Poison Semi-Monotype a la Cain

[Etesian]

Nidoking doesn't take neutral damage from Psychic attacks. And breeding is a great idea because you can give Crobat Brave Bird, which can replace Acrobatics so you can give it an item. You can give Venomoth Giga Drain, which is really good against Rock and ground types, which your team is pretty weak against. Plus, the hp increase from giga drain is always nice.

On the chess field, where Psychic does 50% Psychic and 50% Rock damage, it should. That's what someone on this thread told me.

I'd prefer Acrobatics over Brave Bird. Only 10 base power less, no recoil, and I don't even know what I'd give it. As for Venomoth, I'd say that I'll have gotten it's final final set when I swap Psybeam for Psychic. I need Sleep Powder to enable setting up, QD to set up, Bug Buzz for strong stab and Psychic for good coverage. Giga Drain would be weaker than Psychic and honestly, if it's not at +6, Venomoth can't take all that much damage, so some more health is kinda eh. After Radomus, I'll get Roserade instead of Skuntank.

I also only have 2 Rock Weaknesses and 2 Ground weaknesses and all my team members have something to hit those types for at least neutral damage.

[Yazmat]

Nidoking doesn't take neutral damage from Psychic attacks. And breeding is a great idea because you can give Crobat Brave Bird, which can replace Acrobatics so you can give it an item. You can give Venomoth Giga Drain, which is really good against Rock and ground types, which your team is pretty weak against. Plus, the hp increase from giga drain is always nice.

In the Chess field Psychic gets a dual typing (rock and psychic) which takes poison as well as ground typing in account which would give Nidoking neutral coverage to psychic

[Taska]

On the chess field, where Psychic does 50% Psychic and 50% Rock damage, it should. That's what someone on this thread told me.

I'd prefer Acrobatics over Brave Bird. Only 10 base power less, no recoil, and I don't even know what I'd give it. As for Venomoth, I'd say that I'll have gotten it's final final set when I swap Psybeam for Psychic. I need Sleep Powder to enable setting up, QD to set up, Bug Buzz for strong stab and Psychic for good coverage. Giga Drain would be weaker than Psychic and honestly, if it's not at +6, Venomoth can't take all that much damage, so some more health is kinda eh. After Radomus, I'll get Roserade instead of Skuntank.

I also only have 2 Rock Weaknesses and 2 Ground weaknesses and all my team members have something to hit those types for at least neutral damage.

Oh I thought you meant that Nidoking was not weak to psychic in general (brainfart). And I was just suggesting, and all your pokemon's movesets are really nice, except for Drapion.... If you have knock off, why have bug bite? Since knock off does more damage now, and it's stab, I think you should replace it for another move until you get cross poison. I recommend you have it relearn one of the fangs. You choose which, as you know your team way better than I do.

[Etesian]

Oh I thought you meant that Nidoking was not weak to psychic in general (brainfart). And I was just suggesting, and all your pokemon's movesets are really nice, except for Drapion.... If you have knock off, why have bug bite? Since knock off does more damage now, and it's stab, I think you should replace it for another move until you get cross poison. I recommend you have it relearn one of the fangs. You choose which, as you know your team way better than I do.

Bug attacks will be crucial to beating Radomus and Luna. I'll most likely swap TS for Cross Poison later on, whenever I get to that stage. The fangs have basicaly the same power as Bug Bite, but there's way less Pokemon in the following 2 gyms that would be super-effectively hit by any Fang than by Bug Bite. Knock Off and Bug Bite together hit both gyms for at least neutral damage, and for super-effective damage more often than a Knock Off and Cross Poison combo.

Edited June 23, 2014 by 13243546

[Taska]

Bug attacks will be crucial to beating Radomus and Luna. I'll most likely swap TS for Cross Poison later on, whenever I get to that stage. The fangs have basicaly the same power as Bug Bite, but there's way less Pokemon in the following 2 gyms that would be super-effectively hit by any Fang than by Bug Bite. Knock Off and Bug Bite together hit both gyms for at least neutral damage, and for super-effective damage more often than a Knock Off and Cross Poison combo.

