I just want to make something clear.

[Zane0144]

Lol, I don't really see how you can argue that the game could still be difficult if you get all the best mons and tms immediately. Not even the main games do that.

It reminds me of when I was playing insurgence. Which is by the same people as ZO. I remember feeling kind of annoyed that the game just tells you hey here's a secret base, you no longer have to grind or ev train or anything. Here's your perfect mons. I was doing a mono bug run and suddenly there was no challenge. I can only imagine how easy it would have been if I was using good mons. Not only that but the level curve was attrocius. Everytime I went down a route I ended up a few levels behind everything else. Making it a big grind fest until I got the OP secret base.

And by the third gym when I had a perfect bug team ( it honestly could not have been any better unless I had genesect) the game starded throwing powerful legendaries and fakemons at me? And I was able to handle it, because when you can get a perfect team not even the most powerful legendary gamefreak can come up with can stop you. The game just becomes alright, just go through the story, don't worry about changing your team or anything else for the rest of the game.

If ZO is anything like that then I'd rather just play reborn

[Cyclonegale]

TBH. I never really used field effects to my advantage. Through some dumb luck, I managed to get my mons to power through Multiple gyms.

Julia - I only had Monferno and Espurr for her, Flame Wheeled her to death

Florinia - Monferno and Flame Wheel+Mach Punch

Corey - Meowstic+Psybeam/Psychic

Shelly - Flame Wheel and Rock Slide from Vibrava

Shade - Luxray's Bite

Kiki - The first time I used a field effect and it was on accident, my method was just Psychic spam, it just happened to be boosted

Aya - Psychic from Meowstic

Serra - Earthquake, nothin but Earthquake(Maybe some Crunch...)

Noel - The first time I intentionally take advantage of the field, Flare Blitz baby

Radomus - I just used Sword's dance on my Leavanny and spammed X-Scissor

Luna - Close Combat all day.

Samson - Psychic, a lot of Psychic

Charlotte - Earthquake

Terra - Surf mainly, but Dragon claw as well.

Ciel - Moonblast

What i'm trying to say is, you don't need to manipulate fields to win. You can very easily wreck gym leaders with other ways. Of course some of these took a few tries, but that's how I made the method work, I had to see what they did first. If you can use the field, then by all means use the field, every single one is Exploitable in some way. And even then, so long as you know your match ups (Most of my fights I used the best matchup for the job), you can still win, but it may be a clutch to pull off. I understand that Reborn is hard. Half of my team annihilates bug types, and I still have trouble with Bennet, I had only my Flygon to beat Ciel with, but I learned that type advantage doesn't always work. That's why each gym leader(bless the AI...) tries to play with their strengths. Charlotte is difficult because she plays with her field VERY well, while covering her weak spots. But even then you can get around it. Aya does this as well by being pretty much immune to earthquake, an otherwise exploitable strat if it weren't for her field.(Multiple pokemon can get Earthquake by now) Radomus plays with his own, but it can ALSO help you.

TL:DR Field effects don't just give them an advantage. They can give you one as well, but you can still muscle your way through despite it.