Palteau

I've beaten him 3 times on 3 different playthroughs. 1) Survived a hit with Tangrowth and used Stun Spore. After Tangrowth fainted, I kept switching between Gyarados and someting as fodder until I had only Gyarados left (Intimidating it in the process). Then I got a few Dragon Dances and killed it with a couple of Ice Fangs. Gyara was still available early on back then... 2) Used Cofagrigus to Curse and Burn him, switched around with Scrafty to Intimidate it and then stalled out with Swampert. 3) Had 2 Ekanses and one Shinx prepared for Intimidate and did this: Shinx (-1) - Ekans1 (-2) - Dead - Shinx (-3) - Ekans2 (-4) - Dead - Shinx (-5) - Babydoll Eyes (-6) - Dead. From there, I used Chesnaught with Leech Seed and Bulk Up to beat the crap out of it. Generally, Intimidate really helps. You can also find a Focus Sash somewhere below the Grand Strairway hidden in a rock or something and try doing some Endeavor stuff. As for Arceus: 1) Switched between Spiritomb and Scrafty until it ran out of Judgements/Focus Blasts and then spammed HJK. 2) Managed to hit 3-4 Hypnosis in a row with Gengar (since Destiny Bond wasn't working at that version) , Leech Seeded it with Chesnaught while it was asleep and then hanged on somehow unil it fainted. It didn't use Recover for some reason (and only took me 2 tries lol)

That's how I went through on my first playthrough, only instead of Blaziken I had Gyarados or Alakazam and then Infernape or Magnezone to clear the rest. Like Strawberry I went only Gyara + Monfenro till Florinia and beat her even though they were overleveled and didn't obey me. For a while, I even had battle style to Set instead of Swift, which is what I do on easier games but I realized it wasn't gonna work. On my second playthrough, I had the same team until the end (ep 13), but I knew what I'd be up against and decided on the team beforehand. And even then, I felt that I'd struggle against a water type gym or that my Magmar (or Magmortar later) would be kinda useless without TMs for coverage (T-Bolt, Energy Ball, Focus Blast etc). Which is why I trained a lot of pokemon waiting for ep 14 (and it all went to waste when I lost my file :[ ) You need some real powerhouses like Gyarados or Blaziken to be able to deal with most teams, but those have been placed later on. So, unless you want to pick Torchic as your starter you don't have anything really powerful early on. Training is time consuming at first but with exp. share and the Tauros/Boufalant it becomes easy later on. Plus, I know I'll have to wait a long time to get a new episode so I took things slowly on my recent playthrough.

I've done 3 playthroughs so far, cause I thought I lost my 1st save file (which I didn't and still have) and I lost my 2nd (for real) 1st playthrough (stopped after Noel) I had real trouble against Shade. His Gengar was so fast that I had to set up 2 DDs with Gyarados to outspeed it and his Chandelure (always sent that after Rotom fainted) wouldn't let me set up 2. I won by sheer luck, when he sent out Golett instead of Chandelure, for some reason. I also had trouble against Noel, mostly because of his Cinccino KOing things it wasn't supposed to, by flinching them to death. 2nd playthrough (lost file after Charlotte) Luna gave me hell, even though I had Scrafty, probably cause I was kinda underleveled (57-58lvl). I grinded my mons a bit and gave Gardevoir Moonblast to beat her. Charlotte completely annihilated me on my first attempt, but then I just taught my Crobat Rain Dance and she became easy mode. 3rd playthrough: Was prepared for everyone (too much actually) and, to my disappointment, some were even nerfed, like Shelly, Radomus and Serra. Doubles make it easier to deal with G.Gardevoir and Heather, because you can gang up on them. I only lost to Serra, cause I always battled her before field effects were introduced. So, I figured I'd have to battle her in an Icy Field, in doubles, with a permanent Ice Body/Snow Cloak crap and trained a Flygon just to remove the field with EQ. So, I lead of with that, and I was really surprised to see no special field, a singles battle and a freakin' Cloyster that swept me (so much for preparation :[ ). I won the rematch though. My point is, that Reborn isn't fit to be played by having "your team" with which you can beat everyone (like most other pokemon games). It's not even supposed to be that way. One must use different mons to match the situation. And in that spirit, all gym leaders are beatable or can give you hell, depending on what your team is when you battle them.

@Gaunt Metagross is good, but it's not like you can muscle through the hole game with just it. I could keep going on about these things (i.e. why Magby was removed completely instead of being placed later, even though Magmar is good only for Sunny Day and obtaining Magmarizer through breeding is too much pain to do in order to evolve him) but I feel like we've strayed too much from the topic so I'll stop.

Yes I know, but after going through all that trouble to get to it, you could at least get it in a pokeball without a battle. Metagross is cool, but it's not even that good compared to other pseudo-legendaries or Gyarados or even Blaziken which is obtainable anyway.

With EV boosting items at the dep. store + Exp Share EV training is a piece of cake eventually. In my previous save file (which I lost becau my hard drive broke down and had no back up :'( ) I EV trained tons of pokemon. There are locations to get EVs for every stat too. You also have access to EV reducing berries and you can actually see your pokemons' EV/IVs. So You can pay little to no attention to EVs up to some point and then fix them when it's easy (it's not like they matter that much until that point). And you can also grind easily with Tauros/Bouffalant. But yeah what you said about chances being reduced feels kinda bad. I understand it's done to discourage people from, say fishing Grimers for Nuggets, getting Black Sludges ftom Trubish or Heart Scales from Luvdiscs easily, so that they will be forced to find another solution instead of what they were planning. And trust me the options are endless (I've beaten Solaris' Garchomp on 3 different playthroughs with 3 different strategies and without using FEAR). The problem is, that you might have something in mind, like a pokemon you want to use just because you like it and it's either too hard to get or you can't give it the move/ability/nature you want so easily. This, in turn, results in making the game more annoying than challenging. I mean, finding Belldum is hard enough as it is, why should you have to battle it and catch it with that ridiculous catch rate?

Like: Story, difficulty, challenge and the fact that you have to be strategic to win. Also, love the new field effects. But most of all, I like the game's originality. It's like a pokemon game for grown ups. Dislikes: 1) It's kind of annoying that good pokemon tend to be pushed later in the game to make it even harder, because I hate having to constantly get better mons to replace my old crappy ones. Plus you get some good pokemon early on anyway (Azumarril, Diggersby, Blaziken etc) so why not others (Gardevoir, Gyarados, Magmar (which is only good for sunny day and I don't understand why it was removed)) 2) I love the story, and the characters are all intresting and have their own backgrounds etc but it feels like the drama is too damn much. Everyone has a dirty secret, a mental disease, familly issues, involvement with terrorist groups, loss of a dear person, it feels like the only sane person in the whole storyline is your own character (and maybe Shelly).

I have different favorites from each generation Gen 1 my signatures were Hypno and Jolteon Gen 2 I had 4 that I loved - Crobat, Umbreon, Houndoom, Suicune, Gen 3 It was Swampert, Flygon and Milotic(although I was usually too lazy to get myself one) Gen 4 Garchomp Gen 5 Scrafty, Mienshao, Chandelure Gen 6 Delphox, Greninja, Chesnaught (favorite starters of all Gens) As for Fern, Roserade is his obvious signature but I believe Ferrothorn better matches his annoying personality. And as I wrote this, I realized FER(rothor)N. It all makes sence!!!