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BlazetheInferno posted:Not quite sure what you mean by this - the idea is that the total level of the three Pokemon you send into a battle cannot total more than 155. If you start with a baseline of all pokemon at level 50, that means you have a total of 5 levels to "distribute" among your three Pokemon. So you can either have a mix of 51s and 52s, or you can have a single pokemon at 55 and the other two be level 50. It just seems to me that this entire set up exists because there were 2 pokemon (well gen 1 obviously only had one) that you could only get at level 55. Everyone else is fully evolved for freely available at level 50, except for Mewtwo, who is banned anyway. So because they didn't want those 2 to be left out, and because there's no flat leveling, by having the restraint be "A selection of 3 Pokemon whose total levels cannot be 155" you could have one of them in there (your level 55) and then 2 "normal" Pokemon at the more-expected level 50. And then because of the rule it also means that you could distribute those 5 "extra" levels around your team of 3 "normal" pokemon instead. But it just seems like it stems from a technical restraint while also not wanting to exclude the 2 pseudo legends other wise it'd probably have just been "You must be level 50" Meanwhile for this cup I uhhh Did not know this cup was a thing. I only rented Stadium 2 so I never really experimented with the cups. Honestly a pretty interesting idea as a "for-fun" type thing, kind of a proto-Battle Factory.
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Oct 18, 2021 16:33
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If there were any multiplayer shenanigans I'd do with people having minimal knowledge of Stadium 2 Rentals, Challenge Cup is certainly the way to go. Challenge Cup might be harder to include in an LP due to it being somewhat random onto your team and opponents, but it is one of the more enjoyable modes without attaching a main game cartridge.
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Oct 20, 2021 01:27
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FlamingRok posted:If there were any multiplayer shenanigans I'd do with people having minimal knowledge of Stadium 2 Rentals, Challenge Cup is certainly the way to go. Challenge Cup might be harder to include in an LP due to it being somewhat random onto your team and opponents, but it is one of the more enjoyable modes without attaching a main game cartridge. Plus the music in Challenge Cup is pretty drat great.
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Oct 20, 2021 13:30
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Update 7: Persistent Ghost Type Pokemon! Welcome back to the Gym Leader Castle! This most certainly won't be as long as an update from last time, as we only have 3 trainers. However, we have had some requests for Pokemon to take a look at in the polls, so let's start fulfilling some of those, shall we?   Dragonite at least has STAB when compared to Gym Leader Castle from Stadium 1, but in return loses out on coverage, Substitute, and a buttload of stats. Between Stadium 1 and 2, it lost on average 15% of its stats, making it significantly less bulky, fast, and strong than it really deserves to be, though the STAB in Fly helps mitigate the last point somewhat. It has the same use as Scyther; spam one move and pray it’s enough, and if you’re looking for that...I might just recommend Scyther over Dragonite. The extra resistances are nice, but when you’re going to be hit first, those tend to be less relevant.   Dunsparce has one goal, and it’s to annoy the opponent. If you’re against an opponent of the opposite gender, Attract and Paralysis through Glare gives around a 66% chance of the opponent not being allowed to play the game, which can be huge. I really wish it had Headbutt over Strength, since then it could really play into its strengths but here it’s fine. Against pesky ghosts however, this strategy doesn’t work nearly as well, since they’re immune to Glare in this game, ensuring they’ll all outspeed Dunsparce. Dunsparce is far from my first choice, but having a Horn Drill chance to even be able to move can be tempting. Dunsparce will get another chance eventually, so consider this a test run of Dunsparce. I know that's what I considered it at the time.   Natu unsurprisingly has Psychic being unevolved, but Confuse Ray and Night Shade are nice too. Thanks to having Psychic, Future Sight is mostly a dead move but that’s okay. Early game, Natu can be a good offensive threat and confuser, but later on it’ll start to be outsped and ruined by much stronger Pokemon. You may ask "why not Xatu"? I have future plans for it, but also it's not very good. We'll get into why that is when we actually use Xatu.   Porygon2 on the other hand is a Pokemon that benefits from being used later in the game or in the Stadium cups thanks to Thief and good bulk! Taking a Quick Claw, Leftovers or Scope Lens away from an opponent can help even the score just a little, and Porygon2 can benefit from any of those as well. The only things really holding Porygon2 back are Zap Cannon being Zap Cannon and Conversion not being consistent. If it guaranteed changed Porygon2’s typing to Dark, Thief would actually be a pretty potent damage dealer despite the 40 power it is. As is, it’s perfectly decent, and stealing an item from the opponent is always an alluring idea.  sure why not one more for the chopping block  Magby has a great moveset but not the stats to support it, who would’ve thunk? The big appeal for Magby is help in facilitating a Sun team thanks to Sunny Day, and its Flamethrower doesn’t have the drawback of being inaccurate like Fire Blast while still being decently strong! It carries an okay speed, and can confuse to try and buy time. Magby isn’t bad per se, and it’s one of the four usable babies in this game, but there are definitely still better Fire types you can use.   Bayleef is a rare Pokemon that has four useful moves, though this trait does become more common when you no longer are looking at fully evolved Pokemon. Body Slam for paralysis spreading, Razor Leaf for decent damage, Synthesis for longevity and Safeguard to preserve that longevity is a pretty dang good moveset, but the stats do hinder it quite a bit. It’s still good, especially in the earlier sections of the game, but it’ll drop off eventually.  Thanks to Thief, Porygon2 actually has a reason not to be holding an item beforehand! I considered having it hold a Berry beforehand, but Dragonite unfortunately really needs all the help it can get.   Our first opponent is Holly, and her Pokemon to put it lightly are not very good.  (I may try and upscale/find an alternative in the future, as I do want to start covering opponent teams that aren't Gym Leaders. Bulbapedia unfortunately doesn't have minor trainers or stadium trainers documented nearly as in-depth as the Gym Leaders (plus this gives the actual power of moves/type without a fixed power/type, something that most certainly won't be prevalent later on)) None of her Pokemon are sporting spectacular movesets, with Ledian and Ditto being the sole exceptions. Ledian will likely set up its screens due to decent Speed, and this’ll make the fight drag on longer, and Ditto is holding a Metal Powder, which is actually acceptably usable in Gen 2, boosting both defenses by 50%, and this includes while its transformed! I mentioned this back when we brought Ditto along for a team, but we can’t abuse this. The AI can, so it’s more relevant to mention it once more.   And she chooses to bring easily the most worthless of them all. In theory, Unown is meant to counter other Psychic types with Hidden Power Bug.   In practice, it’s setup fodder for Magby.  After setting up the sun...   Neither Unown nor Nidorina can hold up well to the boosted Flamethrowers.  Ah, unfortunately this will definitely stand in the way of Magby.   I go for the Confuse Ray, only for it to do nothing to stop Ditto’s Transform.   It ends up being a back and forth between Magby and Ditto, while Ditto snaps out of confusion.  Unfortunately, Ditto wins out on this exchange thanks to its superior bulk, but that’s okay.   Because it really can’t stand up to much punishment once its Metal Powder is gone.   I somewhat played up Ditto’s threat level here. It’s still hilariously slow before transforming, and it would only have 5PP of all of Magby’s moves. If we somehow weren’t able to take it out in 20 turns, it’d take itself out.  Ledian and Ditto together might have been able to do something, but I still doubt it.   Speaking of annoying, here’s Ty.  Ty’s whole shtick is trapping you and whittling you down with residual damage or trying to use Perish Song to guarantee a KO. The problem is past this, Ty’s team has abysmal offensive prowess, with Golbat and Smoochum being the highlights. Misdreavus has great bulk, but that’s all it offers. There is another problem past that, but we’ll get into it during the battle.   Porygon2 probably didn’t need to come along because its highlight is bulk, which is less relevant with residual damage, but I’m not too worried regardless.  There’s the Perish Song! However, there’s a slight miscalculation on the AI’s end here. Yes, we’ll be taken out in three turns if we don’t switch out, and they do have Mean Look.   But they didn’t use it yet, so I just happily Thief and leave.   There’s the Mean Look. This is what stops Ty from being a real problem, because they use the moves out of the order they should be used in.  They Perish Song once more and we are trapped this time, but a repeated use of the move won’t reset Misdreavus’ count, leaving it at one turn after this one before its taken out.  Rather than switch out, they decide that they want to sack Misdreavus, but this end up working out pretty well for them with a crit and confusion!  And of course we hit ourselves.   But as stated before, Misdreavus was on her last turn, and so she went out with a bang. Out comes Haunter, and maybe Magby’s faster?   It’s not.  So I’m going to be honest. I initially had a much better role for Dunsparce than just taking care of a Haunter in this Gym. As I noted in our brief overview of Dunsparce’s moveset, Ghosts are immune to Glare, and that basically ruined what I wanted Dunsparce for here.   But I’m not going to just leave Dunsparce to the wayside, so let’s do some work here.  Similarly to how you can’t fly away from a curse, you can’t dig away from one either.  Dig is favored to take out Haunter here, but it is a range!  A range we unfortunately didn’t get.   We swap Dunsparce, and Porygon2 comes out, which we could’ve done at any point. Haunter has literally no moves to damage it, so it has no choice but to take itself out.  Last up is Zubat.   It didn’t do much.   To be honest, our team composition didn’t really matter at all for these first two. The condition was “can you hit a ghost type” when it boils down to it.   Morty is a completely different story.  Rocking an entire one ghost type in Gengar (I’m not counting Pokemon Tower Marowak), it’ll always come along to the party, but what else comes along is completely up in the air, and all of these Pokemon are a threat to an extent. Girafarig is probably rocking the weakest moveset, but it’s far from bad. I have to think about this for a bit, but I decide on Dragonite, Bayleef, and Porygon2. Let’s do this.   Ahh, not a matchup I savor, but this can be worked with.   ...or Morty can do that. This is perfect.  Since in my foolishness in forgetting Girafarig having Thunder to hit me even in the sky, I chose Fly for the big damage.  I say big, but the fact that Dragonite can’t even 2HKO the physically frail Gengar is concerning, and Psychic can deal good damage. We go for another Fly to hopefully be able to come out on top of this exchange.   Well that’s certainly fortunate! So Gengar, Girafarig, and something else in the back.   On the offchance that the Pokemon in the back is Ariados, I need to save Dragonite to take it out safely, so out comes Bayleef who doesn’t really fear anything Girafarig can do to it.  drat, well I suppose that’s fair enough. Still, so long as Ariados isn’t in the back, Morty can’t do much to Bayleef! So I go for the Synthesis to heal off that unlucky-    poo poo. Guess I’m glad I saved Dragonite!  A lucky Body Slam paralysis makes me feel a bit more comfortable, as maybe Bayleef can get off one more hit?  No luck. Ah well, if things start to go horribly wrong, that paralysis might be the edge to keep us in the game.   Out comes Dragonite to squash the spider flat. Sure Dragonite’s Attack isn’t as high as it deserves to be, but it’s an Ariados. It doesn’t have terrible physical bulk, but it’s nothing special, and it already took chip from Bayleef!   For anyone doubting how much weaker Dragonite is in Stadium 2, this is the perfect example.  Bayleef’s contribution comes in clutch however, allowing us to take out Ariados without any problems.  And so the war between a dragon and a giraffe begins.   Knowing it has Thunder, I cannot go for Fly and give it free damage, meaning our only usable move left is Dragon Rage. 40 consistent damage isn’t much, but if we can soften it up enough for Porygon2, this fight may still be in the bag.   Here’s that Berry in effect, but will it matter?  Surprisingly, it absolutely mattered, as it allowed for one extra Dragon Rage. 80 health down, Porygon2 has half the job done for it so we should be in the clear.  Giraffe wins against the dragon, 1-0.     A Thief v.s. Psybeam battle occurs, but thanks to Porygon2’s decent bulk, it can stand up just fine to Girafarig, and Girafarig doesn’t exactly have the best defenses.   With no crits or confusions coming into effect, there was nothing but victory assured for Porygon2.  So part of what made this update take longer to come out is because I was dissatisfied with a first try victory, as I know a lot that can go wrong in this fight -Special Defense drop from Gengar -Missing Fly -Crit from Gengar -Thunder paralysis from Girafarig -Confusion from Girafarig on Porygon2 -Confusion from Girafarig on Bayleef before Safeguard is setup There are probably other factors that could go wrong with this particular formation from Morty, and there are of course other problems that arise if they decided to bring a different squad of Pokemon, but I wanted to at least lay out a general list of things that could've made this fight swing out of our favor. Next Time: Come on, hit! FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Nov 9, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2021 03:34
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FlamingRok posted:Magby isn’t bad persay, and it’s one of the four usable babies in this game, but there are definitely still better Fire types you can use. Sorry to go grammar Nazi on you, but it's "per se." It comes from Latin and it means "of itself" or "intrinsically" (and we use Latin adverb order instead of English adverb order when using it).
