Mono Run Ranking List

[Whitelight]

On 5/20/2022 at 7:53 PM, Cassandra said:

Your approach to teambuilding is really interesting because it is quite different from mine – particularly in Reborn/Rejuvenation, where you often get pretty crazy field-boosted attacks thrown your way, I don't particularly place a lot of value in defensive qualities alone, given that it is very difficult to wall a lot of opponents even if you have your corresponding wall ready to go. I usually try to build my team around an offensive core of 2–3 Pokemon, only to then fill the rest of my party in accordance with what they can offer specifically to that group. The final party of my Bug monotype in Rejuvenation (which I did just before delving into E19 of Reborn), for instance, was largely built around Frosmoth/Volcarona/Ledian, and, for instance, I found Araquanid useful because it could set up Sticky Web (benefitting Ledian and pre-Quiver Dance Frosmoth, who are both at a mediocre speed tier, in particular) and shut down Fire-types, Scizor could complement the somewhat lackluster defense of the remaining party and deal with Flying-types in particular, and Yanmega could revenge-kill threats unaffected by Sticky Web when things got rough (thank god Stealth Rock isn't that common in Reborn/Rejuvenation). This is how I create most of my teams, to be honest. In light of that approach, Jynx may not neatly fit into the category of a sweeper (too slow and not that powerful either) or a support Pokemon (too frail), but it definitely offers quite a bit in terms of team composition and is quite versatile, which rarely makes it dead weight. As for Abomasnow, I assume you meant Freeze-Dry, right? Yeah, definitely – though, to be honest, I usually find it too bothersome to add Freeze-Dry to my party movesets because it isn't a very powerful move and is only useful specifically for countering Water-types. Thing is, designated Water-type trainers are already eminently beatable with an Ice-type team because one use of Blizzard (or Dive + Blizzard for the Underwater Field) will move things onto your turf, so I found that Water-heavy teams never posed much of an issue to me.

As for your Dark-type case, seems fair enough! And your explanation as to why Electric is so difficult definitely seems plausible – what Mega Scizor is to Ice, (Mega) Garchomp is to Electric. Add to that that most Electric-types have a pretty narrow moveset, and you are pretty much screwed unless you happen to go for very specific team options like Rotom-F. I am currently using a Dedenne on my Fairy monotype (the one I started in E19 of Reborn), and getting completely walled by any decent Ground-type is absolutely just incredibly frustrating. Given that Earthquake is also probably the single most common coverage move for a whole lot of physically oriented non-Ground-types ... yeah, my naive estimation may have underestimated just what a massive liability that Ground-type weakness is. At least, say, Fire-types can often learn Grass-type moves to compensate for this weakness, whereas Electric-types may not have a ton of options outside of Hidden Power Ice/Grass/Water.

Lastly, your case for leaving out the postgame in terms of both practicality and fairness is one I fully agree with – I only added postgame discussion insofar as it pertained to the tier list, which explicitly incorporated it.

Apologies for the delayed response, I had a fairly busy weekend. 

As for the team-building,  I completely agree that the field boosting makes it difficult to overcome some trainers defensively,  but I would counter that it also makes it harder to have brittle glass cannon teams as well, specifically when field effects trigger things like swift swim (ludicolo for amaria), Sand force (terras excadrill), or Slush Rush (alolan vulpix for titania). If you don't have adequate defense to wall threats like that I have found that you usually get swept before you can do anything. 

 

Also thank you for the correction, I did mean to say freeze dry. I found that move was very useful to counter water types since electric and grass moves were a bit hard to come by in ice types save abomasnow, which I was reluctant to put on the team due to its iffy stats and sub par resistances.

 

And yeah about the electric types... it is just SO rough especially since there are a few God tier ground types out there who can just wipe the floor with you... Garchomp is definitely a huge threat but you also have things like excadrill with sand force, making it outspeed even jolteon and deliver one shot after one shot with life orb EQ. You do thankfully have SOME ways of countering it, like taking a few levitate pokemon with you or equipping an unhealthy amount of balloons after you hit the circus, but those have really severe drawbacks, being that levitate takes up the spot for a pokemon with a better or more synergistic ability, and of course holding a balloon can be devastating because it eats up a valuable item slot.

 

Apart from that, I do intend on revisting all 18 save files once I beat the E4 with all of them, giving them a good tune up, and then trying out the post game stuff. I'll probably update the list again afterwards, possibly a second post game focused ranking list. 

 

One last thing. I didn't forget to go over the tier list you posted just haven't had time to sit down and list it all out... but I feel like I have pretty good grounds to stand on for my own ranking list so I'll be looking forward to discussing it with you!

 

 

[Cassandra]

14 hours ago, Whitelight said:

Apologies for the delayed response, I had a fairly busy weekend. 

As for the team-building,  I completely agree that the field boosting makes it difficult to overcome some trainers defensively,  but I would counter that it also makes it harder to have brittle glass cannon teams as well, specifically when field effects trigger things like swift swim (ludicolo for amaria), Sand force (terras excadrill), or Slush Rush (alolan vulpix for titania). If you don't have adequate defense to wall threats like that I have found that you usually get swept before you can do anything. 

 

Also thank you for the correction, I did mean to say freeze dry. I found that move was very useful to counter water types since electric and grass moves were a bit hard to come by in ice types save abomasnow, which I was reluctant to put on the team due to its iffy stats and sub par resistances.

 

And yeah about the electric types... it is just SO rough especially since there are a few God tier ground types out there who can just wipe the floor with you... Garchomp is definitely a huge threat but you also have things like excadrill with sand force, making it outspeed even jolteon and deliver one shot after one shot with life orb EQ. You do thankfully have SOME ways of countering it, like taking a few levitate pokemon with you or equipping an unhealthy amount of balloons after you hit the circus, but those have really severe drawbacks, being that levitate takes up the spot for a pokemon with a better or more synergistic ability, and of course holding a balloon can be devastating because it eats up a valuable item slot.

 

Apart from that, I do intend on revisting all 18 save files once I beat the E4 with all of them, giving them a good tune up, and then trying out the post game stuff. I'll probably update the list again afterwards, possibly a second post game focused ranking list. 

 

One last thing. I didn't forget to go over the tier list you posted just haven't had time to sit down and list it all out... but I feel like I have pretty good grounds to stand on for my own ranking list so I'll be looking forward to discussing it with you!

 

 

Hey, no problem! Take your time. Anyway, I agree that revenge killers and sweepers reaping field benefits can be extremely threatening, but I am not exactly convinced a defensive playstyle is the most effective way to counter that. My judgement may be clouded by my current Fairy-type run (more on that later – I have some experiences to share), which has a lot of decent defensive options but few offensive ones, but from my experience, walls (particularly ones that have been weakened and assuming the battle is fought in Set mode – I guess this was never spelled out in the thread, but personally, I just always have Set mode on by default, which is one of many habits I picked up from intense Rejuvenation) can actually leave you a lot more vulnerable and serve as set-up fodder for scary sweepers. The alternative for me is to come prepared and/or try getting rid of the advantage as early as possible – if Terra's Excadrill doesn't get to use Sandstorm, it cannot ravage with Sand Rush either, and if you use Blizzard even once against Amaria, Ludicolo's terrain advantage is moot. I guess Titania's Alolan Sandslash is a necessary evil (it obviously wasn't a huge hurdle in my Ice monotype – in fact, I loved that she fought on a weather she got zero benefits out of except Aurora Veil (and actively took damage from, in fact), and being able to set up with my own Sandslash and knock two of her team members out of the ballpark right away gave me an edge that I desperately needed later on. That is not to say Mega Scizor in particular wasn't brutal, but it did make the battle much less of an active nightmare than it was on my Dragon monotype or than I suspect it is going to be on my Fairy monotype, where I dread facing her not just because of that Sandslash.) unless you carry your own weather, though. Also, I think the alternative to relying on walls isn't to use complete glass cannons, given that a lot of offensive Pokemon can offer decent defensive capacity as well (I like to come back to Mega Altaria from my Dragon run, which, apart from Dragon Dance, also had sizable bulk even without investment. In terms of Ice-types, I am mainly reminded of Cloyster, who can tank even super-effective physical moves from unboosted opponents decently well, and Aurorus, whose special bulk is not to be underestimated.). Walls can be helpful, but in my view, they also have to pose some kind of offensive threat unless you want to risk having the next opponent set up on you.

As for Freeze-Dry (and apparently, the correct spelling is hyphenated – at least, that is what Bulbapedia says), I see what you are saying – I preferred just changing the field to Icy Field, and given that Water-oriented teams are not exactly known for packing a lot of Heat Waves, it usually stayed that way. On that basis, someone like Cloyster or Sandslash could, depending on the exact opponent, often just take them out by sheer field and stats boosts. I agree that Water-types can be an issue (though it is not something I encountered in Reborn), and that is also one reason I have an affinity for Aevian Ampharos, which is a new Ice/Electric-type from Rejuvenation (basically, a bunch of existing Pokemon got alternate forms similar to the Alolan or Galarian ones; once you play the postgame, you will encounter a character from Rejuvenation and actually get an Aevian Misdreavus from her) with two extremely useful abilities in Filter and Cotton Down; personally, I usually preferred the latter, given that it penalized revenge killers remarkably well and was super useful against the most insanely speedy bosses.

And just as a quick note, that tier list isn't actually mine – I just saw it on the subreddit and thought it was interesting to share based on what we already discussed in this thread.

 

As for my Fairy monotype, I am currently right in the mid-game (I just beat Luna, in fact, who was surprisingly a huge roadblock in spite of my type advantage), and it is quite a bit harder than I anticipated. Not thanks to any inherent features of the Fairy type, mind you, but mainly because of some specific issues regarding how the monotype is set up in Reborn. You get a lot of early-game options, including a good starter in Popplio and a good Mystery Egg between Alolan Vulpix (which I guess you could also pick to be your starter, but I already did that for Ice, so I went with Popplio instead; I am very glad I got it as a Mystery Egg in hindsight, though), Azurill, Cottonee, and Togepi, which makes the early gym battles (including Corey, by the way) quite manageable; however, the number of new Pokemon just flattens out over time, and most of your options are just not particularly viable mid-game options. Right now, my team is mostly carried by Alolan Ninetales (who is both an indispensable supporter courtesy of Aurora Veil and my primary offensive threat – and look, I love Alolan Ninetales and all, but it is certainly not meant to be a sweeper just because Nasty Plot makes it mildly threatening) and, to a lesser extent, Ribombee and Primarina; the rest is pretty much deadweight. Look, I like annoying physical attackers with Strength Sap Shiinotic and all, but that seems like more of a meme strategy that doesn't work in the vast majority of cases by now, and I really just have Clefable and Whimsicott to patch up my team in the immediate future, both of whom will not be that useful without a breeding apparatus and with essentially random natures. The really good options are mostly saved for the late game – Mega Altaria is available immediately after the city restoration (I think? I heard that the Mega Z-Ring is available earlier in E19, but I still waited until after Titania to get it in every playthrough so far), and so is Gardevoir (though I doubt that one will make a significant difference; I think I just want one for my team because I love Gardevoir's shiny sprite), so that is something, I guess, but Mega Mawile (which is crucial against the Steel-type matchup) is only available in Teknite Ridge (at least before Titania if the Mega Z-Ring can indeed be obtained that early), and Azumarill (which I can see being brutal in conjunction with Aurora Veil) can actually be obtained only after Hardy. Fairy has a good early game but becomes quite tricky in the mid-game; the late game, I assume, gradually gets better again as you get some of the options withheld from you for such a long time.

I used to think Fairy was a pretty easy monotype based on my Rejuvenation experience, and I still maintain that Fairy is most certainly up there with Steel as one of the best types in battle, but a Fairy monotype in Reborn is definitely harder than I thought (as much as it pains me to admit that); you ranking it seventh is probably fair (I might have ranked it fourth or fifth before – just out of the blue, given that I didn't do most monotypes, and would drop it a bit after what I experienced). Still, I did give myself a bit of a handicap in that I did not use Misty Terrain – I first tried it out against Aya, beat her on my first try without any real strategy to speak of (I wrote down some of my more detailed thoughts on that here), and decided after some deliberation that it made Reborn far too uninteresting because the terrain mechanics are just so broken and can completely obliterate an opponent's strategy, though Misty Terrain is certainly more useful against more specially oriented opponents like Aya than against someone like Luna, who would take more damage from Moonblast but not suffer that many negative effects otherwise. If you allow Misty Terrain, which I've heard is also probably the most broken of the four terrains, I definitely think Fairy is easier than how I feel about it right now. This, of course, begs the question of whether or not terrain strategies should be factored into the ranking, and I am honestly of two minds about the topic. On the one hand, I feel weaker types like Grass or Electric gain a lot strategically from them, and since the game considers these strategies to be perfectly valid, that additional restriction seems a bit far-fetched; but on the other hand, just using the same exact strategy time and time again to just get rid of an opponent's field for eight turns seems so contrary to how I think of playing Reborn (which includes adapting and creating your own strategy based on a field effect) that I can't help but find it super cheap. It's a bit like saying that a team consisting of Cloyster (just as a stand-in for any decent sweeper) and all Destiny Bond users otherwise could completely sweep most of the game – like, yeah, probably, given that Cloyster can almost certainly get rid of at least one party member, and the others can handle the rest; however, it doesn't feel like a strategy you get anything out of.

