Etesian

It's still there, no badges are required. You are kinda new, so if I may ask, are you sure it's rain? The first time I saw wind, I mistook it for rain too. I also don't know whether it appears in Thunderstorms.

Just read the post above yours.

Spot on. I hate it with a passion. I often stay up late at night and the thing most worth watching on TV late here is one of those channels where they just play recently released music for hours, and it's always the same crap. Either incredibly shallow and downright stupid lyrics or music videos which stop barely short of qualifying for being uploaded to "sites with explicit content", to put it like that. I have no interest in a genre filled with bimbos and "playas". I'm gonna stop there before this evolves into a full-blown rant. The next person dislikes rants.

Clefairy

At that point, no leftovers. As soon as you get to the next area, you could go back to E9 and headbutt trees to find Munchlax, all of them hold Leftovers. Want the link?

If your Sceptile is female, breed it with anything in the same egg group to get an egg of another Treecko. At level 50, Treecko learns Energy Ball. Honestly, Slam is a really bad move. Swap it for X-Scissor, at least for this gym and the next one. If it's female, you can also breed it with a Marowak for Endeavor, a good last-resort move. You might also be able to get a good Hidden Power. I agree on Drapion, especially if you breed it with a Ninjask that learned Swords Dance at level 25 to get a Drapion with SD, as well as X-Scissor, If you have the patience to level a Ninjask to level 52. Rather than Crunch, I'd honestly recommend to stick with Knock Off, it's barely weaker and has a far superior added effect. Bug Bite is also much much better at getting a SE hit in the next 2 gyms than any Poison move. You can get it Cross Poison later on. I wouldn't recommend Toxic Spikes. It is useful, but after just 2 SDs, everything faints in one shot. You're better off buffing yourself than setting T.spikes. If you don't want to swap, get Swalot Yawn. Wring Out would also do a fair bit of damage. Luxray really isn't all that great in Reborn, but for now, just keep attacking. Charge is mostly worthless, Scary Face is detrimental to you in this fight because of Trick Room. You could use Electric Terrain to "buff" Luxray's electric attacks, but just attacking all the time with it seems better to me. Save that Pangoro for Metagross and use your Parting shot on it. It's his strongest attacker, so nerfing it would do you a favor. Body Slam's high paralysis chance could help as well. You could also get a male Excadrill to pass Dig and Rock Slide onto Pangoro. I agree with the above, Azumarill would be quite an improvement. You might want to wait for E13 which is supposed to come out near the end of this month as I've heard. In it, both parents can pass on egg moves (but no TM moves). Then, an Azumarill with both Aqua Jet and Belly Drum is easily obtainable. Currently, Swanna doesn't have many options. You might also be able to get a good Hidden Power for it. Definitely get Boomburst. Sure, you'll damage your teammate as well, but you'll do a ton of damage to the foes. Noivern can also learn Shadow Ball via TM. Your current team has 4 members I'd switch out. Comment here or PM me if you want me to go into detail on what would be good team members for you, but that^^ should do it for Radomus. Especially the Drapion bit.

Both are great, but without breeding, Crobat is superior. With it, Gengar has the slighty edge. By level-up, Crobat gets Screech, Cross Poison, Acrobatics and (if that's your thing) Confuse Ray. Gengar gets Shadow Ball, Destiny Bond and Dark Pulse which is redundant as it has the same coverage as Shadow Ball with equal BP but no STAB. Breeding net's Gengar moves like Thunderbolt and Sludge Bomb, Crobat get's U-Turn or Zen Headbutt. Crobat can also go Special with Nasty Plot. Both are much better if you take some time to breed, if you want, PM me and I'll send you instructions on how to get them amazing movesets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULQgMntenO8

Eh, sure, I'll join in. Enyalios

Crustle's STAB X-Scissor does up to 26% to Donphan, possible 4HKO. The same user's same move does up to 17% to Durant, possible 6HKO. 4<6. I have no idea what that second line is supposed to mean. You've lost the right to say that kinda stuff, after dismissing Durant's flinch chance like that. 2 Iron Heads = 60% chance one causes a flinch. That also only goes for Night Slash from something like Bisharp's high attack stat, any non-critical move's 2 hits will very highly likely be survived.

