[Spoilers] E16 Status Discussion

[Amethyst]

Ame, I think you missed the point about NFE Pokemon: I'm not talking about Electivire and co., I'm talking about Electabuzzzzzzz, Magmar, Gligar, Sneazel etc.

At one point I agreed, which is why things like Gligar and Magby -were- in the early game originally. I removed them in part because people preferred those in expectation of having their evolved forms later, and so wouldn't care about getting other similar things in the interim.

Now certainly it could be a too-cold too-hot thing with their placement because they were really early before and are really late now, but the popularity is the main concern either way. I have to have Pokemon in the late game that people might still be interested in picking up. Things like this make good candidates.

As of the walls, you know better than that and you're just too hard-headed to actually admit it: metagame viability =/= in-game viability.

Of course not, but the popularity is still a consideration. People familiar with the competitive scene (around which this game was originally based, although it has expanded far beyond by now admittedly) are going to prefer Pokemon they know are useful. I'm certainly not afraid of Mandibuzz shutting out slews of gym leaders, but again, I need Pokemon for later areas, so it makes sense to put popular/strong (in some circumstances, at least) things later in the game.

Just make a small lake with purple water in the wasteland or the grotto and have Frillish, Inkay and stuff like that beimg fishable there.

And then like, what???

Inkay is already in the wasteland.

Not only that, but a lot of the Pokemon you mentioned are already in the early game-- Elekid, Vullaby, Frillish, for instance-- in the form of the mystery egg.

The entire existence of the mystery egg is exactly because I'm not concerned about so much about Pokemon sweeping through leaders-- I mean, come on, you can get Volcarona from that damn thing-- but that I don't want those options appealing to players so much that they always get them or don't consider other things as they go.

(And sure, if you get Volcarona you're probably not going to care too much about any other fire type for the rest of the playthrough-- but at least, that's not likely to be the case in the future playthroughs, which itself creates variance and more replayability)

That all said, I'm really not looking to make this topic into 'The Axe' v2. I'm pretty happy with the distribution of Pokemon early game for now.

[ArthurZH]

TBH Reborn sounds perfectly fine the way it is to me too.....

....if anything I really want tentacool not in mystery egg form.....but that's me so nvm

[Redo.]

TBH Reborn sounds perfectly fine the way it is to me too.....

....if anything I really want tentacool not in mystery egg form.....but that's me so nvm

IDK if Ame wants to make Reborn the Hoenn 2.0: water routes simulator but all the Azurine Lake (if cleaned) or the Super Rod will give us access to Tentacool (yeah, Water types in Reborn are somewhat bad and the best one are nowhere to be seen).

Edited November 8, 2015 by Redo.

[vszarpellon01]

TBH Reborn sounds perfectly fine the way it is to me too.....

....if anything I really want tentacool not in mystery egg form.....but that's me so nvm

oh god please don't

[dead account]

oh god please don't

What's wrong with that? As long as it's not too common, or if it's exclusive to an event it shouldn't be a nuisance.

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that there's no sea areas in Reborn, so having Tentacool be common wouldn't make much sense anyway.

[vszarpellon01]

What's wrong with that? As long as it's not too common, or if it's exclusive to an event it shouldn't be a nuisance.

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure that there's no sea areas in Reborn, so having Tentacool be common wouldn't make much sense anyway.

I'm still traumatized by the tentacool spam from the original games xD

[dead account]

I'm still traumatized by the tentacool spam from the original games xD

Fret not, Noibats are pretty much the closest thing to being Tentacool-level annoyingly common in this game, and they don't appear at all in areas past the point when your level limit goes high enough that you can evolve them.

[Masquerain]

I still think the placement of most things is justified at present

[sound of silence]

The only thing that might be worth axing in episode 16 would be makuhita from the slums as even with a limited movepool it really eclipses every other fighting type at that point of the game right up until you can acquire heracross. Even then it gives the stag beetle a run for its money. Hell, even when you can acquire conkeldurr and lucario, hariyama is still stupidly good.

Otherwise I agree with placement of pokes as is. Its really hard to balance some typings as there are just an insane number of grass,electric and poison types that are good early on, only to become utter rubbish or face serious competition late game. Despite the necessity in changing bulbasaur to chikorita, I'm rather worried bulbasaur will see no usage once we can acquire it unless someone is running a sun team. Same applies for oshawott unless the super rod is REALLY late game (although I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case given where we can supposedly find a certain pokemon but not actually find it at present...oh and the whole thing about those OP gen 1 water types.)

