Whitelight

I believe the future Shelly reborn champions secondary type was fairy. She mentions that Titania had given her a love of "fairy tales" and also she has a xerneas iirc

Ok so I have set up a discord server for us to strategize on and such, my username is Whitelight#7487 if you wanna send me a friend request and we can add members from there and organize a bit more! I figure we can kind of just come to a consensus on how we wanna set it up once we get in the server. Hoping that we get to have a ton more good discussion about all this good stuff!

So I would like to piggyback onto this and say that those are some incredibly interesting strategies you bring up... I also want to say thank both of you so incredibly much for being active on this thread and sharing your experiences. I am nearing the close of the "first phase" of the mono project that I have been dreaming of for literally YEARS and I am getting more and more excited to tackle end game. I would also like to reach out to you akontistes, and see if you would like to join Cassandra and I on a project in the near future to determine an "optimal" end game team for each type! I think it would be fantastic to have as many viewpoints and opinions as we could get, especially since we each seem to have a niche type or two that we really enjoy building. Also, I feel like Grass probably will end up moving up a bit after all since I hadn't really factored in much trick room usage, and I also hadn't given a ton of priority to berry and harvest strategies which probably would have made the run much easier. All the more reason why I appreciate yalls advice and feedback so much. And a small update for me, I am currently on Samson in the water run, everything has been fairly smooth sailing so far after florinia who was a little more dicey than I would have liked. Swanna has been a surprising kingpin of my team with the flying support but I suppose that it will be trashed once I get my hands on gyrados. The one thing I have found a bit frustrating around the water type run is that it seems a lot of good water types are locked fairly far into the run... I finally can get my walrein and kindgra though so that is a big step in the right direction, but powerhouses like cloyster and golisopod (and of course the almighty magikarp) are unfortunately all the way in post renovation reborn :( Oh and one last sidenote... for simplicity and speed I do play on switch battle mode and use items... and unfortunately have sometimes resorted to revive/toxic stalling and other such "degenerate" strategies. I am trying to get better about it, but I feel what I lack in strategic initiative sometimes, I try my best to make up for in sheer determination!

You do bring up some good points about rain having no defensive buffs over Misty terrain, but I still thing having 50% boosted STAB water attacks on a swift swim user like Kingdra is SUPER potent. I think both Misty terrain and rain both have their distinct advantages and disadvantages though, while Misty terrain does give a huge special defense boost, it only boosts certain Fairy type attacks and does nothing for Speed, and also pigeonholes you into NOT using status conditions at all, if im not mistaken you can't even flinch on Misty terrain so that removes the use of any fakeout tech as well. It does do a good job of triggering some passive abilities of some of the Fairy pokemon too. On the other hand, rain may be easier to cancel out, but it is also easier to set up IMO with things like Drizzle, which admittedly forces you to use either pelipper, politoed, or kyogre, but that seems like an OK tradeoff for being able to utilize the effects with other pokemon. Rain also boosts ALL water type moves, and you can use it in CONJUNCTION with terrain so if you play it smart you can have things like volt absorb lanturn on a broken Electric Factory Field that becomes immune to electric AND a lot of water moves while still able to Dish out double boosted water moved of its own. Anyways, I figure it mostly boils down to personal preference too considering it is kinda hard to compare the two side by side given they do different things, but on another note I finished the flying run, the E4 was way easier than I thought it was gonna be. I'm just starting the water run and yikes I didn't think of how tough the early game was gonna be with electric and grass being the first two gyms and also having to deal with the pulse tangrowths.... luckily bibarel learns yawn and was able to sleep it long enough for golden to drop it'd defense with tailwhip through the floor and let me finish it off with some tackles and other assorted physical moves lol

Nice that you found some use foe crabrawler!!! That is another pokemon that I have unfortunately found pretty lackluster in my experience. As far as the terrain goes, I agree that it is potent especially for mono runs, but I can't help but feel a lot of the arguments you use against rain hold up the same against Misty terrain, the turn issue for example. The only "drizzle" for Misty terrain AFAIK is ok one of the tapu ultra beast pokemon, so you would have to burn a turn just setting up Misty terrain, which, fair enough it's a strong opening move. But where I see the struggle is it has 0 value against bullet punch pokemon, or sped up iron heads from Slush Rush alolan sandslash for example. I guess I'm coming more from a position that since Reborn introduced more in the terrain aspect, there is a little bit less overall strategy involved with the Misty terrain. It is more of a slap on buff than it is a game changer, and it can hurt you a bit too considering you can't use things like rest, hypnosis, thunder wave etc. I mean don't get me wrong when it works it really works, but there are some fringe cases where I actually held off using the terrain because it hurt me more than helped me especially by turning off status conditions, and I can't really think of a situation where rain would HURT a water team. And I do agree on a water team fire types pose no threat, I guess where I was coming from on that is that you can set up more fragile sweepers in the rain against a fire type without worrying about them tearing you up. Also! I'm at the E4 with flying types now. A lot of it has been a breeze but it's very glass cannon speed reliant without many viable tanks, so I'm learning certain things like accelerock can REALLY put a hurt on you, other than that it's been nice. I'll hit you up after I round out the rest of the runs, it shouldn't take me TOOOO long hopefully, especially since the last 5 runs should HOPEFULLY be the easiest.

