[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Dragonstrike]

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Dark types, obviously.  Bug, Fighting, and Fairy type moves are your friends, depending on the exact matchups.

Howl also has a preference for canines in particular.  As evidenced by Nathan's battle, though, he has a few wild cards to pick from for particularly difficult battles.

3v3, battle til faint, no trainer items.

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Alright, based on your guys opinions, I've revised my team format to be the following:

- Angie
- Michael
- Posei
- Oinari
- Pixie / Anubi
- Edmundi / Anubi
 

Posei, Angie, and Michael are must picks for the reasons we've all stated, and between those three they pretty much cover each other's weakness while also shoring up their strengths too. I decided to leave Dunny out based on the good points brought up by you Dragonstrike, and the fact that on reflection he doesn't have all that much variety in his offenses, which can easily get stuff by a Normal or Dark type. Oinari's also being brought along despite her weakness for her potential, added deterance for the Ghost/Dark/Psychics in the Skull Ruins, and simply because part of the reason I bought her was for the Skull Ruins Dive itself, so not bringing her along would defeat that purpose entirely.

My last two choices are a bit more decisive though, and really making me wish Trainers could cart around more than 6 Pokemon at a time. Pixie is one of Terra's most adaptable and disruptive Pokemon period and quite hard to take out, and Edmundi has Wide Guard and heavy offense going for him. However, Anubi is just a capable fight and I can rush him to learn Heal Pulse to provide more healing for the party, so he could replace either one of the two. He's also the only one besides Posei that can increase his STR with Nasty Plot (At least, right now. Oinari can eventually learn Hone Claws/Nasty Plot, and Angie can get Coil), and the frog has to deal with Belly Drum's crippling downside if he wants the extra POWER. Between his sweet of Priority Moves, STABs, Blaze Kick, and Final Gambit, he can also pull his weight when it comes to just hurting the opposition. Finally, if Terra/the group comes across a Lucarionite in the Ruins, then Lucario could have access to his Mega Form even without a Keystone, as Iron mentioned and demonstrated Pokemon don't need one to trigger it (albeit at some unknown risk level).

So, I want to know your guys opinion: should I add in Anubi over Pixie/Edmundi, or just leave him out of things entirely?

On the note of Dunny versus Normal types, do note that they buffed Foresight in Pokerole so that it also makes Normal types vulnerable to Ghost type moves.  Not sure that buff was necessarily needed, but few Ghosts are able to use Foresight (Duskull line and Sableye are the only ones that can)

Looking at that lineup...I'm going to echo Spirit a little here and say go with Pixie and Anubi.  Anubi has the panic button and easier buffing going for him (plus potential Heal Pulse) alongside decent coverage moves, and the combination Intimidate, Snatch, and Super Fang are kinda too good to pass up when Pixie is the only pokemon in the whole group (that's safe to bring) with those particular skills.  Even just one Wide Guard user can give a whole team enough momentum to set up and/or do significant damage without being particularly vulnerable to the enemy's damaging moves, so Doublade will probably be able to just fine on its own (particularly with Intimidate and Strength debuffing moves backing that buff up), even if double Wide Guarders would be great for easier spamming of the move.  Plus, if you can manage to beeline for Heal Pulse, I might not necessarily have to bring Ditto for the purpose of getting more usage out of that move.

One the note of Mega Evolution: If it were that easy, I could have had a Mega Charizard/Absol for awhile now.  That wild M-D-Houndoom was a bit of an edge case by my understanding.  How wild pokemon are able to Mega Evolve isn't exactly fully understood, but it's generally assumed that it's only possible under very specific conditions.  P-Arcanine did hint that there are other ways to trigger Mega Evolution besides a Key Stone, but minus the Scimitar Gauntlets (since they have to literally replace your arm to even work at all) and the artificial Mega Stones Almanac makes (which have downsides to compensate for their ease of use), we haven't really encountered any of those methods yet.  'Course, there might be clues as to what some of those methods might be in the lower layers of the Skull Ruins.  Generally, it seems to have been implied that trainer triggered ones (that don't involve Almanac/Scims) will typically require that strong bond.

