1 Protect 2: Beating Pokemon Reborn With Only 3 Pokemon (through Hardy)

Paperblade · December 18, 2018

I've managed to pull myself away from Smash Ultimate and Artifact long enough to create this thread.

In E17, I did a personal challenge to see if the game could be cleared with just using 6 pokemon ever on Set mode with no items and having none of those pokemon be from Mix events (things like mystery egg where it can be one of multiple pokemon, but which one is determined at the start of the game)--pokemon of those species obtained outside of the mix event were fair game. All things considered, it was pretty easy even without Torchic. In E18, there's been two minor changes that would up the difficulty of that:

A) Magnemite, one of the pokemon I used, was pushed back about 7 gyms

B) Badge boost is removed, which makes the game post-Serra just a little bit harder as your pokemon lose a bit of speed (also other stats later but the speed is the most important--it allowed average speed mons to have good speed in tandem with +speed natures and fast mons to run adamant/modest natures)

However, with how easy the run was, I wanted to see how many Pokemon are really needed to clear the game on Set mode with no items. So, opening my ban on Torchic and mix event pokemon, I was left with the following limitations

Run Limitations:

-Set mode

-The Bag command in combat can't be used except to throw pokeballs at wild pokemon

-Only 3 pokemon ever can be switched into battle. If other pokemon are to get EXP and level up (for trade/evolution purposes), it must be done through Rare Candy, EXP Share, or the Daycare.

-Shade's relationship points must be maxed. This means: Rescuing all 5 police officers and uncovering Corey, defeating Solaris at Pyrous Mountain, causing Saphira to get taken captive at Tanzan Cove, siding with Radomus at Citae, declining Blake's offer all three times, and refusing to fight Taka at the Water Treatment Center.

Three pokemon seemed most likely. Two was too few--even with Torchic, I'd need an early game pokemon who could scale into late game and carry fights that Blaziken couldn't handle on its own. As good as Torchic is, I doubt it can solo PULSE Tangrowth or the Taka&ZEL double battle. And never mind Corey. And this secondary pokemon would also need to be able to deal with stuff like Solaris... Yeah. I would be impressed if someone could do this with two. Maybe with items enabled it's doable?

Anyway.

Part 1: Ignite (Start of game through Julia)

Spoiler

Objectively the best avatar.

In case there was any doubt at all, I picked Torchic. Torchic is far and away the best starter in the game, period. Its movepool is amazing: between High Jump Kick, Blaze Kick, and Shadow Claw it has pretty much perfect coverage on almost everything relevant in the game. With Bulk Up and Speed Boost it also has setup potential, allowing it to sweep almost any singles battle in the game with just a little bit of support and luck with not getting crit/not missing.

My only regret here is that I wasn't a little bit more picky about the IVs. 25 Attack IVs are great, but the awful physical bulk really hurt at a couple points. Nature isn't terribly important as long as it's not -Attack, as Speed Boost fixes any speed issues and it will be changed to Adamant at 7th street when I get there anyway.

There's not a ton interesting to say here. I did have to growl the Litten to not have to use a Potion but... whatever.

So after escaping the opening sequence and having the freedom to explore a bit, the first thing to do is go get our second pokemon. Combusken can't solo Julia without some insane luck as far as I'm aware, but more importantly, this mon is gonna put the world on its back.

Not you.

You. I may have had to restart the game twice to get Espurr to show up in place of the other one.

Pretty ideal here. These IVs are pretty good overall, but the only thing I really care about is a Male with a +speed nature and a good Speed IV. The bulk isn't that important but it's nice to have, and the Jolly nature means the Spatk will effectively be a lot lower for a huge bulk of when Atlas's offense actually matters (it's about equal to having like 10 or fewer IVs in special attack).

But the question you might be asking is: Why Espurr? Let's look at some positives attributes of Espurr and Meowstic-M:

-Evolves at Level 25, to a pokemon with 83 Spatk and 104 Speed

-Fake Out by level up

-Reflect, Light Screen, Misty Terrain by level up

-Thunder Wave and Sunny Day by TM

-Prankster, meaning even in the event of something outspeeding it, it will still get off its supporting moves

Basically, Meowstic is a fast Psychic attacker in the early game, which transitions into one of the best support pokemon in the game for both doubles and singles battles. Psychic is an amazing offensive typing in Reborn and especially so early game, to the point that even stuff that get non-STAB Psychic moves like Braixen and Butterfree benefit greatly from having them. This is because both gym leaders that you don't get a badge from (Corey/Kiki) are both specialists in types weak to Psychic. Along with Fake Out to stop Shelly from getting up a Rain Dance, it's the perfect partner for Prometheus until the third member shows up.

On top of this, the late game utility of setting up screens or getting rid of obnoxious terrain effects such as Glitch Field is just good. It greatly expands what Blaziken can set up on, which is huge

With Espurr in tow, I went back and defeated every single trainer in the Opal and Peridot Wards in preparation for the coming fights.

Fern I

Spoiler

There's not much of interest to talk about here. My matchup against his pokemon is good since I have a Fire starter and his Sandile doesn't have a Ground move yet. This fight is easy.

It should be noted for those that didn't catch that the EXP bar didn't move, he switched his Budew out into Sandile. I didn't just Confusion a dark type for no reason.

And that's a wrap.

Even though I'm on no items in combat, using them outside is pretty useful, and money is tight early on--I want to save as much as I can for the Power items for EV training. Attack, Special Attack, Speed, and HP are all important, in that order.

I got Prometheus to evolution, then poured as much experience as I could into Atlas. I need both to be close to 20 for Julia.

Rare Candies are super valuable in this game, so if you didn't know about this, there you go.

I don't use gems much, but they sell for 650, which isn't insignificant.

Aster & Eclipse I

Spoiler

They don't get a cut in. They are just grunts, after all.

It's not really easy to tell which is performing the fang attacks from the animation or dialogue, which is the only difference between them. For those interested, the male one has Thunder Fang, and the female has Fire Fang. They are identical beyond that, any stat differences are because their natures are random.

So I remove the one with Thunder Fang. The partner AI assisted me since it goes for lower HP targets. Thank you, based Fern.

And Prometheus cleans up.

Julia

Spoiler

I had Prometheus slay every trainer in the gym to get to level 20, since it's an important benchmark to survive this fight.

I had given Prometheus a Cheri Berry here because in some of my attempts, Minun liked to use its turn to Nuzzle.

Oricorio is the only pokemon of Julia's that really does anything and isn't Electrode. It's fairly fast and has Air Cutter as coverage, which is a bit scary for Prometheus. Atlas doesn't one shot the speedbumps, so I needed Prometheus to be able to handle them. This works out since he gets to +6 Speed which will allow him to get off an attack on Electrode before going down.

And this is why I needed level 20. Without the extra durability, Prometheus would go down to this chip + Oricorio.

Fun fact: Plusle has Quick Attack but the AI chooses not to use it here for some reason. If it was smarter, I would've had to use up the Elemental Seed for the +1 Defense:

19- Atk Plusle Quick Attack vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Combusken: 3-4 (5.2 - 7%) -- possibly the worst move ever
Possible damage amounts: (3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4)

The showdown damage calculator doesn't include IVs or levels, but any calcs I post will be accurate.

And that wraps things up. If Electrode gets a boost from KOing Prometheus, it can potentially beat Atlas, but it used Rollout so... it didn't.

Overall, Julia took somewhere around 5-6 attempts. Believe it or not, she's not the easiest gym leader on this run.

Actually, that's probably pretty easy to believe. I don't have my screens or Bulk Up or my third party member yet.

Next update should cover everything up to Florinia. I would've liked to get into the stuff after that sooner, but there's a lot of boss fights between Julia and Florinia (all 3 rivals, ZEL, and Scraggy Gang) and they all deserve their own write-up because they are all uniquely challeng-okay I can't even joke about this, Fern is the only interesting encounter of the five. Anyway, next update will either be in a few days or I'll forget about this and it'll be in a few months.

AyTales · December 21, 2018

This is actually interesting enough of a challenge for me to want to try it. Only three Pokemon at any one time is interesting enough for a new playthrough.

Paperblade · December 26, 2018

Part 2: Rising (through Florinia)

Spoiler

Victoria 2

Spoiler

Victoria is a big step down from Julia. She only has 3 pokemon, and 2 of them are Pichu and Ralts, who both have pretty awful stats even by level 15 early game standards.

Bop.

And one down.

Excuse me, this is my tactic.

An optimistic Nasty Plot if I've ever seen one. I'm not sure why the AI chose to do this, maybe it's not aware it's slower?

And now for the only thing remotely threatening.

Atlas is losing this fight, but fortunately I have Prometheus in the back, who will easily finish this off.

Oooooooooor not. Well, Victoria, you tried.

Scraggy Gang

Spoiler

Atlas has Disarming Voice and Prometheus has STAB Double Kick, so don't expect much here either. Scrafty can be a little scary if your team isn't ready for it, since it's an evolved pokemon with decent defenses and Moxie.

I mean, I did say these fights would be boring.

I'm not even sure what to say here. My pokemon are faster, have super effective attacks, and their STAB SE move does like 30% to Atlas.

They almost KO'd Atlas. Almost.

I promise fights will get more interesting... eventually......

Cain 2

Spoiler

Cain is the hardest fight so far this update. He's overall not very tough, but he's the most annoying rival overall because his typings are generally effective vs. mine: Nothing is weak to Fire or Fighting, and only one of them is weak to Psychic.

Bop.

Switch out to Atlas and KO.

Popplio is the only real threat here, since Aqua Jet effectively neutralizes Speed Boost.

Prometheus is pretty heavily weakened, but I still have Atlas in the back who can handle the rest of Cain's team easily.

Cubone has pretty good Defense so it manages to survive a Double Kick and revenge kill Prometheus.

But a Psybeam finishes him.

Nidorino kind of highlights the problem with the past few fights here... Its movepool is just its levelup list (unlike Aster&Eclipse and Julia, which had some special stuff), and Fury Attack/Poison Sting/Double Kick/Focus Energy is just not threatening. Nidorino's stats aren't even particularly bad, but it's incapable of really putting up a fight here.

PULSE Tangrowth

Spoiler

Oh PULSE Tangrowth, but a shadow of your former self. Various nerfs, such as reducing his level by 3 and removing Thundershock have made this fight a pretty serious walkover unless you forgot to get literally anything that's remotely decent against it (Trubbish, Espurr, Pansear, any Fire starter, any Flying type, Kricketune, probably more that I'm forgetting). Its defenses are insanely high and it has Filter, but its offenses are nothing special compared to other bosses. Its moveset is decent though, and Growth+Mega Drain combined with its gargantuan bulk can cause this fight to get out of control. Fortunately, it tends to not Growth much, instead favoring Acid Spray or Mega Drain.

Bop.

