MonoGen challenge

[Qaaz]

Little late on the party but I suggest you Trevenant over Pumpkamboo

[CURIE]

Little late on the party but I suggest you Trevenant over Pumpkamboo

Yeah that's not happening anytime soon. Trevenant is episode 13, I'm on episode 4.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Eagleby18

[CURIE]

Update 16: The Orphanage-Shelly’s Gym

I never really appreciated how tough that one orderly battle is when you aren’t using a ground type. Strider had changed to a normal type for most of the battle, and he was still taking massive damage! I tried getting Sassy in to use a Light Screen, but she got Parahaxed. I ended up having to switch out, use Apollo as a sacrifice to heal her and cure her of paralysis, and switch back in, the hax was so bad. I then remembered that Strawberry knows Aromatherapy and felt like an idiot for doing what was essentially a waste of money.

When I finally beat it, it was time for an equally annoying battle: Victoria. This time, however, I had no qualms in using Strawberry- the one who completely shuts her team down. Except Pignite. Turns out that thing’s Heat Crash will one-shot ALL, YES ALL of my Pokemon. I had to sacrifice Apollo yet again (this just isn't his day lol) to paralyze it and restart until I finally got some hax off of it. Once it was down though, Strawberry easily took down the rest.

Next up, the gym. Honestly, did ANYONE ever complete this puzzle without the internet’s help? I know I didn’t, either in my first playthrough or this one. In the gym trainer battles, I noticed that Apollo seems to be lagging behind the rest of the team. That’s kinda sad for him because… Well, I’ll get to that later. Also, there was this annoying Anorith that got the Aincientpower hax literally three times in a row! Today was full of hard battles, and to top it all off, it turns out the Linkstone event doesn’t even appear until AFTER you beat Shelly!

Edited October 4, 2014 by Eagleby18

[Gaunt]

Honestly, did ANYONE ever complete this puzzle without the internet’s help? I know I didn’t, either in my first playthrough or this one. In the gym trainer battles, I noticed that Apollo seems to be lagging behind the rest of the team.

I did, the first (because i didn't know youtube could help) and the second (because the puzzle changed and youtube didn't help ) time i resolve it myself but spend a lot of time on it (like 30 minutes) as for Helioptile (Apollo right?) it's not a very good Pokemon but it's the only electric type you'll get so idk

[CURIE]

Update 17: Grind ALL The Pokemans! (Except one)

As said above, recently I’ve been grinding a lot. The level cap is 35, but some of my Pokemon get awesome things at level 36: Strider evolves, Strawberry learns Energy Ball, and Braveheart learns Flamethrower. So I let the Pokes go over the level cap to get their cool stuff, and then brought them back down with Common Candies (and then I let Braveheart evolve). The ones who don’t get cool stuff at 36 get cool stuff at 35: Sassy learns Extrasensory (which I replaced Light Screen with), Apollo learns Buldoze, and Pumpkin learns Reflect.

Oh right, Pumpkin. I’m only ever training him up to 35, where he learns Reflect to go with his Light Screen. Later on when I get TMs for weather and Swagger, I’ll teach them to him, and his Prankster ability makes sure he always goes first. So levels don’t matter to him past this point.

I never did train Jack, because he’s weak to the next two gyms. Maybe I’ll start grinding him when I’m coming up to Kiki. Anyway, nothing going on story-wise, but I’ll take on Shelly tomorrow.

One more thing- I’ve added a list of the team to the first post in this thread, so that it’s easier to tell who I’m talking about when I refer to my Pokemon by nickname.

[CURIE]

Update 18: Shelly and the Linkstone

First of all, I’m an idiot for wondering what hold item to give Pumpkin. He’s there to use Light Screen and Reflect, of course I would give him Light Clay!

Anyway, I had a plan for taking on Shelly and everything- and then I find out it’s a double battle! Actually, that sorta helped some aspects of the plan, like leading off with Pumpkin to set up a Light Screen and a Reflect.

Now, anyone who’s fought Shelly with a rock type would advise you to fight Shelly with a rock type. I don’t have any rock-type 6th Gen Pokemon available yet, but I do have something almost as good: a Protean Greninja with a rock type move (Smack Down)! However, I didn’t bring him out for a while. I couldn’t switch in to him until someone died, because his initial dark typing makes it too dangerous, and I couldn’t lead with him because I needed Braveheart to take out that Illumese in the first turn. After taking out half of Shelly’s team, she finally went down due to a critical hit, and Strider came out (they didn’t even attack Pumpkin at all for some reason?). Smack down then took out all that remained of her team, except for the Anorith, which I had Water Pulse for. In the end , Pumpkin was only attacked once, by an Aqua Jet from Anorith (it did 5 damage). This battle was significantly easier than the ones leading up to it!

