Seel The Deal

35 is the earliest I'd evolve it given its main advantage over Nidoking is bulk and Toxic Spikes, and there isn't anything worthwhile after 43, so any time between those would work. 35 is also the latest you can evolve it while still learning Body Slam, so it's a choice between T-Spikes + Body Slam and T-Spikes + Crunch. (You can always use the move relearner for Body Slam later though, which you can't for Crunch)

Your own Typhlosion will do a number to her team with the massive field boosts, so long as you deal with the leads and EV train properly (which you should greatly consider doing around this stage; Charlotte is the first leader with proper EVs which is why she's such a massive difficulty spike). You could lead with Nidoking and Meowstic, use Fake Out to flinch Typhlosion while you Earth Power it, then bring in your own Typhlosion and try to get Sunny Day up with one of your 'mons. You could also add Tailwind to the equation to guarantee outspeeding everything on her team (you can catch Cottonee on Route 3 nearby, which learns Tailwind and has Prankster; there's also Rufflet on Route 1). If you happened to revive an Archen earlier on, a properly-EV'd one should just solo her team. I believe you can also have Rockruff by this point, which is significantly weaker but just as fast. Gigalith does a good job tanking hits with the special defense boost from Sand Stream, and you can have partners like Sandslash and Stoutland abuse that sand for extra speed.

Noivern should be faster (if not, EV train it a bit), and its Dragon moves will be massively boosted in this field. You should also be able to obtain the Choice Specs by this point in the game, if you can't find them there's a Life Orb in Ametrine Mountain or you can use Dragon Gems. If the first shot doesn't kill, you can revive it and try again, bring along a strong priority user like Arcanine (Extremespeed) or Hitmonlee (Fake Out + Unburden + Normal Gem -> High Jump Kick), or bring along something that can lower Reshiram's special defense before going down. There's also common cheese strats like Perish Song, Destiny Bond and Mirror Coat, of which the best users would be Murkrow/Primarina, Sharpedo/Mega Banette and Wobbuffet respectively.

Sorry folks, I think I'm going to have to cancel this run. I just don't have the motivation or interest to play Pokemon right now, and if I forced myself to continue I wouldn't have fun and neither would any of you reading it. I might revisit this in the future, but certainly not anytime soon. If anyone's interested in trying this for themselves, feel free to PM me and I'll send you my planning notes, which include the Glass Gauntlet and everything else up to and including Noel. If a mod or whoever wants to lock the thread, feel free. Seel, signing out.

I'd be foolish to pass on the opportunity to rep Glaceon, poor girl doesn't have a movepool but she tries her best ;~; Altaria and Lilligant, the queens of dance, are always cute and reliable picks for a team, and Ribombee is bloody adorable with that little scarf.

Glad to hear you're enjoying! The link's fixed now - I used the streamable embed link at first but seems that wasn't the right move. Oh well, standard link it is. And thanks for the tip on the images - I'll make a private discord and try that out for the next part. My only worry is that it won't look very smooth with links between every image, especially for fights like Taka & ZEL where they're not worth a video or explanation but it's best to screenshot every turn. If it doesn't work out I'll try out some paint.net magic and see if I can't reduce the file size of each image a bit.

At long last, part 3 is here!

>finishes fighting Corey with 2 mons >finds a 1 mon strat immediately after Fuck me.

A quick calc tells me that Glaceon's Blizzard is only enough if Julia: a) T-Bolts Scizor turn 1 and gets bopped to trigger Aftermath (not happening - Scizor will just Superpower me, and/or Wishcash will EQ Julia) b) brings out A-Golem in time for Tyranitar and immediately booms (I haven't seen Julia go boom since one of her Voltorbs in E16 sooooo) ...or if I purposefully fail Pyrous Solaris and get Florinia as a partner instead, for Torterra's much better suited STABs. So it's looking like, one way or the other, there will be at least 1 fail. I'll keep looking; maybe there's a voltturn or explosion based strategy that can do this, but certainly there isn't any "standard" strategy that's going to work.