But in this case, rather than using Acid Spray or Mega Drain, the AI decided that Vine Whip was the best move to use over and over while I Psybeamed it over and over. I'm guessing it figured that since Espurr's Special Defense was higher, Vine Whip would do more damage, but surely the secondary effects of Acid Spray and Mega Drain should outweigh that?

And against my expectation, Atlas solos this fight. I still had the Daycare grunts and the South Obsidia Alleyway in the event I really needed the EXP to evolve Atlas, but... I didn't even need Prometheus.

So, my EXP is getting pretty high. Because of this, I decided to skip as many fights as possible heading into Fern and Florinia. I need the EXP for afterwards since the fights up to Shelly are rough, so I'd rather need to use Common Candies there instead.

So I fight her, go in the school and say hi to my best buddy Fern. He locks me out of the school and said something about me being not worthy. What a card.

Then head out and go fight this guy.

Then this guy, and we're in the school. Almost every fight in the school proper is required, except for a couple in the quiz room before Fern.

And Atlas evolves. Huge stat boost and Psyshock get.

Fern 2

Spoiler

Fern is the hardest fight in the game thus far, full stop. His Roselia and Dartrix's stats are a cut above the garbage on Victoria and Cain's team, with movelists that aren't just their 4 level up moves. They are stronger and faster than anything else up to this point, and bulkier than anything that isn't PULSE Tangrowth. Honestly, if Fern had an extra pokemon or 2, he'd probably be far more difficult than Florinia--his Dartrix's stats are already comparable to her ace, but its coverage is way better. If you're curious as to why this is the case, Fern's two Grass types have 31 IVs, whereas pretty much everything else up to this point has been in the 10-15 range.

Even Fern's lead is a bit tougher. His Sandile is pretty fast and its resisted Bite still chunks. But Sandile's defenses are poor and it doesn't have Intimidate, so it goes down to a single Bulk Up.

Roselia Mega Drains here, which is good since a Stun Spore or Leech Seed would be pretty obnoxious. The fact that Roselia survives the first Flame Charge is a testament to its bulk.

Just one more.

And here comes Dartrix, who is even bulkier--he has almost 50% more Defense than Roselia, and 20% more HP. Prometheus has 69HP (nice) here, but Dartrix has 84.

And down we go. Time for Atlas to show his stuff.

Bop.

So far, so good, right? Everything looks easy, just one more-

And here's another thing that makes Fern way harder than other fights. Victoria and Cain never bothered to heal because they only had shitty regular Potions, but Fern has 2 Super Potions, which will almost certainly be used on his bulky Dartrix.

Yep, this thing is a brick house. I have an evolved pokemon with an 80BP STAB and a middle stage is going to bring this down to the wire.

But in the end, the triumph is mine.

After beating up Fern, I deleveled Prometheus, then went and cleared out the rest of the Onyx Ward trainers to get Prometheus closer to hitting level 26. Since going over the level cap no longer causes obedience issues until AFTER the battle, this means I can reap the benefits of being a level or two above it in fights where it's beneficial. Note that going over the cap between battles in a gauntlet still causes obedience issues.

Florinia

Spoiler

Florinia's whole gimmick is that she's going to stall you out with chip damage from Sandstorm and Sand Tomb, because... that's a good theme for Grass types. Man, playing this game, you'd think a Grass pokemon really hurt Ame and she decided to take it out on the whole type.....

This was 2 hits but I suck at timing screenshots apparently. The number of hits doesn't really matter--I had an attempt where Atlas got hit by 5 here that only failed because Prometheus missed an attack on the Sand Veil Cacnea.

And we see here why I led with Atlas. For some reason, Florinia decides to go into Breloom here (she did the same regardless of who I had out), and a Psyshock takes it out. Breloom hits like a truck even without Technician. More importantly, Prometheus doesn't OHKO it with Flame Charge so he'd just get Spored after.

And this is why the Maractus Pin Missile hits don't really matter. Prometheus has the Protective Pads equipped (always wear protection kids) and Flame Charge will easily KO Ferroseed here between its Telluric Seed Sand Tomb damage. I set up a Light Screen but it falls off by the time her only remaining special attack is a factor.

It's about time. Down goes Atlas.

I forgot to get the screenshots but Prometheus finished off Ferroseed here to hit 26.

One of the Double Kick hits crit here, but it's a clean 2HKO regardless. Smack Down doesn't do a ton of damage since Cradily's offenses aren't that great. It mainly exists to show you that you can't just mindlessly run a team that's good against the gym leader's types and expect to win (except sometimes you totally can) and exists to hard counter Fire, Flying, Ice, and Bug types you might have acquired at this point, while being very soft to Fighting types.

Which, incidentally, is Prometheus's other typing. Cradily goes down to two Double Kicks, and Light Screen wears off.

Cottonee is an annoying bugger, having Prankster and four "status" moves, with one of them being Sand Tomb. Its bulk is similar to Breloom's, so it's able to survive a Flame Charge.

Sand Tomb missed here. Prometheus would be able to eat the hit anyway so it's not really a big deal--I made sure to get the extra level for this purpose.

Absolutely taken down. Cacnea is her frailest pokemon, and only stronger and faster than Ferroseed. It poses no real threat, it's just annoying because its Sand Veil is always active in this field.

This fight took me three attempts total--the first time I learned she'll send out Breloom first into Prometheus, and the second I did get hit by Cottonee and then missed that last attack vs. Cacnea and got KO'd.

With Florinia down, I get to head towards the Beryl Ward and have fun in the jungle. And maybe next update I'll get my third pokemon. Maybe not. We'll see.

Paperblade · December 29, 2018

Part 3: I'm the One

Spoiler

Taka 1

Spoiler

Taka himself isn't too bad. He only has 3 pokemon and their IVs are pretty garbage. Chatot is still a threat because it's fast and Chatter has a 100% confusion rate, but Speed Boost nullifies this pretty hard. Tangrowth is pretty much the same as before, but 2 levels higher and in a field that buffs its Grass moves and Growth. However, Atlas has evolved and my team is about 6 levels higher than before.

Exeggcute has pretty decent Defense and manages to survive. None of what Exeggcute might do here really matters.

Prometheus lives a Chatter, but if he hits himself in confusion next turn he'll be KO'd. This... doesn't really matter because Atlas can solo Tangrowth and outspeeds Chatot.

But the check was passed anyway.

RIP.

Bop.

This was my first attempt, so I wasn't sure what he'd do. With Mega Drain in mind, the next move was obvious.

And now Mega Drain is a nonfactor.

Mega Drain is pretty weak now, and if it spends a turn using Growth or Acid Spray that's pretty good for me. However, he instead opts to use Vine Whip.

This is cheating.

We trade blows for a while, but Atlas can still take another hit when Tang finally goes down.

You can just feel the investment oozing from his every pore.

Taka & ZEL

Spoiler

There's no cutin here. This fight is a pretty big step up in difficulty from everything prior. ZEL's eeveelutions are just more powerful pokemon than anything else up to this point, and PULSE Tangrowth has 31 IVs up from 7. It's also a double battle, which are generally trickier than singles. However, since the level cap goes up to 35 and I'm only using 2 pokemon, my team is a pretty high level, which gives a sizable durability and damage boost.

Aside: My third pokemon here is the egg you get in Malchuous Forest, which I'd not been able to get to a PC to get rid of.

Atlas Fake Out'd here. Bop.

Another round of bulking so that Prometheus can grab some more OHKOs. Atlas set a Light Screen just in case.

Smashed.

Yeah sure. Glaceon's Attack isn't really high enough for this to do big damage to Atlas, despite being super effective.

Fearing Prometheus, ZEL switches Glaceon out for Espeon. Double Kick eliminates Chatot and Psyshock chips Espeon pretty well.

At this point it's mostly cleanup, as Prometheus begins to rampage through ZEL's team while Atlas starts chipping down Tangrowth. Tangrowth isn't strong enough to deal with Atlas and Prometheus either, so the rest of the fight is just a long death animation for the AI.

Just gotta finish off that Glaceon now.

Taka please stop stalling my dude.

You tried, and that's what matters.

And now for one of the most difficult fights so far.

Corey

Spoiler

So, going full Truth to get max Shade points means Corey is fought in the Corrosive Mist Field, which keeps my team constantly poisoned and is super annoying for a team of only 2 mons. On the flipside though, his team has lower stats--these are pretty insignificant for most of his team, but his two big threats Skuntank and Crobat lose a good 5% or so of their stats. This is big because it means Atlas near the level cap is able to outspeed Crobat. This is what I wanted a good Speed IV and +Speed nature for. In addition, I went back and grabbed the Twisted Spoon from the Beryl Library. This can be obtained after you defeat Taka & ZEL to shut down the PULSE in the area.

Despite all that and my team being the most overlevelled they'll ever be, this fight is still tricky as all hell.

Bop. Skrelp has a Focus Sash, so this is necessary to stop it from getting a free attack off.

And down he goes.

Right after that's dealt with, I switch out to Prometheus. This isn't because Atlas can't handle Croagunk, but because after Croagunk, Corey would always switch into Skuntank afterwards. Dealing with Skuntank is tricky, as its typing makes it immune to Psyshock, and its Pursuit means Atlas takes a huge chunk of damage if it's in when Skuntank comes out, which I really can't afford. As a result, I needed to switch in Prometheus now and have him defeat Croagunk, and fortunately the AI is nice enough to send in Skuntank on him anyway.

Additionally, I gave Prometheus a Pecha Berry here because with some bad damage rolls, it was possible for him to be KO'd before defeating Skuntank. The Pecha Berry stops one turn of poison damage, which is enough.

Between Dry Skin giving Flame Charge a 25% damage boost and the field being +50%, Croagunk is OHKO'd by this. Croagunk is also Corey's most frail pokemon, so there's that.

Prometheus goes down to Aftermath. The EXP isn't needed--I bought like 20 Common Candies at some point because I get too much for a good amount of the game.

Slow, weak, and facing a pokemon nearly 10 levels up on them. Mareanie and Nidorina didn't stand a chance.

I don't recall exactly how big of a roll this was, but:

45 SpA Crobat Venoshock (130 BP) vs. 20 HP / 0 SpD Meowstic-M: 36-43 (33 - 39.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after poison damage

Crobat's max damage wasn't enough to KO Atlas in addition to poison damage, so there needs to be a crit for Atlas to go down here.

This fight took me about 10 or so attempts to figure out the ordering of how to deal with everything properly. It's really tricky and it and the Taka&ZEL double battle are pretty big difficulty spikes in the game.

Aster & Eclipse 2

Spoiler

Again no cutin. Aster and Eclipse's pokemon here are decently fast, and the nature of the field means how rough they are can depend a bit on what secondary typing their Rock moves roll.

Bop.

Lunatone has lower Defense, so Torracat will pretty much always go for it first. It's possible I should've fake out'd Solrock here since it has much better Attack, but Torracat's damage rolls are a bit iffy.

