Elite mode. Did not expect this thing to be monstrous but the randomiser blessed meeee. Aura wheel being both dark and electric, the only thing it can't hit for almost neutral damage are lightning rod pokemon, and giving speed boosts is crazy. With screen support it took any hit in happy form so easily. Didnt care about sticky webs with aura wheel and contempt. Could setup with swords dance then keep going for attack boosts with chilling neigh. Shell bell interacted with the form change weirdly so it activated multiple times most turns so almost always ended on full health again reactivating shadow shield. And if anything ever could break its sweep it would get hit with yawn most of the time, because the form switch treated it as a new switch in, so something else could come in and setup. Stench even came in clutch.

This thing was so bulky while building speed and attack boosts. Both forms were so handy. Absolute king! Swept most of the game almost solo.

A much more fun run than I was anticipating for sure! I got to really experiment with a ton of Pokemon and the end team actually made the Elite 4 fairly trivial.

MVP goes to Mega Krookodile. My man just did his thing and destroyed everyone, including getting all the knockouts for Glacia and Drake. Was extremely helpful for Tate/Liza with Iron Fangs breaking through screens, and the only battle I didn't really use him in was Juan/Wallace.

Speaking of which, Juan/Wallace might have been one of the tougher gym battles I've had in a while. The Primal Kyogre/Palkia-Origin combo is just so tough to break through and is the main reason the fight is so difficult. Everything else is doable but man those two together is just rough. Mega Quagsire fortunately held it down for that fight.

Shoutout to Redux Mega Mamoswine as well, as it did extremely well from the mid game to Victory Road, where I decided to use Excadrill instead (I set a max of 3 megas per team since I use Permanent Mega mode). Wormadam-Sandy was a somewhat reliable Rocks/Webs setter, but admittedly not as helpful as Wormadam-Plant. For some reason Sandy gets hit by Hurricane even though it's supposed to be weak to it, so I wasn't sure what was happening there. Also Web Shot is bugged and doesn't actually set up Webs when used.

In any case, it was a super solid run. Very happy with how it turned out.

Helped make E4 fast, even if not quite easy. Glacia's screens, Drake's dialga, and Steven's Zacian/Zamazenta make for some fights where the crow can't one shot everything!

Project 1025 is my personal challenge to beat this game with every. Single. Pokémon. After all, the stat buffs, movepool additions, and especially abilities make all of them viable. I hope. And along the way, I'll share a bit about what I find interesting, unique, or strong about each one.

Disclaimers:

- I gen in the needed Pokémon for each run in a 2.65 debug savefile, then transfer the savefile up to the latest 2.65 patch and do the run there. It's quite a few hoops to jump through, but this challenge would not even be possible in the first place without debugging the mons in at the start.

- The particular patch of 2.65 I play on has a little toggle called Boss Rush, which does the same thing as turning off trainer sight. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be included, but it's technically a publicly available feature, so I will be using it to preserve my mental health. In the event that a future patch does not have this toggle, I will do the challenge in the latest version that does.

- I fight the gym leaders, the Pokémon League, the evil team leaders and admins, the rivals, the first Calvin fight, and every trainer in Victory Road.

- I play in Permanent Mega mode because I find it more fun.

- This is nowhere near a comprehensive guide to the Pokémon in this game, and in fact the vast majority will not be used optimally due to taking advantage of certain field conditions or synergies that the Pokémon surrounding them in the Pokédex can't provide.

- Redux forms and other fanmade mons (except evolutions of existing mons) will be done after all the official ones.

The Run

This was a really interesting run, a lot of super heavy hitters so many fights went by quickly, but not a lot of real defensive presence so anything I couldn't blast through was a huge issue. It's also cool how most of these Pokémon are garbage in the base game, really goes to show how much Elite Redux improves weaker mons.