Hmmm I hadnt fully considered how the pulse2 would affect speed and bulk in the early game especially on the cradily... I could see how that could be extremely annoying... I would probably have tried to reset until hitting a lucky freeze or something, but that does sound infuriating. As for the terrain, I agree that pretty much all the terrains are stronger than things like heavy winds or hail, but there are a few weather effects that I would say rival even the Misty terrain field, specifically rain. Rain is such an insane staple of a lot of water based teams that COMPLETELY neuters fire types to the point where almost every fire type in the game that isn't specifically taking water coverage moves like Grass knot just becomes a set up pokemon. Also there are so many abilities that trigger off of rain it is ridiculous, ranging from rain dish which is like... OK whatever, all the way to hydration, which allows you to essentially spam rest for free, which is bonkers especially on a maxed out defensive lapras set up. Given, rain doesn't always cancel out beneficial arenas, or give the huge special defense boost to fairy types, but I would also say that other than things like venoshock, sludge wave, and flash cannon there aren't that many special moves you would use to take out a Fairy team. At least when I am fighting Fairy types I almost always opt for things like iron head, bullet punch, cross Poison, things like that. It can be wild how even with all the huge boosts of Misty terrain the Fairy type still really crumples under physical attack pressure. But anyway, I can understand your reservation and if the terrains were more powerful I would probably agree but I think that the fact rain exists means that they aren't the absolute top tier. Also, super happy to hear you are willing to contribute to the teambuilding cause! I will probably end up starting a new thread once I get around to it, mostly because I would like to "whittle down" the number of pokemon to "I would definitely always have this on my team" and "I would never consider putting this on my team" just so it isn't so daunting of a task to build out the teams. I have put a lot of thought into it and you can't really give pokemon the axe purely due to stat totals because you have things like mawile who server a very specific purpose and also can be mega'd so they kind of overcome a really crappy stat total. On the other end you have stuff like Abomasnow, which may have some use early but it just pains me to put it on a team being so weak to so many different types and not having bulk OR speed to make up for it...

Wow huge props to you for going for the pulse2 run, that sounds like an absolute nightmare lol. I mean, I figure with the difficulty curve the pulse2 matters most in midgame, since early on there aren't enough stats in general for it to make TOO big a difference, and by late game you mostly have "optimized" teams you are running against anyway so the extra stats are pushed into weird places (like extra bulk on sweepers). I am honestly beginning to feel a little burnout from my mono runs now that I have done like 12 runs, but im so close I can taste it. Also, I understand what you mean about overriding field effects being busted, and I would mostly agree HOWEVER there is still some level of counterplay to it, such as with Misty terrain there are a few poison moves that can actually flip the terrain AGAINST you. Admittedly this doesn't really matter in most scenarios and you are much more likely to just be able to set up and sweep, but the terrain stuff is just the same as weather setting imo, you are making a conscious effort and sacrifices (team slot, move slot, or both) to gain benefit from the terrain or weather effect. Also I just feel like from a "ranking" point of view it would be disingenuous to exclude things that are too op and then put them lower on the list for not being strong enough. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing how your ice run goes, and I will probably be amending this thread or creating a new one once I have all the runs caught up through the E4, since my next project is to build the "perfect teams" for each type. I feel like you would be a great person to bounce some ideas off of especially for the ice type team!

