The Adventures of Plain Jane: A Hardcore Normal-Type Mono Run

[BijutsuYoukai]

So recently I got a little bored of my mono Fire run, tried Hardcore, and decided Hardcore with no type bars wasn't making me tear my hair out enough, so I decided to create Plain Jane and do a Normal type Hardcore playthrough! I get the feeling Kiki and VIctoria are going to be nightmares, but Normal type Pokemon are generally pretty versatile and I think I'll be ability to swing some tricks in my playthrough. Of course, they don't have the ease of simply teaching them more powerful moves via TMs, but there's always breeding to try and improve their game - at least once I get to that stage.

Adventures of Plain Jane

Current Status: Basking in triumph (Read: It's late and I should be sleeping...)

Number of Badges: 2

Hardest Battle Yet: Julia

Current Team

Harpy the Fearow (F) LV25

Hardy (Sniper)

Aerial Ace | Mirror Move | Pursuit | Fury Attack

Energizer the Buneary (F) LV26

Rash (Limber)

Jump Kick | Quick Attack | Foresight | Baton Pass

Charon the Skitty (F) LV25

Gentle (Normalize)

Disarming Voice | Doubleslap | Feint Attack | Sucker Punch

Muffin the Bibarel (M) LV25

Timid (Unaware)

Headbutt | Defense Curl | Water Gun | Rollout

Scream the Loudred (F) LV25

Brave (Soundproof)

Echoed Voice | Screech | Bite | Astonish

Gazer the Igglybuff (F) LV25

Timid (Competitive)

Pound | Charm | Sweet Kiss | Misty Terrain

Options

Entry #1: Out Into The Wide World

Fern Battle @ The Old Factory

Attempts: 2
MVP: Teensy the Pidgey

At this point my team looked like this:

Thinking Teensy the Pidgey should be able to handle Fern just fine, I make the mistake of forgetting

that I'm actually doing a hardcore run of Reborn and not the normal that may have allowed Pidgey to be a hero. Instead, my entire team is handily trounced by Fern's Stage 2 Pokemon, leaving me with a sad 6-1 in Fern's favor with only his Lombre going down. Time to go level everyone up for a bit and try again.

---

After grinding for a while to get everyone to level 16 I decide to try again and my efforts are quite rewarded. Luck is in my favor as Lombre wastes its time Growling at Teensy, who's Gust laugh in the face of lowering Attack. Once Lombre is down - despite two Potions - out comes Servine. Despite the resistance from Teensy's flying typing, Vine Whip hits quite hard. Fortunately, so does Teensy and even though she is Wrapped and Whipped, she beats down Servine and survives with 3 HP. Final out is Roselia and I know leaving in Teensy is not going to do me any good. I switch into Nyx the Meowth and follow up my advantage with a Fake Out. Fury Swipes cleans up the rest of the battle with only Nyx suffering Poison (Because I dumbly forget that moves that hit multiple times aren't super great to use when your opponent has abilities like Poison Point or Static). Huzzah for the first attempt of the run to teach Fern some humility - even if it's a waste of time.


Aster & Eclipse @ The OTHER Old Factory
Attempts: 1
MVP: Fern's Roselia

As Reborn Hardcore likes to do, this battle is made more difficult by evolving both Aster and Eclipse's Pokemon. Magmar and Electabuzz are certainly far more formidable than their pre-volution forms, though at least Fern's Pokemon are also stronger to help balance a little bit. However none of my Pokemon are above level 17 by this point, so this could be a bit tough, if only for durability's sake - as a few team members hit pretty hard to be sure.

But it turns out the two Team Meteor members hate Fern as much as the rest of us and spend their time crushing his Roselia and completely ignorning my Bibarel, Muffin, from Rollout-ing all over both their faces and OHKOing Electabuzz after a couple turns of smashing up Magmar. Either that or Meteor really needs to put more emphasis on threat identification in their orientation process. So a cakewalk it ends up being, much to my surprise.


Julia Gym Battle
Attempts: 20+
MVP: Chitter the Raticate

After booting the Meteors from the factory, it's time to take on Julia's gym. Her trainer cronies are easy enough to defeat, if a bit annoying from all the static floating around the place. However, when I reach her, my team is mostly sub-18, which on Hardcore especially is a big no-no. So instead of battling her immediately I retreat into the alleys to grind my Pokemon up even more. Some time later, two of my team have evolved and more than half my team is level 20. I decide not to grind Teensy - and my newest addition - whom I admittedly forgot to pick up sooner - Gazer the Igglybuff. Her moves aren't all that great against quick Pokemon or least not super reliable, so I decided to keep her in the back with the EXP.Share Hardcore grants. Here's to hoping the likes of Chitter the Raticate and Scream the Loudred can take out Julia's improved team.

