Noel (normal gym leader)

[KishiSwift 0]

well i see he isnt called a "prodigy" for no reason, but seriously, should he be THIS hard to beat? ... i mean up to now i've been able to match gym leaders and atleast force them to use their last pokemon .... but noel ... this guy ... no matter how hard i try i have YET to see his 6th pokemon. that blasted porygon-z alone murders 3 of my team :'(.

so yea. i need help, i've continuously switched around my team, using different ones and different strategies to beat him, but so far nothing is working xD

my current team right now is venasaur, blaziken, alakazam, luxray, gyarados and an unfezant (i really wanna find a starly to replace though)

all of them lvl 54 (since at level 55, there is a high risk of one of them leveling up again and not listening to my commands)

in additon to this, is it REALLY fair for that blasted cincinno to be able to get 5 hits, EVERY TIME, when it uses tail slap/rock blast/bullet seed?

*sigh* maybe this is just me ranting .... but at this point, after literally training up a team SPECIFICALLY designed to hit him fast and hard, ugh. anyways, hints?

[Vinny 27]

Cinccino and it's ability Skill Link, well yes, he's an asshole... His defences are weak though, so a Fighting STAB will put him in his place...

For Porygon, i don't know, A Hi Jump Kick from Blaziken should be enough... Before fighting Porygon, send in something with a higher special defense than physical, so download is going to raise his physical attack which will render the boost useless

Peopel are talking about this in another topic though... here:

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6979#entry118379

[ghkdkd 0]

That Cincinno's ability is Skill Link. If Blaziken's ability is Speed boost, it won't be that hard I think.

[Crimson 0]

Noels battle is outside so take advantage of the weather, if your Venusaurs ability is chlorophyll you can get through,,

[Lynxiechan 0]

I generally hate Noel, so I can see where you're coming from.

That being said, I'll give you some hints as to what to look out for.

As has been said, Cincinno has Skill Link. This Ability allows Cincinno's various repeating moves to hit you 5 times consistently. In short, it's a nasty little mouse. Coupled with tickle, and you're going to have an issue.

Staraptor and Swellow should also be looked at. Staraptor, coupled with it's brave bird, high attack stat, and intimidate ability, make it a difficult-ish pokemon to beat. Swellow, with that Flame Orb and Guts as it's ability makes it a nasty little bird, capable of beating even Medicham's base attack stat with pure power. If you had trouble with Kiki's Medicham, you know you're going to have problems with Noel's Swellow.

Porygon-Z. The nasty Special offense of Noel's team. Coupled with it's various attacks and it's download ability pretty much boosting special attack for 2/3rds of your team make it a speedsweeper as well. A single physical fighting move should knock it out though.

Clefable. High Special attack, and its conversion to fairy type (if you're doing this in 10.5) make it a bitch to destroy, especially if you don't knock it out quick. Knowing Cosmic Power and Minimize makes Clefable a priority 'Get this monster out of here' pokemon.

A few tips:

- Your Blaziken. If it knows Speed boost, then just bulk up while healing and allowing your speed to boost up. No matter what Cincinno uses it wont kill you in less than 2 hits, unless it gets a critical of course. I just used Bulk Up while allowing speed boost to make its effect, then I double-kicked his team out of there (I forgot Clefable was Fairy so I had to switch into blaze Kick lmao). Keep in mind, my blaziken had a nature that lowered defense but raised attack. Only reason I didn't rage restart was because offense is my forte so. But at 6 stages of boosted defense, my blaziken still knocked out staraptor while losing 2/5ths of it's HP from Brave Bird

- Alakazam. Teach it reflect, and then just let it die. It won't have much use in the battle against Noel. Just use Reflect against Cincinno and Your blaziken wont die in less than 3 hits rather than 2.

- That Unfezant. With full knowledge that it has a shitty movepool, optimistically, it learns moves that suit it's base stats, special attack over physical, right? teach it air cutter and you might be able to deal some damage to Staraptor before you die. You can also suck up it's intimidate ability that way as well. But be careful, if you do that, you lose Blaziken's stat stage boosts, so take heed of that.

-Venusaur. As Crimson has said, Chlorophyll will do you real good if you havent got the weather bug that sticks you to rain/wind. Just change it to sunny and then you'll also get a boost on Blaziken's Blaze kick (if you kept it, if you didn't, WHYYYY?!) If it knows sludge bomb, you have a second pokemon against Clefable. (:

- An alternative to Blaziken is Gyarados. Rain Dance + Intimidate+ + 2-5 dragon dances and his team will be swiped. Or in Rainy weather if you didn't keep rain dance (Trust me, it's better than bite by far)

Don't worry about it too much. Noel is hard, I grant you that. But there are various ways to swipe him to the side. Lucario's Aura Sphere, Blaziken Speed Boosted and Bulked up, you've got enough there to trash Noel like a cat that has a constant streak of catching mice. Just look at your team and consider what I'm telling you here. I've used your pokemon against Noel as well (I didn't use Unfezant because I absolutely detest that bird and other flying types except Crobat, which coupled with acrobatics makes it a nasty bat), and I've come out with 5 pokemon standing (Alakazam. ). It's hard, but play your cards right and he'll succumb to your damage. Mind you, Speed and Strength is something you should NOT be doing here. ALL of his pokemon are on the offense. Not one of them is physically bulky. Watch out on that part, yeh?

Btw, what was his 5th pokemon (apart from the ones I've mentioned?)

[KishiSwift 0]

ah, clefable is the one i havent seen yet. i am now reworking my team, getting rid of unfezant for crobat. unfezant actually has AMAZING attack, BUT ITS SHITTY MOVEPOOL USES THE WAY WEAKER SPECIAL ATTACK.

to answer lynxiechan, the team is cincinno, porygon-z, swellow, staraptor, girafarig and clefable.

right now my plan is to unleash a pick up crew for items (since i already used loads of cash buying icecream) while at the same time training up a crobat. once crobat is up to speed, i'm gonna use some of these strategies

[KishiSwift 0]

YYYYEEEEESSSS!!!!!!!!! i have finally defeated noel after a bunch of soft resets to set up gyarados properly ... gyarados still got KO cause it missed onced though, but by then all the hard fkers was dead (porygon, cincinno and staraptor) so luxray and venasaur ended it for me :3