Hey! Thanks for the great feedback! Uli always appreciate hearing from different points of view, and you brought up some really nice points that I hadn't given much thought to. The use of trick room to set up a trick room team in particular is something I hadn't put too much thought into but that seems like a pretty good strategy. I also dumped jumpluff at some point just because stat wise it was beginning to really fall off, but I agree that it does breeze through the early game. I would be interested to see what your experiences end up being post renovated reborn, that to me is where it starts to draw a line in the sand "late game" wise. I would say though apart from the lack of speed, one thing that really makes grass rough in my opinion is having 5 weaknesses. It is especially important to cover weaknesses late game because there are so many different teams that utilize a sweeper, and if the sweeper is something you have a tough time preparing for it can be a REAL pain. My toughest matchup sweeper wise with grass was scizor, since other than hidden power you don't have access to any fire moves in the grass pokemon pool. It's unfortunate too that scizor is difficult for grass to handle because it is an incredibly efficient sweeper, most of the time loaded out with Swords dance and bullet punch as well as the technician ability to cheat in priority stab damage and technician boosted bullet punches. I do REALLY appreciate you bringing up your strategies though, because currently i am running everything to E4 and plan on coming back to each run and making a full optimization of every team before running them through postgame. Please let me know how the later half of the game treats you, as that was the part I struggled with the most.

Ok so another update, even though it's quite possible this thread has died and this is being played out to deaf ears XD. I have worked my way up the list to poison. All I gotta do is beat the E4. Poison is gonna end up going WAY down the list for me actually, just because I have struggled like hell with there being so many glass cannons you rely on. It's of course nowhere near as bad as some of the ridiculous BS down the list, but not having a terrain changer is a big minus and it doesn't hold up as well defensively as I had hoped. Move coverage can also be a bit lacking sometimes although access to salazzle has been really nice. Looking forward to plowing through the top 7, I'm kinda getting a bit burned out although I guess that is what happens when you have played through the main storyline 11 times lol.

It's been a bit since I have posted an update... I finished off the steel run and then blew through the ghost run at a good clip. I am now in post restoration fairy run and it is definitely a step up from the other rubs. Misty terrain has pulled a LOT of weight with the doubling of special defense for all my Fairy types and some nice boosts to my STAB fairy moves. I have found some other things that have helped a ton too, such as an insanely powerful azumarill strat to have it with the ability huge power as well as breeding the moves belly drum and aqua jet... essentially if I can get 1 turn respite to cheat in a belly drum I can sweep most teams that don't have other priority users or Sturdy/Focus Sashes. I recently unlocked some tech with a busted prankster whimsicott strategy utilizing leech seed and substitute. We will see how that ends up turning out... as long as I can get past adrienn which I don't see as tooooo much of an issue, I will get my mimikyu which will be a nice power boost too. Also just need to track down the mawilite for Mega mawile and I think I'll be pretty set... oh and how could I forget!!! Cosmic Power magic guard clefable is a powerhouse too. Anyway, tldr: completed Steel and ghost. Halfway through fairy and fairy has been pretty ezpz

So definitely think I'm starting to speed up a bit... I just got to post restoration in my Steel run. Considering I was still at the e4 in my normal run this time yesterday I would say that ain't too bad of time lol. Steel is my main type though so I guess I may be a little biased... I feel like there are just SO many good options though for Steel and with so many powerhouses you usually have the cure to whatever is killing you, other than Ground and fire being a general pain in the ass most of the time. But with access to a lot of boosting, especially the insane boost gear shift gives you on klingklang, I find that you can usually post up on a weaker mon in battle and then sweep from there. Ezpz. Looking forward to polishing off ghost next and then that will complete the lower half, "bottom nine" runs.

Ok so a little update on the normal run, parked halfway through the Elite 4, Elias is proving a little difficult but I just need to work it out. I am almost considering flipping the ranking back though, ever since I kind of worked out the normal type strategy... basically it MOSTLY revolved around ditto copying a teams most powerful mon and sweeping the opposing team with it. The difficult part is that it is a coin flip on tied speed for who is fastest. Other than that, silvally has been a HUGE asset, given in the late game you can just pop a memory into him before a battle to give yourself a pretty solid mon with a whopping 120 power physical move of your choosing on it. Mega kangaskan kicks some butt too, and even though the rest of the normal mon pickings are scarce other than my reckless staraptor, the run is going a lot smoother now. I guess it just really tanks in the midgame I would say after like Shelley, and then picks up again really strong at the circus and rides it out from there. Oh! Almost forgot skill link mincinno is a badass too! But yeah, I'll have to mull it over for a bit and see but the rankings might get flipped... not too sure.

