Yeah, but we had four weeks last month, so I think it's safe to assume we have four weeks this month.
This got clarified while I was asleep, but personally after looking at the original calendar, I figured that the initial four week month was a grace period for the tutorial.
Forgot that you only have Two Weeks until the Field Exercise, so yes you do have to take the First Step this Week. It is currently August 13/14 in Quest. That's my bad, sorry.
Thank you for clarifying.
OUR PLANS, NOOOOOO- ok well, bit tighter than expected, but we can deal.
Also, Erika's birthday is coming up soon, in case anyone wanted to know.
The real question is do we go on a date with her this week or do we consider the extra BP Arvis is giving her next week to be a birthday hangout.
Ah. The required short meeting from years ago to sneak into the Childhood Friend spot of the Elisebowl. Of course.
You'll probably find that Iono's not actually a very good pick for trying to pick a Gym with types Mary can handle. There's just a lot of options available for negating her Electric-type's weaknesses to Ground-types; you're not very good at the job if you don't have a few options to pick between, like a Lanturn or a Rotom/Hisuian Voltorb on hand to punish the Ground-types, or a Wattrel who can't easily be hit by them, or a Pokemon like her canonical Mismagius that can just fly and be hard to deal with for a Ground-type.
It's just the nature of being a specialist of a type with a single weakness. Either you know how to deal with Pokemon of that type, or you just never get anywhere in your career. It's probably the thing I'd judge an Electric-type specialist as being the best at.
Personally, I'd actually advise looking for Gyms that are neutral towards her, with maybe a slight lean in her favour. Medali is the best bet for that, in my opinion- none of Larry's crew should really have a significant advantage, but they'll have enough to counter a single Ghost-type that they won't have to go ridiculously hard on her to make up for the inherent disadvantage.
The thing is mainly that this applies to all gyms. Every Gym leader in this setting is smart enough to cover their weaknesses, but with Iono we at least retain the defensive advantage of Electric being bad against both of our Pokémon, and Ghost being neutral to Ruby and MAD with Roland. An Electric/Flying opponent (or her canon Tera gimmick of an Electric-type with Levitate) is definitely going to be the toughest nut to crack here, but I doubt she's going to slap that on all three Pokémon for a two-badge fight, and we do at least have Smack Down for coverage on Ruby (which is one reason why I wanted to give her two Training actions, making sure she's got that up to above a Beginner level).
EDIT: Also Roland resists all of Ruby's weaknesses other than Ice, and I simply think that Iono's more likely to use Water or Grass to cover Ground-types than Ice, giving us another layer of defensive advantage depending on how she chooses to respond.
Larry is honestly probably also another good two-badge call, but his secondary specialty of Flying will give us exactly the same amount of problems that a Kilowattrel or Emolga-armed Iono does, if not more, while also hyper-resisting half of
both our Pokémon's moves instead of just one.
Plus I figured Larry's basically guaranteed for an upcoming field study (well, the town his gym is in. But S/V town names escape me), considering his son is in the class. I'd rather save him for then.
Also, we're definitely going to Medali soonish, tbh, Jacinto's banter basically locked that in this update. I still suspect Artazon for 2 and we've got Alfornada confirmed for 3, but Medali as 4 would fit several things perfectly.
For all those making plans for Renne's growth, I think I should point out that the primary objective here is to get her to 5th Badge Strength. Bond 3 is a bonus objective from the way this it is written.
JustinKal already got this but I want to reaffirm: we need Renne at Bond 3 to use her in non-plot battles. That's the reason for rushing her Bond.
That said I'm willing to eat not having her for Gym 2 considering we're literally out of AP. I just want her as close as possible so we can get her over the top during the Field Exercise without taking our entire week on it.
IT LIVES!!!
....And dear Arceus I wish we had more AP or bond AP I want to do everything. I really want to explore Mesagoza, but damn we really do need to lock in if we want Renne usable/at 5 badge level. Elise is also interesting and we do need every advantage we can get. So the gym related actions are valuable. Ugh... I love this quest, but planning scares me.
We have democratically elected to put ourselves in AP Gehenna.
I am doing my best to Plan our way out of it.
