[Discussion] The Monotype Discussion Thread

[StenirRPG]

I would have my wife make an egg and trade me one, but my daughter started playing her own Kalos region run...and now I don't know where she put that other 3DS lol

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

If it were up to me, I'd do them by type. Playing the same game nine times in a row will get repetitive and playing different games with the same type would offer variety.

I read this late at night and was like "Yeah, I agree," but now I'm reading it again and thinking "I feel like this is a personal attack!" [/In Jest] I don't have any real advice, but I thought this was mildly funny.

I've been feeling a bit crummy (emotionally) the last few days, but I want to get "back to the old grind" [/SpongeBob & Patrick] tonight if I'm feeling better at some point tonight. I'm still not sure what to do with that friggin' Heracross. It'd be really funny to include in the video next year, but for this run, I'm just not sure I'm feeling up to it.

 

[StenirRPG]

Part of me is like "I should do it anyways to get ready for Gens 8, 9, and LA"...but then the rest of me is like "you're gonna do it for 8, 9, and LA...isn't that enough pain?" My arthritis kinda brought this up, cause I'm like, maybe I just get all of the early gens out of the way, simply due to what I play on. But the more I think on it, the more I think changing between the different systems problems helps some level in stretching my hands out. But hey, the way you're doing it makes sense for a game mastery.

I mean, it could be "Healer Heracross", where the only reason it exists is to heal up others. Which would be funny. A "Toxic Healer".

For a real attempt, I'd want to get it to having Megahorn, myself, just because that'll be super nice for Sidney's team. Will make it so much easier on Shiftry and Cacturne. But the grind in Victory Road is horrible, half of them want to knock you out of the battle, half of them are a pain to knock out anyways...and of course those halves overlap. At least Lairon and Loudred are weak against Fighting. You could get to like mid-40s, and then just do a few cycles against Sidney to build up more XP. That's sort of what I plan on doing for Fighting having Brick Break in my arsenal. Once you can get consistent kills against Sidney, I think it's better to grind there.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

Sidney is already by far the weakest of the Elite Four, and having six fighting-types for him makes Megahorn completely unnecessary. I am not over-leveling Heracross to THAT degree for a bug-type move with less than 90% accuracy. I was already content with my Blaziken being Level 53, my Breloom and Medicham at Level 52, my Hariyama and Machamp at Level 51 (both are at Level 50 + 1 rare candy), and Heracross at Level 50 (after the other 12 Rare Candies) just for the ensemble. I think I've done enough grinding; I don't feel like I need to grind to the actual level cap of Drake's strongest Pokémon

I also am personally against using the first Elite Four member to grind for the 3rd and 4th Elite Four members. It sounds stupid. It weakens the effect of that marvelous "Battle! Elite Four" theme. It wastes lots and lots of money if I don't buy all my items ahead of time. I hate Gen 3's Victory Road Golbat using Confuse Ray and Air Cutter / Wing Attack (and in this case, being 4x resistant to fighting-type moves), but I'm not feeling like grinding that way.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

It's going to be a while, but I wanted to ask about the Dragon Monotype challenge in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire. I'd like to make Bagon the starter Pokemon (via hacking). Pseudo-Legendary--Excuse me. I'm sorry. Powerhouse Pokémon take up a ton of EXP, but since I won't get any other party member until after Badge 3, I don't think this will be an issue, even less so if I end up with only four Pokémon. Also, uhh, I don't want to grind for it after badge freaking 8.

Obviously I plan on using Salamence, Flygon, and Altaria... and maybe another Flygon... but I'm not sure. Maybe I should stick to three. (I thought about letting a 2nd Trapinch learn Dig via level up, but then I rememebered, "Oh, duh, I can't delay its evolution into Vibrava." Gosh, learnsets in Gen 3 are weird!)

Horsea isn't available until the island with Gym No. 7 (which raises the question of why so many trainers use Horsea and Seadra). I think I'll go ahead and use Kingdra in that case, but it's so freaking weird having it on my team when it's not something I'd find on a typical playthrough. So do I have to farm Horsea until I find one with a dragon scale? (Maybe I'll be able to teach Swablu/Altaria "Thief" for this purpose.) I understand why the rule regarding "trade evolution" items is in effect, but it seems a tad bit silly that I have to grind for one when it's a random chance of being on a wild Pokemon (the one I want to trade evolve actually). I'm not asking you to change the rules, but I would like some clarity on the ruling here.

This whole run is going to be a mess, but I'm committed to beating it one day.

