Noel, Cinccinno, Fun, and Challenge.

[Chase]

In celebration of finally passing the roadblock I'd had in this game for literally three years - I want to have a serious open minded conversation about Noel, the game's seventh gym leader (according to Fern... let's see - Julia, Florinia, Corey, Shelly, Kiki, Aya, Serra- with Aya replacing Corey's badge and Kiki not giving you one...that makes five....I'm probably lost somewhere, but Fern is at least right in asserting he is ahead of us when we reach the adventurine woods.) - and the Reborn League's normal type specialist.

 

Most people complain about Reborn's difficulty because of the mechanics Amethyst and Co. put in place. My problem with Noel however isn't his field effect.

 

Noel fights the player in a 6v6 singles match using his normal type team featuring Clefable (an exemption given to Noel specifically, according to Ame when spoken to through the gym monitor at the Orphanage - and yes, her gym tips, even though they are given very far in advance for when you actually fight Noel, still apply, as the Belrose estate has the same presumed field effect as the Orphanage arena.)

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Here's the team rundown:

 

Noel will LEAD with Wigglytuff - which isn't a common Pokémon in competitive play....at first glance. Competitive Pokémon is a spotlight in particular with Noel's team, as many of his Pokémon have what appear to be Smogon inspired sets. Wigglytuff may not be common - but it is a normal type that can set up Stealth Rocks, which are pivotal for Noel against trainers looking to set his field on fire with incoming Pokémon of said type. Wiggly is essentially a throw-away standard lead pokemon because of this, making use of stab moves until it faints afterwards.

 

Noel also has a Porygon-Z holding a Petaya Berry and rocking the Download ability. Download essentially picks an attacking stat at random to boost when sent out. As the player, you are hoping PZ gets saddled with a useless Physical Attack boost, as it attacks with special moves. If you are unable to faint PZ with a strong move, it will get down to the HP range to eat it's Petaya Berry - which will boost it's Special attack significantly (a deadly pair with a Sp.Attack Download.) Once that happens - you need to outspeed, or you are getting swept.

 

Noel runs Flame Orb/Guts Swellow - a normal type Pokémon that isn't Staraptor for sure, but is just as terrifying when the conditions are set. Swellow runs Façade in it's moveset, which it gets STAB and bonus damage from with Guts, making for a wallbreaker after its Flame Orb does it's job.

 

There's Clefable.....who's set I'm not sure of because Noel's ace actually gave me the LEAST amount of trouble. I wouldn't let the thing hang around though, bring a poison or steel type, or get the burning field up. It was/possibly still is an "overused" Pokémon for a reason. For those of you stuck in Generation 5, don't let Noel's Clefable formerly being a Normal type fool you.

 

Girafarig threatens Fighting types, which provide the only outright "weakness" for Noel's normal types, as well as give him another special attacker for balance.

 

...and then there's Cinccinno.....a pokemon who is so annoying I can't even spell it's name correctly with confidence. This....thing has the ability Skill Link, which allows for any move that can hit 5 times in a single turn - to do so every. single. time. It also has great coverage in Bullet Seed, Rock Blast, and it's personal move, Tail Slap. Finally, it seems like it's carrying the King's Rock, which makes any move the pokemon holding it uses have a chance to flinch the target. This applies for every "hit", and not just the turn, so if you get hit with 5 Rock Blasts, the flinch chance is applied for all five of those hits.

 

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"But Hunter, how is complaining about Noel different from complaining about the field effects with other leaders, and why should it matter? The game is supposed to be challenging!"

 

1. Cinccinno isn't a Pokémon that is challenging to deal with at all. if you have a faster status setter, or break through the flinch chance to land a status, you can slow Cinccinno down to wallop it no problem. It doesn't exist on Noel's team to posit a challenge at all. In fact, most Pokémon will still be standing after this thing uses a move.

 

2. Skill Link+King's Rock isn't a matter of Reborn mechanics. It's just as frustrating in a 6th Gen RU match when another player brings it along as it is when Noel is using it. There's no creative license Amethyst can claim in defending the Pokémon. She has to simply own that it's there to be oppositional to the player in the only way it knows how, by being absolutely annoying. Or I guess she can say it's cute - but that's not the part I'm taking exception to.

 

3. Field effects make the game FUN and interesting. There's absolutely nothing fun about having your Pokémon unable to do anything, even when it has the type advantage, the stats advantage, and can somehow survive Cinchy's excellent coverage.

