Paperblade

Serra: 10 on Alolatales and Sandslash 15 on Bronzong and Jynx 25 on Glaceon 31 on Froslass Radomus: 31 on Gardevoir 30 on Espeon 10 on the rest Ninetales has a Timid nature so it's still decently fast, being a 109 base Speed pokemon. Something like Rotom or Excadrill needs to be like Level 88 with a +speed nature and near max IV/EVs to outspeed that. Anything below base 84, like Chandelure or Gyarados, is going to be straight up slower even with max IVs/EVs and at level cap.

I wouldn't feel too bad, the difficulty of pretty much every fight in this game depends a lot on your team composition, and the later you go the greater possibility there is to create some ridiculous team that just rolls the fight or to create one that has good pokemon but is really bad vs. the fight. Especially if you don't have a bench and are only raising a team of 6. I've had teams that are just not suited to the Glass Gauntlet at all, and then I've had teams that just roll it in one attempt.

What pokemon are you using to setup? I feel like most doubles, one turn of setup isn't enough to get double kos with spread moves, or something with fake out or setting weather is good enough. Or it is eruption typhlosion and doesn't need "setup turns". I haven't used mat block gren though so genuine question on how you'd build a team to abuse it Also, on topic, I highly recommend teaching your pidgeot heat wave, it's great vs the third glass fight

Even one small room with one legendary/mythical each seems like a fair bit of work due to how many there are.

They're in the PBS file which is publicly available through the FAQ. That comes with a bunch of .txt files, the one you're looking for is called trainer.txt These files have all the data on trainers and their pokemon. The EVs are listed at the end of each pokemon's line, with the important note that it's HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack, Special Defense. Essentials always puts Speed 4th since that's just how they coded it. If there isn't an EV spread at the end, as is the case for a lot of random trainers, all of that pokemon's EVs are its Level * 1.5, up to a max of 85 (85 into each stat is 85*6, which is 510). On how to read the whole thing

The new Dull Key location causes a soft lock if you move wrong

Part 13: The Triumph

Blaziken is just on its own level. It gets a decent boosting move at 31, has a good STAB combo in Blaze Kick and HJK, and with Shadow Claw it can cover most things that aren't taking at least neutral from its STABs. Later on it gets Thunder Punch, Stone Edge, and Poison Jab for the real perfect coverage, or you can just run Protect to ensure you outspeed everything. Infernape isn't bad, but Speed Boost combined with a boosting move means Blaziken just dunks half the fights in the game and that's not quite something Infernape can do. That doesn't mean Infernape is bad, and it does have the niche of being usually better on the first turn it's in, which is relevant since in any battle they participate there's always a first turn. Delphox was a lot better before the update that introduced gen7, not because of gen7 changes, but because it also changed all of the monotype trainers that aren't gym leaders. Beforehand, Fire/Psychic STAB was good against Fern, Victoria, Cain, Corey, Kiki, and Blake, and could often still hit a weakness in fights where Delphox was disadvantaged (such as nuking Shade's Doublade). With Blake and the 3 rivals now only having about half their team being shared type (and Cain having an Alolan Grimer instead), Delphox lost a lot of value. It's still good because Fire is absurd though. I like Feraligatr, although this in part because it still gets Agility by levelup which lets it utilize its middling Speed to still chunk through stuff and Sheer Force somewhat makes up for its lack of a good STAB option by turning Crunch and Ice Fang into effective 104 and 85BP moves respectively. If it got Aqua Tail at the same time as literally any other Water pokemon does it would probably be clearly the best Water. Empoleon is maybe the worst starter in the game, and definitely the worst Water. Defog is a waste of a moveslot in Reborn unless it does a bunch of stuff to fields that I don't have memorized, and a bunch of moves it likes either require breeding (Agility) or are TMs that are super late (Toxic, Protect, Scald, Flash Cannon, Ice Beam). It even requires a Water Pledge tutor to have a good Water STAB pre-Surf. It can maybe utilize a physical set utilizing Swords Dance and Aqua Jet, but I think that's probably still worse than Samurott who has higher Speed and access to Aqua Tail pre-Waterfall. Plus Dewott gets Razor Shell super early which is great. Like, Meganium is bad but it gets dual screens and Venusaur gets powders + benefits from sun. I laugh every time. It's been S rank in like every doubles format since it got Intimidate, and I think it was still like A+ before then. It just has a really good stat distribution and its level up movepool is solid. But on top of that, its tutor movelist is a mile long so once you get to that point it can just hit whatever it wants for super effective. But a big factor that contributes to it being so much better in doubles is that Stealth Rock is pretty much unused in that format compared to singles, and a slow, bulky pivot with no reliable recovery and a stealth rock weakness is just not great. But in Reborn, again, almost nothing uses Stealth Rock, so that drawback is negated just like it is in Doubles where Incineroar shines. I'd probably put it top 3 starters in Reborn, alongside Infernape and Blaziken.

