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I personally used him as a screener, especially in double battles but he was my first pick when I got stuck

How to beat ditto Arceus: get three Pokemon with sturdy and magnitude/earthquake How to beat PULSE Abra: get two Pokemon with sturdy and earthquake. Sucker punch also works wonders.

If you can nullify his Jynx out the gate, you're in a good position. Bring healing items because even when he was just down to his walrein it was still a freaking slog.

I'm not doing a second, I'm doing a fourth, or fifth if I start my sandboxed all-starters run.

Any Pokemon that has a move you can TM back can use their entire HM repretoire. It's mostly an issue for special flyers and needing two water types, IMO

I think I did that unintentionally against serra with a klinklang plus a couple of others.

I have yet to take a crack at Garchomp, though I distinctly remember dealing with Dittorceus like it's an eldritch monstrosity from Dwarf Fortress (I dropped the cave ceiling on top of it).

It's been a while since my last playthrough, can someone remind me who the only unfulfilled vision in Shade's gym was? I'm pretty sure it was Fern or Florina, but I don't remember which.

The cruelest long prank in game design history?

in two playthroughs I've gotten a couple surprises. Arbok and Fearow this time are my biggest upstarts currently. In my first playthrough, it was Swalot and his menagerie of status effects. A lot of other 'mons I have I either have always wanted to try, or knew were good, or had to bring up specifically for a fight (I didn't have a sneasel before Ciel stonewalled me, same deal with light clay espurr vs radomus, klang w/ mirror shot destroyed serra, abra turned the gen 1 bullshit against M3G4 T3RR4)

Is all of the above an option for his orientation?

Indra in agate circus, though sometimes he'll just pimpslap your team if you aren't prepared to deal with its color.

I wouldn't be oppsoed to it if you could say more than "Yes" or "No", or occasionally "Radomus" or "El". You'd be a bit limited in options, though, unless you're willing to get RAWR'd.

Aside from the fact that almost every single leader in both of my files took more than one attempt, a few stick out as being particularly difficult. In my first playthrough... I remember having to try a few approaches with Shade, but I breezed through him once I made a few swaps in my lineup. I got hung up on Noel due to his Cinccino, not sure how I got past it, but I managed it without burning the field. Radomus was a lot of fun, but I know I failed a lot. I think eventulaly the exp from getting 4 or 5 of his team down pushed me over the hump and I could deal or take the little bit of damage to tip the balance in my favor. Pretty much every leader post agate gave me trouble. I don't remember how for Samson, but I remember Charlotte kicking my ass a lot, stealth rock and somehow getting her to switch out her volcarona helped, and prankster light clay meowstic to set both screens and then die helped, but I don't remember any further details. M3G4 T3RR4 stonewalled me until I remembered that it was a fight about gen 1 bullshit, and raised the Abra I had lying around to alakazam, burned through several episodes of Archer grinding on Indra until I twerked him up to a good level, then getting a few dozen Speed and SpAtk EVs for good measure. Then he basically RAWR'd all over Terra's first few 'mons, then I figured out how far Alakazam would get on its own, and set up the rest of my team accordingly so that RAWRCHOMP would go down like a RAWRCHUMP. Ciel however, was a looong grind as I leveled my sneasel (sadly not from the mystery egg) and swinub (sadly not bred for icicle crash) up so that I could ice shard through half her bullshit. I still had to get lucky with sturdy donphan and bounce against togekiss or risk getting shrekt by it. In my second playthrough, I feel like I've done worse so far, as Florina, Kiki, Serra, and Noel -- the worst of them all since his porygon-Z also got in on the action -- were basically walls I had to climb via defeat-grinding and luck with statuses and ancient power. I'm at Radomus now, but I have a good-ish feeling even if he lays down trick room on my speedy team.

My main complaint is that there are a few plot-important fights that you get into after going through an area without access to a PC (Dittorceus, though that's optional, Luna). I had to go through Iolia valley twice because I assumed I'd be able to swap out my team when I got to Luna, not to mention if I lose and decide to change my team, I have to go a long distance and have to use a bunch of repels to avoid mishaps with wild wynaut on the way back to re-challenge her since the only source of recovery at Luna's "gym" is a one-off.

Swalot with acid drench, sludge bomb, yawn, and body slam, could really neutralize a lot of threats. Also really strong in doubles with my dusclops and hex. Also, Golem. I'd bring him in with sturdy to break anything that was trying to sweep my team, especially PULSE-abra, where he tanked a hyperbeam then dropped it with two earthquakes. I also dealt with Dittorceus by collapsing the cave with him and some sturdy Gravellers I picked up.