Clutterfunky

Just so you know, Take Down doesn't do recoil when the move fails.  Such as when it's used against a Ghost type.

Of course, then the problem is catching it before it struggles itself to death, which is not unheard of considering it has the catch rate of a legendary and you only have crappy balls.

I didn't even think about ghost types, but I managed to catch it- and name it accordingly after its mother

Also, for legendary battles, Timer balls are a godsend if you're able to keep it in a state where it just cant attack

It changes a bit of dialogue at that point, and a bit of dialogue later on, but so far doesn't have huge impact. Might have more effect on E19 content though
Generally people use some form of cheese strat to beat it like perish song (maybe with focus sash), reviving aftermath pokemon etc

ohh perish song is a good idea, assuming you can land the hit

On windy nights in the Team Aqua alleyway, there's a Murkrow that can randomly get both prankster (priority on status moves) and Perish Song. 

Personally, I used a Cofagrigus with Curse and maxed defense EVs to survive the first hit and get curse off, then swapped between Granbull and Solrock so hopefully he'd keep using attacks I was immune to (which kinda worked).

I wasn't as affected by it. I really can't tell meteor grunts apart, there's just too many of them. However, I do appreciate the touch. Sympathy for grunts is one of my favorite reoccurring elements in Reborn.

i mean if you know your way around a good checkmate, it helps...

You're at Chessville already?! Oh man, now you're ahead! Drat, I've still got sidequests and EVs to clean up before I move on...

I'm super excited for you though. Have fun!

I'm currently acting on the behalf of the ARL and rescuing all the pokemon from the black market

Oh nice. I had the wrong lead and team and he took three tries to beat. 

that's  a bruh moment

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yup that's exactly the one, I was wondering if it was a status thing because after I finally beat Noel anothe pokemon used a 5 hit move and it only landed three times. That's OP, lmao

props to meech

For even more fun give it a King's Rock for a ~41% flinch chance on its 5 hit moves

Oh god no that's not what I wanted to hear, I thought I was past the hard one T_T

My mind is so basic with type matchups, apparently sometimes that's a good thing. I had trained a whole bunch of fighting types in preparation and then didn't even use them. 

Also same, I din't expect the Rapidash to perform so well, as much as I love the Pokemon, it seemed like they were generally pretty weak, maybe it just had good evs or whatever it is? I know nothing about that stuff, but these are her stats, maybe you can actually understand them lol

Oh and RE: Drapion, it's only weak to ground, which none of her pokemon use. I brought it along to set toxic spikes. It also helped out a lot during earlier trainer fights, since with Hone Claws and Night Slash it could get to the point of critting on basically every attack while not missing due to the accuracy boost.

Looking at Rapidash's base stats on bulbapedia, it's actually very similar to Flygon, with less hp and defense but just a touch more speed. It's definitely a solid fire-type until you start hitting the big guns later on. Fun fact: Rapidash outspeeds Garchomp assuming same IVs/EVs/Nature.

That's right, I alwsys forget Drapion isn't bug

I might actually pick up those exp mods myself, since grinding is one of the big things that gets me burned out in this game. 

I actually just tanked through Aya; Prankster Reflect+Gastrodon+a few more poison resists meant I could just tank hits from Toxapex while it helped to whittle down Aya's other, more offensive mons. It even finished off Dragalge for me! It was the last mon left, so my own last mon (Ampharos) could just beat it straight up. It took a few tries, but once I stopped wasting time setting light screen (Merciless means that 'Pex's Sludge Wave ignores screens) it was fairly simple. But, once again, heavy type advantage, and as a more defensive gym, I was really in my element lmao.

I actually had much more trouble with Fern, due to my multiple ground and dark weaknesses, his Krookodile was a massive threat, especially if it rolled Moxie, and with Camerupt as my fire type I didn't really have as clean an answer to his grass types as I would have liked. I ended up training two different dark types partly because I hated how vulnerable I was to SD+Sucker Punch Decidueye.

Remember how Fern supposedly trounced Shelly despite the bulk of his team being at a severe disadvantage from the outset? I'm all but certain that she went easy on him... albeit out of the anxiety he likely caused her, if we're being honest there. On the other hand, I haven't the slightest idea as to how he got past Aya with supposed ease...

Speaking of Aya, there is a significant difference between her fight and the other two you mentioned: her's is a Double Battle. It's more than a bit difficult to balance a team to be effective in both Singles and Doubles, and since the latter is so uncommon, it naturally winds up getting the shaft most of the time. It's a bit more difficult to run a bunch a glass cannons when they can only deal with half of the things looking to take advantage of their frailty, ya know?

Thanks to the pokemon not going over the level cap during the battle with Fern I one shot most of his pokemon except decidueye and that was only because it had a faster attack stat than my Talonflame and knocked it out, but that was the only pokemon he knocked out of my party. 

Fern is the type of person who just needs a real, good, solid punch in the throat- something I'd gladly give him after my own verbal thrashing, lmao

Oh yeah, Shade's offense can be pretty rough. I used a combination of prankster/screens Meowstic and discharge (to change the field to factory) to slow his offensive roll. If you beat him without those defensive buffs then I'm really quite impressed!

Oh, yeah, I never keep defensive buff moves, lol. I both don't know how to properly use them and feel like they're a wasted turn I could be draining the enemy's hp, the only one I had that you listed was Discharge, and I didn't even end up using it the round I beat him with, now that I think of it. I used nuzzle to stop his Gengar from going first, which by the way, can I just add how creepy it is that 

yeah sometimes all it takes is a small change, or even just a lucky run to go from losing to comfortable