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Nov 9, 2021 10:08
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better to correct me now rather than fourteen updates down the line and having to shovel through wherever that typo was
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Nov 9, 2021 13:12
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Glad Dragonite got shown off - I always loved the Dratini/Air/Ite line even if it was kind of a pain to use casually in the games.
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Nov 9, 2021 19:14
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Side Update 2: With Just a Little Beep This update won’t have any Stadium 2 battles whatsoever, and only a very brief view at items that are relevant to said battles. If you’re only interested in the battling, feel free to skip this update.   “get a gift.” Welcome back to another side update. Today, we’ll be looking at a feature not many people made great use of, which is the Mystery Gift. We’re starting in Crystal since in order for us to even make use of Mystery Gift, we need to interact with Carrie (Okuru in Japan) (this girl on the fifth floor of the Goldenrod Department Store).  And just like any of Stadium’s connectivity with the Gameboy, we’ll need to have saved inside of a Pokemon Center beforehand. So what is Mystery Gift? It was essentially a way for players to connect to each other and give away little daily bonus items to each other. This was done using the Infrared on the Gameboy Color to interact with other copies of Gen 2 games and also the Pokemon Pikachu 2 GS if you were living in America, the Pokemon Pikachu Color in Europe, and the long winded name of Pocket Pikachu Color! Gold and Silver Together! in Japan. It just so happens that through the Transfer Pak on the N64 Controller, the Mystery Gift was also accessible in Pokemon Stadium 2 as well. Crosspiece made a nice summary of it back on their Pokemon Crystal LP, but at the time they couldn’t show off how it worked with Stadium 2.   So let’s see what many of us missed out on, shall we? Here we have our Crystal game saved in the Pokemon Center so that we’re able to fully transfer items over to our game.  Here’s Carrie in all her N64 glory! If this is your first time interacting with her on the Gameboy save file, she has a unique piece of dialogue. "Oh, hello. Glad to meet you. I'm always here every day. Would you be my Mystery Gift friend? Go beep with many people. You'll get all sorts of gifts."   Her lines verbatim from Goldenrod are here, and we get offered to accept the Mystery Gift.  We of course accept. A small detail here is that depending on the time of day, the background will change from a bright blue sky to a starry night, and the colors on Carrie darken slightly during the nighttime.  Ooh, a doll! Dolls are mostly unique to Mystery Gift, and once you receive one, you cannot receive the same one again on that save file, so we got a decent gift today.  Carrie on the other hand gets something a lot less exciting from us, which is an X Special, a purchasable stat booster from the department store. If this is the first time she’s receiving this item, she’ll note as such.  And that’s about it. Now because we got a decoration item, we don’t have to redeem it at the Lab. Dolls are not considered regular items, and instead exist purely at home. So let’s run it back and show that off!   Oh. Right. It’s supposed to be daily. Now if this were back in 2001, there’s a likely chance you’ll just have to wait out that full day and check back in then.  However, we’re in 2021. Information is much more plentiful and easier to access nowadays, and as it turns out, there’s a solution to remedy our problem. By holding SELECT, then holding B+DOWN, releasing B+DOWN and then holding UP+LEFT, and finally releasing SELECT...  Meet the reset clock debug. Mystery Gift will only check and see if the weekday is the same as when the gifts were last traded, but I don’t want to wait a whole day! It’s possible some kids stumbled upon this screen while fumbling around with controls.  But even if they did, there’s a code that’s blocking our way. The code is actually based off of your Trainer Name, ID, and current Money on hand, and then through some basic math and character ID values, you could piece together what the specific code is. ...or you could be lazy and just look up a tool that does the job for you online.  And now we have a nifty little textbox saying that the time isn’t set!   I’d argue the clock’s time flat out doesn’t exist, but resetting the time is exactly what we want to do.   After going through that effort, be sure to save the game, otherwise you’ll have to set the time again and it won’t be compatible with Mystery Gift!  And just like that, we can Mystery Gift once more. Sometimes if there’s a larger day gap, Carrie will take note of it.  So you know how we got something fairly unique that first time we used Mystery Gift? Sure would be neat if we could get more of that!     Yeah, so part of why this is rather annoying is bceause there’s a lot of junk that you can receive as well. And since most of these aren’t decorations...  We get to constantly go to the Lab and clean up our trash!  Every. Single. Time.  So into what I call the designated trash bin (or the N64 Metal Case) it goes.  You’re at no risk of running out of space in the Metal Case, supporting upwards to 250 item slots! This is also a visual representation onto just how much junk you truly build up.  Anyways, time to reset the clock again! You may of noticed that if Carrie transfers a regular item, the game will state that “The little girl sent [x]”, but if she transfers a decoration item, it’ll instead state “A girl transferred [x]”. Probably just a translation quirk.  Ah, so for the first few times you’re using Mystery Gift, Carrie will sometimes bring up the Tentacool Doll. This is actually a Doll completely exclusive to Pokemon Stadium 2! The caveat? It’s at a painfully low rate of 0.1% of being gifted. Actually, while we’re talking about luck, let’s pull up the possible items obtainable from Mystery Gift!  The items listed underneath Common are a 5% chance, Uncommon has 1%, Rare has 0.2%, and Very Rare has, you guessed it, a 0.1% chance of appearing. You might also notice two special items on there that would actually be of use for a Gen 2 or Stadium 2 Transfer team; Scope Lens and MiracleBerry. Scope Lens boosts your critical hit ratio by one stage, which essentially means you have twice the probability to land a critical hit, and MiracleBerry is the modern Lum Berry. Two very useful items! Both locked behind a completely luck based system that requires outside hardware! And even in that 0.1% chance...  There’s items that clog up the unique one time rewards. PP Up isn’t the worst prize to get, and on a playthrough it's probably the one you want, but in Stadium 2 where I’m not using the cartridge game for much more than showing off content that’s exclusive to it, it sure feels rough.   It seems that the odds on Carrie’s receiving gifts are equal to the player’s odds, which is interesting since we’d never see what she gets out of some of these items.  Something else that’s interesting is that the game does keep track of what dolls Carrie has received, so she won’t be receiving a new Machop Doll again.  She also has different levels of gratuity depending on the rarity of the item! This is her getting a revive for the first time, but since it’s an Uncommon item, she’s more thankful for it.   The same goes with this Green Carpet and Scope Lens, and she’s even more excited. She sports different dialogue whether the item she's receiving is decoration or not as well, though the general language seems to be similar.   ...ah.  Why yes I am, thank you for asking. Once Carrie gets hold of a Rare or Very Rare decoration, occasionally she’ll bring it up in conversation and ask if you’re jealous, an extra stinger if you’re looking for that decoration in particular.  One more thing. Sometimes she’ll say that she wants a certain Rare or Very Rare item. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t affect the odds at all, and is just flavor text. That should just about cover it for the Mystery Gift. Carrie got given a bit of personality despite her 3 whole text boxes of dialogue in Gen 2, and I think it’s neat that this much attention was put into the Mystery Gift when it could’ve easily have been a simple “receive” button and “okay see you tomorrow” if you’ve already obtained a gift. I’ll cover “My Room” in a future side update, since I don’t want this side update to go on for too long. ...okay fine maybe a few more spins at the Mystery Gift wouldn’t hurt.  Oh?  Oh?!        Now would it have been effortless to hack these in myself? Sure, but is there something inherently cool about managing to get them naturally from Mystery Gift? I think so. If you keep the cartridge attached, you can give items not available to rentals by default, so I could technically make use of this. I won’t since it defeats the purpose of the challenge, but the option would be there.Bonus!  There’s a unique portrait for the female protagonist in Crystal! It’s not that visually distinct, but it’s there!
