Paperblade

It probably comes down to definition of difficulty. There are a handful of early mons that are great vs those gyms (swoobat, hariyama) but generally early on I have to train up 1-2 new mons per gym, and early mons that don't evolve till the mid30s are kinda bad. This cuts out a lot of choices and makes a lot of the early gyms "use some of these handful of mons or the fight is nearly impossible." It's possible there is a diamond in the rough I've yet to find But, I am extremely stubborn and play where I don't change my team out and when I have a group of six set i don't change it, with early game mons just filler until what I actually want becomes available. So when I lose to valarie 50 times and begrudgingly go raise up a Vikavolt and Raichu just for her I see that as an admission of my defeat, even though i might spend three times as long on a later boss trying out different leads and held items etc, I have so many more options that I've yet to be truly brickwalled. Actually, can I change my vote to virtual Whitney? I had to break down and use potions to beat her with chikorita.

Puppet master is much easier with a Calm Mind psychic type on intense than without. They have some stuff that hits defense hard like Psyshock, Gallade, and Metagross so a slow thing like Beheeyem might have trouble, especially since Oranguru Light Screen means you need two CMs to ohko the tanks. The fight without one of those is pretty insane though. Easiest boss in rejuvenation is definitely Venam. Most later bosses can get ran over by a good counter team but you can just grab whatever and beat her with little issue, which is kinda to be expected from the first gym. On the flipside, I find gym 2 through 5 very difficult because they quickly ramp up in strength but your options are still mostly bad. I play on set without healing items though so that probably influences things

The video was likely made before the gen7 update

It's probably fine to just make instructions that will solve it for one solution. Other puzzles have multiple solutions (like the third Calcenon gym one) but i would imagine most people using this resource just want to get through them

The fight is just significantly different from almost everything before it, so it's easy for a team that was comfortably beating fights prior to this to just get brickwalled. Most fights in Rejuvenation leading up to this point are juiced up versions of things we are familiar with (the monotype gym leader) and thus can deal with despite tricky things like the crazy fields--especially since most people playing Rejuvenation have probably also played Reborn. And while we've fought Rift and PULSE and even Totem pokemon before, Rift Gardevoir stands out because its stats are both higher than a Rift or PULSE you might've fought 6v1, but it also has multiple support pokemon that are decently bulky and will constantly attempt to sleep and control your party. It's totally possible to walk into this fight and just have something get sleeped and Gard runs through your team 6-0 without you ever getting a single move off

Also, correction to the guide: Own Tempo Rockruff is available from the start, I believe. At the absolute latest it's first available after the Secret Shore, right before the sixth gym.

It has something like 1200BST and insane stats. The best strategy I've found for it is to use a Magical Seed to set Trick Room, since it will probably be faster than even stuff like Crobat. Then hit it with Endeavor, which will remove around 1/2 to 2/3 its health (more if you intentionally use something low level), followed by either Poisoning or Sleeping it. You can buy Chesto Berries up in the city if that helps dealing with its support. Unfortunately, there's no way to get back to the present until you beat it so if you need to go catch an Endeavor you're out of luck as nothing in Hiyoshi City and the surrounding area gets Endeavor by level. And yeah, this fight is kind of bullshit especially because you are pretty much locked out of the rest of the game for it, so it's totally possible that you'll get hard stuck here.

Marowak in Geara,203 has the wrong EVs Comparison with his other EV'd mons, commas lined up for reference Can confirm this is the case in game as well, 31IV 0+ Level 44 Marowak has 63 Speed, the same as 11IV uninvested Empoleon.

Upon looking at the code and then testing, the "additional Fire damage" on the second hit doesn't seem to be a thing--Thunder Punch was still being resisted by wild Maractus on the second hit. So it's basically just Parental Bond that only applies to contact moves (and does 20% damage instead of 25%)

It means they can only activate on the first two hits (so power up punch gives you +2 not +4)

The difference between 25+ in all those stats and perfect 31s is pretty likely to never come up, tbh

Starting the Classified Information quest ASAP makes things screwy (since it's now available as soon as you enter GDC). You can tell Anabel/Looker about the events of Nightmare City before having gone there yourself. Additionally, if you give Anabel a Nightmare Medallion and go to Nightmare City before having done the story events there, talking to her for the sidequest lets you skip all plot events up until you get inside the Toy Box, including the battle with Zetta. Also, when you control Ren during the Hiyoshi City arc in Ch.13, you can send his pokemon to the PC when catching one, letting you steal his pokemon.