[Whitelight]

5 hours ago, Cassandra said:

Hey, no problem! Take your time. Anyway, I agree that revenge killers and sweepers reaping field benefits can be extremely threatening, but I am not exactly convinced a defensive playstyle is the most effective way to counter that. My judgement may be clouded by my current Fairy-type run (more on that later – I have some experiences to share), which has a lot of decent defensive options but few offensive ones, but from my experience, walls (particularly ones that have been weakened and assuming the battle is fought in Set mode – I guess this was never spelled out in the thread, but personally, I just always have Set mode on by default, which is one of many habits I picked up from intense Rejuvenation) can actually leave you a lot more vulnerable and serve as set-up fodder for scary sweepers. The alternative for me is to come prepared and/or try getting rid of the advantage as early as possible – if Terra's Excadrill doesn't get to use Sandstorm, it cannot ravage with Sand Rush either, and if you use Blizzard even once against Amaria, Ludicolo's terrain advantage is moot. I guess Titania's Alolan Sandslash is a necessary evil (it obviously wasn't a huge hurdle in my Ice monotype – in fact, I loved that she fought on a weather she got zero benefits out of except Aurora Veil (and actively took damage from, in fact), and being able to set up with my own Sandslash and knock two of her team members out of the ballpark right away gave me an edge that I desperately needed later on. That is not to say Mega Scizor in particular wasn't brutal, but it did make the battle much less of an active nightmare than it was on my Dragon monotype or than I suspect it is going to be on my Fairy monotype, where I dread facing her not just because of that Sandslash.) unless you carry your own weather, though. Also, I think the alternative to relying on walls isn't to use complete glass cannons, given that a lot of offensive Pokemon can offer decent defensive capacity as well (I like to come back to Mega Altaria from my Dragon run, which, apart from Dragon Dance, also had sizable bulk even without investment. In terms of Ice-types, I am mainly reminded of Cloyster, who can tank even super-effective physical moves from unboosted opponents decently well, and Aurorus, whose special bulk is not to be underestimated.). Walls can be helpful, but in my view, they also have to pose some kind of offensive threat unless you want to risk having the next opponent set up on you.

As for Freeze-Dry (and apparently, the correct spelling is hyphenated – at least, that is what Bulbapedia says), I see what you are saying – I preferred just changing the field to Icy Field, and given that Water-oriented teams are not exactly known for packing a lot of Heat Waves, it usually stayed that way. On that basis, someone like Cloyster or Sandslash could, depending on the exact opponent, often just take them out by sheer field and stats boosts. I agree that Water-types can be an issue (though it is not something I encountered in Reborn), and that is also one reason I have an affinity for Aevian Ampharos, which is a new Ice/Electric-type from Rejuvenation (basically, a bunch of existing Pokemon got alternate forms similar to the Alolan or Galarian ones; once you play the postgame, you will encounter a character from Rejuvenation and actually get an Aevian Misdreavus from her) with two extremely useful abilities in Filter and Cotton Down; personally, I usually preferred the latter, given that it penalized revenge killers remarkably well and was super useful against the most insanely speedy bosses.

And just as a quick note, that tier list isn't actually mine – I just saw it on the subreddit and thought it was interesting to share based on what we already discussed in this thread.

 

As for my Fairy monotype, I am currently right in the mid-game (I just beat Luna, in fact, who was surprisingly a huge roadblock in spite of my type advantage), and it is quite a bit harder than I anticipated. Not thanks to any inherent features of the Fairy type, mind you, but mainly because of some specific issues regarding how the monotype is set up in Reborn. You get a lot of early-game options, including a good starter in Popplio and a good Mystery Egg between Alolan Vulpix (which I guess you could also pick to be your starter, but I already did that for Ice, so I went with Popplio instead; I am very glad I got it as a Mystery Egg in hindsight, though), Azurill, Cottonee, and Togepi, which makes the early gym battles (including Corey, by the way) quite manageable; however, the number of new Pokemon just flattens out over time, and most of your options are just not particularly viable mid-game options. Right now, my team is mostly carried by Alolan Ninetales (who is both an indispensable supporter courtesy of Aurora Veil and my primary offensive threat – and look, I love Alolan Ninetales and all, but it is certainly not meant to be a sweeper just because Nasty Plot makes it mildly threatening) and, to a lesser extent, Ribombee and Primarina; the rest is pretty much deadweight. Look, I like annoying physical attackers with Strength Sap Shiinotic and all, but that seems like more of a meme strategy that doesn't work in the vast majority of cases by now, and I really just have Clefable and Whimsicott to patch up my team in the immediate future, both of whom will not be that useful without a breeding apparatus and with essentially random natures. The really good options are mostly saved for the late game – Mega Altaria is available immediately after the city restoration (I think? I heard that the Mega Z-Ring is available earlier in E19, but I still waited until after Titania to get it in every playthrough so far), and so is Gardevoir (though I doubt that one will make a significant difference; I think I just want one for my team because I love Gardevoir's shiny sprite), so that is something, I guess, but Mega Mawile (which is crucial against the Steel-type matchup) is only available in Teknite Ridge (at least before Titania if the Mega Z-Ring can indeed be obtained that early), and Azumarill (which I can see being brutal in conjunction with Aurora Veil) can actually be obtained only after Hardy. Fairy has a good early game but becomes quite tricky in the mid-game; the late game, I assume, gradually gets better again as you get some of the options withheld from you for such a long time.

I used to think Fairy was a pretty easy monotype based on my Rejuvenation experience, and I still maintain that Fairy is most certainly up there with Steel as one of the best types in battle, but a Fairy monotype in Reborn is definitely harder than I thought (as much as it pains me to admit that); you ranking it seventh is probably fair (I might have ranked it fourth or fifth before – just out of the blue, given that I didn't do most monotypes, and would drop it a bit after what I experienced). Still, I did give myself a bit of a handicap in that I did not use Misty Terrain – I first tried it out against Aya, beat her on my first try without any real strategy to speak of (I wrote down some of my more detailed thoughts on that here), and decided after some deliberation that it made Reborn far too uninteresting because the terrain mechanics are just so broken and can completely obliterate an opponent's strategy, though Misty Terrain is certainly more useful against more specially oriented opponents like Aya than against someone like Luna, who would take more damage from Moonblast but not suffer that many negative effects otherwise. If you allow Misty Terrain, which I've heard is also probably the most broken of the four terrains, I definitely think Fairy is easier than how I feel about it right now. This, of course, begs the question of whether or not terrain strategies should be factored into the ranking, and I am honestly of two minds about the topic. On the one hand, I feel weaker types like Grass or Electric gain a lot strategically from them, and since the game considers these strategies to be perfectly valid, that additional restriction seems a bit far-fetched; but on the other hand, just using the same exact strategy time and time again to just get rid of an opponent's field for eight turns seems so contrary to how I think of playing Reborn (which includes adapting and creating your own strategy based on a field effect) that I can't help but find it super cheap. It's a bit like saying that a team consisting of Cloyster (just as a stand-in for any decent sweeper) and all Destiny Bond users otherwise could completely sweep most of the game – like, yeah, probably, given that Cloyster can almost certainly get rid of at least one party member, and the others can handle the rest; however, it doesn't feel like a strategy you get anything out of.

I definitely feel like we have a different mindset completely when building teams.  For me the reason walls are so potent in my mind is they give you space to set up. Throwing out a pokemon you KNOW can always take 2 to 3 hits allows you to pop off a toxic or yawn and do some damage that way. It's definitely not as flashy as a straight sweeper but it can be insanely effective. I just got through with a rock mono run and am currently about midway through the dreaded grass monorun, and Cradily has been an absolutely incredible wall for the team, capable of almost ALWAYS taking multiple hits before going down. Pair this with egg move recover and amnesia, and even the heaviest special attackers can't even touch you. I would say the best example of a wall I can think of off the top of my head is Lunas umbreon. If you don't have a way of blowing it up it will just stall out your team with toxic and moonlight, along with a few dark pulses if you try to set up. I personally have found a LOT of success with proper walls through Reborn, and I feel like some of the runs I did probably wouldn't have even been possible if it weren't for the walls.

 

As for the field effect negation, it can work in a lot of cases but for example with the excadril, what happens if a sand stream user gets thrown out before and it just AUTOMATICALLY has a sandstorm? There are a few fights like that I can think of where I'm not sure it would be so easy to counter it, but I get your point that most of the times you can find a workaround.

 

As for the Fairy types and the fields, I'm looking forward to the challenge!!! I am surprised you didn't bring up mawile, she might just be the powerhouse you need/are looking for! With Baton Pass and iron defense mawile can set up the rest of your team pretty well too. Also don't sleep on shiinotic, the strength sap can be gimmicky but spore is an incredibly useful tool to put opponents asleep with 100% accuracy. I also think that fields should absolutely be considered when ranking Reborn runs, because it can work against you just as easily as it can work for you. For example, it can KO your earthquake user in the caves if they spam it, which can cost you a fight if you aren't careful 

 

Anyway I'll keep updating as I chug along but for right now, grass is proving to be shockingly difficult... so much so it may even end up moving way down the list. I hadn't anticipated how weak most of grass types move pool is, and that paired with the extensive weaknesses mean you have a TON of rough gyms. We will see how it goes towards the back half of the game though.

[Cassandra]

9 hours ago, Whitelight said:

I definitely feel like we have a different mindset completely when building teams.  For me the reason walls are so potent in my mind is they give you space to set up. Throwing out a pokemon you KNOW can always take 2 to 3 hits allows you to pop off a toxic or yawn and do some damage that way. It's definitely not as flashy as a straight sweeper but it can be insanely effective. I just got through with a rock mono run and am currently about midway through the dreaded grass monorun, and Cradily has been an absolutely incredible wall for the team, capable of almost ALWAYS taking multiple hits before going down. Pair this with egg move recover and amnesia, and even the heaviest special attackers can't even touch you. I would say the best example of a wall I can think of off the top of my head is Lunas umbreon. If you don't have a way of blowing it up it will just stall out your team with toxic and moonlight, along with a few dark pulses if you try to set up. I personally have found a LOT of success with proper walls through Reborn, and I feel like some of the runs I did probably wouldn't have even been possible if it weren't for the walls.

 

As for the field effect negation, it can work in a lot of cases but for example with the excadril, what happens if a sand stream user gets thrown out before and it just AUTOMATICALLY has a sandstorm? There are a few fights like that I can think of where I'm not sure it would be so easy to counter it, but I get your point that most of the times you can find a workaround.

 

As for the Fairy types and the fields, I'm looking forward to the challenge!!! I am surprised you didn't bring up mawile, she might just be the powerhouse you need/are looking for! With Baton Pass and iron defense mawile can set up the rest of your team pretty well too. Also don't sleep on shiinotic, the strength sap can be gimmicky but spore is an incredibly useful tool to put opponents asleep with 100% accuracy. I also think that fields should absolutely be considered when ranking Reborn runs, because it can work against you just as easily as it can work for you. For example, it can KO your earthquake user in the caves if they spam it, which can cost you a fight if you aren't careful 

 

Anyway I'll keep updating as I chug along but for right now, grass is proving to be shockingly difficult... so much so it may even end up moving way down the list. I hadn't anticipated how weak most of grass types move pool is, and that paired with the extensive weaknesses mean you have a TON of rough gyms. We will see how it goes towards the back half of the game though.

Fair point! I feel like walls need some way of boosting their typically somewhat lackluster offenses, though, or they could themselves be set-up fodder, particularly if weakened. Luna's Umbreon has never been that scary for me (I struggled more against Luna than I ever have not even a day ago, but her Umbreon was the least of my problems – Defiant Bisharp, speed demon Weavile, and Tyranitar were a lot more threatening.); it is shut down hard by any Poison- or Steel-type, absent of that, weather will drastically diminish its healing powers, and absent of even that, Moonlight's 5 PP will run out before long. I actually set up on her Umbreon after she sent it out with my Alolan Ninetales and proceeded to sweep the rest of her party, turning the match around after being severely down courtesy of Bisharp and Weavile, who had just ravaged through a lot of my team – case in point, I guess. As for Excadrill, since Sand Stream only works upon switch-in, you just have to override it later – in the case of Hardy, for instance, Gigalith might have set the weather out of the gates because it is so slow, but I just switched in my second hail user on my Ice monotype, which took care of that angle. Or, alternatively, I could have just had someone use the move Hail. Excadrill is the biggest threat in fields that make sure Sand Rush is activated automatically regardless of weather, like the Ashen Beach and the Desert Field; this is actually where the Ground-type leader of Rejuvenation is fought, and that was a very tricky one for my Fairy monotype. The same is true for Alolan Sandslash or Ludicolo, though the fact that both of their fields can be changed so as to make them lose their benefits makes them just a bit less threatening in my book.

 

Mawile, unfortunately, is just held back by atrocious stats, though I am willing to grant that its typing and movepool might make it more useful than I give it credit for. I really wanna use Mega Mawile later on because I like Mawile a lot, but I don't think it is that viable just yet. Also, I am completely with you that Shiinotic is very useful on the margins, and Spore is wonderful to have; it is not a strategy that works in most cases, however, and the many weaknesses provided by the Grass typing on top of compounding the Poison-type weakness makes me doubt that it will retain a permanent spot on my team in the long-term. I think Prankster Whimsicott will be able to provide much more for my team, honestly (in fact, that thing has such a vast movepool that it will be hard for me to decide on just four moves; priority Memento or Endeavor to punish switch-ins against a weakened Whimsicott and gain momentum will definitely be very useful, for example, as will Tailwind or Leech Seed).

 

Oh yeah, and trust me, I know exactly what you are saying as a Grass monotyper myself (albeit one who did intense Rejuvenation). Grass is a pretty crazy monotype, although I think Grassy Terrain remedies that issue towards the late game of Reborn in particular. If I may give you some advice – don't sleep on Leavanny (Sticky Web, for example, is great because a lot of offensive Grass-types are not that speedy by themselves) and Jumpluff. The latter in particular carried me through so much with its speed and movepool and Sleep Powder and everything – I would not have beaten Angie in a million years without it. Angie is not the actual Ice-type gym leader in Rejuvenation, but she does use an Ice monotype team, and defeating her is necessary to earn the Ice-type badge, so for all intents and purposes from a battling point of view, she is the Ice-type leader, and she is fought in Doubles on the Frozen Dimensional Field. The Dimensional Fields are a class of fields in Rejuvenation typically associated with a central antagonist of the story, and as the name suggests, the Frozen Dimensional Field is, well, frozen. Among other things, it doubles hail damage, boosts Ice-type moves, and the Elemental Seed doubles speed. I beat her pretty handily in my Ice monotype because I could just exploit the field for myself, but I got a really nasty surprise in my Grass monotype. That battle was the freaking worst because the field-boosted Blizzards commonly knocked both of my Pokemon out (and her Ninetales had the Elemental Seed, so it could literally outspeed everything I had), and some of her more offensive members like Mamoswine (which also had a lovely seed) and Beartic (Slush Rush abuser par excellence) could literally one-shot everything I had. At least in Rejuvenation, Grass gives you far too little team diversity to cover the nasty weaknesses to Ice, Fire, and especially Flying, which makes the corresponding gym battles absolutely insane (well, Fire wasn't that bad because Rejuvenation's Fire-type leader is very easy to outflank by terminating her field, which there are many ways to do, yielding Sky Field, Snowy Mountain, Cave – hell, if you're creative, you can even get the battle on a Water Surface or an Underwater Field. Flying was similarly insane to Ice, though.).