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Nov 11, 2021 06:31
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Huh. I didn't know that it keeps track of what she's gotten like that. Neat!
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Nov 11, 2021 07:40
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I used Mystery Gift but I was a child without much of an understanding of English back then, so I missed pretty much everything here! I didn't know she had so many reactinons and whatnot. That's some effort there.
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Nov 11, 2021 13:26
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It's really cute(/frustrating) how the game treats this as "actually" doing it with a person, down to telling you what they got and keeping track of them and everything.
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Nov 12, 2021 15:14
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Growing up I didn't have any friends who played Pokemon so Carrie was the only way for me to do the mystery gift. I used to get up every morning before school to trade with her and I actually got very attached to her and would be almost as happy when she got nice stuff as I was when I did. Suffice to say this update was incredibly nostalgic to me. 
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Nov 15, 2021 01:53
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Link battles kind of sucked because you couldn't even equalize levels, so me and my buds never touched the link stuff either because it's not like we would carry pokemon with us just for mystery gift. I wound up in a similar boat where I only really used it with stadium
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Nov 15, 2021 02:35
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Huh. With how thorough this is otherwise, I'm actually kind of surprised you didn't mention the Viridian Trainer House and how Carrie actually has 3 different teams she switches between for this purpose, which does really help with the simulates concept of her doing other things between Mystery Gift beeps. EDIT: Ah, I forgot how thorough Crosspeice was in documenting that side of things, and I apparently brain farted on noticing the direct mention of that Crystal LP the first time I read this update. My bad! NyoroEevee fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Nov 15, 2021 |
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Nov 15, 2021 10:52
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NyoroEevee posted:Huh. With how thorough this is otherwise, I'm actually kind of surprised you didn't mention the Viridian Trainer House and how Carrie actually has 3 different teams she switches between for this purpose, which does really help with the simulates concept of her doing other things between Mystery Gift beeps. I probably could've shown it off, but that'd require a full playthrough of Crystal to get there, as well as you mentioned that Crosspiece covered it already. I like Crystal a lot, but not enough to run the whole game alongside this! Gen 2's Mystery Gift was more unique compared to future generations where it's now mainly relegated to events and the such, where as here it's just kind of a neat side thing. Of course because of that, I can see why Game Freak altered it to be more meaningful, but there is a certain charm to this one. Update coming along later today. 
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Nov 17, 2021 23:15
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Update 8: It’s a Tense Situation! Continuing on through the castle, we encounter Chuck and his infamous friend alongside him. We’ll get into why they’re so infamous in just a little bit, but let’s take a look at the team I brought along for the job ahead.  Haunter at first glance may look much worse than its Stadium 1 counterpart. It’s lost almost all of its Special Coverage and got the nearly useless Spite over the situational Self-Destruct. However Stadium 2 gave it a fantastic gift in return; Destiny Bond. Who cares if your coverage lacks when you can threaten to take a slower Pokemon out in an instant? Haunter is the fastest Destiny Bond user in the game, and so while it’s technically more situational than in Stadium 1, it’s still incredibly useful.  Mantine does have dual STAB, but Wing Attack off of Mantine’s Attack is laughably bad, so it’s usually not worth it. Outside of that, it’s completely okay. Waterfall is a good move, and its Special bulk is insane, but everything else is kind of “eh”. Supersonic can be viable on a bulkier Pokemon, but that’s really stretching it, and if I’m already recommending against Wing Attack, don’t bother with Take Down. It has its uses, and in fact it’s mainly in this update, but outside of that it’s fine.  Piloswine has STAB Earthquake and also has Icy Wind for some support, which makes it worth considering for a team based on those two criteria alone. Defensively unfortunately Piloswine is awful, getting hit by all three starter elemental types super effectively, alongside Steel and Fighting. In fact, if Piloswine comes face to face with a Steel type not named Magneton, it can’t do anything other than maybe help another teammate come in with Icy Wind. Piloswine isn’t a bad Pokemon, but the dual typing hurts more than helps.  Ledyba is a bad Pokemon, but it has some traits worth mentioning. Its decent Special Defense means it can usually tank neutral Special hits, and then...well offensively it’ll do gently caress all, but Safeguard and Reflect are both good tools to have to support a team. If you’re still alive after taking two hits, you could try and fish for a freeze, or heaven forbid save Ledyba to set up again later in the fight, but that’d require you to be able to switch in again, which it’s doubtful if that opportunity arises. It’s here because it has a use, but in most circumstances it’s not worth it at all.  Staryu was slightly absurd in Stadium 1, and it’s not any less in Stadium 2. Amazing coverage, good Special Attack and great Speed, and Recover. Sure it’s fairly frail, and so there are Pokemon that can outdamage the recovery given by Recover, but the ones that can’t have a seriously hard time against Staryu. It really only wishes it had a way to hit Grass types, but if that’s its only concern, it’s very good.  Parasect loses Growth and Mega Drain in exchange for Giga Drain for more immediate damage and Slash. It also loses Dig in exchange for Fury Cutter, so it’s probably a little worse than in Stadium 1. Fortunately, sleep is still extremely powerful, and Parasect wasn’t likely to stay on the field for long anyways, so the instant damage buff is nice for it. It’s completely fine if not susceptible to some common types.  The only items that really matter here are the Berry and the Bitter Berry, and yes Ledyba wants the Bitter Berry.   Hello Nick.  So there’s a common theme you might notice. Ignoring that for a moment...okay I guess we can’t, because the rest of their movesets are awful, with Seaking and Hitmonlee being the standout threats. Seaking has a potentially nasty combination with Endure and Flail, while Hitmonlee just hits really hard, and ghosts aren’t even safe thanks to Foresight. But yes, Nick primarily uses OHKO moves.   Speaking of Pokemon with no OHKO moves, here’s Hitmontop!  Shadow ball chunks a decent amount out of it,   but I don’t want Haunter to take on Dig.   Mantine is the perfect choice for Hitmontop, especially on the switch in.  That right there was Triple Kick, Hitmontop’s signature move. It starts at 10 power and increases in power by 10 for each additional kick that connects, so at best you have a 60 power Fighting move, and at worst you have a move that technically is worse than Constrict! Even when hit all three times, Mantine doesn’t really care.   And so Hitmontop goes down after a few turns of sneezing on Mantine.  Well, here’s the main “threat” of the team so to say.   And why we have specifically the combination of Haunter and Mantine together for this fight.   People who made it to this gym likely remember this line. If Nick’s OHKO move is able to hit, he will go for it with the special exception of Seaking when low on health. This means so long as the opponent isn’t a Ghost type, Horn Drill will be attempted, and so long as the opponent isn’t a Flying type, Dugtrio will try for Fissure. This leads to Nick repeating this line quite often throughout the fight if you’re taking him on properly.  We are not.  I even decide to have some fun and use Spite and fish for the 4 reduction, but I don’t quite get it.   After eating a Waterfall, we bring in Mantine to easily resist the next one. A Horn Drill is coming, but I decide to take my chances, and no matter if it hits or misses, it’s the last one Seaking has.  Nice.  And well, unnecessary but also nice!   We bring in Staryu and from here, the fight is pretty much over.     In case you’re wondering what happened with Seaking since it lived a Thunder, it tried to go for Endure+Flail and I would’ve shown that off if it wasn’t paralyzed.   Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ve hit enough OHKO moves on other people who’ve played this game.   But let’s move onto the real threat.  All of his Pokemon know DynamicPunch, which is a strong but inaccurate 50% accuracy move that guarantees confusion if it hits (well okay there is a glitch in Gen 2 that causes that status to not show up 1/256 times but to make it easier to explain we’ll just say 100% guaranteed confusion). Every one of his Pokemon are physically strong, and Poliwrath (who will come to the fight every time) is the first Pokemon of Gym Leader Castle to have one of the luck based items in Focus Band! Focus Band gives the Pokemon a 12% chance of surviving an attack at 1HP no matter what, which can get infuriating. I bring Haunter, Ledyba (yes I’m serious), and Parasect.  ( Fortunately for us, Chuck isn’t very bright.   Instead of swapping out Hitmonchan which literally cannot hit us at all…   Chuck in his infinite wisdom goes for DynamicPunch against Haunter.   Multiple times in fact.   Until it goes down. Don’t give me that Chuck, you know exactly how.  There we go, that’s certainly more threatening than Hitmonchan.  Threatening enough that I don’t want to deal with it.   A 2 for 1 trade from Haunter is pretty solid, and I believe we can handle Poliwrath just fine.   Even with Ledyba along for the ride.    Master tactician Chuck misses the DynamicPunch, and allows Ledyba to set up Reflect for free.  ( Of course a crit instantly negates that, but we are still quad resistant to the move.  And that guaranteed confusion is negated thanks to our berry choice.   This is why you don’t attack with Ledyba!  We set up Safeguard as now our Bitter Berry is gone and to help out Parasect just a bit.  And there’s Ledyba’s Special Defense somehow shining and surviving a STAB Hydro Pump!  I went for Double-Edge since I believed I was going down, and that’s a cute crit.  A Ledyba getting taken out by recoil, that’s not something you see often. Of course neither is a Ledyba attacking, but whatever.  Parasect comes out for cleanup duty.  Psychic dents us decently, but you know what Parasect does best?     Draining sleeping victims.   The Safeguard Ledyba put up actually ensured Chuck used Psychic, as it was his best move to use since DynamicPunch couldn’t confuse with it up. Otherwise, I would’ve left it up to chance. Unlikely chances mind you, but still a chance, and I wanted to keep it as safe as possible.  So anyways, that’ll do for this update. Next time we’ll check out-  Wait, Jasmine is the only one in the Olivine Gym?  Well I suppose we can try and take her out with this same squad too then, why not? Jasmine as a solo update wouldn’t exactly be interesting.   Jasmine has outfitted her team with two Water types to counter teams hoping to sweep with Fire and Ground types, and most Fighting types can’t do much to Forretress or Skarmory. Steelix and its Scope Lens will always come to the battle, which is honestly a good thing, as it’s one of her worse Pokemon being very slow and vulnerable to Water. Jasmine often will bring either Mantine or Corsola depending on the other Pokemon she brings along so that she’s not completely helpless. Staryu leads, and is backed up by Mantine and Piloswine.   Ah.   No thank you!  Jasmine is quite a bit more intelligent than Chuck, opting to swap out Magneton from Piloswine’s Earthquake.   And this tells us Steelix was her best swap to tank Earthquake, and not completely negate it, so no Skarmory or Mantine!   Of course Piloswine isn’t interested in taking an Iron Tail, and Mantine resists it despite its Defense not being the best.   That’s not great.  And that is even worse! Wonderful!  Thankfully Mantine is faster than the giant iron snake and can take it out with Waterfall.  So that’s the whole team. Corsola and Magneton both share a weakness to Piloswine, but I need an opportunity to swap her in.   Maybe Staryu can grant that.  Can we calm down with the crits?   Corsola sees the KO and goes for Psychic, thanks to Recover however we can outheal Corsola’s damage output.  Which prompts her to bring out Magneton. And that gives me my opportunity.  Out comes Piloswine to finish the job.  Magneton decides to stay in and use Swift as Corsola can’t take Earthquake well.   Too bad Swift is a bad move by itself, and it’s on a Pokemon not known for having very high Attack.   Corsola gets a nice helping of Earthquake as well, but can actually tank one!  It goes for Bubblebeam to try and finish off Piloswine, but falls short.   And you know how this ends.    Because of her selections, there are some times when Staryu can completely clean up Jasmine all by itself, notably when she brings along Mantine and Skarmory. Forretress rarely comes along unless the team preview shows something weak to Giga Drain.  And with that, two Gyms down in one update is pretty good! I’ll be honest and say that I wanted to challenge myself to find a team that can take both out since it wouldn’t be too hard to take care of them individually. But with that, see you all next time for-  Huh?  Oh, hello Team Rocket! Nice of you to interrupt our progress, thanks a bunch!  So before we take on Pryce, we’ve got some jokers to take care of. Or maybe we just leave this alone for a little bit and go back to the stadiums? Next Time: Crime?