Set up a Reflect since all their mons are Physical attackers, outside of the weak Fire Spin on Solrock. Torracat finishes off Lunatone.

Lycanroc doesn't have the ever obnoxious Rock Slide, but has significantly better Attack than Solrock (let alone Lunatone), and an Accelerock here KOs Torracat. This lets Atlas get off a Psyshock, while another Rock Slide smacks Atlas around.

Lycanroc doesn't use its priority move this turn (it was likely going for Bite), allowing Atlas to outspeed and finish it before it can do anything. Victoria's AI also wanted to KO Lycanroc, so Psychic weakly goes into Solrock. Solrock does something weak.

The AI has determined Solrock was easier to KO, so Kirlia goes for a Magical Leaf on it. I don't think a Psychic would've KO'd Lycanroc here so that's alright I suppose. Atlas drops.

The enemy decides to go after the frail Kirlia, which is totally okay with me. He barely survives a Thunder Fang (I dunno odds of it living but it doesn't really matter since Victoria still has 2 mons in the back) while Prometheus KOs him back. Kirlia finishes Solrock off and that's the fight.

I actually lost to this fight once--it's not really a hard fight but the nature of the field adding a random typing of Fire/Water/Grass/Psychic to Rock moves can mean important mons randomly just eat huge damage and you lose, especially since Lycan-Day is pretty strong AND fast.

And then this happened:

A huge stat boost and access to my Fire STAB of choice for the rest of the game: Blaze Kick. Flare Blitz recoil is just unacceptable when there will be multiple fights where Prometheus will be expected to KO 5-6 pokemon on his own, so I'll have to eat the damage loss.

Next time, I'll be getting my third and final party member, and there will be some fun gyms and rival fights.

AyTales · December 30, 2018

Will you be switching out Meowstic later on?

doombotmecha · December 30, 2018

I don't think so, the whole point is to only use 3 specific mons all run, not just only 3 at a time. it's why he was so picky about his natures and IVs--he's gonna be stuck with them for the whole run.

Paperblade · January 3, 2019

On 12/30/2018 at 1:51 PM, doombotmecha said:

I don't think so, the whole point is to only use 3 specific mons all run, not just only 3 at a time. it's why he was so picky about his natures and IVs--he's gonna be stuck with them for the whole run.

Yeah this is accurate. Meowstic is in for the long haul. Its offense falls off since 83 Special Attack just isn't that great when everything else is final form, but it's still good enough for things weak to Psychic and its support only gets better as the game goes on.

Part 4: Wings (through Shade)

Spoiler

And the final pokemon is.........

Nyx the Murkrow. I managed to get the egg move I wanted on the first attempt alongside pretty good IVs (sadly, Attack is the lowest)--the Lapis Alleyway Murkrow randomly gets one of Roost, Brave Bird, or Perish Song. However, I need Perish Song for Garchomp and it trivializes others like Mewtwo and Farceus. I just need to do one thing to make her perfect.

With Prankster, I can beat pretty much any single mon with the chain of Perish Song (Nyx faints) -> Atlas Fake Out -> Switch to Prometheus (faints) -> Atlas Fake Out again -> Perish Song KO. Nyx or Prometheus not fainting is no issue since the enemy just faints sooner.

The Murkrow line rounds out my coverage. Moxie+Sucker Punch can and will sweep teams, especially since I'll be giving every PP Up I find to Sucker Punch to make sure it has enough uses for any given fight. It's going to take a while to evolve, since even though I get a Dusk Stone after Aya, I won't be evolving until right before Radomus since the evolution is not really needed between that time but ensuring that I can defeat Farceus is important.

Victoria 3

Spoiler

This fight is pretty easy. Victoria still doesn't have a single pokemon in its final stage, instead having a team full of pokemon who have pretty weak stats.

Case in point.

Next up is Pikachu, who Nuzzles on the switch.

Bop.

Like last time, Pika attempts to set up. She is promptly slain by Psyshock.

Kirlia is attempting to set up, like Pikachu, and... also just dies. Victoria please.

Despite being Paralyzed and being attacked by a 30% flinch move, Atlas manages to break through and KO Torracat. Maybe some day Victoria will get a chance to see my starter again.

Now, getting Murkrow requires windy weather, which means I can go start the sidequest to get the third sticker for the department store, which would let me get the Power items. Which I did. Other than the part where I got the Power item for Attack and used it to EV train.

I'm not sure why I didn't, since I am going to do it eventually either way. After buying Common Candies I don't think I had money to buy more than one without grinding Grand Hall trainers, but I only need the one since the others aren't that important right now.

I really have no clue.

Shelly

Spoiler

So, to prepare for this fight, I also spent some Red Shards to teach Prometheus Fire Pledge, since it creates a Burning Field here and that gives a pretty significant damage boost, as well as disabling her Anorith's Telluric Seed. This fight is pretty tricky, since Shelly leads with a Prankster Rain Dance Damp Rock Illumise, and has a second Rain Dance users in Araquanid who is pretty bulky. Rain Dance prevents me from changing the field to what I want on top of, well, being rain, so it's important I stop that from getting off. The rest of her team is more annoying than anything.

Naturally, I start off with a Fake Out, then Fire Pledge to eliminate Illumise to disable rain.

Struggle Bug is a little annoying since Fire Pledge and Blaze Kick are about the same damage, but Fire Pledge always hits. More importantly it lowers Atlas's damage output. I set up a Reflect here to keep my team healthy.

Two down.

Anorith knocks Atlas's item here. In retrospect I maybe shouldn't have had an item, but this was my first attempt and those are always pretty much just see how the fight is gonna play out...

So, normally, -1 Psyshock and Blaze Kick would not combine for the Araquanid KO here. However, Psyshock crit.

If I had bought the power items and EV trained Prometheus to max Attack, it would've been a roll which I could live with. I feel like I should've reset here since I don't like relying on crits and I don't know if Araquanid would've rain danced or attacked or what. In my experience, the AI likes to Rain Dance which would've been very bad for me. If it attacked it wouldn't be that a big a deal--the AI likes to go after low HP mons so it's more likely it would've used Bug Bite or Icy Wind than Bubblebeam. Atlas is about to faint, and Nyx is faster and would finish it with Wing Attack while Prometheus KOs Anorith. Yanmega and Volbeat would then come out, Yanmega would be KO'd without doing anything and Volbeat can't 1v2

So basically, I probably should have reset because I had good backups in the event I didn't get lucky, but I got lucky and was too lazy. Retroactively it leaves a sour taste in my mouth but nothing I can do about it now.

And Atlas goes down.

I'm not really sure why I didn't KO Yanmega here either. It's a much bigger threat, as evidenced by the Air Cutter it drops here. Rock Slide would probably KO Nyx but I don't need Nyx.

Fire Pledge eliminates Yanmega as a Dazzling Gleam finished Nyx. Volbeat is just too weak to defeat Prometheus 1v1

As seen here.

You were almost really difficult. It's better than Victoria can say.

Fern 3

Spoiler

And speaking of fights that aren't difficult. Fern's team consists of 4 pokemon weak to Fire or Fighting, and I just so happen to have a Fire/Fighting pokemon with Bulk Up and Speed Boost.

You can see where this is going.

Fern, buddy, pal. You really need to work on your team composition.

Cain 3

Spoiler

And now for the challenging rival. Cain has the somewhat unique trait of having multiple pokemon not really vulnerable to my STABs (Alolan Marowak, Brionne/Primarina, Alolan Grimer/Muk). This means, despite not having final stages on everything, he's actually somewhat tricky.

Bop.

Icy Wind buffed by field.

Rather than letting Brionne be KO'd here, Cain makes a hard switch to... Marowak. I'm not sure why he didn't go Grimer here, but alright.

Shadow Bone manages to KO Atlas, which surprised me a bit since Marowak doesn't have a Thick Club.

Regardless, Nyx finishes the job.

I exchange some blows with Grimer. With Brionne weakened so much, this fight is pretty much over. Nidoking doesn't have any Ground moves, so it will have a hard time with Prometheus. Nyx drops to a second attack.

I opt to setup a bit just to ensure the Nidoking matchup--I possibly should've just KO'd Grimer here to avoid being poisoned, but he goes for a Disable anyway.

Clean up these guys.

Poison Tail can't poison for whatever that matters, since Nidoking has Sheer Force.

And Fire Pledge finishes.

I had a few losses to this fight since I wasn't sure what the best lead into Brionne was. I originally thought I wanted Atlas to beat Nidoking, but I realized soon that Brionne was a much bigger problem and Atlas was by far my best there.

Shade

Spoiler

Shade's two most threatening pokemon are his lead and his ace. His lead because it's a Gengar meaning high Special Attack and Speed, has good coverage that are both field boosted, and Hypnosis just because. His ace because Disguise+Swords Dance is pretty threatening. In third place is probably Rotom, who has pretty good stats and likes to inflict Discharge paras. The lack of weaknesses on Ghost types can also make this fight tricky, since a lot of his pokemon are fairly bulky, such as Doublade and Dhelmise. However, with the change of Chandelure to Mimikyu, this team is a lot more Blaziken weak. Chandelure had Flash Fire, meaning it hard walled Blaziken. Mimikyu... doesn't.

Also, as fast as Gengar is, it's still about the same speed as Corey's Crobat (1 point difference), so Atlas outspeeds this too and grabs the KO.

I don't want Prometheus to setup on Rotom here, since Rotom has both Confuse Ray and 30% paralyze Discharge.

So we take Rotom out too.

Doublade has Brick Break, but Brick Break is still a lot less frightening than a STAB, field boosted Shadow Claw. Two Bulk Ups are needed to get the KOs on the rest of Shade's team

Shade goes for the Shadow Claw anyway, which is kinda weird. I'm pretty sure he'd have done more damage by Brick Breaking.

The AI realizes it's doing piss all damage and tries to set up, but my setup is done so it's time to clean up.

No Cursed Body on Blaze Kick is good.

Mimikyu is helpless against +2 Prometheus and her Shadow Claw does barely anything. Blaze Kick grabs the easy KO and it's over.

What does this even MEAN.

I lost once to this fight because I was using Light Clay on Atlas and didn't think he'd be able to 2HKO Rotom, and naturally Prometheus got para'd by Discharge. After seeing the damage a single Psychic did, I switched the items out to bring in something less obnoxious.

Paperblade · January 7, 2019

Part 5: Armed and Ready (through Aster&Eclipse 3)

Spoiler

ZEL

Spoiler

ZEL's eeveelutions are barely more threatening than they were a dozen levels ago, and all they have to replace Taka is PULSE Muk. PULSE Muk is special because it has 250 base Special Defense and Protean. Beyond that it's... not really special. Its Defense and Speed are slightly worse than a regular Muk, and it has a respectable Special Attack stat. So overall, this fight is pretty easy as long as you have something that can deal with a specially defensive brick wall.

Speaking of things that deal with specially defensive brick walls.