I guess I view tinted lens as a better stand in since I've been locked in this "mono run" mindset for so long and any leverage you can get to get more type coverage is seen as critical to me. I wouldn't necessarily say I would completely write whimsicott off in general, but for the grass team specifically it felt like a waste to do so much setup when I couldn't find a really solid sweeper that had enough coverage to actually go the distance in most fights. I also feel like even things like serpirior, while strong, fail to be able to get off the ground most of the time and get REALLY screwed over by some of the fields, particularly the flame field and the Dragon's Den. Also, as for the normal run, I actually have already made it to the circus, which I would say is far enough to give some preliminary opinions.... I would say that it isn't the most terribly difficult run I've ever done, but I would say I actually think psychic was a bit easier so I think I will end up flipping them on the rankings. I think the big separator is that psychic had an IDENTITY as being speedy and hitting hard, and I am kind of struggling to find the identity in normal typing. On one hand you have pretty good stats and access to a TON of pokemon from early on, but on the other hand you don't have access to really any "beneficial" field typing that you can control, and some of the movepools can be sort of weak at times. I guess the biggest issue is really not having a "core" pokemon that you can really set up for. I need to swap some stuff out however and I think things will change pretty drastically when I get ahold of the almighty mega kangaskan as well as start rotating silvally into things. I will keep updating as I go along but for now that's kinda where I'm at.

Actually, I was thinking of Magic Guard when I said it would be pretty broken, the strat to negate the life orb damage can be pretty wacky especially on a typing like Ice Fairy. I mean I guess depending on stats and movesets it may not be completely gamebreaking but a free life orb boosted Dazzling Gleam seems really strong. looking at the other mon with magic guard (clefable, Sigilyph, Alakazam, and Reuniclus) they all have some pretty distinct weaknesses... Alakazam is very fragile, sigiliyph has a better ability imo, Rueniclus is just meh, and that leaves clefable as the main star of the show and with how bulky it is it can actually be SUPER oppressive. Again, not saying game breaking but i would definitely say that it could potentially rank like in the top 25% depending on stats and moveset. I would also say grass ABSOLUTELY has to be put that low at least for me, the main issue I have after reflecting a little bit more is the ABYSMAL speed stats. I would consider speed to be one of the more important stats in pokemon, especially pokemon reborn. Sceptile and MAYBE serpirior are the fastest grass types you get access to and even then they are both mono grass with movesets that dont exactly put them in the position of a great sweeper. Also, I find that Torterra is almost a mandatory starter for grass because you REALLY need access to the ground coverage. you do have whimsicott too but you get that so late in the story that it doesnt make too much of a difference. all in all too I never could quite get a "final" team that I was happy with in the sense of feeling super confident going into fights. There were always huge holes in coverage that made me a bit uncomfortable, especially fire which is one of the MAIN attacking types. I mean the only pokemon you really have that can fight fire is Ludicolo, which is a low caliber pokemon imo that only really excells in the mid game or extremely beneificial boosted fields like Amarias underwater field to auto proc swift swim. I am glad you brought up the psychic run too! I just finished it a bit ago and damn it was a cakewalk through and through. My final team was Metagross, Medicham, Alakazam, Delphox, Malamar, and Slowking. Metagross is of course spectacular, and medicham with pure power can one shot a ton of stuff, whether or not the HJK is super effective or not. alakazam also hits like a truck and learns a ton of good coverage moves, and Delphox suprised me at just how potent it could be. and of course Slowking was an absolute beast of a wall that has access to Yawn to allow for easy setup. and Malamar was really there just to power through teams with superpower and boost itself with contrary. there were a few times like pulse avalugg where malamar just solo'ed it. anything that was a physical attacker that couldnt just one shot malamar became a punching bag. Funny thing is, with the team I was running I actually never even abused trick room either, although i definitely could and probably should have. And yeah I am planning on going back and doing the endgame for all the runs, after I get them all through the E4. I figure it will almost be a different game entirely due to having access to every non legendary pokemon from the "start". I feel like endgame will need its own seperate difficulty list too just by nature of some types having a ton of really strong legendaries and other types being super starved. I will be looking forward to getting around to it as soon as I can but it will probably take a while... I do anticipate the runs taking less and less time as I go on though because I am running them from least powerful to most powerful (roughly) so i think by the time I get around to fire and fighting im just gonna breeze through it. I even found that in this last run for psychic it wasnt even the fights that took a lot of preparing and resetting for, it was mostly just the puzzles that gummed me up. I am infinitely grateful for the puzzle solution shards that are sprinkled through some of the more daunting ones like the tauros puzzle and the logic puzzles in victory road, but holy hell there are still some like the ice slide puzzle in the sapphire room that I feel like I need to look up constantly. Anyway even that is getting quicker so I should be on the fast track soon I hope. Anyway, I think my next two runs on the docket are normal and fairy. Normal is one that I am a liiiitle bit concerned that I might have misjudged, although with only 1 weakness to fighting I feel like it should hopefully be mostly coverable. best case scenario it goes up a bit in the rankings, worst case scenario my life will be a living grinding hell for the next few days. I will look forward to updating the list as I continue through. an edit: it was normal steel, I forgot that I pushed fairy up a bit. I am looking forward to steel too though... that is the type i have the MOST experience with and jeeebus i am excited to get my damn aegislash XD

