Nishtala

Prefacing this with saying that I play in a noitems style run, cause that alone can change a lot in terms of strategy. Anyways for 13.5 new save I went for a bit of a different team than my usual mons, and I found Eldegoss and a Banette being absolutely vital in So. Many. Goddamn. Bossfights. Like, whenever I know a boss fight is coming, I explicitly take them out of the PC before heading there. I think a large part of it is 13.5 boss mechanics making crippling bosses quite unreliable; since so many bosses downright completely recover their stats/heal from status effects upon breaking a shield, Curse and Leech Seed being the two passive damage that STAYS across shields really mattered - not to mention the passive speed drain from Eldegoss is always useful because apparently bosses outspeed crobat now (granted, its nature is adamant... but still.) And yes, I'm looking at you Rift Chandelure. I had to hardcore cripple its first shield and somehow set up 6 quiver dances on a lv 55 FROSMOTH of all things to get through that ridiculous special attack and speed. Don't get me wrong, Frosmoth is one of my fav mons and is a regular member of my party, but setting it up against a FIRE type special attacker took some really convoluted strategies.

Are you sure the Aevian Mystery Egg can be soft reset? cause mine was definitely stuck on A-budew. I really hope A-larvesta isn't locked out unless you get it from the egg...

Pretty sure it was actually given within the Blacksteeple, just before the climax - I remember being surprised that the game was handing out one just before the Yveltal fight, as if it was the devs telling us "use F.E.A.R!"

Somehow, both the Deathwing fight at Akuwa Town and Madame X at Blacksteeple so far ended with ma girl Banette dealing the final blow with sucker punch. The Deathwings were standard enough - nothing seems to have changed much, so I got 3 endeavor sturdy donphans and 1 feint pikachu, 1 meat shield pokemon (sorry Meowstick!) and Banette for priority. And me being partial to ghost-types, my go-to strategy for no items Yveltal in v13 was always two Cursed Bodies, a screen setter, and a bit of luck, so I was majorly surprised when I found out Yveltal also had Hurricane for 13.5. But then I remembered my Banette, whose role is usually to do Shenanigans against bosses, actually had Curse on it! So I Curse-bodied Decimation with A-Marowak, prayed for Hurricane to miss, set up Curse, then stalled it out. How's getting cursed twice feel, Madame X? So far the hardest of the "impossible" was Madelis using Melia's early game team. The AI change made it so that the prevoius pray-for-two-omniboosts-then-yawn strategy didn't work, so I was majorly panicking - only for me to realize Melia also came with Bunearly this time like, waaaaaaaay too far into the challenge. Thankfully, after that a bit more grinding made it work. I did manage to see a TRIPLE omniboost though. Guess that's what happens if you luck-grind for TWO HOURS! Overall, I really like the new boss battle mechanics - the 2nd Rift Gyarados fight was unexpectedly hard, not gonna lie, like I can't believe we actually got infernal field for that - but overall it was much more enjoyable compared to v13 so far. Being able to see how far I'm into the shield is a good change, and it makes setting up momentum much more easier and enjoyable. Oh, and a bit unrelated, but that 999 black prism mystery contract (which I'm never gonna look up, even once the guides are updated and such) is a very good secondary motivator for me to actually try a living shiny dex for rejuv as I did for reborn (as far as this version allows for, of course!) this time. I can't wait to grind myself to death.