Your first team in Uranium

[Lord Windos]

The way with the fire starter was, it was Mega Evolution or bust. It has fairly weak offensive stats without its Mega evolution, and that only boosts its Sp.Atk. Sure Earth Power could have been an option, but I thought grinding the shards would have made me hate life, but on 2nd playthrough I did it and it wasn't that bad getting 8 Red and 4 Blue.

I had Guts on Baariette, but the stat boost you get from Mega proved very strong, not only to attack, but defenses and speed(one of the few mega that gets boost to all stats rather than 2 only).

I had thought of Return for Theriamp initially, but then kind of forgot about it entirely because of the Friendliness level it needed to be better than Body Slam. I just never remembered that I could go get max happiness in literally 1 minute after I found out you can buy the happiness berries in the 2nd town, which I used to boost Eevee's happiness to evolve it to Espeon.

About Espeon then... It can't learn Focus Blast. I checked Uranium Wiki and Serebii wiki for a few of the latest generations and googled the thing. If it could have, I would have put it on her. Quick attack is there just for those annoying moments when something is 1 health or close to that, or if some of the Pokemon in the Championship had Focus Sash/Sturdy, then I could do a quick revenge kill on them. I've been shat on in so many games due to not having a priority move somewhere on my team(Iris's Haxorus in B2/W2 for example). Espeon just can't learn anything other than the 3 offensive moves that are worth getting(other than maybe Hyper Beam).

As for leveling, I never knew that they actually scaled to your level... since I get kept getting calls from some of the trainers on the starting routes that their first evo of the whatever sleepy cat is ready for another battle, I kind of thought they would be like +5 lvl on the last time I battled them. Kind of how it had worked in the main series games.

I generally don't see the point of investing in tanky pokemon during a playthrough. They are difficult and slow to level due to having poor offense, meaning you have to hit each opponent multiple times, on top of getting hit multiple times, meaning more time spent on healing and less going forward. They just don't work well outside of competitive battling where switching in&out is a very common strategy and you can't change pokemon after KO.

Fair point on Archilles, but there is a couple of guides in the comp sections that can help you optimize it if you are interested. Having low attack doesn't matter too much if the sun is shinning and you have Flare Blitz, hehehe!

I agree right there with you! Baariette loves the boost to Speed and Defense, if only because it just a quality of life change that make its job easier on the battlefield. Drain Punch + Blood Lust is also fairly ridiculous, as you can quite easily make a Punch Tank that route, so not using its base abilities isn't a bad thing. Just kinda wish the base form's Speed was batter so that you were not put in an akward position to use it: Better attacker, or better substain?

Half a hour running around with a Friendship Bell on it also does the trick, but those berries work well to, mate! As for priority on your team, it Learns quick attack as one of its base moves, which would be especially deadly on it given an Galvanite boost and Choice Band. Fear the sloath indeed!

Hidden Power might still be an better option than Quick Attack on Espeon. You can check the Uranium Wiki to see what type it is, and if you are lucky enough if its Fight or Fire, yes! If not, better than a Physical attack on a Sp.Attacker!

All my Tank Pokémon had some form of recovery on them, be it Roost (Dunesereph), Leech Seed and Synthesis (Metalynx), Leftovers (the prior two Pokémon), Drain Punch (Beliaddon, a very fearsome threat), Nucleon (When I needed speed, I got it out to do my dirty work!), and Dream Eater + Hypnosis (Dramsama). My Dunsereph has Serene Grace, Glare, and Air Slash, so paraflitch keep it just dandy, while the rest could out stall the any form of offense and just heal off the damage eventually. That, and I was spoiled for healing items outside of the Champeonship, so it was not too much of a problem! Each playstyle is different, and offers their own unique benefits and downsides. All you have to do is know how to use them!