Episode 18: Rock on? (Opinions on the episode)

[Zander]

 

Not going to bother putting anything in a spoiler. Because everything is a spoiler. This post itself is a spoiler for the entire episode. If you haven't played it then don't read this. If you have played the episode then rock with me. This is a lot of stuff so get your reading glasses on. 

 

Edit: Moderators doing their job I see
 

Alright so episode 18. Kinda short episode. But maybe all episodes are short and I'm just used to playing 15 episodes at once? Though episode 19 is the last one which includes the story, a gym battle, maybe more story, the elite four and the champion. So yeah, kinda dunno about the pacing there. 

 

We start off in Calcenon city. Immediately go to Ametrine Mountain and get, perhaps the most anticipated hm(tmXx) in the game, rock climb. I'm sure many people must have ditched Hardy right there and gone and looked for every possible rock climb spot to get their hands on some tm. Most likely checked place must have been Apophyll Academy. Just an intuition. I decided to continue on with the story however. Found Hardy after a bit of looking(two water areas looking the exact same did not help) and won 2000 poke easily from him. Come on. Anybody who actually expected a direct entry after all the game has put you through is really not in sync with the episode. 

 

Team Meteor at Devon Corp

 

And lo we find Bennett. He's all mature now supposedly. And of course the best way to demonstrate maturity is to put everyone to sleep, right?! Seriously, watch some James Bond movies Bennett. A real mature person invites you to lunch and tells you his entire evil plan! Luckily a certain ice type uses heal bell on you and you alone so you're awake again. Either that or Hardy was at a music concert in his sleep so didn't want to wake up. 

 

Then you solve the puzzle. No clue as to why would a factory require motlen lava or why would only ice containers be movable and not just everything pushed to the side but okay, we have to solve the puzzle. Though if Bennett just wanted to use us then we should have been invited directly into the Hypno chamber(James Bond man, you really gotta watch that Bennett) but like I said, Reborn is reborn. 

 

But then happens the greatest plot twists of all time. I was seriously not expecting that.....Team Meteor actually manages to use a PULSE effectively and do enough damage they need to do?!! This was supposed to be an old pulse too since Agate has been shut for so long. Looks like their PULSE mechanics got worse over the course of time. Thanks Eve. 

But no, seriously, the battle gauntlet was actually a brilliant idea. Fighting four gym leaders and a support guy with a diverse team is pretty damn challenging. Doesn't help that those pokemon are actually competitive movesets. Focus sash sticky web. That's like as basic as you can get for a competitive team. Oh and I did I mention that some of the Pokemon used are OU? Like proper OU?? Alolan Marovack, Volcarona, Alolan Ninetails, Mimikyu, Mega Gardevoir etc. And most others were basically UU which is not so far behind. No wonder I lost the first time. I actually had a pretty competitive team as well. Not full OU of course but yeah, Magnezone, Greninja and Noivern were the main mvps. Greninja was life orb and Noivern choice specs so yeah, it was a situation of anything they touch dies. But was still very rough. I got to Serra right on try 1 but the mega Gardevoir was proving to be a real issue. So I said okay, let's get really real, and got out my perfect IV bred, EV trained Metagross with assault vest. Obviously I won then, right? Nope. Noivern is like, listen here you little shit, I'm the real mvp. And until you acknowledge that, I'm going to miss all my Hurricanes when it counts. And that's exactly what it did. For 3 more tries I couldn't get past Shelly because of this. On my 5th try I was really asking Noivern through my pc screen to not miss so I guess it took pity on me and listened. What a pokemon. But yeah, Metagross with bullet punch/meteor mash and adamant nature just mashed the entire opponent team. I had a cool combo of Sludge Wave Nidoking and Discharge Magnezone going on but after seeing Metagross I literally gave up on that. It's a true pseudo legendary after all. 

 

The Dark World

 

We enter the dark world or as I would think, the shadow realm of Pokemon reborn. Basically Ame laid out all the paths of the story we could have taken so far. That's why there were 2 or 3 different paths in some places but they all lead to the same outcome. It was pretty cool to watch. It also made me realize that the cast of Reborn is fucked up. Really bad. Since every single important character has a problem with their family, their friends, or their own selves. No one is normal. Because all normal people can't become gym leaders apparently or anybody of importance at all. Except us of course. I'm just waiting for our character's back story to be revealed and be like our mother is dead and father abandoned us or something. That would make sense and we would fit perfectly into the world of Pokemon Reborn. 

 

But anyways, we get out thanks to Luna who can survive inside black holes for no reason and Shade who is simply even more broken than her. And Randoms fills us in on what happened. Long story short, we were Hulk. And Gardevoir was Thor. So Thor won. 

FYI, according to 'Game Theory', a black hole created by a Gardevoir would be irrelevant as it wouldn't have enough energy to even be noticeable, much less open the door to the shadow realm. Was a pretty cool scene to look at though. 

 

Finally after listening to Serra's depression, we get another plot twist? Nora and Anna are Randomus's children. And they expected everyone to know that. Well the cast of Reborn is kinda confusing so I couldn't understand how anyone was supposed to guess that. Especially when literally 30 minutes ago it was heavily implied that Serra, Randomus, Gardevoir and Luna were a family. What even happened to that? Were they not family then? Or was a new relationship just forming? See? It's down right confusing! And so Randomus went on to entertain the two children with his ever changing outfits. Rumor has it that he will have to do it for the entire episode which is why he didn't come to Agate city help. Of course the two children just happen to be gym leaders so Randomus really not being helpful there. 

 

The Importance of PULSE

 

Talking to people inside Calcenon is optional. But if you do, Eve is the most important. Because she tells you about all the PULSE pokemon. And everyone saw this coming right from the time we first meet Lin. It was just an impossible idea at that time but it's slowly coming to reality. Yep, PULSE Arceus. Lin is mad. But she'll do it. All I'm going to say is this. Have you ever played pokemon Insurgence? In the post game, Ruerka uses the Azure flute to call upon Arceus. Then he throws a master ball at it. Guess what. Arceus swats it away like it's nothing. So yeah, that's about the average power of the legendary God pokemon. I know all of Arceus's plates are scattered throughout the region so Arceus should technically be powerless according to the movie, Arceus and the Jewel of Life. Maybe we have to give it back to him or something so he gets freed from the PULSE. 