Glaceon's movepool consists of Icy Wind, Ice Shard, Bite, and Mirror Coat. As a result, it has nothing that remotely threatens Prometheus beyond negating Speed Boost. I should note that I actually missed taking a screenshot of my first Bulk Up and I got 3 off. Glaceon has a Speed of 69 (nice), and Blaziken with 12 IVs/-Speed nature and no EVs does too, so that's absolute worst case scenario.

That's one hit of Double Kick.

Shit's on fire, yo.

At Apophyll Island, the type boosters for both of Prometheus's STABs are available. The Blackbelt in one of the dorms in the academy, with the Charcoal on the lower floor of Pyrous Mountain where Heatmor is located.

Cal

Spoiler

This fight can be a little tricky, just because Cal has something resembling a diverse team of 6 mostly fully evolved pokemon, while the rivals are still bumbling around with incomplete teams and gym leaders are monotype. Additionally, many of his pokemon have pretty solid coverage.

Atlas is the lead of choice here. Nyx is too weak and Prometheus is needed to deal with the rest of the team, which requires setup. Barbaracle has Scald, which deals 50% more damage in this field and is thus a huge threat. As a result, this means its only move that benefits from Tough Claws is Slash.

Atlas also deals with Turtonator, the most physically bulky mon on Cal's team, but with one of the least specially bulky, especially against my overleveled team.

Typhlosion's STAB here is pretty bad, Flame Charge off a -Attack nature. However, he does have Sunny Day, which will boost Fire moves further in the field and make its Solar Beam a big threat to Water, Rock, or Ground types you might be using... if they didn't just OHKO him anyway.

However, its movelist is pretty unthreatening to Prometheus. Typhlosion's 4th move is HP Rock, which does about the same damage as Solar Beam does here.

And down after 2 Bulk Ups.

Sunny Day ends up backfiring on the AI, as it means Blaze Kick, despite being resisted, is still doing huge damage.

Another happy ending.

Like with Cain last update, I lost to this fight a few times trying to determine the best lead--at first I tried to have Prometheus just sweep the whole fight, but that is not a good idea.

That sucks. I need to rescue some orphans.

Victoria 4

Spoiler

Victoria actually has final stage pokemon this time, so she can be a little tricky. She has a lot of Ground, Flying, Fairy, and Fighting weak pokemon. She only really has 4 pokemon, since Mienfoo is pretty irrelevant

Pretty sad that Nyx managed to 1v1 this, honestly.

The AI opted to Nuzzle for... some reason, so we got some free damage in.

Bop.

Oops wait shit GO BACK.

It all worked out fine.

Her weakest, frailest, and almost slowest pokemon goes down here.

Time to set this up.

Atlas has sufficiently weakened Gallade.

To set up for Prometheus. I used Double Kick here since Blaze Kick can miss.

Incineroar doesn't have any super effective moves, but Thrash still hurts, especially since she has a Muscle Band. Despite that, Prometheus is much faster and even at -1, Double Kick is perfectly capable of handling the kitty cat.

Overall, this fight is pretty easy--I probably could've just bulk up'd twice on Pangoro and swept but I can't have every fight go that way...

Kiki

Spoiler

Kiki can be a pretty rough fight. Her pokemon are decently fast and have very high offense, while not being total glass defensively. Additionally, 5 of her 6 pokemon have boosting moves that are buffed by the field.

But this field also buffs the move Psychic.

I set up a Reflect on the first turn since the Machamp likes to Meditate turn 1. He's then OHKO'd by Psychic.

The Reflect then lets Atlas 1v1 her Gallade. Gallade's KO marks the final turn of Reflect.

So a new one gets set up.

Toxicroak then KOs Atlas without letting him get a Psychic off.

Toxicroak Meditates (which is +3 on this field) while I also boost.

Yeah, it hurts. At +2 we're forced to go, so go we shall. Kiki has no Blaze Kick resists, and nothing she has is nearly as bulky as Victoria's Incineroar, so it's smooth sailing from here.

This activates Hitmonlee's Unburden, but Prometheus is already at +4 and is thus way too fast to care about that.

I lost to this fight once because I tried to just have Meowstic set up Reflect on Gallade and have Blaziken set up there, but it didn't work out since Psycho Cut is scary.

Aster & Eclipse 3

Spoiler

Hey, it's another fight with no cutin. Aster and Eclipse just aren't cool enough I guess.

Aster and Eclipse show their mastery of doubles by just using Rock Slide, but they're a bit slow so there's no flinch.

Atlas uses Psychic because he has no other attacking moves, while Prometheus continues to set up.

With Reflect up, the grunts decide to gang up on my cat with Psywave, which is a-okay.

Yes, that Rock Slide crit Prometheus. But that's okay at this point, since he is going to OHKO just about anything they send out.

Like that.

With a Feint Attack to make sure Solrock has nothing to follow up.

Passimian is slightly more threatening to Prometheus than Lycanroc, just because he does single target instead of multihit.

This miss doesn't matter, since Reflect is still up.

The AI gets a freeze on Nyx, but that should've KO'd Nyx anyway so enjoy the free EXP girl.

I lost to this fight twice, Aster & Eclipse are pretty tricky using small teams, since doubles tend to be harder and their typings don't give them many weaknesses for me to exploit.

N1Dude · January 7, 2019

Love your updates bro, and I really love your sneaky implement of the occasional meme lol.

Keep it up!

Paperblade · January 9, 2019

Part 6: Time to Say Goodbye (through Sirius @ Yureyu HQ)

Spoiler

Taka 2

Spoiler

The main thing about this fight is that all of Taka's pokemon have healing, such as Harvest Sitrus Berry on Exeggutor, Roost on Gligar, and Sitrus+Roost on Chatot. Between that and their decent bulk, a low offense team can struggle and get stalled out. None of this matters to me.

That looks scary.

But it was a crit.

That's a more appropriate level of damage.

However, his pokemons aren't strong enough to survive +2 Blaze Kick.

This was entirely my fault, since I thought Chatot would be frail enough to go down to Double Kick, but the difference between Charcoal Blaze Kick and Double Kick is still too big.

But that's okay, because Atlas is here.

Solaris

Spoiler

I already went over how this fight would go down, so not much to say. Murkrow is the easiest way to beat this in general imo, since it requires pretty much no investment other than the RNG of weather than resetting until you get Perish Song. There's other strategies, but I use this most often.

I should've common candy'd here beforehand but I forgot and didn't remember if I had saved or not.

3.

2.

1.

Bop.

Perish.

I love this line since it's just oozing low key salt. Guy tries to flex with a Garchomp 30 levels higher than you and gets cheesed by some bullshit.

Cain 4

Spoiler

Cain continues to show why he's one of the more annoying rivals for this team: nothing he has is weak to Fire/Fighting STAB, half of them have coverage or STAB that's supereffective against it, and 2 of those resist Fire/Fighting on top of it. His Primarina in particular is probably one of the most annoying pokemon in the game since it also takes neutral damage from Shadow Claw, meaning it likes to stop Prometheus sweeps dead in their tracks. This fight itself isn't too bad, but it really sets the stage for how annoying Cain 5 is going to be.

As you're probably used to by now, we set up to +2. I could've gone for +3 but it's not quite enough to grab the OHKO on Primarina.

Boom.

With Charcoal, Blaze Kick does slightly more damage than Shadow Claw. If I had been aware of the Metronome from the Magikarp sidequest, this would be the third Blaze Kick and the extra 40% damage would make this a KO. For reference, when talking to the guy from your gang, you now get a Metronome as of E18, something I didn't learn until actually doing this run. I'm assuming a fair amount of people didn't know this either so yeah. Metronome is a pretty underrated item, since it helps sweeps a lot.

So Atlas comes in and finishes Primarina off.

We now get the Meowstic mirror, but mine is better because mine's a... boy...

That sounds a lot worse when it's written out.

Anyway, switch out to Nyx, immediately eat a spdef drop. Oh well.

Charge Beam is weak here since it's windy weather--this is still the same IRL day that I caught Nyx, so it was still windy.

And dead. I think it might have missed Charge Beam? I don't remember.

Anyway, die. Cain can't switch out, so the countdown to the end begins.

3.

2.

The miss and wind give Nyx an extra turn here, but this... really doesn't matter since I'm pretty sure Atlas could've solo'd Nidoking anyway.

1.

0.

I forgot to get the end battle screen, so here's a calc:

64 SpA Sheer Force Nidoking Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Meowstic-M: 78-94 (57.7 - 69.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Yeah, that was not close to a KO.

Fern 4

Spoiler

Fern is as much of a joke as he was last time.

Like, seriously.

This played out the exact same way except I also Blaze Kicked a Scyther... making that a fifth pokemon weak to Fire/Fighting...

... Honestly, this would explain a lot.

How very thoughtful of you.

Aya

Spoiler

This fight brutalized me about 6-7 times before I admitted that, hey, I can't get past like the first 3 pokemon and decided to bust out my top secret strategy of actually bothering to invest in some EV training. I bought enough berries to remove all EVs in the non-important attacking stats (Special for Prometheus/Nyx and Physical for Atlas), maxed out the relevant attacking stat, and put the rest into Speed.

The main problem I had before was that without Special Attack investment, Twisted Spoon Meowstic didn't get this KO. Even with max, thanks to Jolly Nature it's only a 50/50 roll, but we take those.

252- SpA Twisted Spoon Meowstic-M Psychic vs. 60 HP / 60 SpD Nidoqueen: 132-156 (92.3 - 109%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Oh, and thanks to Merciless, Toxapex's Sludge Waves hurt like hell and ignore Light Screen. However, I still had to get rid of Nidoqueen first because she'll just Stomping Tantrum on Prometheus. Ditto for Venusaur, who also has it.

And again that Jolly nature hurting.

The extra Speed EVs were pretty crucial in letting Atlas outspeed here, since Salazzle has a blistering 134 speed.

Gang up on Dragalge, since it has the highest attacking stat of anything on Aya's team on top of Adaptability and pretty significant bulk. This leaves just Drapion, who goes after Atlas since he's got a lot less defense.

Honestly, it's kinda sad that Atlas survived the Cross Poison. Had Drapion gone after Prometheus from the start, Nyx would've come out ahead. Atlas can't actually hurt him since his movepool consists of Psychic/Fake Out/Reflect/Light Screen, but the AI would go after him next anyway for being lower health, and between those extra free turns and Reflect, Nyx would win the "1v1"

252 Atk Murkrow Wing Attack vs. 60 HP / 60 Def Drapion: 33-39 (25.3 - 30%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
60 Atk Drapion Cross Poison vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Murkrow through Reflect: 29-34 (23.7 - 27.8%) -- 86.6% chance to 4HKO

This fight was probably more resets than everything leading up to it combined (even after I EV trained it took another 4 or so attempts), and it's still not top 5 encounters for difficulty. Certainly top 10 though.