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Nov 18, 2021 02:46
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I remember Jasmine gave me a lot of trouble as a kid, those Water types completely ruined my strategy. But then again, I was a kid, maybe it'd be a lot easier for me now. I never thought I'd see a Ledyba contribute to anything. What a weird game.
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Nov 18, 2021 12:51
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Bug power 
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Nov 18, 2021 13:43
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Update 9: There’s a Big HP Difference! Seems Team Rocket has invaded the Gym Leader Castle!    Anyways let’s ignore responsibilities, and where better to go than the daycare to do so?  Since I’ve kind of glossed over the rules of each cup, I figure now’s a good time to view them. Most of them are self-explanatory, but there is a rule specific to Little Cup that many people who’ve played modern Little Cup are familiar with.  Since Sonicboom OHKOs most of the Pokemon in Little Cup and Dragon Rage will OHKO all Pokemon (with one special exception), they aren’t permitted. The equivalent to Little Cup in Stadium 1 was Petit Cup, but the levels were much higher, and so HP numbers could allow for 20 and 40 set damaging moves.  And this rule has been present in every battle we've done and will ever do in the future. This is what stops us from going full Self-Destruct teams or saving a Perish Song user until the very end. On the plus side, the AI also has to follow these rules, so we won’t have to worry about being gimmicked out that way. Anyways with that out of the way, let’s get to our team!  Rattata: the first route Pokemon people often gloss over packs Hyper and Super Fang, giving it great damage output, even if Super Fang is considerably less useful here due to the lower HP numbers. Luckily thanks to all the lower stats going around, Thief actually isn’t wasted on Rattata, both for getting rid of a good item and just dealing okay damage! It’s pretty frail and will likely be taken out in two hits by anything, but it also will likely leave a nice dent in the opponent before going down.  Dratini is interesting, as it is the only Pokemon in Little Cup that has access to Safeguard, and the only Dragon type as well. This makes for a somewhat interesting combination with Outrage since in Gen 2 Safeguard protects against self inflicted confusion as well, so Outrage can be used safely without repercussions! It also has a nice number of resistances too, but it isn’t quite bulky or strong enough to be a must have on a team. That being said, the use for it is there, and it’s far from bad.  Larvitar is your only option for Rock Slide, but luckily for it the moveset it got isn’t half bad! Dual STAB even if the other move is Mud-Slap is appealing, Scary Face for speed control is always a positive, and depending on your team Sandstorm might be worth it. With all that being said, Rock/Ground defensively is weak to a bevvy of types, especially Grass and Water, so it can be hard to get it on the field safely.  Chinchou is one of the bulkiest Water types you’ll get, and it comes with a dual type of Electric which combined with its Speed is more of a boon than a hindrance. Sure, neither of the two STAB moves are that high in power, but the 30% chance of a Spark paralysis is always worthwhile and no Ground types outside of Diglett really want to swap into Chinchou’s Spark thanks to Water Gun. It even has Flail, and thanks to its above average HP it can in theory get the max power of the move! Of course because Water Gun is weak, Chinchou can only do so much, but it’s worthwhile.  Scyther in Little Cup? What is this blasphemy?! Scyther’s stats tower over many of Little Cup’s Pokemon with unrivaled Speed and Attack and great bulk, so having it as a rental is incredible! If that all sounds too good to be true, well you’re right, because while 16 Attack is the highest we have access to, we get stuck with Cut, so it’s completely wasted. The bulk is good, but we don’t do that much damage in return, and defensively our typing is anything but enviable. Thanks to the lower stats, Pursuit isn’t actually worthless, and so it will give Scyther a role in this team.  Hoppip is the best user of Giga Drain in rentals. Woohoo? Leech Seed can help Hoppip’s survivability a little, and Cotton Spore can enable Headbutt flinches alongside the passive healing. If things go according to plan, Hoppip is a great asset to the team with good support and decent damage! If something Hoppip is weak against hits it, it’ll likely go down in one hit! Hoppip isn’t too difficult to get on to the field, but it also isn’t very hard to answer either, so Hoppip is awkward to use, but if handled properly can help secure a win.  And here are the berries I decided on! Rattata’s frailty will actually be beneficial here to trigger the Berry more consistently, and Bitter Berry is for when we don’t have time to set up Safeguard. The other berries are somewhat interchangeable, though admittedly I wish I put the PRZCureBerry on Scyther. Ah well, I’m sure that won’t screw us over down the line!    Welcome to our first battle in Little Cup! This is probably the only battle I’d call “easy”, and even then there are some Pokemon that could cause problems depending on the team we bring. Togepi and Sunkern are dead weight, but the rest of his Pokemon have great STAB moves that can hurt us pretty bad.   Ah, well Cross Chop will hurt real bad but Mankey also isn’t very sturdy, so this might be okay.   Especially when Mankey decides Thunderpunch is the best option, and our Spark does about half of Mankey’s HP.   Oh, we’re speed tied! Well that’s certainly convenient!  Well Chinchou can definitely take on this, and seeing that Sunkern didn’t come out to answer us, I think we’ve got this. Sunkern might be dead weight, but I’d have to swap all the same since Chinchou wouldn’t do much in return.    We definitely had that.   That’s not how Little Cup works Bernie.    Stacy specializes in Normal types, most of them being physical with the exception of Igglybuff, and Igglybuff isn’t very good to begin with. Everything else either has a Special move to ensure physically bulky Pokemon aren’t a wall or a coverage move for things like Rock types.   Despite this, I still lead Larvitar.   I didn’t expect Larvitar to actually be faster than Snubbull naturally, so this Scary Face was unfortunately a waste of time.  That’s okay since Bite didn’t do that much and Rock Slide is a clean 2HKO!  ...3HKO!   There we go.  Rattata is most certainly faster than Larvitar, and Dig from this range is likely to KO Larvitar.   In the interest of trying to get a continue, we bring in our own rat.   We end up tanking the Dig pretty well, and Hyper Fang should deal a good-  Ooooor we’ll get nailed by Quick Attack first! It doesn’t take us out luckily, and our Berry recovers most of what the Rattata did to us.  Here’s that Quick Attack in action.   We’re taking that, just in case!  Here’s probably the biggest threat of her team. It might not be strong, but with Headbutt and Bite it can flinch its way to success, and Thunder for coverage can certainly hurt.  So much for that BrightPowder!   Out comes Larvitar to Mud-Slap Meowth. It’s a bit of chip, and since Meowth is faster than our Pokemon in the back, a 25% chance to miss might help out.   Chinchou should be able to tank a few Headbutts, assuming they even hit, and Spark should finish the job.  You stop that.   Oh thank god.   Oh there’s a likely chance we will, don’t you worry.   That’s the spirit! Well, that’s what I’d be saying if it weren’t for this guy’s gimmick.  Surprise, all confusion! With the exception of Bellsprout, they all have decent Speed (shoutouts to Diglett which can’t be outsped with rentals, only speed tied) and either Confuse Ray if they can learn it or Swagger to be extra annoying. This can become a frustrating lottery onto whether you can progress in the cup or not.   Luckily, I have a plan.  There’s the Swagger,  But we recover from our confusion thanks to our berry, and Safeguard goes up. This should keep us safe for a few turns.   Having no better moves to use against Dratini, it goes for Dig for some fairly unimpressive damage.   Dratini on the other hand can deal a clean 2HKO whenever Cyndaquil hangs out above ground.  That would’ve helped earlier!  Chikorita comes along, maybe he brought all three starters?  poo poo, okay maybe not the time to think about what he brought along. I decide to risk the Outrage despite no longer having Safeguard protecting us.  Chikorita for some reason doesn’t go for the Swagger, maybe it saw a potential KO with Headbutt?  Either way, it lets us get off a decent hit before-  Winning a speed tie and taking out the Chikorita! Alright, Dratini is pulling more weight than expected in this fight admittedly.  I’m thankful he didn’t bring his own Chinchou, as that’s usually pretty difficult to deal with having good bulk, speed, parafusion for a 66% chance of you not doing anything, and a Berry to effectively make its HP 33.   I attempt to get Dratini to dent Bellsprout before going down but to no avail. That’s alright, at a 2v1 advantage we should have this in the bag.  Especially since Hyper Fang is still a really good move.    Refusing to let any luck elements take this victory away, I reset the confusion by swapping.  That Chinchou bulk shows itself off by managing to tank a Razor Leaf, and this is great.  Because Flail really ruins Bellsprout’s day.   We don’t break through the Swagger that follows, but at this point we’ve done more than enough.   Rattata continues to prove that it’s a step up from other Route 1 rodents.   This fight as I stated earlier has the potential to be a very frustrating battle of coin flips. This is one of the fights I dread going against for this very reason.   Not that Janet is much fun either.  Everyone loves Double Team, right? Evasion is a really cool mechanic and hasn’t caused any problems for anyone ever! Joking aside, it’s a good thing that outside of Double Team, her team isn’t actually very good. Spinarak is probably the most threatening, and it’s not really that tough to deal with, it just has the potential to trap something that gets roughed up by Sludge Bomb.   Hoppip makes its first appearance in this cup, and it’s not exactly the most enthralling entrance against a Tyrogue.  That being said, Double Team is still annoying, and I’d like to ensure I’m chipping away at its HP if I end up missing a bunch.   And so it begins.   This slugfest starts up, with Giga Drain keeping us nice and healthy and despite Tyrogue having bad stats, a base 84 Frustration against Hoppip’s meager defenses will do work.  The Double Team fortunately didn’t actually do anything meaningful!  Well that’s not great. We can’t Leech Seed this and Sludge Bomb will mess up Hoppip’s day.   So we bring in Larvitar. Despite Paras being part Grass, it actually doesn’t have any Grass moves to speak of, so Larvitar is a safe swap here.  