Again, you could say it's HP is doubled against resisted attacks, which we said is not difficult to switch into, as the team covers the neutral ones, easily. To repeat, it doesn't even need buffs in order to be better than Donphan. Speed and Attack are far better even unbuffed. What do you mean, the only one? Only Tyranitar has a realistic shot at 2hko-ing it according to the numbers, all the others can't do it, so 2 turns to buff is quite realistic. And I don't even want to know what you mean by "maybe" as it is guaranteed not to kill it with 2 Night Slashes, 45.8x2<100.

Durant is bulkier if you switch it into a special resisted hit, than switching Donphan into a special neutral hit. Donphan's 60 base defense isn't anything to write home about either. I admited no such thing. Tyranitar has about a 60% chance to 2hko, I'll give you that, but Gengar does UP TO 50.9%. It has a 4.7% chance to 2hko. 4.7%. Only the strongest of attackers can get a 2hko with a neutral STAB, by that merit, if even Gengar has such a low chance of doing that.

Necroposting is frowned upon, especially because your post is irrelevant to this topic. There's also pretty much no point in asking when the next episode will come out, those who know wouldn't tell, those who would tell wouldn't know. Just wait for it~

Considering that OP's team has options to cover all the attack types that hit Durant neutrally (beside Electric), it's easy to let someone else handle types Durant is neutral to while letting it switch into resistances. Donphan's neutrals are also covered, but you're far more likely to safely switch Durant into one of it's resistances than Donphan, as it has 6 more resistances and an immunity. So...you didn't. You addressed 2 of 5. Lapras and Bisharp only. And that hardly changes anything. At the current cap, 70, Tyranitar's Crunch does up to 55.6, while it does up to 54.8 at 100. 0.8% hardly make that much of a difference. Similarly, Bisharp's Night Slash at 70 does up to 45.8, while it does up to 45.1 at 100.

The core of this discussion is Durant's viability compared to Donphan's. I also didn't bring up flinching as a main attribute, it's just a side thing worth mentioning, so I mentioned it, at no point did I state that it was one of the main good traits. I didn't "reach for Straws", I just mentioned everything worth mentioning. Excadrill take neutral damage from Ghost, Dark, Ice and Grass attacks. I listed Ghost, Dark, Ice and Grass STABs. Except for Bullet Seed and Ice Punch, every other listed move is a neutral move and a STAB, I listed those as well merely because they're also neutral hits form gym leader's aces. Critting is also unlikely to happen, it's worth mentioning, like I did with Flinching, but that's it. Furthermore, the only priority we've seen so far in any gym was Mamoswine's Ice Shard, nothing else. As such, so far getting 2 turns to buff wouldn't have been a problem against many of the foes we've seen so far.

Great. So what you're saying now is "fuck you, I'm right". Thanks for completely ignoring your mistake with coverage, appreciate it. Are you kidding me? That was addressing your point that neutral hits 2hko, it's NOT about .super effective ones. "Bisharp being a basic bitch" glad to hear you're unbiased. Against a foe with 125 base attack. You have no answer for ANY of the others, apparently. The others with "netral STAB move"s, which you specified and I listed.

Welcome! Hope you'll like it here! Do drop by the Team Showcase section and make a topic should you want help/advice with your in-game team.

Ugh, I hope we can end this soon, your last 2 "arguments" started with "Nah", not even bothering to address my point, and with simply calling it silly. To repeat myself a hundreth time, the flinch chance merely means that you'll take one hit less on occasion, about every fourth turn or so, and one more hit can already make quite a difference. Do enlighten me, how is Donphan better at switching in to take a hit than Durant? Resistance-wise, Durant has three times more chances to switch in than Donphan. There's also the fact that all of Donphan's weaknesses except maybe Grass are far more common than Fire. Do you even see what you're typing here? Excadrill has absolutely no way of accessing Iron Head. None whatsoever. To cover it's weaknesses, it has nothing for water, it has the already mentioned Rock and Ground for Fire, nothing for Ground, and only Aerial Ace for Fighting types, which is always weaker than STAB Earthquake bar for when it is used against Hawlucha, Heracross, Pinsir, Breloom, Cheatnaught and Virizion. So do tell, what can it use to cover it's weaknesses, if actual moves to do so don't exist. An average attacker? So something like a gym leader's ace would work as well? Lapras's Ice Beam does up to 39%, Metagross's Meteor Mash does up to 31% damage, Gengar does up to 50,1% damage (0.4% chance to 2HKO), Bisharp's Night Slash does up to 45.1% damage, Cinccino's Bullet Seed does up to 44.3% damage, Pure Power Medicham's Ice Punch does up to 35.4% damage, Tyranitar's Crunch does up to 56% damage. Up to. Without any entry hazzard damage, only Gengar and Tyranitar have a chance to actually 2HKO, and those are just those that actualy have a neutral move. There, are we done now?