Hmm, I see your point. Well seems like you've got a great handle on your team, as I've said already and you've proven. By the way, how did you get Thunderbolt on Gengar?

[RebornRanger]

stunfisk gets thunderbolt on gengar

[Etesian]

stunfisk gets thunderbolt on gengar

Pretty much, though I messed up, could've gotten Sludge Bomb on it as well, but I was under the illusion that Dark Pulse hits both foes in double battles and went for that instead of a stab. When I get Ditto to breed Roselia, I'll re-breed Gengar, most likely.

[Etesian]

Right, before we get started, I am terribly sorry for the obscene delay. My only excuse is that college exam preparations were getting wraped up and the actually exam had to be done. Only yesterday did I get back to my hometown. Lemme tell you, 5 hour long buss rides sure do suck. Unless you want to tack a nap (-.-)zzZZ

Although something that did happen with my save was that I used the amazing "Beefkek's Breeding Shop!" to get a shiny Sheer Force timid Nidoking with maxed Speed and Sp.Attack EVs, and SP.Attack Sp.Defense and Speed IVs of over 29, 31 and 29 respectively, AND with the bred-on moves Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Beefkek is amazing at what he does, so I whole-heartedly recommend using his services. He can even get you starters! Though one account may only get 2 Pokemon at most and- why am I typing this when he's got his own topic for it. Anyways, check it out~!

Regarding progress, I'm starting to see a pattern here. The fight before the gym was tougher than the actual gym. It was the Arceus fight this time. It took quite a few reloads until I made up my mind on what strategy to use. I settled for reviving my Focus Banded Venomoth twice so that I may get 6 Flashes on it and use Gengar's Destiny Bond. Didn't think I could beat it on a Mono run, but here we are. Past Aventurine, the most tedious area the traverse, and probably my least favourite. The Cain fight was pretty much a Venomoth sweep. I had to restart once to get a perfect sweep, since Venomoth needed the XP.

Anyways, the Radomus fight was rather anti-climatic. Here's the run-down for ya!

1st Turn! Radomus leads with Exeggutor and Reuniclus, I send out Venomoth and Drapion.

Venomoth one-shots Exeggutor with a Bug Buzz and Radomus sends out Metagross. Drapion uses Swords Dance. Reuniclus obviously OHKOs Venomoth with a Psychic, as expected. To match Metagross, I use Nidoking.

2nd Turn! Drapion OHKOs Reuniclus with Knock Off, Slowking comes out. Nidoking kills Metagross in one shot with Earth Power, Malamar follows.

3rd Turn! Drapion's Bug Bite takes advantage of Malamar's 4x weakness to Bug for a quick and easy kill Gardevoir appears. Nidoking's Thunderbolt takes ~60% of health off of Slowking. Slowking's Psychic does added Rock Damage to Nidoking, resulting in a neutral hit overall, though it still takes approx. 80% of Nidoking's plentiful health. That thing needs to go.

4th Turn! Gardevoir's fairy typing means Knock Off wouldn't strike super-effectively, so I use Nidoking's Sludge Wave on it. On everyone actually. SW actually takes half health from Drapion because I forgot about it's abysimal SP.Defense. Gardevoir loses 75% health and Slowking would've died, if not for it's Hyper Potion. But the ever-reliable Drapion cleans up nicely, promptly making this a 2v1. Another Psychic comes toward Nidoking from Gardevoir, finishing what Slowking had started. I send in Gengar merely to make sure Gardevoir doesn't suddenly somehow outspeed and kill Drapion.

5th Turn! Shadow Ball. Gardevoir's gone. The end.