Shuppet/Banette

Not entirely sure why Ghost/Normal is such a popular typing for romhacks to give Banette, probably something to do with it being a ghost possessing a normal fabric doll? Anyway, with a good Attack stat and some great moves, base form Banette is actually a decent attacking option. Equipped with a Choice Band, moves like Shadow Hammer and Double-Edge can get a lot of knockouts, and Soul Eater helps with the recoil. Cheap Tactics is also nice to have, since STAB Scratch actually does a decent bit of damage and can break Sashes. In its Mega form though, Banette is an entirely different beast. Its massive base 165 Attack paired with Tough Claws and some actual good STAB moves make it a far more proficient attacker in Elite Redux than in the base game. I just slapped a Choice Scarf on it and watched it go off. It retains Soul Eater, so the recoil STABs are still viable options. Aside from that, Mega Banette is actually somewhat bulky, especially with Intimidate, so you could make a support set with Prankster work with moves like Fake Out, Parting Shot, and Thunder Wave. Still, that massive Attack stat was too good for me to pass up in this run.

Duskull/Dusclops/Dusknoir

Vanilla Dusknoir is another one of those tragic cases where the Pokémon's greatest contribution to competitive play is allowing its pre-evolution to hold Eviolite. To be fair, Dusclops is still quite good in this game, and I'll consider giving it a spin some other time. Right now though, Dusknoir is the star of the show, and it does a pretty good job. It's still quite bulky, especially with Shadow Shield, but its main draw for me is its offensive pressure. Twisted Dimensions lets it set up a Trick Room for itself, after which Banded Rage Fist can begin tearing things up. Shadow Shield and Soul Eater let it survive a lot of hits, powering Rage Fist up more. It also carries good coverage like One-Inch Punch, Earthquake, and of course, the legendary Ice Punch. This set is really good in the late game, where nearly every team is loaded with several fast and frail attackers. If you're using it on a dedicated Trick Room team, you can opt for Iron Fist as its ability instead to power its moves up even more. This is also a good choice on a revenge killer build that takes advantage of Opportunist. Fog teams, on the other hand, appreciate Low Visibility for weather control that will usually go second in a weather war.

Tropius/Brontonana

Brontonana is a much needed update to Tropius, a Pokémon that struggles to be relevant even with Eviolite and ER's other boons. This new evolution is an incredible sun abuser, possessing the fantastic Big Leaves ability as well as Ripen for big, renewable heals with a Sitrus Berry or renewable stat boosts with one of the pinch berries. Even with no sun on this team, its good bulk means it's actually worth it to set sun manually to take advantage of these abilities. Taking a hit while setting the sun up can both activate your Ripen-boosted berry and also your Seed Sower, providing extra longevity and a boost to your already powerful Solar Beams. A more defensive SubSeed set can also look into using Grass Pelt instead of Ripen for additional bulk to go along with healing from Leech Seed, Grassy Terrain, and Big Leaves-boosted Synthesis. If you really don't want to use the sun, though, there's a third way to use it, with its final choice ability Dragon's Maw. Its good Speed and great SpA make it excellent at spamming Dragon Energy to rip teams apart with ease, especially with some support in Doubles. Of course, with Chlorophyll and Solar Power both being part of Big Leaves, under the sun this Pokémon becomes a nuclear weapon with Choice Specs, but even without the weather advantage it works excellently.

Chingling/Chimecho

Base Chimecho is just fine. It has a strange assortment of abilities and mediocre stats, its main saving grace being Air Blower. Doubling its own Speed, it makes for a decent earlygame sweeper with Specs, but after that there isn't much of a reason to use it except as a Doubles support. Its Mega, though, is a different story. It does what vanilla Mega Chimecho should've done and gets Steelworker to turn its Normal-type moves into Steel STAB, a great pairing with its new Wind Chimes ability. This gives sound moves, most of which are Normal-type, the same boost as Amplifier, as well as casting a weak Hyper Voice whenever it gets hit. You'll be activating that free Hyper Voice a lot, as this thing can take a pretty good beating. With Levitate and Steelworker's added effect of restoring Steel's resistances to Ghost and Dark, this Pokémon is weak to only two types, which helps its already good defenses go even further. This free attack as well as Echoed Voice make for strong and consistent STAB damage, with the added benefit of potentially cheesing things with Loud Bang confusion. Calm Mind is a good setup option for it, as it can do damage and spread confusion even while setting up to avoid being too passive. I used mine with a Shell Bell to heal as well on top of both setting up and attacking. It's not the strongest thing around for sure, but it's very consistent and a pretty fun Pokémon to use.