 

[Explorer of Time]

So do I have to farm Horsea until I find one with a dragon scale? (Maybe I'll be able to teach Swablu/Altaria "Thief" for this purpose.) I understand why the rule regarding "trade evolution" items is in effect, but it seems a tad bit silly that I have to grind for one when it's a random chance of being on a wild Pokemon (the one I want to trade evolve actually). I'm not asking you to change the rules, but I would like some clarity on the ruling here.

If you aren't playing a romhack with reusable TMs, or aren't trading/hacking in extra TMs, you can just trade or hack in a Dragon Scale after you catch your Horsea, since the Thief TM is only obtainable once in all Gen 2, 3, and 4 games, and can't be relearned if forgotten. I don't want to force trainers to use the Thief TM at the wrong time just to get an evolution item in a reasonable amount of time.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

If you aren't playing a romhack with reusable TMs, or aren't trading/hacking in extra TMs, you can just trade or hack in a Dragon Scale after you catch your Horsea, since the Thief TM is only obtainable once in all Gen 2, 3, and 4 games, and can't be relearned if forgotten. I don't want to force trainers to use the Thief TM at the wrong time just to get an evolution item in a reasonable amount of time.

Yes, thank you.

In other news, I was looking at Altaria's learnset, and I think there's enough that I can probably have two of that Pokemon: one for physical moves (Aerial Ace, Return, Secret Power) plus Dragon Dance and another for special moves (Ice Beam and Flamethrower and ... hopefully Hidden Power Grass for when I fight Gym Leader Wallace) and Sing. (Sing might be useful for catching Trapinch and Horsea).

For that matter, I'm not sure about the moveset for Flygon besides Earthquake by TM and Crunch* by level up: I was thinking Dragonbreath and Iron Tail, but Giga Drain would probably be helpful against Wallace. I know it's only 60 base power (with no STAB), but it'd be nice to have an answer to his water-types (one of which is a Water/Ground-type meaning 4x weak to Grass) especially if I get unlucky with Hidden Power on Altaria (special attacker) and Kingdra.

*I'm not sure Salamence can solo Elite Four Phoebe, so I will probably need an extra copy of Crunch on the team just in case.

Also, Kingdra will be running Surf, but... should I teach it Ice Beam for Elite Four Drake, or is the Altaria with Ice Beam enough for Drake? (I really don't want to grind for TMs at the Game Corner, but I should have enough money to just buy the TM for Flamethrower and the 2nd TM for Ice Beam) In any case, I was thinking of teaching Kingdra Toxic, but I might go with an extra Secret Power instead (Dat paralysis chance!).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Explorer of Time]

Yes, thank you.

In other news, I was looking at Altaria's learnset, and I think there's enough that I can probably have two of that Pokemon: one for physical moves (Aerial Ace, Return, Secret Power) plus Dragon Dance and another for special moves (Ice Beam and Flamethrower and ... hopefully Hidden Power Grass for when I fight Gym Leader Wallace) and Sing. (Sing might be useful for catching Trapinch and Horsea).

For that matter, I'm not sure about the moveset for Flygon besides Earthquake by TM and Crunch* by level up: I was thinking Dragonbreath and Iron Tail, but Giga Drain would probably be helpful against Wallace. I know it's only 60 base power (with no STAB), but it'd be nice to have an answer to his water-types (one of which is a Water/Ground-type meaning 4x weak to Grass) especially if I get unlucky with Hidden Power on Altaria (special attacker) and Kingdra.

*I'm not sure Salamence can solo Elite Four Phoebe, so I will probably need an extra copy of Crunch on the team just in case.

Also, Kingdra will be running Surf, but... should I teach it Ice Beam for Elite Four Drake, or is the Altaria with Ice Beam enough for Drake? (I really don't want to grind for TMs at the Game Corner, but I should have enough money to just buy the TM for Flamethrower and the 2nd TM for Ice Beam) In any case, I was thinking of teaching Kingdra Toxic, but I might go with an extra Secret Power instead (Dat paralysis chance!).

Thanks in advance!

For the physical Altaria, if possible, I'd ditch one of the two Normal-type moves and get Hidden Power (Fighting) or (Ground) for dealing with Rock and Steel types. Fighting would be preferable because of Skarmory, which is immune to Ground, and easy to set up against if you're willing to use a lot of healing items to cure Toxic.

The special Altaria looks good to me, too.

For Flygon, I'd recommend Flamethrower, which would be good against Ice-types and help against Glacia's Glalie, which are slower than Flygon but can do 4x STAB damage if you fail to 1HKO them. As for the final move, there are a few options. Dragon Claw would be a good STAB move if you're not using the TM on another team member. Attract on a female Flygon would be risky, but very helpful for Drake if it works. Dragonbreath would be more useful than either of the regular Normal-type moves, and might even be preferable to Dragon Claw in certain cases because of the Paralysis chance.