Or not!   Dratini should be able to handle Paras just fine with Outrage, so-   Alright then, Dratini should be able to handle Geodude just fine with Outrage, so I go for it.  That definitely helps!  From here, Paras can’t do much in return.  It apparently knows this as well, since it tries to put Dratini to sleep despite the sleep clause existing.   Thanks for throwing Paras.    So that’s half of the cup done, and so far not much has been problematic, which is surprising!   So let’s move onto Clark.  Everything on Clark’s team knows Hidden Power for coverage, but they aren’t at max power thankfully. Even without Hidden Power though, most of his Pokemon hit hard and none of them except Natu are really that trivial to take down.   So this is both good and bad. We will guaranteed take out Smoochum in one hit, but Psychic is going to mess us up bad.   We don’t have anything safe to swap to either though, so we’ve just gotta take it.  And down goes Smoochum.  Agh, that’s rough. We can take this out in one hit too, but Growlithe is absolutely faster than Larvitar.   Larvitar is probably our win condition, so I’ve got to try and slow it down, but I don’t believe Hoppip is a safe swap here, so I’ve got to sac Scyther. I’m very much wishing I brought Chinchou instead.   We manage to get in a Cut before going down. I highly doubt it’ll matter, but there’s a chance!   Ah poo poo, I thought we were faster! This is probably going to be a loss.  Oh wow, we lived? The speed drop will ensure Larvitar is faster now, but we can’t swap to it.  So it’s time for Headbutt flinches!  One!  And that’s all we’ll get, fair enough.  Well this ensures we can use the 100% accurate Mud-Slap at least, but we’re probably finished unless Mareep comes out.  Well, there’s a chance if we speed tie!    We either don’t or we lost it.   While that sucks, our chances of winning that were pretty slim anyways, with lucky misses from Mud-Slap being necessary.  So let’s try and run it back!  poo poo. It may not have a Rock move, but it resists us pretty well so I doubt it’ll swap out.   So I’m wrong! Why did it bother swapping at all, because Mareep can deal with Scyther I guess?  That sure sucks for us though, that’s for certain.   So we quick swap to Larvitar.   Unfortunately we can’t take two Hidden Powers, but we get a Mud-Slap in. Maybe it’ll be enough to tip the scale in our favor?   Scyther can land a decent Cut on Mareep at least.  Good thing I didn’t put that PRZCureBerry on Scyther huh?   And despite having their accuracy lowered a stage Mareep manages to hit the Thunder anyways.  A 1v3 isn’t exactly what I want, but Mareep is low on health and Larvitar should be a clean OHKO, so we might still have this.  Water Gun to my dismay can’t even take out Mareep, and I pray for the Thunder miss.   Still in this!  ...why? My only guess is that the Pokemon in the back is Growlithe, and if that’s the case we really might have a chance here!   (he did in fact have Growlithe in the back)   Alright, last continue let’s do this! This is a good matchup since we can ensure we won’t be confused with our berry and Safeguard, so we go for that move exactly.   That’s rough, but at least if Natu comes back in soon it’ll be mostly useless!   Psychic chunks most of our HP, but we manage an Outrage hit before we go down.   In my Chuck level wisdom I bring out Larvitar despite having a perfectly healthy and capable Chinchou in the back.  No, that’s what I may’ve done.   Out comes Natu and takes out Larvitar with Hidden Power. It’s a weak Hidden Power though, so we might be able to fight our way through this.   We can definitely take another Hidden Power, and even through the Berry, Spark is a 2HKO!  OH COME ON. Well it had to happen eventually, I just really wish it hadn’t happened in Little Cup. Losses: 3 Next Time: The Back Half
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Nov 24, 2021 01:49
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Update 10: The Long Battle Ends Now! So let’s resume where we last lost, shall we? This time, I’ve managed to build up 3 continues thanks to confusion luck being kind to me, and we’re going to need every one of those, hopefully none against Clark! Here’s a refresher onto his team.  (we bring Dratini, Chinchou, and Larvitar)     This interaction goes exactly how you’d expect it, with us dealing decent damage with Dratini but ultimately going down.   And I still somehow think that basically throwing Larvitar away is the right move.  This decision handles Smoochum well enough…   But Growlithe ensures we don’t go any further, and we’re left with a 2v1.   Chinchou can chunk Growlithe for pretty decent damage with Water Gun at least.   The same can be said for Dig however.  It’s looking grim, but if Larvitar is in the back (and Focus Band doesn’t activate), we’ve still got this.     Phew! Maybe we didn’t deserve to win that, but I’ll take it all the same. It’s far from the only problem we’re going to run into after all.  Please don’t, you already were a huge problem.    Despite what her movesets hint at, Cora actually doesn’t use Attract very often. She doesn’t really need to when her Pokemon are all decently tough and have good offensive moves. Cleffa is probably the least threatening, but Berry Juice allowing for 20 extra HP and the whole slew of Attract+Paralysis+Flinch+Confusion ensures it can still be a huge hassle, though I’ve never seen her go all in on this. I bring Rattata, Chinchou, and Hoppip.   In the situation where Kabuto came out instead of Oddish, Chinchou would be able to deal with that just fine on a swap.  Chunking Oddish for half its HP with Hyper Fang is pretty good, and we should tank anything Oddish throws-   Of course.  Because of Sludge Bomb, Hoppip can’t afford to come out at all, though Chinchou isn’t much safer.   Especially because of that. While PRZCureBerry would’ve been better on Scyther in the long run, it’s definitely helping us out here.  And so I go for my win condition.    And instantly lose it.   I’m not going to pretend we can win with only Hoppip in the back.   So let’s try this again, this time we bring Larvitar along for the ride, which should completely stomp Cleffa and handle Hoothoot fine.  What it won’t do is take on Kabuto.  That’s a job for Chinchou.  Mega Drain does middling damage thanks to Chinchou’s bulk, and Spark should do a good chunk of damage to Kabuto.    Or not. Welp!   Now I’m in a really bad position, as I didn’t bring Hoppip to this fight out of concern that Oddish would wall my entire team, so Rattata is our best bet.  The Earthquake forced us to consume our Berry, but Hyper Fang dents Wooper pretty decently, and who knows, Earthquake might be a range?  If it is, it got the range.   Out comes Larvitar, who is surprisingly faster than Wooper and lands a Mud-Slap for chip.  Unfortunately, one Earthquake is enough to take out Larvitar still. In hindsight, Rock Slide would’ve dealt quite a bit more damage, but maybe it did enough for Water Gun to take it out?   It didn’t. So let’s run that back one more time!   Back to our original start.   Two Hyper Fangs are enough to take out Oddish when they don’t end up critting us.  Dratini’s Special Attack may not be overly impressive, but combined with good type coverage and the lower stats of everything else in Little Cup, Dratini is certainly a dangerous Pokemon, one that we want rid of as soon as possible.  God damnit.   Thankfully no paralysis from Dragonbreath, and Hyper Fang deals very respectable damage.  If only the other one hit too!  Our best answer here is Chinchou, as with its good Special Defense and PRZCureBerry, Dragonbreath can’t much to threaten it, and Spark should be a clean 2HKO.   ...or that can happen.  When she revealed her last was Cleffa, I sighed a breath of relief.   Now Cleffa isn’t a complete pushover: it has decent bulk and a STAB Headbutt to its name.  Not to mention that Berry Juice to have effectively 41HP.   This Spark and Headbutt war rages on until finally Chinchou can’t handle anymore, but at this point it’s weak enough for anything to handle, and slower than everything thanks to Paralysis.    And so Hoppip does exactly that.   And that’s why we most certainly need the extra continues!   (oh god the opponent has a Scyther that’s not a rental)  Tina’s team sports strong STAB moves alongside Quick Attack if the Pokemon can learn it, making her always a threat. Sentret is also holding an item that is exclusive to Gen 2; Berserk Gene. Berserk Gene grants a +2 Attack boost but in exchange confuses the user and is consumed upon use. In the cartridge games, this was permanent until you switched out, but here in Stadium 2, it’s regular confusion. This is probably the biggest change between GSC and Stadium 2 mechanic wise. Oh uh, right the fight. I bring Larvitar, Chinchou, and Rattata.   Oh.  No thank you!   Luckily it misses the Blizzard it was going for, and we even manage to crit a Water Gun in return! It still wasn’t enough to take it out, but it goes for Take Down…  And misses again, so we essentially have a 3v2 on our hands!   Out comes the bulky Eevee and it immediately denies us the first move with Quick Attack.   This exchange repeats, but since Eevee has a Berry, this is mainly to rough it up enough for Rattata to come in and clean up.   After another Quick Attack, I wonder if Flail does more damage at this HP.  It’s about the same, so I allow Eevee to finish me off with Quick Attack.  ...or Eevee can go for Bite instead and allow me to deal extra damage?   I’m certainly not complaining, and this ensures Rattata’s success.   It leaves us with a rude chip before biting the bullet, but what’s in the back?  gently caress.   I shouldn’t have bothered swapping here seeing as we already lost the possibility of a continue, but Larvitar shouldn’t have any problems tanking whatever Scyther throws at it, right?   Actually, it ends up a lot closer than I thought before Rock Slide takes it out. Turns out STAB Wing Attack off of what used to be a fully evolved Pokemon hurts a whole lot!  Without a resist, Scyther can very easily take on just about anything you could throw at it, as it outspeeds every single rental in the game.   Hold that praise, we’ve still got one more fight ahead of us.    These babies are indeed very tough, and would you look at that, Chansey hanging out in Little Cup! It’s even more impenetrable on the Special side with the lower power level of everything else, and its usually meager base 35 Special Attack all of a sudden is a lot more threatening with nothing else having the bulk to stand up to it. The only “weakness” of Rex is that his entire team is chock full of Special attackers, though Magby’s Iron Tail will rough up any Rock types anyways.   It’s finally Scyther’s time to shine.  Pursuit is a clean 3HKO on Gastly, and we’re faster.  So while Psychic can do the same to us, we’ll get the job done first.   Thanks to Scyther’s speed, we should at least be able to nail a Cut off on something before we go down at least.  