Monotype Usage in Insurgence

General Discussion Guides
1

To start, I’m not a competitive player. Secondly, if you see any dumb stuff written, sorry, but it’s like 6 am now, funfact , it is 7.30 am now

Hello boys, girls and everything in between! Have you ever done a monotype run in insurgence?

But, Gia, wtf is a monotype run?

A monotype run would be a play through where you would use pokemon of only a specific type. That would be ground, ghost etc. Insurgence makes a monolocke a lot more exciting, due to having more options early game, via friend safari.

Gia, can you help is with deciding what mons to use for each typing ?

Ofc. I’ll start with the Grass Type

Grass Type
  1. Whimsicott

From my experience, whimsicott is amazing. Has access to prankster, which gives priority to status moves like leech seed. In addition, Prankster still works on Dark Types, due to the game having gen 6 mechanics. In my opinion, an ideal move set for whimsicott would be:

Whimsicott @Leftovers
Prankster
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def /4 SpDef (not sure about how these spreads are)
Moves:
Leech Seed
Toxic
Substitute/ Protect / Tailwind/ Taunt ( Taunt is a must in the elite Four, especially for the first member. Also good for the other members since they have moves like stealth rocks)
Moon Blast

  1. Venusaur
    Venusaur has always been a good pokemon. Either with Stally sets like leech seed sub sleep powder, or with offensive sets with the likes of growth giga drain sludge bomb hp fire, or EQ Swords Dance Knock Off Seed Bomb. My favorite from the three is the physical offensive set, because while it doesn’t allow you to get poison stab, it grants you access to a great boosting move, a very reliable grass stab, eq for great damage against fire types and knock off for psychics and for utility in general.
    So, Venusaur:

Venusaur @LifeOrb
Overgrow
Jolly Nature
Evs: 252 Atk n’ Speed / 4hp
Moves:
Seed Bomb
EQ (Earthquake)
Knock Off
Swords Dance

The set would be better with chlorophyll, but, there is not a drought user with the grass type, and while the tm can indeed be taught to grass types, it wastes a move slot from one of your pokemon , which imo is not worth it.

To Be Continued

Made sure not to make any Grammatic or Spelling mistakes, if you find any, my apologies.

Note: The teams mentioned will be for the late portion of the game. Like, sixth badge and above. For Learning the availability of each mon, you can check either the Insurgence Wiki, or @Nicocchi’s
guide

I’ll continue it sometime. Others may edit the guide, either to add the other types, complete the grass type, or edit the whole post if they think it’s completely wrong.

Note: I’m not trying to show off as a competitive player, I have a basic knowledge about competitive, while playing Pokemon Showdown, but that’s about it. Competitive masterpieces, like @PeterHolmes74 and @ezlaturbo , don’t bash me if my suggestions suck, as said before, I only have an extremely basic knowledge about competitive, especially in monotype.

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2

You know, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing a monotype run for some of the different types in the game to get a feel for what exactly is needed in certain teams. If you wanted to continue this thread or similar threads talking about monotype, then I’d be glad to contribute or just take notes in order to do a run at some point (way in the future at this point though).

Anyways, here’s my 2 cents on just the grass monotype in insurg from just prior knowledge:
Looking at the grass team you’ve got assembled there, I have some ideas of my own. With Whimsicott, I agree with Moonblast and Leech Seed with prankster for sure. For the other two slots, it depends. I don’t know if toxic is mandatory if you’ve already got leech seed for residual chip damage. I’d prefer substitute in that slot myself, just so whimsicott can stall out the heavy hitters after a leech seed has gone up or outlast turns for stuff like trick room and weather. Toxic is one of those fourth slot moves imo, but I also haven’t tried Whimsicott in a monotype playthrough, so what can I really say? Also, I don’t think that giving up a slot for sun is all bad, given the amount of chlorophyll sweepers and the fact that grass types get a SpD boost in sun similar to rock types in sandstorm. Sure, definitely not good against fire moves and types, but you don’t have to bring sun against those kinds of matchups anyways. Heck, a sun setter could even be a role for the aforementioned whimsicott, with heat rock and prankster sunny day. It all depends. Additional members? There’s some good ones to include to cover certain weak spots in the team. For a late game mono-grass team, Delta Greninja is great against steel and ice types that might otherwise give the team trouble. Ferrothorn is a good midgame option for either a friend safari hunt or caught on route 15. Delta snorlax is notoriously good, even outside monotype. For megas, venusaur, meganium, metagross ruin, etc: they all could work at different points. Virizion is a post-game legend that fits nicely onto the team. Sad that both grass mythicals are locked behind the e4 rematch. Unfortunately, I think that the earliest grass types other than purity mode bulbsaur that are obtainable are hoppip and exeggcute. For that kind of playthrough in insurg, there would be some early restrictions for sure, but hidden grottos, friend safari, and just stuff on the routes would fill in a lot of holes throughout the adventure.

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3

Thanks for the shout-out! I’ll throw in my experiences with Whimsicott, which might just be one of the most broken Mons in Insurgence. I could make a post about Fairy and Ice-type monos in general later if you’d like.

Whether you like it or not, the easiest path to victory is almost always to just incapacitate whichever Mon the opponent sends in, and then set up for a sweep with DD, SD + Agility, etc. And Whimsicott makes this incredibly easy Prankster + Memento (+ Charm/Captivate/Confide if necessary). This means you’ll at least get them to -2, if not -6, and since you get unlimited focus sashes you can guarantee two stat drops with, say, Charm + Memento. The AI won’t switch out in the face of stat drops, so throw in a paralyze, which is easy with a plethora of Grass-type Mons (or Klefki if you’re doing a Fairy mono like I was), set up Stealth Rock or Spikes to break sashes, and then you’re free to set up and sweep with a Mon of your choice (my go-to during the Fairy mono was M-Altaria).