Giga Drain wouldn't be very useful against anything but Whiscash because of its low Base Power in Gen 3; you're better off using STAB Earthquake for Wallace.

Kingdra has Swift Swim, so you can use Rain Dance and make it outspeed nearly anything else, if you want to. It should definitely learn Ice Beam, though. As for its final move, Secret Power looks good to me.

As for Coin grinding, you can grind for money from Rich Boy Winston and Lady Cindy on Route 104, which'll net you 14,400 per battle once you get their Lv. 36 Linoone battles assuming you have the Amulet Coin. That's one Game Corner TM per six battles.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

There's a lot to reply here, so let me take this one step at a time.

Salamence I'll be using TM02 to teach Dragon Claw to the starter Salamence (assuming there's no rule against starting the game with a lvl 5 Bagon hacked into where the starter should be). Salamence's final moveset will be Dragon Claw, Crunch, Brick Break, and ... Okay, I know it's not a very good move, but I'd like to teach it "Fly" because of the lore. I know "Fly" isn't the best move (because it takes two turns), but it's convenient to have on a Pokemon that isn't an HM slave, and it at least gets STAB.

Physical Altaria: Return/Aerial Ace/Dragon Dance/Hidden Power (Fighting). It's a tough call between Return and Secret Power, but since I'll be teaching Secret Power to Kingdra, I think I'll just go ahead and teach Altaria Return. I'll see what I can do with Hidden Power Fighting, but it'll probably take a lot of grinding.

Flygon: Earthquake/Dragonbreath/Crunch/Flamethrower. I really hope you've done the math correctly regarding Rich Boy Winston and Lady Cindy cuz that's a lot of Game Corner TMs. Is that 14,400 Pokemon dollars per battle figure "each of them" or "both of them." In other words, how much is the payout for battling Rich Boy Winston's Lv 36 Linoone and Lady Cindy's Lv 36 combined (with the Amulet Coin in full effect).

Kingdra: Surf/Ice Beam/Hidden Power (Electric) or Rain Dance/Secret Power. I will probably only teach it Rain Dance if I can't get it with Hidden Power (Electric) with a decent base power. I'm gonna have to really grind for that, but I think I can ... [Music starts getting more and more out of tune] Oh, it's a 15% encounter rate ... with the Super Rod ... in the Gen 3 Hoenn games... [Music completely falls apart and comes to a stop] I think I'll just bank on the special Swablu/Altaria having Hidden Power Grass.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Is that 14,400 Pokemon dollars per battle figure "each of them" or "both of them." In other words, how much is the payout for battling Rich Boy Winston's Lv 36 Linoone and Lady Cindy's Lv 36 combined (with the Amulet Coin in full effect).

It's for each of them, provided you have the Amulet Coin user in the battle.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

I genuinely did not know that Rich Boy Winston gave out 7,200 Pokémon dollars (under normal circumstances, meaning no "Amulet Coin") in (some of) his rematches. I knew he was rich, but that's impressive.

Let me make sure I understand the Bulbapedia article on the PokéNav correctly. In Ruby/Sapphire (not Emerald), starting as soon as the Balance Badge is acquired, every time my character takes 255 in-game steps, Rich Boy Winston has a 31% chance of being ready for a rematch and Lady Cindy has a 31% chance of being ready for a rematch. Is this correct? I've never really researched how the rematches work in Ruby/Sapphire until I started doing these challenges.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I genuinely did not know that Rich Boy Winston gave out 7,200 Pokémon dollars (under normal circumstances, meaning no "Amulet Coin") in (some of) his rematches. I knew he was rich, but that's impressive.

Let me make sure I understand the Bulbapedia article on the PokéNav correctly. In Ruby/Sapphire (not Emerald), starting as soon as the Balance Badge is acquired, every time my character takes 255 in-game steps, Rich Boy Winston has a 31% chance of being ready for a rematch and Lady Cindy has a 31% chance of being ready for a rematch. Is this correct? I've never really researched how the rematches work in Ruby/Sapphire until I started doing these challenges.

That is correct. You will need three rematches each to get their Linoone strong enough to give out the maximum pay, but they still give a sizable amount up to that point. They are both Lv. 36 at their strongest, easily beatable for a team that can beat Norman's Slaking duo.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

Change of Discussion: I'm redoing the Ground Monotype challenge of Sapphire for the YouTube channel, and I'm curious if anyone had moveset suggestions for my team, particularly for Golem.

