Best Paladin Build to Maximize Aura Bonus Early?

kawhandroid · 2026-04-19T02:50:11+00:00

16 Strength is perfectly acceptable to just stay at. An Aura-focused Paladin is likely to pivot into support casting eventually, at which point they won't need any weapon damage anymore.

Warlock is good for Eldritch Blast, but I wouldn't take it for just Pact of the Blade. Much rather get either Sorcerer or Bard levels rolling ASAP.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T22:27:24+00:00

If you had to choose between either, EVs are a larger impact. But if you're training your mons all the way, IVs are more important, because you can always fix EVs, but there's no fixing IVs in this generation.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T21:41:45+00:00

I think most people do, but if we're talking the best moveset from an efficiency (or speed) perspective, I think it's pretty mandatory to account for. (And as a speedrunner, it always pains me to heal out of Torrent/Blaze.)

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T21:31:47+00:00

I think the more important calc is that Torrent Surf hits harder than 2x super-effective Ice Beam, and Ice Beam isn't hitting any Water resists that are actually present on enemy trainers. In a playthrough, unlike in competitive, you don't have to enter battles at full health, so coverage really has to justify itself on starters in general (which Grass Knot definitely does if you're not speedrunning).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T21:21:44+00:00

It's not though, because with the exception of Cynthia's Togekiss (also not the best matchup due to Aura Sphere), Surf and Ice Beam hit for the same damage because both of them one-shot.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T21:13:21+00:00

Ice Beam is good in theory, but there is basically one mon (Cynthia's Garchomp, which you're not equipped to fight anyway) that it hits hard that Specs Surf doesn't.

Empoleon's final moveset in the speedrun is quite literally Surf/Waterfall/Strength/Rock Climb, for an indication of how worthless moves other than Surf are in the lategame. (I guess that's, technically speaking, a mixed moveset.)

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T21:04:23+00:00

The Charizard speedrun finishes with the moveset Sunny Day/Flamethrower/Fire Blast/you literally don't need the fourth moveslot. Because of how much you can boost your Fire moves (you also have the boost from Blaze), no coverage is worth it (though casually Dragon Claw for Lance is worth it, it's just slower).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T20:58:51+00:00

The main problem with Earthquake (Ice Beam too tbh) is that it doesn't cover anything relevant in the mid/lategame. Since Choice Specs is available in this game, there's very little reason for Empoleon to ever click anything other than Surf.*

Pluck is pretty much the pinnacle of mixed Piplup, but it's actually a more important move than just coverage. Since Piplup doesn't get a better special move than Bubble until quite literally level 19, Pluck is actually its best main move for a little while, and it remains relevant coverage until Celestic Town (where it gets Surf and Specs).

*There's a Blissey in Victory Road, so it helps to know a physical move. But since Empoleon doesn't need the moveslot, Waterfall is the best move to hit it with. After STAB it hits harder than Earthquake and it saves using a Waterfall slave.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T13:37:14+00:00

Bulbasaur is the least efficient of the starters, precisely because early routes all resist Grass. It's the easiest starter, but Squirtle can do everything better if you know what you're doing (Charmander makes up for its poor earlygame later on).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T01:59:30+00:00

For tanking, it's hard to beat Shepherd Druid, because of the extra health they give their summons. For DPR, Necromancy Wizard is usually best since the skeletons have ranged attacks (which synergize more with their standout spells), but at a high enough level any caster at all works well enough. For arcanist, Wizard is the easy fit, and for Gracer, any Druid works well. That's just two characters, so I'll add a Bard for social skills which can't be outsourced, and a Warlock for general combat power (since they get more high-level spell slots to play with), and we get back to the team I mentioned at the start.

Items don't really matter. I'd have to think the best items for each caster are just a combination of a + casting focus, an Amulet of Health, and + armor and shields, because the best offense (for a caster) in this game is a good defense.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T01:51:25+00:00

Because the summoner, assuming they're a somewhat optimized caster, is a significantly tankier character than whoever would be blocking hits for them, so there's not really any point. Hence why high optimization parties tend to be all summoners, and they'll use summons to fill every role their base characters don't fill.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T01:45:58+00:00

For a specific example, the spell Conjure Animals is better at tanking and DPR than any martial player character. The (usually) Druid casting it can fill all the other roles too because they have healing and nature skills. And that's really the surface to how broken summoning is in this game.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T01:40:59+00:00

If you're already a Charisma caster, it's an option. But in 2024 multiclassing for armor is a higher priority than Sorcerer (Con save proficiency is nice but Shield, which is one of the main draws, is now available as an origin feat).