Well I guess I can't speak to well for insurgent and deviant types, but I gotta say ice fairy mismagius with wonder guard and life orb sounds a LIIIITTTLE bit busted imo lol. I seriously can't stress enough though just how rough the grass run was... I was almost inclined to put it behind electric but electric didn't have any natural toxic users so... there was that. I mean paralysis was all fine and good but it didn't necessarily help in the ground weakness situation so there was that... And yeah, Psychic has been an absolute breeze. Another thing I forgot to add about it was the amount of turn manipulation inherent to psychic, you have a lot of trickster users for setting up status and you have a good number of mon with access to fakeout which is a very useful move imo. Also, you get trick room from radamous which you can then basically copy his team strat if you so wish. Also thanks for the praise on the speed... I would say I'm just a pro but honestly I think at this point I am more driven to just finish this project as much as anything... I REALLY want to do end game content but for my own pleasure I would like to do a "real run" with no restrictions and beat the game on my own terms and at least experience end game through fresh eyes the first time before I grind the 18 runs through it. But before I do that run I want to get all of my 18 save files "prepped" to start endgame, so i feel like I just gotta push for it. I did kinda set up for it though by doing the "worst runs first". I truly believe most of the other runs are gonna be a total cakewalk, the only ones I'm a tad concerned about are normal and Fairy since I think they could have a few rough patches, but other than that I think pretty much all the other runs are gonna be SUPER easy compared to the ice, rock, dragon, electric and grass gauntlet that I have just been GRINDING through...

I find that very interesting!! I have tried a few other fan games before, but I really dislike the idea of making completely "new" pokemon as most of the times they feel really unbalanced one way or the other. Reborns field effects aren't necessarily "fair" sometimes either but they feel a bit more balanced around the story (such as when fighting a gym leader its always favorable terrain to them) I also love hearing about your experience with Fairy type, I will have to update you when I do the Fairy run myself!!! My most recent completed mono was grass and.... oh boy was it a rough one.... I hadn't quite anticipated how weak it would be. The main issue was the abysmal speed stats of almost all the Grass types, and they excessive weaknesses they have. Even the chunkiest grass types like venasaur with maxed defensive stats would crumple under most STAB attacks it was weak to... I had to resort mostly to Mach punches from technician breloom, toxic and toxic spikes from max speed roserade, and about a billion revives lol. Now that I am out of the woods (pun intended) I am about 3/4 of the way through the psychic run and wow is it an absolute BREEZE. Medicham alone can pure power HJK through almost anything, including actually ONE SHOTTING the pulse magnezone... on top of that delphox is a powerhouse (I had never used that mon before) and then you have stuff like metagross on top of that who just blow stuff up with their insane stats. I haven't done E4 yet or even the Labradorra gauntlet so I'll have to update once that is done but the psychic run very may well end up getting bumped up on the list depending.

I think that the terrains should definitely be counted. They are a part of a pokemons movepool, and while I get your point about it being rinse wash and repeat, realistically since all pokemon can only learn a max of 4 moves I would counter that pokemon in general is just kinda rinse wash and repeat once you establish your strategy. Also, I think that the terrains are intrinsic to the pokemon just like stats, abilities, and other parts of their movesets so it would be unfair to discount the terrain for the sake of it being powerful

I definitely feel like we have a different mindset completely when building teams. For me the reason walls are so potent in my mind is they give you space to set up. Throwing out a pokemon you KNOW can always take 2 to 3 hits allows you to pop off a toxic or yawn and do some damage that way. It's definitely not as flashy as a straight sweeper but it can be insanely effective. I just got through with a rock mono run and am currently about midway through the dreaded grass monorun, and Cradily has been an absolutely incredible wall for the team, capable of almost ALWAYS taking multiple hits before going down. Pair this with egg move recover and amnesia, and even the heaviest special attackers can't even touch you. I would say the best example of a wall I can think of off the top of my head is Lunas umbreon. If you don't have a way of blowing it up it will just stall out your team with toxic and moonlight, along with a few dark pulses if you try to set up. I personally have found a LOT of success with proper walls through Reborn, and I feel like some of the runs I did probably wouldn't have even been possible if it weren't for the walls. As for the field effect negation, it can work in a lot of cases but for example with the excadril, what happens if a sand stream user gets thrown out before and it just AUTOMATICALLY has a sandstorm? There are a few fights like that I can think of where I'm not sure it would be so easy to counter it, but I get your point that most of the times you can find a workaround. As for the Fairy types and the fields, I'm looking forward to the challenge!!! I am surprised you didn't bring up mawile, she might just be the powerhouse you need/are looking for! With Baton Pass and iron defense mawile can set up the rest of your team pretty well too. Also don't sleep on shiinotic, the strength sap can be gimmicky but spore is an incredibly useful tool to put opponents asleep with 100% accuracy. I also think that fields should absolutely be considered when ranking Reborn runs, because it can work against you just as easily as it can work for you. For example, it can KO your earthquake user in the caves if they spam it, which can cost you a fight if you aren't careful Anyway I'll keep updating as I chug along but for right now, grass is proving to be shockingly difficult... so much so it may even end up moving way down the list. I hadn't anticipated how weak most of grass types move pool is, and that paired with the extensive weaknesses mean you have a TON of rough gyms. We will see how it goes towards the back half of the game though.

