Monochrome_Complex

I hate critical hits in pokemon. So much.

Okay so Samson was hell. I actually had to resort to seeds for a change because hawlucha was just too OP otherwise and would birdbang everyone. I did figure out a good strat though: lead off with tangrowth(I used shiftry later attempts since he actually outspeeds hariyama)to set up grassy terrain(boosted with amp rock), then send out Gogoat with elemental seed for the def boost/health regen. Stack up 3 bulk ups(4 if hariyama KO'd shiftry right away but it only happened once), KO hariyama(with grass pelt gogoat becomes a physical fortress on grassy terrain so hariyama can hardly deal damage)  and samson sends out hawlucha. Hawlucha would always lead with swords dance, so I used leaf blade to bring him to yellow(or OHKO on crit which happened only once), next turn he would use roost which would remove his grass resist and get OHKO by leaf blade that turn. After that blaziken would show up, then mienshao, and lucario, all of whom Gogoat could take on alone provided she didn't get hit by a critical somewhere.

Problem is,  samson would nail a critical eventually every time I attempted this. Once it was a blaze kick, first time I pulled this strat off mienshao's first acrobatics was a critical. One egregious case was when hawlucha actually used flying press instead of roost, which he only did once out of the numerous times I tried this strat, and of course it was a critical. This had me suspecting that the AI *knows* when it'll get a critical and take appropriate action, as if flying press wasn't a crit it wouldn't have KO'd.  

Eventually I had a good stroke of luck and manged to get to conkledurr, landed a leaf blade to bring him to yellow, then got..crit by 9000 brick break :I Thankfully big top was long back by then and I had jumpluff use acrobatics boosted by the synthetic seed while samson healed with a potion, which didn't help him at all lol. 

But jeez that fight was frustrating. Being slightly underlevelled(63 was my highest for this battle) didn't help either, but hawlucha is just so stupid in this fight, as soon as he's on big top everything just dies. This badge took a lot of attempts, first to simply find a working strategy against hawlucha and then several attempts getting the strategy to work without being ruined by bad luck. I'm sooooo glad I got Gogoat though, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to win this fight.

I...don't like Bennet. Even after 18 I still don't like Bennet. Plus it feels like he got off easy?

luna wasn't hard, but Reborn was being really annoying fighting her RNG wise. I once got down to umbreon and it survived an x-scissor that previously brought it from full to yellow, then kept spamming moonlight and became Jesus, that mess SUCKED. Absol went down instantly to leavanny, but honchkrow was her biggest threat as brave bird one-shot everything except gogoat who it brought to red and tangrowth on a bad roll. I had about 2 attempts where it got out of hand with moxie and just steamrolled the team so I ended up having to send out gogoat to get hit(use milk drink same turn so it could fight later), switch it out to tangrowth so the recoil would bring honchknrow low enough for leavanny to finish off.  Bisharp was...a pushover actually, as it kept spamming knock off which allowed gogoat to stack bulk ups while drinking milk. However it DID paralyze her with thunder wave, which while useful against umbreon since toxic won't work it screwed me over later against weavile who *happened* to land a critical poison jab on a turn following paralysis. Weavile had 1Hp too so it felt like the game was seriously BSing me at that point.  The paralysis was one thing, but the critical right after, when it was needed most? Timing couldn't be worse. Ludicolo softened up tyranitar enough for leavanny to get a fell sting and OHKO umbreon, winning the match. This felt like a match that wasn't really hard(once I figured how to handle honch), but bad rolls and pokemon's obnoxious critical mechanics made it a bit frustrating.

Wait hold up

Volbeat is supposed to look like a greaser? His default art art is like him popping his "collar?' and trying to look tough? Mind blown.

I  always thought he looked like a vain showoff trying to strut his stuff on a walkway, which fits into fireflies flashing for mates. It also made him lame because he's nowhere good enough to be acting like that lol.

The greaser thing makes him kind of awesome. Like the black part is supposed to be like a leather jacket., and the red part an exgaggerated collar that he's popping up. I'm guessing illumise' hair is supposed to be like retro girl too? That's crazy, and here I used to think they were forgettable, kind of dorky looking pokemon. Shelly didn't improve my affinity for them either lol.