Sirius

Spoiler

This fight can be a bit tricky, since Sirius's team is 5 levels higher than Aya's pretty much across the board and he has a pretty diverse squad, even if some of them are rather weak (coughsevipersuckscough). You do have Cain to back you up, and despite partner AI not synergizing well with player decisions most of the time and Cain having a fetish for using Shadow Ball instead of Sludge Bomb, just making the fight an 11v6 is a big help.

The main difference between this encounter and the Connal one is Sirius's pokemon are about 3 levels higher than Connal's here, whereas it's closer to a 1.5-2 level gap at Tanzan Cove. I also think Sirius's team is a bit better setup for doubles, having more spread moves and such.

I start out with a flinch on Tyrantrum. It's very bulky, hits like a truck, and threatens to Dragon Dance. Minior on the flip side is pretty flaccid and mostly just spams a weak Dazzling Gleam.

And down Tyrantrum goes.

Next comes out Golisopod, so I hard sac Nyx to the First Impression. Amazing contribution, 10/10. Meanwhile, Cain knocks Minior into its Meteor form which is not ideal, since it gives it about a 50% damage increase. Bad Cain.

Golisopod has no Bug moves other than First Impression, but his Liquidations and Sucker Punches will still hurt, so I Fake Out him. Sirius also switches out to Chandelure here for some reason, giving Nidoking a free hit. It doesn't do a ton since the Seed gives +1 SpDef, but hey.

Cain tanks the attacks this turn while I try to needle down Golisopod. It's better to just let Cain hit Chandelure since it has 171 effective Special Defense, which is really high for a Level 48 pokemon (Aya's Toxapex has 150 as well as 30 less HP).

Knowing Atlas will probably go down this turn and wanting to make sure Prometheus and Cain are set up for victory, I opt for Reflect, since I was expecting a Sucker Punch or Aqua Jet here.

I didn't get the screenshot, but based on Marowak not being dead it was probably Sucker Punch--Heat Wave does about 50% since Marowak is 8 levels lower and has rather poor Special durability.

Marowak returns the favor with a field boosted Shadow Bone to Chandelure's face.

Minior grabs the KO on Marowak, while I force Emergency Exit to activate since Liquidation is scary.

I KO Minior, forcing Muk to eat the burn from Beak Blast. This is fine since it stops Minior from attacking, and is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say the AI doesn't really have synergy with the player. It'll just attack whatever is lowest and if you KO it first, oops.

252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 68 HP / 68 Def Toucannon: 94-112 (62.2 - 74.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I bulk up'd here to make sure I was able to survive hits, since Blaze Kick is pretty unlikely to KO anyway if even possible--I'd estimate Toucannon has a bit over 75% HP there. I didn't expect Muk to live either, so the Defense would help with whatever Toucannon opted to do.

But hey.

And from there it's just clean up.

Weird flex but okay.

With this, the orphans (and Shelly I guess) are saved.

Next time, we're going to a fight that is a mistake.

Spoiler

You deserve to be unhappy.

Paperblade · January 12, 2019

Part 7: Bad Luck Charm (through Sigmund at Tanzan Cove)

Spoiler

Bennett

Spoiler

Bennett's main mistake in life is using one of the few types that contends with Ice in terms of being terrible, and one top of that doesn't even have the self respect to use one of the good Bugs.

Despite this, this battle can be a little annoying because Mirror Arena exists and I don't have anything to destroy it or take advantage of it.

I start with a Bulk Up, since Masquerain has Intimidate and that makes my already inaccurate Blaze Kicks possibly not KO sometimes

-1 252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 72 HP / 72 Def Dustox: 134-158 (95 - 112%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

-1 252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 72 HP / 72 Def Masquerain: 146-174 (96.6 - 115.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

The AI doesn't do enough damage to KO here so hooray.

This fight took me 3 attempts despite being a "Bulk Up once then click Blaze Kick until everything is dead" fight because RNG misses are fun.

Serra

Spoiler

I don't have anything to destroy the field or mitigate evasion so this fight is pretty much pure RNG for me. There's not really any strategy either since Prometheus just OHKOs and outspeeds everything, although that makes it nice since I just click my best move and hope I hit. I got a little frustrated doing this fight as a result so I hope that doesn't seep into the writeup too much.

Double Kick: 100 * 0.8 (Snow Cloak) * 0.75 (+1 Mirror Arena) = 60% accuracy

If Glaceon lives, it puts up Aurora Veil which is a reset.

Blaze Kick = 90% accuracy

60% * 90% = 54% chance to get past this pokemon without having missed

If Ninetales lives, it puts up Aurora Veil which is a reset

Shadow Claw: 100 * 0.9 (Brightpowder) * 0.75 (+1 Mirror Arena) = 67.5% accuracy

36.45% chance to get past this pokemon without having missed

If Jynx lives, it uses Psyshock which will KO:

72 SpA Jynx Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 132-156 (85.1 - 100.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

Sandslash has no evasion boosting so if I get past Jynx I get past this

Blaze Kick: 90 * 0.8 (Snow Cloak) * 0.9 (Brightpowder) * 0.6 (+2 Mirror Arena) = 38.88% accuracy

14.17176% chance to get past this pokemon without having missed

Froslass has +2 Crit stages due to Mirror Arena, so Shadow Ball has a 50% chance to KO between the miss recoil and hail damage

252 SpA Froslass Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Blaziken on a critical hit: 99-117 (62.6 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even a non-crit is pretty threatening since the recoil is 1/4 max HP

252 SpA Froslass Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Blaziken: 66-78 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

This hit isn't as important since Prometheus has 2 chances to hit, and worst case I have Nyx Perish Song or whatever

But this thing has a Synthetic Seed which is +2 Evasion so yeah

It took me about an hour and probably something like 20-25 attempts because God is dead, God remains dead, and we have killed him.

And now we're done for Mirror Arena forever because by the time it returns I will just Bulldoze/Earthquake it away every time

forever

Sigmund

Spoiler

Sigmund's main threats are Drampa, who has a massive 168 Special Attack, Calm Mind, and if you fail to OHKO it will boost further and Electivire, who is basically physical Drampa but kinda fast. Every pokemon on his team has a boosting move, and most of them are either fairly bulky (especially compared to Bennett and Serra's pokemon) or decently fast.

The AI attempts to set up on Nyx here, so I get to just take out Musharna for free. This is pretty nice since it's fairly bulky and thus kind of scary for Prometheus.

This part works best thematically if you wait until the song itself starts its countdown

2.

1.

Sigmund switches here--in my experience, the AI pretty much always switches to avoid a Perish Song KO. This lets me get a third Bulk Up, which in turn allows Prometheus to grab KOs with Double Kick and avoid Blaze Kick's miss chance

For example: +2 252 Atk Blaziken Double Kick (2 hits) vs. 72 HP / 72 Def Electivire: 134-158 (84.2 - 99.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I had a Cheri Berry equipped since Prometheus did have to tank 2 Discharges

This has been your weekly PSA that Blaziken is easy mode.

Next time: Nyx sings the song of her people

Spoiler

it's death

Spoiler

yes, I really made this update short so I could fit as many Perish Song KOs as possible into one update

doombotmecha · January 13, 2019

I just realized you're naming your chapters after rwby themes. As a fellow rwby fan, I salute you.

RedAlert · January 15, 2019

I discovered this thread wayyy too late.

Paperblade · January 19, 2019

On 1/13/2019 at 7:02 AM, doombotmecha said:

I just realized you're naming your chapters after rwby themes. As a fellow rwby fan, I salute you.

black out the sky

Part 8: All Things Must Die (through Radomus)

Spoiler

Boy I hope you like PERISH SONG

Giant Steelix

Spoiler

Steelix is pretty slow and its special defense isn't the greatest, so normally you can maybe status her and/or just smash with super effective Fire/Water moves.

But it's gonna get the same treatment as Garchomp.

3.

2.

Steelix doesn't use a super effective move here so it fails to KO.

1.

0.

I also didn't give a Common Candy before this but it doesn't matter since Prometheus doesn't have to do anything.

Are you ready for the exact same thing next battle?

PULSE Abra

Spoiler

Because that's what you get. This battle is generally pretty easy because PULSE Abra has regular Abra tier defenses, just with a Steel typing and Magic Guard. Spamming Hyper Beam means you get plenty of free hits, so it only becomes a problem if you send out something that makes it start spamming Dark Pulse--I feel like once it uses it once on a Ghost type or something it realizes that it's a way better move than Hyper Beam and just starts spamming it but maybe I'm giving too much sentience to the AI.

3.

2.

1.

0.

Honestly, I feel like you guys could've done this on your own.

Noel

Spoiler

Now for a battle that was... sort of challenging? The setup to get this battle go right is actually pretty tricky, as Noel has multiple pokemon that can stop Blaziken's sweep in its tracks without me having enough time to setup properly.

Reflect is setup in case of an awkward miss later, although it's not strictly necessary.

Then Light Screen since Porygon-Z hurts.

Hard switch.

3.

2.

1.

Noel hard switches here to avoid the Perish Song KO. This lets me get to +2 in a field that boosts Blaze Kick.

Tailwind is important here since Swellow has 172 Speed, which is much faster than my -Speed Blaziken that doesn't have max Speed EVs, even at +1

And everything was fine forev-

Oh, fine.

Reflect and +2 from Bulk Up means that not even a Zen Headbutt can KO.

+2 252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 74 HP / 74 Def Bewear: 210-247 (100.9 - 118.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

That doesn't even factor in the terrain.

This thing dies too.

That's cool. Unfortunately for Noel, his Clefable is Magic Guard instead of Unaware.

Also, for some reason, his Clefable only has 10IVs and doesn't have proper EV training (so it just has level*1.5), which is... about on par with just having 31 IVs and no EVs at all.

So this happens.

+2 252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. +1 78 HP / 78 Def Clefable in Sun: 240-283 (134 - 158.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The field boost is 50% so I used sun to mimic it

I remember when you were hard.

Fern 5

Spoiler

Has Fern learned new tricks?

No, he hasn't.

Fern's pokemon have bad IVs outside of his 2 Grass pokemon (who are also EV'd). Due to their overall poor stats, half not even being final form at this point in the game, and shared weaknesses without really covering each other's weaknesses well (2 weak to Fighting, 2 weak to Water, 3 weak to Fire, all weak to Ice, 3 weak to Flying), this fight is as much of a walkover as the past 2 Fern encounters. Sadly for Fern, he peaked back in the Onyx Trainer's School.

Fraxure's stats are on par with stuff we fought back on Apophyll Island, which ten levels later makes it easy setup fodder. Sure, it has Dragon Dance, but Prometheus is basically doing the same thing but is going to OHKO him in a couple turns.

Soon your time to go

Fortunately, this is the last time we see this

Spoiler

Because Fiore Mansion is like top 3 difficulty

Fern is just trying to make a bad RU team (+Krook) and I'm over here with the Ubers

The only thing of note right now in Route 1 is the Wide Lens, which is pretty useful for Blaze Kick and High Jump Kick's 90 accuracy if I don't need the boost of Charcoal/Black Belt/Metronome.