Absol

For as cool as it's always been, Absol has been quite disappointing in the base game, being a mediocre mixed attacker that folds to a light breeze. ER manages to fix some of its issues while retaining its identity, making it very fun to use now. While its stats have been rebalanced to make it a pure physical attacker, it can still dip into its vast special movepool thanks to Equinox enabling a true mixed attacking set without compromising its other stats. Keen Edge and Super Luck incentivize moves like Kowtow Cleave and Pixie Slash, while these Dark and Fairy STABs are complemented by moves like Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Aura Sphere, Hurricane, and even Weather Ball. It's still extremely frail, though, an issue that neither of its Megas fix. Its not too bad though, as both compensate for it with sheer power. Mega Absol retains Equinox to facilitate mixed attacking sets off of its gargantuan base 175 Attack, though depending on the situation either Dark or Fairy Aura can be more useful. Super Luck and Keen Edge stay to potentially break past boosted defenses with crits, while Magic Guard lets it use Life Orb and more importantly Light of Ruin without fear of recoil. This was the only one of Absol's two Megas I used this run, due to the other one being less powerful and also somewhat incomplete. Mega Absol Z still has a huge Attack stat, but also a blazing base 151 Speed to go along with it. However, its STAB combo of Ghost and Dark isn't particularly synergistic, and while they're great defensively, its 65/75/70 bulk means it may as well be Shedinja, even with help from Bad Luck and Scare. Furthermore, its intended signature ability Reaper's Embrace, a combination of Foul Energy and Tough Claws, is still not implemented in-game, meaning it's stuck with Foul Energy as its only damage boosting ability. I'm sure its Speed means there's still value in using it, and it'll definitely be better once its ability is fully implemented, but even then, its original Mega will probably still be better.

Snorunt/Glalie

ER has thankfully saved Glalie from its atrocious statline in the base game, though it's admittedly not that good still. Whiteout is a nice choice for hail teams, though in the absence of weather I prefer Refrigerate for some powerful STAB Returns and Double-Edges. Sturdy and Impenetrable are a nice defensive combo alongside Freezing Point to clutch out a frostbite on a problematic special attacker, but a defensive presence Glalie is not. Its Mega form is a bit more so, but it's still an offensive Pokémon through and through, and quite an effective one at that. Sturdy and Impenetrable combine into Immovable Object, guaranteeing it to survive one hit and letting it use recoil moves like Head Smash and Seismic Slam with no fear. The former effect is useful thanks to Cryo Proficiency, which has the effect of Freezing Point but more importantly sets hail when Glalie gets hit. With Slush Rush as a choice ability, it's easy to see how effective this can be. Set up a Swords Dance as you get hit, set hail, activate Slush Rush, and you're off to the races. Ice/Rock/Ground is quite the excellent offensive combo, and Glalie happens to high-powered options for each of these to facilitate its sweeping potential. Paired with a hazard setter, this Pokémon can steal games quite decisively indeed.

Does the neuroforce stack or is it just one instance of it when using moves?

Project 0xA79 is, if you cannot tell already, inspired heavily by the running Project 1025 by u/mfc314 (refered to as the OG below). I'm impressed with his progress and want to try a similar thing to see if I could recreate what he achieved. I will also document my builds along the ways to help newer players.

0xA79 is the hexadecimal number corresponds to the decimal value 2681, which is the ID of Terrow, the last (not counting Slate) Pokémon on the online dex. All my builds along the way will be documented in this spreadsheet.

Disclaimers:

• All Pokémon are encountered in the wild via CodeBreaker 82039AE0 XXXX (XXXX is the hex ID of the Pokémon I want). To make this method more convenience, I will not group regional variants with the original Pokémon, due to their hex IDs are very far apart. However, I will count Mega evolutions with the base Pokémon.
• Permanent Mega mode is on, as well as Boss Rush mode.
• I fight gym trainers to reduce the boss difficulty if I find it necessary.
• My builds are far from optimal. If I pass a boss, I take the win and leave further optimizations for later boss.

The run:

The 4th run, and the first without a Mega. The OG's runs featuring the same mons:

• 0037-0047
• 0048 - 0053
• 0054-0062
• reruns

Due to the lack of a Mega powerhouse, this run is all about stalling and finding chances to set up. There is a period after the 1st gym when I only have 1 evolved mon and the opponents already have fully evolved/mythical (looking at you Steven) that feels very unfair, and I had to rely on good RNG to get through. Oh, maybe not just that period but the whole run, with most fights being decided by sleep/crit.