Oh but there's more. Something kinda important? Well, all pokemon can gain EVs right? Apparently all of team meteor pokemon can too. And they also use a lower model of the PULSE system. Meaning all the high ranking members of team meteor can have 252 EVs in their stat. Wait did I say 252? I meant they are going to be ABOVE 252 in their stat. Yeah, let's see how bad that is. 252÷4= 63. 252 EVs gives maximum of 62 stat points in one stat as 4 EVs equals one stat point. So if a Jolly Garchomp has 333 speed at level 100 with 252 speed evs. Getting above 252 evs meaning it can go as far as breaking 350 speed which is equivalent to the speed of a Kartna. Now you slap a choice scarf on that. Yeah, I don't think anyone would use a Latios if that kind of Garchomp existed. 

 

We get to test out this new found adversary immediately in Agate City. Team Meteor has taken control and Solaris wants to face us one on one. I didn't notice any significant change in his pokemon stats to be fair. His Mega Garchomp didn't die to a choice specs dragon pulse from a Modest Noivern which is surprising but maybe it's just bulky? Anyways his team was manageable. Used a couple of full restores but nothing really great happened. Especially after that battle gauntlet, this seemed like cakewalk. 

After the battle, Taka(he's alive for me because Zekrom is cooler) uses his Chatot to free the captive gym leaders and....peck Sirius? Literally it just nibs him and he runs. Reminder that this is the same Chatot who anhilated a lot of teams with Chatter, Boomburst and Heat Wave. So good job Taka but you just signed your death warrant. 

 

Lin is a Ghost

 

We get to chase Lin of course. Up the waterfall, down the river and back up the waterfall again. Lin can swim. And dive. And stay underwater however she wants. This leads me to believe that Lin is actually a ghost. It makes sense. Her Hydreigon is real and her ghost projection is sitting on it. Her real body is in the area where Adreann awoke from after sleeping for 70 years. This can be further evidenced by what happened down in the river. She's got the machine and everything. We are blocking her path. I'm getting ready to face her Hydreigon with my pokemon. And then she shoves me aside. Or our character literally just moves aside. What? Why? How? These were the questions I asked. But if Lin is a ghost then it makes perfect sense. Also explains how Titania didn't manage to kill her. Easy. Next. 

 

Next Lin uses "A" Gardevoir to take Ceil away. It looked like Randoms's to me as it was also there in the shadow realm area. Samson punches the wall and walks away in shame because he couldn't do anything. Hardy doesn't care and simply tells us to battle him in his gym because he hasn't used it at all. 

 

The power of OU in a wannabe good Gym

 

The gym puzzle still puzzles me so no comments on that. I just can't figure out what part of the Guitar does the puzzle use and what's the logic. 

 

The gym battle was supposed to be tough. Buuut surprise! I had enough! My Noivern was frisking all the items Hardy's trainers were using. Choice Band Tyranitar? Choice Band Armaldo? Telluric Seed that boosts evasion? Yeah no, that's enough. I decided to finally bring out the power. And so I deposited some of my pokemon in the pc. My pokemon for the gym battle were, Garchomp, Metagross and Greninja. Perfect IVs, full EVs and competitive movesets. Garchomp has bulldoze and Aqua Tail because I am too lazy to find Earthquake. If I had Earthquake then Hardy would have died without any challenges because Bulldoze is only 60 base power and it was easily doing more than half hp to even Gigalith. Metagross had Air Balloon so Bullet Punches were helping. Had to use Magnezone as well to double team his mega Aerodactyl with Garchomp but overall easy battle. 

Btw I'm bragging but I totally called his mega out to be Mega Aerodactyl. And also that he wouldn't have a Tyranitar. Both were correct. 

Incidentally, Hardy said that he's ranked above his sister for a reason. Who's his sister again? I completely forgot about it. I thought he was only related to Aya. It can't be Titania, can it? 

 

I had fun. Where do we continue from again? 

 

And that brings us to the end of the episode! But even the ending was spicy! Because some person wanted acknowledgement for helping us and threatened to keep us in the black space forever. We were let go off eventually but wow that was pretty puzzling. 

 

So what did you guys think? Was the episode super good? Was a previous episode even better? How about difficulty of the battles and competitive items? I personally will be making a new team for episode 19 so that should be fun. Thanks for reading and do comment your thoughts below!

 

[Abyssreaper99]

30 minutes ago, Zander said:

Spoiler

Not going to bother putting anything in a spoiler. Because everything is a spoiler. This post itself is a spoiler for the entire episode. If you haven't played it then don't read this. If you have played the episode then rock with me. This is a lot of stuff so get your reading glasses on. 

 

Alright so episode 18. Kinda short episode. But maybe all episodes are short and I'm just used to playing 15 episodes at once? Though episode 19 is the last one which includes the story, a gym battle, maybe more story, the elite four and the champion. So yeah, kinda dunno about the pacing there. 

 

We start off in Calcenon city. Immediately go to Ametrine Mountain and get, perhaps the most anticipated hm(tmXx) in the game, rock climb. I'm sure many people must have ditched Hardy right there and gone and looked for every possible rock climb spot to get their hands on some tm. Most likely checked place must have been Apophyll Academy. Just an intuition. I decided to continue on with the story however. Found Hardy after a bit of looking(two water areas looking the exact same did not help) and won 2000 poke easily from him. Come on. Anybody who actually expected a direct entry after all the game has put you through is really not in sync with the episode. 

 

Team Meteor at Devon Corp

 

And lo we find Bennett. He's all mature now supposedly. And of course the best way to demonstrate maturity is to put everyone to sleep, right?! Seriously, watch some James Bond movies Bennett. A real mature person invites you to lunch and tells you his entire evil plan! Luckily a certain ice type uses heal bell on you and you alone so you're awake again. Either that or Hardy was at a music concert in his sleep so didn't want to wake up. 