The duo of Whimsicott and Klefki enabled basically every fight after they became available to me, as suicide need leads. My Whimsicott set looked like this, but in a Grass mono it’s a most excellent Sunny Day-setter:

Whimsicott @ No Item/Focus Sash
Prankster
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 HP/ 4 Def / 252 SpDef
Moves:
Charm
Memento
Taunt
Tailwind

Since it always dies and I hardly did any grinding it ended up being level 40-something during the Elite 4, but that’s all you need!

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4

Can’t edit the wiki post because of trust level, so I’ll make another reply instead.

First, I’d like to comment on the mono-Grass section: I disagree with your take on Sunny Day being a waste of a slot; setting up sun is very useful—from Chlorophyll users, to getting +2/+2 from Growth, to styling on fools with a 100BP Fire-type Weather Ball. I think there are too many synergies to be had to not make us of sun. I’d say sun and status conditions are the hallmarks of Grass types, and I’d definitely have a mon dedicated solely to setting up sun. Sun has been indispensable during my Grass mono of another game (Rejuvenation).

Re Fairy monotype runs:

Early game
The early game is typically the hardest part of any monotype run, I find, due to limitations of all aspects: Pokémon availability, movesets, items, etc. I was surprised to find that the duo of D. Ivysaur and Carbink (mostly Carbink) actually demolish the Trainer School, so the first big hurdle wasn’t so big after all. The first gym was, for me, the biggest challenge of the run to be honest because from there, your options expand considerably. Carbink shines in the early game with its excellent defences, and Azumarill becomes your first big threat due to Huge Power and early access to powerful moves in Aqua Tail and Play Rough, and Belly Drum when you get to breeding.

Mid game
Whimsicott and Klefki, replacing Carbink, step in to be the support squad, and once you get Mega Altaria after Helios Gym it’s pretty much game over. The combination of Whimsicott, Klefki, and a sweeper is just too strong.

Fairy has access to a lot of (set-up) sweepers: Mega Altaria, Mega D. Venusaur, (Mega) Gardevoir, Togekiss, and Mega Mawile, to name a few. You’ll notice there are a lot of Megas, which means you’ll have to judge who will be the best fit for a given fight (hint: it’s usually M-Altaria).

Playing on Hard difficulty with set mode and no bag-items during battle you might struggle going blow-for-blow, so going for set-ups is the simple solution. If anyone is struggling with any specific fight on their Fairy mono, feel free to PM me. I have videos of all major battles.
I always advocate catching every mon of the type you’re running and making use of them as you see fit, but I’ll throw in three sets of the trio that put in the most work during my run.

Sets

Whimsicott @ No Item/Focus Sash
Prankster
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 HP/ 4 Def / 252 SpDef
Moves:
Charm/Captivate/Confide
Memento
Taunt
Tailwind

Sometimes a Memento is all you need. Sometimes saving it for a Tailwind to outspeed a specific threat is the play. Very versatile, very powerful. You could have multiples with different stat-lowering moves for convenience.

Klefki @ No item/Focus Sash
Prankster
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 HP/ 4 Def / 252 SpDef
Moves:
Thunder Wave
Spikes
Reflect/Light Screen
Dazzling Gleam

Follow-up to Whimsicott. Paralyze them, get a layer of Spikes up, break Sash if needed, throw up a screen if you feel like it.

Altaria @ Altarianite
Natural Cure
Jolly/Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpDef / 252 Speed
Moves:
Return
Dragon Dance
Refresh/Earthquake
Roost

The easiest sweeps in my experience, rivalled only by Mega Mawile in the late game. Roost and Refresh keeps you healthy and boosted Pixilate Returns will kill almost everything. You can throw on EQ once you get the TM for coverage—particularly useful against high-defence Steel types like Metagross, (D.) Aggron, and a few others, which are just about the only things that might live a Return.

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Grass types do not get a SpDef boost in Sun, thats Rock types in Sand, unless you use Flower Gift Cherrim. I agree with sun being worth it if you have a Heat Rock, Whimsicott can be a good setter with Memento, or you can use something like Jumpluff.

6

I recommend using Rotom-Mow. It’s good defensive typing and somewhat decent speed for Normal and easy difficulty makes it a good Choice Specs/Scarf user. Its Electric Typing also give it a neutrality to flying and Thunderbolt, something very interesting against Zenith’s Talonflame.

I would say Sceptile is your best Mega Evolution. Once you get Tesseract, go back to Route 3 and get that stone. Dragon typing gives it a Fire neutrality and a Dragon STAB to bypass said Dragon. Very high speed and nice Special Attacks makes it a powerful sweeper and Revenge Killer.

Cradily will be an integral part of your defensive core, being neutral to many of Grass weakness, like Flying, Fire and Poison. It can also serves as a Stealth Rock user in case you face a Focus Sash user.

Delta Snorlax is a must use in your playthrough. Thick Fat gives a Fire and Ice neutrality and access to very good setup moves in Bulk Up and Belly Drum makes it your primer Wincon in many matchup.

Delta Quagsire, even if it requires you to be up at night, can have Flash Fire, which is extremely useful to pivot against your main weakness. Fire type also mean good matchup against Steel type, something Grass types often struggle with.

And for the last time, I am not a competitive master. I am a upper mid level at best.

7

Mega Venusaur outclasses M. Sceptile, if you get Purity Mode for the Stone. Thick Fat has the same effect, while not being weak to Ice and having good bulk, recovery, and good offensive coverage.

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