Fairy Week 1: Thunderbolts For Everyone!

So I took a few days off from the run to play things for the podcast (Deus Ex Human Revolution, Retro's Best Game Ever, Bravely Default, Danganronpa) and witness the ascension of a god, messiah, angel, king, prince(ss) and all terrain vehicle to collective godhood. But before that happened, I did manage to get through three gyms in one 24 hour period so maybe I should have updated this earlier.

Oh well.

Here's where we stand, after 5 badges and about to head out to Route 14:

Azumarill (iphys): L39, Aqua Tail/Dig/Rollout/Rock Smash
Gardevoir (Morgan): L38, Confusion/Thunderbolt/Magical Leaf/Calm Mind.
Florges (Robin): L38, Fairy Wind/Magical Leaf/Nature Power/Wish
Slurpuff (Tinkerbell): L38, Draining Kiss/Surf/Thunderbolt/Energy Ball
Mawile (Puck): L39, Fairy Wind/Vice Grip/Rock Smash/Crunch
Granbull (Maleficent): L39, Dig/Rock Tomb/Rock Smash/Strength

The nickname conventions are weird - half actual Fairies, a tribute, and what appear to be a pair of Fire Emblem Awakening references.

The Fighting gym, as was expected, was pretty easy. Sadly, I didn't get Morgan to evolve until after I had gotten Robin's Shiny Stone on Route 12, so it ended up being the final evolution. (Speaking of Robin, who do I have to kill to get a Floette-E? Special Fairy Head Smash off 125 base SpAtk? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!) The core problem is that the Fairy moves were still weak here - and they haven't improved much either.

I had some unexpected challenges with the Grass gym - in addition to Jumpluff being a pain with Acrobatics until I figured out "hey, we can get it to -4 Attack by swapping between Puck and Maleficent", Gogoat was surprisingly durable and Weepinbel's part Poison nature proved costly. Well, until we installed Morgan. Problem solved.

However, the Clemont fight went largely as I hoped, with much Special Defense tanking. Morgan had Calm Mind at this point, so I charged it up against Emolga and got rid of it, and it pretty well finished the job after that.

Looking ahead: The Fairy gym coming up will likely be won by a combination of resistances and iphys Aqua Tailing everything in sight - its effective Attack rating right now is 176. I'm going to need Heart Scales for Morgan, Robin (x2), Puck (x2) and Maleficent, and then everyone on the team but iphys will have Fairy STAB (that comes at L50). If Venomoth doesn't get Fairy typing in a future game, someone's asleep at the switch.

Last question for this update - should I go against the rules on either the Rock or Water runs and use Omanyte Lord Helix? If so, which one would it be better for? Either way, it'd be joining at the Fossil Lab about the same time Aerodactyl does. (I'm more tempted to use it in Rock because I'm biased towards special Waters, so I can sub out Binacle.)