"The Axe"

[fireheart4560]

Ralts is insane with ORAS level-up now though. I would know because shortly after the release of Episode 14, I took advantage of the trading thread at the time to bring a Ralts onto a new save file. Ralts has like no problems in the early game + reaches final stage ridiculously early too. Ralts is fine where it is.

Oh, I think having a Larvesta available at Pyorous Mountain is warranted, considering you have to train it all the way to Lv. 59 in order for it to evolve, and I'd imagine leveling it is just pure hell up until then. Also makes sense considering Volcarona are expected to be found around volcanoes. Maybe make a new event where you have to fight a Lv. 65 Volcarona for possession of the egg, replacing the Heatmor event in some fashion.

Heatmor could probably be made available after Shelly, as a trade. Maybe for a Cherrim.

Ralts doesn't do well at all early on even with the fairy typing. In fact, it's even more at a disadvantage since up until after the cory fight the game throws a ton of poison types at you and ralts/kirlia do nothing. Not only that, gardevoir no longer has psychic early and is stuck with confusion until early 40's?

Of course I don't expect amethyst to re-locate ralts. However I feel like placing it after the sigmund fight is a little late. Yeah you get an advantage against aya, but fairy balances it out.

I completely agree with no talonflame quite yet. The damn this is OP. It's special ability is the entire reason it's in OU. When you see that, you know the thing isn't freaking garbage. I reckon we may get Talonflame after Titania or Adrienn, mostly because Talonflame resists fairy and hits hard physically which not all fairies can take. and no you can't use stealth rock as an argument because who's going to use stealth rock on you? Has any trainer even had stealth rock since Luna? Maybe Terra idk but still.

Staraptor in my opinion is stronger in game than talon flame and we get that.

However, talonflame is a very frail pokemon. It doesn't get good moves, reborn lacks tms to give it. By the time it gets acrobatics and brave bird you'll be at luna or radomus...

BUT I AGREE, it would rek samson. Reborn does give us a lot of options to have advantages, but that's too good of one.

[Odybld]

As of Pokemon that could appear a bit earlier in the game, I'd suggest some/any nice water pokemon. The only ones obtainable before Shelly are Golduck (1k coins), Azumarill (trading down from a Growlithe to it)... Bibarel and Ducklett?! God I hate that duck thing. Then come Chinchou and Carvanha, not exactly world beaters. At the same time, you can grab great fire type ones like Growlithe for free, Ponyta and Houndour for free and Vulpix after that bloody Klinklang. And you can have an artful selection of grass types evolving with evo stones, but with a high ceiling nonetheless starting from Budew, going to Oddish and Bellspout. So, more water types please.

Also, the Gigalith + Trick Room against Charlotte could be resolved just by having Radomous hand out Psyshock or Psychic, the onle available damage dealing psychic TMs. I'd love that.

As of the imbalance between starters, there are two ways to fight it. The first is, choosing a starter influences which starters you find later in the game. Split the starters in tiers and leave the ones picking Froakie or Torchic finding the worst of starters later in the game. That would also solve that thing of getting the same starter twice.

The second way to fight starter imbalance is simply more checks and counters to them, especially in rival battles. I am a devoted Mudkip picker, and I absolutely can't do anything with it against Fern's grass type. Serperior is too fast AND too good defensively for me to try and either outspeed or OHKO it with Swampert, not to mention achieving both. Actually, Swampert is dead meat against any grass attack, and a free Super to Ultra Potion against draining attacks. There are not any measures as good as grass vs Swampert for Blaziken. Greninja I guess has to kinda respect Victorias fighting types. Cain could maybe get a Tentacruel to kinda deal with Blaziken, and Fern could get an Exeggute.

It's not as if Greninja and Blaziken help the player in the early game to take away things like money or items right off the bat.

Put the 'Karp back in. 50.000 coins.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Odybld

[Gaunt]

You know what really needs the axe? Flygon

Don't take away my baby! I'll have nothing to spend coins on...

[Xiri]

As of Pokemon that could appear a bit earlier in the game, I'd suggest some/any nice water pokemon. The only ones obtainable before Shelly are Golduck (1k coins), Azumarill (trading down from a Growlithe to it)... Bibarel and Ducklett?! God I hate that duck thing. Then come Chinchou and Carvanha, not exactly world beaters. At the same time, you can grab great fire type ones like Growlithe for free, Ponyta and Houndour for free and Vulpix after that bloody Klinklang. And you can have an artful selection of grass types evolving with evo stones, but with a high ceiling nonetheless starting from Budew, going to Oddish and Bellspout. So, more water types please.