After the battle, I could finally get the Linkstone, and I've finally decided who to use it on. I still haven't trained up Jack and am not using him yet, so it's kinda pointless to use it on him. I used it on Strawberry instead, and hopefully I can find another Link Stone before Kiki.

[Ever]

Hey, I'm at Aya and still didn't find another linkstone. And I searched at almost every rock. So i feel you can't get another before Kiki.

[Lost Lore]

There's another Link Stone hidden in Beryl Cave- specifically, on a rock in one of those cages. I think those are the only ones you have access to before Kiki, though, yes.

[CURIE]

Update 19: I abuse the new HM

Rock Smash is a horrible move in battle, but gosh darn if it isn’t useful in the field. Today I ditched the story (again) and went around exploring new places with the move that is the reason I replaced Slavebat with SlaveTho.

First stop was the place where I get the mining kit. I’ll be honest, I spent most of the time grinding the minable rocks until I got stuff I wanted. This includes shards, heart scales (one of which I used to teach Diggersbytho Hammer Arm), max revives, stuff that can be sold (including evolution stones I won’t use), any plates that would help my team (Earth Plate for Diggersbytho, Spooky Plate for Jack, Zap Plate for Apollo, Splash Plate for Strider), a Helix Fossil (it will come into play later even though I can’t use Omanyte) and the Sun stone.

That brings us to why I found it dismaying to see Apollo lagging behind everyone else. I can evolve him now that I have the stone, but I don’t want to for quite a while. You see, there’s a difference between Pokemon who are traded to evolve (like Strawberry was) and those who use stones. A trade-evolved Pokemon will learn the exact same moves at the exact same levels as its pre-evolution, the only real difference being better stats. But a stone-evolved Pokemon learns little to no moves by level up. For that reason, I don’t want to evolve Apollo into Heliolisk until level 49, when he learns Thunderbolt. That’s 14 levels away.

On a lighter note, I found a Linkstone in the cave to the north of the Beryl Ward, which means I had no qualms in evolving Jack for the reasons listed above. But I still haven’t gotten around to grinding him yet.

Also, I found an Odd Keystone while mining, which makes me feel bad because I’ve heard people complain that they couldn’t find one no matter how hard they looked. Meanwhile, I found one when I’m not even gonna use it!

No story progress today, but lemme ask you something Ame,

What is this thing doing in my level 35-40 area?

Edited October 7, 2014 by Eagleby18

[Cepheus]

Is that a wild Beartic or the event one to get Smoochum? I can't remember the levels of those event-battles^^

[CURIE]

It's the Smoocum event. Not like I was gonna get the Smoochum anyway, I just wanted the experience. Apparently I forgot how strong it was.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Eagleby18

[Vinny]

There's another Link Stone hidden in Beryl Cave- specifically, on a rock in one of those cages. I think those are the only ones you have access to before Kiki, though, yes.

Also...

Someone in the Slums might give you a Linkstone... for the right item, that is.

Or at least something that resembles that item.

get rekt son. and by thh time i finish posting this, you probably already killed 72 different Beartics.

[CURIE]

Someone in the Slums might give you a Linkstone... for the right item, that is.

Or at least something that resembles that item

Well that's only on clear days, which I'm not due to receive for a while.

[CURIE]

Update20: Back to difficult battles. Yipee.

I’ve figured out why I find certain battles leading up to Gym Leaders to be harder than the leaders themselves. Against the leaders I go all out, not caring who goes over what level because I’m gonna either raise the level cap or use a common candy afterward. In regular everyday battles, I don’t want to make any of my Pokemon go any higher than the others, so I don’t use strategies that could make those battles easier.

For example, Fern’s Ferroseed. Braveheart was too far ahead of the rest of the team, so I had switched her for Pumpkin. And to the rest of the team, well it’s a Ferroseed. You know how hard it is to take one down without fire moves!

Plus, there’s the issue with Apollo. He’s begun to fall behind so much, several opponents have one-shotted him despite the fact that he’s a higher level (go home Fern’s Roserade you’re drunk). I’ve had to resort to training him like one would a Magikarp, which makes things even harder because I take a turn to switch out (aforementioned Roserade keeps outspeeding everything I have and getting dumb Sleep Powder hax. The only way I even won that was through Pumpkin's Prankster Screens). I’ve decided that, once I get past Shade, I’m gonna train up Jack and use him as a (temporary?) replacement, and train Apollo on the side until he finally is ready to evolve.