Cain 5

Spoiler

This fight would've been a bit easier if I'd gone back to get High Jump over Double Kick:

+6 252 Atk Black Belt Blaziken Double Kick (2 hits) vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Primarina: 160-190 (90.3 - 107.3%) -- approx. 43.8% chance to OHKO
+5 252 Atk Charcoal Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Primarina: 198-234 (111.8 - 132.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+5 252 Atk Blaziken Shadow Claw vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Primarina: 182-215 (102.8 - 121.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

vs.

+3 252 Atk Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Primarina: 180-213 (101.6 - 120.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

However, the nature of Cain's team inherently means I'd need some luck, as I will be trying to setup on either Gunk Shot spamming Muk or Swords Dancing Shadow Sneak Mimikyu. This means I need to minimize the amount of damage Blaziken is taking from them and also just hoping I don't get Poisoned. I could've used a Pecha Berry I think, but I ended up using the Lax Incense since it's what I had on me.

A classic.

Hard switch, since Atlas can take out Nidoking at the end if something goes wrong even after eating a Knock Off.

Nyx eats Knock pretty well. Set up Tailwind because Gunk Shot won't KO, and we want to maximize the amount of time Muk is out with Prometheus.

3.

2 and 1.

I equipped the Lax Incense for Prometheus since Gunk Shot poisons at this point will just end the fight. This drops Gunk Shot's hit chance to 72%, which gives about a 48% chance of dodging at least one, and the chance of them poisoning even on hit is only 30% since Gunk Shot doesn't benefit from Poison Touch.

76+ Atk Muk-Alola Gunk Shot vs. +1 32 HP / 0 Def Blaziken through Reflect: 37-44 (22.2 - 26.5%) -- 13.4% chance to 4HKO
76+ Atk Muk-Alola Gunk Shot vs. +2 32 HP / 0 Def Blaziken through Reflect: 28-33 (16.8 - 19.8%) -- guaranteed 6HKO

Muk doesn't do a ton of damage without Poison, but Poison is scary.

That's 3 bulk ups, with 5 needs to KO Primarina.

This makes 4, but Mimikyu starts Swords Dancing and Shadow Sneak is mildly scary, or would be if I'd been hit by a Gunk Shot

+4 78 Atk Mimikyu Shadow Sneak vs. +4 32 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 34-42 (20.4 - 25.3%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO

So let's just get rid of it.

I go for one last Bulk Up, and Gunk Shot poisons. Fortunately, this doesn't matter at this point since the first two missed.

Wew.

+5 0 Atk Blaziken Shadow Claw vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Nidoking: 160-189 (93.5 - 110.5%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

I still had Atlas in the back, who is much faster and would probably KO with Fake Out anyway.

So there's that. This fight took me several tries to figure out how Cain was going to react to various stuff, as well as determine how to get around that. This wasn't the optimal way to handle it (Pecha Berry is probably better but I've not done the math?). Overall, this wasn't top 5 most difficult but it's probably an honorable mention around 7th?

Farceus

Spoiler

The portmanteau of farce and arceus is way better than Dittoceus and you can't convince me otherwise, I don't care or even know if Arceus is supposed to be a soft C.

Anyway, this fight, like Garchomp, usually requires some cheese to beat. In some sense it's easier since the stat gap isn't as absurd, but Arceus being a special attacker DOES mean you can't sac half your team to Intimidate it down to -6, which is a strategy I've employed.

Legends should scatter

So just say goodbye

2.

1.

0.

Talk about a god complex.

Radomus Prep

Spoiler

I need this for Radomus. Besides, someone other than Prometheus has gotta start dealing out damage.

Bought some EV berries to give my pokemon good EVs except for Atlas because he's just here for screens. At this point in the game only bird or bird-like pokemon get to do anything.

And after clearing out the trainers in Route 1 (save the Pinsir/Heracross sidequest) and Vanhanen Castle... these are my levels.

I'm using 3 pokemon and I'm going to use the Rare Candies I've found to hit level cap. This is the first part of the game where the level curve vs. level cap is really fucky, and this sorta continues until about Ciel in a normal game, but since my team is so small I can kinda ride it out.

Radomus

Spoiler

Radomus the... Ladomus. All his Pokemon have -Speed natures, so they're really slow--his fastest pokemon is Gardevoir at 107. But he also has 2 pokemon with Trick Room, and his team is generally pretty bulky.

Fortunately, Nyx is evolved for this purpose, and is about to show that she's got moxie

No Trick Room allowed. Fake Out on Gallade so he can't do anything.

252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 76 HP / 76 Def Reuniclus: 218-258 (111.7 - 132.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Hard switch to Prometheus.

+1 252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 76 HP / 76 Def Gallade: 172-204 (110.9 - 131.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

At this point, Nyx is too strong to care about Reflect.

And switch back.

+2 252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Slowking through Reflect: 186-219 (95.8 - 112.8%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

I had the Metronome equipped, but showdown's damage calc doesn't calculate it properly. This is my third Night Slash in a row, so it's adding 40% damage, more than enough to secure the KO.

Bop.

+3 252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 84 HP / 84 Def Metagross through Reflect: 151-178 (82 - 96.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Metronome is at +60%

+4 252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gardevoir through Reflect: 160-189 (76.9 - 90.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+80% Metronome

+5 252+ Atk Honchkrow Night Slash vs. 80 HP / 80 Def Malamar through Reflect: 148-175 (80.4 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And at +100%.

Nice Reflect.

I noticed after writing this up that I forgot to change the IVs for Honch from 31 to 14 on calcs, but it doesn't really matter since it's pretty clean overkill anyway and I'm too lazy to fix it

Paperblade · January 28, 2019

Part 9: Smile (through Charlotte)

Spoiler

At 7th Street, I spent 9 Heart Scales to attain Adamant and Timid natures.

Bennett 2

Spoiler

His team is pretty much the same but without Mirror Arena, which removes basically all difficulty. Friends don't let friends use mono-Bug... Bennett isn't my friend, which is why he's allowed to.

I forgot to get a screenshot of Bulk Up at the start here.

That's how it is.

You're a joke and you should feel bad.

Luna

Spoiler

In E18, Luna's team got a slight rework to no longer be total fodder. She has faster and stronger pokemon, which would almost matter if I didn't have Prometheus.

Yeah, so, this thing has a Life Orb and max attack. I can't afford to get off more than 2 Bulk Ups or else it will just kill Prometheus.

For reference, White Rabbit here has 238 Attack. Arceus had 220 Special Attack. Sure, Arceus being 15 levels higher does matter a lot for damage, but point is: this thing HURTS.

That was not a crit. A crit would have easily killed.

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Absol Play Rough vs. +2 164 HP / 0 Def Blaziken: 131-155 (64.5 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Another easy sweep for the home tea-

Oh.

+2 252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken Double Kick (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Umbreon: 228-268 (88 - 103.4%) -- approx. 12.5% chance to OHKO

Okay.

I guess I should've used High Jump Kick.

Well, fine.

We'll do it this way then.

Hard switch out.

2.

1.

0.

Now, onward. To prep for not being able to return to Agate, I mined as many rocks as I could for Heart Scales and made a backup save in case I immediately realized I'd need something, since I was expecting some of these fights to be a pain.

Samson

Spoiler

And ended up immediately needing it. Fucking Samson man, look at how smug he is.

You know how Atlas is just a screens boy who does no combat? I lied. For this fight, I retrained him to max out his Speed. Also, I maxed out my team to level cap, because hell.

This fight is, to put it simply, brutal. Hawlucha's Speed is high enough that Prometheus needs to be at +4 to outspeed it thanks to Unburden, which it has pretty much no time to actually get to. But that's what back up plans are for. Samson's pokemon hit really hard, and some are also really fast. Overall, it's a pretty tough fight, especially since Big Top Arena is only removed by hard replacing it with another effect that creates terrain (such as the Terrain moves).

Perish Song here. This alone requires luck with the field, since anything other higher than "OKAY" from the field OHKOs.

2.

1.

The AI goes for a Smack Down for some reason here, which is fine because Knock Off hurts and I need my Twisted Spoon.

Hard switch into Lucario, which is perfect since it's one of two pokemon who doesn't get OHKO'd by Psychic.

Two down, four to go.

Praise Reflect.

And then there was one.

Yeah, this isn't KOing. Fortunately, I have a Synthetic Seed on Prometheus so he can finish this thing off pretty easily.

I went for the High Jump Kick first since it SHOULD hit harder, but it rolled a Weak and did very little--Conk has nearly 300 max HP, so that Ultra Potion only healed him to about 75%.

+1 252+ Atk Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 159-187 (53.7 - 63.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

This, however, is a clean finish.

This fight was rough. It took me about 20 attempts of trying different things, mostly involving Prometheus somehow boosting up hard to sweep before it occurred to me that Atlas could just dunk his team.

Still not a top 5 trickiest fight yet.

Aster & Eclipse 4

Spoiler

For a fight that doesn't even have a cutin, these guys tend to be a bigger pain than a lot of gym leaders. Or rivals, but rival fights are like 90% walkovers... unless you count double battles.

Their pokemon are higher leveled than yours would be if you were just playing through the game without grinding, and Aya's usefulness is sort of a mixed bag. Poison just isn't a great typing against what the Meteors use. But she is there to tank hits. Usually. And they only have 5 pokemon each, so it's a 9v10. That's close.

Lunatone is a bit more threatening with attacks like Moonblast and Blizzard, so I opt to get rid of it first even though Solrock will throw back a Rock Slide.

Two down, eight left.

This is a pretty convenient miss, but I don't think it matters too much in the long run.

I KO Vileplume here, and Vileplume is annoying with Sleep Powder, but without knowing for sure what Vileplume might've done otherwise it's hard to say if it was better or worse than letting the next pokemon come out.

So Nyx drops.

Fake Out the Krook so it can't Bulldoze or use another Rock Slide.

Set up a Reflect here, since most of the Pokemon left are physical. Sludge Bomb chunks Passimian. Oranguru used Foul Play on Atlas.

That's inconvenient.

Dragalge finishes off the Lycanroc.

You know, the Dragalge who is still alive despite 2 of my pokemon going down. Thanks, Aya.

Golurk is Aster's last pokemon. After that, it's not hard to gang up on Eclipse, and Aya can pretty much handle it herself.

So there we go.

And this down, leaving them with just one pokemon left.

Aya switches out for Salazzle here, as my last pokemon drops to Blizzard. But Aya still has a full team, so she can handle this herself.

Why are you using Knock Off

You deserve this.

And it's over with a quick Accelerock. I'm not sure how much the Rock Slide miss mattered, since Aya only lost 2 pokemon and Oranguru setting up Reflect might be more annoying than Vileplume maybe using Sleep Powder? It's hard to say.