You forgot about Seaking and Lumineon.... hehe.

[Chase]

And Semipour

[Qaaz]

This topic got too far away from what was meant to be

right now everyone just talks about what HE/SHE want to be earlier/later likely we talk about favs

[deadpool848]

What if Deino was added as an event earlier in the game? I mean I understand that Hydreigon is a very powerful pokemon, but it does not have that good of a level up move pool and only get's really good when you start getting TMs like dark pulse and flamethrower. Plus that thing is probably the most painful thing to level up aside from noibat, having it's 1st evolution at level 50, and second at 64, and until it becomes a Hydreigon, it's almost as dead of a weight as noibat at higher levels. But I can understand it not being added due to it's late game power, especially once you get some nice TMs to teach it, to me it's just a stronger but slower version of noivern, with a tad more bulk. Plus it will most likely get completely shut down by the later upcoming fairy gym.

Edited March 9, 2015 by deadpool848

[Commander]

This topic got too far away from what was meant to be

right now everyone just talks about what HE/SHE want to be earlier/later likely we talk about favs

Yeah, I was trying to get the topic back on track, but people keep persisting on some ridiculous requests...and the axes (I think we already covered any of the major ones). Yeah, I'm fine with a few, but don't cut things like Trapinch. It may be a little OP when it fully evolves, but the pains you have to suffer kind of earn you that strength (same goes for Noibat).

Keckleon is another insteresting Pokemon to move back. I don't know how many people would use it considering Protean Froakie, it'd make for some interesting playthroughs (and completely screw around with Aya and Shade).

[Deleted User]

Yeah, I'm fine with a few, but don't cut things like Trapinch. It may be a little OP when it fully evolves, but the pains you have to suffer kind of earn you that strength (same goes for Noibat).

It was a joke. There are a fair number of people around here that know just what my favorite pokemon and type are.

[aspectoflife]

Tbh even though sableye's place in the valley is great in accordance to the lore,

It's a terrible pokemon at that point in the game, the problem is that there's no will-o-wisp tm, recover is a breeding move and his base stat is pretty average. He lacks moves to abuse prankster with in reborn

I think he's going to be a powerhouse tho in the early game as ghost dark typing is really good and his attacking movepool is pretty decent compared to other pokemon,

[NickCrash]

Alright, since Azurill gets the axe, how about we replace it with Tentacool or Qwilfish? The police can only get poison pokemon, and we don't reduce the number of water pokemon available. Azumaril gets moved back, and a guy everybody loves comes back into play.

About Vulpix, if it's really going to get removed, I suggest it's location gets changed in Route1 (lost in the woods). In my opinion there's not much to put in its place, so I'd leave it as it is. We don't have a fire stone anyway at that point.

Also we should have Gligar earlier, in the cave north of Apophyll Academy. Fits the place and gets used, as Route3 is too late for it to get some actual usage, especially without the necessary fang to evolve it.

[Xiri]

Alright, since Azurill gets the axe, how about we replace it with Tentacool or Qwilfish? The police can only get poison pokemon, and we don't reduce the number of water pokemon available. Azumaril gets moved back, and a guy everybody loves comes back into play.

About Vulpix, if it's really going to get removed, I suggest it's location gets changed in Route1 (lost in the woods). In my opinion there's not much to put in its place, so I'd leave it as it is. We don't have a fire stone anyway at that point.

Also we should have Gligar earlier, in the cave north of Apophyll Academy. Fits the place and gets used, as Route3 is too late for it to get some actual usage, especially without the necessary fang to evolve it.

I agree with Qwilfish... but Tentacool? Tentacruel is actually quite a good Pokemon - and it evolves relatively early too, so I don't think it would be a good option. But yeah, Qwilfish definitely needs some love...

[XxSilentWinterxX]

I would definitely agree with Tentacool being available early on as well as Seel being pushed back some. I know Seel and Dewgong aren't really used all that often, and are outclassed by better water types. Tentacool with early poison type would help against Florinia, but I think if it was available before Julia, then it would have the floor wiped with it.

Also, with Vulpix, I think it's fine in Obsidia, but maybe change the requirements so that it's available later on instead of before Florinia? An example would be to have your starter, with max happiness and at level 40 or so. (or anything really, just to make it harder to acquire). It could probably do well on 7th Street too if you were to push it back anywhere.

[dondon151]

Keckleon is another insteresting Pokemon to move back. I don't know how many people would use it considering Protean Froakie, it'd make for some interesting playthroughs (and completely screw around with Aya and Shade).