 

Oh yeah, and I think you misunderstood my point slightly – I was not talking about whether to take fields in general into account, but specifically terrains, and I suppose the terminology could be confusing because a lot of people (myself included) sometimes use the terms interchangeably. In the specific case of my last comment (and for the rest of this comment), however, the term terrain refers to four specific fields – Grassy Terrain, Electric Terrain, Misty Terrain, and Psychic Terrain – that, in Reborn, can be summoned via the moves of the same names or via Grassy/Electric/Misty/Psychic Surge for up to eight turns (with an Amplified Rock). Crucially, these terrains override any existing field except for the New World, which essentially counters almost any opponent's whole strategy by moving the game onto your turf completely. Look at how I defeated Aya at first, for example – should the possibility of pulling that kind of strategy be considered for the purposes of this ranking? As I said before, I am of two minds on that issue.

[Whitelight]

14 hours ago, Cassandra said:

Fair point! I feel like walls need some way of boosting their typically somewhat lackluster offenses, though, or they could themselves be set-up fodder, particularly if weakened. Luna's Umbreon has never been that scary for me (I struggled more against Luna than I ever have not even a day ago, but her Umbreon was the least of my problems – Defiant Bisharp, speed demon Weavile, and Tyranitar were a lot more threatening.); it is shut down hard by any Poison- or Steel-type, absent of that, weather will drastically diminish its healing powers, and absent of even that, Moonlight's 5 PP will run out before long. I actually set up on her Umbreon after she sent it out with my Alolan Ninetales and proceeded to sweep the rest of her party, turning the match around after being severely down courtesy of Bisharp and Weavile, who had just ravaged through a lot of my team – case in point, I guess. As for Excadrill, since Sand Stream only works upon switch-in, you just have to override it later – in the case of Hardy, for instance, Gigalith might have set the weather out of the gates because it is so slow, but I just switched in my second hail user on my Ice monotype, which took care of that angle. Or, alternatively, I could have just had someone use the move Hail. Excadrill is the biggest threat in fields that make sure Sand Rush is activated automatically regardless of weather, like the Ashen Beach and the Desert Field; this is actually where the Ground-type leader of Rejuvenation is fought, and that was a very tricky one for my Fairy monotype. The same is true for Alolan Sandslash or Ludicolo, though the fact that both of their fields can be changed so as to make them lose their benefits makes them just a bit less threatening in my book.

 

Mawile, unfortunately, is just held back by atrocious stats, though I am willing to grant that its typing and movepool might make it more useful than I give it credit for. I really wanna use Mega Mawile later on because I like Mawile a lot, but I don't think it is that viable just yet. Also, I am completely with you that Shiinotic is very useful on the margins, and Spore is wonderful to have; it is not a strategy that works in most cases, however, and the many weaknesses provided by the Grass typing on top of compounding the Poison-type weakness makes me doubt that it will retain a permanent spot on my team in the long-term. I think Prankster Whimsicott will be able to provide much more for my team, honestly (in fact, that thing has such a vast movepool that it will be hard for me to decide on just four moves; priority Memento or Endeavor to punish switch-ins against a weakened Whimsicott and gain momentum will definitely be very useful, for example, as will Tailwind or Leech Seed).

 

Oh yeah, and trust me, I know exactly what you are saying as a Grass monotyper myself (albeit one who did intense Rejuvenation). Grass is a pretty crazy monotype, although I think Grassy Terrain remedies that issue towards the late game of Reborn in particular. If I may give you some advice – don't sleep on Leavanny (Sticky Web, for example, is great because a lot of offensive Grass-types are not that speedy by themselves) and Jumpluff. The latter in particular carried me through so much with its speed and movepool and Sleep Powder and everything – I would not have beaten Angie in a million years without it. Angie is not the actual Ice-type gym leader in Rejuvenation, but she does use an Ice monotype team, and defeating her is necessary to earn the Ice-type badge, so for all intents and purposes from a battling point of view, she is the Ice-type leader, and she is fought in Doubles on the Frozen Dimensional Field. The Dimensional Fields are a class of fields in Rejuvenation typically associated with a central antagonist of the story, and as the name suggests, the Frozen Dimensional Field is, well, frozen. Among other things, it doubles hail damage, boosts Ice-type moves, and the Elemental Seed doubles speed. I beat her pretty handily in my Ice monotype because I could just exploit the field for myself, but I got a really nasty surprise in my Grass monotype. That battle was the freaking worst because the field-boosted Blizzards commonly knocked both of my Pokemon out (and her Ninetales had the Elemental Seed, so it could literally outspeed everything I had), and some of her more offensive members like Mamoswine (which also had a lovely seed) and Beartic (Slush Rush abuser par excellence) could literally one-shot everything I had. At least in Rejuvenation, Grass gives you far too little team diversity to cover the nasty weaknesses to Ice, Fire, and especially Flying, which makes the corresponding gym battles absolutely insane (well, Fire wasn't that bad because Rejuvenation's Fire-type leader is very easy to outflank by terminating her field, which there are many ways to do, yielding Sky Field, Snowy Mountain, Cave – hell, if you're creative, you can even get the battle on a Water Surface or an Underwater Field. Flying was similarly insane to Ice, though.).

 

Oh yeah, and I think you misunderstood my point slightly – I was not talking about whether to take fields in general into account, but specifically terrains, and I suppose the terminology could be confusing because a lot of people (myself included) sometimes use the terms interchangeably. In the specific case of my last comment (and for the rest of this comment), however, the term terrain refers to four specific fields – Grassy Terrain, Electric Terrain, Misty Terrain, and Psychic Terrain – that, in Reborn, can be summoned via the moves of the same names or via Grassy/Electric/Misty/Psychic Surge for up to eight turns (with an Amplified Rock). Crucially, these terrains override any existing field except for the New World, which essentially counters almost any opponent's whole strategy by moving the game onto your turf completely. Look at how I defeated Aya at first, for example – should the possibility of pulling that kind of strategy be considered for the purposes of this ranking? As I said before, I am of two minds on that issue.

 

I think that the terrains should definitely be counted. They are a part of a pokemons movepool, and while I get your point about it being rinse wash and repeat, realistically since all pokemon can only learn a max of 4 moves I would counter that pokemon in general is just kinda rinse wash and repeat once you establish your strategy. Also, I think that the terrains are intrinsic to the pokemon just like stats, abilities, and other parts of their movesets so it would be unfair to discount the terrain for the sake of it being powerful

[Cassandra]

On 5/25/2022 at 8:56 AM, Whitelight said:

 

I think that the terrains should definitely be counted. They are a part of a pokemons movepool, and while I get your point about it being rinse wash and repeat, realistically since all pokemon can only learn a max of 4 moves I would counter that pokemon in general is just kinda rinse wash and repeat once you establish your strategy. Also, I think that the terrains are intrinsic to the pokemon just like stats, abilities, and other parts of their movesets so it would be unfair to discount the terrain for the sake of it being powerful

Hey! Apologies for my late response – the reason I did not respond any earlier is that I did not feel like I had anything to really add. Your point is certainly fair – part of the reason I like the field effects is that they add quite a bit of strategy, ensuring that battles are not quite as repetitive as they otherwise would be (the only fangame outside of Reborn/Rejuvenation that I have played is Insurgence, where I really noticed that battles were a lot less interesting. The many additions like new versions of Pokemon and new megas still made building teams enjoyable, but it is definitely not a game I would play through many times over with all sorts of different monotypes.). But obviously, once you have established the core of your team, you may do some tweaks around the edges, but there is definitely a lot of recipe-like action inherent to it. I guess my dislike for Reborn's terrain mechanics stems from the fact that they completely remove the strategic dimension of fields for eight turns, which is why I don't like using them and did not use them in the Fairy monotype I just completed; however, I see your point, and I think I somewhat agree with you.

 

Speaking of which, I just completed my Fairy monotype, so I would like to expound on my previous statements. Overall, the run went roughly as I thought it would, with the mid-game being unexpectedly rough but the rest certainly being manageable. The late game is fairly friendly towards Fairy-types, and the availability of the beast that is Mega Mawile certainly is part of the reason why. Now, I was really stupid and missed the ability to get the Mega-Z Ring before Titania (apparently, you have to speak to Arclight before the Devon incident?), and because I lacked Mega Mawile, the battle was quite a bit rougher than it probably would have been otherwise. Titania was still easier than on my Dragon monotype, but considerably harder than she was on my Ice monotype, so I guess, in the grand scheme of things, the type disadvantage made the gym battle tricky but not impossible (I think Titania is really one of the hardest leaders period, and this has been my experience over all my runs; you can try sweeping her, but good luck with that, given that half her team has seeds that just protect them from damage for a turn, and in that timespan, the brutal field-boosted attacks should speak for themselves.). So yeah, here's my advice for your Fairy-type run: Should you want to use Mawile on your team, make sure you get the ability to mega evolve right after returning to the city; it will make Titania about a thousand times easier. Because here is my big takeaway from this Fairy monotype: Mega Mawile, particularly if backed by Aurora Veil, is a freaking beast that can easily 1v6 a whole lot of teams, which I only really came to understand after this playthrough. Alolan Ninetales (which I ran maximum Special Attack with Nasty Plot on, rather than, as I am used to, maximum HP) and Mega Mawile are one hell of a combination, particularly in Doubles, and they were certainly my offensive core this time (along with arguably Primarina, which I eventually replaced with Azumarill). The rest of the team was mainly there to tie up the loose ends – revenge-killing, Destiny Bond, and support not already provided by Ninetales. Either way – Fairy is definitely one of the easier monotypes overall, and part of the reason is that it is one of only two monotypes to have Aurora Veil as a viable option (given that Alolan Ninetales has access to Snow Warning and Aurora Veil combined; since Reborn uses Gen VII mechanics, that combination is actually unique. In Generation VIII, it is joined by Abomasnow and Aurorus, which adds Grass and Rock to the pool, but honestly, I know from running monotype Grass in Rejuvenation that Abomasnow is far from the reliable Aurora Veil setter that the blistering Ninetales is.), which benefits a myriad of slower Fairy-types with great offensive prowess, from Mawile to Azumarill to Clefable. It gives you a fair share of useful fully evolved Pokemon early on that can really make a difference and ensure the match-ups against Corey and, to a lesser extent, Aya are a lot less daunting than they appear at first glance. Unfortunately, the oxygen sort of runs out eventually, and with a lack of really good new options in the mid-game and declining viability of the aforementioned early partners, the period from Radomus to Ciel is probably the hardest part of the game even with a Ninetales to guarantee Aurora Veil protection. You get a lot more breathing space (to extend this metaphor) after returning to the city, with options such as Clefable, Gardevoir, Mega Mawile, and Mega Altaria; Titania is absolutely painful, but if you do make it past her, you are largely in for a smooth ride with some sporadic complications. Oh yeah, and the Fern battle on Victory Road is the worst thing ever – seriously, I was stuck there for way longer than I was against any of the Elite Four or the Champion.

 

So, that was basically my analysis, which I thought I would write now that I have things fresh in mind. I would have loved to do something similar for my Ice monotype, for instance, but since I started that one on E18 and only finished it on E19, I would not only have missed the minor battle-related changes, but also have lacked the precise memory because most of it has been some time ago. Still, I would really like to analyze future monotypes of mine in this fashion as well.

[Whitelight]

On 5/30/2022 at 7:05 PM, Cassandra said:

Hey! Apologies for my late response – the reason I did not respond any earlier is that I did not feel like I had anything to really add. Your point is certainly fair – part of the reason I like the field effects is that they add quite a bit of strategy, ensuring that battles are not quite as repetitive as they otherwise would be (the only fangame outside of Reborn/Rejuvenation that I have played is Insurgence, where I really noticed that battles were a lot less interesting. The many additions like new versions of Pokemon and new megas still made building teams enjoyable, but it is definitely not a game I would play through many times over with all sorts of different monotypes.). But obviously, once you have established the core of your team, you may do some tweaks around the edges, but there is definitely a lot of recipe-like action inherent to it. I guess my dislike for Reborn's terrain mechanics stems from the fact that they completely remove the strategic dimension of fields for eight turns, which is why I don't like using them and did not use them in the Fairy monotype I just completed; however, I see your point, and I think I somewhat agree with you.

 

Speaking of which, I just completed my Fairy monotype, so I would like to expound on my previous statements. Overall, the run went roughly as I thought it would, with the mid-game being unexpectedly rough but the rest certainly being manageable. The late game is fairly friendly towards Fairy-types, and the availability of the beast that is Mega Mawile certainly is part of the reason why. Now, I was really stupid and missed the ability to get the Mega-Z Ring before Titania (apparently, you have to speak to Arclight before the Devon incident?), and because I lacked Mega Mawile, the battle was quite a bit rougher than it probably would have been otherwise. Titania was still easier than on my Dragon monotype, but considerably harder than she was on my Ice monotype, so I guess, in the grand scheme of things, the type disadvantage made the gym battle tricky but not impossible (I think Titania is really one of the hardest leaders period, and this has been my experience over all my runs; you can try sweeping her, but good luck with that, given that half her team has seeds that just protect them from damage for a turn, and in that timespan, the brutal field-boosted attacks should speak for themselves.). So yeah, here's my advice for your Fairy-type run: Should you want to use Mawile on your team, make sure you get the ability to mega evolve right after returning to the city; it will make Titania about a thousand times easier. Because here is my big takeaway from this Fairy monotype: Mega Mawile, particularly if backed by Aurora Veil, is a freaking beast that can easily 1v6 a whole lot of teams, which I only really came to understand after this playthrough. Alolan Ninetales (which I ran maximum Special Attack with Nasty Plot on, rather than, as I am used to, maximum HP) and Mega Mawile are one hell of a combination, particularly in Doubles, and they were certainly my offensive core this time (along with arguably Primarina, which I eventually replaced with Azumarill). The rest of the team was mainly there to tie up the loose ends – revenge-killing, Destiny Bond, and support not already provided by Ninetales. Either way – Fairy is definitely one of the easier monotypes overall, and part of the reason is that it is one of only two monotypes to have Aurora Veil as a viable option (given that Alolan Ninetales has access to Snow Warning and Aurora Veil combined; since Reborn uses Gen VII mechanics, that combination is actually unique. In Generation VIII, it is joined by Abomasnow and Aurorus, which adds Grass and Rock to the pool, but honestly, I know from running monotype Grass in Rejuvenation that Abomasnow is far from the reliable Aurora Veil setter that the blistering Ninetales is.), which benefits a myriad of slower Fairy-types with great offensive prowess, from Mawile to Azumarill to Clefable. It gives you a fair share of useful fully evolved Pokemon early on that can really make a difference and ensure the match-ups against Corey and, to a lesser extent, Aya are a lot less daunting than they appear at first glance. Unfortunately, the oxygen sort of runs out eventually, and with a lack of really good new options in the mid-game and declining viability of the aforementioned early partners, the period from Radomus to Ciel is probably the hardest part of the game even with a Ninetales to guarantee Aurora Veil protection. You get a lot more breathing space (to extend this metaphor) after returning to the city, with options such as Clefable, Gardevoir, Mega Mawile, and Mega Altaria; Titania is absolutely painful, but if you do make it past her, you are largely in for a smooth ride with some sporadic complications. Oh yeah, and the Fern battle on Victory Road is the worst thing ever – seriously, I was stuck there for way longer than I was against any of the Elite Four or the Champion.