Your accuracy must be at -6 cause you keep mising what I'm saying. The flinch chance isn't something to constantly rely on, it's just semi-frequently not taking a hit, further reducing the importance of that extra 50% health. Again, a boosted move is equal to an SE move. The combo of Rock and Ground has almost perfect coverage, so extra moves aren't even necessary. O hope you're not saying that you think that every pokemon of every gym leader ever has at least one SE move for Excadrill. At least half of all the gym leader's leads have no SE attack for Excadrill. Let's not forget that your precious Donphan is still weaker and slower than unbuffed Excadrill, worst case scenario. You're seriously preaching to me about 2 pokemon I've used the shit out of, elswhere as well as in Reborn?

It'll take far fewer hits than Donphan, since most foes will either flinch or faint before getting a hit on Durant, so thier bulk is effectively the same at least, if Durant takes one or two hits whenever Donphan takes three or four. That goes for Physical and Special attacks, the latter of which Donphan can't take any of either, except Durant can land a blow before going down. You can't always see them coming, only the vast majority of the time. Even if someone surprises you, like Skuntank and it's Flamethrower, just reset and plan around it. You say that buffing is something even average Pokemon can do in front of inefective match-ups is nothing praise-worthy, but actually being able to buff is. Donphan cannot be taught Swords Dance through any means other than TM, unlike Excadrill, which we do not have. Using a slot for Sandstorm is no problem for Excadrill, as Earthquake and Rock Slide hit all but 3 pokemon for at least neutral damage. There is no real "obvious" reason, as a super-effective attack and a Swords Dance followed by a neutral attack do the same amount of damage. You're also completely missing what I'm trying to say. I'm not saying it'll take 50 tries, I'm saying it'll take fewer tries with a better team than with the current team.

(Really not sure. Certainly not trying to do anything beget unpleasantness, just trying to lend a hand/my opinion) Great physical bulk and attack prowess is also what Durant has going for it. You could also say that it has 116 health against any of it's 8 resistances, but even on neutral hits, Donphan only has about 50% more health and it has so much more speed and a STAB with a 30% flinch chance that it'll take hits far less frequently. I've used Durant before, it's far from average in regards of bulk. If you're relying on Excadrill against his weaknesses, you're using it wrong. The frequency of weaknesses also depends on the foe/gym, you're unlikely to see something like a Fire attack in something like an Electric gym, so buffing is also easy if it's done against something innefective to it. I don't assume you'd get much use out of Donphan in Serra's gym either, on that note. Sandstorm also isn't eternal, just have Excadrill learn and use it and use Rock Slide, Earthquake and either SD or some other attacking move like maybe X-Scissor. Sandstorm also does only 1/16th of max health, while Ground, Rock and Steel types take no damage from it, so his Magnezone and (future) Swampert are immune to it. Excadrill is also much more of a wall-breaker than Donphan is, even without buffs, which, again, are easy to get against innefective foes and even some neutral foes. "Just that they don't outclass Donphan"- very argueable. You essentially admitted that Donphan is very bad at dealing with Sp.Attackers, making it mostly useless in some scenarios. Even against Fire foes, Durant has a chance to take at least one foe down with it Due to it's speed, power, and moves like Dig and Rock Slide. Most of those on the list can also either set a hazard or do some damage before going down. Sure, there's worse teams and a "pinnacle" isn't necessary, but why struggle through a gym and beat it on the 50th try if you can make your team better and get it on the first try? (PS:Alakazam and Blaziken can handle Fighting types easily, especially since we're past (both of) the fighting gym(s)).

Let the war begin...

'ello there. Hope you like it here. Should you want any team advice, feel free to make a topic in the Team Showcase Section. Or you could PM me since I stalk that place anyways.