 

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Now, I know Amethyst isn't FINISHED with Reborn quite yet - and that's one of the major reasons I'm comfortable making this sorta scathing critique public. I also know many of you are a lot better at Reborn than I am, and maybe it really is just my aptitude for the game that holds me back instead of Cinchy actually being frustrating. So, I'm okay with comments simply telling me to "get gud". However, I really think Noel's team could be predicated significantly less on frustrating the players by completely rendering their Pokémon useless and still be a "hard" battle. With Generation 7, there's several unique normal types to consider in it's place.

 

Komala for example, can't be statused at all thanks to always being asleep.

 

Bewear is a significantly bulky Normal/Fighting type thanks to it's ability Fluffy.

 

Drampa is a Normal Dragon that seems pretty cool...then there's things like Toucannon...who can also have skill link but picks up more weaknesses to compensate if we REALLY have to go with a Skill Link flinch abuser.

 

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TL:DR

 

Noel's "gimmick" is that he's a barebones normal monotype trainer that adheres to Smogon's recommended sets, and relies heavily on the effectiveness of his Pokémon's builds to win the match. All of this provides him with a fairly difficult fight in 5 out of 6 instances on his team, with the outlier being Cinccinno. Cinccinno can be replaced with another Normal type without compromising the difficulty of Noel's battle and keeping up with his premise. Replacing Cinccinno with something like a unique Gen 7 Pokémon will also bring his team up to the current Pokémon world and provide him with something his battle with Cinccinno on his team lacks - actual fun.

 

 

[Octavius]

My idea for Noel would be to always have sunny weather for the fight (a little sun after emerging from tanzan depths is pretty nice anyways!) and keep the grassy terrain. Then his team would consist of a heliolisk with solar power, a pyroar (with fire STAB boosted by sun), and a sawsbuck with chlorophyll. This weather aspect which adds a much-needed dimension to his rather abusable field.

And as for the cinccino, yes, king's rock is b.s.: Either noel should lead with the little chinchilla so you can soft-reset it to death, or have that thing not be on his team at all. Getting flinch hacked at the end of a long fight and losing because of it is disgustingly tilting. The rest of his team is kind of whatever; girafarig, wigglytuff, or any of the multitude of normal/flying types are fine to include because they help with his fighting weakness. And I personally think his clefable should be removed because it is no longer normal-type. It simply isn't necessary.  

 

Also, download boosts attack or special attack when the user switches in based on the opposing pokemon's lower defensive stat. If your pokemon has lower special defense than defense, download will boost its user's special attack.

And the clefable has a cosmic power/stored power set I believe? I might be wrong there; like you said, the clefable isn't even his real ace; it's his porygon.

[Zargerth]

Noel's field (if you can call it that) can be set on fire. Many Fire-types tend to be fast, so you have no problem doing that versus Wigglytuff. Bewear would get obliterated even by a single hit from Fire Spin at that point. Cinccino can actually stop your Fire-types from completely annihilating Noel's entire team. I admit, getting flinched is annoying but it's not unavoidable. You can set up against Wigglytuff and then sweep, or bring mons with Inner Focus or Steadfast -ability against Cinccino, if nothing else seems to work.

 

Toucannon lacks the speed to do what Cinccino does. While it's not as frail as Cinccino, Toucannon can't effectively flinch anything by being slower. Komala gets wrecked by Fighting -types; low HP, Defence and Speed stats do it no favors. Drampa might actually be interesting to see, but in my opinion it works way better in Normal -type teams that utilize Trick Room. Of course, I have no actual proof or evidence so take what I say with a grain of salt.

 

If I had to replace something in Noel's team, that would be Girafarig. Not only Porygon-Z has higher Speed and Sp.Attack, it can also gain another boost with Download. And it has Psychic. I don't see why you'd need Girafarig if Porygon-Z can counter Fighting-types. As for what I would replace Girafarig with, that would be either Ambipom (why are you so ignored) or Pyroar. Ambipom unfortunately doesn't have that many moves to make good use of Skill Link, but it can make use of Technician with moves like Fake Out and Aerial Ace/Acrobatics. Pyroar on the other hand is more of a double-edged sword simply because of the field.

 

I guess the tl:dr is while Cinccino is annoying to deal with, it is in my opinion da MVP (so to speak) in Noel's team.

[FairFamily]

I kinda like Cinccino on his team. Well the set is extremely basic, I kinda like the gimmick of it. Having a 41% chance to flinch is not that bad in my opinion. There are way worse sets.

 

What I absolutely love about his Cinccino is that it screams Normal. It is one of those typical forest critters that one associate with normal. It's like doing a flying mono with gyarados, minior,mantine, drifblim, rotom-F and salamance. None these pokemon represent the flying type in my opinion. I kinda have the same feeling with most of Noëls team.

Edited August 28, 2017 by FairFamily

[Chase]

I get the novelty Chinchy has - but it's shared by Swellow (and other birds) in that their very clearly birdlike features are plain sight in the real world. For me, Swellow fills the "normal" niche without angering me that it exists.