LCCC wouldn't be so bad if water spam worked, but Surf gains an electric typing making many of their 'mons immune. Blizzard is probably my next best bet, and I can get Snow Warning Vanilluxe with a pair of Indra's patented Early Specstm, so that might work - Milotic's still a problem, but Aya's Dragalge has Thunderbolt so hopefully 2x Blizzard + Thunderbolt kills it before it can recover. Vanilluxe is also very nearly the strongest Blizzard user at this point, with Jynx's SpA being only 5 points higher and Glaceon being locked behind Dive. Looking into Fiore further: Haxorus + Walrein's bulk and lack of shared weaknesses aren't even the biggest problem. Walrein has Protect, and every reliable way of getting around that ONLY WORKS IN SINGLES. Even if I find a working strategy, Blake can just say "no" and that's that. Roserade also has high speed + Sleep Powder, and Gyarados has Intimidate. Solaris' Gyarados also has Intimidate, and Solaris' team is exceptionally bulky and quite well rounded. In fact, Solaris+John alone is probably going to be impossible with Julia as a partner, and likewise with Fern+Blake and Florinia. If the two were swapped, things would likely get a decent bit simpler, buuuuuut they're not. The only saving grace here is that Fern and Solaris are both quite weak to Ice, and Scizor, their only resist, has very poor SpD. So if Florinia can pull her weight against Blake, there might just be a chance.

It's hard to say whether LCCC or Fiore will be harder; probably the latter, because you don't get to switch your lead between battles and you can't Shift Mode switch between kills in Doubles, meaning either I need to plan to sac something AFTER it gets its kills or incorporate Volt-Turn into a strat unless I can do it with just 1 mon (and I probably can't). I think I've found a 3-mon strat that works for the Glass Gauntlet (the only post-Noel battle I have planned atm) - it's actually VERY close to being 2 mon, but gets stopped by a lack of raw single-target killing power. Items are already optimized for maximum damage, an offense-boosting nature isn't enough to make the difference and there's no room for a stronger move unless I can find a way to drop the anti-Disguise move. Oh, and the problem 'mon in question has Protect, which is just lovely.

I believe you can fight Scraggang and Taka+ZEL solo, but not Shelly for some reason. Mind you, you're forced to get something for Shelly anyway so that's not a big deal. The big problem (early on at least) would mostly be getting past Fern 2 and Florinia with just a Combusken.

Well, the thing about 5x Destiny Bond/Explosion/whatever strats is that they take 6 team members to pull off, and with my restriction to use the fewest possible in a given battle, that means I can only resort to that if there's literally no other option. I could use just one or two Pokemon dedicated to suicide kills to remove problematic threats, though - and there's at one strategy I've got so far that does so, possibly more depending on how tough Solaris' Garchomp, Farceus etc. are. Any 6v12, or 12v12 Multi Battle, is going to be extremely rough, with me needing to KO two Pokemon every turn. The Multi Battles are even worse, and I fully expect a fail on LCCC Aster+Eclipse thanks in no small part to Aya. I haven't got that far in planning strats yet though, so we'll see. And yeah, there is a 3-mon Reborn run, and it's sick as hell. Huge props to the madman who did it. I have to wonder: would 2 be possible if you a) allowed healing and b) got Mystery Egg A-Ninetales? Probably not, but it's interesting to think about.

Time for part 2, featuring Jessie & James, the most deliberate youngster in the world, Cain already becoming difficult, and an unnecessarily elaborate setup for what could've been the most brainless sweep of a Gym Leader in the world. EDIT: I can't get rid of these screenshots and I don't know why they're here; they weren't when I was posting this part - they only showed up after I saved. If anyone knows a way, feel free to let me know.

I can use Phantom Force + Power Herb to get around Protect in some cases, but for the most part I just have to pray it doesn't get used. Hopefully, if all else fails, I can use something slow + frail to bait the AI into attacking instead. Thankfully, it's mostly non-present in major battles afaik, just a few annoying exceptions (e.g. Shelly's Anorith, Titania's Aegislash). And thanks, I'm sure I'll need the luck at least at some point haha

