Aperson

Level 60 is perfectly fine. You should be able to beat the game if your team is Level 60 because the highest level Pokemon you have to face in the main story is Level 58. Rocky Helmet is not until post game, you have to pay BP for it.

Yeah, No Guard is probably the best ability for Midnight Lycanroc. The strongest Rock moves, Rock Slide and Stone Edge, already have accuracy problems. Rock Slide's got the better of the two but it's nowhere near 100 and in this case it's probably the only time I would consider the less accurate of the two moves the better one. Because if a move's going to miss then having more base power can always help. At the same time, I can see why people would prefer Rock Slide to Stone Edge. A No Guard Lycanroc would pack a pretty mean Stone Edge though especially considering it's high base Attack, probably better off doing that instead of Rock Slide unless you want to use it for Doubles since Rock Slide hit's both opponents.

Been playing Final Fantasy X recently. No, not the HD version, the original PS2 version. I stopped playing a while ago before the part where you ride the Shoopuff and have since made a significant amount of progress. I traveled through the Guardo village, past the Thunder Plain, through Macaladia, through the temple, back out through the temple, finding out the true nature of Seymour, getting washed away into an Oasis, finding a city in the Oasis, having said city attacked, escaping on an airship and now I'm fighting a boss. On an airship. All in a day's work... Also been playing bits of Pokemon Moon here and there but only the odd daily event.

On that note...

Also managed to win one of the big fights at the Battle Tree. Yes, finally completed the Singles mode after some adjustments to my team by adding in "Pikabu" the Mimikyu. PQRG-WWWW-WWW3-6G9W

Currently sitting at about 84% Pokedex completion. Thanks to GTS I was able to secure a Gible, a Feebas and a Goomy, so that saves ages of that tracking down. Also got an Alolan Vulpix off Wonder Trade. Still need a Castform, Dratini and Vanillite among the rare encounters while several Sun Exclusives I don't have yet like Turtonator, Rufflet and Cottonee but I can probably sort those out later. Also have a plan to get both Solgaleo and Lunala in the same game, I've got Cosmoem and I plan to trade it to someone with Sun, possibly for another Cosmog/Cosmoem and then when they've evolved in their respective games, trade them back.

Bit odd that there are only 2 Buzzwole when in Moon you can catch 4 Pheromosa...

Spent much of the past month playing Pokemon Moon. Marathoned the story from start to finish in a week and then spent another week or so doing post game activities before resorting to completing the Pokedex. Despite taking a week to complete I very much enjoyed the game and it might just be my new favourite game in the series. After that, went back to Legend of Zelda: Oracle Of Seasons. I started this game quite a while ago but never got to the 6th dungeon, with the reasons being I was literally clueless as to where to find the gems that allow you to unlock the gate. However, with the help of a guide I found these gems and then proceeded to play all the way until the end of the game, including the Twinrova and Ganon fights as I had completed Oracle of Ages before this game. The final phase against Onox was way better than the Veran fight, and very challenging too with some of his attacks being very difficult to avoid in the 2D plane. It's probably the most unique final fight in the Zelda series. My next task will be to go back to Final Fantasy X and continue that game.

Sounds like we're getting Gen 2 Pokemon in Pokemon GO pretty soon. Also it appears several of the features that were introduced in Gold/Silver like Shiny Pokemon and Genders are also coming to Pokemon GO.

You can't get Magearna until you've beaten the game anyway. Also, don't use your Master Ball on Solgaleo, it has the same catch rate as most regular wild Pokemon so you're best off using normal balls on it. Even a Poke Ball might have a good chance of catching it. Try and ensure your Pokemon's moves complement their stats. For example, Litten is a Physical Attacker when it reaches it's final stage so you should focus on teaching it Physical moves, while Popplio is a Special Attacker so Physical attacks will be weak on it. Rowlet is a mixed attacker, but it's level up moves are Physical so you ideally don't want a Rowlet with a Nature that decreases it's Attack stat. All the starters have slightly different typings in their final forms than the original ones and they all learn signature moves when they reach their final form. There's a very long tutorial at the beginning so the game should get you up to speed with everything you might need to know regarding the game. Also certain Pokemon can only be found in certain patches of grass on particular routes or only be capable of being called in by other wild Pokemon in the new SOS mechanic.