 

Then you solve the puzzle. No clue as to why would a factory require motlen lava or why would only ice containers be movable and not just everything pushed to the side but okay, we have to solve the puzzle. Though if Bennett just wanted to use us then we should have been invited directly into the Hypno chamber(James Bond man, you really gotta watch that Bennett) but like I said, Reborn is reborn. 

 

But then happens the greatest plot twists of all time. I was seriously not expecting that.....Team Meteor actually manages to use a PULSE effectively and do enough damage they need to do?!! This was supposed to be an old pulse too since Agate has been shut for so long. Looks like their PULSE mechanics got worse over the course of time. Thanks Eve. 

But no, seriously, the battle gauntlet was actually a brilliant idea. Fighting four gym leaders and a support guy with a diverse team is pretty damn challenging. Doesn't help that those pokemon are actually competitive movesets. Focus sash sticky web. That's like as basic as you can get for a competitive team. Oh and I did I mention that some of the Pokemon used are OU? Like proper OU?? Alolan Marovack, Volcarona, Alolan Ninetails, Mimikyu, Mega Gardevoir etc. And most others were basically UU which is not so far behind. No wonder I lost the first time. I actually had a pretty competitive team as well. Not full OU of course but yeah, Magnezone, Greninja and Noivern were the main mvps. Greninja was life orb and Noivern choice specs so yeah, it was a situation of anything they touch dies. But was still very rough. I got to Serra right on try 1 but the mega Gardevoir was proving to be a real issue. So I said okay, let's get really real, and got out my perfect IV bred, EV trained Metagross with assault vest. Obviously I won then, right? Nope. Noivern is like, listen here you little shit, I'm the real mvp. And until you acknowledge that, I'm going to miss all my Hurricanes when it counts. And that's exactly what it did. For 3 more tries I couldn't get past Shelly because of this. On my 5th try I was really asking Noivern through my pc screen to not miss so I guess it took pity on me and listened. What a pokemon. But yeah, Metagross with bullet punch/meteor mash and adamant nature just mashed the entire opponent team. I had a cool combo of Sludge Wave Nidoking and Discharge Magnezone going on but after seeing Metagross I literally gave up on that. It's a true pseudo legendary after all. 

 

The Dark World

 

We enter the dark world or as I would think, the shadow realm of Pokemon reborn. Basically Ame laid out all the paths of the story we could have taken so far. That's why there were 2 or 3 different paths in some places but they all lead to the same outcome. It was pretty cool to watch. It also made me realize that the cast of Reborn is fucked up. Really bad. Since every single important character has a problem with their family, their friends, or their own selves. No one is normal. Because all normal people can't become gym leaders apparently or anybody of importance at all. Except us of course. I'm just waiting for our character's back story to be revealed and be like our mother is dead and father abandoned us or something. That would make sense and we would fit perfectly into the world of Pokemon Reborn. 

 

But anyways, we get out thanks to Luna who can survive inside black holes for no reason and Shade who is simply even more broken than her. And Randoms fills us in on what happened. Long story short, we were Hulk. And Gardevoir was Thor. So Thor won. 

FYI, according to 'Game Theory', a black hole created by a Gardevoir would be irrelevant as it wouldn't have enough energy to even be noticeable, much less open the door to the shadow realm. Was a pretty cool scene to look at though. 

 

Finally after listening to Serra's depression, we get another plot twist? Nora and Anna are Randomus's children. And they expected everyone to know that. Well the cast of Reborn is kinda confusing so I couldn't understand how anyone was supposed to guess that. Especially when literally 30 minutes ago it was heavily implied that Serra, Randomus, Gardevoir and Luna were a family. What even happened to that? Were they not family then? Or was a new relationship just forming? See? It's down right confusing! And so Randomus went on to entertain the two children with his ever changing outfits. Rumor has it that he will have to do it for the entire episode which is why he didn't come to Agate city help. Of course the two children just happen to be gym leaders so Randomus really not being helpful there. 

 

The Importance of PULSE

 

Talking to people inside Calcenon is optional. But if you do, Eve is the most important. Because she tells you about all the PULSE pokemon. And everyone saw this coming right from the time we first meet Lin. It was just an impossible idea at that time but it's slowly coming to reality. Yep, PULSE Arceus. Lin is mad. But she'll do it. All I'm going to say is this. Have you ever played pokemon Insurgence? In the post game, Ruerka uses the Azure flute to call upon Arceus. Then he throws a master ball at it. Guess what. Arceus swats it away like it's nothing. So yeah, that's about the average power of the legendary God pokemon. I know all of Arceus's plates are scattered throughout the region so Arceus should technically be powerless according to the movie, Arceus and the Jewel of Life. Maybe we have to give it back to him or something so he gets freed from the PULSE. 

Oh but there's more. Something kinda important? Well, all pokemon can gain EVs right? Apparently all of team meteor pokemon can too. And they also use a lower model of the PULSE system. Meaning all the high ranking members of team meteor can have 252 EVs in their stat. Wait did I say 252? I meant they are going to be ABOVE 252 in their stat. Yeah, let's see how bad that is. 252÷4= 63. 252 EVs gives maximum of 62 stat points in one stat as 4 EVs equals one stat point. So if a Jolly Garchomp has 333 speed at level 100 with 252 speed evs. Getting above 252 evs meaning it can go as far as breaking 350 speed which is equivalent to the speed of a Kartna. Now you slap a choice scarf on that. Yeah, I don't think anyone would use a Latios if that kind of Garchomp existed. 

 

We get to test out this new found adversary immediately in Agate City. Team Meteor has taken control and Solaris wants to face us one on one. I didn't notice any significant change in his pokemon stats to be fair. His Mega Garchomp didn't die to a choice specs dragon pulse from a Modest Noivern which is surprising but maybe it's just bulky? Anyways his team was manageable. Used a couple of full restores but nothing really great happened. Especially after that battle gauntlet, this seemed like cakewalk. 