Sadly my first attempts starts out pretty well (but ends horribly) with Chitter taking out the Magnemite lead with a combination of Hyper Fang and Sucker Punch, as well as the Emolga following, but is paralyzed by Nuzzle. When Chinchou comes out I swap into Nyx to try and take down the normally bulky Pokemon with a Fake Out+Screech+Fury Swipes combo. That plan succeeds and Voltorb comes out next. Wanting to Fake Out another day, I change into Scream to negate any Sonicboom shenanigans. And negate those I do, leading into chained Echoed Voices. I get cocky and switch into Bite not thinking that Julia has a healing item left and Voltorb goes back up to full and goes KA-BOOM taking out Scream with it.

Next up is Heliolisk and I take a chance with Muffin. Muffin does half of it's HP with one Headbutt, suffering less than half from HP Grass, but then goes down to a Parabolic Charge. Surprisingly enough, Nyx revenges kills quick enough with a Fake Out and a Fury Swipes. Finally I'm left facing off against Electrode. I sacrifice Teensy to heal Chitter, only to realize to my horror they're out of Sucker Punch. I miss a Hyper Fang and land a Quick Attack, only needing one more to defeat the Electrode. Parahax dooms me however and little Gazer tries in vain for a Sweet Kiss only to be outspeed and nuked via Charge Beam. Time to try again.

----

After that near win, many many more attempts were made, being foiled by various combination of misses, disobedience, and parahax. Eventually instead of having Chitter lead - and also realizing Hyper Fang OHKOed half of Julia's Pokemon - I finally switched Meowth as a lead, taking down Meowth. The rest fell pretty quick to Hyper Fang. Hyper Fang+Screech took care of Chinchou and I managed to cheese past Electrode with a combination of a Screech from Scream, a Headbutt from Muffin living through a +1 Charge Beam with 1 HP (Thank you Unaware) and Chitter finishing it off with a Sucker Punch. Long story short, holy shit that was a pain, but this is Hardcore after all.

Edited January 21, 2016 by BijutsuYoukai

[BijutsuYoukai]

Entry #2: Welcome to the (Concrete) Jungle

Hot off my victoria over Julia, it was off to combat some plant-based mayhem in the Obsidia Ward. First stop was the Salon to get Gazer the Igglybuff a little happier. Then off to battle our friend/pseudo rival Victoria!

Victoria Battle @ The Slums Entrance

Attempts: 1

MVP: N/A

No Pokemon particularly stood out in this battle and it was far easier than I would've thought. The team I have currently just packs a little too much oomph and each of Victoria's Pokemon - save Pignite - was down in two hits. Between Hyper Fangs from Chitter and Headbutts from Muffin, I made short work of the Fighting types. Pignite could maybe have killed off Muffin but instead chose to waste their time setting up Sunny Day - as Poliwag wasted time Rain Dancing. Also I totally forgot about Muffin's Water Gun, but hey, three Headbutts did the trick just the same.

Cain Battle @ The Coral Ward Pier
Attempts: 1
MVP: Muffin/Scream

I was feeling kind of neutral about this battle. Some of the changes in this particular fight are a little weird to me, even if I understand the changes. The biggest of these is the fact that the Oshawatt you agreed to battle is suddenly a Dewott. Harder? Yes. weird? Also yes. Anyways, the battle begins with my Scream against Cain's Grimer and it's minimize spamming BS. I answer back with Echoed Voice spam and pray that they hit. My prayers are answered and Grimer is down in two hits. Next comes roaring out Nidorino. He hits Scream pretty solid with a STAB Poison Tail, but Scream holds on with 11 HP and a super loud Echoed Voice that one shots Nidorino.

The aforementioned odd Dewott is up next. Normally I'd be more worried about this one, but I simply bring in Muffin and the samurai otter can do little against the bulk and Water typing. Muffin on the other hand has Hyper Fang at this point and mows Dewott down. Yay OP Hyper Fang! Following is a Venonat, whom I wouldn't be super concerned about in any battle - for some reason Venonat has never really impressed me - and I have Teensy (Who's now a lovely Pidgeotto) blow it away with Gust. Last out is a Gastly, which proves troublesome for Gazer and my new Skitty team member (I'm guilty of forgetting to nickname her in my excitement...), but everyone else has something to hit it. Gastly beats down Teensy and Chitter through some confusion hax, as well as the fact that I realize Chitter can't do jack against Gastly as it just uses Confuse Ray and Hypnosis over and over as Ghost moves don't work against it.

I attempt some Sweet Kisses against it as a taste of it's own medicine and horribly fail before switching back to Muffin and closing the battle off with a Water Gun.


PULSE Tangrowth Battle
Attempts: 2
MVP: Scream

Usually in my playthrough any of the early PULSE fights are a bitch and a half for me and require many attempts to defeat. This time however I decided to try a different approach than normal and just use Scream as a sacrificial lamb to bust out three Screeches and absolutely crush PULSE Tangrowth's Defense. After that it really didn't have much time to hang around as Chitter came out to gnaw on it before finishing it off with a Sucker Punch.