Apologies for the delayed response, I had a fairly busy weekend. As for the team-building, I completely agree that the field boosting makes it difficult to overcome some trainers defensively, but I would counter that it also makes it harder to have brittle glass cannon teams as well, specifically when field effects trigger things like swift swim (ludicolo for amaria), Sand force (terras excadrill), or Slush Rush (alolan vulpix for titania). If you don't have adequate defense to wall threats like that I have found that you usually get swept before you can do anything. Also thank you for the correction, I did mean to say freeze dry. I found that move was very useful to counter water types since electric and grass moves were a bit hard to come by in ice types save abomasnow, which I was reluctant to put on the team due to its iffy stats and sub par resistances. And yeah about the electric types... it is just SO rough especially since there are a few God tier ground types out there who can just wipe the floor with you... Garchomp is definitely a huge threat but you also have things like excadrill with sand force, making it outspeed even jolteon and deliver one shot after one shot with life orb EQ. You do thankfully have SOME ways of countering it, like taking a few levitate pokemon with you or equipping an unhealthy amount of balloons after you hit the circus, but those have really severe drawbacks, being that levitate takes up the spot for a pokemon with a better or more synergistic ability, and of course holding a balloon can be devastating because it eats up a valuable item slot. Apart from that, I do intend on revisting all 18 save files once I beat the E4 with all of them, giving them a good tune up, and then trying out the post game stuff. I'll probably update the list again afterwards, possibly a second post game focused ranking list. One last thing. I didn't forget to go over the tier list you posted just haven't had time to sit down and list it all out... but I feel like I have pretty good grounds to stand on for my own ranking list so I'll be looking forward to discussing it with you!

You definitely have a ton of insight into the ice types, and I agree there is a lot of synergy to be had. Your take on Jinx intrigues me a bit... I had a similar strategy but with Walrien instead. I found his insane bulk allowed him to easily pop off a yawn and then allowed me to either switch or sacrifice him to get a sweeper out. I guess my view on it tends to lead towards "if it's a sweeper it needs speed and high atk or spatk" and " setters and walls need to have a lot of either Def or spdef, preferably both" so I always found with Jinx lack of speed it was difficult to put her in a sweeping role. My team breakdowns usually consist of one spatk sweeper, one atk sweeper, one Def wall, one spdef wall, and then two "wildcards" which one will usually be a field setter if applicable. I found that abomasnow had some of the same issues as well, he doesn't really EXCEL in much except countering water/ground types, but pretty much ALL ice pokemon counter ground types and the move Refrigerate takes care of water types well enough As for my Dark ranking, it really came down to the actual pokemon you have to choose from... there are just SO many powerhouse pokemon it's insane. Moxie earthquake krookodile, moxie sucked punch/brave bird honchcrow (or trickster perish song for pulses), contrary malamar for increasingly strong superpowers, spiritomb with a huge 108 for spdef and Def and only 1 type weakness, umbreon is one of the chunkiest tanks in the game, incineroar is really beefy with access to a great dark stab move - darkest lariat, even in the early game you can grab a mightyena with moxie and that can carry you until pretty much midgame, and to top it off you have things like sharpedo with speed boost or mega tyranitar. So it's not necessarily that dark has good synergy or Field effects, is just that they are SO DAMN GOOD as pokemon. Also, they do get a SLIGHT boost from Field effects since the factory Field is so common and breaking it with EQ or turning it off with Discharge makes it buff dark type moves. As for electric, my issue with it is that it is essentially ice without all the things that make ice powerful. You are PAINFULLY reliant on Terrain shifting in your favor (since there isnt really electric weather like hail is for ice that you can reliably set up), and the one saving grace is that you can summon Electric Field on a bunch of different electric types. The problem is though that Ground being IMMUNE to your powerful stab moves, and the fact that Lanturn is the only Water type you can get (and it is a tank rather than a sweeper) means that essentially EVERY time a ground type hits the field you are in MAJOR trouble. That paired with the fact that most Ground types can learn EQ through level up or TM means that almost all the "tough" matchups you have can brutalize you with a 100 power supereffective move that has 100 percent accuracy. I ended up having to break down at one point in the run and super EV training a jolteon on speed so he was the fastest thing in the game and giving him toxic so I could revive spam and wait out some of the types that were giving me problems (which felt super uncool and degenerate). Also, other than something like rotom freeze you don't have very many options at all foe garchomp/mega garchomp and that is a particular powerhouse you see a good bit in Reborn. Another sidenote that I would bring up is that since I have heard the endgame is EXTREMELY long and the game "technically" ends after the E4, I have been playing these runs ONLY until I beat the E4, and I ranked them based off that. I feel that may have a good deal of impact on the rankings since some of the legends make a noticeable difference in team structure and power (i.e. you can slot in articuno as a powerhouse in an ice type list) I also think this is a bit more "fair" since IMO most legenaries kinda break the game a bit with insane movesets, abilities, and stat totals. I am afraid that the rankings become shifted in that manner to "what type has the most/best legendaries" instead of "what type is the easiest/hardest to 'beat the game' with. All in all I'm not sure I agree with the tier list, but I'll make a separate post on this thread since this post is getting so long lol