After the battle, Taka(he's alive for me because Zekrom is cooler) uses his Chatot to free the captive gym leaders and....peck Sirius? Literally it just nibs him and he runs. Reminder that this is the same Chatot who anhilated a lot of teams with Chatter, Boomburst and Heat Wave. So good job Taka but you just signed your death warrant. 

 

Lin is a Ghost

 

We get to chase Lin of course. Up the waterfall, down the river and back up the waterfall again. Lin can swim. And dive. And stay underwater however she wants. This leads me to believe that Lin is actually a ghost. It makes sense. Her Hydreigon is real and her ghost projection is sitting on it. Her real body is in the area where Adreann awoke from after sleeping for 70 years. This can be further evidenced by what happened down in the river. She's got the machine and everything. We are blocking her path. I'm getting ready to face her Hydreigon with my pokemon. And then she shoves me aside. Or our character literally just moves aside. What? Why? How? These were the questions I asked. But if Lin is a ghost then it makes perfect sense. Also explains how Titania didn't manage to kill her. Easy. Next. 

 

Next Lin uses "A" Gardevoir to take Ceil away. It looked like Randoms's to me as it was also there in the shadow realm area. Samson punches the wall and walks away in shame because he couldn't do anything. Hardy doesn't care and simply tells us to battle him in his gym because he hasn't used it at all. 

 

The power of OU in a wannabe good Gym

 

The gym puzzle still puzzles me so no comments on that. I just can't figure out what part of the Guitar does the puzzle use and what's the logic. 

 

The gym battle was supposed to be tough. Buuut surprise! I had enough! My Noivern was frisking all the items Hardy's trainers were using. Choice Band Tyranitar? Choice Band Armaldo? Telluric Seed that boosts evasion? Yeah no, that's enough. I decided to finally bring out the power. And so I deposited some of my pokemon in the pc. My pokemon for the gym battle were, Garchomp, Metagross and Greninja. Perfect IVs, full EVs and competitive movesets. Garchomp has bulldoze and Aqua Tail because I am too lazy to find Earthquake. If I had Earthquake then Hardy would have died without any challenges because Bulldoze is only 60 base power and it was easily doing more than half hp to even Gigalith. Metagross had Air Balloon so Bullet Punches were helping. Had to use Magnezone as well to double team his mega Aerodactyl with Garchomp but overall easy battle. 

Btw I'm bragging but I totally called his mega out to be Mega Aerodactyl. And also that he wouldn't have a Tyranitar. Both were correct. 

Incidentally, Hardy said that he's ranked above his sister for a reason. Who's his sister again? I completely forgot about it. I thought he was only related to Aya. It can't be Titania, can it? 

 

I had fun. Where do we continue from again? 

 

And that brings us to the end of the episode! But even the ending was spicy! Because some person wanted acknowledgement for helping us and threatened to keep us in the black space forever. We were let go off eventually but wow that was pretty puzzling. 

 

So what did you guys think? Was the episode super good? Was a previous episode even better? How about difficulty of the battles and competitive items? I personally will be making a new team for episode 19 so that should be fun. Thanks for reading and do comment your thoughts below! 

 

Please say you're joking about believing him to be related to Aya. Hardy is related to Titania, Cain is related to Aya and Aya is in tsundere mode towards Hardy (I think he likes her back). Remember his rant about him and Tania both liking rock types but she ditched rock for steel with the discovery of the type and he ended up being salty over that so he fought to become stronger than the more popular steel type with his rock mons. Also I don't know whether the time is stated to which Adrienn has been in the arc for but it wouldn't have been 70 years.

 

E18 will naturally be perceived to be better by everyone due to its story-heavy focus.

 

Spoiler

For the molten lava thing, it's because it's a glass workshop so I guess it's something to do with the glass creation? Also the Lin being a ghost thing, it wouldn't make sense as there are said to be two different Lin's: Meteor Lin and little Lin. If she was a ghost, she wouldn't have enough spiritual energy to not only be seen by everyone but have such a powerful influence on the whole region. Ghosts are usually bound to a certain area or object.

 

I'm pretty sure you also get Rock Climb in route 4, not Ametrine mountain.

 

Also the spoiler tags are needed as not everyone pays close attention / ignores when people say in a plain text thing that there are spoilers so that's why I put E18 related content in the spoiler thing. That way, people can't bitch about you ruining the episode despite warnings. It's a way to protect yourself from anything if someone complains to a senior member of the forums so you can show you've done all you can to not spoil the game for others.

 

Away from that though, I really enjoyed what was revealed during E18 within:

 

Spoiler

the void.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what E19's leader and the E4 & Champ bring to the table.

[Tacos]

30 minutes ago, Zander said:

 

  Hide contents

Not going to bother putting anything in a spoiler. Because everything is a spoiler. This post itself is a spoiler for the entire episode. If you haven't played it then don't read this. If you have played the episode then rock with me. This is a lot of stuff so get your reading glasses on. 

 

 

Alright so episode 18. Kinda short episode. But maybe all episodes are short and I'm just used to playing 15 episodes at once? Though episode 19 is the last one which includes the story, a gym battle, maybe more story, the elite four and the champion. So yeah, kinda dunno about the pacing there. 

 

We start off in Calcenon city. Immediately go to Ametrine Mountain and get, perhaps the most anticipated hm(tmXx) in the game, rock climb. I'm sure many people must have ditched Hardy right there and gone and looked for every possible rock climb spot to get their hands on some tm. Most likely checked place must have been Apophyll Academy. Just an intuition. I decided to continue on with the story however. Found Hardy after a bit of looking(two water areas looking the exact same did not help) and won 2000 poke easily from him. Come on. Anybody who actually expected a direct entry after all the game has put you through is really not in sync with the episode. 

 

Team Meteor at Devon Corp

 

And lo we find Bennett. He's all mature now supposedly. And of course the best way to demonstrate maturity is to put everyone to sleep, right?! Seriously, watch some James Bond movies Bennett. A real mature person invites you to lunch and tells you his entire evil plan! Luckily a certain ice type uses heal bell on you and you alone so you're awake again. Either that or Hardy was at a music concert in his sleep so didn't want to wake up. 