Fern Battle @ Florinia's Gym
Attempts: 1
MVP: Nyx

This fight ended up actually being pretty close, despite me thinking I'd get stomped into the ground. First threat out of the gate? The fully evolved Ludicolo. Surprisingly Ludicolo took about a quarter of it's HP from Nyx's Fake Out. I followed that up with a Screech before pulling Nyx out when a Water Pulse knocked down half of her health. I had previously boxed Chitter for a bit as I anticipated using a new literally shiny Buneary I had picked up earlier while looking for a Sentret (I never did find one). However, as much of my team was reaching level 25 and I didn't want to have to deal with a ton of overcapped team members, I brought her back. I also knew for Florinia I would need a lot of power. Chitter made short work of Ludicolo with a single Hyper Fang. Next came an unexpected Pokemon, a Grovyle. For those who haven't played Hardcore, evolution isn't the only thing changing the battles, but additional team memebers also, of which Fern had two (I think anyways - Ferroseed might not have been. I can't recall). I swapped back into Nyx for a Fake Out and thought I could get in a Fury Swipes before switching, but Grovyle obliterated poor Nyx with a nasty Lead Blade.

Teensy seemed the best choice after the knockout, so out she went. Even resisting it, I expected Leaf Blade to still do a massive chunk of damage. To my relief it only did maybe 20-25 damage and it went down pretty smoothly afterwards to some Gusts. Next contender was Ferroseed, whom I just brute forced my way through with spammed Gusts and then finished it off with a Jump Kick from Energizer the Buneary (I needed to prove whether or not Jump Kick would help with Florinia's so this was a great test drive). Servine and its smug smile were next and both Fern and I derped super hard on this one as I brought in Scream the Loudred. Not paying much attention to the text or effects I suppose (Sometimes playing at 5x speed is really bad...) I proceeded to spam Screech while Servine followed suit but with Growth. I finally realized when Servine attempted a Leaf Tornado and it did barely any damage what was going on. Turns out this time around Fern's Servine was a Contrary one and I'd been maxing out its Defense while it made a pitiful show of its Attack AND Special Attack. This laughably made it an easy target for my in-training Pidove, Coco, who breezed through it with a few Air Cutters.

Last up was Roselia, who finished off Coco, but couldn't stand against Chitter's might.


Florinia Gym Battle
Attempts: 4
MVP: Harpy

I forgot to screen this before the first battle unfortunately...

This battle was breezing along until my Buneary leveled up to 26 at a terrible moment and ignored orders until Ferroseed killed it. Of course Ferroseed was who I really needed its Jump Kick for. Thanks Energizer, now eat some candy.

---

Realizing after multiple other attempts that my Flying types were doing some of the best work on the team, I decided to go out and catch a Spearow and train it up, as well as level up Coco, enter Harpy, destroyer of worlds and all things grassy and green. She honestly got the crap beat out of her trying to grind up against wild Pidove and Tranquil, but once she evolved to Fearow it was all smooth sailing. She took out Cacnea lickety-split, as well as Grotle with Sniper crit, and then almost finished off Tropius on her own as well (And would've if not for Toxic-Sitrus Berry Harvest). Coco the Tranquil cleaned up Tropius well enough before moving onto Breloom and OHKOing the 4x Flying weak mushroom mon. Then onto Ferroseed. Did a bit of switching her between Coco and Energizer the Buneary, ending up with Coco down for the count and Energizer with the kill. Last but certainly not least was Cradily. The stuff of nightmares. It was time to cheese the system again and that that meant bringing in Scream to Screech her heart out at Cradily before I brought Energizer back into bring the battle to a thundering end with a final Jump Kick.

[Commander]

Err...I have to apologize about the whole confusion but I believe that is one of the older versions (1.7 I believe) or the one from the guy who originally started this project. The reason it's outdated is because well...the other guy never finished his half of the work to the point I revamped the game and fixed all of the areas he was supposed to do along with buff a couple leaders based on feedback. Florinia actually got really buffed, but don't worry too much about it now. In episode 16, the project is going to be renamed (mostly because I hate the name) so that people can actually find the latest version without any headaches.

Here's the link to the newer version: Link

[BijutsuYoukai]

Err...I have to apologize about the whole confusion but I believe that is one of the older versions (1.7 I believe) or the one from the guy who originally started this project. The reason it's outdated is because well...the other guy never finished his half of the work to the point I revamped the game and fixed all of the areas he was supposed to do along with buff a couple leaders based on feedback. Florinia actually got really buffed, but don't worry too much about it now. In episode 16, the project is going to be renamed (mostly because I hate the name) so that people can actually find the latest version without any headaches.