 

So, that was basically my analysis, which I thought I would write now that I have things fresh in mind. I would have loved to do something similar for my Ice monotype, for instance, but since I started that one on E18 and only finished it on E19, I would not only have missed the minor battle-related changes, but also have lacked the precise memory because most of it has been some time ago. Still, I would really like to analyze future monotypes of mine in this fashion as well.

I find that very interesting!! I have tried a few other fan games before, but I really dislike the idea of making completely "new" pokemon as most of the times they feel really unbalanced one way or the other. Reborns field effects aren't necessarily "fair" sometimes either but they feel a bit more balanced around the story (such as when fighting a gym leader its always favorable terrain to them)

 

I also love hearing about your experience with Fairy type, I will have to update you when I do the Fairy run myself!!! My most recent completed mono was grass and.... oh boy was it a rough one.... I hadn't quite anticipated how weak it would be. The main issue was the abysmal speed stats of almost all the Grass types, and they excessive weaknesses they have. Even the chunkiest grass types like venasaur with maxed defensive stats would crumple under most STAB attacks it was weak to... I had to resort mostly to Mach punches from technician breloom, toxic and toxic spikes from max speed roserade, and about a billion revives lol. Now that I am out of the woods (pun intended) I am about 3/4 of the way through the psychic run and wow is it an absolute BREEZE. Medicham alone can pure power HJK through almost anything, including actually ONE SHOTTING the pulse magnezone... on top of that delphox is a powerhouse (I had never used that mon before) and then you have stuff like metagross on top of that who just blow stuff up with their insane stats. I haven't done E4 yet or even the Labradorra gauntlet so I'll have to update once that is done but the psychic run very may well end up getting bumped up on the list depending.

[Cassandra]

2 hours ago, Whitelight said:

I find that very interesting!! I have tried a few other fan games before, but I really dislike the idea of making completely "new" pokemon as most of the times they feel really unbalanced one way or the other. Reborns field effects aren't necessarily "fair" sometimes either but they feel a bit more balanced around the story (such as when fighting a gym leader its always favorable terrain to them)

 

I also love hearing about your experience with Fairy type, I will have to update you when I do the Fairy run myself!!! My most recent completed mono was grass and.... oh boy was it a rough one.... I hadn't quite anticipated how weak it would be. The main issue was the abysmal speed stats of almost all the Grass types, and they excessive weaknesses they have. Even the chunkiest grass types like venasaur with maxed defensive stats would crumple under most STAB attacks it was weak to... I had to resort mostly to Mach punches from technician breloom, toxic and toxic spikes from max speed roserade, and about a billion revives lol. Now that I am out of the woods (pun intended) I am about 3/4 of the way through the psychic run and wow is it an absolute BREEZE. Medicham alone can pure power HJK through almost anything, including actually ONE SHOTTING the pulse magnezone... on top of that delphox is a powerhouse (I had never used that mon before) and then you have stuff like metagross on top of that who just blow stuff up with their insane stats. I haven't done E4 yet or even the Labradorra gauntlet so I'll have to update once that is done but the psychic run very may well end up getting bumped up on the list depending.

I see what you're saying, but this wasn't really the case in Insurgence – most of these so-called Delta Pokemon (which are, again, different versions of their normal counterparts) had the same stats as their regular forms but different types, abilities, and movepools, which allowed for new strategies without necessarily making them OP or anything like that. A favorite of mine is an Ice/Fairy version of Mismagius that has Magic Guard and is therefore just kind of begging to be given a Life Orb. Some of the new megas are a bit busted (Mega Froslass is kind of crazy, for example), but I would argue that some of the regular megas are also sort of like that (Mega Salamence, for example). Fakemons can certainly lead the game to be somewhat unbalanced, but they don't have to. Rejuvenation has its fair share of regional forms of known Pokemon, one of which you will encounter if you go through the postgame in Reborn (actually, there is, I think, a way to get it earlier using a password, which you might have appreciated because it might have helped with your Grass-type run – it was certainly very useful in mine), and they can certainly provide good and interesting options for monotypes. I kind of like them, I suppose, but this is mainly a matter of personal taste, I would say.

 

As for your experience with monotype Grass, I was surprised to hear you had as rough a time as you did, largely because I had myself forgotten how much I struggled with that monotype. In fact, I wrote the following on Reddit back then, which was not exactly how I had the run in mind but, now that I look back at it, fits well with your description:

Quote

I gotta say, it’s probably the most challenging monotype run I’ve ever done. On the one hand, Grass is one of the few types that really give you a lot of options early on in Rejuvenation – there are certainly plenty of Grass-types available even before the first badge. However, that, rather unfortunately, doesn’t translate to a lot of strategical options.

The Grass type has a lot of weaknesses, after all, and though Bug and Poison can be handled with a few usable defensive Poison-types that can be obtained rather quickly, Fire, Ice, and Flying are a lot more serious. Fire-types were just the bane of my existence early on – it wasn’t very difficult at all to cover my Fire-type weakness when I was doing an Ice monotype with both decent Water-types and Ground-type moves/coverage, but when doing monotype Grass, things just become a lot more tricky. Sure, Ludicolo is an option, but it’s just not super bulky or powerful, and the rain weather provides little benefit to my team outside of just neutralizing Fire-types. With the help of a dedicated Fire-type counter in Appletun, Fire-types have not been that much of a deal ever since I obtained Rock Climb, but they were pure suffering beforehand. It’s a very similar story with Ice-types, though frailer ones can be handled using Breloom’s Mach Punch. I’m completely screwed against any Ice-type that can survive that, however. And Flying-types are by far the worst – Cradily is literally the only available Grass-type available before the thirteenth (!) badge not weak to Flying, after all, and Ferrothorn (which would also help with the Ice-type situation) is not available at all in the game so far. Any hard-hitting Flying-type can utterly wreck the field against me once my defensive core in Tangrowth and Appletun has been taken out, and my god, Souta was a lot of trouble.

If you're interested, this was my full description of how I handled most of V13 of Rejuvenation (the part I had completed at that point) with a Grass-type team. And if I look back at some of the strategies I used to get past a few key obstacles (mainly the Ice- and Flying-type leaders), I am inclined to very much agree that Grass is an extremely challenging monotype.

 

Your Psychic monotype experience is extremely interesting as well! Actually, I haven't been starting any new monotypes these past few days, and I have instead been going through the postgame with my Fairy monotype (I did Lin R-Determination with my Ice monotype, and I wanted to also experience the Anna Smiles route in particular, so I chose to actually do the postgame as well on Fairy, which is another monotype I really enjoyed). Still, when I do embark on a new monotype, I was thinking of doing either Dark or Psychic, and I am still not sure which one to pick. So yeah, maybe I can add to your account in a couple of days.

 

Lastly, let me just say that I think it's impressive how fast you are with these monotypes! Maybe I am just slow because I never skip dialogue even when I know exactly what they are going to say next, but you are definitely a lot faster than me.

[Whitelight]

4 hours ago, Cassandra said:

I see what you're saying, but this wasn't really the case in Insurgence – most of these so-called Delta Pokemon (which are, again, different versions of their normal counterparts) had the same stats as their regular forms but different types, abilities, and movepools, which allowed for new strategies without necessarily making them OP or anything like that. A favorite of mine is an Ice/Fairy version of Mismagius that has Magic Guard and is therefore just kind of begging to be given a Life Orb. Some of the new megas are a bit busted (Mega Froslass is kind of crazy, for example), but I would argue that some of the regular megas are also sort of like that (Mega Salamence, for example). Fakemons can certainly lead the game to be somewhat unbalanced, but they don't have to. Rejuvenation has its fair share of regional forms of known Pokemon, one of which you will encounter if you go through the postgame in Reborn (actually, there is, I think, a way to get it earlier using a password, which you might have appreciated because it might have helped with your Grass-type run – it was certainly very useful in mine), and they can certainly provide good and interesting options for monotypes. I kind of like them, I suppose, but this is mainly a matter of personal taste, I would say.

 

As for your experience with monotype Grass, I was surprised to hear you had as rough a time as you did, largely because I had myself forgotten how much I struggled with that monotype. In fact, I wrote the following on Reddit back then, which was not exactly how I had the run in mind but, now that I look back at it, fits well with your description:

If you're interested, this was my full description of how I handled most of V13 of Rejuvenation (the part I had completed at that point) with a Grass-type team. And if I look back at some of the strategies I used to get past a few key obstacles (mainly the Ice- and Flying-type leaders), I am inclined to very much agree that Grass is an extremely challenging monotype.

 

Your Psychic monotype experience is extremely interesting as well! Actually, I haven't been starting any new monotypes these past few days, and I have instead been going through the postgame with my Fairy monotype (I did Lin R-Determination with my Ice monotype, and I wanted to also experience the Anna Smiles route in particular, so I chose to actually do the postgame as well on Fairy, which is another monotype I really enjoyed). Still, when I do embark on a new monotype, I was thinking of doing either Dark or Psychic, and I am still not sure which one to pick. So yeah, maybe I can add to your account in a couple of days.

 

Lastly, let me just say that I think it's impressive how fast you are with these monotypes! Maybe I am just slow because I never skip dialogue even when I know exactly what they are going to say next, but you are definitely a lot faster than me.

Well I guess I can't speak to well for insurgent and deviant types, but I gotta say ice fairy mismagius with wonder guard and life orb sounds a LIIIITTTLE bit busted imo lol. 

 

I seriously can't stress enough though just how rough the grass run was... I was almost inclined to put it behind electric but electric didn't have any natural toxic users so... there was that. I mean paralysis was all fine and good but it didn't necessarily help in the ground weakness situation so there was that... 

 

And yeah, Psychic has been an absolute breeze. Another thing I forgot to add about it was the amount of turn manipulation inherent to psychic, you have a lot of trickster users for setting up status and you have a good number of mon with access to fakeout which is a very useful move imo. Also, you get trick room from radamous which you can then basically copy his team strat if you so wish.

 

Also thanks for the praise on the speed... I would say I'm just a pro but honestly I think at this point I am more driven to just finish this project as much as anything... I REALLY want to do end game content but for my own pleasure I would like to do a "real run" with no restrictions and beat the game on my own terms and at least experience end game through fresh eyes the first time before I grind the 18 runs through it. But before I do that run I want to get all of my 18 save files "prepped" to start endgame, so i feel like I just gotta push for it. I did kinda set up for it though by doing the "worst runs first". I truly believe most of the other runs are gonna be a total cakewalk, the only ones I'm a tad concerned about are normal and Fairy since I think they could have a few rough patches, but other than that I think pretty much all the other runs are gonna be SUPER easy compared to the ice, rock, dragon, electric and grass gauntlet that I have just been GRINDING through...

[Cassandra]

19 hours ago, Whitelight said:

Well I guess I can't speak to well for insurgent and deviant types, but I gotta say ice fairy mismagius with wonder guard and life orb sounds a LIIIITTTLE bit busted imo lol. 

 

I seriously can't stress enough though just how rough the grass run was... I was almost inclined to put it behind electric but electric didn't have any natural toxic users so... there was that. I mean paralysis was all fine and good but it didn't necessarily help in the ground weakness situation so there was that... 

 

And yeah, Psychic has been an absolute breeze. Another thing I forgot to add about it was the amount of turn manipulation inherent to psychic, you have a lot of trickster users for setting up status and you have a good number of mon with access to fakeout which is a very useful move imo. Also, you get trick room from radamous which you can then basically copy his team strat if you so wish.

 

Also thanks for the praise on the speed... I would say I'm just a pro but honestly I think at this point I am more driven to just finish this project as much as anything... I REALLY want to do end game content but for my own pleasure I would like to do a "real run" with no restrictions and beat the game on my own terms and at least experience end game through fresh eyes the first time before I grind the 18 runs through it. But before I do that run I want to get all of my 18 save files "prepped" to start endgame, so i feel like I just gotta push for it. I did kinda set up for it though by doing the "worst runs first". I truly believe most of the other runs are gonna be a total cakewalk, the only ones I'm a tad concerned about are normal and Fairy since I think they could have a few rough patches, but other than that I think pretty much all the other runs are gonna be SUPER easy compared to the ice, rock, dragon, electric and grass gauntlet that I have just been GRINDING through...

You misread my comment – I wrote Magic Guard, not Wonder Guard. You know, the ability with the effect of negating indirect damage, such as damage from entry hazards, status conditions, and Life Orb recoil. Yeah, Wonder Guard would be a bit crazy.

 

Also, well, I am still a bit disinclined to agree with putting Grass that low, but when I look back at some of the strategies I pursued against the Ice-type leader in Rejuvenation, for example (I literally just soft-reset until I got super lucky with sleep turns – largely because most of my team would just be one-shotted by field-boosted fully accurate Blizzards under hail), I get the sinking feeling your evaluation may be fair.

 

Your points about Psychic as a monotype are really interesting – Trick Room is another one of these strategies I find a little bit cheap, but it definitely is a huge point in the monotype's favor. I think I'm gonna do Psychic next as well because there are a few interesting team options I have in mind ...