he's unavailable after the 4th badge (Narcissa) as far as I can tell

With the rules you're using, I think 3-4 is the range. I used 3, but I also had to use Seeds to overcome what I considered the hardest challenge for my team (Adrienn). But I also was requiring max Shade relationship points which required me to use something to defeat Solaris at Pyrous Mountain. This pretty much locked my team into Blaziken, Meowstic-M, and Honchkrow. Those pokemon are all good anyway which I think the run showed, since I had two powerful sweepers and one of the best utility mons in Reborn. If you don't care about Shade points, it's possible there is a team that doesn't need seeds or other consumable held items. The thing is that you still probably need to pick up a non-starter pokemon to help clear up to Taka+ZEL. Julia, Fern, and Florinia are all rough fights to starter solo. I know Julia is doable with Charmander, but I don't think Charmeleon can handle the latter two. But if you can get past those 3 fights (plus the first Taka fight), you can get the mystery egg or Diggersby, which are the most likely things to help in a run like this. And due to the low number of pokemon you're using, you really want 1-2 pokemon that can just 1v6 a team with very little help. Blaziken made for the best starter choice for this, since it gets Bulk Up by level up and has Speed Boost, which let it outrun any enemy no matter how fast and OHKO with enough setup. Honchkrow was a good backup sweeper for cases where Blaziken couldn't set up, generally due to a typing disadvantage (such as Amaria and Ciel). With Moxie and Sucker Punch it also doesn't care how fast enemies are and could snowball its sweep. Lastly, Meowstic-M is an early game pokemon which basically existed just to be an extra body to assist Combusken in the early game. It getting Psyshock at 25 and the Twisted Spoon being one of the earliest held items makes it a surprisingly potent attacker as well. But more importantly, it gets dual screens by level up and Misty Terrain, which could always be set up thanks to Prankster. Thanks to those, Blaziken frequently would get an important extra Bulk Up or two in which would let it OHKO through fights. I think Honchkrow is the most replaceable. Maybe the only thing that can replace Meowstic-M is Mystery Egg Alolan Ninetales and even that might be too late.

If there are more pokemon that you want to use than there are team slots available, you could always make multiple save files. That's what I do--pick a different starter each time and build a team around them and the Mystery Egg

oh yeah you're right In that case it's just a matter of if Garchomp uses Stone Edge or his contact moves

I don't think you can get air balloons at this point

How healthy is your team when it's just miltank? Switching between growlithe and croc to get more intimidates would help. I think that bulldoze until phanpy is faster into rock smash (defense drops) is more consistent than hoping for a 5 streak rollout into attract

The fight is pretty much rng. Croc kills clefairy, if there's bad metronomes reset. If she goes wiggly send out phanpy and pray you don't get sleeped much as you spam bulldoze. But more likely she sends out Miltank and you hope growlithe gets a low health reversal crit and no stomp flinches. If you're playing intense, uh, cry.

No problem, glad to help If you want I have a much uglier document with the exact encounter rates for wilds if you'd like that information

After episode 12 or whatever the most recent update is, Erin definitely loses points. Although, I have to ask, how far ahead of your updates are you?

Shelly is the hardest fight at the time you face her, and demands quite a bit more preparation than any gym leader does until you get to agate circus. Most fights in the above time frame can be beaten with having one mon with a decent matchup, but Shelly, like most late game fights, demands either multiple decent answers or one very powerful one. The latter is rare so most people won't have it, while the former also isn't terribly likely unless you're specifically preparing for Shelly. But on the flipside, you can prepare just for shelly, because A) the fights surrounding her don't require much prep, and B) it's early enough you likely aren't using any of the pokemon available for the long haul anyway. These two factors mean the opportunity cost of prepping for Shelly isn't as high as, say, prepping heavily with ground and Fire types for titania then immediately going to amaria.

Mostly unsorted within tiers Adrienn is the only fight that consistently gives me trouble, although it's possible I don't prepare well enough for it. Even then, they'd probably deserve A tier at minimum just because the amount of prep required for this fight is on par with that ranking imo. A is fights that are hard to prepare for because the field can only be gotten rid of by manually overwriting it with another field and gives the enemy a significant boost but does almost nothing for the player. B is fights that can be hard if I have a team with a bad matchup, especially if I have no way of complicating the fight by changing weather/the field. These fights can all be cheesed with certain moves/strategies, often in the form of destroying the field C is fights that are usually easy unless my team is really weak against theirs. This is usually because I don't have a full enough team to properly run over them which is why it's almost entirely midgame leaders. For Ciel, there aren't a ton of great pokemon good vs. Flying and all the good coverage options aren't available until afterwards, but her team isn't terribly threatening on its own. It's possible Kiki should be at the bottom of B tier instead D is fights that only the worst and most awful teams lose to. Julia and Florinia are pretty much just "are you training pokemon other than your starter" checks, Corey's ace gets hardwalled by Klink, and Luna just isn't hard even after the rework, in part because she has easily the least threatening ace of any leader.

Gastly is missing its second location in the Route 4 Abandoned Warehouse (before Hardy) Togepi is missing its trade in exchange for a Probopass, located in Shantyport Station (Coral Ward train station, requires Railnet upgrade). Magnemite is incorrectly listed as still being available in the power plant Lapis Ward Alleyway Raticate should be Alolan Raticate Persian is incorrectly listed as being obtainable in the Lapis Ward Alleyway, should just be Alolan Could clarify the Turtonator is from Rock Smash Medichamite replaces Aggronite's old location, and Aggronite is now from the Railnet quest, which can be done as soon as you upgrade it Zorua is listed as not being obtainable until before Adrienn, but it can be obtained before Shelly from a similar style Disguised Corey quest Vullaby is no longer obtainable from the Mystery Egg (it was replaced by Alolan Vulpix) Mega Stones obtainable before the Mega-Z Ring is kinda misleading since it implies they're usable then but that might just be me.

A lot of major fights in this mod have a special mon with higher stats and sometimes a unique ability (for example taka's farfetched has super luck)