 

Then you solve the puzzle. No clue as to why would a factory require motlen lava or why would only ice containers be movable and not just everything pushed to the side but okay, we have to solve the puzzle. Though if Bennett just wanted to use us then we should have been invited directly into the Hypno chamber(James Bond man, you really gotta watch that Bennett) but like I said, Reborn is reborn. 

 

But then happens the greatest plot twists of all time. I was seriously not expecting that.....Team Meteor actually manages to use a PULSE effectively and do enough damage they need to do?!! This was supposed to be an old pulse too since Agate has been shut for so long. Looks like their PULSE mechanics got worse over the course of time. Thanks Eve. 

But no, seriously, the battle gauntlet was actually a brilliant idea. Fighting four gym leaders and a support guy with a diverse team is pretty damn challenging. Doesn't help that those pokemon are actually competitive movesets. Focus sash sticky web. That's like as basic as you can get for a competitive team. Oh and I did I mention that some of the Pokemon used are OU? Like proper OU?? Alolan Marovack, Volcarona, Alolan Ninetails, Mimikyu, Mega Gardevoir etc. And most others were basically UU which is not so far behind. No wonder I lost the first time. I actually had a pretty competitive team as well. Not full OU of course but yeah, Magnezone, Greninja and Noivern were the main mvps. Greninja was life orb and Noivern choice specs so yeah, it was a situation of anything they touch dies. But was still very rough. I got to Serra right on try 1 but the mega Gardevoir was proving to be a real issue. So I said okay, let's get really real, and got out my perfect IV bred, EV trained Metagross with assault vest. Obviously I won then, right? Nope. Noivern is like, listen here you little shit, I'm the real mvp. And until you acknowledge that, I'm going to miss all my Hurricanes when it counts. And that's exactly what it did. For 3 more tries I couldn't get past Shelly because of this. On my 5th try I was really asking Noivern through my pc screen to not miss so I guess it took pity on me and listened. What a pokemon. But yeah, Metagross with bullet punch/meteor mash and adamant nature just mashed the entire opponent team. I had a cool combo of Sludge Wave Nidoking and Discharge Magnezone going on but after seeing Metagross I literally gave up on that. It's a true pseudo legendary after all. 

 

The Dark World

 

We enter the dark world or as I would think, the shadow realm of Pokemon reborn. Basically Ame laid out all the paths of the story we could have taken so far. That's why there were 2 or 3 different paths in some places but they all lead to the same outcome. It was pretty cool to watch. It also made me realize that the cast of Reborn is fucked up. Really bad. Since every single important character has a problem with their family, their friends, or their own selves. No one is normal. Because all normal people can't become gym leaders apparently or anybody of importance at all. Except us of course. I'm just waiting for our character's back story to be revealed and be like our mother is dead and father abandoned us or something. That would make sense and we would fit perfectly into the world of Pokemon Reborn. 

 

But anyways, we get out thanks to Luna who can survive inside black holes for no reason and Shade who is simply even more broken than her. And Randoms fills us in on what happened. Long story short, we were Hulk. And Gardevoir was Thor. So Thor won. 

FYI, according to 'Game Theory', a black hole created by a Gardevoir would be irrelevant as it wouldn't have enough energy to even be noticeable, much less open the door to the shadow realm. Was a pretty cool scene to look at though. 

 

Finally after listening to Serra's depression, we get another plot twist? Nora and Anna are Randomus's children. And they expected everyone to know that. Well the cast of Reborn is kinda confusing so I couldn't understand how anyone was supposed to guess that. Especially when literally 30 minutes ago it was heavily implied that Serra, Randomus, Gardevoir and Luna were a family. What even happened to that? Were they not family then? Or was a new relationship just forming? See? It's down right confusing! And so Randomus went on to entertain the two children with his ever changing outfits. Rumor has it that he will have to do it for the entire episode which is why he didn't come to Agate city help. Of course the two children just happen to be gym leaders so Randomus really not being helpful there. 

 

The Importance of PULSE

 

Talking to people inside Calcenon is optional. But if you do, Eve is the most important. Because she tells you about all the PULSE pokemon. And everyone saw this coming right from the time we first meet Lin. It was just an impossible idea at that time but it's slowly coming to reality. Yep, PULSE Arceus. Lin is mad. But she'll do it. All I'm going to say is this. Have you ever played pokemon Insurgence? In the post game, Ruerka uses the Azure flute to call upon Arceus. Then he throws a master ball at it. Guess what. Arceus swats it away like it's nothing. So yeah, that's about the average power of the legendary God pokemon. I know all of Arceus's plates are scattered throughout the region so Arceus should technically be powerless according to the movie, Arceus and the Jewel of Life. Maybe we have to give it back to him or something so he gets freed from the PULSE. 

Oh but there's more. Something kinda important? Well, all pokemon can gain EVs right? Apparently all of team meteor pokemon can too. And they also use a lower model of the PULSE system. Meaning all the high ranking members of team meteor can have 252 EVs in their stat. Wait did I say 252? I meant they are going to be ABOVE 252 in their stat. Yeah, let's see how bad that is. 252÷4= 63. 252 EVs gives maximum of 62 stat points in one stat as 4 EVs equals one stat point. So if a Jolly Garchomp has 333 speed at level 100 with 252 speed evs. Getting above 252 evs meaning it can go as far as breaking 350 speed which is equivalent to the speed of a Kartna. Now you slap a choice scarf on that. Yeah, I don't think anyone would use a Latios if that kind of Garchomp existed. 

 

We get to test out this new found adversary immediately in Agate City. Team Meteor has taken control and Solaris wants to face us one on one. I didn't notice any significant change in his pokemon stats to be fair. His Mega Garchomp didn't die to a choice specs dragon pulse from a Modest Noivern which is surprising but maybe it's just bulky? Anyways his team was manageable. Used a couple of full restores but nothing really great happened. Especially after that battle gauntlet, this seemed like cakewalk. 