SO! Drapion lost 69 health due to friendly fire and Venomoth(expectedly) and Nidoking(unexpectedly) bit the bullet. His special field hurt Radomus more than it helped him due to Nidoking's fortunate typing (in this case, fortunate). 4-0 against a leader with a type advantage was rather anti-climatic for a return to this thread. Again, please do forgive me for the extreme delay. Again, Samurott saw no action, so this counts as a pure-monotype victory in my book, cause only Poison types were used/needed.

As you've heard/seen/read, Nidoking is here now. Thanks to it's amazing STAB ground attacks, Skuntank's niche of having a way to hit hard against Steel types was taken away from it. As such, Nidoking replaces Skuntank. I've also given up on the idea of using Roserade, as I honestly couldn't think of who to replace it with.

Here's the details after the Radomus fight:

Drapion Crobat Gengar Venomoth Nidoking Samurott

Keen Eye Infiltrator Levitate Tinted Lens Sheer Force Battle Armor

Naive Lonely Naive Modest Timid Jolly

Knock Off Acrobatics Shadow Ball Quiver Dance Sludge Wave Razor Shell

Bug Bite Cross Poison Dark Pulse Psychic Earth Power Grass Knot

Fire Fang Bite Thunderbolt Sleep Powder Ice Beam Megahorn

Swords Dance Screech Destiny Bond Bug Buzz Thunderbolt Revenge

Drapion has Fire Fang for Metagross and Bisharp, I'll swap it for Cross Poison when it learns it. Venomoth has/had Flash for Aventurine Cave and for the Arceus battle, but I've swapped it for Psychic at level 55.

And now we get to the actual worst area to get through, Iolia Valley. After Radomus, Luna shouldn't be too tough.

Edited July 18, 2014 by Etesian

[Yazmat]

Congratulations on beating Radomus. Well I don´t think you will have any Problems with future Gym Leaders. Luna should be easy win as 2 of her Pokemon are getting instantly wrecked by Samurott and 1 by Venomoth and Drapion. Zobiris and Umbreon shouldnt pose too much of a threat although Umbreon got buffed to Level 70 and Honchcrow should be no Problem for Nidoking. You could probably switch Gengar with something else although you could just Destiny Bond one of her Pokemon into oblivion. Bennet will probably be a Crobat sweep although his Larvesta has Flame Body So you should probably beat it with Samurott first.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Yazmat

[Etesian]

Oh, I am SO underleveld for this. Where's a good grinding spot before Luna?

[Etesian]

And it's done. Without any grinding actually.

I really am a perfectionist only when it comes to games for some reason. The instant something didn't turn out the way I expected it, I reloaded That is the sole reason this took about 18 tries, of which all but the first and last one ended as soon as even one of my Pokemon fainted.

At first, I successfully beat Bisharp with Samurott's Fighting Gem-ed Revenge and sent out Drapion for Malamar. The 4x effective Bug Bite took only barely above half health from it and after it's Hypnosis hit me on the 6-7 turns, I reset.

Next, I tried for a Venomoth sweep, but that bastard Bisharp just wouldn't stay down. Almost as if it knew that Venomoth needs 4 Quiver Dances to take down the following Tyranitar, it would always screw me over as I got the fourth one. After ten attempts at that, I tried applying Brute Force.

Bisharp fell to Nidoking's Earth Power, Malamar was eliminated by 2 of them. After 2 Hyper Potions, Tyranitar took down Samurott, who almost did the same to it. Venomoth ended it with a Bug Buzz. Honchkrow almost died to Gengar's Electric Gem-ed Thunderbolt, but it kamikaze'd with Brave Bird anyways, taking Gengar with it. Expecting Umbreon, I sent out Venomoth and I was right. I put it to sleep, used a Quiver Dance while it dreamt and as it awoke, Bug Buzz removed 60% of it's health, although it's Dark Pulse did the same to me, though another Bug Buzz put an end to it. "March Hare", the Sableye whose name Is the only one of her squad I forgot, was almost one-shot by Bug Buzz, and it's Dark Pulse put me to 10 Health.