[Dragonstrike]

@Spiritmon @Mikaruge108 @PhantomUnderYourDesk

Any comments from you guys on the pokemon I'm considering bringing?

Oh yeah, I also had another idea I wanted to throw out there: I have a second pokemon that could possibly throw up dual screen support if brought along: Solosis. She already knows Light Screen, and she can also put up Reflect after gaining only a mere 3 exp (and the screens help offset basically all pokemon's weaknesses very easily). Offensively, she's basically useless against Dark types, but her main attacks (Future Sight and 5-6 Gym Badge backed Psywave) are super strong otherwise. And she has Recover to heal herself with as well. She's not much of a fighter right now and is rather skittish around most everyone except Nathan, but she has a -1 Disobedience as far as Nathan goes, so lending her out might not be a major issue if that's considered. (Your thoughts on this as well, @Lord Windos?)

[Dragonstrike]

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Honedge inclusion is obvious, but I'd bring Rose along too, since she'd generally be able to stuff all of Howl's Pokemon besides Spiritom with her Fighting STABs, and even then they have to deal with her Fire STABs. Third choice.....well, Heracross would be a good idea, since if he has Guts you can just Paralyze/Poison him before the battle to get that sweet + 2 STR, and his Bug STABs would be effective and devestatiing. Last choices I can think of for now (without a more thorough look through of your list of Pokemon) would be either Quetzoral or Honchrow, as the former is bulky and can stand to gain some more Happiness/Loyalty from a Gym Battle, while the crow would be able to resist all of Howl's Pokemom primary STABs and pester them with its own suit of Moves.

That's all the suggestions I have for now, so take them as you may!

Heracross has Swarm from what I recall, so no Guts strats (though I question the legitimacy of triggering it before battle, tbh, but I guess it might technically be legal?  It is something you can purposely do in the games, after all.  Depends on Iron's interpretation of standard League Rules).  Still pretty dangerous in a Dark Gym, though, particularly since Heracross knows Pin Missle!

[Dragonstrike]

I think you right. Rose its indeed way more powerfull than Heracross. Not to mentioned a vast ammount of powerfull moves such as Close Combat, Blast Burn, along with others. 

Honckrow is obedient now after the battle against Spira if I recall. D-Onix still a good choice for be a bulky Pokemon (not bulky as a fully grow Onix, but still good). And If Heart interaction with D-Onix work, Terra and Heart can finally fully evolve D-Onix to his final form as a Metal Serpent.

Then here my party choices for this adventure:

- Honedge
- Viktor
- Atlas
- Gustav
- Honckrow/D-Onix (D-Steelix?)
- Rose

All it depends its how things will go between Heart and Onix.

Seems like the D-Onix interaction has paid off somewhat.  Another Loyalty boost and some Iron ore that Charizard (Flamethrowers hot enough to melt practically anything) and/or Hida (hotter than the sun at max temperature if you believe the pokedex entries) could possibly melt down to aid D-Onix in evolving (which is probably why D-Onix likes it and lead Heart to it after he brought up evolution).

I guess bring this up with everyone else, and then we can experiment and go from there? Having a D-Onix/Steelix would probably be a much bigger plus than a Honchkrow in a party filled with (admittedly a rather diverse selection of)Ghost types.