Any chip on Magby is highly appreciated.  Good show, sport.  Chinchou should be able to Water Gun here for the KO, and with two Pokemon we can-    W-Well that sucks, but Iron Tail is only 75% accurate, and a Rock Slide should be a clean KO!  Fuckin’ alright sure   And I’m just choked. Well this is our last continue.   All or nothing. He decides to start with Abra this time, so to exploit its low Defense, Cut should do decent damage.   Okay, that was admittedly greedy when Pursuit probably would’ve done good damage too, and here it likely would’ve KO’d, but now we’ve got to deal with the consequences.  You already know how this exchange goes.  Abra comes back out, and we speed tie, so I just hope to win it before Abra takes me out with anything it wants.  We luckily do, and it manages to cut down its HP by half, which is pretty good!  Especially because for some reason Abra liked the idea of Zap Cannon to finish me off.  It smartens up next time and wins the speed tie however.  Chinchou is the only one who can likely tank whatever Abra is trying to throw at it, but I doubt we’d KO back with Spark, so I decide on Flail, hoping I’m damaged enough to take this monster down.   And what I was hoping for exactly happened. If Magby’s in the back however, we still have a very real chance of losing.  Ah. Well against Chansey, Flail is going to do a ton more than Spark could ever hope for, and we should live an Egg Bomb. 5 Base Attack is embarrassingly bad even in Little Cup, and we are decently bulky.  11 damage is pretty decent, but it’s about to get even better!  Or not!  All I can do now is hope for Chansey to miss or for Rock Slide to crit.    We’re able to live an Iron Tail, but Rock Slide doesn’t crit, and so Icy Wind hits and puts an end to our run.  OH?!   YES.    So I’m guessing Chansey saw a range on Icy Wind taking Larvitar out but it missed out on it?  I’m sure as hell not going to complain about it however.  Rattata was a consistent hard hitter the whole way through, allowing us to get out of situations we wouldn’t have been able to otherwise!  Dratini may not’ve been used often, but for consistency against Swagger/Confuse Ray and just good damage in Outrage, it did its job well!  Larvitar was our Electric resist, and the one who brought it all home!  Chinchou was able to stave off serious threats with good STAB typings and bulk!  Scyther may’ve only been used meaningfully for the final battle, but it was a valuable contribution in handling Gastly and softening up Abra!  Hoppip did its best and we’re all proud of it for that!   Boy was that a doozy! I sure hope there aren’t any huge roadblocks like that one again in our future! Happy New Years everybody! Next Time: Stronger, bulkier, faster, but still random.
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Jan 1, 2022 02:14
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FlamingRok posted:
top percent rattata Always been a fan of this little guy and it's evolution. Also, it's mildly concerning that the one trainer's Tyrogue is using Frustration at such a high power. Been quietly reading this thread up until this point, and just wanted to say I really enjoy it. I had Stadium 2 as a kid but didn't have a mainline game until 3rd gen, so rentals were all I could ever play with. It's safe to say I didn't get very far.
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Jan 1, 2022 03:07
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Geeze that was intense
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Jan 1, 2022 03:46
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Happy New Year! It's impressive how you keep pulling off these wins. Also... Woops!
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Jan 1, 2022 04:21
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I can't believe that little punk sent his teacher at us for beating him. Also good lord the little cup is terrifying. Without Hacking in your own team it's a brutal gauntlet of water gun vs blizzard and earthquake
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Jan 1, 2022 04:44
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Talk about cutting it close. Little Cup doesn't joke around.
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Jan 1, 2022 05:20
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Admittedly this wasn't the best team to take on this cup with. I didn't use Abra with STAB Psychic or Mankey with STAB Cross Chop, and I wanted to show that Scyther in rentals actually blows rear end compared to other Pokemon that would appear worse, but Little Cup is brutal all the same and in case you're wondering... Yes I'm absolutely abusing anything and everything I can in Round 2. This seems like as good of a time as any to say I'm definitely doing Round 2. My only concern is that the only team I found "consistent" enough later in the game is a little boring, but I think one update where that's the case might not be the worst thing in the world, and there's a lot of time between now and then so maybe even that will change. Now during all of Round 1 at least, I'm using teams I'm uncertain about, it's what's exciting after all. It's why I run the polls, since I don't actually know if said team can work well for what I'm doing but we're early enough where risks aren't devastating if they don't work out, but Round 2 is likely to be different. (also update coming tomorrow (EST)) FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jan 2, 2022 |
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Jan 2, 2022 16:42
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Always a pleasure to see this continue. Little Cup is a nightmare. o.o
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Jan 2, 2022 22:40
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FoolyCharged posted:Also good lord the little cup is terrifying. Without Hacking in your own team it's a brutal gauntlet of water gun vs blizzard and earthquake
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Jan 3, 2022 15:47
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MagusofStars posted:On the flip side, I feel like if you brought in your own team, it would be...not bad actually? Breeding can ensure you've got a level 5 version of any eligible pokemon so there's no issue with getting your preferred team. There's a lot of high powered attacks available via TM or breeding pass-down. And given how low stats are, being able to cherry-pick your DV's and pump full of Vitamins is even more relevant than normal. Doing it in-game would still be a pain in the rear end though, considering this is Gen 2 and thus TMs are still limited and can't be reobtained in a game beyond the ones you can buy. Cheating would make it significantly easier, obviously, but by that point you may as well just generate a team.
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Jan 3, 2022 21:21
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Update 11: That Move Worked Beautifully!  Welcome back everyone, today we’re taking on Challenge Cup once more. What Pokemon do we have in store for us? Let’s find out!   Definitely an interesting squad, let’s take a look at our moves (their focus is Bug types, though obviously they’re not only going to only use those).   Lickitung as a pseudo Explosion Pokemon isn’t a bad niche, and Gastly with Psychic can certain put in some work!   Azumarill isn’t really strong, but the type coverage could be enough. Houndour on the other hand is a disgusting glass cannon, and I think it’ll be a mainstay in just about every battle!   Skiploom isn’t awful, but having to set up to be of use is a little rough. Corsola has a good moveset but its Speed is going to impact it quite a lot, and so I think it’ll be the least useful of the team. That being said, this is a very good roll, and one I definitely can make use of! The afflicting weather conditions do hurt, but Houndour’s raw power might just be enough.   Speaking of, this is a great start for us.  And while Ariados’ Quick Claw is somewhat inconvenient…   Houndour can easily OHKO in return.   Mankey is definitely not what we want Houndour to try and take on.   Skiploom isn’t the greatest Pokemon, but a resist to Cross Chop is appreciated all the same.  Because of Skiploom’s moveset, we have to set up Sunny Day unfortunately, and this lets Mankey get a free hit on us.  Or not!  And that’s even better!  I have no idea what Parasect’s moveset is, so I opt to keep Skiploom in and attempt to win this way.   It proves to work out pretty alright (you missed Parasect using Giga Drain and Slash on Skiploom before going down.   Nah, probably just lucky, and I hope that continues onwards.   Man it’s been a while since I was in any kind of school, probably Charizard was up there? I think for a long time my personal favorite was Sandslash, but I can’t fully recall. Either way, this team seems super weak to Azumarill.    I end up misclicking (miss button hitting? Iunno) on Rhyhorn for Ice Punch, which in return doesn’t quite KO.  But it didn’t really do much in return, so it wasn’t a huge deal.    And from there it validated that previous statement.   Probably don’t inform them of this battle for certain.   So because Water Pokemon can learn Ice moves pretty consistently, I don’t feel confident against this Sailor, since otherwise Skiploom would be good enough.   Despite that, Skiploom is my best option.   Hmm, that’s real awful for reasons I don’t think I have to explain.  A shame Sunny Day doesn’t weaken Ice moves, otherwise Skiploom might be a bit better here.   Because of that, Lickitung is probably our best answer.   Thanks to Icy Wind and Fly, we’re not able to attack on the first turn of us being out,  But Hyper Beam manages to hit next time!  Man if it KO’d that would’ve been very useful!    Instead Lickitung has to eat more damage before taking out Santa.    I end up giving up on a continue here and just go for raw damage on Wartortle.  It was pretty decent, but unfortunately not quite enough.  And so Azumarill comes out to hopefully deal with Wartortle.   A miss turn one helps a lot, but Swift dealing that little damage is worrisome to put it lightly.   Rollout doesn’t really threaten us that much and Swift is consistent enough luckily to take it Wartortle out.   I stay in for as long as I can with Swift, but eventually Azumarill goes down.  Thanks to the chip, this lets Skiploom get the knockout.  Or maybe it would’ve been a knockout no matter what, I’m uncertain.   (missed the “WIN” screenshot here) I’m willing to accept that win all the same however.   So if it’s not obvious, Darcy’s specialty is Normal, and unfortunately we don’t have great answers for that.   Despite this fact we go for Houndour, and get met with the bulky Lickitung.   Amazingly enough, Houndour’s Fire Blast is a 2HKO where its Stomp is a mere 3HKO.  And so Lickitung goes down quickly.  Depending on what Porygon has, it could be a potential threat, but Fire Blast should dent it pretty hard.   Or just take it out, that works too!   And Meowth doesn’t do any better against Houndour.  