The Last Sky Trainer: A Hardcore Monotype Run

[EternalJinn]

So with the second half of my senior year in high school in process and finished applications I've officially lost any remaining motivation to do anything beside what I want to and this is something I've wanted to do for A WHILE. I've already defeated reborn normal mode a couple of times and have constantly tried hardcore but keep running out of time or out of love for my run. In a last ditch effort I've decided to tackle the ever evasive flying mono that I don't see as much around the forums. The rules for the run are simple:

• Must use all flying type pokemon or pokemon who evolve into a flying type(gotta get my charizard)
• Must beat all major boss fights(especially Solaris/Arceus)
• Non-flying types can still be caught for hm or ability purposes outside of battles(dat phanpy pick up army)

Without further ado,

The Team:

• Lysandre the Charmeleon: the nearly unstoppable starter of the team. He really helped against some of the initial major fights with electric pokemon like Eclipse's Electabuzz and Julia's Electrode thanks to Dragon Rage's HUGE effect early game.
• Pidgeotto: first pokemon I caught and one of the few ones without a nickname due a dispute between Noel and BrdJsus. Sand Attack actually gives me some serious openings in some of the more intense battles; coupled with decent speed it proves somewhat useful now and should get a boost later once it evolves into Pidgeot
• Noctowl: the second pokemon I caught and a serious powerhouse on my team. Its one of the few flying types early game with the defense to take multiple hits from Julia's Emolga and survive a rock slide from Florinia's Cradily: combined with echo voice noctowl has carried in some of my battles so far
• Anna the Swoobat: a classic swoobat simple strategy in the making. The moment she gets Calm Mind I'm anticipating some serious sweeping.
• Happy the Butterfree: every boy needs his flying pet bug and my favorite is butterfree. With Julia's immunity to sleep and poison and all of the grass types in the second gym I haven't gotten the chance to use some of its powder moves but I'm expecting it to get better later on in the game with quiver dance.
• Noibat: the baby dragon of the team and a pretty reliable one at that. Noibat has managed to have some fairly good timing with supersonic and screech which has saved me in some tight situations. Once I hit Noivern its gonna get some sweet revenge against all those other noibat that bullied it during training.

In Rotation:

• Jump the Skiploom
• Tranquill
• Surskit
• Arrow the Fearow

Summary 1-1.5:

Yeah, as far as the team goes I've been pretty busy since I've finally been getting into a run thanks to the difficulty from hardcore. I've managed to make it all the way to the second gym so far after finally knocking out Julia to the ground(Noctowl+ SuperSpecialDefense + Uproar+ Noibat+Supersonic+Screech+Charmeleon+DR==ReallyLongEquation/Win). Prior to the first gym and between the first and second gym everything pretty much falls to a couple of dragon rages from Lysandre or a couple of echoed voices from Noctowl. I'm currently in the process of preping to beat Florinia. I've had to restart once so far but I think a little training with some of my pokemon and common candies should get me the moves I need to win.

-Till next time.

[Pausaunias]

it has pass from my mind to do a flying monotype run in the past but its gonna be preatty tough i think.

in your potition i would have at my team charmander, pidgeot, noivern, swablu, later maybe starly-staravia

Edited January 14, 2016 by Pausaunias

[EternalJinn]

it has pass from my mind to do a flying monotype run in the past but its gonna be preatty tough i think.

in your potition i would have at my team charmander, pidgeot, noivern, swablu, later maybe starly-staravia

I definitely expect it to be tougher than a normal monotype with the combined boss advantages of some major bosses(Julia, Florinia's Cradily, Sigmund, Blake, etc.) plus the fact that its reborn hardcore, but that's all part of the fun I expect from trying to complete it. I'm probably gonna catch almost every flying type available to keep up with hardcore's crazy leveling.

[Damage]

I tried doing the run but ended up not doing it for one reason or another. Charizard and Free are sending me on the feels train. Good luck

[Luna]

not really jumpluff with acrobatics is kinda oped and can wreck most/almost everything. see the grass hardcore mono run which quickslip is doing right now.

[Genesis]

First gym - Charmeleon is your savior with dragon rage. Pretty much wrecks Julia so long as you play smart. Hoppip to Jumpluff is also pretty awesome as mentioned above. There are a few bug types who become flying as well available from the garden i peridot that will help against florina. Good luck though

[Exalted]

flying type run gonna be honest very easy i recall i did it once before had a team of charizard hawluncha aerodactyl staraptor crobat swanna( before ciel) and in rotation archeops tropius xatu sigiliph emolga noivern pidgeot dodrio yanmega altaria driffblimp braviary honchcrow swoobat these guys tore through the game probably the easiest run through the gyms i had so much stab coverage against them ah just so much sweeping this dosent mean there were difficult moments but compared to most mono runs of reborn i did the easiest was flying

[EternalJinn]

Yeah I really didn’t think through all the runs I’ve done where it only took one good part flying mon to save my butt, especially swoobat and jumpluff. In the past I guess I’ve just found some types easier than others but this run is definitely reminding me to appreciate some of my older mons.