I think you have really moved some of my opinions... I have not had really any experience with Rejuvenation (I have been putting it off completely until I feel like I have entirely experienced reborn). I personally didn't find too much use for jinx with her 6 weaknesses paired with a middling speed and low defenses, but I think into certain matchups she would do fine. I feel the same way about abomasnow and the 2 4x weaknesses on aurorus made it feel like a big liability. However, you do bring up some great points about the general synergy and team building, and I can't deny that Ice type moves have some pretty great effects when used properly. As for the dragon/Focus Sash problem, the way I usually solved it was to either take a hit or to have a Stealth Rock set up to tickle just enough to prevent the trigger. I would say your points about the other types have definitely left an impression on me as well. I have done some swapping on my list to reflect the changes from your outlook plus a few changes of my own. So discussing about the changes above, you have convinced me that there is enough utility in ice and team synergy to put it above Dragon, and also from my own experiences so far in my rock run I would say rock can be very powerful but they lack a lot in the special and special defense stats which make them kind of one dimensional. I also had been looking at potential team comps for the different runs and I ran into a bit of a shock when I saw how stacked Dark types actually were with some really nasty composition options, so I bumped them up a good bit. After looking a bit more into the Fairy type, of which I'm admittedly not super familiar, I bumped them up a good bit too. I ended up bumping Steel down a few notches, because even though I'm loathe to admit it, they don't really have many beneficial field setting options unique to them and apart from their insane resistances, there are definitely some more impact full pokemon of different types. I bumped down ghost for much the same reasons as well... I have a soft spot for curse but it is not always the best move and due to the AIs ability to switch pokemon out may not always result in an enemy kill when it almost always results in your own pokemon getting KO'ed. I also moved Poison down the list a good bit just because I think that while poisoning can be super effective, early game it can be difficult to set up and late game there are so many powerful options that unless you are revive spamming most of the time your team will be swept before having the chance to watch the Poison do its work. Also, electric still sucks and takes the big L XD