I noticed that I never posted their held items, so I've added those here now. I've also gone ahead and changed all my team members names. They bear the same names as the gym leaders of their respective Non-Poison type, except for Crobat. It was Corey's ace and he is the reason I ever even looked at Crobat, so a tribute of some name is in order. As such, say hello to:

Luna Corey Shade Shelly Terra Amaria

Black Sludge -Nothing- Spooky Plate Silver Powder Earth plate Mystic Water

Keen Eye Infiltrator Levitate Tinted Lens Sheer Force Battle Armor

Naive Lonely Naive Modest Timid Jolly

Knock Off Acrobatics Shadow Ball Quiver Dance Sludge Wave Razor Shell

Bug Bite Cross Poison Dark Pulse Psychic Earth Power Grass Knot

Cross Poison Bite Thunderbolt Sleep Powder Ice Beam Megahorn

Swords Dance Screech Destiny Bond Bug Buzz Thunderbolt Revenge

I really Jynx-ed myself by saying she'd be a pushover after Radomus. Well, the final try against her was fun enough, after I stopped bothering by trying to buff against Bisharp, who would almost never sleep for longer than 3 turns, counting the one it fell asleep on. By that logic, Samson is gonna be the toughest fight of my life. Yeah. Totally. No chance he'll be a push-over.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Etesian

[Lost Lore]

Sleep was nerfed so nothing will ever sleep more than three turns. Which is why I don't really care for Sleep Powder/Spore now. That aside, for being underleveled, you did pretty well.

You should be fine against Samson, as you resist all of his STABs (bar the odd flying one from Hawlucha), just watch out for the occasional Rock move against Crobat. Also Acrobatics always deals double damage on the high striker field thing so that's really gonna sting. Could make use of a Sky Plate to buff it a bit more on account of that.

The name references make me very happy, by the way. Glad to know I'm not the only one who does that. Even though Terra is a weird nickname for an all male species but whatever, it's a Ground-type

[Etesian]

Sleep was nerfed so nothing will ever sleep more than three turns. Which is why I don't really care for Sleep Powder/Spore now. That aside, for being underleveled, you did pretty well.

You should be fine against Samson, as you resist all of his STABs (bar the odd flying one from Hawlucha), just watch out for the occasional Rock move against Crobat. Also Acrobatics always deals double damage on the high striker field thing so that's really gonna sting. Could make use of a Sky Plate to buff it a bit more on account of that.

The name references make me very happy, by the way. Glad to know I'm not the only one who does that. Even though Terra is a weird nickname for an all male species but whatever, it's a Ground-type

Holy-yeah I just looked it up. Guess I played to many ROM hacks and paid too little attention, I thought it was 1-6 like in the good ol' (emulated) Gen 3 games.

Drapion actually doesn't resist it, due to it's secondary Dark typing, but that one reKt Radomus almost on it's own, so meh. I also think his Gallade has Psycho Cut, but Crobat one-shot a gym-edition Gallade before, it'll do it again. Aaaand I'm too lazy to search for a Sky Plate. Although, on this run, I somehow got my miner's hands on 2 Toxic Plates, 1 Ground Plate, 1 Meadow Plate, 1 Mind Plate, 2 Dread Plates and 1 Spooky Plate (oooh~ spookyyy~), so I might try it and get lucky.

Still, even though my team's levels after Luna were all levels 57-60, my main save beat her with levels 52-56, and I've got quite the type advantage against Samson. Should go well, could be tough. Might nead a Toxic Spiker for this. Just for Conkeldurr/funsies.

Reborn and Zeta are the only Pokemon games I've ever named my squad in. I usually name characters after bosses of my favourite game, MGR, by similarity to them. (Leavanny has 2 blade-like arms=is named Sundowner). But this run is type-based, so I figured the names had to be too.

