Espinosa

Tapu Bulu has Megahorn so Eggy won't be tanking it for very long I'd wager.

Huh, thought you implied when you stated waiting for Vikavolt isn't worth it. Then again, there's no way to circumvent Beldum's tedious path to the final evolution either.

https://paste.ee/r/zYMUr I'll just leave this here so that you can look up all the information yourself. Alolan forme stats are mostly the same as the original ones (except Geodude and evos, Grimer and Muk, and Marowak who are literally the same), usually with 10 subtracted from one base stat and added to another (like Alolan Dugtrio losing 10 spd and gaining 10 def). Most of these re-arrangements aren't beneficial at all... except for A-Sandslash I guess. Eevee has a 5% encounter rate on Route 4, which is the second island (circa levels 11-14). If you chain Eevee with an adrenaline orb, you can catch wild Espeon and Umbreon this way. The odds appear to be pretty good.

Mossy Rock is in Lush Jungle, which is the last trial on the 2nd island. Lurantis's bases: 70/105/90/80/90/45

I imagine this means you will be catching that Salamence pre-evolved then. That's a very ambitious goal.

iirc it's the finishing stretch of the 3rd one, but could be wrong.

Yeah, Mag is great (in BW2 and pretty much in all subsequent Pokemon generations; not sure about gen 4 right now), but imho not as good as Excadrill. Alolan Diglett functions in a similar way to Excadrill if you're into that stuff. Yeah, Crabrawler is sweet when you get it and should be all right in the E4 (though with a weakness to fighting, flying and not being able to hit ghosts with its fighting STABS...) but it'll be awful for a large portion of the game. Vikavolt is a good deal more tolerable as you wait for the final evo with its 2nd form usable even if not fantastic.

Meh, Excadrill was better than Mag in BW2. Better coverage and sweeping capability while having more or less the same type matchups. Who is Crabro, S/M's new Crabrawler? He sucks in-game with no way to evolve until just before the Elite Four.

I feel like I want to try to achieve it for great justice. Catching Salamence is the easiest part, I imagine, but chaining all those Bagons to get there is the hardest. I dunno about Rogenrolla, but Flash Fire Growlithe could be good, since you cut the number of moves Bagon can use to damage you to just two. The one Bagon who you keep alive needs to be Charmed/Growled/Intimidated and Sand-Attacked to hell and back too (statusing it disables the SOS battling). I also imagine I'd rather not do it until False Swipe is available. That, and have some 30 or so PokeBalls ready in case the 5 Great Balls you get in-town all fail. Something to keep in mind though... I chained Bagons a total of three times on my completed gamefile. First time around, Bagon ran out of PP for all of Ember/Leer/Bite/Rage (quite impressive really) and died to its own Struggle. Obviously, you can kill off that Bagon and start chaining the next one that is summoned instead. Second time, I summoned Salamence after like 40 minutes of chaining and caught it with my first Ultra Ball (para'd and FS'd). Third time around, I chained for 30 minutes until I got a Shiny Bagon - caught it instead of waiting for Mence. It also took considerable time to get that 1% Bagon encounter each time (from 30 mins to 2+ hours). So, on one of these in-game tier things we like to discuss, I imagine Mence would be pretty low due to how difficult it is to catch it reliably, not to mention time-consuming. It's also not as hot for in-game as you might think. High bases and, like, Brick Break and Bite keep it more than competent in the earlygame, but it doesn't get any good STAB until the Fly TM on the third island. If you simply want a Salamence postgame without headache, you're better off just catching a Bagon / Shelgon on the island east of Route 3 where they both have a 10% encounter rate.

Salamence is powerful indeed, but seems to have Bagon's 4 moves (Leer / Rage / Ember / Bite) as opposed to its own moves. You should have 5 Great Balls very early into the game, but it's survival that's going to be difficult. Even the Bagons hit really hard and you can expect to go through dozens of them for Mence to pop up, if it does that at all. An even weirder thing about da Mence is that if you take it to move relearner, you will be able to tutor it EVERY level-up move it has (Crunch, Zen Headbutt, Double-Edge and all others), even though it's only lv. 9-12.