Kecleon is pretty bad; look at its level-up movepool.

Alright, since Azurill gets the axe, how about we replace it with Tentacool or Qwilfish? The police can only get poison pokemon, and we don't reduce the number of water pokemon available. Azumaril gets moved back, and a guy everybody loves comes back into play.

About Vulpix, if it's really going to get removed, I suggest it's location gets changed in Route1 (lost in the woods). In my opinion there's not much to put in its place, so I'd leave it as it is. We don't have a fire stone anyway at that point.

Also we should have Gligar earlier, in the cave north of Apophyll Academy. Fits the place and gets used, as Route3 is too late for it to get some actual usage, especially without the necessary fang to evolve it.

I don't think that Azurill really even needs too much of an axe. Its main problem is that it's already at its final stage with its 2 best STABs by L25, whereas most Pokemon learn their good STABs in the L45-50 range (which is also when the House Key is first accessible, so move tutor moves fall under that umbrella). There's also a lack of water-type competition in general, so of course Azumarill is likely to be a player's go-to water-type choice because Slowbro, Starmie, Kingdra, Jellicent, etc. aren't yet obtainable when Azurill is obtainable.

Anyway, there are a lot of decent-ish water-types that could be made available earlier. Seel is an obvious one. I like your Qwilfish suggestion too. Off the top of my mind, I think the Chinchou and Remoraid can also be made available earlier.

As for replacing the Growlithe trade, I think that the Pokemon received in the trade should be something of similar value. Right now, Azurill is clearly stronger than Growlithe because it reaches its final form faster, learns good attacks faster, and is overall just better. The best replacement for Azurill, in my opinion, is Staryu. It evolves via the same general mechanism as Growlithe and it's overall actually a little weaker, but it will also have a trade EXP bonus to sort of cancel that out.

On Vulpix: its early availability doesn't seem like a big problem to me when you consider that it's stuck in its basic form until almost L45. Realistically, it's only obtainable prior to Florinia with people exploiting the cave-in field interaction, which I recall Ame saying that she was going to modify or remove to not be so exploitable.

Edited March 10, 2015 by dondon151

[Sheep]

Also we should have Gligar earlier, in the cave north of Apophyll Academy. Fits the place and gets used, as Route3 is too late for it to get some actual usage, especially without the necessary fang to evolve it.

Gligar before Kiki is a no go imo. Decent base stats with an emphasis on physical defence, a resist to fighting, and level 22 acrobatics seems a bit good to me.

[sound of silence]

Vulpix needs to be removed entirely. With the exception of charlotte, there is not a single battle where that thing is useless, and can easily smash 2 pokemon minimum per gym. Drought is a stupid ability to be giving out so early in the game, much less right before a bug gym. Drought and drizzle just shouldn't be made available until at least the E4 because of how good they are. Probably would say the same for sand too. Hail is okay as that is a lot less abusable than the other three, but no other weathers. Lets try and make the game a slight bit more difficult shall we?

Other changes

-Drillbur should not be available before noel: This should go without saying really. You should have to go to insane length to 6-0 gym leaders in reborn, and mere grinding isn't good enough to justify that.

-The kricketot event before julia needs to be removed. See above.

-litwick could be earlier in the game. Despite chandelure being a godly nuke, its slow speed would really let it down against several gyms. Maybe after serra you can get it, as noel still has a few mons that will break through chandelure easily. Although it might make randomus even easier than he already is...

Will add more suggestions when I can think of them.

[deadpool848]

Kecleon is pretty bad; look at its level-up movepool.

I don't think that Azurill really even needs too much of an axe. Its main problem is that it's already at its final stage with its 2 best STABs by L25, whereas most Pokemon learn their good STABs in the L45-50 range (which is also when the House Key is first accessible, so move tutor moves fall under that umbrella). There's also a lack of water-type competition in general, so of course Azumarill is likely to be a player's go-to water-type choice because Slowbro, Starmie, Kingdra, Jellicent, etc. aren't yet obtainable when Azurill is obtainable.

Anyway, there are a lot of decent-ish water-types that could be made available earlier. Seel is an obvious one. I like your Qwilfish suggestion too. Off the top of my mind, I think the Chinchou and Remoraid can also be made available earlier.

As for replacing the Growlithe trade, I think that the Pokemon received in the trade should be something of similar value. Right now, Azurill is clearly stronger than Growlithe because it reaches its final form faster, learns good attacks faster, and is overall just better. The best replacement for Azurill, in my opinion, is Staryu. It evolves via the same general mechanism as Growlithe and it's overall actually a little weaker, but it will also have a trade EXP bonus to sort of cancel that out.