You also get some bonus dialogue between Florinia and Fern for winning the Pyrous Mountain fight. Anyway, I have a double update today, since I had the day off and... well, I won't spoil anything. Part 12: When It Falls (through Amaria)

Yeah--it's not a huge difference for most of his mons (see here), but it's fairly significant for his Crobat and Skuntank. Croagunk and Mareanie not having items in the Corrosive Mist field is also kinda strange. But more than that, the biggest thing that makes Corrosive Mist easier imo is that in that field, his Crobat cannot do anything to Steel types as Air Cutter becomes Flying/Poison. This means you can go catch a Klink in the Underground Railnet and it will solo his Crobat at base level. And yes, agreed on HJK. I run Wide Lens maybe more than I should because of it. @not Azery I accounted for the nidoking thing, but I forgot about the other stuff (it doesn't explain why he likes to tbolt Meowstic though)--straight up forgot Blaziken learns Focus Energy for example. I think in that regard I got tunneled on that it was close and I just needed things to go my way rather than creating a better, more efficient strat. Part 11: Nevermore (through Ciel)

Personally, I think Adrienn is the hardest gym leader without specific preparation for that fight. Fairy is a good defensive and offensive type, doubles are rough, and double Intimidate + field boosting their Special Defense by 50% makes the whole team annoyingly bulky. Without the Sludge Bomb, Poison Jab, or Flash Cannon TMs, many pokemon are limited in anti-Fairy coverage options, including pokemon who would be using them as STABs. As far as I know, beating Amaria in singles or doubles doesn't matter for Shade/Anna points (and I just double checked the event in rpgmaker), it's just on Reshiram route you fight the opposite of what you select when she asks, and if you lose and don't reload your save it's then randomized on further attempts. This update took a while because the forum software decided to not convert my image links into images automatically and I just didn't want to deal with that until I realized I had a workaround of pasting them into another forum's reply box where it would work then copying them over here. This is the sort of ingenuity you're reading this thread for, right? Right? Part 10: Neon (through Terra)

Part 9: Smile (through Charlotte)

black out the sky Part 8: All Things Must Die (through Radomus)

Part 7: Bad Luck Charm (through Sigmund at Tanzan Cove)

Part 6: Time to Say Goodbye (through Sirius @ Yureyu HQ)

Part 5: Armed and Ready (through Aster&Eclipse 3)

That would explain a lot. RIP

I'm starting to think early game Bergmite is a myth

Yeah this is accurate. Meowstic is in for the long haul. Its offense falls off since 83 Special Attack just isn't that great when everything else is final form, but it's still good enough for things weak to Psychic and its support only gets better as the game goes on. Part 4: Wings (through Shade)

I suspect most people breed and go for 31 IVs because people like to have maximum power in RPGs, not because they feel it's necessary. I could be totally wrong, but for me it just feels good to catch a mon and see it has great IVs, even though it's not necessary (I cannot be assed to breed or grind 97% of the time though) I totally agree that Reborn isn't hard enough to require all that (nor should it be), as can be seen from challenges like the dude playing without TMs/exp/items I would also guess most people who think this stuff is required aren't very good at the game or didn't play it

Part 3: I'm the One

I could write a 5 paragraph essay on why Erin is best girl

Part 2: Rising (through Florinia)

I've managed to pull myself away from Smash Ultimate and Artifact long enough to create this thread. In E17, I did a personal challenge to see if the game could be cleared with just using 6 pokemon ever on Set mode with no items and having none of those pokemon be from Mix events (things like mystery egg where it can be one of multiple pokemon, but which one is determined at the start of the game)--pokemon of those species obtained outside of the mix event were fair game. All things considered, it was pretty easy even without Torchic. In E18, there's been two minor changes that would up the difficulty of that: A) Magnemite, one of the pokemon I used, was pushed back about 7 gyms B) Badge boost is removed, which makes the game post-Serra just a little bit harder as your pokemon lose a bit of speed (also other stats later but the speed is the most important--it allowed average speed mons to have good speed in tandem with +speed natures and fast mons to run adamant/modest natures) However, with how easy the run was, I wanted to see how many Pokemon are really needed to clear the game on Set mode with no items. So, opening my ban on Torchic and mix event pokemon, I was left with the following limitations Run Limitations: -Set mode -The Bag command in combat can't be used except to throw pokeballs at wild pokemon -Only 3 pokemon ever can be switched into battle. If other pokemon are to get EXP and level up (for trade/evolution purposes), it must be done through Rare Candy, EXP Share, or the Daycare. -Shade's relationship points must be maxed. This means: Rescuing all 5 police officers and uncovering Corey, defeating Solaris at Pyrous Mountain, causing Saphira to get taken captive at Tanzan Cove, siding with Radomus at Citae, declining Blake's offer all three times, and refusing to fight Taka at the Water Treatment Center. Three pokemon seemed most likely. Two was too few--even with Torchic, I'd need an early game pokemon who could scale into late game and carry fights that Blaziken couldn't handle on its own. As good as Torchic is, I doubt it can solo PULSE Tangrowth or the Taka&ZEL double battle. And never mind Corey. And this secondary pokemon would also need to be able to deal with stuff like Solaris... Yeah. I would be impressed if someone could do this with two. Maybe with items enabled it's doable? Anyway. Part 1: Ignite (Start of game through Julia) Next update should cover everything up to Florinia. I would've liked to get into the stuff after that sooner, but there's a lot of boss fights between Julia and Florinia (all 3 rivals, ZEL, and Scraggy Gang) and they all deserve their own write-up because they are all uniquely challeng-okay I can't even joke about this, Fern is the only interesting encounter of the five. Anyway, next update will either be in a few days or I'll forget about this and it'll be in a few months.

Ralts is probably fine--I don't think it was ever broken the way something like Gyarados was or Flygon is, but it was extremely popular which is going to skew perception. There are plenty of solid pokemon that get boosting moves and are available before Ralts is obtainable or around the same time--Diggersby, Alakazam, Mismagius, Zoroark, Ninetales, Houndoom, Crawdaunt, Barbaracle, Flygon just in the vanilla game and ignoring starters/mystery egg. Gard has a good STAB combo, but it's still a physically frail, 80 base Speed pokemon with no speedboosting moves/ability