Pokemon Sun & Moon

[The Warden]

The issue isn't EV training Flame, but EV removal. There aren't Reset Bags anymore, and meals to reduce EVs cost an arm and a leg. Basically, the best way to remove EVs are funking berries that take 1-2 days to cultivate, so long as you keep paying the beans. And said berries are got by random chance on 1 single route (route 10). Also meals don't work if your Pokemon has max happiness.

[Shradow]

Well there's 3 options, SOS chaining, Festival Plaza, and Poke Pelago.

 

SOS chaining is pretty darn fast if you have the right setup. Having the respective Power item and Pokerus means you only have to kill 7 summoned allies to completely max out a stat (and that's assuming you're fighting something weak and easy to defeat that only grants 1 EV, 1 EV + 8 from power item * 2 for Pokerus * 2 for being called through SOS means 36 EVs for a single Pokemon). With the Exp Share you can EV train multiple Pokemon in a single battle which is nice.

 

There's two kinds of facilities in the Festival Plaza, the bouncy houses and the Battle Table. They offer meals/courses you can put your Pokemon through to train whatever EVs you need, but I don't know the numbers on it. The FC cost also racks up.

 

Poke Pelago's Isle Evelup lets you put Pokemon in training sessions for whatever EV (or just plan exp) that you want. At max rank each session that lasts 30 minutes grants 4 EVs, and there are 3 plots of 6 meaning you can have up to 18 Pokemon going at once. Beans cut the session time to 15 minutes, and at 4 EV per session it takes 63 sessions to max a stat to 252, lasting 31.5 hours without beans and 15.75 hours with beans. It's slow but you can just set it and forget it, it's primarily what I've used because getting BP is a jabroni through Battle Royals/Tree so I haven't been able to get the Power items.

[Flame Dragon]

The issue isn't EV training Flame, but EV removal. There aren't Reset Bags anymore, and meals to reduce EVs cost an arm and a leg. Basically, the best way to remove EVs are funking berries that take 1-2 days to cultivate, so long as you keep paying the beans. And said berries are got by random chance on 1 single route (route 10). Also meals don't work if your Pokemon has max happiness.

 

EV removal was never a BIG thing for me since I've only had a few Pokemon I needed to reEV train because I changed my mind on how I wanted to do them. That being said, not having the reset bag does suck. Not only for the obvious, "what if you do want to change EVs" but I know I've used it a few times to double check that I had the numbers right.

 

Well there's 3 options, SOS chaining, Festival Plaza, and Poke Pelago.

 

SOS chaining is pretty darn fast if you have the right setup. Having the respective Power item and Pokerus means you only have to kill 7 summoned allies to completely max out a stat (and that's assuming you're fighting something weak and easy to defeat that only grants 1 EV). With the Exp Share you can EV train multiple Pokemon in a single battle which is nice.

 

There's two kinds of facilities in the Festival Plaza, the bouncy houses and the Battle Table. They each offer meals/courses you can put your Pokemon through to train whatever EVs you need, but I don't know the numbers on it. The FC cost also racks up.

 

Poke Pelago's Isle Evelup lets you put Pokemon in training sessions for whatever EV (or just plan exp) that you want. At max rank each session that lasts 30 minutes grants 4 EVs, and there are 3 plots of 6 meaning you can have up to 18 Pokemon going at once. Beans cut the session time to 15 minutes, and at 4 EV per session it takes 63 sessions to max a stat to 252, lasting 31.5 hours without beans and 15.75 hours with beans. It's slow but you can just set it and forget it, it's primarily what I've used.

Of those SOS seems like the best, so yea, I'd say thats a step down. Though given the slow down we get with doubles I have to assume they just couldn't do hordes. That is a bit frustrating, but tech limits are a thing.

[The Warden]

Yeah, the immense lag gotten from doubles was a bit ridiculous really. And that does explain that whole deal with the 5 Skull Grunts before Vast Poni Canyon gearing to fight, then only 1 does with 5 mons.

[Flame Dragon]

I'm really curious what ended up causing it. I've heard it runs a lot better on the new model 3DS, but even those have had some issues. I think this is a safe sign that come gen 8 we'll be on a new system. Or hell, the switch since we already have rumors of Sun/Moon being ported to that (I'm not holding my breath though).

[Shradow]

Oh right that never occurred to me when I got to that part. I was just really disappointed it wasn't a horde battle, but tech limits are tech limits.

[Βyakuya]

I can understand the advantages SOS Battles can have over Hordes, but the thing that won't be the same is the clear cut efficiency needed to raise Pokemon, and any mistakes can easily be fixed, as well as how easy it was to access it.

 

In ORAS it was very easy to simultaneous raise a Pokemon's Level and EVs by Hordes by getting at max 10-20~ EVs (If you have Macho Brace) every encounter. I really loved my Venusaur for this job because it knows Sweet Scent to attract Hordes and knows Petal Blizzard and Earthquake to simultaneously kill the Hordes. I even managed to find 2 Shinies this way. Only issue is that if I wanted to make the process quicker and find Pokemon that give 2 points per Pokemon, it would take so long to try to encounter that species in the wild and I would have to do it everytime. Still, it was a quick and easy way to boost EVs. and the addition of Super Training helped to increase missing values as well of course, allowing you to reset EVs.