You make some good points, but to be fair the fact Frosmoth ISNT in Reborn is one of the reasons I feel that Ice type is a bit restricted in choices. Other than specific fringe cases, you usually wouldn't take mono types on your mono run (for example arcanine is a phenomenal pokemon, but you wouldn't want to take him on a mono fire run because you already have so much firepower, pun sort of intended). So ignoring mono ice types, it leaves you with dual type coverage for steel, Psychic, fairy, ground, flying, water, ghost, rock, grass, dark, and electric. That seems pretty good on face value with 11 of the remaining 17 types available to choose from. However, diving deeper into it, some of the options such as flying for instance are only covered by a weaker pokemon, such as delibird. Now I don't wanna be a delibird hater, but I definitely wouldn't think of taking that mon to the endgame. Even other pokemon such as crabominable I find hard to justify due to its poor speed stat of just 43 paired with having six 2x weaknesses. Personally in my run I felt highly dependant on opening with alolan ninetales to set up hail and Aurora Veil, which while strategically beneficial to the battle usually left ninetales crippled by whatever pokemon the opponent threw out first, or in the worst case scenario allowed a pokemon a free set up turn in preparation to sweep. I don't think that Ice was BAD, just very technical. I found that once certain events happened that hindered my "setup" phase of fights, it was better to reload since the battle was pretty much lost. However I will say Dragon definitely had its fair share of issues just the raw stat totals helped MOST of the Dragon's take enough of a hit to wear a few punches before going down. Also, with some of the speedier Dragon's you could at least chip in damage before they fell. I definitely did feel some pain around Focus sashes on Dragon, and ice had it beat with being able to "mop up" a Focus sashed/Sturdy pokemon with damage from hail, however Sturdy didn't give me too much trouble since haxorus could blow through it with mold breaker. I also highly agree with your point that Bug has ATROCIOUS stat totals, which is why I originally had it MUCH further down on the list, but I will say the argument for speed boost scoliopede with protect Baton passing into a sweeper such as scizor or heracross DID move me to push it up a bit on the scale. I find that those interactions with Bug types though are a LITTLE more solid than the ice ones, mostly due to the fact that there is very little that can interact with them. Ice can be hindered by a few things though such as if a pokemon with sunny day or cloud 9 hits the battlefield after you set up hail. I do however appreciate that things like shell smash cloyster are an absolute monster, but in my experience the teams towards the end game usually have at least one priority move user, and with cloysters shell smashing lowering its defense, it is much easier to one shot with a well placed bullet punch. I guess what I'm saying is that there is definitely room to perfect an ice mono battle, and when you do it IS super rewarding (nothing like alolan sandblast Slush rushing through a whole team!!!) But I think there are some other types that open up either more viable options with better stat totals or that have more divergent strategies. I am curious though, do you you think that Ice deserves to be moved up the list, and if so, where would you see it going?

I really value your input! It's cool to hear from people who are more invested into a certain type and have mastered a lot of different strategies surrounding a type. It's completely possible that I have some bias as well considering my favorite type has always been Steel. I think for me the real struggle for endgame is that Stat totals become super important. This may be going WAYYYY too far in the weeds but here is a section of notes I had been making for typed runs. It reads (type, number of weaknesses, avg base Stat total, #of total pokemon) The readout for ice and a few others are missing, but the info for Ice is : Ice 4x- 518.14 avg, 51 mon Just the way pokemon math works means if you have a low base defensive Stat on a pokemon for example, it is much more realistic that they could get one shot from a non super effective, or even non STAB non super effective move. The Stat totals for ice types aren't ABYSMAL, but they are lacking in the numbers department which makes it a little bit hard to cover weaknesses, which they have a higher than average number of. However you do make a very valid point that there is more to pokemon than Stat totals, especially in Reborn where field types exist, as well as other special interactions or tweaks. I agree that Ice has got some love on a few fields, and that certainly makes them more viable. As for having more difficulty with dragon, I definitely struggled in the early game when you are STARVED for different pokemon, and in the late game things like ice spear hurt SUPER badly considering garchomp, flygon, salamence, noivern, dragonite, alolan exxeggutor, and altaria ALL have a 4x weakness to ice. However, I found that with their super high Stat totals and the fact that dragon type moves are not resisted by many types at all and would get STAB, it was easy to brute force most of the game with simple tactics like dragon dance/dragon claw haxorus. All in all though, I think ice run is definitely an achievable and viable run, realistically I think every mono type run is, I would just put in on a higher pedestal in terms of needing to have the proper set up (like how you mentioned Aurora Veil covering some of the frailty) and that can be tricky, especially with all the wacky hijinks Reborn can throw at you.

Yeah so far my runs have been ice, electric, dragon, and I'm currently on rock. Just trying to knock the hardest out first. I see fire and fighting being the easiest just because of blaziken... but there are some others I'm really looking forward to as well

Well you are never really as "bad" as team meteor, but there are some points where you do some stuff that could be considered not really "hero" material, in the side quests especially. For example the one that comes to mind most readily is trading the 'rare candy' to the drug addict in 7th street for his pokemon. On one hand you can see it as "saving" the pokemon from a bad trainer but on the other hand you are enabling his addiction. I mean there are some other examples too sprinkled throughout the story, you can make the choice to side with El over Radomous or you can choose whether or not to fight taka in the sewers. I haven't done the right sequence yet but I know that decisions you make can actually alter the "ending" of the game, so you can definitely make "good" or "bad" choices, although I would agree that they are not necessarily EVIL choices, just morally questionable, hence the 'shapeshifting'