Welcome, one and all, to the dumbest thing I've ever attempted and ever will attempt. Let's get straight to the point: what the hell even is this? "Six In The Chamber?" What's that supposed to mean? Well, to quote the legendary Ceave, it's actually surprisingly simple: I'm going to attempt to beat every single required battle in all of Reborn in a maximum of 6 turns. and whatever optional ones I don't forget about ...Simple concept, at least. Actually doing it is going to be nothing less than a planning nightmare (I still only have up to Yureyu actually planned out at the time of writing this... ). But damn it all, it sounded like a cool idea in my head and I'm sticking with it! In addition to this, I'm going to be laying down five extra rulings to make it just a bit more interesting: I cannot be overleveled going into battle, I cannot rely on random critical hits, I cannot use any event 'mons that I cannot guarantee encountering (e.g. Mystery Egg), I cannot evolve a Pokemon early by overleveling (but CAN learn moves early), and I must win major battles with the fewest Pokemon possible, within reason. Fair warning: I will be using Sandbox Mode to significantly speed up progress, by modifying IVs of Pokemon that are difficult or tedious to soft-reset for and by getting access to EV Trainers and early Power Bracer/Lens/Anklet. I will NOT be obtaining any items, TMs or Pokemon early that would have any use in battle. For similar reasons, I also have mods for relearning Egg Moves, using TMXs without learning them, and changing weather for event 'mons. I'm just going to be transparent about this now so anyone who frowns upon this knows in advance, before getting 3 or 4 parts in. I'll be recording difficult major battles (every leader past Florinia, most Meteor higher-ups past a certain point, particular rival battles, etc), posting screenshots of every major fight with 6 Pokemon and of any other fight that happens to be difficult, and I'll briefly mention any others. Parts will be kept fairly short, probably no more than 1 or 2 leaders each and with much of the filler cut out. The lengthiest ones will be those where I obtain lots of team members and go through lots of dumb plot stuff. Last but not least: I want to see what sorts of solutions YOU, the reader, can come up with! Can you find a more efficient strategy? One that didn't require overleveling for an early move, or required 1 less 'mon? Hell, maybe it's just a cooler or more unique strategy. Post it, and I'll shout you out for the next part. And without further ado: part 1, introducing equal parts the greatest and most useless Torchic alive, stomping on early rivals, and feasting on the flesh of Julia's entire team. (do Electrode have flesh...? Probably not.)

Rattata. ...hear me out here. With extremely early access to strong STAB Normal moves (including Facade!), a pre-Julia evolution, the ability Guts, very strong Dark moves in both Crunch and Sucker Punch, and no "required" egg moves or TMs, the OG Route 1 Rodent is one of the best, most splashable early 'mons in Reborn. It tears holes in Julia, Florinia, Corey (especially Corey) and Shade with even the most minimal setup, and if it come into battle pre-poisoned with STAB Facade it's practically unstoppable. Anything it can't beat normally can often by bypassed or crippled using Super Fang. Super Fang also makes it excellent for catches, guaranteeing you never knock anything out with a crit or the like. Its only major weakness is dying over time to poison chip and priority/fast 'mons like Breloom, Crobat and Gengar. Alolan Raticate is obviously stronger, but it's post-Corey and by that point you have better options for both Normal (Dodrio, Lopunny, Ursaring) and Dark (Murkrow, Pangoro, and soon to be Sharpedo and Houndoom) types, so its only real purpose becomes type compression. Kantonian Raticate's only competition is Teddiursa, who only evolves just before Corey and has a garbage movepool outside of Facade and egg moves, and Lopunny, who is a pain in the ass to evolve and will likely only start to shine post-Florinia. One could also make a case for Litten being an excellent starter choice, but it's a much more lowkey pick than Torchic and not as dominant on its own, despite being an incredible glue 'mon with a lot of good things going for it.

Meteor Mash has a 10% chance to raise attack and is noticeably more powerful, and Iron Head's chance to flinch rarely comes into play so most people prefer the former. Aside from what's been recommended, Metagross can also run Speed/Attack with an Adamant nature and Agility/Rock Polish. After one boost it's faster than pretty much anything, and its attack is so naturally high that most things get OHKO'd unboosted by super-effective hits, so with the right 3-move coverage Metagross can sweep some teams. There's no 3-move setup that will win every battle like this, though, and running a bulkier set is usually better because Metagross is just such a good glue 'mon. You can also forego Zen Headbutt for more coverage, and run something like Meteor Mash/Bullet Punch/Ice Punch/Hammer Arm. Meteor Mash is pretty much essential though, as Bullet Punch is very weak even with such a high Attack stat. Bullet Punch can also be replaced if you don't care to ever outspeed your opponent, and at that point almost any moveset you choose should have perfect neutral coverage and incredible super-effective coverage. As for Mega Metagross once it's out, Speed is 100% the way to go. Jolly nature with max EVs will outspeed a majority of what you face, and even without bulk investment or an Adamant nature you still have incredible natural bulk (80/150/110 is practically unmatched except by Toxapex and legendaries) and you're still hitting like a monster truck thanks to Tough Claws.

