sound of silence

I'm somewhat surprised that we have neither hyper beam nor giga impact yet, given how badly you can be screwed over by the recharge turn in this game.

Basically with chrysolia forest, you have to I'm one of the few people who appreciate this puzzle just because of the irony of it being exactly what you shouldn't do in the real world.

Switched in and out of a granbull and arbok who were both holding air balloons. Finished it off with chesnaught who proceeded to use leech seed, then alternate between rock smash and spiky shield. Its not too hard to beat the garchomp with a good plan, the problem is that beating the garchomp messes with the storyline somwhat, supposedly.

Male nidoqueens and female nidokings. Just to add to the stranger genderswap options. Or better yet, getting all the benefits from both meowstic's movepools, for an in-game worthy option.

You can certainly get to the 8th floor in a legit manner, but it requires you to get every sticker prior to the agate city checkpoint, so the earliest you can get to that floor is just before the 8th gym.

Sigh, thanks to everyone who cleared that up for me. Now if you'll excuse me I must go and curse vehemently, because I am now torn between getting some excellent backstory or not giving up major progress in the game...

Damnit I really have screwed up with my choice and the timing of my saves... Really do not want to have to backtrack that far since my only save before yureyu was before fighting solaris... One last question then. Spoiler tags for the answer I guess. With the current choices I have made, will I still get an option to have captured?

And it appears I screwed up if what BBD has posted in his spoiler is correct. Athough how she of all people gets captured really is beyond me... Edit: Actually, now I'm even more confused based on Amanojaku's post. Also how do you use spoiler tags? And who was I meant to have be captured?

It takes a while of it sitting in the daycare/grinding, but barbaracle is a monster for my team right now, easily dispatching meteor grunts, noel (used his swellow as set-up bait), and even fern thanks to the truly stupid AI. It's raced several levels ahead of the rest of my team because of how well it works with the field effects. Want to battle some meteor goons? Nature power turns into field boosted, tough claws boosted gear grind. Is the field shorted out? tough claws, field boosted night slash thanks. Haven't even got to the fun parts of unleashing hell with this thing on the chess field (tough claws, field boosted, STAB strength (strength gains rock typing on the chess field)). If that typhlosion has been denied energy ball in the latest update, I can see me having some fun at charlotte's expense too, possibly even terra if I use an air balloon.

Damnit. Well I chose to fight sigmund in Yureyu (selected yes), and the end result was noel and anna getting kidnapped, after selecting to remain downstairs after beating sirius... Oh well, if it evens out, maybe just as well...

Alternatively, for even faster grinding, in spinel town there's a trainer that offers to trade you a karrablast or shelmet for the opposite (i.e he will trade you karrablast if you trade him shelmet). You can get an accelgor or escavalier that gains faster exp due to being traded that way. Make sure if you pick accelgor that you can take down the tyrannitar, and if you pick escavalier, something to deal with sableye.

So I remember somewhere on the forums that you can get a slightly better ending on your playthrough of reborn if you pick the correct options to certain choices you are given along the way in your playthough. Unfortunately, I have no idea where the thread went, nor do I remember anything about the choice Sirius gives you when you beat him in the belrose manse, and asks you whether you go upstairs to help laura or stay downstairs. Does anyone know which option is the correct one for the special ending? For reference, I'm playing 14.6 and I chose to remain downstairs. I wouldn't mind knowing as I did store a spare save at this point in case I chose wrong, but I'd prefer to know before making too much further progress (especially since I got stupidly lucky in the arceus battle)

Your team seems mostly fine to me, but a few things. -You will need to have an ability capsule or 2 on standby for heliolisk as the water gym is very soon, so dry skin will be a must. Particularly if its an underwater battle. Please also get rid of razorwind for grass knot as well. -I'd have a pokemon on standby to sub in for ninetales too, who is useless underwater. After that, you have nothing you need to change really. Only breed if you need to, and I honestly don't think you need to yet, unless you're sick of hariyama, who is pretty good despite what is said about it.

Additionally, I think smog and clear smog could turn the field into a corrosive mist field, as you'd be flooding the field with smog from your strong winds carrying the gas all over. Perhaps also increase the accuracy drop of smokescreen.

Okay, biggest problem I see with your team is that you have nothing to make the fight against Terra's nidoking anything other than a nightmare except for donphan, depending on what nidoking does to start the match. For this fight, I'd use the following, getting them all to at least lv 68-70. Also, catch a sealeo from the ametrine mountain, and evolve it into walrein. -Donphan -Walrein -Scrafty -Swanna -Bronzong -Aromatisse Teach trick room to bronzong, replacing heal block. Scrafty should be taught brick break over any move other than high jump kick, and you should also get an air balloon from the agate circus for it to hold. The first pokemon you send into battle MUST be donphan, no exceptions. Due to the field effect, anything else you send in risks becoming set-up bait for nidoking, unless you get very lucky and get to set trick room. Once nidoking is down, do the following depending on what Terra sends in -Excadril: Send in scrafty. Thanks to the air balloon, excadril can't hit you with earthquake, so you're free to KO it with HJK. -Claydol: Scrafty should concentrate on repeatedly using brick break to destroy the screen claydol tries to put up. Beware claydol using explosion -Hippowdon: Swanna should use rain dance ASAP, then proceed to use surf. -Quagsire: I'm not 100% certain of its ability here. Either walrein can spam blizzard here, or boost up with aromatisse using calm mind and hit it with psychic -Garchomp: Get bronzong/aromatisse (preferably aromatisse) and use trick room. Let the setter die and send in walrein. Use blizzard. That should get you past terra at least.