After the battle, Taka(he's alive for me because Zekrom is cooler) uses his Chatot to free the captive gym leaders and....peck Sirius? Literally it just nibs him and he runs. Reminder that this is the same Chatot who anhilated a lot of teams with Chatter, Boomburst and Heat Wave. So good job Taka but you just signed your death warrant. 

 

Lin is a Ghost

 

We get to chase Lin of course. Up the waterfall, down the river and back up the waterfall again. Lin can swim. And dive. And stay underwater however she wants. This leads me to believe that Lin is actually a ghost. It makes sense. Her Hydreigon is real and her ghost projection is sitting on it. Her real body is in the area where Adreann awoke from after sleeping for 70 years. This can be further evidenced by what happened down in the river. She's got the machine and everything. We are blocking her path. I'm getting ready to face her Hydreigon with my pokemon. And then she shoves me aside. Or our character literally just moves aside. What? Why? How? These were the questions I asked. But if Lin is a ghost then it makes perfect sense. Also explains how Titania didn't manage to kill her. Easy. Next. 

 

Next Lin uses "A" Gardevoir to take Ceil away. It looked like Randoms's to me as it was also there in the shadow realm area. Samson punches the wall and walks away in shame because he couldn't do anything. Hardy doesn't care and simply tells us to battle him in his gym because he hasn't used it at all. 

 

The power of OU in a wannabe good Gym

 

The gym puzzle still puzzles me so no comments on that. I just can't figure out what part of the Guitar does the puzzle use and what's the logic. 

 

The gym battle was supposed to be tough. Buuut surprise! I had enough! My Noivern was frisking all the items Hardy's trainers were using. Choice Band Tyranitar? Choice Band Armaldo? Telluric Seed that boosts evasion? Yeah no, that's enough. I decided to finally bring out the power. And so I deposited some of my pokemon in the pc. My pokemon for the gym battle were, Garchomp, Metagross and Greninja. Perfect IVs, full EVs and competitive movesets. Garchomp has bulldoze and Aqua Tail because I am too lazy to find Earthquake. If I had Earthquake then Hardy would have died without any challenges because Bulldoze is only 60 base power and it was easily doing more than half hp to even Gigalith. Metagross had Air Balloon so Bullet Punches were helping. Had to use Magnezone as well to double team his mega Aerodactyl with Garchomp but overall easy battle. 

Btw I'm bragging but I totally called his mega out to be Mega Aerodactyl. And also that he wouldn't have a Tyranitar. Both were correct. 

Incidentally, Hardy said that he's ranked above his sister for a reason. Who's his sister again? I completely forgot about it. I thought he was only related to Aya. It can't be Titania, can it? 

 

I had fun. Where do we continue from again? 

 

And that brings us to the end of the episode! But even the ending was spicy! Because some person wanted acknowledgement for helping us and threatened to keep us in the black space forever. We were let go off eventually but wow that was pretty puzzling. 

 

So what did you guys think? Was the episode super good? Was a previous episode even better? How about difficulty of the battles and competitive items? I personally will be making a new team for episode 19 so that should be fun. Thanks for reading and do comment your thoughts below!

 

 

Spoiler

I guess I'll address a couple concerns here.

 

• The factory has molten lava most likely to make the heating process faster for the glass being made there.  It is the glass workstation after all.  The things you move with Espeon are not ice, but rather sheets of glass.
• Serra, Radomus, Luna, and G.G. were never a family unit.  Luna and G.G. stayed with Serra first, and then with Radomus.  Before the events of episode 18, neither Serra or Radomus had met each other.
• The Pulse2 doesn't make it so pokemon can go above 252 EVs in each stat, it just means they can have 252 EVs in EVERY stat.
• Lin being a ghost could be a valid theory if it weren't for the fact that Samson and Titania have both made physical contact with Lin.  The more likely case (and the more prominent theory) is that the current Lin we know is a robot vessel built by Terra to house... the real Lin's will and abilities from the Arc.  There's more I could go into this theory but I've spouted it so much over the past month that I'm even fed up with myself.
• That Gardevoir is almost 100% definitely Gossip Gardevoir.
• Idk how you could assume Aya is Hardy's sister when it's been stated since around Aya's gym that she's Cain's sister.  Titania is Hardy's sister, as shown when the two are together in Fiore Mansion.

 

[wcv]

1 hour ago, Tacos said:

Spoiler

Especially when literally 30 minutes ago it was heavily implied that Serra, Randomus, Gardevoir and Luna were a family.

 

Spoiler

No it wasn't. That's Luna insisting that Radomus is her father and Serra is her mother. Both of the "parents" in that have made it clear multiple times previously, and now in fact, that they are in no way connected, and that Luna is not their daughter. It was literally the PLOT of Radomus's gym that Luna's father was El.

 

1 hour ago, Tacos said:

Spoiler

Incidentally, Hardy said that he's ranked above his sister for a reason. Who's his sister again? I completely forgot about it. I thought he was only related to Aya. It can't be Titania, can it? 

 

Spoiler

...Aya being related to Hardy would make their budding romance take on a bit of an "ew..." quality. Fortunately it has already been established that Titania is Hardy's sister, and he even says as much in his gym.

 

2 hours ago, Zander said:

Spoiler

Nora and Anna are Randomus's children. And they expected everyone to know that. Well the cast of Reborn is kinda confusing so I couldn't understand how anyone was supposed to guess that.

 

Spoiler

*raises hand*

 

I thought it was obvious.

 

2 hours ago, Zander said:

Spoiler

Oh but there's more. Something kinda important? Well, all pokemon can gain EVs right? Apparently all of team meteor pokemon can too. And they also use a lower model of the PULSE system. Meaning all the high ranking members of team meteor can have 252 EVs in their stat. Wait did I say 252? I meant they are going to be ABOVE 252 in their stat. Yeah, let's see how bad that is. 252÷4= 63. 252 EVs gives maximum of 62 stat points in one stat as 4 EVs equals one stat point. So if a Jolly Garchomp has 333 speed at level 100 with 252 speed evs. Getting above 252 evs meaning it can go as far as breaking 350 speed which is equivalent to the speed of a Kartna. Now you slap a choice scarf on that. Yeah, I don't think anyone would use a Latios if that kind of Garchomp existed. 

