Mind Control Battle

[Smoke]

Sometimes I can't tell what the heck I'm doing wrong. I've got a strong team to beat the three back to back battles. But I keep getting screwed before I even complete the Cain Shelly battle. Either my Ninetales or my Charizard, who I need both to survive get killed right when that broken Scolipede/A.Muk combo come out. Maybe the RNG just hates me.

 

My Team:

Guardian(Ninetails) lvl 88

Quick Attack

Heat Wave

Safeguard

Sunny Day

 

Blaze(Charizard) lvl 88

Brick Break

Heat Wave

Air Slash

Defog

 

Bedrill lvl 88

Poison Jab

Agility

Fell Stinger

Focus Energy

 

Zeus (Manectric) lvl 88

Thunder

Discharge

Electric Terrain

Flamethrower

 

Chomp(Sharpedo) lvl 88

Crunch

Surf

Waterfrall

Dive

 

Vulcan(Metagross) lvl 88

Meteor Mash

Zen Headbutt

Hammer Arm

Iron Defense

[Rendolf]

For starters, is there a reason why you have Sunny Day on Ninetales instead of just using Drought? They have the same functionality except Drought will automatically set up for you when you switch in, allowing you to save a turn and a move slot. If your Ninetales currently has Flash Fire instead, you can just use an Ability Capsule to swap it over which you can buy for shards at the south of Agate Circus or the north of 7th Street You could replace Sunny Day with an attacking move, like Solar Beam for instance, the TM for which is available in the Beryl Library after you finish the Klefki sidequest.

 

Charizard is mainly a special attacker, so I would recommend switching Brick Break for another special move. If you want to keep it a Fighting move, then I would say that Focus Blast is a great choice, especially since you now have Rock Climb and can get the TM for it outside of Pyrous Mountain. However, if you want to keep Brick Break in order to break through someone's screens, then I would suggest that you give Brick Break to one of your physical attackers instead, namely Beedrill or Metagross.

 

For Beedrill, if you've completed the Mega-Z Ring sidequest, then I would strongly recommend getting the Beedrillite from the area you already should be in if you haven't already, since Mega Beedrill is a ton better than normal Beedrill. As far as moves go, I'd suggest to get rid of one or both of your setup moves in favor of more attacks. Beedrill is a pretty frail Pokemon so spending 2 turns trying to set up, it might get taken down already. Furthermore Mega Beedrill is really fast already so Agility isn't as useful and when it mega evolves it gets Adaptability so Focus Energy wouldn't give you the chance of a Sniper bonus, but if you wanted to keep one of them I would say Agility since it can be better for sweeping. To replace them you could use the aforementioned Brick Break or have a tutor teach something like Drill Run or Knock Off. Drill Run is an especially good choice since Ground is super effective on Poison, Rock, and Steel, three types that Poison Jab is ineffective against. Fell Stinger isn't exceptionally powerful off the bat, but if you can pull of the kill with it then Mega Beedrill would definitely become a force to be reckoned with, especially if you do decide to keep Agility.

 

Manectric is a tough one, since you don't get access to its mega stone until Agate City and it doesn't have a very diverse movepool. The only thing I can really say here is check if it has a useful type for its Hidden Power (you could check Ninetales and Charizard's too, just to see). If the Hidden Power is something good like Ice then you could pretty much switch it in for any of your current moves (one of the Electric attacks, since you have 2 of them, although they do have their own strengths; Flamethrower, since you have 2 Fire types already; Electric Terrain, since it's only really useful sometimes).

 

Sharpedo is your other option for a mega, but it is less crucial since normal Sharpedo is already pretty good, especially compared to Beedrill. However, if you want the mega stone you can get it in the northeast of the North Adventurine Woods, at the end of the Tauros/Heracross/Pinsir puzzle. Something nice in regards to Reborn's HMs, or TMXs as they're called, is that they can be taught and overwritten whenever you want. So that means you can switch out Sharpedo's Surf and Dive and just reteach them over each other as needed. I would at least recommend teaching something besides Surf, like Ice Fang for coverage (if you're going with Mega Sharpedo definitely get Ice Fang since it gets a Strong Jaw boost as well) or Protect to set up Speed Boost (if you don't have Speed Boost on it already definitely get it, same situation with the Ability Capsules as Ninetales). You can teach something instead of Dive as well if you want, but Dive does actually combo kind of well with Speed Boost too now that I think about it.

 

And finally, Metagross. Metagross' mega is really good, but unfortunately it is not available in Reborn as of Episode 18. The only things I can really say about your current moves is that if you still want Brick Break but aren't giving it to Beedrill it wouldn't be a bad idea to swap it for Hammer Arm, since it's more accurate and doesn't drop your speed as well as breaking down screens. Also Bullet Punch can be useful for taking down the last bit of HP of an enemy (maybe over Iron Defense, but your choice).

 

Those were all mainly general tips for your Pokemon and not really about the specific battle, but usually battles are easier the better your team is. Whenever I do this part of the game, I usually struggle on Cain/Shelly for a while and then beat the other two battles with ease, so you should be fine once you're past them. It would also definitely help for you to EV train your party members if you haven't already, but you're close to being done so it might not be worth it at this point. Sorry this went on so long, I guess I got carried away. Anyway, good luck!

[words134616]

I don't really have any better general teambuilding advice, but one thing that makes the first fight a lot easier is if you can destroy Ribombee before it sets up Sticky Web. That's probably the biggest priority in that fight. In my case, I couldn't win without setting my Mamoswine and Greninja in my first two slots and targeting it with priority moves on the first turn. And even then I think Water Shuriken had to hit 3 times.