By the time you'd answered Glen I'd already found out the answer. But cheers for the extra advice. Silvally and Metagross have been perfectly EV trained with Silvally in Special Attack and Speed, Metagross in Attack and Defence. Threw Tapu Koko in as a pivot and managed to get a 16 win streak in the Battle Tree going. However it is apparent that this team can't deal with Garchomp (and that's a pretty big threat, especially if I have to face Cynthia who is guaranteed to have a Garchomp) and I really need to train up a competitive Toxapex. Managers to get a Relaxed Nature Mareanie by breeding the one I already had from a Ditto. Unfortunately it has the Limber ability... ...looks like I'm going to have to repeat the Battle Tree endlessly until I can get an Ability Capsule to change it's ability to Merciless. I've never really done that well at Battle Tower type facilities, only managed to scrape through the first encounters against the bosses in Y thanks to Super Training my in-game team to help their stats (although a Modest Nature Mega Gardevoir with four different types of Special Attacks was a large part of that) and in HeartGold I was able to beat the Battle Arcade Silver Plate but mainly thanks to the fact that my team on that game included a Serene Grace Togekiss and that made things very easy. I also managed to do the Battle Hall on HeartGold with my Hitmontop. However, I'd never even done EV Training the classic way until this year, initially that was to evolve a Tyrogue into a Hitmontop by balencing out it's Attack and Defence. Moon is the first time I've actively EV trained a Pokemon for some kind of specific competitive purpose. Certainly this team has potential to do better than my main Moon team. EDIT: Oh, and at one point during the game I was grinding at Wela Park Volcano for ages so I was able to find at least one Fletchling during that point and since it was already at it's evolution level I just evolved it to get the Flame Body ability for post-game.

Yeah, Magearna is banned from the Battle Tree. As is Cosmog for some reason... Looks like I'm training up Type:Null for the Battle Tree instead. Probably go for a team of 4 featuring Metagross, Silvally, Tapu Koko and Toxapex. EDIT: Does the EXP. Share also distribute EVs across the whole party for defeating certain Pokemon? For instance, if I only ever fought Oricorio, would the EXP Share also give Special Attack EVs to other Pokemon in the party or just those that fought?

Just downloaded Magearna. Got lucky with getting a Modest natured Magearna first time around... Having got one with such a good nature I'm hoping Magearna is allowed in the Battle Tree. None of my main team are good enough for the job or have good enough natures to really properly take that thing on which is a shame because they are locking one of the biggest fan services in the games behind one of the most difficult Battle Tower facilities we've had in a while.

There are shiny versions of every Pokemon out there, but they are just differently coloured. The only reason they are so coveted is because they are extremely rare. As an in-game NPC says: This imo is the main reason why Shinies are so coveted. Sadly it does lead to nearly all hacked Pokemon being Shiny for whatever reason and then people try to pass these off as legit by randomly inviting people to trades just to show off their shinies, before disconnecting before you can actually trade with them. There are ways to increase your odds of encountering a Shiny but without hacking the game having all 802 Pokemon in Shiny Variants is going to be really hard. Best just to cherish the Shinies you have especially if you know for sure that you found them legitimately.

Magearna's QR Code is going to be available to scan from tomorrow by the looks of it.

@Glen\-i If you're still up for a battle and if I can figure out how to match someone on my friendlist I'll give you a game. Got my full team on me at the moment, just trying to fill the Pokedex., EDIT: Sorry about the Stealth Rocks...

Decided to use my Master Ball on the third legendary of the game. Reason being was that it was just hanging around and I've pretty much caught all the other legendaries so I didn't really feel like I necessarily needed my Master Ball anymore. Not sure why they've kept making the third legendary Pokemon only 600 BST though. Why make something that's extremely difficult to catch overall weaker statwise than the cover legendary who is stronger and easier to catch?

