus when people aren't firing off the first Pokemon that comes to their head.

Money is only scarce early in the game.

Turtwig has vulnerabilities because of low speed and a 4x weakness, but Snivy has early Growth + Leech Seed and later can Coil past everything. Its movepool kind of blows, but with sufficient boosts it can simply set up more with Coil + Leech Seed, particularly against physical opponents. I feel like Snivy is the second most self-sufficient starter behind Torchic, but I haven't played with it so I don't really know. There are arguments for and against more tiers; I think the problem with having more tiers is that there's going to be less agreement and more argument over small differences, and having more tiers at the middle to lower end of the list isn't very productive.

Glad you're on board. I ranked the starter Pokemon in a previous thread not too long ago, so I'll start with my opinion. Pokemon within tiers aren't ordered. S tier: Torchic I think that Torchic is so good that it needs its own tier. I'd even say that there are no S tier Pokemon in this game other than Torchic. It has an excellent offensive typing, ideal offensive stat distribution, and a level-up movepool that contains strong STABs and Bulk Up. Base 80 spd is pretty good to begin with and outspeeds almost everything after a single turn of Speed Boost. A tier: Bulbasaur Turtwig Chimchar Snivy Fennekin Bulbasaur, Turtwig, and Snivy are here because they have the potential to trivialize battles with a combination of Leech Seed and a stat boosting move. Bulbasaur also has early Sleep Powder access. Turtwig has speed issues, though, so I'm not sure if it belongs here or in a lower tier. Chimchar is a worse version of Torchic. Fennekin has a great offensive typing, good offensive stats where it matters, and one of the best support level-up movepools of all starters. B tier: Charmander Cyndaquil Tepig Oshawott Chespin Froakie Charmander has a great earlygame with Dragon Rage, but doesn't keep up with the power later in the game since it doesn't have super hard-hitting moves or set-up moves without breeding. Cyndaquil is the inverse of that; it's underwhelming until Eruption. Tepig is a worse version of Chimchar. It still has the good typing, but it really needs Flame Charge set-up to work. Oshawott actually has a surprisingly decent level-up movepool with an early Razor Shell and late Swords Dance. People are either going to agree or vehemently disagree with my placement of Froakie, but it's a C-tier Pokemon for half of the game and an A-tier Pokemon for half of the game because it learns most of its coverage moves through TMs that are obtainable late or not at all. Water-type starters are kind of bad on the whole in Reborn because they're held back a lot by being weak against the first two gyms. Chespin is a lot like Turtwig, the major difference being that Chespin gets Bulk Up much later than Turtwig gets Curse. Maybe they belong in the same tier. C tier: Squirtle Totodile Treecko Mudkip Piplup These guys just have mediocre level-up movepools combined with sub-par typings. Mudkip has a good defensive typing, but its movepool is full of special moves until Earthquake. D tier: Chikorita Chikorita sucks.

I posted this in the other thread: