sound of silence

I have to wonder, with all that grass for pokemon to hide in now, will we see some level 70 bidoof when we return to Reborn?

I don't think gyarados will be obtainable in ep16 yet. DD and typing alone will have it outclass all the water pokemon at this point of the game, while making the remaining ones that can be obtained useless barring greninja. Seconding the rest of ice-cream sandwitch's nominations though. I'd also possibly add gastly to that list as well since despite the type advantage it has for the fairy gym, its frail as, and there's no sludge bomb TM for it yet, while sludge wave is event only. I'd be extremely surprised if we get cloyster before Hardy. Also agree with klefki idea. Somewhat curious as to when some of the late-game dragons will be obtainable though. There is a very big risk that one or more of the pseudo-legendary dragons will be cast aside from being outclassed due to obtainability. I think goodra or hydreigon will suffer this fate as things like haxorus and dragonite can be very dangerous with dragon dance. I suspect hydreigon could be added soon as other pseudo legendary dragons outclass it a bit in reborn, as goodra is very capable of abusing a number of fields, while dragon dancers are still scarce as. I won't expect to see fletchling until post game though, unless Ame has a way to negate gale wings allowing it to 6-0 Bennett (or Laura if she returns to the E4)

Sorry for double posting mods, If I knew how to get several quotes into one reply properly, I wouldn't double post. Getting scraggy to level 39 and giving it a chesto or persim berry will solve most of your problems. A second dark type would also not go astray here. If you can complete either the nuzleaf event or the zorua one, I'd do that and replace floatzel for either one of those. Just be sure that if you do the zorua event 1. Make sure it has extrasensory on it 2. You will get it at level 30. Make sure you use a common candy to get it to level 29, then level it back to 30. by doing this, you will have zoroark with night slash, which you miss otherwise. Those 2 steps will ensure zoroark is useful for several upcoming gym battles that way. Two dark types may be questionable, but since you have swoobat, you shouldn't have too much issue with kiki that you need to change your team heavily. Also grind your team so everyone is about level 38, other than scraggy, who needs to get to level 39 to evolve.

I'd be grinding up your team members to about level 58 for a start, that might help things somewhat. If you just want to easy mode randomus, I'd try and find an odd keystone and catch the spiritomb in the wasteland. One nasty plot and you can lay waste to all of his team other than his gardevoir. If you want a few pokemon that will be useful down the track, I would suggest getting a heracross or galvantula. Both of those are somewhat hard to obtain, but will be good for a few gyms to come in their own ways. Any of those pokemon should replace floatzel, as you don't need a water type for quite a few gyms yet. Get a better one later on. I'd ditch hypno as well. There will be a very good psychic pokemon for you that can be obtained after randomus, and hypno won't help here anyway. Jumpluff can come back into your line up and just spam sleep powder as appropriate (or acrobatics on gallade). Lead with jumpluff and the bug type and take down gallade and reuniclus as fast as possible. He should then send out metagross and either slowking or malamar. Have jumpluff sleep powder metagross and KO the other one. KO the next one sent out while jumpluff uses leech seed on metagross. When he's down to metagross and gardevoir, sleep powder the gardevoir. Jumpluff or the bug will probably be taken down at some point, which is where you can send in infernape to deal with metagross and then focus everyone left on gardevoir.

Lunatone and Solrock can still be pretty difficult to deal with in the dragon's den. Only physical ghost, dark, steel or grass will hurt those rocks due to typing, field and an almost certain sandstream boost from tyrannitar (I hope) IDK if Hardy will have a mega or which one though. Aggron would be nice but vulnerable to the field. T-Tar makes the most sense but it could use a smooth rock instead for more sand. Mega Aerodactyl goes against the TR theme but gets insane boosts from tough claws combining with field effects.

I kind of like the open streets myself. I take it there are not enough trainers to fill all the space? Several NPC's with their pokemon out would do the job nicely too. Maybe take up one large part of the street with someone who let their wailord out on the pavement for...reasons?

Y'know, now that I think about it, I'm rather disappointed Terra doesn't get this field, as the ground type could be really good losing 2 of its 3 weaknesses while having boosted fire attacks to fry grass types. A much more challenging battle could be had against her with a suitably designed team, as opposed to the glitch field...I guess its a pity that something couldn't invalidate her badge...

Why does trapinch need superpower exactly? Flygon will be fine with a dragon move, EQ, rock slide and crunch, or a fire move to replace crunch. IDK what shelly's team is on hard mode but both krokorok and ryhorn need to go. Krok is useless for this fight and ryhorn is just plain bad until noel or until you get the protector. I'd be getting both the onix from the hiker in peridot ward and a graveler. graveler should set stealth rock while onix should be trying to outspeed and spam rock slide. If you really must get trapinch superpower, either jam it in the daycare and walk around until you hit level 40 then spam common candies, or bench that as well. Diggersby should replace that as its the best fastest ground type left for your team. (Actually diggersby should be there anyway). If you have the patience, bunnelby gets bounce at level 38 which could help set up some stalling tactics with swampert's protect. If shelly still has masquerain, make sure that goes down before bringing gabite and camerupt to the field, so you can safely use sandstorm and lava plume, as I don't think much else should have an ice move. Good luck.

I picked magma out of contrariness. I don't like that the game is rigged towards picking aqua though, buizel is just such an atrociously crap pokemon for that stage of the game. At least ponyta can torch shelly's field, take down a few of shade and kiki's pokemon through type advantage and speed. The only way to balance this choice at all would be for buizel to come with aqua tail or some decent physical water move (not freaking useless aqua jet that does stuff all damage).

And here I was thinking ame would be cruel by having saphira reuse charlotte's super-heated field so as to have dragons fighting on a fire field...this just blows everything out of the water in terms of power and expectation. Still, there's quite a few nice strategies to circumvent the difficulty of this field, and I will probably like the battle anyway because going up against saphira will take a lot of strategy, probably even more than that required for charlotte, to win. Nature power seems like the easiest path to victory for this field though, so I hope saphira has several fast dragons on her team to deal with that issue.(or alternatively, we see mega-altaria rear its head again). Might have to reconsider benching sceptile now I know of this field. Finding a pokemon with mold breaker would also be quite useful for her dragonite as well.

Just saying, phantump isn't too bad, though getting any sort of decent attacking move is a pain. Will-o-Wisp makes it worth it alone, as that move is godly early on.

To be fair, the chess puzzle can be a pain even with knowledge of it as several times I had to restart because I couldn't push things past obstacles I couldn't see. The last puzzle is pretty damn insane to beat, even with chess knowledge, because of all the simultaneous defence and offence you need at the same time, while the one with the closed off king drives me nuts due to positioning.

You are in strife then. The only other event pokemon at this point are elekid, magby and absol, as well as the crustle suggestion. I'd take the crustle advice to start with. Buizel and houndour could work for you, though not necessarily under trick room. Get floatzel and have it use rain dance to start the match (I can only hope you have EV boosting items to get it to outspeed the darm/typholsion combo charlotte starts with). Once rain is up and something faints, then get gothitelle in and use trick room so crustle can sweep with rock slide. I don't think you can really do anything else here. If you have an ill-fated doll, I'd be doing the absol event as sucker punch would be quite useful to weaken either darm or typhlosion before it gets KO'd. Good luck, since outside the circus, event mons are in very short supply up until after terra (unless you count her glitch world as an event). I think other than what I've listed, you've only got pokemon obtainable at the circus.

A 6th pokemon would be a good start. Is this a nuzlocke of some description? Really not enough information here to work with I would be adding walrein for a start (preferably with the thick fat ability), a rock type (Gigalith for preference as it gets rock slide and doesn't have any crippling x4 weaknesses) Listing pokemon from your PC would also be good, as there's not too much variety in pokemon before charlotte to help you here.

There are plenty of rock types around the circus to ditch Onix for. I would recommend gigalith above all else due to its access to nature power (makes it surprisingly useful against samson despite all evidence to the contrary), sandstorm (very good for charlotte with claydol using trick room), rock slide and stealth rock. Floatzel needs to go. Walrein is your best best. Milotic comes a close second as it can be confusing finding where in the ice mountains the requirements to get feebas and the prism scale are. Most other water types at this point are rubbish unless you can get your hands on the event totodile with dragon dance. Not sure exactly where you are in the game, but if you are up to Terra entering the glitch city, I would highly recommend you catch a raichu from the glitch cerulean cave, as you may find that useful to replace helioptile for the time being (there are several battles after terra where a fast electric type will really help) I would also recommend if you are up to glitch city to use a heart scale to give claydol cosmic power back, as you might be able to sweep terra with it once her nidoking and excadril go down. Set up cosmic power against her own claydol and just blast everything with extrasensory after that. EDIT: In regards to floatzel though, if you haven't beaten charlotte yet, keep it for the time being and get it to use rain dance. I assume you have gotten past charlotte though as your pokemon's levels are above the cap otherwise.

Replaying the game from the start once episode 16 is released will be worth it solely for the improved AI alone. I sadistically look forward to cries of rage from players once they realise you can't just torch Shelly's field turn 1 so easily, or sweep Kiki with a swoobat, or constantly out speed Randomus, or anything else that made the game easy.

One word of warning to add to Luna's post: The AI seems to take issue in setting up trick room for Randomus, so using something like escavalier isn't going to guarantee you victory. If you wish to keep using onix, I would recommend trying to find a metal coat for it to evolve, which is somewhere in tanzan mountain (see the pokemon location guide, item guide for details). Steelix would be very useful for his gardevoir too. I hope helioptile is a typo and its actually heliolisk. Otherwise soft reset in front of mining rocks until you get a sunstone. I'd also consider getting Exploud to level 58, and proceed to just boomburst everything. Only his metagross will be able to tank that, though you will need to use a ghost type or something that learns protect/detect alongside it as boomburst hurts exploud's teammates. Finally, I'd also consider leading with heliolisk turn 1 and set electric terrain. Although gallade will probably KO it with close combat if you don't KO gallade first, overwriting the chess field would be very useful for you too.

1/16/16 I HATE planning things. I have a bad habit of over-thinking everything, or getting time estimates wrong, and it just frustrates me badly. The most I'll plan is to do a certain task on a certain day, but nothing more concrete beyond that.

Ah, a most glorious topic. For me, A soft bun is key, though I'm not fussed about what bread is used provided its soft. I enjoy sauce oozing everywhere. Forget being fancy, a great burger should be an absolute mess that you can soak up the remains with from using your chips. Softer, large chips are best for this. Sauces...Hmm its hard to say what should and shouldn't be there. As long as it compliments the meat overall. Most places I go usually have some sort of secret sauce, or otherwise tomato sauce and mustard. One I've eaten contained soy, sweet chilli and chipotle all in the same burger (an interesting mix, was nice though) Patties should be thick and juicy. Those 10:1 patties from McDonalds should only every be considering after a raging bender of booze when you get to 3am and you realise how hungry you are and you're desperate enough for them. I prefer my meat done somewhere between medium rare to well done, mostly because I never liked the look of how the patties came out of the grill at McDonalds. I reveal my true heathen nature when it comes to what you can shove into a burger. If it fits, I eats. I will happily mix and match meats, though rarely combining beef and chicken. Bacon with either one is mandatory. Cheese should be in a ratio of 2 cheese slices to one piece of red meat, or 1 if using chicken breast. Salad should be minimal. Pickles are a must. In true bogan Aussie fashion, pineapple is acceptable. Egg should be fried and placed upon the burger with emphasis on surface area as opposed to being cooked in a ring like some fast food stores do. The burger however should be able to be clasped with both hands and eaten without a knife and fork at the end of its creation. Flattening it to do so is acceptable, especially if it oozes. Milkshakes are best with burgers, though some sort of soft drink and/or beer I consider to be great additions. Overall, the thing I like about burgers is that for the outlandish or super-sized creations, there is an incredible triumph in finishing one of those, even if it involves curling up in bed afterwards because of a food coma or your stomach being in pain.

Wait we're past the 50% mark now?!? I should probably complete this playthrough I'm on then. Stupid hard drive crash is now making me race the clock. Then again, I could cause myself unnecessary grief by waiting for the AI update before fighting Charlotte or Ciel... Also I hope that update means that shelly's Illumise uses rain dance turn 1. Lets see how many people enjoy that battle after that happens

Did you set all the pillars to blue/purple? He should be hiding in his living space before he comes up to battle, but you can only access that once you set all 6 to the same colour.

Of all the bugs, I'd definitely have heracross as I've found that to be very useful once you get it, as well as it being one of the better leads you can have for the 3 meteor double battles you have back to back (Just make sure Heracross has speed EV's and you should be right). Props to you for having barbaracle. It is an absolute monster of a pokemon, regardless of what anyone says about any other water sweeper. The power boosts that thing can get from fields + tough claws is great, not even taking into account shell smash. It's a bit hard to say what you should have for a flying type, as despite how good some are at sweeping, they mostly have serious issues with bulk. I like Noivern for tailwind support in doubles, but otherwise maybe wait until you get to route 3/4 where you can catch starly, and then get a staraptor. A different poison type would not go astray. Either nidoqueen or nidoking are solid choices because of sheer force boosted sludge wave (corrosive field can be pretty useful). Dragalgae is nice if you don't have issues with slow pokemon.

Crystal cavern also boosts dragon attacks significantly. Or if Ame was feeling extremely cruel, she could give Sapphira the burning field so all her dragons can get past steel types easier, while nerfing ice attacks.