I remember doing this on intense fairly recently, and my Lunatone's Moonblast carrying super hard (you can get one heart scale by this point). His signature move is pretty scary but it seems like he preferred targeting my other 'mons or using different coverage moves that DIDN'T one-shot Lunatone, so I had plenty of time to do massive damage in return. My full team was something like Voltorb/Shuppet/Lunatone/Braixen/Lycanroc-Dusk and one other 'mon I forget (Fletchinder, maybe?). Don't undervalue Shuppet's Will-o-Wisp, it's a free cripple on one of his 'mons, possibly more if it lives.

Lefties + Curse Swampert swept her 6-1 for me, so you could try that. A set of Rain Dance/Curse/dual STABs should do the trick easily, since it worked out for me even with Hail up the entire battle. Swampert ended up going down from repeated chip damage, but once she's down to just Aegislash it shouldn't be much of an issue.

20+ in HP and in the next 2 most important stats (in this case Attack and Defense) is usually more than enough. Even low-IV 'mons will work fine as long as you make sure their stats are supplemented by the right natures and EV training, though IVs will start to become more relevant around levels 50+.

can't say for rejuv since I never played through much of it, but for reborn by far the easiest in every playthrough I've had of this game is Luna. A fast fighting, fairy or bug type kills 5/6 of her team, then you just need to worry about Honchkrow or Bisharp, the latter of which can't really do anything on its own. Hardest is probably Shade, Aya or Adrienne.

I was mostly suggesting Golisopod and Bronzong because they're the 2 notable 'mons that resist both ice and ground, but having a bulky 'mon that isn't weak to either is good enough and might potentially fit better on your team. But if Golisopod does you well, then have at it I used Delphox on a run once, and honestly, I dunno why I hadn't tried it before. Its skillset craps on quite a few major battles, and screens keep it useful well into the endgame. It's not the best starter but you can't really go wrong choosing it

- Both your main team and reserves get bodied by fast 'mons with Ground and Ice moves, only Heracross and Swampert aren't weak to either. Ground in general is a weakness, with only Flygon and Heracross resisting, and neither being known for their bulk. Something like Golisopod or Bronzong could work. - Roserade could be making use of Technician, which boosts Magical Leaf to a 90BP never-miss STAB and Hidden Power to a 90BP move of your choosing (Poison for a better 2nd STAB and Fire/Ground/Fighting to deal with Steel types are probably the best options). - I'd consider a Hasty or Naive nature on Garchomp with Flamethrower over Fire Fang to take advantage a) of its >100 base Speed and b) the low Sp. Def of most Steel types you'd be targeting with it. - Electivire can get Cross Chop through breeding, if you don't want to breed for it there's a mod that lets you relearn egg moves. - Swampert would make a good setup 'mon with Curse and Leftovers. I personally run Waterfall/EQ/Rock Slide/Curse with max HP and Attack, pretty simple set but very effective (solo'd Titania with it). - Heracross could make use of Knock Off over Night Slash, but both have their advantages. I'd also consider keeping a 2nd item to alternate on it for if/when you want another mega. huge respect for the delphox pick

Not seen here are Weavile and Cofagrigus, who I added to the team after taking this screenshot. I'm honestly surprised how far I've been able to take Durant, I knew it was a solid 'mon due solely to its ludicrous attack stat with Hustle, but it's still competing for team slots even with Pokemon that are 100+ BST higher than it and have far stronger moves, which is nuts to me. Strongest member around is probably Ujiyasu (Rhyperior) or Aya (Naganadel) but they're recent additions and haven't really proven themselves fully so I'll stick to the MVPs in my signature (even if not all of them are still in the rotation). Retired mons include a Calm Mind/Misty Terrain Aromatisse that tanked Solaris' Garchomp on Pyrous Mountain without Intimidate, a Crobat who was ready to retire after Samson but ended up sweeping Ciel, an Arcanine who carried almost every Doubles match I brought it along for, a few early game monsters like Raticate, Swoobat and Leavanny, and a Tauros and Braviary that just weren't keeping up due to, respectively, weak moves and being 100% outclassed by Staraptor. Oh, and a Spiritomb I used for like, 3 battles.