[Lord Windos]

On the note of Dunny versus Normal types, do note that they buffed Foresight in Pokerole so that it also makes Normal types vulnerable to Ghost type moves.  Not sure that buff was necessarily needed, but few Ghosts are able to use Foresight (Duskull line and Sableye are the only ones that can)

Looking at that lineup...I'm going to echo Spirit a little here and say go with Pixie and Anubi.  Anubi has the panic button and easier buffing going for him (plus potential Heal Pulse) alongside decent coverage moves, and the combination Intimidate, Snatch, and Super Fang are kinda too good to pass up when Pixie is the only pokemon in the whole group (that's safe to bring) with those particular skills.  Even just one Wide Guard user can give a whole team enough momentum to set up and/or do significant damage without being particularly vulnerable to the enemy's damaging moves, so Doublade will probably be able to just fine on its own (particularly with Intimidate and Strength debuffing moves backing that buff up), even if double Wide Guarders would be great for easier spamming of the move.  Plus, if you can manage to beeline for Heal Pulse, I might not necessarily have to bring Ditto for the purpose of getting more usage out of that move.

One the note of Mega Evolution: If it were that easy, I could have had a Mega Charizard/Absol for awhile now.  That wild M-D-Houndoom was a bit of an edge case by my understanding.  How wild pokemon are able to Mega Evolve isn't exactly fully understood, but it's generally assumed that it's only possible under very specific conditions.  P-Arcanine did hint that there are other ways to trigger Mega Evolution besides a Key Stone, but minus the Scimitar Gauntlets (since they have to literally replace your arm to even work at all) and the artificial Mega Stones Almanac makes (which have downsides to compensate for their ease of use), we haven't really encountered any of those methods yet.  'Course, there might be clues as to what some of those methods might be in the lower layers of the Skull Ruins.  Generally, it seems to have been implied that trainer triggered ones (that don't involve Almanac/Scims) will typically require that strong bond.

I could also leave behind Posei for Edmundi, or definitely if someone is willing to carry Posei for Terra, as the froggie doesn't have any Disobedience issues that would complicate using it themselves. 

Now that I mention that, that's something we haven't really thought of at this time: seeing if we could have a group member or members have 'open slots' , so we can have some people load up on useful Pokemon so that the whole party can have them. We did that with Valder during the Mt. Sentry quest, so why not try to replicate it here? If someone is willing to carrying around Posei, Lapis (as he too doesn't have Loyalty issues either, and whomever using him will have one heck of a long lasting 'mon on their side) and/or Michael, then I could bring along Edmundi and another Pokemon that could help everyone out, or just keep slots open myself so that it can be filled by someone else's choice. What do you think about that, Dragonstrike, @Spiritmon, @Mikaruge108, @PhantomUnderYourDesk ?

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Honedge inclusion is obvious, but I'd bring Rose along too, since she'd generally be able to stuff all of Howl's Pokemon besides Spiritom with her Fighting STABs, and even then they have to deal with her Fire STABs. Third choice.....well, Heracross would be a good idea, since if he has Guts you can just Paralyze/Poison him before the battle to get that sweet + 2 STR, and his Bug STABs would be effective and devestatiing. Last choices I can think of for now (without a more thorough look through of your list of Pokemon) would be either Quetzoral or Honchrow, as the former is bulky and can stand to gain some more Happiness/Loyalty from a Gym Battle, while the crow would be able to resist all of Howl's Pokemom primary STABs and pester them with its own suit of Moves.

That's all the suggestions I have for now, so take them as you may!

Heracross has Swarm from what I recall, so no Guts strats (though I question the legitimacy of triggering it before battle, tbh, but I guess it might technically be legal?  It is something you can purposely do in the games, after all.  Depends on Iron's interpretation of standard League Rules).  Still pretty dangerous in a Dark Gym, though, particularly since Heracross knows Pin Missle!

Considering that Iron let me use it against Tanuki and just about anyone else without explicitly saying it was against the League Rules (Which Terra would know, like any decent law abiding Trainer), I say its at least qausi legal. Plus, Toxic and Burn Orbs exist to give Pokemon Status before battle, which implies that their are no rules against having Pokemon Status at the start of a battle. So, unless a given Trainer/Gym Leader/Someone makes it a rule for all Pokemon to be in Fresh/UnStatused condition prior to a battle's start, then triggering Abilities with Status should be Legal. If that was not the case, then Ven would have been in trouble with Michael a looooong time ago.