Only the genders don't really match. Samurott, Venomoth and Crobat have fitting ones (f,f,m). But Luna the Drapion is male, Shade the Gengar is female (do ghosts have gender?) and Terra the Nidoking is from an all-male species. Well, considering that we're talking about Terra, some confusion actually fits, wouldn't you say?

Edited July 20, 2014 by Etesian

[Lost Lore]

Drapion actually doesn't resist it, due to it's secondary Dark typing, but that one reKt Radomus almost on it's own, so meh. I also think his Gallade has Psycho Cut, but Crobat one-shot a gym-edition Gallade before, it'll do it again. Aaaand I'm too lazy to search for a Sky Plate. Although, on this run, I somehow got my miner's hands on 2 Toxic Plates, 1 Ground Plate, 1 Meadow Plate, 1 Mind Plate, 2 Dread Plates and 1 Spooky Plate (oooh~ spookyyy~), so I might try it and get lucky.

Still, even though my team's levels after Luna were all levels 57-60, my main save beat her with levels 52-56, and I've got quite the type advantage against Samson. Should go well, could be tough. Might nead a Toxic Spiker for this. Just for Conkeldurr/funsies.

Samson doesn't have a Gallade, actually... There's no need to fear Psycho Cut. Just those Rock moves to worry about. At least, I think he has Rock moves. I haven't seen what all he has, but I think that's a safe bet.

Reborn and Zeta are the only Pokemon games I've ever named my squad in. I usually name characters after bosses of my favourite game, MGR, by similarity to them. (Leavanny has 2 blade-like arms=is named Sundowner). But this run is type-based, so I figured the names had to be too.

Only the genders don't really match. Samurott, Venomoth and Crobat have fitting ones (f,f,m). But Luna the Drapion is male, Shade the Gengar is female (do ghosts have gender?) and Terra the Nidoking is from an all-male species. Well, considering that we're talking about Terra, some confusion actually fits, wouldn't you say?

Nicknaming things is actually pretty fun in my experience~ But, to each their own. Gender-oddities aside (and the fact that shadows apparently have genders for some reason yeah), their names all fit their typing very well. And, as Terra is possibly the most baffling person in Reborn (...which is saying a lot) I don't suppose it's too strange to name an all-male species after her.

Wow that got off topic whoops

[Etesian]

1st-5th Turn! Venomoth vs Hariyama! A Sleep Powder followed by Mind Plate-boosted Psychic almost 2-hits Hariyama, forcing him to waste one of his Hyper Potions. Hariyama falls soon enough.
6th Turn! Blaziken! Due to fear of being outpsed due to underlevel-ed-ness(?), I bring out Nidoking instead of Venomoth. The Earth's Power gets an easy OHKO.
7th Turn! Mienshao! Very fast, very strong, no defense! To outspeed it, Crobat is sent out. Even though Mien is faster (6 levels higher), it decides to use Poison Jab. Samson's not following this thread, I see. I actually forgot about the Flying Gem I gave Crobat to combat his ace, Conkeldurr. Ah well, Acrobatics kills.
8th Turn! Chestnaught! Acrobatics! Double Weakness! Dead!
9th-12th Turn! Conkeldurr! Remembering that it has Stone Edge and some Fighting moves, I send out Nidoking to resist both and at least soften it up a bit for Crobat, which may or may not be ablo to one-shot Conky. Earth Power robs it of 40% health while it's Knock Off puts me at 52/183 Health, also taking away my Earth Plate! The next turn, Nidoking's Sludge Wave sets Conky to about 20% health (give or take Leftover recovery) while it uses Bulk Up. The ensuing Hyper Potion's effect is reduced some more by another Sludge Wave. The next Sludge Wave is my last one, setting Conky back to 20% before it uses Knock Off again. Corbat comes to promptly clean up, guess what move it used!
13th-24th Turn! Hawlucha vs Gengar! It ouspeed's me and uses Fly, so I switch to Drapion to take a hit. Which, after Black Sludge healing take exactly 100 HP. Cross Poison was slower than Flying Press and Drapion takes a nap. Speed doesn't work and I want to save Crobat's health, so I bring out Samurott, who's seen no action in the last 2 gyms. Flying Press misses, I use Dive, FP misses, Dive hits, it Roosts, I Dive, it misses another FP, Dive hits, FP hits, I Dive, FP misses, Dive hits-Sitrus Berry activates, FP misses, Dive sets foe to 5-10%, FP hits for the finisher. Crobat takes 30-40 health damage from FP ebfore killing with Acrobatics. I...actually forgot that Hawlucha wa already #6, saving Crobat was kinda pointless