Houndour continues to prove its worth on this team.   Don’t worry, I’m surprised too!   Well if you think that strongly, try talking to the trainers using high power Frustration!   Anyways this is a Sunny Day team. Despite this fact, I somehow think Azumarill is a good lead despite being slow as sin.   And I immediately get taught as to why that was a poor idea.  Waterfall does about piss all for damage, and I swap for Houndour to take advantage of Fire Blast’s now disgusting strength.  Flamethrower is a threat…  But Fire Blast can secure a one shot.   And the Fire Blast/Flame Wheel war is a losing battle for the police officer.   I don’t think I need to explain how Parasect gets taken out on sight.   I mean maybe I have?   So Emiko tries to have a balanced team, but I guess she just rolled badly?    Either way Azumarill gets us off to a great start.   On the other hand I have no clue onto Aipom’s moveset, so I end up swapping.   Thankfully it was just Swift.   Aipom has Iron Tail but it’s only 75% accuracy so surely it’ll miss eventually while we chip away at it with Psychic, right?  Of course not.  I had a feeling that since Aipom came out, they were their best answer for Azumarill, so I bring it back out.   That’s annoying!  But Natu isn’t really a huge threat.   Solarbeam is going to hurt real bad, but so is Ice Punch.   And we can always just go to Houndour.   Thanks for playing!   Well that’s just rude   So far, pretty good run! Our offense is spectacular, and we have 4 continues! Let’s see if this is in fact the squad to do it!   I think I’m fine with being your test subject with this team. An opposing Houndour and Gastly are threatening, but with the bulk of Lickitung we should be okay.   Especially if this is the start.  Unsurprisingly Bayleef is gone in one move.  And Gastly doesn’t do much better.    And neither does Natu!   You could present it to the academy if you were going to promote someone else other than yourself!  So five continues is awesome, and leads me to believe I can win no matter what.   Of course maybe this team has something else to say?   Lickitung starts in case of Onix.   I end up swapping immediately to Houndour, and Bayleef uses the best move possible for me to see.  As Fire Blast will instantly take it out.  Eevee is decently bulky and strong so it’s slightly concerning…   But even Eevee is a 2HKO and ends up missing a Take Down.  And Ariados as the last essentially ensures our win.     Even with a Fire Blast miss.   I don’t know if I’d say I’m strong, I’m just stubborn.  But either way Great Ball Challenge Cup is completed!  Lickitung was a bulky and decent damaging Pokemon to help us on the way to the top!  Gastly admittedly didn’t do very much, but assisting against Aipom wasn’t unappreciated!  Azumarill was an incredibly consistent pick against Pokemon that were weak to it, and was a good bulky option outside of that!  Houndour was the MVP by a mile, hitting extremely hard and quick  Skiploom may not’ve been a frequent pick, but when it was used it was useful in its own right!  Corsola sure did exist on the team!   Surprisingly a first try victory onto this cup! I have no clue onto whether that’ll be the case when we take on Ultra Ball tier on not, but I’m glad to have this one done and over with right now! Next Time: Meowth, that’s right!
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Jan 4, 2022 01:31
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It's honestly really nice to see Houndour excel like that, it's a Pokemon I really like! And Azumarill is one of my favourites, so seeing those two as the best parts of the team is very nice.
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Jan 4, 2022 02:37
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Houndour is great and was one of my favorites in GSC growing up, despite Gen2's infamously lovely distribution of pokemon during casual gameplay.
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Jan 4, 2022 03:10
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I recently used Houndoom in Platinum and found favourable results, even if Dark Pulse is a lot later than I'd like it to be. Gen 2 absolutely was a poo poo introduction to it, which isn't really unusual for most Gen 2 Pokemon unfortunately. (moveset was Fire Blast, Dark Pulse, Solarbeam, Sunny Day)
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Jan 4, 2022 05:07
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Houndour Goodest Boi! (Poor Corsola. Someone gotta keep the bench warm, I guess)
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Jan 4, 2022 05:22
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Does Stadium 2 have the same sort of item storage as Stadium 1? I used item storage plus save states to clone items. It was my compromise to cheat a little bit by not needing to worry about consumables, but also not cheat too badly.
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Jan 5, 2022 08:20
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General Revil posted:Does Stadium 2 have the same sort of item storage as Stadium 1? I used item storage plus save states to clone items. It was my compromise to cheat a little bit by not needing to worry about consumables, but also not cheat too badly. I only ever beat Pokémon gen 1 by having my cousin show me the duplicate rare candy trick on cinnabar Island
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Jan 6, 2022 07:23
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Update 12: Team Rocket Burst Onto the Scene!  Welcome back everyone. It’s time to take on the next tier of Poke Cup, but before we do that, let’s clarify a rule in an update. I’ve done it in the thread in the past, but let’s cover it here.  Essentially, you can have teams of 50-50-55, 51-53-51, etc. The three Pokemon selected cannot have their levels combined exceed 155. It’s possible this rule was the case to accommodate for Dragonite and Tyranitar, but going off of Stadium 1’s cups, it’s also very possible they just figured the level gaps were interesting for team composition. Now while this matters very little for us since we’re using rentals that are locked at level 50, this is good intel for us when seeing an opponent’s team, and it’ll start to become more relevant as we progress through Poke Cup. Anyways with that out of the way, let’s see our team!  Meowth is fast and has good type coverage but unfortunately is lacking on offense which means it’ll usually come up short on Kos you need it to grab. It can help itself a bit with Screech, and this is useful for the rest of its teammates, but really what Meowth misses most is Slash being an auto-crit. Shadow Ball and Faint Attack also cover the same types, so there’s a bit of overlap, but that’s not inherently a bad thing. Meowth is...fine, that’s right!  Arbok similarly to Koffing has a much better Poison STAB in Sludge Bomb, but unlike Koffing, suffers a little in exchange. Dig being much weaker and losing out on Rock Slide are rough, but just slamming down hard hitting Sludge Bombs maybe is enough. They’re probably comparable in usefulness between Stadium 1 and 2, depending on what you want to use them for.  Weezing in Stadium 1 was always stuck with either Haze or Self-Destruct depending on where you rented it from, alongside Sludge and either coverage or Hyper Beam. This resulted in the Poke Cup Weezing being the best, as Haze wasn’t very good. It’s not amazing in Stadium 2 either, but there are far more trainers willing to try and set up their stats, and here it finally gets Haze and Self-Destruct together! Sure it still has Sludge when Sludge Bomb could’ve been an option, and Zap Cannon sucks, but it has a small use for removing setup and blowing up on potential problems.  Victreebel got a pretty nice moveset here in Stadium 2, which is even better under the Sun. While having Solarbeam as its only good attack might seem like a negative, Sleep Powder can help enable it pretty hard, and if you’re really feeling gutsy, Growth powers up that Solarbeam to disgusting levels. Acid exists merely to finish off weakened opponents, but that’s okay. Just be careful, since Victreebel isn’t all that fast.  Raticate loses coverage for Super Fang, which is the one reason you should be using Raticate in the first place! Sure, it may not be able to deal with Rock types anymore, but the vast number of things that don’t enjoy their health being halved, especially with Hyper Fang having a chance to flinch afterwards is not to be underestimated. Also surprisingly, its stats are better, the main one being Speed for the aforementioned flinching. Raticate can absolutely put in work, and it was still okay in Stadium 1, but here I find it can accomplish more.  Primeape more times than not is going to be using Cross Chop as a 120 Power STAB high crit move off of its impressive 132 Attack is going to dent anything it hits decently hard. In the case of Ghosts or Poison types, it does at least have Dig for something, but rarely is it your best option. If you really want to try and play into crits, Focus Energy is there though Primeape is fairly frail. The more interesting option is if you know you’ll be faster after a Curse, this move can help out Primeape’s damage output even more. Primeape is just a good Fighting rental here.  And here’s the items I’ve decided on. Paralysis ruins Meowth completely, and Arbok being a decently hard hitter means I want it around for as long as possible. If I need Weezing to explode, I want to make certain it’s the best Self-Destruct that it’ll be able to send off. So I was thinking of a team to use when I saw one of the Pokemon being requested:  And seeing as if we win we’ll go and stop Team Rocket on the bridge next time, I figure I can entertain the idea of a full Team Rocket team! Let’s see how well that goes.   Regardless onto whether or not you like Mr. Mime, I’d hesitate to call it cute, but sure.  Pikachu is the standout threat with Light Ball and Thunderbolt putting a sizable dent into just about anything it hits. Luckily if Pikachu doesn’t come along, the rest of her team isn’t very impressive, mainly relying on Encore and other disruption moves.   So while this isn’t really a bad matchup for me, I can think of one better.   But I probably should’ve waited to see what Carmen did first, as even with Meowth’s bad stats and moveset, Screech will ensure Pay Day does a good chunk.   Or not. Dark is special in this game, you’re aware right? And so one Cross Chop takes it out!   I said…  One Cross Chop takes it out!   Clefairy doesn’t stand a chance either.   And then Primeape cracks open an egg for breakfast.   If Pikachu came along it might’ve been a different story but even then we probably could outspeed it.    Heracross with Reversal and Counter is intimidating on our team with mainly physical attackers, but not much else should pose a huge threat. Ditto instead of running the superior Metal Powder is going for Focus Band, which could be equally annoying to be fair but it’s more chance based.   Arbok was our safest lead, and lo and behold Ditto.  