 

In that case, props to you for your persistence! Are you actually gonna do the postgame on all eighteen monotypes? I would really be interested in what you have to say on that afterwards. I do eventually intend to do all eighteen monotypes as well, though there are a few I don't really have a drive to try out myself, so we'll see if I get the motivation to do all of them. However, I don't think I will do the postgame on all eighteen – there are five story paths in Anna Smiles, Lin R-Determination, Lin R-Regular, Lin Z-Regular, and Lin Z-Hell, so it seems opportune to tie them to different monotypes. I did Lin R-Determination on the Ice monotype, I am currently in the process of finishing Anna Smiles on my Fairy monotype, I will do one of the remaining paths once I do a Steel monotype, and well, the other two will be assigned to two other monotypes I really end up enjoying. The postgame is, after all, very extensive. Either way, I would also be curious what you think after going into the postgame blind with a regular, non-monotype team; but that is probably quite a few weeks into the future.

[Whitelight]

19 hours ago, Cassandra said:

You misread my comment – I wrote Magic Guard, not Wonder Guard. You know, the ability with the effect of negating indirect damage, such as damage from entry hazards, status conditions, and Life Orb recoil. Yeah, Wonder Guard would be a bit crazy.

 

Also, well, I am still a bit disinclined to agree with putting Grass that low, but when I look back at some of the strategies I pursued against the Ice-type leader in Rejuvenation, for example (I literally just soft-reset until I got super lucky with sleep turns – largely because most of my team would just be one-shotted by field-boosted fully accurate Blizzards under hail), I get the sinking feeling your evaluation may be fair.

 

Your points about Psychic as a monotype are really interesting – Trick Room is another one of these strategies I find a little bit cheap, but it definitely is a huge point in the monotype's favor. I think I'm gonna do Psychic next as well because there are a few interesting team options I have in mind ...

 

In that case, props to you for your persistence! Are you actually gonna do the postgame on all eighteen monotypes? I would really be interested in what you have to say on that afterwards. I do eventually intend to do all eighteen monotypes as well, though there are a few I don't really have a drive to try out myself, so we'll see if I get the motivation to do all of them. However, I don't think I will do the postgame on all eighteen – there are five story paths in Anna Smiles, Lin R-Determination, Lin R-Regular, Lin Z-Regular, and Lin Z-Hell, so it seems opportune to tie them to different monotypes. I did Lin R-Determination on the Ice monotype, I am currently in the process of finishing Anna Smiles on my Fairy monotype, I will do one of the remaining paths once I do a Steel monotype, and well, the other two will be assigned to two other monotypes I really end up enjoying. The postgame is, after all, very extensive. Either way, I would also be curious what you think after going into the postgame blind with a regular, non-monotype team; but that is probably quite a few weeks into the future.

Actually, I was thinking of Magic Guard when I said it would be pretty broken, the strat to negate the life orb damage can be pretty wacky especially on a typing like Ice Fairy. I mean I guess depending on stats and movesets it may not be completely gamebreaking but a free life orb boosted Dazzling Gleam seems really strong. looking at the other mon with magic guard (clefable, Sigilyph, Alakazam, and Reuniclus) they all have some pretty distinct weaknesses... Alakazam is very fragile, sigiliyph has a better ability imo, Rueniclus is just meh, and that leaves clefable as the main star of the show and with how bulky it is it can actually be SUPER oppressive. Again, not saying game breaking but i would definitely say that it could potentially rank like in the top 25% depending on stats and moveset. 

 

I would also say grass ABSOLUTELY has to be put that low at least for me, the main issue I have after reflecting a little bit more is the ABYSMAL speed stats. I would consider speed to be one of the more important stats in pokemon, especially pokemon reborn. Sceptile and MAYBE serpirior are the fastest grass types you get access to and even then they are both mono grass with movesets that dont exactly put them in the position of a great sweeper. Also, I find that Torterra is almost a mandatory starter for grass because you REALLY need access to the ground coverage. you do have whimsicott too but you get that so late in the story that it doesnt make too much of a difference. all in all too I never could quite get a "final" team that I was happy with in the sense of feeling super confident going into fights. There were always huge holes in coverage that made me a bit uncomfortable, especially fire which is one of the MAIN attacking types. I mean the only pokemon you really have that can fight fire is Ludicolo, which is a low caliber pokemon imo that only really excells in the mid game or extremely beneificial boosted fields like Amarias underwater field to auto proc swift swim.

 

I am glad you brought up the psychic run too! I just finished it a bit ago and damn it was a cakewalk through and through. My final team was Metagross, Medicham, Alakazam, Delphox, Malamar, and Slowking. Metagross is of course spectacular, and medicham with pure power can one shot a ton of stuff, whether or not the HJK is super effective or not. alakazam also hits like a truck and learns a ton of good coverage moves, and Delphox suprised me at just how potent it could be. and of course Slowking was an absolute beast of a wall that has access to Yawn to allow for easy setup. and Malamar was really there just to power through teams with superpower and boost itself with contrary. there were a few times like pulse avalugg where malamar just solo'ed it. anything that was a physical attacker that couldnt just one shot malamar became a punching bag. Funny thing is, with the team I was running I actually never even abused trick room either, although i definitely could and probably should have.

 

And yeah I am planning on going back and doing the endgame for all the runs, after I get them all through the E4. I figure it will almost be a different game entirely due to having access to every non legendary pokemon from the "start". I feel like endgame will need its own seperate difficulty list too just by nature of some types having a ton of really strong legendaries and other types being super starved. I will be looking forward to getting around to it as soon as I can but it will probably take a while... I do anticipate the runs taking less and less time as I go on though because I am running them from least powerful to most powerful (roughly) so i think by the time I get around to fire and fighting im just gonna breeze through it. I even found that in this last run for psychic it wasnt even the fights that took a lot of preparing and resetting for, it was mostly just the puzzles that gummed me up. I am infinitely grateful for the puzzle solution shards that are sprinkled through some of the more daunting ones like the tauros puzzle and the logic puzzles in victory road, but holy hell there are still some like the ice slide puzzle in the sapphire room that I feel like I need to look up constantly. Anyway even that is getting quicker so I should be on the fast track soon I hope.

 

Anyway, I think my next two runs on the docket are normal and fairy. Normal is one that I am a liiiitle bit concerned that I might have misjudged, although with only 1 weakness to fighting I feel like it should hopefully be mostly coverable. best case scenario it goes up a bit in the rankings, worst case scenario my life will be a living grinding hell for the next few days. I will look forward to updating the list as I continue through.

 

an edit: it was normal steel, I forgot that I pushed fairy up a bit. I am looking forward to steel too though... that is the type i have the MOST experience with and jeeebus i am excited to get my damn aegislash XD

[Cassandra]

On 6/6/2022 at 8:58 PM, Whitelight said:

Actually, I was thinking of Magic Guard when I said it would be pretty broken, the strat to negate the life orb damage can be pretty wacky especially on a typing like Ice Fairy. I mean I guess depending on stats and movesets it may not be completely gamebreaking but a free life orb boosted Dazzling Gleam seems really strong. looking at the other mon with magic guard (clefable, Sigilyph, Alakazam, and Reuniclus) they all have some pretty distinct weaknesses... Alakazam is very fragile, sigiliyph has a better ability imo, Rueniclus is just meh, and that leaves clefable as the main star of the show and with how bulky it is it can actually be SUPER oppressive. Again, not saying game breaking but i would definitely say that it could potentially rank like in the top 25% depending on stats and moveset. 

 

I would also say grass ABSOLUTELY has to be put that low at least for me, the main issue I have after reflecting a little bit more is the ABYSMAL speed stats. I would consider speed to be one of the more important stats in pokemon, especially pokemon reborn. Sceptile and MAYBE serpirior are the fastest grass types you get access to and even then they are both mono grass with movesets that dont exactly put them in the position of a great sweeper. Also, I find that Torterra is almost a mandatory starter for grass because you REALLY need access to the ground coverage. you do have whimsicott too but you get that so late in the story that it doesnt make too much of a difference. all in all too I never could quite get a "final" team that I was happy with in the sense of feeling super confident going into fights. There were always huge holes in coverage that made me a bit uncomfortable, especially fire which is one of the MAIN attacking types. I mean the only pokemon you really have that can fight fire is Ludicolo, which is a low caliber pokemon imo that only really excells in the mid game or extremely beneificial boosted fields like Amarias underwater field to auto proc swift swim.

 

I am glad you brought up the psychic run too! I just finished it a bit ago and damn it was a cakewalk through and through. My final team was Metagross, Medicham, Alakazam, Delphox, Malamar, and Slowking. Metagross is of course spectacular, and medicham with pure power can one shot a ton of stuff, whether or not the HJK is super effective or not. alakazam also hits like a truck and learns a ton of good coverage moves, and Delphox suprised me at just how potent it could be. and of course Slowking was an absolute beast of a wall that has access to Yawn to allow for easy setup. and Malamar was really there just to power through teams with superpower and boost itself with contrary. there were a few times like pulse avalugg where malamar just solo'ed it. anything that was a physical attacker that couldnt just one shot malamar became a punching bag. Funny thing is, with the team I was running I actually never even abused trick room either, although i definitely could and probably should have.

 

And yeah I am planning on going back and doing the endgame for all the runs, after I get them all through the E4. I figure it will almost be a different game entirely due to having access to every non legendary pokemon from the "start". I feel like endgame will need its own seperate difficulty list too just by nature of some types having a ton of really strong legendaries and other types being super starved. I will be looking forward to getting around to it as soon as I can but it will probably take a while... I do anticipate the runs taking less and less time as I go on though because I am running them from least powerful to most powerful (roughly) so i think by the time I get around to fire and fighting im just gonna breeze through it. I even found that in this last run for psychic it wasnt even the fights that took a lot of preparing and resetting for, it was mostly just the puzzles that gummed me up. I am infinitely grateful for the puzzle solution shards that are sprinkled through some of the more daunting ones like the tauros puzzle and the logic puzzles in victory road, but holy hell there are still some like the ice slide puzzle in the sapphire room that I feel like I need to look up constantly. Anyway even that is getting quicker so I should be on the fast track soon I hope.

 

Anyway, I think my next two runs on the docket are normal and fairy. Normal is one that I am a liiiitle bit concerned that I might have misjudged, although with only 1 weakness to fighting I feel like it should hopefully be mostly coverable. best case scenario it goes up a bit in the rankings, worst case scenario my life will be a living grinding hell for the next few days. I will look forward to updating the list as I continue through.

 

an edit: it was normal steel, I forgot that I pushed fairy up a bit. I am looking forward to steel too though... that is the type i have the MOST experience with and jeeebus i am excited to get my damn aegislash XD

Well, that Mismagius has the same stats as regular Mismagius, so it isn't super broken, though I certainly see your point about how it could be. It's interesting that you think Tinted Lens (I presume) is a better ability on Sigilyph, to be honest – I like not receiving indirect damage and freely being able to Cosmic Power up, but that might just be a matter of personal preference.

 

Yeah, Speed is a huge issue on Grass monotypes – I actually had Jumpluff as a member for a very long time because it could offer speed in a way few other Grass-types could, which was crucial for dispersing with checks. Serperior is insanely powerful, but it is only available late in Reborn, and Torterra is certainly a whole lot more useful in the early game. Whimsicott was actually an important supporter for my Fairy monotype just now, so I'm not sure I agree with you writing it off, though (it is also available after Samson if my memory doesn't deceive me, and though you aren't able to breed and get the most out of it for another few badges, that is still not that late). I completely agree with your point about the lack of a real final team constellation I was happy with, and I had the same experience in Rejuvenation (Ludicolo is almost mandatory for some of the mid-game fights, but it isn't pulling its weight the vast majority of the time).

 

As for your recounting of your Psychic monotype, I will get back to you as soon as I have finished my own, but your team certainly looks very solid. And yeah, I see your point about the puzzles kind of becoming very time-consuming in comparison to the battles over time, as I have frankly been feeling the same way. I actually like the ice slide puzzles and especially the gem logic puzzles on Victory Road (I actually did them again a couple of times even though I could have just used the shard), but for me, it is stuff like Radomus's gym puzzle (I don't know chess, so that one is a bit tricky for me) that I have to look up all the time.

 

Well then, good luck on your Normal-type run! Normal is another type I don't know much about, so I am curious to see what you have to say in a couple of days.

[Whitelight]

1 hour ago, Cassandra said:

Well, that Mismagius has the same stats as regular Mismagius, so it isn't super broken, though I certainly see your point about how it could be. It's interesting that you think Tinted Lens (I presume) is a better ability on Sigilyph, to be honest – I like not receiving indirect damage and freely being able to Cosmic Power up, but that might just be a matter of personal preference.

 

Yeah, Speed is a huge issue on Grass monotypes – I actually had Jumpluff as a member for a very long time because it could offer speed in a way few other Grass-types could, which was crucial for dispersing with checks. Serperior is insanely powerful, but it is only available late in Reborn, and Torterra is certainly a whole lot more useful in the early game. Whimsicott was actually an important supporter for my Fairy monotype just now, so I'm not sure I agree with you writing it off, though (it is also available after Samson if my memory doesn't deceive me, and though you aren't able to breed and get the most out of it for another few badges, that is still not that late). I completely agree with your point about the lack of a real final team constellation I was happy with, and I had the same experience in Rejuvenation (Ludicolo is almost mandatory for some of the mid-game fights, but it isn't pulling its weight the vast majority of the time).

 

As for your recounting of your Psychic monotype, I will get back to you as soon as I have finished my own, but your team certainly looks very solid. And yeah, I see your point about the puzzles kind of becoming very time-consuming in comparison to the battles over time, as I have frankly been feeling the same way. I actually like the ice slide puzzles and especially the gem logic puzzles on Victory Road (I actually did them again a couple of times even though I could have just used the shard), but for me, it is stuff like Radomus's gym puzzle (I don't know chess, so that one is a bit tricky for me) that I have to look up all the time.

 

Well then, good luck on your Normal-type run! Normal is another type I don't know much about, so I am curious to see what you have to say in a couple of days.

I guess I view tinted lens as a better stand in since I've been locked in this "mono run" mindset for so long and any leverage you can get to get more type coverage is seen as critical to me.