Slower than the last 2 fights, but mostly because of Samurott's and Hawlucha's slug-fest. Not the most Entertaining fight to watch, but a win's a win. An easy one at that. Crobat OP. Aaaand there's the end of that gym! I've now officially (?) made it to the end of Episode 12! As such, my goal for this run has been achieved. To sum it all up!
Julia was the same Toxic-Spike-supported strategy-less brawl it always is. Not too much strategising that can happen at level 20.
Florinia showed me what it's like to see someone other than me being at the recieving end of Evasion hax. I still don't get why people complain about that Cradily, but I said the same thing about Noel. We'll see.
Corey was entertaining as always. As expected of my favourite character in the game, who not only made me love and respect Crobat, but also made me do this mono (Cain had a hand in that as well). I regret not facing him on his new field, but I'll restart eventually just to catch a glimpse.
Shelly would'vew been fun to go against without accuracy and confusion hacks, thank god I had Skuntank's Flamethrower or it would've...taken longer. That Yanmega was really my only worry, and that was easy.

Shade was a sweep victim, Venomoth OP.
I didn't even remember the Kiki fight before I looked it up again. Really. Simple fight.
Aya was a Venomoth sweep. Should've gone back to E10 to fight her there as well, like I did with Serra.
Serra was, in all three attempts, impressive as well. It was also the first time I beat her doubles team, which made me stop my second proper run through Reborn and which I decided to avoid her doubles fight on my main save. Thanks for the worthless TM, Serra!
Noel was quite the surprise, even though he was very easy to defeat on my main save. An amazing experience, rather educational and hella difficult. The first gym leader to ever make me sweat this much since Dark Rising's Typhoon (though the issue was a pathetically easy team leading up to his hellish Seismitoad, being underleveled was of no help either and- ahhh, I'm getting of topic!). I'll remember this one for a long, loooong time.
Radomus is still underwhelming, considering the huge build-up for his fight and the new pressure from my doing a monotype he has an advantage against. Should've thought of "traveling through time" for this one as well, that Alakazam would've been fun to face off against as well.
Luna was annoying until I stopped trying to make the fight go exactly the way I wanted to, after which one try was all it took. And I was AGAIN underleveled for her!
And Samson was kinda eh, would've been entirely forgetable if Crobat was a higher level.

Regarding major non-gym battles that are worth mentioning, Taka+Zel and especially Taka on Aventurine island were 2 fights that were much easier on this run than on my main on. The good Doctor was really fun, if we look past his Paralysis hacks. I still hold great respect for his battle style. Wish I could choose whether I fight a fight as singles or doubles. Sirius was also easier than usual, Cal was fun, Garchomp was defeated by the standard Intimidate-Swap strat, Arceus took a new trick to defeat. Abra was a pain because it stopped needing to recharge every turn, Steelix was no biggie either, Bennett was a tad tougher than average.

As I've said, my goal has been accomplished, but I may still keep this going for E13. I haven't planned that far ahead, actually. Should Terra anihilate me no matter what I try, that'll be the certain end.

And there you go. Hope you've enjoyed all of this so far and thank you for dropping by, even more so if you've read the whole thing. Special thanks go to Yazmat for following from the start and providing frequent feedback, Gutten_Tag for the breeding tips and Beefkek for his breeding shop's help.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Etesian