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

I could also leave behind Posei for Edmundi, or definitely if someone is willing to carry Posei for Terra, as the froggie doesn't have any Disobedience issues that would complicate using it themselves. 

Now that I mention that, that's something we haven't really thought of at this time: seeing if we could have a group member or members have 'open slots' , so we can have some people load up on useful Pokemon so that the whole party can have them. We did that with Valder during the Mt. Sentry quest, so why not try to replicate it here? If someone is willing to carrying around Posei, Lapis (as he too doesn't have Loyalty issues either, and whomever using him will have one heck of a long lasting 'mon on their side) and/or Michael, then I could bring along Edmundi and another Pokemon that could help everyone out, or just keep slots open myself so that it can be filled by someone else's choice. What do you think about that, Dragonstrike, Spiritmon, Mikaruge108, PhantomUnderYourDesk ?

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Honedge inclusion is obvious, but I'd bring Rose along too, since she'd generally be able to stuff all of Howl's Pokemon besides Spiritom with her Fighting STABs, and even then they have to deal with her Fire STABs. Third choice.....well, Heracross would be a good idea, since if he has Guts you can just Paralyze/Poison him before the battle to get that sweet + 2 STR, and his Bug STABs would be effective and devestatiing. Last choices I can think of for now (without a more thorough look through of your list of Pokemon) would be either Quetzoral or Honchrow, as the former is bulky and can stand to gain some more Happiness/Loyalty from a Gym Battle, while the crow would be able to resist all of Howl's Pokemom primary STABs and pester them with its own suit of Moves.

That's all the suggestions I have for now, so take them as you may!

Heracross has Swarm from what I recall, so no Guts strats (though I question the legitimacy of triggering it before battle, tbh, but I guess it might technically be legal?  It is something you can purposely do in the games, after all.  Depends on Iron's interpretation of standard League Rules).  Still pretty dangerous in a Dark Gym, though, particularly since Heracross knows Pin Missle!

Considering that Iron let me use it against Tanuki and just about anyone else without explicitly saying it was against the League Rules (Which Terra would know, like any decent law abiding Trainer), I say its at least qausi legal. Plus, Toxic and Burn Orbs exist to give Pokemon Status before battle, which implies that their are no rules against having Pokemon Status at the start of a battle. So, unless a given Trainer/Gym Leader/Someone makes it a rule for all Pokemon to be in Fresh/UnStatused condition prior to a battle's start, then triggering Abilities with Status should be Legal. If that was not the case, then Ven would have been in trouble with Michael a looooong time ago.

The thing with Valder is he didn't even have a full party of 6 at the time, so the suggestion made a lot of of sense at the time to maximize our diversity.  Everyone kinda primarily wants to bring their own pokemon to bond/train with them more along the way, and many of them are admittedly all useful in one way or another.  Spira and Heart are probably the ones most able/likely to bring another's pokemon along I think, depending on what pokemon they might be able to drop and what pokemon they might be carrying around.  I'd honestly REALLY like to bring Emolga along for the IC reason of having him help with the search for Marco at least since that was the whole reason he joined Nathan in the first place, but I am questioning whether I have enough space to include him (Encore is about the only unique thing he really has going for him atm unless he learns Acrobatics, tbh).

I kinda question the Toxic Orb ruling at times tbh, mostly because it doesn't function outside of battle in the games.  Everything else is a fair point, though, and it's a bit late to change the ruling on Toxic/Flame Orbs now.