 

Spoiler

The way the sisters explain it the smaller pulse lets the Pokemon the process is used on have 252 in EVERY stat, not exceed 252 in any stat.

 

[Hannes]

Spoiler

I really liked EP 18, and im super curious about Bennet and Laura... 

Maybe just maybe they will end up togheter (based on what charlotte said after the raid) and join forces in the Elite 4, would be cool to have a doubble battle against them.

 

As for lin Im honestly confused, i thought lin was this calm and cynical person, but when i tested the route where taka dies, i noticed she completely snaps in the underwater segment when she creates the energy source and just laughs in capslock, also that rant about noone ever helping in the blackhole...

 

Curious to see where we will end up in EP19!

 

[The Swordsman]

Spoiler

Eh while Mat does some good work with his theories, (namely the FNAF ones) I find most of his Pokemon theories to subpar at best, so I would take his word with a grain of salt. With that out of the way, I think the episode was good. The part that gave me the most difficulty was the gauntlet (though it was obvious that we were mind controlled) and I wish I knew you could wake up people with the Eveeloutions' heal bell. I had thought that the kids were Randomus' before hand thanks to some similarities in appearance and personality, so it was nice to see that confirmed. As for Bennet, I was happy to see how El helped Bennet mature and to see him come back to the heroes' side. Though I am weirded out that he doesn't know that the PC is already a veteran pokemon trainer, collecting the Reborn badges shouldn't be that shocking. I also feel sorry for Aster and Zero? (I think thats his name)  It was also nice to see the restored Evelynn and Lumina.  Now that we have the Z crystals and Mega Ring, it seems Team Meteor is afraid of a fair fight, since they use a new PULSE to keep their advantage. Despite this and how short it was, the siege on Agate City was really fun and my favorite part. It was cathartic to see Lin disappointed that her plans went awry even if it was only for a second.

 

[Zander]

Spoiler

 

Well, when I said Aya is related to Hardy I meant in a relationship kind of way. So the only relationship Hardy should have had with any of the cast is just as a boyfriend to Aya. But Titania makes sense. 

 

252 EVs in every stat is possibly even more broken than above 252 in one stat so I'm hoping that's not the case. 

 

Lin having a robot body instead of being a ghost also lines up with the story so that would also make sense. Though ghosts don't really need much energy to simply move around and haunt stuff. 

 

I'm just bad with character relationships overall so didn't understand the whole Luna thing. My apologies. 

 

 

[wcv]

57 minutes ago, The Swordsman said:

Spoiler

I had thought that the kids were Randomus' before hand thanks to some similarities in appearance and personality, so it was nice to see that confirmed. As for Bennet, I was happy to see how El helped Bennet mature and to see him come back to the heroes' side.

 

Spoiler

I wouldn't go that far. He still seems like a creepy kid who's faking being mature. Only now he's faking it in a slightly different way. And deciding that maybe brainwashing people and forcing them to be your slaves is wrong isn't something to be particularly proud of if you only realize it as things are going to shit.

 

[Tacos]

Spoiler

The 252 in each stat IS the case.  In fact you already fought one.  Solaris' Mega Garchomp this episode.

 

[The Swordsman]

3 minutes ago, wcv said:

  Hide contents

I wouldn't go that far. He still seems like a creepy kid who's faking being mature. Only now he's faking it in a slightly different way. And deciding that maybe brainwashing people and forcing them to be your slaves is wrong isn't something to be particularly proud of if you only realize it as things are going to shit.

 

Spoiler

I'm maybe in the minority but I never found him creepy in the first place, if he wasn't genuine than IMO he wouldn't have teamed up with Laura.

 

[robin1]

Spoiler

can confirm that it's 252 in each stats. It's the only way to explain how a mega Garchomp can: OHKO Gyarados at -1 (something +1 Excaldrill fail to do) which indicate max attack, and survive an ice fang from Mamoswine with 45% HP which indicate max hp and defense

 

[Zander]

41 minutes ago, robin1 said:

  Hide contents

can confirm that it's 252 in each stats. It's the only way to explain how a mega Garchomp can: OHKO Gyarados at -1 (something +1 Excaldrill fail to do) which indicate max attack, and survive an ice fang from Mamoswine with 45% HP which indicate max hp and defense

 

Lol yeah it ate a discharge from my modest full sp attack invested Magnezone and brought it to sturdy with Earthquake even though I had almost max hp and some defense Evs. 

[Outside Indoorsman]

Spoiler

I think Bennett is trying to be genuine. I think that he's still got a ways to go, though.

 

[wcv]

On 9/3/2018 at 2:49 PM, Zander said:

Lol yeah it ate a discharge from my modest full sp attack invested Magnezone and brought it to sturdy with Earthquake even though I had almost max hp and some defense Evs. 

?

 

Garchomp's immune to discharge.

[Zander]

12 minutes ago, wcv said:

?

 

Garchomp's immune to discharge.

Talking about the Gyarados. He had one too.

[wcv]

22 minutes ago, Zander said:

Talking about the Gyarados. He had one too.

It didn't have over-maxed out EVs, only Garchomp did. Gyarados survived Discharge because it was carrying a berry that weakens electric moves.

[Zander]

4 minutes ago, wcv said:

It didn't have over-maxed out EVs, only Garchomp did. Gyarados survived Discharge because it was carrying a berry that weakens electric moves.

100% not possible.

I have a modest nature 31 iv 252 sp attack Magnezone using a STAB Discharge. No Gyarados(times 4 weakness) can ever survive that without EVs in special defense.

[wcv]

1 hour ago, Zander said:

100% not possible.

I have a modest nature 31 iv 252 sp attack Magnezone using a STAB Discharge. No Gyarados(times 4 weakness) can ever survive that without EVs in defense.