Also, can't you auto set levels to Level 50 in multiplayer matches anyway provided all the Pokemon are at least Level 50 themselves? Usually makes for a fairer matchup between someone who took their team past the levels they beat the game at and maybe even all the way to having an entire team of Level 100s and those who deposited their in-game team in the PC after beating the game for different reasons (mainly completing the Pokedex or raising a competitive team). My team is now Level 66/67 having just completed the big post-game sidequest. But I find myself really struggling on the post game fights and the fact that the team is so slow and quite frail from some powerful attackers isn't helping. Haven't managed to get into the Battle Tree yet as even with a few levels over Red and Blue they still wipe the floor with me thanks to some great coverage. Snorlax getting High Horsepower in this game really screws over Rock and Steel types that try to wall it. Meanwhile, I find my team doesn't really learn the types of moves it needs for proper type coverage. Might try and grind up to Level 70 before taking on the third major legendary and trying to catch it (the one that shares Solgaleo and Lunala's battle theme).

Actually, just remembered that I'm busy all this evening, so we won't be able to do it this evening. Maybe tomorrow though.

@Glen\-i Sure, but I'm not entirely sure about my own team either aside from a few powerhouses and I'm quite average when it comes to battle strategy, so don't expect a really difficult fight from us.

Beat the game. Second time through the League, backed up by an armada of Full Restores and Revives and an idea of what everyone was using. In my opinion they nailed the final battle music and it is now one of my favourites in the entire series, with the battle itself adding a nice twist on what previous games had done. Afterwards I was a bit caught out by

Actually blacked out against the final boss after forgetting to go into the Pokemon League without buying any healing items first. Sheer carelessness on my part, normally I'm pretty good at remembering to do that but this time around I got by on the healing items and Max Revives I already had, made it to the final encounter only for the main Pokemon of the opponent to completely wipe my team out. This is what it was looking like going into the last encounter:

Oh, THAT explains why I've only been getting something like 230 EXP off some of the Alolan Sandshrew in the game's equivalent to Victory Road. Might also be using Pokemon that have slow growth gains though but I did have quite a few Pokemon faint during the game which meant I had to revive them and they got less experience than they otherwise would have done and I tried not to grind too much unless I felt I absolutely had to, such as reaching Poni Island and recentlu. Got everyone up to Level 54 though so planning to take on the Pokemon League today and see what kind of levels I'm up against and whether I've undergrinded them or overgrinded the team. Also I had a feeling you would take Kommo-o as the last Pokemon. It's interesting that they give you the base form at a level where you can get it very quickly to it's final stage because Jangmo-o evolves at Level 35 and then again at Level 45, yet they give you the base form at low 40s in terms of levels. If you got yours at level 42 then that sounds about right for the amount of time it takes to get it to it's final stage. It's a location specific evolution, it only evolves in Poni Canyon for some reason. I tested this out this morning by taking a Grubbin I caught near the beginning of the game, evolving him into Charjabug then taking him to Poni Canyon, he evolved into a Vikavolt and is still at something like level 21 or 22. I believe Crabrawler's is also location specific too (you can't evolve it until the final dungeon) On another note, also made an effort to fill up my Pokedex a bit more, got a Popplio off GTS and evolved it all the way to a Primarina, also evolved the Pikipek I caught early on all the way to a Toucannon and did the quick evolution of Jangmo-o to Kommo-o. All the while listening to the awesome song that is this game's Victory Road music (even though they don't actually call it Victory Road) Audio

Had a few battles online with my in-game team (both Single and Battle Royal) to mixed results. Have only managed to win one game so far but there was a particularly interesting ending to one of the matches... What I was a bit confused about though was that I got 5 knockouts in that particular match which was more than anyone else but the trainer with the Boldore was declared winner. Is that because the Boldore was the only Pokemon left on anyone's team?

Yeah, that's going to be annoying. In fairness I already had my full team of 6 which I've been trying to raise evenly, without overgrinding, which is probably why I found myself somewhat underlevelled whereas until now you only had four Pokemon on your team. Also, that's quite a number of Fire types you're using there. Anyway, had the big epic legendary encounter with Lunala... and caught it in a Quick Ball. So anticlimatic.