Taking the elekid example, I mean, if I saw that early game over say, tynamo or blitzle, I'll give you three guesses which one I'm using, and considering the advent of getting an egg move/tutor move on some pokes from their events, there would be 0 reason not to use anything other than elekid. If anything, electabuzz is good enough for ciel for togekiss alone, although poor magmar is all I can say at this point.

Edited November 8, 2015 by sound of silence

[Dragon116]

I could agree with moving Makuhita until near Corey, simply because 144 HP/120 Atk of Hariyama is absurd for the 2nd gym. However, the only other options in the slums are Mankey (which can't evolve until obtaining the 2nd badge without passing level cap) and Pancham (same as Mankey), both of which are too weak to stand up to Flobot. I would suggest replacing Makuhita with Machop, since we don't get a link stone until post Shelly (Machamp is still somewhat worse than Hariyama). All the other fighting types are spaced out well.

[blonduck]

I know i m ay not see it, but i cant wait for scyter to be added as obtainable

[RasenShot]

Speaking of events, I wonder if the Magikarp one will get 'delayed' again.

[The God Fist]

Speaking of events, I wonder if the Magikarp one will get 'delayed' again.

Let's be honest, we all know that we're not gonna get magikarp until post-game. I do however, believe that we are going to get at least the next 2 steps of its side quest in episode 16.

[sound of silence]

I could agree with moving Makuhita until near Corey, simply because 144 HP/120 Atk of Hariyama is absurd for the 2nd gym. However, the only other options in the slums are Mankey (which can't evolve until obtaining the 2nd badge without passing level cap) and Pancham (same as Mankey), both of which are too weak to stand up to Flobot. I would suggest replacing Makuhita with Machop, since we don't get a link stone until post Shelly (Machamp is still somewhat worse than Hariyama). All the other fighting types are spaced out well.

As someone who used primeape in my current run, you're wrong about mankey. It's capable of tanking a few smack downs from cradily, while a combination of focus energy + karate chop guarantees critical hits meaning cradily's stockpile spam is useless against it. Anger point is okay because of leet hax from AI, while defiant is also nice (triggered a defiant boost against corey, and while I was lucky with no accuracy issues afterwards, primeape took out half his team with boosted facade). Machop can't be added before Serra anyways as it too easily ruins the whole mirror arena thing with no guard.

Also you don't need makuhita for corey. Still too op with guts + facade. shelly isn't a good match-up for anything other than primeape due to speed of her bugs and by the time you get to shade its all aboard the scrafty bandwagon.

[mde2001]

Let's be honest, we all know that we're not gonna get magikarp until post-game. I do however, believe that we are going to get at least the next 2 steps of its side quest in episode 16.

I don't think we'll get Gyarados until after we battle Hardy. I think we'll get it the episode after when we do that.

[Xiri]

The only thing that might be worth axing in episode 16 would be makuhita from the slums as even with a limited movepool it really eclipses every other fighting type at that point of the game right up until you can acquire heracross. Even then it gives the stag beetle a run for its money. Hell, even when you can acquire conkeldurr and lucario, hariyama is still stupidly good.

I agree. I used a Hariyama in my recent playthrough - and it was surprisingly very useful. It's got a decent movepool and it can solo Florinia, Shade, Serra etc.

[Odybld]

So, I've been wondering a bit about starters reavailability in Reborn... So far they've been always divided into geographical trios: Chico-Tepig-Squirtle in the South (Azurine, Apophyll, Wasteland), Chespin-Cynda-Piplup in 7th Street, Turtwig-Fenek-Toto in the general Agate Circus vicinity (the Circus, Ametrine Mt., WTC). We still have three trios, with one out of each type, and the rankings in each type are propably: Treecko<Bulba<Snivy, Charmander<Chimchar<Torchic, Osha<Mudkip<Froakie. And < is not an arrow, it's a "less-that" sign.