 

I wouldn't necessarily say I would completely write whimsicott off in general, but for the grass team specifically it felt like a waste to do so much setup when I couldn't find a really solid sweeper that had enough coverage to actually go the distance in most fights. I also feel like even things like serpirior, while strong, fail to be able to get off the ground most of the time and get REALLY screwed over by some of the fields, particularly the flame field and the Dragon's Den.

 

Also, as for the normal run, I actually have already made it to the circus, which I would say is far enough to give some preliminary opinions.... I would say that it isn't the most terribly difficult run I've ever done, but I would say I actually think psychic was a bit easier so I think I will end up flipping them on the rankings. I think the big separator is that psychic had an IDENTITY as being speedy and hitting hard, and I am kind of struggling to find the identity in normal typing. On one hand you have pretty good stats and access to a TON of pokemon from early on, but on the other hand you don't have access to really any "beneficial" field typing that you can control, and some of the movepools can be sort of weak at times. I guess the biggest issue is really not having a "core" pokemon that you can really set up for. I need to swap some stuff out however and I think things will change pretty drastically when I get ahold of the almighty mega kangaskan as well as start rotating silvally into things. I will keep updating as I go along but for now that's kinda where I'm at.

[Whitelight]

Ok so a little update on the normal run,  parked halfway through the Elite 4, Elias is proving a little difficult but I just need to work it out. I am almost considering flipping the ranking back though, ever since I kind of worked out the normal type strategy... basically it MOSTLY revolved around ditto copying a teams most powerful mon and sweeping the opposing team with it. The difficult part is that it is a coin flip on tied speed for who is fastest. Other than that, silvally has been a HUGE asset, given in the late game you can just pop a memory into him before a battle to give yourself a pretty solid mon with a whopping 120 power physical move of your choosing on it. Mega kangaskan kicks some butt too, and even though the rest of the normal mon pickings are scarce other than my reckless staraptor, the run is going a lot smoother now. I guess it just really tanks in the midgame I would say after like Shelley, and then picks up again really strong at the circus and rides it out from there.  Oh! Almost forgot skill link mincinno is a badass too! But yeah, I'll have to mull it over for a bit and see but the rankings might get flipped... not too sure.

[Whitelight]

So definitely think I'm starting to speed up a bit... I just got to post restoration in my Steel run. Considering I was still at the e4 in my normal run this time yesterday I would say that ain't too bad of time lol. Steel is my main type though so I guess I may be a little biased... I feel like there are just SO many good options though for Steel and with so many powerhouses you usually have the cure to whatever is killing you, other than Ground and fire being a general pain in the ass most of the time. But with access to a lot of boosting, especially the insane boost gear shift gives you on klingklang, I find that you can usually post up on a weaker mon in battle and then sweep from there. Ezpz. Looking forward to polishing off ghost next and then that will complete the lower half, "bottom nine" runs. 

[Whitelight]

It's been a bit since I have posted an update... I finished off the steel run and then blew through the ghost run at a good clip. I am now in post restoration fairy run and it is definitely a step up from the other rubs. Misty terrain has pulled a LOT of weight with the doubling of special defense for all my Fairy types and some nice boosts to my STAB fairy moves. I have found some other things that have helped a ton too, such as an insanely powerful azumarill strat to have it with the ability huge power as well as breeding the moves belly drum and aqua jet... essentially if I can get 1 turn respite to cheat in a belly drum I can sweep most teams that don't have other priority users or Sturdy/Focus Sashes. I recently unlocked some tech with a busted prankster whimsicott strategy utilizing leech seed and substitute.  We will see how that ends up turning out... as long as I can get past adrienn which I don't see as tooooo much of an issue, I will get my mimikyu which will be a nice power boost too. Also just need to track down the mawilite for Mega mawile and I think I'll be pretty set... oh and how could I forget!!! Cosmic Power magic guard clefable is a powerhouse too.

 

Anyway, tldr: completed Steel and ghost. Halfway through fairy and fairy has been pretty ezpz

 

[Whitelight]

Ok so another update, even though it's quite possible this thread has died and this is being played out to deaf ears XD. I have worked my way up the list to poison. All I gotta do is beat the E4. Poison is gonna end up going WAY down the list for me actually, just because I have struggled like hell with there being so many glass cannons you rely on. It's of course nowhere near as bad as some of the ridiculous BS down the list, but not having a terrain changer is a big minus and it doesn't hold up as well defensively as I had hoped. Move coverage can also be a bit lacking sometimes although access to salazzle has been really nice. Looking forward to plowing through the top 7, I'm kinda getting a bit burned out although I guess that is what happens when you have played through the main storyline 11 times lol.

[Akontistes]

Hi lads, sorry to interrupt you but I'm going through a mono grass myself and I have to say it's been smooth sailing so far. This is my second mono run after a psychic run and I'm having way less problems than I had with psychic types. It may be due to me being slightly more aware of the game and knowledgeable but honestly, aside from Serra, I first tried so many of the boss battles up to Ciel, which I'm going to fight in a couple hours. For most of those battles I didn't really have crazy strats, I just played the way I thought was best.

 

First of all Jumpluff has to be one of the most underestimated Mons ever. Dude legit solo swept like four gyms, has access to a lot of moves, stabbed flying coverage is unsurprisingly god tier and his speed tier is incredible. My starter was Serperior and even if I regretted it while doing Serra, my god as soon as he got leaf storm he's just annihilating everything on his way. Charlotte should be one of the hardest gyms, I beat her in two tries with blizzard abomasnow and swift swim rain dance Surf Ludicolo/storm drain Cradily. Everything that survived was outsped by Jumpluff and Serperior and I still could rely on Breloom Mach punch to close the deal. All in all I could talk about mons being strong for hours cause I didn't take more than 3-5 tries for every single battle aside from Serra. She was a nightmare, it made me appreciate Meganium more than I ever should cause, again unsurprisingly, screens and grassy terrain with frail sweepers is mandatory.

 

What is making this run so easy for me is the setup potential and the overall strength of a trick room team if needed. It is true that we don't have access to many fast pokemons but Sceptile, Jumpluff and Serperior more than make up for the lack of it, they are all Incredible. Lilligant is another amazing sweeper with access to Quiver Dance and own tempo petal dance set, oneshotting Terra first try just to name one. So many pokemons can learn Grassy Terrain, Growth, Sleep Powder, Sunny day+Chlorophyll. You need to have a strategy for some battles, that is true, but there's plenty of options and fallback plans if something doesn't go right.

 

When it comes to the fast pokemons not being good enough, why not just drop a trick room and use your slow ones instead. Dhelmise and Cradily are powerhouses that cover many weaknesses. Trevenant and Lurantis can be really good and you already know how strong Tangrowth is, same can be said for Torterra. I don't even have access yet to Ferrothorn and Mega Abomasnow but I can already tell that most likely once I will, my team would be trick room half the times.

 

I'm still not far enough in the game to tell you that grass should be on the top 10 spots, even though I think it should, so I will keep you updated about the big obstacles that I'm about to face. Until then, just wanted to share my opinions with you!

[Whitelight]

On 6/24/2022 at 6:28 AM, Akontistes said:

Hi lads, sorry to interrupt you but I'm going through a mono grass myself and I have to say it's been smooth sailing so far. This is my second mono run after a psychic run and I'm having way less problems than I had with psychic types. It may be due to me being slightly more aware of the game and knowledgeable but honestly, aside from Serra, I first tried so many of the boss battles up to Ciel, which I'm going to fight in a couple hours. For most of those battles I didn't really have crazy strats, I just played the way I thought was best.

 

First of all Jumpluff has to be one of the most underestimated Mons ever. Dude legit solo swept like four gyms, has access to a lot of moves, stabbed flying coverage is unsurprisingly god tier and his speed tier is incredible. My starter was Serperior and even if I regretted it while doing Serra, my god as soon as he got leaf storm he's just annihilating everything on his way. Charlotte should be one of the hardest gyms, I beat her in two tries with blizzard abomasnow and swift swim rain dance Surf Ludicolo/storm drain Cradily. Everything that survived was outsped by Jumpluff and Serperior and I still could rely on Breloom Mach punch to close the deal. All in all I could talk about mons being strong for hours cause I didn't take more than 3-5 tries for every single battle aside from Serra. She was a nightmare, it made me appreciate Meganium more than I ever should cause, again unsurprisingly, screens and grassy terrain with frail sweepers is mandatory.

 

What is making this run so easy for me is the setup potential and the overall strength of a trick room team if needed. It is true that we don't have access to many fast pokemons but Sceptile, Jumpluff and Serperior more than make up for the lack of it, they are all Incredible. Lilligant is another amazing sweeper with access to Quiver Dance and own tempo petal dance set, oneshotting Terra first try just to name one. So many pokemons can learn Grassy Terrain, Growth, Sleep Powder, Sunny day+Chlorophyll. You need to have a strategy for some battles, that is true, but there's plenty of options and fallback plans if something doesn't go right.

 

When it comes to the fast pokemons not being good enough, why not just drop a trick room and use your slow ones instead. Dhelmise and Cradily are powerhouses that cover many weaknesses. Trevenant and Lurantis can be really good and you already know how strong Tangrowth is, same can be said for Torterra. I don't even have access yet to Ferrothorn and Mega Abomasnow but I can already tell that most likely once I will, my team would be trick room half the times.

 

I'm still not far enough in the game to tell you that grass should be on the top 10 spots, even though I think it should, so I will keep you updated about the big obstacles that I'm about to face. Until then, just wanted to share my opinions with you!

Hey! Thanks for the great feedback! Uli always appreciate hearing from different points of view, and you brought up some really nice points that I hadn't given much thought to. The use of trick room to set up a trick room team in particular is something I hadn't put too much thought into but that seems like a pretty good strategy. I also dumped jumpluff at some point just because stat wise it was beginning to really fall off, but I agree that it does breeze through the early game. I would be interested to see what your experiences end up being post renovated reborn, that to me is where it starts to draw a line in the sand "late game" wise. 

 

I would say though apart from the lack of speed, one thing that really makes grass rough in my opinion is having 5 weaknesses. It is especially important to cover weaknesses late game because there are so many different teams that utilize a sweeper, and if the sweeper is something you have a tough time preparing for it can be a REAL pain. My toughest matchup sweeper wise with grass was scizor, since other than hidden power you don't have access to any fire moves in the grass pokemon pool. It's unfortunate too that scizor is difficult for grass to handle because it is an incredibly efficient sweeper, most of the time loaded out with Swords dance and bullet punch as well as the technician ability to cheat in priority stab damage and technician boosted bullet punches.

 

I do REALLY appreciate you bringing up your strategies though, because currently i am running everything to E4 and plan on coming back to each run and making a full optimization of every team before running them through postgame. 

 

Please let me know how the later half of the game treats you, as that was the part I struggled with the most.

[Cassandra]

On 6/19/2022 at 12:22 AM, Whitelight said:

It's been a bit since I have posted an update... I finished off the steel run and then blew through the ghost run at a good clip. I am now in post restoration fairy run and it is definitely a step up from the other rubs. Misty terrain has pulled a LOT of weight with the doubling of special defense for all my Fairy types and some nice boosts to my STAB fairy moves. I have found some other things that have helped a ton too, such as an insanely powerful azumarill strat to have it with the ability huge power as well as breeding the moves belly drum and aqua jet... essentially if I can get 1 turn respite to cheat in a belly drum I can sweep most teams that don't have other priority users or Sturdy/Focus Sashes. I recently unlocked some tech with a busted prankster whimsicott strategy utilizing leech seed and substitute.  We will see how that ends up turning out... as long as I can get past adrienn which I don't see as tooooo much of an issue, I will get my mimikyu which will be a nice power boost too. Also just need to track down the mawilite for Mega mawile and I think I'll be pretty set... oh and how could I forget!!! Cosmic Power magic guard clefable is a powerhouse too.

 

Anyway, tldr: completed Steel and ghost. Halfway through fairy and fairy has been pretty ezpz

Hey! Apologies for my late response, but as I said, I had quite a few exams coming up that kept me busy for a while, so I didn't play a whole lot of Reborn during this time. The one thing I did do is my own Psychic monotype, and though I would not say it was as much of a cakewalk as you described it as, I definitely think it was on the easier side. Male Meowstic was the absolute MVP of my playthrough because guaranteed screens just make so much easier, I definitely see what you were saying about Medicham (Choice Scarf Medicham is freaking insane), and other than that, I was fortunate enough to get a shiny Metagross that I really enjoyed using, and this was my first time using a Z-Lovely Kiss Jynx set, which definitely paid off. One point at which I just laughed is when I beat Saphira by countering her hyperoffense with my own in a very creative way employing Tailwind from Sigilyph; sometimes, the easiest leaders are actually the most fun because you can try out the most outlandish strategies against them.

I find it rather interesting that you had such an easy time with Fairy, given that I, as someone with much more of an affinity for Fairy-types, did struggle a bit in the mid-game. But then again, I never made use of Misty Terrain because I found it a bit too broken for my taste (I know I am repeating myself, but I am very much not a fan of Reborn's terrain mechanics; being able to just casually override all but two fields for eight turns and completely neutralize the opponent's strategy is freaking insane), and most of the really OP Fairy-types (like Azumarill, which you mentioned and which was also a huge offensive staple for my party; I assume you got it from a Mystery Egg, which I was unfortunately not lucky enough to do, but Alolan Vulpix is a good option as well, so I am certainly not complaining) are only available post-restoration, which means the oxygen kind of runs out in the mid-game. Both Whimsicott and Mimikyu were also crucial late-game members for me, so I suppose we went for a very similar strategy after all (not to mention the ever-powerful Mega Mawile). I also find your Poison-type experience extremely interesting, given that I am planning to do my own Poison-type run very soon. For now, though, I am doing something a little bit different – another Ice monotype (given that I did most of my last one on E18), but with PULSE2 active, which adds quite a bit of challenge to the early game (and also, I think I am barring Cloyster because it trivializes so many late-game Singles battles in particular). I just beat Aya on that run of mine, and the time before I could EV train myself was definitely trickier than the regular game (interestingly enough, Corey is scary as hell on PULSE2 mode because the added bulk of his party allows him to make use of the residual damage to the fullest, especially if your monotype gives you zero Poison- or Steel-types to work with at this stage of the game; Dewgong's Sheer Cold was a lifesaver here because it allowed me to ignore those defensive buffs), though everything after Shelly has so far been largely smooth sailing.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Cassandra
corrected typos

[Whitelight]

14 hours ago, Cassandra said:

Hey! Apologies for my late response, but as I said, I had quite a few exams coming up that kept me busy for a while, so I didn't play a whole lot of Reborn during this time. The one thing I did do is my own Psychic monotype, and though I would not say it was as much of a cakewalk as you described it as, I definitely think it was on the easier side. Male Meowstic was the absolute MVP of my playthrough because guaranteed screens just make so much easier, I definitely see what you were saying about Medicham (Choice Scarf Medicham is freaking insane), and other than that, I was fortunate enough to get a shiny Metagross that I really enjoyed using, and this was my first time using a Z-Lovely Kiss Jynx set, which definitely paid off. One point at which I just laughed is when I beat Saphira by countering her hyperoffense with my own in a very creative way employing Tailwind from Sigilyph; sometimes, the easiest leaders are actually the most fun because you can try out the most outlandish strategies against them.