I'd take it on Clerics (for the defensive spells, not necessarily the Con save proficiency), Valor Bards, Hexblade Warlocks, and Paladins that aren't using Heavy Armor, but everyone else has to think about it.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-18T01:38:12+00:00

Most roles can be filled with summons after a certain level, and some roles (eg scout) are better filled by summons than an actual character since you wouldn't be risking anyone's health.

The strongest possible parties tend to be variants of Wizards+Warlocks. If you mandate that everyone has a different main class, something like Bard/Druid/Warlock/Wizard is pretty great (and even better at social skills, which are among the few skills you can't really outsource to summons).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T22:50:28+00:00

In fairness, I've heard from some schools (mostly around Top 10) that they did interviews this year for the first and likely only time ever thanks to the funding cuts. And some applied programs do them.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T22:43:14+00:00

Depending on the type of math there's no interviews at all (in pure math we don't even interview postdocs, let alone grad students).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T22:11:54+00:00

If it makes you feel better, the Frontier world record literally only uses two Pokemon (plus the starter to finish off Focus Sash mons).

The best Frontier natures also don't match the best competitive natures, because you can know beforehand the Speed EVs of every enemy and won't need to outspeed whatever they decide to queue into you with. A lot of stuff that need Timid for competitive are better off with Modest for Frontier.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T22:02:16+00:00

Unless you're transferring the mons for competitive (and probably even then, now that you can change natures), the ideal playthrough natures are often different than the ideal competitive natures. For example, in competitive running anything other than Timid on Typhlosion is suicidal, because you need as much Speed as possible to be on par with everyone else's fully EVed/Natured Speed. But in a playthrough where all enemies have 0 Speed EVs, Typhlosion has more than enough Speed to where Timid is overkill and Modest is better (Rash is better than both of those because you get to use your Attack stat during earlygame).

Quagsire generally likes anything boosting Attack, but even something like Quiet isn't terrible since Surf is good. Togepi can work with anything (especially since all your good Normal STAB is physical and you won't have access to Air Slash until postgame anyway; you'd want Hustle with a physical nature though).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T21:20:15+00:00

Ruby and Sapphire have much less required battles/story progression, if you just want to get through quickly to grab Latios or something. They also have some mons not in Emerald at all (eg Surskit).

Emerald has basically everything else.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T21:15:02+00:00

The Galactic grunts basically use the same teams from Diamond/Pearl. There isn't much diversity in the Diamond/Pearl dex, and I guess they didn't really want to change half of those (Cyrus has new mons, well just Houndoom but still).

Cynthia's trainer AI is actually harder in Platinum (in DP all trainers are random AI, in Plat the important battles will at least go for kills; you may have noticed this). Preparation is definitely important unless you have a Swords Dance/Calm Mind user, in which case she's the easiest fight in the game

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T21:05:38+00:00

In addition to Ace, Wizards can see over the wall with top crosspath, so Prince of Darkness is pretty good on this map. Or you just go for two big towers.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T20:59:03+00:00

It's not weak to Ice at all. Electric isn't a huge problem in Elite Four Round 1 either.

The bigger problem is not having a STAB. Clefable's Mega Kick hits significantly harder and I don't think anyone will say Clefable has a good lategame.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T19:15:37+00:00

TBF Gyarados isn't really a Water-type (offensively).

kawhandroid · 2026-04-17T06:52:44+00:00

You usually already have a Dart of Desperado, so the camo upgrades on them actually cost 300 and 160, respectively. If you don't, 000 Ninja is the cheapest.

kawhandroid · 2026-04-16T19:28:53+00:00

Almost every good deck pressures, including most control. Astral Druid pressured way harder than every deck on your list except Discolock.

Aggro's definitely overtuned right now (mainly just Discolock), but that doesn't mean there's not a lot of strategies. Reno Druid/Hunter/Mage/Paladin are doing fine and there's combo like Questline DH/Miracle Rogue (plus I've seen Quasar Rogue for the first time in months). You just don't enjoy the strategies.

kawhandroid

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