Here's the link to the newer version: Link

Well now I feel silly. I thought I'd had the latest version but I must've gotten it confused or the like. Just about how many updates back is the version I had?

[Commander]

Florinia got updated 4 different times due to a whole bunch of issues such as the too many evolved mons in the area making her super easy (most of her mons got really tanky). I'm just thankful you didn't get the version where the said person gave trainers Lv 25-27 mons. Some mons I believe I devolved, but most of the school mons stayed the same (I really lowered the levels though). Florinia also had her Cradily about Lv 30...with her lowest around 27. Yeah...you can see why I kind of took over.

I believe the version you're using I reworked most of the other person's areas so that it flows a lot smoother and most battles would still be enjoyable. The newest version mostly focused on buffing the super easy mons such as Cacnea (who became a nerfed Cacturne), removal of Ferroseed for Gourgeist, some added EVs to some mons later down the lines, ect. A lot of small buffs and fixing a couple issues (such as the Mega Sceptile's sprite and type) we're also done to help the mod look better.

[BijutsuYoukai]

Entry #3: No More PULSE

Taka Battle w/ PULSE Tangrowth
Attempts: 5
MVP: Energizer/Harpy

This battle took a few tries and involved a good deal of grinding after getting my butt handed to me the first couple times when challenging in the mid-to-late 20s. After grinding for a little while and spending all my money making Energizer and Gazer happy as possible and prompting them to evolve, I was ready to take on Taka again. Even with the imrpoved power and stages, this still wasn't a piece of cake and a I failed a couple more times. On the final try Energizer pushed through confusion a few clutch moments to smash with her Jump Kicks, while Harpy did a great job quelling PULSE Tangrowth with STAB Aerial Ace. Charon the SKitty lately even has shown some promise after picking up Wake-Up-Slap, Normalize proving it can help pack a good punch after all. In the future however I'd like to maybe shift into a more supportive Skitty with T-Wave/Wish or T-Wave/Sucker Punch, if it's possible anyways.


Taka & ZEL Double Battle (PULSE Tangrowth)
Attempts: 6
MVP: Energizer/Harpy

After taking a break from my adventure for a little bit - after multiple failed attempts to defeat the conbimed might of Taka and ZEL, I came back to try again, with the strategy of doing away with one side of the teams before beating down the others. So I focused on the easier Pokemon to knock off - the eeveelutions. Energizer was key in this fight, helping to brute force through all the eons. I got scared at one point when it came down to a half health scream and Harpy, but thanks to a single Revive I happened to have - I dumbly forgot to buy ANY potions for this fight - I was able to bring back Energizer the Lopunny into the line of battle. Finishing off Espeon, all that were left were my Energizer and Harpy versus PULSE Tangrowth, Gligar, Chatot, and Klefki. But my Pokemon didn't fail me and those two Attack powerhouses won it for me in the end. I would've never expected rabbits and sparrows to be so dangerous.


Note: I really wanted to include the Corey gym fight here, but I'm actually having some supreme trouble with. Not really sure how to get past the constant poison, so since it could be a while, I wanted to get these next two bits up.

Edited January 23, 2016 by BijutsuYoukai

[gryson]

catch yourself a quick feet teddiursa from the event

teach it the facade tm (onyx game corner)

also catch noctowl with hypnosis and reflect

you can start with noctowl, set up reflect and put the mon in sleep. switch to ursaring get poisoned and spam facade

[BijutsuYoukai]

catch yourself a quick feet teddiursa from the event

teach it the facade tm (onyx game corner)

also catch noctowl with hypnosis and reflect

you can start with noctowl, set up reflect and put the mon in sleep. switch to ursaring get poisoned and spam facade

I'm currently unable to find Teddiursa anywhere, day or night, in any form of weather (tried them all), so that's not going to work. I do appreciate your advice though and would take it if I could.

[Commander]

If you're doing the field Corey aka didn't find all the policemen, then Raticate will do wonders to him with Sucker Punch knocking down half his team. Guts Raticate is helpful against Mist Corey, but he's meant to be really, really difficult. If you've seen the first Teddiursa the rest are around in the daytime, but it can be hard to see at points.

Fearow and Dodrio will also really help out giving you much stronger attacks. Vigoroth and Stoutland will be able to withstand a hit and be very punishable with Take Down or Slash (I actually used Retaliate Stoutland for a very long time). Ambipom would take a bit of work, but he'd be able to do huge dents into Corey's team. I suppose Litleo would be alright due to the field effect, but you have better options. (Don't forget to pick up the Helioptile)

Facade isn't a requirement but a few people used it as a cheap way to blow right through him. I don't think he's that hard to spend hours at the slots, but it's up to you. But yeah...you'll probably want to get rid of Skitty and probably Igglybuff as they are kind of bad and you have to use the moon stone to make them useable.