I find it rather interesting that you had such an easy time with Fairy, given that I, as someone with much more of an affinity for Fairy-types, did struggle a bit in the mid-game. But then again, I never made use of Misty Terrain because I found it a bit too broken for my taste (I know I am repeating myself, but I am very much not a fan of Reborn's terrain mechanics; being able to just casually override all but two fields for eight turns and completely neutralize the opponent's strategy is freaking insane), and most of the really OP Fairy-types (like Azumarill, which you mentioned and which was also a huge offensive staple for my party; I assume you got it from a Mystery Egg, which I was unfortunately not lucky enough to do, but Alolan Vulpix is a good option as well, so I am certainly not complaining) are only available post-restoration, which means the oxygen kind of runs out in the mid-game. Both Whimsicott and Mimikyu were also crucial late-game members for me, so I suppose we went for a very similar strategy after all (not to mention the ever-powerful Mega Mawile). I also find your Poison-type experience extremely interesting, given that I am planning to do my own Poison-type run very soon. For now, though, I am doing something a little bit different – another Ice monotype (given that I did most of my last one on E18), but with PULSE2 active, which adds quite a bit of challenge to the early game (and also, I think I am barring Cloyster because it trivializes so many late-game Singles battles in particular). I just beat Aya on that run of mine, and the time before I could EV train myself was definitely trickier than the regular game (interestingly enough, Corey is scary as hell on PULSE2 mode because the added bulk of his party allows him to make use of the residual damage to the fullest, especially if your monotype gives you zero Poison- or Steel-types to work with at this stage of the game; Dewgong's Sheer Cold was a lifesaver here because it allowed me to ignore those defensive buffs), though everything after Shelly has so far been largely smooth sailing.

Wow huge props to you for going for the pulse2 run, that sounds like an absolute nightmare lol. I mean, I figure with the difficulty curve the pulse2 matters most in midgame, since early on there aren't enough stats in general for it to make TOO big a difference, and by late game you mostly have "optimized" teams you are running against anyway so the extra stats are pushed into weird places (like extra bulk on sweepers). I am honestly beginning to feel a little burnout from my mono runs now that I have done like 12 runs, but im so close I can taste it. 

Also, I understand what you mean about overriding field effects being busted, and I would mostly agree HOWEVER there is still some level of counterplay to it, such as with Misty terrain there are a few poison moves that can actually flip the terrain AGAINST you. Admittedly this doesn't really matter in most scenarios and you are much more likely to just be able to set up and sweep, but the terrain stuff is just the same as weather setting imo, you are making a conscious effort and sacrifices (team slot, move slot, or both) to gain benefit from the terrain or weather effect. Also I just feel like from a "ranking" point of view it would be disingenuous to exclude things that are too op and then put them lower on the list for not being strong enough. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing how your ice run goes, and I will probably be amending this thread or creating a new one once I have all the runs caught up through the E4, since my next project is to build the "perfect teams" for each type. I feel like you would be a great person to bounce some ideas off of especially for the ice type team!

[Cassandra]

8 hours ago, Whitelight said:

Wow huge props to you for going for the pulse2 run, that sounds like an absolute nightmare lol. I mean, I figure with the difficulty curve the pulse2 matters most in midgame, since early on there aren't enough stats in general for it to make TOO big a difference, and by late game you mostly have "optimized" teams you are running against anyway so the extra stats are pushed into weird places (like extra bulk on sweepers). I am honestly beginning to feel a little burnout from my mono runs now that I have done like 12 runs, but im so close I can taste it. 

Also, I understand what you mean about overriding field effects being busted, and I would mostly agree HOWEVER there is still some level of counterplay to it, such as with Misty terrain there are a few poison moves that can actually flip the terrain AGAINST you. Admittedly this doesn't really matter in most scenarios and you are much more likely to just be able to set up and sweep, but the terrain stuff is just the same as weather setting imo, you are making a conscious effort and sacrifices (team slot, move slot, or both) to gain benefit from the terrain or weather effect. Also I just feel like from a "ranking" point of view it would be disingenuous to exclude things that are too op and then put them lower on the list for not being strong enough. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing how your ice run goes, and I will probably be amending this thread or creating a new one once I have all the runs caught up through the E4, since my next project is to build the "perfect teams" for each type. I feel like you would be a great person to bounce some ideas off of especially for the ice type team!

Well, I only got to Radomus since I wrote the message above yesterday (owing largely to technical difficulties, given that I am recording all major battles for the purpose of documentation and am absolutely hopeless with this sort of thing), but so far, the mid-game has been pretty similar to what I am used to (there is definitely an added level of difficulty, but I guess I got so accustomed to it that I don't notice it anymore) – I see what you are saying about the smaller impact of PULSE2 on the early game because of the way stats are calculated (being almost perfectly proportional to level, which, given the game's practice of rounding down fractional values, obviously means EVs and IVs don't do as much for lower-level Pokemon), but I would argue that this is far outweighed by the fact that the player cannot conceivably EV train until after Corey (and scrapping together enough money to get all the power items plus breeding stuff for natures/IVs before Shelly is also a tall order, so realistically, you will be able to do minor EV training before Shelly and implement a fully fledged breeding/training regime sometime between Shelly and Kiki; actually, I always do IV/nature/moveset breeding because I am a perfectionist and like seeing nice perfect numbers on the summary tabs of my Pokemon, so I have no idea what the game would be like without that.), which makes the added bulk the opponent gets all the more tricky to deal with. Like, I struggled so much trying to break through Florinia's Cradily because of its ability to recover off any damage taken; PULSE2-enhanced bulk that can be increased further with Stockpile is nothing to sneeze at when your Pokemon are Delibird, Vanillite, and Crabrawler. I shudder to think what I would have done without my type advantage; like, what could a Water-type team even have done here? I suppose I could have overleveled Seel by a whopping nine levels and used Sheer Cold on that Cradily ... oh yeah, and another consequence of early-game PULSE2 mode is that all your opponents will have fully invested in their Speed, meaning that all but the fastest of your team members will be outsped by Pokemon you never would have expected to do that. Like, I definitely took way longer for almost every single major battle before Shelly than I did for any battle since. Julia was simple enough, but only because Swinub completely walled half her party; leading up to Florinia, PULSE2 Tangrowth was tougher than expected, and so was Victoria; Corey is a freaking nightmare, and Ace before him is also rather tricky; and then, there are two pretty challenging fights and Cal and Shelly to round it all off.

I see what you are saying about terrains, but I would argue terrains are a lot more powerful than any kind of weather. As different as the four types of weather are (I am not counting Strong Winds as a weather effect here because it cannot be summoned in battle and is a lot more one-dimensional on all fields except for Mountain and Snowy Mountain), they generally have a handful of effects benefiting select Pokemon with the ability to make use of them – things like chip damage on foes, accuracy or power boosts to some moves, defensive benefits (be it Aurora Veil, the Special Defense boost from sandstorm, or recovery from abilities like Rain Dish), and increased power/Speed for some Pokemon. All these benefits occur on top of the field given, meaning that the opponent (unless they are running a specifically weather-related strategy, and even then, fields like the Water Surface activate abilities like Swift Swim regardless of weather) can generally go about their strategy uninterrupted. Terrains, by contrast, have very similar effects (though they are often more far-reaching, given that terrains are fields of their own and come, for instance, with their own seed effects), but with the added benefit of just overriding any existing field; that would be like any type of weather just automatically turning the field neutral, which would trivialize virtually every battle with the weather teams I have run. Misty Terrain can be destroyed by Acid Downpour (which is not a Z-Move I personally see all that much strategic utility in, though you may disagree – Poison is just not a good offensive type in general, and Steel-types will completely wall you and have you waste your Z-Move if things go badly) and a handful of other Poison-type moves that you rarely encounter (like, who would use Poison Gas for any reason other than destroying a potential Misty Terrain?), but all that does is change the field to Corrosive Mist (which your opponent will likely not be able to take advantage of in any big way unless they come specifically prepared to fight on that field) for the remainder of those five or eight turns. The mist can also be blown away by a move like Tailwind, but then again, all that does is change the field back, and in any case, Misty Terrain can just be brought back again. While I agree that things being too powerful is not a valid reason to exclude them from strategic consideration, I think Electric Terrain/Grassy Terrain/Misty Terrain/Psychic Terrain are kind of a matter of their own because of how completely they alter the game. It's like saying that any battle is easy because you can just spam X items and healing items and sweep the opponent with a single Pokemon – I mean, yeah, that is technically true, but part of what I personally (at the very least) consider to be the Reborn experience is not using items in battle. I get that everyone has different ideas in this regard – some people don't do EV training or IV breeding for their runs, which are strategic dimensions I quite like having access to, for instance –, but terrain moves are such a far-reaching overhaul of the game mechanics (neutralizing the dimension of fields, which is very much fundamental to Reborn, completely for eight turns) that I view them similarly to items in battle.

That project sounds really interesting, and actually, I have been getting into monotype teambuilding from more of an NPC perspective recently (as in, what my teams would look like if I were some kind of opponent along the lines of a gym leader fighting on a field of my choice), so I would love to contribute!

Edited July 1, 2022 by Cassandra

[Whitelight]

1 hour ago, Cassandra said:

Well, I only got to Radomus since I wrote the message above yesterday (owing largely to technical difficulties, given that I am recording all major battles for the purpose of documentation and am absolutely hopeless with this sort of thing), but so far, the mid-game has been pretty similar to what I am used to (there is definitely an added level of difficulty, but I guess I got so accustomed to it that I don't notice it anymore) – I see what you are saying about the smaller impact of PULSE2 on the early game because of the way stats are calculated (being almost perfectly proportional to level, which, given the game's practice of rounding down fractional values, obviously means EVs and IVs don't do as much for lower-level Pokemon), but I would argue that this is far outweighed by the fact that the player cannot conceivably EV train until after Corey (and scrapping together enough money to get all the power items plus breeding stuff for natures/IVs before Shelly is also a tall order, so realistically, you will be able to do minor EV training before Shelly and implement a fully fledged breeding/training regime sometime between Shelly and Kiki; actually, I always do IV/nature/moveset breeding because I am a perfectionist and like seeing nice perfect numbers on the summary tabs of my Pokemon, so I have no idea what the game would be like without that.), which makes the added bulk the opponent gets all the more tricky to deal with. Like, I struggled so much trying to break through Florinia's Cradily because of its ability to recover off any damage taken; PULSE2-enhanced bulk that can be increased further with Stockpile is nothing to sneeze at when your Pokemon are Delibird, Vanillite, and Crabrawler. I shudder to think what I would have done without my type advantage; like, what could a Water-type team even have done here? I suppose I could have overleveled Seel by a whopping nine levels and used Sheer Cold on that Cradily ... oh yeah, and another consequence of early-game PULSE2 mode is that all your opponents will have fully invested in their Speed, meaning that all but the fastest of your team members will be outsped by Pokemon you never would have expected to do that. Like, I definitely took way longer for almost every single major battle before Shelly than I did for any battle since. Julia was simple enough, but only because Swinub completely walled half her party; leading up to Florinia, PULSE2 Tangrowth was tougher than expected, and so was Victoria; Corey is a freaking nightmare, and Ace before him is also rather tricky; and then, there are two pretty challenging fights and Cal and Shelly to round it all off.

I see what you are saying about terrains, but I would argue terrains are a lot more powerful than any kind of weather. As different as the four types of weather are (I am not counting Strong Winds as a weather effect here because it cannot be summoned in battle and is a lot more one-dimensional on all fields except for Mountain and Snowy Mountain), they generally have a handful of effects benefiting select Pokemon with the ability to make use of them – things like chip damage on foes, accuracy or power boosts to some moves, defensive benefits (be it Aurora Veil, the Special Defense boost from sandstorm, or recovery from abilities like Rain Dish), and increased power/Speed for some Pokemon. All these benefits occur on top of the field given, meaning that the opponent (unless they are running a specifically weather-related strategy, and even then, fields like the Water Surface activate abilities like Swift Swim regardless of weather) can generally go about their strategy uninterrupted. Terrains, by contrast, have very similar effects (though they are often more far-reaching, given that terrains are fields of their own and come, for instance, with their own seed effects), but with the added benefit of just overriding any existing field; that would be like any type of weather just automatically turning the field neutral, which would trivialize virtually every battle with the weather teams I have run. Misty Terrain can be destroyed by Acid Downpour (which is not a Z-Move I personally see all that much strategic utility in, though you may disagree – Poison is just not a good offensive type in general, and Steel-types will completely wall you and have you waste your Z-Move if things go badly) and a handful of other Poison-type moves that you rarely encounter (like, who would use Poison Gas for any reason other than destroying a potential Misty Terrain?), but all that does is change the field to Corrosive Mist (which your opponent will likely not be able to take advantage of in any big way unless they come specifically prepared to fight on that field) for the remainder of those five or eight turns. The mist can also be blown away by a move like Tailwind, but then again, all that does is change the field back, and in any case, Misty Terrain can just be brought back again. While I agree that things being too powerful is not a valid reason to exclude them from strategic consideration, I think Electric Terrain/Grassy Terrain/Misty Terrain/Psychic Terrain are kind of a matter of their own because of how completely they alter the game. It's like saying that any battle is easy because you can just spam X items and healing items and sweep the opponent with a single Pokemon – I mean, yeah, that is technically true, but part of what I personally (at the very least) consider to be the Reborn experience is not using items in battle. I get that everyone has different ideas in this regard – some people don't do EV training or IV breeding for their runs, which are strategic dimensions I quite like having access to, for instance –, but terrain moves are such a far-reaching overhaul of the game mechanics (neutralizing the dimension of fields, which is very much fundamental to Reborn, completely for eight turns) that I view them similarly to items in battle.