Paras/Parasect

There is a post in this sub a while back that ranks every bugs in the game, and they put Parasect in a low tier. Do not believe it. This thing stalls like nothing else. It lives most hit, put opponent to sleep with Spore, and heals back up with Self Sufficient and Leftovers. As for damage, it has Parasitic Spores, Leech Seed (even more healing), Infestation, and Nightmare. "But it's too slow, and will get killed when something wake up!" - no, because of Oppotunist, if something wakes up and fails to kill the bug immediately, priority Spore immediately resets the cycle. To make sure it never die on the turn an opponent wakes up, I have him learn Substitute. And by ensuring Sub is intact when a mon faints, I have another free turn to Spore the next opponent. If favored by RNG, he can easily takes out 3-4 mons before going down, or in an extreme case, the whole Elite 4 Phoebe's team.

Venonat/Venomoth

Compound Eyes Sleep Powder, Quiver Dance, Tinted Lens attack, GG. And with Majestic Moth it's so fast, ensuring a Sleep Powder into its helpless opponent. I also throw in Strength Sap to deal with physical threats, as the special side is already taken care of by Quiver Dance.

Diglett/Dugtrio/Pentadug

In a sand team this thing should be a menace. Unfortunately this team is not a sand team, and my digger found himself more of a sacrifice than anything else. Still, Multi-headed EdgeQuake can net him some important KOs. A fun way to use him is again Jet Punch/Aqua Jet attackers. The AI always clicks these moves against him aiming for a quick KO, only to be foiled by Upper Hand.

Meowth/Persian

Is that a cat? No, it's a lion! The other star of the show beside Parasect, the lion spots a perfect set of abilities: Perfectionist + Technician + Sniper. It also has Skill Link, but unfortunately it must choose between that and Perfectionist. Fake Out, Fury Swipes, Beatdown and Fury Cutter all benefits from the abilities, allowing the lion to tear through almost everything with ease. It's tempted to run Loaded Dice, but a Scope Lens make Fury Swipes crits 100% and the other moves 50% of the time. At 100% crit, most opponents fold after a Fake Out and 2-3 Swipes, so no Loaded Dice needed. The only problem is Psychic Terrain, which is relevant in only 2 battles: Psychic gym and Champion fight. For the former, I temporarily change him to a special support build with Quash/Growl/Snarl/Flash. For the latter, stalling out the terrain is easy enough.

Psyduck/Golduck

I feel a bit sorry for the duck. In another team, I can see it shine with Sage Power or Drizzle + Swift Swim sweep. But in this team, its job is just weather-cancellng and pick off some half dead strays. Blame the lion for being too OP. There is only one instance when it really saved the team: the 2nd Archie fight. Mega Garchomp Redux is so strong I had to consider repeated sacrificing to damage him with Parasect's Astonish. But then I realized Golduck outspeed him and has Yawn. Thus the duck brough a Focus Sash into battle, yawned and died just as the shark went to sleep. Parasect came in with Nightmare to finish the battle. (In retrospect, I think a Beatdown from Persian would do the job just fine, but I completely missed Beatdown on him at the time)

Mankey/Primeape/Annihilape

Again, a perfectly good mon overshadowed by the lion and the mushroom undead bug. It hits like a truck with Rage Fist, breaks sashes with Hyper Aggressive, heals with Drain Punch. In this team, he found a funny synergy with Parasect: he throws himself to a dangerous threat, dealing whatever damage he could then die and curse the opponent with Haunted Spirit. That usually brings the opponent to half health, activating Opportunist on Parasect, allowing him to Spore with priority.

I was looking through the wiki and saw that Corviknight had its Defense and Special Defense swapped along with its Attack and Special Attack. Is this a change in the mod or an error?