The battle with Cain went much smoother actually, because I had a Pokemon on hand who was almost perfect to take down each of his- Apollo (backed up by Pumpkin) for Dewott, Diggersbytho for Nidoking, Rock-type Strider for Venomoth, and Sassy for Grimer. Just my luck that the easier rival battle is the one where I get denied the wasteland key for two whole episodes...

[CURIE]

Update 21: The Orphanage
Okay, so you want me to believe that Sigmund was just happening to take a stroll, and HAPPENING to take two guards with him on said stroll, and taking said stroll at the exact time Heather was leaving the gym, and happened to pass by the gym at just that time on that exact same stroll? Yeah no, he KNEW this would happen. I know he’s crazy and all, what with his hobby of torturing orphans and all, but I’m thinking there might also be some demonic influence with this guy or something.

The actual battles didn’t have anything noteworthy going on in them, mostly because since my partner was a flying type, DiggersbyTho’s Bulldoze attack completely wrecked the place. I wonder just how many kids there dream of the building actually getting bulldozed to the ground. I actually kinda expect something like that to actually happen by the end of the game (specifically by a certain gym leader’s Dragonite).

By the way, if you’re doing a normal run or a first/second/fourth Gen run, don’t forget to pick up the data chip behind the monitor for the commons lock. Bring it to the glitching computer in the Onyx school to initiate a battle with a Porygon.

Something I that definitely wasn’t there last time I played through the story was blood on the wall of one of the orphan’s cells- a lot of it. Like, as much blood as you’d expect if a kid somehow pulled a Corey in there. As much as Connal talks about legal stuff, something tells me he’d be screwed if someone ACTUALLY did an official inspection. But the worst thing about the place is how the orphan’s Pokemon are all confiscated. If you’ve played any of the official games or seen the anime, you know this orphanage is against everything the Pokemon franchise stands for.
One more creepy thing about the place-that stabby stabby kid next to where you rescue Charlotte. Chances are, you talked to him once, backed away slowly, and locked him back up. But, you actually want to keep talking to him. 3 times in fact. On the third time, he randomly gives you a rare candy for your courage. Afterward, he says “so soft… they scream” every time you talk to him. 10/10 best npc ever.

And you know how Dr. Connal says he alerted the authorities and that you’d all be arrested? That’s a complete lie. I literally walked into the Police Department right afterwards and everyone there had the exact same dialogue as always.

[Gaunt]

we all know that the "good" Doctor is a bad person or he's simply mad (or both) and he's a liar too...also wouldn't it be cool if "your" lines changed entering the orphanage after becoming an honorary member of the police? like i don't know "freeze! this is the police" or something like that

[CURIE]

Update 22: Pancham Playground

Another thing about Sigmund that seems suspicious is his unhealthy obsession with that particular group of kids. He literally leaves his orphanage, which is still full of kids to torture, by the way, to chase after those specific ones? One could argue that he’s secretly a Team Meteor member, if it wasn’t for the cutscene when you enter the railnet. He joined team meteor after he was weirdly obsessed with those kids, as a matter of fact he joined BECAUSE he was weirdly obsessed with them. And they just HAPPENED to be the ones with the Amethyst Pendant and Ruby Ring? I’m telling you his craziness isn’t just normal craziness, it’s clearly being driven by some evil force.

Anyway, when you’re down in the railnet with the gang trying to open the northern door, make sure to go to the southeast corner and pick up the dull key. If you beat Shade before you pick it up, you won’t be able to get it until much later in the game!

The key goes to the locked door in the back of the Obsidia slums, which is the only place to find wild Pancham (and Scraggy, but you know…). If this were pre-Florina, I wouldn’t hesitate to put one on the team. But at this point, I don’t see the appeal in it. Still caught one of course because expert mode. By the way, while I was fighting one, its Karate Chop attack hit Strider while he was a ghost type. Fix that, Ame.

And you’re probably about to call me out on complaining about the overleveled Beartic, and not the overleveled Pangoros. Well, with Beartic, he was level 57, he had a field effect backing him up, and I didn’t have any Pokemon that could exceptionally stand up to him (Braveheart was in the PC). The Pangoros, however, are only level 45-50, have a neutral field, and I have a Pokemon who can both tank their hits and dish out x4 damage, while healing itself. They yielded some really good experience for Strawberry. Only one problem though: I had to reset over and over because for the longest time, their Body Slam either Critical hitted or Parahaxed me EVERY SINGLE TIME. I swear, that’s not an exaggeration.

P.S. if you turn down your chance to add Scrafty to the team after saving it, you can still pick it up by going to the room you fought the Scraggy gang in.