That project sounds really interesting, and actually, I have been getting into monotype teambuilding from more of an NPC perspective recently (as in, what my teams would look like if I were some kind of opponent along the lines of a gym leader fighting on a field of my choice), so I would love to contribute!

Hmmm I hadnt fully considered how the pulse2 would affect speed and bulk in the early game especially on the cradily... I could see how that could be extremely annoying... I would probably have tried to reset until hitting a lucky freeze or something,  but that does sound infuriating.

As for the terrain, I agree that pretty much all the terrains are stronger than things like heavy winds or hail, but there are a few weather effects that I would say rival even the Misty terrain field, specifically rain. Rain is such an insane staple of a lot of water based teams that COMPLETELY neuters fire types to the point where almost every fire type in the game that isn't specifically taking water coverage moves like Grass knot just becomes a set up pokemon. Also there are so many abilities that trigger off of rain it is ridiculous, ranging from rain dish which is like... OK whatever, all the way to hydration,  which allows you to essentially spam rest for free, which is bonkers especially on a maxed out defensive lapras set up. Given, rain doesn't always cancel out beneficial arenas, or give the huge special defense boost to fairy types, but I would also say that other than things like venoshock, sludge wave, and flash cannon there aren't that many special moves you would use to take out a Fairy team. At least when I am fighting Fairy types I almost always opt for things like iron head, bullet punch, cross Poison, things like that. It can be wild how even with all the huge boosts of Misty terrain the Fairy type still really crumples under physical attack pressure. But anyway, I can understand your reservation and if the terrains were more powerful I would probably agree but I think that the fact rain exists means that they aren't the absolute top tier.

 

Also, super happy to hear you are willing to contribute to the teambuilding cause! I will probably end up starting a new thread once I get around to it, mostly because I would like to "whittle down" the number of pokemon to "I would definitely always have this on my team" and "I would never consider putting this on my team" just so it isn't so daunting of a task to build out the teams. I have put a lot of thought into it and you can't really give pokemon the axe purely due to stat totals because you have things like mawile who server a very specific purpose and also can be mega'd so they kind of overcome a really crappy stat total. On the other end you have stuff like Abomasnow,  which may have some use early but it just pains me to put it on a team being so weak to so many different types and not having bulk OR speed to make up for it...

[Cassandra]

4 hours ago, Whitelight said:

Hmmm I hadnt fully considered how the pulse2 would affect speed and bulk in the early game especially on the cradily... I could see how that could be extremely annoying... I would probably have tried to reset until hitting a lucky freeze or something,  but that does sound infuriating.

As for the terrain, I agree that pretty much all the terrains are stronger than things like heavy winds or hail, but there are a few weather effects that I would say rival even the Misty terrain field, specifically rain. Rain is such an insane staple of a lot of water based teams that COMPLETELY neuters fire types to the point where almost every fire type in the game that isn't specifically taking water coverage moves like Grass knot just becomes a set up pokemon. Also there are so many abilities that trigger off of rain it is ridiculous, ranging from rain dish which is like... OK whatever, all the way to hydration,  which allows you to essentially spam rest for free, which is bonkers especially on a maxed out defensive lapras set up. Given, rain doesn't always cancel out beneficial arenas, or give the huge special defense boost to fairy types, but I would also say that other than things like venoshock, sludge wave, and flash cannon there aren't that many special moves you would use to take out a Fairy team. At least when I am fighting Fairy types I almost always opt for things like iron head, bullet punch, cross Poison, things like that. It can be wild how even with all the huge boosts of Misty terrain the Fairy type still really crumples under physical attack pressure. But anyway, I can understand your reservation and if the terrains were more powerful I would probably agree but I think that the fact rain exists means that they aren't the absolute top tier.

 

Also, super happy to hear you are willing to contribute to the teambuilding cause! I will probably end up starting a new thread once I get around to it, mostly because I would like to "whittle down" the number of pokemon to "I would definitely always have this on my team" and "I would never consider putting this on my team" just so it isn't so daunting of a task to build out the teams. I have put a lot of thought into it and you can't really give pokemon the axe purely due to stat totals because you have things like mawile who server a very specific purpose and also can be mega'd so they kind of overcome a really crappy stat total. On the other end you have stuff like Abomasnow,  which may have some use early but it just pains me to put it on a team being so weak to so many different types and not having bulk OR speed to make up for it...

Actually, story time – I devised a seed strategy for Crabrawler that made it pretty much invulnerable to whatever Cradily threw at it, allowing the former to build up consistent pressure with Power-Up Punch. And literally on the next attempt, Cradily died after hitting itself in confusion several times, so I did not even get to implement that plan of mine. I felt kind of cheated, but I also didn't want to do more Recover stalling, so I ultimately just took the badge. If you want to see that fight (as well as some others), you can follow this link.

 

As a rain user myself, I disagree with your argument about it rivaling Misty Terrain – rain is probably the most powerful of the weather conditions (though my experience with sun is admittedly rather limited), but it is miles behind the terrains. I mean, if you're running a Water-type team, you're not likely to have much of an issue with Fire-types anyway, let alone find yourself in a situation where a Fire-type only gets to attack you with their STAB moves that are weakened by the rain and also potentially resisted anyways. Hydration + Rest is a powerful technique that can definitely become the jump-off point for a sweep with something like Curse given the right timing, no doubt about it, but it does have its limitations – first of all, you can definitely get set up on depending on the set you're running, and since the strategy is wholly reliant on weather (except on a few fields like the Water Surface, of course), opposing weather will completely neuter it.  That means something like Alolan Ninetales (which you see a fair amount in the late game, presumably in part because of how much the developers like it, even outside of dedicated hail teams) is a hard counter to that strategy. Granted, terrains can also be superseded by other terrains, but a given player is much more likely to run opposing weather (if only because it can handily be summoned by abilities and is accessible to a larger class of Pokemon than terrain moves). And then, there is the issue of timing – like, if you think of a typical Singles battle, you will have to bring out a Drizzle user before going for any Hydration strategies, and even if you switch in your Hydration user right away, that is one turn down. Assuming a 3HKO from your opponent, you will then have to go for Rest right away, and since every use of Rest takes another turn, time will be running out before you know it. Also note that unlike hail with Aurora Veil, or sandstorm with the Special Defense boost to Rock-types, or even sun, which allows Fire-types to take Water-type moves more easily, rain doesn't really provide any obvious defensive utility outside of Rain Dish and Hydration. I see your point that the Fairy type's defensive issues lie much more on the physical side, though I would argue that Intimidate users can remedy the issue and that both Steel and Poison are pretty mediocre types offensively, yielding secondary types to make up for it. Note that Fairy is also one of two monotypes to have the ever-powerful Aurora Veil, which definitely gives a lot of breathing space in that sort of situation. I have also swept like a billion Fairy-heavy teams with Bullet Punch and Iron Head, though, so I definitely see where you are coming from.

 

Lovely! If you'd like, we can also correspond about this project in DMs for now. Also, just as a little side note, I get a sinking feeling that your view of Abomasnow is right on the money; not that I particularly disagreed with it earlier, but I suppose I was a little bit biased because a lot of my experience with Abomasnow came from Radical Red, which is a ROM hack that overhauls the battle mechanics to make virtually every fully evolved Pokemon viable in one niche or another via sweeping changes to stats, movesets, abilities, etc. Abomasnow is actually a super powerful mega in Radical Red because it has its Speed increased and gains Slush Rush as a mega ability, allowing it to set up hail and then swiftly dispatch with a lot of opponents. But Abomasnow is just not at all impressive in Reborn in particular (thanks in part to moveset issues, to be fair; apart from not getting Aurora Veil, it not learning Giga Drain is a huge letdown, given that I did not pick a Grass-type starter and cannot make use of the Rhodochrine move tutor), and it definitely isn't pulling its weight amongst my current team of Alolan Ninetales, Alolan Sandslash, Jynx, Aurorus, Mamoswine, and the aforementioned Abomasnow. I really wanted to try using it, but I think I am gonna replace it with Sneasel or something at some point, or maybe it (rather than Mamoswine, which is what I originally intended and which is actually proving more useful than I anticipated) will lose its spot to Walrein (which I want to use because I really want to try out a Curse set, and also because me barring Cloyster for being too OP is going to have me want a Water-type in its place).

[Whitelight]

1 hour ago, Cassandra said:

Actually, story time – I devised a seed strategy for Crabrawler that made it pretty much invulnerable to whatever Cradily threw at it, allowing the former to build up consistent pressure with Power-Up Punch. And literally on the next attempt, Cradily died after hitting itself in confusion several times, so I did not even get to implement that plan of mine. I felt kind of cheated, but I also didn't want to do more Recover stalling, so I ultimately just took the badge. If you want to see that fight (as well as some others), you can follow this link.

 

As a rain user myself, I disagree with your argument about it rivaling Misty Terrain – rain is probably the most powerful of the weather conditions (though my experience with sun is admittedly rather limited), but it is miles behind the terrains. I mean, if you're running a Water-type team, you're not likely to have much of an issue with Fire-types anyway, let alone find yourself in a situation where a Fire-type only gets to attack you with their STAB moves that are weakened by the rain and also potentially resisted anyways. Hydration + Rest is a powerful technique that can definitely become the jump-off point for a sweep with something like Curse given the right timing, no doubt about it, but it does have its limitations – first of all, you can definitely get set up on depending on the set you're running, and since the strategy is wholly reliant on weather (except on a few fields like the Water Surface, of course), opposing weather will completely neuter it.  That means something like Alolan Ninetales (which you see a fair amount in the late game, presumably in part because of how much the developers like it, even outside of dedicated hail teams) is a hard counter to that strategy. Granted, terrains can also be superseded by other terrains, but a given player is much more likely to run opposing weather (if only because it can handily be summoned by abilities and is accessible to a larger class of Pokemon than terrain moves). And then, there is the issue of timing – like, if you think of a typical Singles battle, you will have to bring out a Drizzle user before going for any Hydration strategies, and even if you switch in your Hydration user right away, that is one turn down. Assuming a 3HKO from your opponent, you will then have to go for Rest right away, and since every use of Rest takes another turn, time will be running out before you know it. Also note that unlike hail with Aurora Veil, or sandstorm with the Special Defense boost to Rock-types, or even sun, which allows Fire-types to take Water-type moves more easily, rain doesn't really provide any obvious defensive utility outside of Rain Dish and Hydration. I see your point that the Fairy type's defensive issues lie much more on the physical side, though I would argue that Intimidate users can remedy the issue and that both Steel and Poison are pretty mediocre types offensively, yielding secondary types to make up for it. Note that Fairy is also one of two monotypes to have the ever-powerful Aurora Veil, which definitely gives a lot of breathing space in that sort of situation. I have also swept like a billion Fairy-heavy teams with Bullet Punch and Iron Head, though, so I definitely see where you are coming from.

 

Lovely! If you'd like, we can also correspond about this project in DMs for now. Also, just as a little side note, I get a sinking feeling that your view of Abomasnow is right on the money; not that I particularly disagreed with it earlier, but I suppose I was a little bit biased because a lot of my experience with Abomasnow came from Radical Red, which is a ROM hack that overhauls the battle mechanics to make virtually every fully evolved Pokemon viable in one niche or another via sweeping changes to stats, movesets, abilities, etc. Abomasnow is actually a super powerful mega in Radical Red because it has its Speed increased and gains Slush Rush as a mega ability, allowing it to set up hail and then swiftly dispatch with a lot of opponents. But Abomasnow is just not at all impressive in Reborn in particular (thanks in part to moveset issues, to be fair; apart from not getting Aurora Veil, it not learning Giga Drain is a huge letdown, given that I did not pick a Grass-type starter and cannot make use of the Rhodochrine move tutor), and it definitely isn't pulling its weight amongst my current team of Alolan Ninetales, Alolan Sandslash, Jynx, Aurorus, Mamoswine, and the aforementioned Abomasnow. I really wanted to try using it, but I think I am gonna replace it with Sneasel or something at some point, or maybe it (rather than Mamoswine, which is what I originally intended and which is actually proving more useful than I anticipated) will lose its spot to Walrein (which I want to use because I really want to try out a Curse set, and also because me barring Cloyster for being too OP is going to have me want a Water-type in its place).

Nice that you found some use foe crabrawler!!! That is another pokemon that I have unfortunately found pretty lackluster in my experience. 

 

As far as the terrain goes, I agree that it is potent especially for mono runs, but I can't help but feel a lot of the arguments you use against rain hold up the same against Misty terrain, the turn issue for example. The only "drizzle" for Misty terrain AFAIK is ok one of the tapu ultra beast pokemon, so you would have to burn a turn just setting up Misty terrain, which, fair enough it's a strong opening move. But where I see the struggle is it has 0 value against bullet punch pokemon, or sped up iron heads from Slush Rush alolan sandslash for example. I guess I'm coming more from a position that since Reborn introduced more in the terrain aspect, there is a little bit less overall strategy involved with the Misty terrain. It is more of a slap on buff than it is a game changer, and it can hurt you a bit too considering you can't use things like rest, hypnosis, thunder wave etc. I mean don't get me wrong when it works it really works, but there are some fringe cases where I actually held off using the terrain because it hurt me more than helped me especially by turning off status conditions, and I can't really think of a situation where rain would HURT a water team. And I do agree on a water team fire types pose no threat, I guess where I was coming from on that is that you can set up more fragile sweepers in the rain against a fire type without worrying about them tearing you up.

 

Also! I'm at the E4 with flying types now. A lot of it has been a breeze but it's very glass cannon speed reliant without many viable tanks, so I'm learning certain things like accelerock can REALLY put a hurt on you, other than that it's been nice. I'll hit you up after I round out the rest of the runs, it shouldn't take me TOOOO long hopefully, especially since the last 5 runs should HOPEFULLY be the easiest.