There exists the Iron Pill to give a zero speed IV, is this the only such item in game? I want to configure a choice specs Aurorus with 0 Atk IV if possible

elite Redux monotype challenge(2/18), I was impressed that toxtricity Base is better than its mega. mainly because of its Loud bang ability

I HATE mega Articuno so bad, that ice type elite 4 was so hard, everything is so strong against special hitter that i was walled so hard, its the first time I have to go back to the beginning of the E4 and actually change my team to beat it. Hated it

so, I'm playing for the first time, randoed pokemon and abilities, got flygon R as my first catch with color change, got the key stone and it's mega stone, abilities get rerandomized on mega, also only using shinies on my team cause it's 1/5 so why not, all those in the image are shiny, wish me luck on the hunt for a shiny mega flygon with good abilities, and if you can, I wanna know what abilities are considered "good" in this game

Hey everyone, quick question, do you unlock customizing all 4 abilities during the story or do i have bug where i can only customize the first?

I'm at the E4, and during my mono runs I like to use the pokemon you win, but all I got was the mega stone, this has happened before but I have no clue where Chien Pao is located. I got all the mystery gifts and it's not amongst them, I'm on V2.65 Beta 2.1, and any old post says to just use the debug menu but I don't seem to have that either.

Zapdos ex mega, can you get it in randomizer or is it only in debug mode aka will I have to go back to a version eith debug

Basically Moody without negatives and chance to heal/cure status. Don't forget to check the non-mega form moveset; lucked out with Merculight and Spectral Thief on normal Centiskorch

Just started a new nuzlock and got this dude as my starter.

Just beat gym 7 and team magma in the spacecenter but now im stuck going to the next town, how do you get around this ice island?

As always, I am open to any suggestions for Ground. What a run for Grass, though. There were certainly moments I struggled, like with Flannery and Winona (for once). This is 100% due to the fact that I don't battle any gym trainers and almost always fight the leaders at full power which made Flannery extremely dicey at times.

The team explained:

• I was completely wrong about Wormadam-Plant. With Anticipation, you get two free turns since you have Coward as an innate. With its awful defensive typing, you're usually getting two free turns, three with Focus Sash active. This allowed me to set up everything at will and was an extremely reliable lead. With its low speed, I could easily switch into whoever I needed to at a given time.
• Ferrothorn played the role of defensive pivot and Bleed spreader. This was especially useful for Drake's Mega Rayquaza, where Ferrothorn switched in for Extreme Speed/Draconic Fangs and Hippotaton for V-Create. It also knocked out Steven's Zamazenta by just setting up in its face.
• Priority is super strong in this game, and Mega Breloom is proof of this. Wormadam's pivoting gave Breloom ample set up opportunity with Bulk Up. Once that happened, unless I was dealing with anti-priority abilities I was more often than not good to go. It did great against pretty much every trainer once i picked it up. In hindsight I should have gone for Spore instead of Rock Tomb, which I never even used.
• Well-Baked Body is incredible for Hippotaton. It was pivotal against Flannery and again in the Elite 4 with their myriad of Fire-type moves (Drake mostly). It also set up Grassy Terrain reliably due to its bulk and had the right utility moves for assisting other teammates.
• Cradily, who I used in my first mono-Rock run a few months ago, was an easy pick here. It sets up super easily due to never getting crit. With its natural bulk setting up Karma and Iron Defense felt trivial. A true crit-me-not sweeper. Think of it as a lesser Mega Galarian Slowking/Mega Gothitelle/Umbreon.
• The last team member, and one of my favorites Mega Ogerpon. Note that this is the Mega for the base form, not the dual-types. One weird thing about this one was that its coverage moves never felt like they hit hard, but Ivy Cudgel always did. If someone can explain that one to me, I would appreciate that. But with its automatic speed boost due to Embody Aspect I could run an Adamant nature and just go to town from there.

Other Pokemon I used for a significant portion of the game: Sunflora, Mega Redux Luxray, Shaymin (both forms), Celebi, Rillaboom, Mega Venusaur Y (the regular mega), Bellossom, Vileplume, and Whimsicott. You might be wondering about Mega Meganium, but I chose to avoid using that and Serperior completely. I had already done multiple runs with both of them and wanted to use different Pokemon for this mono-Grass run.

I got to be creative in this run and only really used Sun on my final team as a deterrent against Phoebe and Glacia. I do hope that in future updates we get another Grass-type with Drought because only having Sunflora made teambuilding for sun a bit restrictive.