Charlotte

Spoiler

Most of Charlotte's difficulty comes from her team being fully EV trained, unlike any other encounter up to this point. This means her pokemon hit hard and fast, with spread moves in a field that boosts them, meaning it's totally possible to get outsped and KO'd before you can really do anything. Her lead, Typhlosion, is a great example of this, as it likes to use Eruption which will truck you. Additionally, a player that isn't grinding will probably be in the low to mid 60s, far below the level cap, which gives a further statistic disadvantage.

I don't have to deal with most of those problems. Additionally, the fact that Charlotte's pokemon are EV trained means their durability is worse than the even EV spreads seen on most trainers up to this point, making them easy prey for my team.

Psychic chip allows Nyx to grab the KO next turn.

252 SpA Twisted Spoon Meowstic-M Psychic vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Typhlosion: 114-135 (57.8 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

It hits it low enough that it uses its Sitrus Berry, but it's still in range of Nyx.

Two.

+1 252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Darmanitan: 480-565 (206.8 - 243.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Black Glasses Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Typhlosion: 132-156 (67 - 79.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Four.

+1 252+ Atk Blaziken Blaze Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Volcarona: 225-265 (106.6 - 125.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
^without factoring in the field as well

+1 252+ Atk Black Glasses Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Delphox: 414-488 (211.2 - 248.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Six.

+1 252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. +1 4 HP / 0 Def Ninetales: 229-270 (109 - 128.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Black Glasses Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-Heat: 202-238 (100.4 - 118.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

And that's the 11th badge. There's enough boss battles in the rest of the game that each update from here on out will probably just be per episode.

doombotmecha · January 29, 2019

I love how Charlotte is the commonly-agreed-on "hardest gym in the game" and you just kinda....run her over. I suppose that's the value of good EVs and level grinding.

Azeria · January 29, 2019

15 minutes ago, doombotmecha said:

I love how Charlotte is the commonly-agreed-on "hardest gym in the game" and you just kinda....run her over. I suppose that's the value of good EVs and level grinding.

She's far from that honestly, if anything she's the mid-late game's wake up call. Hugely brutal offense that initially seems to have no weak spots because you tend to just instantly get disintegrated.

I think hardest probably goes out to Titania or Terra, but that's just my experiences. I imagine that this run would be the one where Amaria poses the hugest threat purely due to team selection though. I don't see him beating the doubles fight.

Nicocchi · February 5, 2019

On 1/29/2019 at 6:30 PM, not Azery said:

She's far from that honestly, if anything she's the mid-late game's wake up call. Hugely brutal offense that initially seems to have no weak spots because you tend to just instantly get disintegrated.

I think hardest probably goes out to Titania or Terra, but that's just my experiences. I imagine that this run would be the one where Amaria poses the hugest threat purely due to team selection though. I don't see him beating the doubles fight.

I've never really struggled with Terra in my runs, but a lot of people seem to. Titania is up there for me as well, though.

Cool challenge, OP! I'm looking through threads trying to find some interesting spin on the game. Might go for a monotype, but something like this or something else more 'unique' seems cool.

Paperblade · February 8, 2019

Personally, I think Adrienn is the hardest gym leader without specific preparation for that fight. Fairy is a good defensive and offensive type, doubles are rough, and double Intimidate + field boosting their Special Defense by 50% makes the whole team annoyingly bulky. Without the Sludge Bomb, Poison Jab, or Flash Cannon TMs, many pokemon are limited in anti-Fairy coverage options, including pokemon who would be using them as STABs.

As far as I know, beating Amaria in singles or doubles doesn't matter for Shade/Anna points (and I just double checked the event in rpgmaker), it's just on Reshiram route you fight the opposite of what you select when she asks, and if you lose and don't reload your save it's then randomized on further attempts.

This update took a while because the forum software decided to not convert my image links into images automatically and I just didn't want to deal with that until I realized I had a workaround of pasting them into another forum's reply box where it would work then copying them over here. This is the sort of ingenuity you're reading this thread for, right? Right?

Part 10: Neon (through Terra)

Spoiler

PULSE Avalugg

Spoiler

Oh hey a single, really slow pokemon. This is normally one of the easier PULSEs in general because of that, plus just generally having a lot more tools by now.

3

BOP

2

1

0

Aster

Spoiler

Aster still doesn't get a cut-in. Anyway, this team is mostly annoying because he leads with a dual screens Light Clay Solrock, so setting up isn't super easy.

However, Solrocks aren't known for their Speed, so it still goes down without doing anything

+1 252+ Atk Black Glasses Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Lycanroc-Midnight: 195-231 (84.7 - 100.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

All but no chance of grabbing this KO, sadly. Even if Nyx was at level cap, this would be about a 37.5% KO chance.

The Para is also pretty annoying because...

If it weren't for the paralyze, Nyx outspeeds with a pretty good chance to OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Honchkrow Wing Attack vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Passimian: 264-312 (93.9 - 111%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

Yes, this Passimian is max defensive investment. But with a random Calm nature. And a Life Orb. This is not the weirdest spread on Aster's team.

That Sucker Punch also crit, not that it really matters since Atlas trucks this thing

252 SpA Twisted Spoon Meowstic-M Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0+ SpD Passimian: 278-330 (98.9 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Bop.

Set this up for the incoming sweep.

And this because no move here really does anything.

I fit in a Bulk Up here, after the Earthquake.

And then there was one.

So, this is the weirdest spread on Aster's team: Max Attack and Speed investment... with a Modest nature... Why?

But yeah, Lycanroc is easily OHKO'd and on we go.

Blake

Spoiler

Mamoswine tries to Ice Shard down Nyx, while Gyarados Crunches on Nyx. Thanks to Reflect, both survive.

A Sucker Punch takes down Gyarados before Nyx drops to Ice Shard, protecting Atlas for another round.

Atlas tanks an Ice Shard from Weavile, then both enemy pokemon are taken down--Mamoswine is presumably going for Earthquake since I have a Ground-weak pokemon out.

Starmie is the last really threatening thing left, so now's the time for a Light Screen. It doesn't actually have any moves super effective against Prometheus (its movelist is Blizzard/Thunder/Hail/Light Screen), but Thunder is still scary when Prometheus has to last 3-4 turns with it and Alolan Sandslash.

Unfortunately, Prometheus is only at +2, so Sandslash's Slush Rush makes it faster. That's not the end of the world though, since it chips Starmie for us.

This High Jump Kick actually crit, which didn't make a difference here because a max Thunder roll plus Hail damage would leave Prometheus at 1HP

85 SpA Starmie Thunder vs. 6 HP / 0 SpD Blaziken through Light Screen: 39-46 (18.8 - 22.2%) -- possible 5HKO

Hail damage is 237/16 = 14, so that's 60

Alternatively I could've taught Shadow Claw over my 4th move slot if I really felt it necessary.

M2

Spoiler

No cut in and I didn't even get an intro screenshot because I'm a scrub. This is one of the more difficult solo pokemon fights in the game, because Mewtwo is incredibly fast, hits like a truck with great coverage, and has Leftovers PLUS Recover so it's difficult to stall out.

Due to Glitch Field, Nyx's high base Special Attack gives her respectable 100/105 special bulk, which is just barely enough to take a hit from Mewtwo's boltbeam coverage even with an effective -nature

252+ SpA Mewtwo Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Honchkrow: 212-250 (87.2 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

2

1

ez Fake Out OHKO

Terra

Spoiler

This fight pushes top 5 difficulty, probably in the 4th-5th range. Glitch Field turning Dark moves normal means that Nyx is effectively losing a third of her damage because of no Sucker Punch STAB making her near useless, and Prometheus is weak to Ground requiring a quick and efficient setup as to not die. But to make things more difficult, her Quagsire has Unaware, meaning that a hit from its Scald will also be required.

Start with this.

252 SpA Twisted Spoon Meowstic-M Psychic vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Nidoking: 182-216 (87 - 103.3%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

Twisted Spoon is to simulate the glitch field boost--there's a slim chance to OHKO, but I don't actually want the KO here. This attack is done to eat up a turn, since Nidoking does not KO Atlas quickly, and I want to maximize the number of screen turns Prometheus gets.

I should mention that, for some reason, despite Blizzard having a higher BP and going from 70 to 90 accuracy in this field, Nidoking prefers to spam Thunderbolt. But sometimes, it will use Blizzard instead. I don't really know why, but that's how it is. It did, however, makes attempt somewhat unreliable because sometimes it would suddenly KO Atlas sooner than expected.

This is next, because Light Screen makes Atlas too bulky.

I'm pretty sure that Nidoking used Blizzard here, which is fine with me. Either that or he crit.

Nidoking is faster before one speed boost, so it Thunderbolts. Fortunately for me, Nidoking has no moves super effective vs. Prometheus (Thunderbolt/Flamethrower/Blizzard/Amnesia)

And now it uses Blizzard into my Fire type. I just don't get it.

Anyway, Nidoking gets finished off.

I'm dumb and didn't get the screenshot of the Excadrill KO.

252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 121-144 (45.3 - 53.9%) -- 44.1% chance to 2HKO

A bit unfortunate, but not the end.

This means we eat a Scald. Fortunately, Light Screen is still up.

Synthetic Seed removes its typing

+2 252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. +1 252 HP / 4 Def Palossand: 262-310 (99.2 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

This is what I boosted to +2 for.

Take a tick of Sandstorm, then OHKO Garchomp

+2 252+ Atk Black Belt Blaziken High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 414-487 (151 - 177.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Prometheus is KO'd by Rough Skin, but that's okay since Nyx is still alive and well.

So, you may ask, what made this fight so hard? It looked a lot like a typical Prometheus sweep. Well, that's because this fight is where everything went right, and there's a lot that can go wrong:

Nidoking using a stronger move

High Jump Kick missing

Terra sending out pokemon in a different order--this is a big one, as frequently in previous attempts she would send out Hippowdon earlier, which would either cause sand damage to kill Prometheus barring lucky damage rolls.

I spent a good 25-30 resets trying to find the optimal opening to minimize the effects of Nidoking move RNG and Terra's ordering, playing with using Misty Terrain or Perish Song--eventually I set it up so that Prometheus would hit Level 76 from the Nidoking KO which both decreased damage taken from Quag's Scald, but also increased the chances of 2HKOing it which would avoid the second Scald.

I'll try to get the next update up this weekend, since it has been a while.

Azeria · February 8, 2019

Should update title given it goes up to Terra now.

Some notes;

- Ice is neutral on Fire in gen 1 so that was it's best move.

- iirc Nidoking is spatk invest so the special stat is it's higher spatk stat. That might have been affecting calculations if you did not account for it.

- While risky, wouldn't giving Prometheus focus energy to ensure crits have been more beneficial? You outspeed everything and crit right through the +1 defense on Quagsire meaning you wouldn't have had to risk dying as much. Set up opportunities are scarce here though, so it's understandable.