[CURIE]

Update 23: The easiest gym battle so far

Like with the other gyms, I grinded up my team to the level cap. After running around for quite a while without running into a single wild Pokemon, I decided I needed a Sweet Scent slave. So I went back to the candy shop (you can do the puzzle an infinite number of times) and got a new Swirlix. She was female, so I named her Sweetie, after the Bellosom in my X version who serves the exact same purpose. It cost a Heart Scale to teach her Sweet Scent, but I had plenty of them after my little mining adventure. In the near future, she’ll also be my Flash slave.

Apollo FINALLY learned a better attack in Volt Switch, and Sassy got a slightly better replacement for Extrasensory in Psychic.

The battle with Shade was actually the only one so far where I didn’t have to soft-reset at all. I led with Apollo, because not only does he resist the Gengar’s two strongest moves, but he also can take away Shade’s field advantage with Parabolic Charge. I then Volt Swithced out, leaving “Corey” with only, like, 15 health, and had Strider outspeed him and finish him off. Or I would have, except that I forgot Shade uses Ultra Potions. A brief spam fest ensued between my Lick and Shade’s Ultra Potion, but in the end I won out.

Chandelure was pretty much the only of Shade’s Pokemon that DiggersbyTho could touch, and she did not disappoint. Shade’s “ace” went down in one Bulldoze. Golett provided Pumpkin’s chance to set up the screens, before Strider came in again and used Water Pulse. Braveheart took out Rotom, but not before it used Discharge to bring back the field advantage. But by then, it was too late. He had only 2 Pokemon left, BOTH of them weak to fire, and my Fire Pokemon already had a Moxie Boost. Fire Fang one-shotted what was left of his team.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have even more grinding to do…

Edited October 12, 2014 by Eagleby18

[CURIE]

Update 24: Gourgeist joins the battle!

With Apollo still far from being ready to evolve, the Ghost and Bug gyms out of the way, and the Fighting gym coming up, now was the perfect time to start using Jack! Unfortunatley, that means I had to grind him up to everyone else’s level, since he was still at 25. I also retaught him Phantom Force because why not. He now has the moves Bullet Seed, Phantom Force, Shadow Sneak, and Trick-or-Treat. There’s… not really anything else to say this time around. Haven’t done any story progress since beating Shade, so I guess I’ll get on that now.

Oh, and a word of advice that I learned the hard way: If you want to do the Vulpix/Mechanightmare quest for the experience, don’t bother unless you’re doing a first Gen run. You automatically receive Vulpix after beating the Klinklang with no ability to refuse.

[AuthorReborn]

Oh, and a word of advice that I learned the hard way: If you want to do the Vulpix/Mechanightmare quest for the experience, don’t bother unless you’re doing a first Gen run. You automatically receive Vulpix after beating the Klinklang with no ability to refuse.

Out of simply curiousity, does anyone know what happens if your party and the entireity of your PC is full?

[CURIE]

Update 25: The Second Exception-PULSE Battle
So I began the raid on the Blackstream Factory, which meant free experience with Strawberry. Yeah, you know which battle I’m talking about. I literally sat there and spammed Aromatherapy and let my partner do it all for me. Speaking of Aromatherapy, it’s been replaced by Cotton Guard. It never really ended up being as useful as I thought it was, and now I have plenty of items compared to earlier in the game. I just think it’s more worth it to have an attack that can literally MAXIMIZE my defense in two uses.

And so I came to the Pokemon Cage puzzle. You probably know how to solve the puzzle, but did you know that, if you teleport the Lickitung to the cage under the Ditto, he’ll give you a Rare Candy? And did you also know, if you teleport the Makuhita to the same cage, the Ditto will be able to break out, and you can take it with you? Do the Rare Candy thing first, it won’t work if the Ditto is no longer in the cage. I did, in fact, pick it up despite it not being 6th Gen. This is because later on, I would need to buy it to get the Experience Share. Picking it up now saves me 9 Green Shards. That being said, I released it the next time I had access to a PC. Also, another bonus thing you might not know is that you can use Loudred to wake up the guard again, and initiate an optional battle.