Gamefreak are geniuses.

Only took two tries to beat arceus this time, roserade landed the final blow after getting a lucky judgement that ended up being grass or water.  She was in the red and my last pokemon, so it was a cool finish.

Radomus actually gave a bit of trouble for once, as his reuniclus is quite bulky and if he pulled off trick room it made his slowking a threat. Plus I roserade isn't much good this fight so my strongest pokemon wasn't an option. I had to switch out jumpluff for gogoat, which was a smart choice as gogoat could stack bulk ups and tank metagross/gallade's attacks. It's a good thing I got shiftry back to level, as he was excellent in this fight with fake out and faint attack, both of which get buffed on the field. Gardevoir went down in one turn to a fake out and +2 leaf blade from gogoat.  It took about 4 attempts.

The gravity rush 2 nevi battle theme sounds like something that'd fit as a trainer battle theme in a pokemon game.

Beat Noel. Even after leading off with the wrong mon(leavanny, who I was saving for girafarig) by accident, he was one of the easier leaders and it took only one attempt.  Roserade cut through his team like butter(or rather sucked the life out of them), as not even clefable could stand more than two hits against that field buffed giga drain. I didn't even have to set up growth. For swellow I was able to get meganium to set up a reflect and while he died to two brave birds, swellow couldn't even deal half to gourgeist and seed bomb was enough to finish him off. Ludicolo's special defense is high enough to where it could outank girafarig and as mentioned before roserade basically 1-2 shot everyone else. A welcome breather after serra haha.

Noel picked the wrong turf to fight on. I'm going to try and get a skiddo since I never used gogoat anywhere, not even in the official games. Radomus' episode is one of my favorites in the game and now I can get the rest of my team caught up n training as well as train up a couple of new additions.

Ugh man serra was a nightmare. Spent the last hour and 20 minutes trying to beat her, finally did due to quick claw finally activating on roserade against frosslass. glaceon and ninetales were easy-peasy, one nature power from roserade took them out. Sandslash was the first big problem, mainly because he outspeeds everything and icicle crash hits hard, not to mention he resists grass.  I would have to get meganium to trick his AI by setting up screens, dying, then sending out sawsbuck as sandslash would use brick break which would put sawsbuck into yellow(or red on a better roll) but allow her to KO with jump kick.

frosslass. uggggggggh this is the entire reason I kept losing. Outspeeds everyone unless I could set up sun on sandlslash which wouldn't even work half the time as cherrim would either get OHKO or flinch to icicle crash. Roserade could KO her instantly with nature power but frosslass could also do the same on a crit or good roll that would bring roserade down via hail damage. I had to resort to giving her quick claw and hoping it activates against frosslass, which after many failures it finally did.

jynx and aurorus screwed me over a couple of times via their evasion bonuses, which sucks. One time I was a petal dance away from victory. That one hurt.

So far she was probably the hardest leader, alongside shelly if not more. From hardest to easiest at this point it'd go Serra > Shelly > Kiki > Corey > Shade > Julia > Aya > Florina.

You know serra gave me trouble on my flying run too. I think she's  noticeably harder with monotypes,  well provided the type you're using isn't SE against her.

Yay got deerling. Gonna EV train her( bit boring to do but it's always worth it) and hopefully her jump kick serves me well enough against serra's sandslash when I get there.

Both corey and aya ended up being not as hard as I expected, so hoping serra's match goes as smoothly, and not like shelly's lol. I think nature power turns into mirror shot on her field? That'd be pretty boss if it does, as it'd make ninetales much easier.

WOOO!!! Beat aya first try!!! 