 

Even people that like the Pokémon where it is have stated that Cinccino flinching you to death is annoying. Why is "annoying" a necessity? I don't mind "hard" - but the rule of thumb should be that the game is hard because the process of success is complex and there's room for you the player to make mistakes. You shouldn't just be shut down just because there are some items and abilities that can do that when put together. It just isn't fun to get screwed over. Plain and simple.

 

I will give Chinchy props in that it's a good check to Fire types that want to ruin Noel's day - but not every person that plays Reborn is going to think "I should mess the field up!" - I have a picture that proves I did it without having to (It was raining in game...), and Stealth Rocks isn't reliably removed by most players and accomplishes the same goal when you have threats like Swellow and PZ running around.

 

The players should be able to correct mistakes - not have to restart the battle over and over and hope to break through the windmill.

 

also, ambipom does the SAME THING as Chincy, except Fake Out ensures a flinch - making it even WORSE.

[Seel The Deal]

Ambipom doesn't do the same thing as Cincinno, it doesn't benefit nearly as much from Skill Link and doesn't get as much coverage, instead trading it for raw power (110 base rather than 95) and I think a tiny bit of speed and bulk. It wouldn't make a great flinch haxer, and would probably be better suited to a Technician set with moves like Double Hit, Pursuit, Fake Out, Doubleslap and Aerial Ace.

 

On the topic of Cincinno countering Fire types: yes, it does this, but... it can do this WITHOUT King's Rock, which is why I personally consider it annoying (rather than the annoying thing being the flinch hax itself). Giving it something to offensively boost Rock Blast (or all its moves depending on the item) would make it just as threatening without the BS flinch hax.

 

...and this is coming from a guy who abused King's Rock Cincinno although I used Choice Band more lol back in the ORAS RU days of Showdown, and with all the salt you see in the chat, it almost isn't even fun using it yourself.

Edited August 29, 2017 by Seel The Deal

[Titania]

4 hours ago, Chase said:

Noel also has a Porygon-Z holding a Petaya Berry and rocking the Download ability. Download essentially picks an attacking stat at random to boost when sent out.

Whoopsie!  You've got a factual error there - download does not choose at random.  It boosts the same attacking stat as the lower of the opponent's defending stats.  If those are tied, it boosts special attack.  So you can always control his download to screw it, if you've a mind to.

 

I don't think this significantly impacts your main point though, which is that Noel is easily the most boring of the leaders (IMO Sampson competes for that).  And even though I also think he's one of the single easiest, I agree he is REALLY boring compared to vibrancy of most leaders.

[Alistair]

Aw, so much dislike for mah boi Noel. Whereas I agree with his battle being a bit underwhelming (not even because of Chinchy, just because it's very easy to abuse the field against him, and the only real threat on his team is Porygon-Z), I actually... like this character.

 

Among all the vibrant personalities, colorful hair and uniqueness, he's just this little guy who does the job, keeps his cool, has his head square on his shoulders and his feet firmly planted on the ground. He might not be very fun, he might not be very interesting, he might not do much of anything special, but he represents normalcy (wink wink) in an otherwise rather extravagant cast. He's a polar opposite and perfect counterpart to his sister.

Samson kinda serves the same purpose with Terra. Their respective battles reflect that. Not many fancy tricks, no special gimmick like Radomus' Trick Room or Florinia's 'Desert Rose' style. Just straightforward contests of strength (on a side note, Charlotte kinda does that too but gets away with it waaay more easily due to being generally tougher than these 2, and a more interesting character outside of battle).

 

As far as Chinchy goes... I agree that he's annoying, but he's not much of a problem imo. He could totally be replaced with something else, but it doesn't matter if he stays. Noel isn't really harder or easier to beat because of him... in my experience at least.

 

Reminds me of how I realized only very recently that Noel and Anna's E16 overworld sprites are designed to make them look as if they were holding Nomos and Nostra, respectively. Oh well, time to buy myself a new pair of eyes =p

[Yagami]

I honestly liked the Noel gym battle because every time I fought him something was different.

First time I fought him his field was grassy terrain.So I burned it and used it at my advantage.

2nd time I fought him it was raining.So I couldn't set the field ablaze.So I set up 1 sticky web and 1 stealth rock and used it at my advantage.
Noel's pokemon has good type coverage so I don't see the problem.The problem I find is the AI.For example,Wigglytuff only uses dazzling gleam and thunder wave so,a pokemon with calm mind,nasty plot etc can easily sweep.So any steel type pokemon or any pokemon with calm mind cough*gardevoir*cough can sweep Noel.

But I think a bewear will be a good addition to his team.