I had originally intended to bring Pumpkin to the battle with ZEL and the Pulse Muk, but realized I had forgotten as soon as it began. I was like “eh, let’s see if I can do it without him” and I did. First up was Glaceon, who Strider two-shotted with Smack Down, outspeeding it even after taking an Icy Wind. Next up was Muk, who… actually went down the easiest of all of them. Sassy two-shotted it with Psyshock. Umbreon was next, and I couldn’t resist but have a stalling competition between it and Strawberry. I won of course, what with Cotton Guard, Fake Tears, and type advantage. Espeon was Jack’s first real chance to shine, and he almost screwed it up. Psychic did massive damage (the reason I wanted to bring Pumpkin along), and would have two-shotted him if he didn’t have Shadow Sneak.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Eagleby18

[CURIE]

Update 26: Apophyll stuff

Well... I discovered something new. I talked to this random girl at the Academy, and she just inexplicably shoved a Meditite into my hands. I had to reset, and do a TON of trainer battles all over again. Later on, when I was going to write about it, I went back to her (saving first of course) to get it again so I could spell it right. But she never gave it to me… She instead said some hippe garbage about reaching zen or something.

I looked on the location guide and it didn’t say anything about this, so I had to figure it out myself. Basically, by “reaching zen”, the girl means “listen to a bunch of lectures”. You know how, around the second floor of the academy, there are these NPCs who ask if you want them to read Kiki’s past lectures to you? Well, if you find all of them and listen to all their lectures, then go back to that girl, THEN she gives you the Meditite. And unfortunately for me, you can’t refuse.

On the subject of NPCs at the academy, I got the 5th sticker, which means I can now buy… a bunch of stuff I’ll probably never use. Well, since I was at the department store anyway, I doubled my amount of common candies. I’m approaching the level cap already, but won’t be getting a level increase for a while.

Oh, right, I skipped over the random battles didn’t I. Diggersby wanted to learn Bounce, but I decided on keeping Hammer Arm. With the fighting gym coming up, I wonder if I’m gonna regret that. Well, if it turns out I do, then I can just go back to Onyx ward and change it, I got a heart scale from one of the two mining rock in this entire episode. In the other I found a Mind Plate for Sassy.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Eagleby18

[Sheep]

Isn't that referring to Shade's gym rather than Corey's?

[CURIE]

Oh right... I totally forgot about that one :|

yeah, I'll just... edit that out now...

[CURIE]

Update 27: Cal and Victoria boss battles

On my way through Pyrous Mountain, I ran into a shiny Magcargo, which made me think about the Shiny Clause. If you’re doing a monogen challenge of your own and you want a Shiny Clause, then sure you can have one. However, you cannot use the shinies. Personally, I won’t be implementing that Clause since in Reborn, shinies are more common and less valuable.

The worst part about fighting Cal is that I needed SlaveTho in my team just to get to him, which means I had to ditch someone. I decided to box Strawberry, since he only has a Fairy and a Grass type attacking move (Also, I switched Jack out for Pumpkin). The second worst part is the superheated field. It has several effects, but only two of them mattered in this battle: boosting fire moves and weakening water moves, like with sunny day. To top all that off, he can use Sunny Day for DOUBLE the effect of sun! For that reason, I was smart enough to fight him on a rainy day. It boosted water and weakened fire, canceling out the field as if I were fighting him on neutral terrain. And if he does use Sunny Day, he turns it into a Rainbow Field, which… actually doesn’t help me at all. But hey, it’s better than double sun power.

I led with Pumpkin and set up the Screens as usual, then sent in Sassy to OHKO Infernape with Psychic. For some reason, the thing used Mach Punch on her, despite having used Flame Wheel twice on Pumkin. Weird. Anyway, Charizard was next, and under normal circumstances, he would have been the hardest, because the only weaknesses I could exploit would be Water, which was weakened by the field, or Electric, which wouldn’t work because Apollo 1: sucks and 2: has dry skin. However, my Greninja still happens to know Smack Down, so yeah, you know how that went. From there, the rest was just DiggersbyFuel.

A lot of people found the next battle against Victoria to be annoying, but I found it to be the perfect opportunity to redeem myself from the atrocious battle against her in Shelly’s gym. This time, I was prepared. Against the Scraggy, instead of OHKOing it with my Fairy move, I set up a pair of Cotton Guards first. What little damage I took was quickly healed by the next attack. I expected Emboar next, but nope it was Heracross. Same thing happened to it as did the Scrafty, although it took 2 turns instead of one. THEN the Emboar came out. With maximum defense, I had more than enough wiggle room to Fake Tears it twice, which led to an easy 2 hit KO. Gallade was coming next and I was running out of PP for that one move, so I went to Jack. Did you know, using trick-or-treat on a Psychic type is the only way to score 4x damage with Ghost moves? Hoopa doesn’t count because he’s not official yet. Last was Hariyama, who was quickly dealt with by Sassy.

Next up is Kiki, yet ANOTHER boss battle. But first, there's another Pokemon living around the beach that I need to catch for the Pokedex.

Edited October 19, 2014 by Eagleby18