I lead with meganium and ludicolo, setting up light screen and hydro pumping nidoqueen out of commission. I still took heavy damage though due to toxipex's merciless sludge wave. Next salazzle went up, and ludicolo was able to move first but I went for bubble beam instead which didn't KO. Salazzle sludge waved which KO'd meganium and toxipex's sludge wave finished off ludicolo but also KO'd salazzle who was in the red.

next I sent out cherrim and jumpluff, while aya sent out drapion. I didn't get to set up a reflect so I figure I'd have to hamper drapion somehow so he wouldn't pose a threat, so jumpluff stun spored him while cherrim set up sunny day for the Special defense/attack  boost via flower gift(underrated ability).  Well drapion did use knock off first but both he and jumpluff survived another sludge wave from tox, who was becoming quite an issue, i'd argue he was the hardest thing about this fight. I had jumpluff use acrobatics which did about a third and had cherrim heal via morning sun, but yeah man screw toxapex. I kind of forgot what happened next few turns but eventually cherrim got KO'd via toxix spikes for something, which jumpluff wasn't affected by. drapion was paralyzed. I remember toxa being one hit away from a kO though.

Next step was crucial. I sent out roselia and had her set up growth for +2 boost and was going to finish off toxapex but aya healed him. Eventually I did via acrobatics and giga drain but not before jumpluff got hit and taken down to like 3 HP.  

Venusaur was a piece of cake. One acrobatics + venoshock finished him off, but drapion kO'd jumpluff the same turn. Alas, jumpluff had an excellent performance.

I sent out gourgeist, and aya sends out her last, dragalge. Dragalge uses dragon pulse on roselia but light screen is still up so it barely deals anything. I used giga drain on on dragalge forgetting its 4x resist so it deals just a little and have gourgeist use trick or treat on it. Dragalge no longer having a 4x resist takes massive damage from +2 giga drain next turn and I have gourgeist use shadow sneak before to ensure it's finished off. Drapion ended up getting fully paralyzed like twice and really all he managed to do to roselia was use knock off once. He was a sitting duck basically.

Overall the battle went surprisingly well, especially once toxapex was out the picture, who was her biggest threat thanks to merciless. trick or treat FTW.

I thought the shiny stone was in Bysbsion grotto but the sun and dawn stone are instead <_< Where is the shiny stone? 

I was quite lucky reborn finally decided to spawn rain, as cal would've been a lot harder if it hadn't. His fire attacks were dealing barely anything  and he couldn't trigger the burning field, thankfully. Still took time to take down turtonator and magmortar though. 

Kiki gave me some trouble. Some of it was bad luck but I didn't have an answer to Lucario and his calm mind set ups would make him hard to KO and hit like a nuke. Didn't help Kiki kept healing him. Medicham was a problem too, as it would 1-2 KO everything with ice punch, while outspeeding everyone except jumpluff, who ended up winning it for me with a  stun spore and two paralysis triggers. Overall it took about 5 or 6 tries.

Taka was harder this time, as his team seems better designed to fight against grass types. Gligar's acrobatics deals a good chunk even behind a reflect, klefki is difficult to take down with just grass types, and chatot of course is chatot. Only one that wasn't troublesome  was the palm tree, thanks to jumpluff. Took one attempt but I barely won.

Solaris garchomp took 3 atttempts I believe? 1st time was a failed quick claw activation so I just reset, 2nd attempt I got roselia to land toxic and he was down to like a sliver of health where one more turn could've done it but solaris used a full restore lol. 3rd attempt I lead with focus sash shiinotic instead, used spore, then spammed strength sap and turned big bad garchomp into a wimpy garchump. One strength sap is enough for shiinotic to survive earthquake, and after that it was switching around, setting leech seed and screens and letting him suffer a slow and agonizing defeat.. Strength sap is a legit move.

Cain wasn't too bad, since it was raining and ludicolo has swift swim so nidoking wasn't an issue like last time. Muk is still annoying though, and he somehow landed 4 gunk shots straight.

Next is aya, urf. Not looking forward to this fight...actually if I was smart I'd do it before the rain goes away.

Wish granted, it's indeed raining. Finally have lotad haha. oooh and it'll be raining against cal too  huh? teeheehee it's probably best I do the apophyll arc now.

i swear it better be raining during my next reborn session.

I totally forgot the move power trip existed lol.