The first trio is after the 7th gym (Aya) (yes, 7th, I count Kiki and Corey), the second is after the 10th (Radomous), the third is after Terra (14th), which means that we're 3/4 into the game and the last three trios will be kinda ...stuffed close to each other. Now, the three OP culprits will propably take a while, but considering that starters are shorta geographically based and we don't have many unexplored regions, the location possibilities are:

1) The Desert and its caves

2) Agate city (pretty surefire, imo)

3) Labradorra city (entrance to the VR and propably housing the last gym)

4) Victory Road and Charous Mt.

and since the 3) and 4) are right next to each other...

0?) the revamped Reborn city and clean Azurine lake?

In short, there could be just enough space even to fit starters anywhere and stagger them without getting zilch in the city next episode. On one side, that makes sense, since we just got another trio right before Ciel. On another side... there is a trio that's preeeeeetty underwhelming, considering what's left on the table, namely Treecko, Charmander and Oshawott. Ok, Charmander gets all the popularity grabs... but the other fire options are Chimchar and ...rolf, we ain't getting THAT.

I wonder if the utterly outclassed Oshawott will eventually get popularity grabs because Cain and adorable

Also, Makuhita replacement? Enter Tyrogue!

[Dragon116]

Tyrogue is too OP, since it evolves at 20 into Hitmonlee (potentially), which is far and away better than most fighting types. Even putting in a Hitmontop would allow people to breed a Tyrogue and then evolve it into Hitmonlee.

Also, in regards to No Guard Machamp, Serra is capable of critting much more frequently on that field, regardless of whether the evasive boosts are ignored in battle. Machamp isn't known as being the sturdiest fighting type, and Serra's team carries fighting checks with Psychic and Flying moves.

[Odybld]

Post Flobot leaders: Corey, Shelly, Shade, Kiki, Aya. None of them is afraid of the Hitmons. Most of them resist them, Shade is immune, and Kiki has lots of field-boosted Psychic coverage.

Hitmons damaging moves without the relearner... aka goddamnit GF:

Fake Out, Tackle from Tyrogue, then:

Lee (Feint at 25, HJK at 29)

Chan (Feint at 31, Elepunches at 36, Sky Uppercut at 41)

Top (Counter at 28... Feint at 30... Gyro Ball at 42... CC at 55?! I've already reached the relearner!)

[Lost Lore]

I don't feel like you've accounted for backleveling with Common Candies to get moves earlier than level 20, in which case:

Hitmonlee - Jump Kick (Level 13), Brick Break (Level 17)

Hitmonchan - Mach Punch, Bullet Punch (Level 16)

Hitmontop - Triple Kick (Level 19) [...arguably the worst of the three level-up-wise, to be honest.]

Note that normally I would not advocate this but since it's only level 20 from Tyrogue to evolve them, and you're not going far back for most of those moves...

Though you also can't breed another one before Blacksteam Factory because Tyrogue and evos are always male. (Tyrogue also can't breed in the first place, but that's irrelevant to the point.) Unless Tyrogue is a wild encounter, in which case... yeah.

[Ikaru]

That all said, I'm really not looking to make this topic into 'The Axe' v2. I'm pretty happy with the distribution of Pokemon early game for now.

I think people are missing this part.

Namely that even if this discussion does go on, this isn't the topic for it.

[Dragon116]

Totally didn't see that part. My apologies.

[Foamy]

(And sure, if you get Volcarona you're probably not going to care too much about any other fire type for the rest of the playthrough)

To be fair, Larvesta is damn near useless until almost Level 60. I'd much rather use Growlithe at that point in the game.

[Genesis]

There is one thing I would like to ask about the game. Why is exp share featured so late in the game?

Like if the reason is so that it makes it take longer to level up pokemon I would just like to say that reborn does a very good job already of making grinding grindier. Especially when you have to level up a completely new pokemon for your team as you often do.

I feel exp share should be available after Corey but before Shelly. I just think it would speed up levelling until the pokemon is strong enough to level up itself

[GenOneRaisedGenY]

There is one thing I would like to ask about the game. Why is exp share featured so late in the game?

Like if the reason is so that it makes it take longer to level up pokemon I would just like to say that reborn does a very good job already of making grinding grindier. Especially when you have to level up a completely new pokemon for your team as you often do.

I feel exp share should be available after Corey but before Shelly. I just think it would speed up levelling until the pokemon is strong enough to level up itself

Let's be fair - it was already moved earlier in the game as of Episode 15.