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Honedge inclusion is obvious, but I'd bring Rose along too, since she'd generally be able to stuff all of Howl's Pokemon besides Spiritom with her Fighting STABs, and even then they have to deal with her Fire STABs. Third choice.....well, Heracross would be a good idea, since if he has Guts you can just Paralyze/Poison him before the battle to get that sweet + 2 STR, and his Bug STABs would be effective and devestatiing. Last choices I can think of for now (without a more thorough look through of your list of Pokemon) would be either Quetzoral or Honchrow, as the former is bulky and can stand to gain some more Happiness/Loyalty from a Gym Battle, while the crow would be able to resist all of Howl's Pokemom primary STABs and pester them with its own suit of Moves.

That's all the suggestions I have for now, so take them as you may!

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Dark types, obviously.  Bug, Fighting, and Fairy type moves are your friends, depending on the exact matchups.

Howl also has a preference for canines in particular.  As evidenced by Nathan's battle, though, he has a few wild cards to pick from for particularly difficult battles.

3v3, battle til faint, no trainer items.

Thanks for the options guys! Lets see if my arrange of members party can be victorious against Howl. Lets see how things will go.

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Honedge inclusion is obvious, but I'd bring Rose along too, since she'd generally be able to stuff all of Howl's Pokemon besides Spiritom with her Fighting STABs, and even then they have to deal with her Fire STABs. Third choice.....well, Heracross would be a good idea, since if he has Guts you can just Paralyze/Poison him before the battle to get that sweet + 2 STR, and his Bug STABs would be effective and devestatiing. Last choices I can think of for now (without a more thorough look through of your list of Pokemon) would be either Quetzoral or Honchrow, as the former is bulky and can stand to gain some more Happiness/Loyalty from a Gym Battle, while the crow would be able to resist all of Howl's Pokemom primary STABs and pester them with its own suit of Moves.

That's all the suggestions I have for now, so take them as you may!

Also people, any tips about what I gonna to face against? What Pokemon he have use in your battles? Any info is important.

Dark types, obviously.  Bug, Fighting, and Fairy type moves are your friends, depending on the exact matchups.

Howl also has a preference for canines in particular.  As evidenced by Nathan's battle, though, he has a few wild cards to pick from for particularly difficult battles.

3v3, battle til faint, no trainer items.

Thanks for the options guys! Lets see if my arrange of members party can be victorious against Howl. Lets see how things will go.

Doesn't D-Onix have ROCK SMASH now?  Or did you not factor that HM into the 'everyone has Fighting type moves'?  You are allowed to use HMs against Gym Leaders after all (just be mindful of who's around when you use ROCK SMASH in particular, of course.  Should be fine against Howl if the crowds are light since the gym leader knows we have it, though)

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

I could also leave behind Posei for Edmundi, or definitely if someone is willing to carry Posei for Terra, as the froggie doesn't have any Disobedience issues that would complicate using it themselves. 

Now that I mention that, that's something we haven't really thought of at this time: seeing if we could have a group member or members have 'open slots' , so we can have some people load up on useful Pokemon so that the whole party can have them. We did that with Valder during the Mt. Sentry quest, so why not try to replicate it here? If someone is willing to carrying around Posei, Lapis (as he too doesn't have Loyalty issues either, and whomever using him will have one heck of a long lasting 'mon on their side) and/or Michael, then I could bring along Edmundi and another Pokemon that could help everyone out, or just keep slots open myself so that it can be filled by someone else's choice. What do you think about that, Dragonstrike, @Spiritmon, @Mikaruge108, @PhantomUnderYourDesk ?

Well...I was thinking in keep my line of Pokemon with my three ghosts, Gustav for healing, Rose for power and choose one of my flying-types. Even more with the possibility of him to finally evolve.

I think I could leave Viktor behind to open space for Posei or Lapis to be in my party. Its not a bad thing, since we kinda already have strong anti-ghosts Pokemon with all of us, so I have no problem with leaving Viktor in my PC. So I can take one of your Pokemon Windos with no big deal. This is also a chance to Heart redeemed himself from Terra. And for us to finally have our long waited trade of the Delta Corsola.