For me, the biggest rage moment I had would have to be serra and her Shell Smash Cloyster In my first run through, I had nothing with any sort of status inducing move to deal with that thing, and I ended up soft resetting 4 times before hariyama haxed it out with paralysis from force palm. I mean the rest of serra's team is pretty easy to be (well, except that lapras), but just copping cloyster first up was hard to deal with. -Bear in mind this was in episode 14, haven't played against her with a field effect active. Oh and adventurine woods is pretty awful, as someone said. I mean its a great puzzle, but its very easy to get lost, and patience wears thin after the nth time you slay tauros/bouffalant/pinsir/heracross. Chrysolia forest is easy to navigate compared to that nightmare.

Vulpix needs to be removed entirely. With the exception of charlotte, there is not a single battle where that thing is useless, and can easily smash 2 pokemon minimum per gym. Drought is a stupid ability to be giving out so early in the game, much less right before a bug gym. Drought and drizzle just shouldn't be made available until at least the E4 because of how good they are. Probably would say the same for sand too. Hail is okay as that is a lot less abusable than the other three, but no other weathers. Lets try and make the game a slight bit more difficult shall we? Other changes -Drillbur should not be available before noel: This should go without saying really. You should have to go to insane length to 6-0 gym leaders in reborn, and mere grinding isn't good enough to justify that. -The kricketot event before julia needs to be removed. See above. -litwick could be earlier in the game. Despite chandelure being a godly nuke, its slow speed would really let it down against several gyms. Maybe after serra you can get it, as noel still has a few mons that will break through chandelure easily. Although it might make randomus even easier than he already is... Will add more suggestions when I can think of them.

Scrafty should still be immune to psychic, its just that the field will register every dark attack as a normal attack instead.

Did you get the panpour in peridot ward by any chance? That would help immensely, as at level 25 you'd have access to both scald and taunt, which in theory should make ferroseed a lot easier (stop seeds, fish for burns) I'm amazed no one brought that up earlier really. I'm also stunned you got past the tangrowth, considering it has growth and on the forest field it get +2 in both atk and spa. Well done on that. Next best Idea I have for you would be to obtain substitute from the casino, so you can sub up before it can use leech seed. Also psyduck as cloud nine will negate sandstorm. Also a common candy to get ducklett to level 24 might help.

Blaziken wipes the floor with you unless the AI is too stupid to protect first, Sash Lucario can SD and pick you off with e-speed, and then there's hawlucha, And I'm not sure but I hope Ame gave samson's mienshao acrobatics... Also since I'm too daft to link up multiple quotes in an edit, Randomus really needs to get rid of exeggutor. 2 quad bug weaknesses when we already have multiple great bug types at this point in the game is sad. Could be replaced with some fast screen user or something neutral to bug preferably, so as to let reuniclus go to town like it was meant to.

Hariyama is pretty useful throughout the game. Thick fat is the key to its success late into the game letting it at least have a decent chance against charlotte (watch for delphox) and blake (watch for jynx) as opposed to everyone jumping on the heracross bandwagon (have fun with that against the leaders after Luna) or conkeldurr. Well conkeldurr will be better, but hariyama has a few decent niches to hold off grinding up the timburr you get later. Any of its abilities are fine though (well except sheer force, until more TM's/tutors come our way) Granbull is okay but can't see it being of any use after samson. At least until we get to ciel/saphria. And yeah, Luna and Randomus really need their difficulties cranked up considerably. Especially Luna who is missing out on so many good dark types she could be using to make life hell for us.

Struggle bug reduces special attack by one stage, and from memory noel only boosts the defenses of his clefable with cosmic power as opposed to something like calm mind. Even with a move like stored power, the special attack nerf will reduce the damage output by that much that noel can't hit you for any notable damage.

Um, how exactly did you get a scrafty before you battled Shade exactly? Thought you could only get scrafty after about the 5th gym or something. Even if you do get the key to the slums, how exactly were you beating level 45-50 pangoro to get the scrafty? Also thought bulldoze was given to you by terra, so how did you get it before charlotte?

Yeah, since I got the gengar suggestion wrong, I'd say go with dragalgae. Alternatively, Nidoqueen/Nidoking are also nice to avoid parahax from wigglytuff while also getting a sizable boost from sheer force to sludge wave. Don't worry about harming your own pokemon. Once you take out porygon-z, magneton won't give a damn about the poisoned field and between it and dragalgae/nidoroyals, you should be fine.

Florina is way too easy. Asides from hariyama making the fight so much easier, and the abundance of fire/fight/flying/poison types at this point, she has no way to get rid of t-spikes which ruins the entire idea around her cradily. She should get a vileplume or something to fix that really. Don't think too highly of randomus either. Exeggutor needs to be punted from his line-up as it's useless and compounds a bug weakness that is easily exploited given the great bugs at this point of the game. I'll pay that metagross was hard to take down, but beyond that a slow SE type ruins him as the AI won't set TR if it sees a slow abuser on your side, and thus allows you to steamroll him. Luna's Umbreon is a joke as well. That being said, I don't know what to replace it with, without the match turning into nightmare mode (I had considered a sniper drapion until I realised how cruel 100% crit, sniper boosted, STAB boosted, field boosted night slashes would be) Maybe a hydreigon as the jabberwocky could work? Also what ability does her tyranitar have? because no sand is summoned and the unnerve text doesn't appear...