On Vulpix: its early availability doesn't seem like a big problem to me when you consider that it's stuck in its basic form until almost L45. Realistically, it's only obtainable prior to Florinia with people exploiting the cave-in field interaction, which I recall Ame saying that she was going to modify or remove to not be so exploitable.

Kekleon's level-up move pool isnt all that bad to be honest. It get's Faint attack really early, giving it the option to become dark type against shade, Shadow sneak is a pretty good priority move and let's you play around with predicting normal/fighting moves, and later on it gets sucker punch, one of the most powerful priority moves, which is pretty good for the psychic gym, as it will change to dark type, give it stab, and most likely absorb a psychic or two. All in all, with a few TMs, you can really have some fun with protean and it's 90 base attack stat.

[MetalKing1417]

Kekleon's level-up move pool isnt all that bad to be honest. It get's Faint attack really early, giving it the option to become dark type against shade, Shadow sneak is a pretty good priority move and let's you play around with predicting normal/fighting moves, and later on it gets sucker punch, one of the most powerful priority moves, which is pretty good for the psychic gym, as it will change to dark type, give it stab, and most likely absorb a psychic or two. All in all, with a few TMs, you can really have some fun with protean and it's 90 base attack stat.

Not to mention, if trick room comes up, Kecleon is also slow, meaning it can move first in such an environment even without priority.

[NickCrash]

Gligar before Kiki is a no go imo. Decent base stats with an emphasis on physical defence, a resist to fighting, and level 22 acrobatics seems a bit good to me.

Shhhh...

Then why not put it after Kiki? Same place, just like an event. Extend the cave a bit, so the door is not seen easily and put a Gligar event in there. Random thought: a gang of some fire types cornering it, and it can't hit back as it doesn't learn ANY ground moves via level up. It has to learn EQ via a tutor. Nobody is going to use it where it lays now.

[Lostelle]

As for replacing the Growlithe trade, I think that the Pokemon received in the trade should be something of similar value. Right now, Azurill is clearly stronger than Growlithe because it reaches its final form faster, learns good attacks faster, and is overall just better. The best replacement for Azurill, in my opinion, is Staryu. It evolves via the same general mechanism as Growlithe and it's overall actually a little weaker, but it will also have a trade EXP bonus to sort of cancel that out.

This is a good point, Starmie is pretty bad without some TM's, and I don't think many people would be breeding at badge 2.

It's best move would probably be Hydro Pump & Psychic, and that's about it..

[Pixl]

Shhhh...

Then why not put it after Kiki? Same place, just like an event. Extend the cave a bit, so the door is not seen easily and put a Gligar event in there. Random thought: a gang of some fire types cornering it, and it can't hit back as it doesn't learn ANY ground moves via level up. It has to learn EQ via a tutor. Nobody is going to use it where it lays now.

I concur. Something like this. After Kiki is fine for not being too good against her, and we can't honestly say after Samson is a good spot because Archeops exists with a way better Acrobatics.

[Commander]

Actually, I think Staryu would work well for the trade too. It's actually really fallen from grace and with the lack of tms, it's not going to stand out compared to Azumarill (and it learns Psychic at 42 or something). I mean when bubblebeam is your only good move until the 40s not everyone is going to keep it when something like that when Carvanha and Psyduck are available. If Ame thinks it's too good (which it isn't without Ice Beam and T-bolt) Chinchou could be brought back.

As for Gligar, I think that Pokemon is fine where it is as Gliscor is going to be available in Ep 15 or 16/when we get back to Reborn City (I don't consider it a major spoiler since it's been circulated around for a while). The majority of the focus should be the Pokemon from post Railnet all the way up to Agate Circus because grinding is the hardest their due to Bouffalant not being a weak Pokemon, the healing centers are quite a ways away from each other, and other miscellaneous factors.

[fireheart4560]

gulpin completely destroys florinia because it gets toxic and acid spray.

Maybe new game corner pokemon? Add azurill and vulpix there.

People should have to work for an easier time

[LeMasterJP]

Gligar before Kiki is a no go imo. Decent base stats with an emphasis on physical defence, a resist to fighting, and level 22 acrobatics seems a bit good to me.

Right, but after that it just spirals down. Against the fire former gym leader guy (blaze) I think he doesn't really stand a chance against aya either.

[Lostelle]

Right, but after that it just spirals down. Against the fire former gym leader guy (blaze) I think he doesn't really stand a chance against aya either.

Cal*

You're thinking of his brother, Blake.