It's almost impossible to catch Salamence that early though. You need to find Bagon first, then chain them for very long because the chance that Salamence will appear seems to be very low. An earlygame team should find it impossible to actually catch one.

I wonder which version is best for a 0 experience run... I guess A-Sandslash is better than A-Ninetales because of that typing, but everything else? I imagine Drampa could be helpful with that Berserk ability too. Not sure about the two apes though.

I'm not sure myself. The Z-move can only be used once, and you could waste it by attacking a switch-in or the wrong Pokemon, or find no application for it during a fight. Is it better to attack with a Z-move once or attack 4 times with Life Orb recoil before being struck down? Hard to say really. They are significantly more powerful in-game, yet still not nearly as powerful as some of the gen 6 mega-evolutions were (you had access to some really overkill stuff in both regions). You can't expect Z-moves to carry you in a battle where the opponent clearly has the upper hand, while a mega evolution could achieve exactly as much.

It's a very good idea tbqh. Unlike it's been previously with mega evolution, several in-game trainers do use Z-moves in battle with you, and knowing when to anticipate one and having Protect ready is a cheesy way of getting around the huge damage that's about to be dished out. 25% damage does make it more bearable but still, you just did nothing to the opposition while they put a slight dent into you - even with the good tactical decision, you're still facing the music.

I have a 16 GB one... It hasn't been an issue until now, but with Moon taking nearly 3 GB (I forget how much exactly) things are getting problematic. I'll have to start deleting stuff if I decide to install, say, a Pokemon Sun/Moon hack for another 0 exp runthrough or something.

I imagine having priority in Aqua Jet is a big boon for Empoleon in this setup.

lmao its description says nothing about that. Guess GameFreak didn't care such a pointless little detail?

Hell yeah, caught a shiny Bagon yesterday night. Yay for SOS battle chaining!

Fuga IS bulky (mostly because of his HP), but Silas just has an absurd strength stack. He can actually OHKO Oni Savages with a MU pair-up and Hinoka in range in this chapter, if he's wielding the Steel Sword.

Well, how much money did it grab really? It can't really grow old or obsolete as the original Pokemon game anyway. In a way, you can say it gets the people's interest reawakened for the fresh product.

Ariados also got a signature move... which is 5 generations after its creation.

Chapter 8 (in 4 turns) is up! Pokemon's kept me busy for the past few days so now I'm wondering which run to focus on next, this one or the random reclass run I'd started in Conquest way back (which is much closer to completion).

Something still tells me RBY will be remade before the Sinnoh games are. DPPt isn't terribly dated as of today, with the physical/special split, 100 TMs, an elaborate range of held items available and the like. If you ask me, there's a huge gap between gens 3 and 4, bigger than between any two generations of Pokemon. I feel like going back to roots would make the most sense right now, because Fire Red/Leaf Green remain the oldest version of any generation of Pokemon at present. Sinnoh can wait until the new console, because honestly it's way too early to come back to these games at the current state of Pokemon's development.

The Totem mon is always guaranteed to summon an ally successfully (and I think it's the same ones each time too). The wildmons have a chance that depends on their HP.

Is it possible to have a mega and a Z-power user in the same team? The only Mega stone I have in Moon is Alakazite (gift postgame), and I don't have an Alakazam (nor can trade for one obv) to test it on. I like how the game's now not all about speed in Sun/Moon. Many of the available Pokemon in Alola have low to subpar speed, so the game's not all about outspeeding and OHKOing everything anymore, unlike every other Pokemon game starting with DPPt (I think Hoenn was the only other region where bulk mattered as much as it does in S/M). The seven island trials also have to be the embodiment of strategy emphasised more than ever in a Pokemon game.