Summary 2-2.5:

Florinia put me to work with that Cradily. I could get my other pokemon to take down every single member but that Cradily would sweep my flying types and Lysandre 6-1 every time so I came up with one of my kick-grass strategies and the battle was a cake walk from there. Florinia starts with Cacturne and I come in with Arrow to lay down some aerial ace damage. She comes back with spikes and a buncha super potions but Arrow moves through the healing and pierces Cacturne for its last bit of hp. Next up is Breloom who gets one shot by another aerial ace from Arrow. Tropius comes out next and gets a little annoying with harvest sitrus berries; we use aerial ace and it counters with d-dance but a crit aerial ace saves our butts. I switch it out for my ace in the hole, Anna, while Florinia sends in Grotle. I have Anna use Attract thanks to an earlier stop at the game corner. Grotle becomes completely immobilized as we set up calm minds. Anna proceeds to knock out Grotle and Rini’s Gourgeist leaving the desert rose with her last thorn in my side, Cradily. I have Anna use attract which completely immobilizes Cradily and allows us to knock it out with a barrage of confusion and air cutter attacks straight through the leftover healing. With no pokemon left Florinia admits her null hypothesis was a little misguided and we win the Canopy Badge.

So after the gym Rini points us in the direction of yet another overgrown Tangrowth under the control of a different psychopath. Along the way we manage to catch an Emolga nicknamed Sparky and Jump evolves into Jumpluff who’s really boosted in the forest. After taking out some meteor goons, we find ole red scarf waiting for us:

The battle with Taka went pretty quick. Turn 1 I send out Anna against Lileep and start off immediately with attract. I proceed to set up calm minds while Lileep remains immobilized and follow up with a nice air cutter for the ko. The same thing happens to Gligar and a critical hit allows me to ohko Tangrowth after that. I decide to test my luck by keep Anna out against Taka’s Klefki and it falls to two air cutters after Anna takes some damage from foul play. Taka sends out his last pokemon and ace Chatot but it gets knocked out by a crit air cutter as well. (I played the same battle without all the crits and get the same result: Anna is too OP)

After getting yelled at by Heather for saving the day, we head through the second forest in the Beryl ward. I free the rest of the officers and eventually end up in a showdown with Taka and ZEL:

Taka and ZEL together are normally kind of a challenge for me to take on but with the combination of Swoobat and Jumpluff it became one of the easiest battles so far. I start off with Anna and Jump against Glaceon and Lileep. Jump puts Glaceon to sleep with some powder while Anna seduces Lileep with attract; Glaceon takes a nice snooze and Lileep is immobilized by attraction. Anna uses attract on Glaceon in case it wakes up but it keeps snoozing while Jump hits Glaceon with a barrage of Bullet seed but Lileep manages to break through attraction and pull off an ancient power against Anna to put her in the yellow. After that Jump keeps attacking Glaceon while ZEL tries to heal and Anna sets up while Lileep keeps up its googly eyes instead of attacking. I use Jump's turn to heal Anna while she proceeds to knock out Glaceon with backup from Jump and Lileep avoids the attack but stays crazy in love. ZEL sends out Jolteon next but a combo from Jump and Anna takes it out as well with Jump only sustaining minimal damage from a double kick and continued immobilization from Lileep. The battle proceeds in a similar pattern with Jump and Anna taking out Espeon and Umbreon while taking out Taka’s Lileep, Gligar, and Tangrowth. With all of Zel’s pokemon out, Anna and Jump proceed to knock out Chatot and Klefki ftw.

Before I face Corey I decide to do some grinding to train up the 11 mons I’ve caught so far to get everyone up to speed; Trainquill evolves into Unfezant and Pidgeotto evolves into Pidgeot in the process. After knocking out some hypnotized officers in the gym, we head to the battlefield to face the self-righteous bastard:

Corey definitely got tougher in hardcore, especially with some of his opening ice moves, but regardless we had to put him in his place. Corey sends out Qwilfish while we send out Sparky. Sparky uses Nuzzle while Qwilfish counters with a powered up bubble beam but we knock it out with electro ball next turn. I switch out Sparky for Pidgeot while Corey sends out Swalot. We finally get rid of the field effect with a gust from Pidgeot but it gets frozen by an ice beam from Swalot. I switch out Pidgeot for good ole Anna the Asskicker and she eats a hit from Swalot’s ice beam. Anna proceeds to seduce Swalot with an attract and immobilizes it with love. Anna continues to set up calm minds while Swalot gazes at its glorious siren. We get Anna healed up and start to sweep with a ohko confusion on Swalot. We do the same to Nidoqueen, Scolipede, and Skuntank with a barrage of confusion and air slash attacks until Corey is left with his last pokemon. Corey sends out Crobat and attempts to flinch us with Air Slash but to no avail. Anna knocks out Crobat with one last confusion and we win the battle.

We send Corey into a suicidal state of enlightenment that results in his sad ending. We leave from the bridge and head towards the Lapis Ward to check out the explosion near the staircase and get our 3^rd official gym badge.

Current Team and Rotation Mons:

I’m starting to realize how ridonkulous of a pokemon Swoobat really is with the simple calm mind combo. I’m thinking the next gyms with bug and ghost type leaders will put a temporary stop to Anna’s rampage for now so this entire journey doesn’t become completely redundant but if that’s not the case I might put a limit on when I can actually battle with Anna. The team has gotten to that OP stage and that’s only with the mons that are currently available. Once Surskit learns baton pass and later quiver dance as a Masquirain I can pretty much set up against any major boss fight so I won’t rely on Anna alone. I’m gonna wait a couple of days to grieve for Corey and finish some applications irl.

-Till next time.

Edited January 18, 2016 by EternalJinn