 

In SM so far, for my experience, it's much more tedious. Despite the repetitive tapping needed for Super Training is gone, SOS Battles demand a lot of setup and luck. Apparently you can get a lot of benefits by having your trained Pokemon hold a Power item to double EVs, in addition to EVs that are already doubled from just normally Ally Chaining. However, what's annoying is that you have to keep track of a lot more things such as turn count, your remaining PP, and the EVs you actually get. And eventually your False Swiped Pokemon may not call an ally and you might kill them on accident. It might be arguable that this method is faster and can aid in finding Shinies, but for me, it took me a while to max my Atk stat for my Mimikyu, but it would have helped if I had the Power items, and those cost $$$. 

 

Poke Pelago and Festival Plaza are also neat, but unlike Super Training and Horde battles where they're already available for you to use if you get the right materials and setup, both require you to do a lot of leveling up and patience. In general, even though SOS Battles technically can have more advantage over the past hordes, this gen just makes this kind of EV training a little expensive.

[Shradow]

And eventually your False Swiped Pokemon may not call an ally and you might kill them on accident.

I think I said this already but I'll say it again just in case, if you're ever SOSing and they don't call an ally, you can just waste a turn by using another Adrenaline Orb. It doesn't actually use up the Orb, and it means you don't have to use a move or anything or accidentally kill something.

[Βyakuya]

I think I said this already but I'll say it again just in case, if you're ever SOSing and they don't call an ally, you can just waste a turn by using another Adrenaline Orb. It doesn't actually use up the Orb, and it means you don't have to use a move or anything or accidentally kill something.

 

I have been doing that, but it's just the fact that I have to rely on the Pokemon I swiped to make a move. There are points when in 3-4~ turns no ally comes and I completely just faze out.

[The Warden]

Honestly, while it was nice to the sheer volume of innovation Gamefreak pulled, they really didn't pay much mind to the more competitive sides of things. There is literally no reason WHY there couldn't have been Super Training.

[Βyakuya]

Honestly, while it was nice to the sheer volume of innovation Gamefreak pulled, they really didn't pay much mind to the more competitive sides of things. There is literally no reason WHY there couldn't have been Super Training.

 

They probably wanted to make Festival Plaza and Poke Pelago used more for part of the competitive aspect and not make Super Training overshadow them. And I think they don't want to completely overshadow SOS Chaining either. I think it's too brash to say that they don't pay much mind. They allowed us to alter IVs, have a chance to max out EVs in one stat, created a whole lineup of potential competitive Pokemon and allowed us to have a chance to find easy Shinies and good stat Pokes while simultaneously training.

[Shradow]

One thing I'm worried might become a problem in the future is how important items are starting to stack up. Colress gives you the Genesect drives, Gladion gives you the Silvally discs, there's an antique shop selling the orbs for Dialga/Palkia/Giratina/Groudon/Kyogre, and it seems like every other NPC is giving you stuff like the trade evolve items like the Up-Grade and Magmarizer or key items for Legendaries like the DNA Splicers and Gracidea, or what have you. I think it was handled pretty well this time, but it was pretty noticeable how much of these sort of things you get all over the place.

[Βyakuya]

It's pretty strange actually. "Here, would you like to buy these completely innocuous rocks that we have for some reason?" And also: "I don't really need all these 4 items yet I have no idea how I even got them in the first place", *give you DNA Splicers and so forth".

 

Add on top a guy casually asks you in a Pokemon Center if you want to learn Dragon Ascent.

 

It's pretty overwhelming how many item you do get though, but at least it ain't a treasure hunt and most of the time you are gifted these at the appropriate times.

[Shradow]

Oh yeah I didn't even consider the people teaching the special moves, either. I had to do a double take when the guy asked about Dragon Ascent, there's also the guy in Hano Grand Resort who teaches Relic Song and Secret Sword.

[The Warden]

To be fair, you get the Gracidea from a shop called Gracidea Fashion, and you at least get the DNA Splicers and the Prison Bottle from an Aether Employee. Burnet having the Reveal Glass is kind of weird though.

[Flame Dragon]

They probably wanted to make Festival Plaza and Poke Pelago used more for part of the competitive aspect and not make Super Training overshadow them. And I think they don't want to completely overshadow SOS Chaining either. I think it's too brash to say that they don't pay much mind. They allowed us to alter IVs, have a chance to max out EVs in one stat, created a whole lineup of potential competitive Pokemon and allowed us to have a chance to find easy Shinies and good stat Pokes while simultaneously training.

It looks like most of Super Training's function was moved to the Festival Plaza since you can increase EVs by various amounts and zero everything. The issue is the cost for doing this, but the functionality is still there more or less.