I don't remember my exact thought process for the first one, but I decided very early on that Golem was too much of a bother to train and then trade-evolve, but apparently it's the only member of my planned team capable of learning Brick Break, which might be useful for the Elite Four (Reflect and Light Screen and all), and trade evolution means I'll have it fully evolved at Level 25. Plus Geodude would be available as soon as the 2nd gym, and uhhh, the only thing (besides Nincada) I can catch and use in battle until after Gym 3. If I don't catch it, the first third of the game will be a Marshtomp solo run, which isn't against the rules, but... you get the idea. Rhyhorn was dead weight last time (partially my fault considering I had Thunderbolt and Ice Beam on that thing), and it didn't evolve until (what was it?) Level 42 (which felt like forever in Gen 3 Hoenn).

Swampert: Return, Surf, Ice Beam, Earthquake (by level up)

Golem: Earthquake (by level up), Brick Break, Toxic, and ... Secret Power(?)

Camerupt: Strength, Earthquake, Flamethrower (TM), Rock Slide

Claydol: Psychic (TM), Shadow Ball, Cosmic Power, Light Screen(?)

Flygon: Earthquake (TM), Dragon Claw, Crunch, Fly

Donphan: Return, Earthquake, Secret Power

Since Geodude are swarming Granite Cave, I might attempt to find one with Hidden Power Ghost. Hidden Power Dark would be more useful for the Elite Four in theory, but since the devs behind Gen II made Dark a special type... Well, you know... I also want a Donphan with Hidden Power Ghost, but I don't know how likely that'll be since it's a Safari Zone encounter.

Camerupt: I normally make this thing wait until Level 33 to get it to learn Flamethrower without a TM, but since I've been educated on how to exploit Rich Boy Winston and Lady Cindy's wallets for cash money, I don't think that's necessary.

Claydol: "Hold up; let 'em cook!" I learned form my "no evolution" run of Leaf Green that spamming Cosmic Power is OP. Shadow Ball is really strong, but ... I don't know if I need this thing running physical and special attacks since it's stuck with 70 base attacking stats.

Flygon: Earthquake/Draogn Claw/Crunch/fourth move is optimal Flygon in Gen 3 singleplayer. "Why are you teaching it Fly?" It's the game's fast travel system, and I want it on a Pokemon that isn't stuck in the PC all the time.

Donphan: Why did it take until Gen 4 for this poor elephant to be given Earthquake by level up before the end game?

Much thanks for any help.

Oh, one more thing...

Me: [Goes up to the Move Relearner to teach Golem the move Rock Slide] "Why isn't it possible?"

Move Relearner: "It's just not."

 

[MachoPony]

I'm really confused. Mudbray, in fact all 3 Alola native ground types were nothing but a liability in Ultra Moon, slow, never one shot, frail one one side or the other.

And yet in Shield? Mudbray is taking great hits even without Stamina, bulldoze and double kick are hitting hard too. Is the game just kinder to ground types or something?

 

[StenirRPG]

Double-guessing my thoughts given Dhelmise in Gen 7 is a 1% spawn rate...and I already have a Grass/Ghost on my team. I wanted one, but am wondering if it's worth the hunt.

My current team, having just finished the Ghost trial (which was a bit of a challenge due to the typing):
- Decidueye
- Misdreavus (I'll get the stone before doing the Aether Paradise to get Mismagius)
- A. Marowak
- Sandygast
- Mimikyru

What would be some better suggestions instead of Dhelmise?

I know I can get the remaining Ghosts at this time:
- Gastly/Haunter/Gengar
- Drifloon/Drifblim
- Oricorio
- Sableye
- Phantump/Trevenant
- Snorunt/Froslass

Thinking ahead just based on typing, I've still got to deal with the following type-focused battles:
- Bug
- Dark
- Ground
- Dragon
- Rock
- Fighting
- Flying
- Ghost

So...I basically can throw out worrying about Ghost and Dark, because I'd have to worry about that anyways. Fighting is not a worry due to typing, so I really need to look at Bug/Ground/Dragon/Rock/Flying. Bug is not a worry due to A. Marowak, and Ground/Rock not as much of a worry with Decidueye. I could take Snorunt/Froslass, perhaps, because that would be beneficial for Flying/Ground/Dragon also, but Rock would just be devastating. I might do that unless there's a better thought out there.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Sableye isn't weak to Ghost or Dark, but its base stats aren't great and you can't Mega Evolve it until the postgame. I, personally, would go with Froslass, but Gengar's also a solid choice.

 

[StenirRPG]

The challenge with Froslass is that you need a Dawn Stone, so I need to farm for one in Isle of Aphun. Good thing I went ahead and started that. Unfortunately, the one you get from Guzma isn't available until post-game, from what I'm reading.