Adrienn has a rough lead but the rest of their team is very underwhelming. Last playthrough k swept through with Solar Power Charizard and Honchkrow almost effortlessly while the spdef boost from misty terrain was still going.

Monochrome_Complex · February 20, 2019

I had no idea saving the officers affected corey's IVs.

So Gassy Corey's crobat would be slightly slower and weaker?

This might explain why some people find him easier than Corrosive Gorey.

Also like, high jump kick missing is one of the WORST feelings when you're the one missing. You don't crash so much as jump into your own grave.

Paperblade · February 21, 2019

22 hours ago, Monochrome_Complex said:

I had no idea saving the officers affected corey's IVs.

So Gassy Corey's crobat would be slightly slower and weaker?

This might explain why some people find him easier than Corrosive Gorey.

Also like, high jump kick missing is one of the WORST feelings when you're the one missing. You don't crash so much as jump into your own grave.

Yeah--it's not a huge difference for most of his mons (see here), but it's fairly significant for his Crobat and Skuntank. Croagunk and Mareanie not having items in the Corrosive Mist field is also kinda strange. But more than that, the biggest thing that makes Corrosive Mist easier imo is that in that field, his Crobat cannot do anything to Steel types as Air Cutter becomes Flying/Poison. This means you can go catch a Klink in the Underground Railnet and it will solo his Crobat at base level.

And yes, agreed on HJK. I run Wide Lens maybe more than I should because of it.

@not Azery

I accounted for the nidoking thing, but I forgot about the other stuff (it doesn't explain why he likes to tbolt Meowstic though)--straight up forgot Blaziken learns Focus Energy for example. I think in that regard I got tunneled on that it was close and I just needed things to go my way rather than creating a better, more efficient strat.

Part 11: Nevermore (through Ciel)

Spoiler

PULSE Swalot

Spoiler

One of the more annoying single mon fights in the game, since it's immune to poison, heals a hefty amount of health each turn, and is overall pretty bulky.

However.

3.

2.

1.

0.

Fiore Mansion Gauntlet

Spoiler

I think that if I had done this encounter without saving in between it'd be the most difficult encounter in the game. The two grunts are so easy I didn't even bother taking screenshots for them. Florinia and Julia's teams are not terribly great, and Blake's Gyarados is a massive problem that neither Nyx nor Prometheus deal with easily, and it's not really feasible to save Atlas for it.

Fern and Blake

Spoiler

aka Fern's revenge

Every Fern solo fight may have been a joke, but when combined with Blake and me only getting Florinia as a partner, this fight is probably the second most difficult in the game for this run.

I open up with a Reflect here--Outrage is random targeted so this is to mitigate it hitting Atlas, since it will KO him otherwise. Hippo just yawns the Walrein.

This is pretty ideal RNG, with both outrages hitting Hippowdon, as Surf would've KO'd her anyway.

Haxorus gets nuked down by Psychic, and Torterra smashes the sleeping Walrein.

Fern loses a second pokemon, while Walrein is finished off. An ideal start, I'm not sure why the AI chooses to send out Roserade here though.

My screens are still up and Weavile Ice Shards here, so there's nothing to do but set Misty Terrain. Torterra sacrifices itself to KO Weavile, which is cool with me.

A third pokemon of Blake's falls, as Ferrothorn misses a Power Whip or something.

I go for a Fly here since +1 Sucker Punch doesn't KO Mamo, whereas Ferro will surely weaken it so that Fly will finish the job.

The AI switches here, so Fly instead crashes into Sandslash, who also tanks a Gyro Ball. Scizor's Swords Dance is scary, and he'll surely finish Nyx off with Bullet Punch next turn.

I go for a Sucker Punch on Scizor, which doesn't KO, although it has a 6% chance to

+1 252+ Atk Black Glasses Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 85 HP / 85 Def Scizor: 166-196 (85.5 - 101%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

If I'd been better with EXP distribution this would go up to a 37.5% chance, which still isn't terribly great. Unfortunately, the nature of this fight means it's hard for me to determine if Nyx can go into it at 74 or 75 and be okay for obedience in the next fight. Atlas already hit 76 on accident, which is only okay because he really only has to do 2 things.

Mamoswine drops, leaving Blake with just 1 pokemon, his Gyarados. Scizor suicides onto Ferrothorn, leaving Fern with just 3 pokemon.

Prometheus takes out a second pokemon before Gyarados one shots him. Yep. Fortunately, thanks to Florinia only losing 2 pokemon so far, she's totally capable of handling the rest of the fight.

Next turn, Gyarados takes some more chip by attacking Ferrothorn.

Tropius is pretty bad.

Fortunately, her Breloom is pretty tanky, and manages to take both these hits and KO Gyarados. This leaves the grass siblings in a 1v1 fight, both with 2 pokemon left.

Breloom uses Giga Drain, which benefits greatly from the AI's preference to use a move that's better vs. a switch-in but still KOs, which lets Breloom survive.

Fern hard switches to Decidueye, who takes two Giga Drains which barely do anything, before chunking itself for a fair bit with Brave Bird.

This in turn lets Cradily 1v1 it, thankfully no Leaf Blade crits happened.

And Cradily outspeeds and finishes off Rhyperior.

This fight took me nearly 30 tries, since it requires a lot to go right and for the AI to not do anything stupid. I tried different leads (the grunt fight really is a walkover, I did it 3-4 times and didn't lose once). Unfortunately, now that Blake isn't mono-ice you can't just roll over his team with Blaziken while Haxorus is taking a nap.

Solaris and John

Spoiler

This fight is a lot easier, mostly since I've got the true ending going so I get Julia as a partner. Julia's team is way better at neutralizing Solaris's Gyarados, which removes by far the biggest threat in this encounter consistently and reliably. In tandem with John only having 5 pokemon and just overall not being as scary as Fern or Blake, this fight is still challenging but not as bad.

Scizor tries to go for the OHKO on Atlas, but a Reflect puts a stop to that. If Atlas was obeying, I could maybe go for a Fake Out here to then KO it with Electrode's help next turn, but Whiscash is kinda scary as it Dragon Dances up here.

Atlas goes down here, which is fine. He did his job and is above level cap.

Whiscash goes for the low HP Electrode here, which is nice since its Aftermath puts him into kill range for next turn after Excadrill goes down.

Scizor Superpowers Magnezone here, but drops in return.

Two more quick KOs. Both John and Solaris are down to 3 pokemon.

Unfortunately, Gyarados outspeeds Julia's Magnezone here, so the UFO goes down first. This is overall fine, since Julia will then send out something to defeat the serpent.

The Volt Switch not KOing and then me hitting Slowbro is fine, since Gyarados drops to sand damage at the end of turn anyway and Slowbro needs to be softened so Nyx can KO it. Prometheus would have gone down to Scald anyway so this is just some chip on Bronzong, who doesn't really do anything and I want to see KO'd.

Unfortunately, Nyx fails to KO, and Slowbro will go down to sand which won't give a Moxie boost.

Fly here since I was concerned about an electric move from Eelektross, in retrospect this was a misplay since the AI always goes for the lower health KO.

Fly chips Eelektross so I can finish it next turn. Both enemy attacks go into the newly switched out Golem.

Solaris hard switches to Garchomp, which is fine since it means Mandibuzz isn't attacking Nyx. Eelektross drops and the shark gets chipped.

Garchomp Earthquakes to KO Golem, and Nyx Flies up high.

Rotom just barely survives a Stone Edge, which lets it KO Garchomp with HP Ice. If it hadn't survived, I could have just Sucker Punched him down.

And the buzzard is just fodder. Easy. Despite being a dumb joke with an Air Balloon, Julia's Rotom is really helpful.

Overall this fight is much easier than the one prior. I only had 14 attempts, half of which were due to Atlas not obeying.

Ciel

Spoiler

And now for something completely different. There is pretty much no way for Prometheus to set up in this fight, so the strategy becomes simple: Get Nyx to murder everything with Sucker Punch.

+5 252+ Atk Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Altaria-Mega: 141-166 (51.4 - 60.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
With a maxed out Metronome, this is a clean KO.

So the plan then becomes to set Togekiss up to be KO'd by Nyx before she's paralyzed or KO'd by it.

We just want to get Atlas low before setting up screens. This also means the fairy won't spend turns using Thunder Wave.

Not much to say here, standard Atlas.

The Air Slash flinched, the Blaze Kick is actually the second turn after a Speed Boost. This is fine, since it's low enough for Fly to finish it.

No flinch, it's almost over.

+1 252+ Atk Minior Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Honchkrow through Reflect: 156-183 (62.4 - 73.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Possible damage amounts: (156, 157, 159, 161, 163, 165, 166, 168, 170, 172, 174, 176, 177, 180, 181, 183)

Just had to take that hit. And yes, I did set the EXP up to hit 76 before this, it reduces the chance of death pretty significantly (note that Togekiss had a near min damage roll)

Now it's over.

Not too bad overall, this only took me a few attempts, and one was where I learned that Metronome on showdown's damage calculator is bugged and shows inflated damage values for 4/5 consecutive hits--I originally had Atlas+Prometheus just KOing Togekiss, then Nyx taking the other 5, since the numbers suggested she only needed to be at +4 to KO MAlt

+4 252+ Atk Metronome Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Altaria-Mega: 287-340 (104.7 - 124%) -- guaranteed KO in 1 turns
+4 252+ Atk Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Altaria-Mega: 120-142 (43.7 - 51.8%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO

Metronome caps at 2x damage, but the above is closer to about 2.4x damage (more accurately, it's 1.1*1.2*1.3*1.4).

Next time... Adrienn.

Candy · February 21, 2019

wow my dude right here sweeping Reborn with 3 mons and I had to battle Shade ~30 times with a team of 6 psychic mons xD

thanks to you I realized my meowstic could actually outspeed gengar if EV trained a tad bit, without that I'd still be stuck in endless resetting oof

Monochrome_Complex · February 21, 2019

Man you're a monster, it's incredible you're already this far. 30 tries? You've got killer dedication. I never knew that thing about corey's crobat not being able to hit steel types, that's actually hilarious.

Funnily I find solaris/john slightly harder than fern/blake and whenever I lose this fight it's because of them.

How does the game determine your partner anyway? I've only gotten Flobot on the solaris fight once but never again, it's always Julia now.

Candy · February 21, 2019

8 hours ago, Monochrome_Complex said:

Man you're a monster, it's incredible you're already this far. 30 tries? You've got killer dedication. I never knew that thing about corey's crobat not being able to hit steel types, that's actually hilarious.

Funnily I find solaris/john slightly harder than fern/blake and whenever I lose this fight it's because of them.

How does the game determine your partner anyway? I've only gotten Flobot on the solaris fight once but never again, it's always Julia now.

when you defeat Solaris on the top of Pyrous Mountain, your partner is Julia, if you lose against that garchomp, your partner is Florinia

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1 Protect 2: Beating Pokemon Reborn With Only 3 Pokemon (through Hardy)

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