 

One thing I'm worried might become a problem in the future is how important items are starting to stack up. Colress gives you the Genesect drives, Gladion gives you the Silvally discs, there's an antique shop selling the orbs for Dialga/Palkia/Giratina/Groudon/Kyogre, and it seems like every other NPC is giving you stuff like the trade evolve items like the Up-Grade and Magmarizer or key items for Legendaries like the DNA Splicers and Gracidea, or what have you. I think it was handled pretty well this time, but it was pretty noticeable how much of these sort of things you get all over the place.

I think the bigger issue is organization. Like, maybe they are afraid of too many pockets, but I think having things broken down more would be a big plus. They already gave the Z-Crystals their own, and IMO Mega Stones at the very least should have had one too. I also think they should bring back the TM Case or w/e it was called from Gen 3. We have almost no Key Items in the game so make it a Key Item and have a sub-menu for all the TMs to save a pocket would have been pretty nice.

 

 

Anyway, I asked this earlier, but no one responded and I do want to know. For post game stuff, other than UBs and the Battle Tree what else is there?

[The Warden]

Breeding, catching stuff, catching Necrozma after you get the UBs.

 

I do like the Free Item Slot though, as you can re-purpose it for Mega Stones.

[Shradow]

I found a handy spreadsheet on the Pokemon subreddit if you want to look at it, though it doesn't have everything: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-tHjrRiV9KhNL-P3IkiXCsuZ_1_wXikdzaK4YBt9MBg/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true

 

Probably the most important thing is buying the Skull Tank from the guys at the Po Town Pokecenter.

[Flame Dragon]

Breeding, catching stuff, catching Necrozma after you get the UBs.

 

I do like the Free Item Slot though, as you can re-purpose it for Mega Stones.

 

I was using it for Potions and Repeals during my main game. I might do this for the Mega Stones, though if feel like if I buy any it will be because I already have the Pokemon and at that point I can just have them hold it.

 

I found a handy spreadsheet on the Pokemon subreddit if you want to look at it, though it doesn't have everything: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-tHjrRiV9KhNL-P3IkiXCsuZ_1_wXikdzaK4YBt9MBg/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true

 

Probably the most important thing is buying the Skull Tank from the guys at the Po Town Pokecenter.

This is super helpful. Will being using it. Thank you.

[Βyakuya]

There's a lot of sub-quests you can do too, such as rematching against Guzma, and defeating all the Eeveelution trainers to get the Eeveelium. There's also catching the Tapus and finding the Zygarde Cores of course.

[Flame Dragon]

There's a lot of sub-quests you can do too, such as rematching against Guzma, and defeating all the Eeveelution trainers to get the Eeveelium. There's also catching the Tapus and finding the Zygarde Cores of course.

I think I'm going to hold off on catching legendaries until I have synchronizers to get good natures for them.

 

And o god, the Zygarde cells. REALLY wish I didn't pick up any since its going to be a nightmare to hunt down the ones I missed since 90% of the time is going to be me traveling to locations I already cleared. Think I'll save that for later too.

[Astro Dude]

Man, I have been trying to look for Happiny, know where they are, problem is getting one to show up.

 

I'll scan QR codes for shinies so I can get Deino to appear on Tuesday.

 

BTW, anyone wanna trade a Litten for a cheerleader Oricorio?

[The Warden]

I think I'm going to hold off on catching legendaries until I have synchronizers to get good natures for them.

 

And o god, the Zygarde cells. REALLY wish I didn't pick up any since its going to be a nightmare to hunt down the ones I missed since 90% of the time is going to be me traveling to locations I already cleared. Think I'll save that for later too.

 

Serebii has the specific locations and the time of day in their PokeEarth of Alola.

[BlackBeartic]

Sorry to deviate off topic a tad bit but as I know some of you have done, i'm looking to chain a shiny Sandygast.

 

I've heard some things about Sandygast being one of the more annoying mons to chain. Is this because you can't False Swipe it or what? I'd like to be prepared because when I get home from classes tomorrow I wanna attempt it.

[Flame Dragon]

Serebii has the specific locations and the time of day in their PokeEarth of Alola.

 

I know it does. I was just saying it would be easier if I had a check list or something to record which cells I'd already collected. Even with the list I'm not going to remember which cells I've gotten and which I missed meaning lots of needless stops.

 

Sorry to deviate off topic a tad bit but as I know some of you have done, i'm looking to chain a shiny Sandygast.

 

I've heard some things about Sandygast being one of the more annoying mons to chain. Is this because you can't False Swipe it or what? I'd like to be prepared because when I get home from classes tomorrow I wanna attempt it.

If I were to guess it would be the False Swipe thing. Maybe use a Pokemon with Foresight. I know Decidueye gets both moves.

 

On this note, another reason I'm planning on waiting is so I can send over a Pangoro for the sole purpose of SOS chaining. False Swipe, Entrainment, and Scrappy makes him an ideal choice.