See what I said after the word "because".

 

A level 90 Magnezone with a sp. attack stat of 355 (which is max evs and ivs with a modest nature) will deal 260-308 damage to Gyarados while said Gyarados is holding a Wacan berry. Gyarados's hp at level 90 with max HP Ivs with 0 HP evs is 298, leaving only an 18% chance of a OHKO. So not only is it not 100% not possible, its far MORE likely than knocking it out in one hit.

 

By contrast a Gyarados with max Special Defense and Max HP will still be OHKO's by a Discharge from Magnezone without the berry.

Edited September 4, 2018 by wcv

[Zander]

Guess I'll have to teach Magnezone Thunderbolt then and hope for the best.

 

It's so weird that making an attack times 2 effective is much better than max hp and sp def. That literally will never make sense to me.

[wcv]

10 hours ago, Zander said:

It's so weird that making an attack times 2 effective is much better than max hp and sp def. That literally will never make sense to me.

Yay, math time.

 

So the Pokemon damage formula is:

 

Damage = ((((Level*2)/5+2) * Power * Attack/Defense)/50 + 2) * Modifier.

 

Modifier includes type advantages. Now, what this means in simple terms is that defense isn't nearly as relevant to damage prevention as it kinda implies. Only a single number is reduced by defense, that being the Pokemon in question's attack, and even that is limited due to the decreasing relevance of denominators as the numbers get bigger (that is to say there's only so small a divided number can get until you just can't divide it anymore). But by adding another *2 multiplier to the modifier you have drastically increased the damage with no similiar issues.

 

Pokemon is a highly offensive oriented game fora reason. 

 

Now of course there are defensive Pokemon, but they either have extremely high defense stats, good ways to boost those stats (or both), and nearly always need a good typing to prevent being run over by a 4* weakness. Gyarados meanwhile has both a 4* weakness, and crap defenses. Meaning that if it gets hit by a 4* effective move its just done. The wacan berry more or less just lets it survive what would normally one shot it, and only once.

Edited September 5, 2018 by wcv

[Zander]

2 hours ago, wcv said:

Yay, math time.

 

So the Pokemon damage formula is:

 

Damage = ((((Level*2)/5+2) * Power * Attack/Defense)/50 + 2) * Modifier.

 

Modifier includes type advantages. Now, what this means in simple terms is that defense isn't nearly as relevant to damage prevention as it kinda implies. Only a single number is reduced by defense, that being the Pokemon in question's attack, and even that is limited due to the decreasing relevance of denominators as the numbers get bigger (that is to say there's only so small a divided number can get until you just can't divide it anymore). But by adding another *2 multiplier to the modifier you have drastically increased the damage with no similiar issues.

 

Pokemon is a highly offensive oriented game fora reason. 

 

Now of course there are defensive Pokemon, but they either have extremely high defense stats, good ways to boost those stats (or both), and nearly always need a good typing to prevent being run over by a 4* weakness. Gyarados meanwhile has both a 4* weakness, and crap defenses. Meaning that if it gets hit by a 4* effective move its just done. The wacan berry more or less just lets it survive what would normally one shot it, and only once.

Holy crap.

So basically the end result being multiplied is much more effective than one component of the equation being divided. But if suppose the end result were to be divided then the defense would be much more relevant(which it is not because that's just how the formula works). Is this damage output in actual HP? So an attack will do exactly as much damage to the HP as would be calculated here? Thanks for the explanation.

[wcv]

6 hours ago, Zander said:

Holy crap.

So basically the end result being multiplied is much more effective than one component of the equation being divided. But if suppose the end result were to be divided then the defense would be much more relevant(which it is not because that's just how the formula works). Is this damage output in actual HP? So an attack will do exactly as much damage to the HP as would be calculated here? Thanks for the explanation.

Yep. So if we take the Magnzone and Gyarados example it works like so (assuming both Pokemon are level 90)

 

((((90*2/5)+2) * 80 * 355 / 213) / 50) * (4*.85*1/2*1.5).

 

Modifier for our purposes will be 4 * boost due to the weakness, a random value of 0.85 (the lowest), a Wacan berry so 1/2, and finally STAB bonus of 1.5

 

So to simplify a bit we have:

 

((38*80*1.65)/50 +2 ) * 2.55

Damage is thus 260, with Gyarados having hp of 298.

 

Now if we assume a randomized roll of 1 (the highest value then our formula looks like this:

 

((((90*2/5)+2) * 80 * 355 / 213) / 50) * (4*1/2*1.5).

 

And we wind up with total damage of 308. Due to the randomizer ranging from 0.85 to 1.0 there are 16 total possible damage outputs, with the highest 3 knocking Gyarados out in one hit, and the remaining 13 leaving it with at least 1 hp.

 

Now if remove the Wacan berry all of this doubles, meaning any hit will immediately OHKO the Gyarados. If we assume maxed out HP and Special Defense IVs and no berry then:

 

((((90*2/5)+2) * 80 * 355 / 269) / 50) * (4*.85*1.5).

 

Total Damage output is 412, against an HP total of only 355, leaving a OHKO. 

Since I'm sure you're tired of me going full math geek on you, I'll just give the results if it has maxed out Special Defense IVs AND a Wacan Berry: Damage is 202. Damage went down by about 58 from the example above of a Wacan berry and minimal Special Defense investment. That might sound like a lot (and it sorta is, about a 1/5 decrease), BUT it actually is irrelevant. Why? Because Gyarados still only has 355 hp with max investment. Meaning it STILL can't take two discharges regardless of the investment in HP and Special Defense (and also assuming it had another Wacan berry, which it can't). Meaning regardless of what Gyarados's Special Defense and Attack it still straight up folds to double discharge. Here's the kicker, even if you gave it a Special Defense boosting nature, it still can't take two hits, with damage dropping to 188, leavng it well within range of a second Discharge.

[Zander]

Ah yeah I understand now. That's how showdown damage calculator calculates it's damage values. It's a pretty interesting concept. Thanks.