It takes heavy damage from Sludge Bomb…  But it is able to get the transform off.   I don’t believe Ditto will go for Sludge Bomb against Arbok and use this opportunity to bring in Meowth to finish the job.  I predicted correctly.  And yet am still punished, man!  Slash gives him what he deserves.  Here’s the problem child.   We go for Screech to help set up a KO with one of our future Pokemon. We should be able to live whatever it throws at us, as Reversal’s only at 20 Power right now, and one extra Screech will definitely be enough.  2 for 2 on crits.   Weezing comes out and I go for Zap Cannon out of fear of Counter, as I don’t believe Sludge will quite be a OHKO with only one Screech.   It was worth a shot, but Counter also doesn’t get to happen. We’re bulky enough that we can likely attempt a few more Zap Cannons before going for Sludge.   Unfortunate.  Alright that’s enough of that.   I already lost my continue, so I decide to pull the pin on the grenade.  Out comes Pidgeotto against Arbok, and this should be in the bag.  Sludge Bomb is a clean 2HKO and Pidgeotto can’t do much in return.  Don’t you start.   You fucker.   And now that I’m at -2 accuracy it decides to start going for Wing Attack, believing that I somehow won’t hit over the course of 4 turns. It’s a 60% chance to hit after all.     FINALLY.   Yes way.   Good, please do and don’t bring that bird near me again.    So Cliff has a Sun team! Sun boosts Fire moves by 50% and weakens Water moves, in addition to only needing one turn for Solarbeam and Moonlight/Morning Sun healing 3/4ths of the user’s HP. Victreebel is the only one that could abuse that, and believe it or not, I don’t think Victreebel would be great against a team full for Fire types. This means we’re just going to have to deal with the opponent reaping the full benefits.   I lead Raticate to be able to dent something with Super Fang before the sun is set up.   Cubone actually isn’t exactly favorable to see with it being physically bulky so Hyper Fang won’t take it out next turn, but I’ll take what I can get.   Luckily instead of the Soft Sand boosted Bone Club, Cubone decides on Thrash, which does unimpressive damage at best.  And so one more Hyper Fang is enough to seal the deal.  Ninetales’ Special Attack may’ve been neutered between Gen 1 and Gen 2, but under the sun I doubt it’ll be noticeable.  Super Fang does its job, and despite Raticate’s frailty I just hope it can live one Flamethrower.  Was a cute thought wasn’t it?  I brought Weezing in the back and I assure you that I don’t want Weezing to eat a Flamethrower, so Primeape comes out.   A shame Ninetales is actually faster and gets a nasty hit off before I mistakenly go for Dig instead of Cross Chop.  And this also lets Ninetales set back up the sun while I’m underground.  A crit does fix my previous blunder though!  Last comes Furret, and while Primeape could OHKO with Cross Chop, we’ve already lost the continue and I don’t feel like testing the 15% chance of missing.   And so we boom.   Nothing left, only Primeape.   Boy, I sure hope we won’t see what a good Sun team looks like!   You should really evolve that Koffing at some point y’know.  Dillon’s whole shtick is to be annoying with various status effects and Mud-Slap in the case of Sandslash. Between Dunsparce and Ampharos, I’d rather see Amphy here, as while both can paralyze me, Dunsparce carries the ever annoying Parafusion combination. Paraflinch isn’t fun either, but I’ll take it over the alternative.   We get treated to a lovely sight for Arbok.   Arbok is able to secure a clean 2HKO, while Weepinbell tries to play it like it’s still Gen 1.   It doesn’t work out well for her.  Ariados is a little more worrisome thanks to Night Shade.  Let’s try to impede it as much as possible, shall we?   I try my own hand at Paraflinch and attempt to give this guy a taste of his own medicine.   It last a whole one turn before he breaks through.  I then wonder if it’s better to just Dig for damage or not.   Not really.   Interested in maintaining the chance for a continue, I bring in Primeape, which might seem like an odd choice.  And in hindsight, maybe it was.   As Dig doesn’t manage to secure a KO like I was hoping for.  Thankfully, Ariados isn’t able to chunk off anymore HP from Primeape.  And so out goes the spider.  This is good news for us. Dig definitely can’t OHKO, but we’re faster, and Sludge won’t do too much to us.   Gotta love Quick Claw.   But one proc ain’t gonna do it.  Maybe Butch was onto something with his Primeape.   Would never dream of it.   Oh boy here we go.  Molly here has a Baton Pass team. With Double Team. Long before Flint’s Drifblim in BDSP, we had Molly, and it’s as every bit annoying here as it is there.   We start with Meowth, who should outspeed anything barring Kadabra who is unlikely to lead and would be taken out with Shadow Ball anyways. Girafarig is...not great, but we’re definitely faster and Slash should take out a good chunk.  We’re not even that far into the game yet and I’m already sick of Quick Claw.  Slash does manage to break through but it doesn’t do a lot of damage.  And so I shift gears into Faint Attack. It appears to do similar damage without the risk of missing with their newfound evasion.  It retaliates with Agility, which would make for a nasty Baton Pass at this point to just about anyone.   But Girafarig decides to stick around and fight for at least one more turn.  And apparently two more turns! The second Psybeam stings, but it’s not quite enough.  And so Meowth punishes.   No it’s not, don’t fool yourself. But I can’t risk an Ice Punch freeze on anyone (AS I FORGET RATICATE CAN THAW OUT OOPS), so I just go for the Screech and let the next teammate take out Ledian.  You did good sport.   Raticate comes out and nails Hyper Fang. I expect Ledian to survive on a sliver, but even Pursuit should deal with it at that point.  I am pleasantly surprised.  And luckily her last Pokemon is Aipom. Seems she forgot that the whole point of Baton Pass is to actually have a teammate that can make use of the buffs.  Not that I’m complaining!  Aipom has nothing to hurt Raticate, but that doesn’t stop it from being annoying.  And frankly I want nothing to do with it.   And I pay the price. Now Aipom is faster, so swapping back to Raticate won’t do me much good.  Despite the attack buff, Weezing is still physically quite sturdy so I decide to stay in.  Shadow Ball does nothing for damage, and when I break through confusion…   It’s my victory.   Hold that praise once again, we’re not through yet.   If anything, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll embrace misery.  Chen offensively is absolutely pathetic, but that’s not his goal. The only Pokemon that’s rocking any type of offensive presence is Murkrow, everything else wants to trap and whittle your HP down through status, whether it’s confusion, Nightmare, or Curse. On the bright side, because of that Meowth is actually a fantastic candidate for a lead here.   And so we do exactly that.  Predictably Shadow Ball is only a 2HKO.   But Haunter wants to trap us to whittle us down.  Meowth doesn’t care.   Misdreavus is considerably more bulky and lands itself into the 3HKO range. Not good for us.  Mean Look definitely matters this time, and I know Shadow Ball won’t take it out.  And so I opt for Screech. When I’m able to hit Shadow Ball, I want to ensure it’ll be the last Shadow Ball I need.   When I’m able is accurate.  Yet another reason why I didn’t want to go for another Shadow Ball: Pain Split would’ve taken a whole lot more out of Meowth and healed Misdreavus a lot more if I had taken the extra damage.   I’d like to hit at some point.  Oh you rear end.   And naturally that’s when I break through confusion.  The last thing I want is this Spinarak trapping Meowth and taking away my win condition.   Arbok can take it instead.   Dig isn’t quite enough, but that’s alright.   Especially when Arbok breaks through before it has a chance to Night Shade.  Back comes Misdreavus, and while I could swap back to Meowth, one more Shadow Ball won’t cut it.   So despite confusion, I stick around and allow myself to be trapped.  And this is when a serious flaw in Misdreavus’ moveset is revealed.  As it has no choice but to actually heal me with Pain Split.   And from there Arbok can clean up.   So far so good with three continues! Let’s see if we can successfully take out the last two opponents.    Now this is a heavy hitting team. Octillery has great coverage and Special Attack, Lanturn is ridiculously bulky, even Magcargo especially for this team is a problem. Pineco can’t hit Ghosts, and Lickitung isn’t impressive, but besides those two, all of Baxter’s Pokemon are relatively threatening.   Barring Pineco, Primeape should be able to dent anything decently.  Goddamnit.   Psybeam deals a great chunk of damage to Primeape, and this basically tells me the continue isn’t happening here.   With Octillery using Psybeam, I can’t swap freely to Victreebel so I’ve just got to let Primeape go down after denting the octopus decently.  Out comes Victreebel’s first appearance.   And this is the gameplan.   It might not be the most reliable, but at least it took care of Octillery which was probably our biggest threat.  This could be good for us, as there’s not much Lanturn can do to Victreebel!  Especially if it’s asleep.   Solarbeam does massive damage, but it’s not quite a 1HKO  And so Acid finishes the job.   I don’t think I need to tell you how this one ends.  Good first impressions!   That octopus was going to ruin my entire team, don’t give me that. Well, let’s move on to the finals. Three continues makes me optimistic, but anything could go wrong.   Can I get back to you on that?  Tangela and Noctowl aren’t rocking stellar movesets, but the rest of Pedro’s team is solid. Special shoutout goes to Nidoking with all three elemental punches, which is definitely unique, and takes advantage of Nidoking’s decent Special Attack.   Let’s do this.   This is one of those times where Dig is our better option.  Anytime Nidoking hits me, it seems to go for Thunderpunch, which I’m really hoping doesn’t proc Paralysis.   Luckily it doesn’t. Nidoking might have decent Special Attack…   But it’s only decent, and it’s being supported by Thunderpunch instead of Thunderbolt.  I’m particular to Raticate myself.  Especially because I’m well aware of how hard this thing can hit.   Not quite hard enough unfortunately.  Oh don’t whine about it.  Perfect, we’ve won. Even if Primeape isn’t enough, Victreebel’s in the back and ready to Solarbeam this thing back into the dirt.   It wasn’t needed.   My fill for the blank is: “Losing”. I’m surprised we got a perfect on the finals!  Meowth’s speed came into great effect for Chen, and was a decent support with Screech!  Arbok was a consistently hard hitter with Sludge Bomb throughout the whole cup!  Weezing was a fantastic bomb!  Victreebel may’ve only been useful for one battle, but without it we may not’ve made it through that one battle!  Raticate helped secures the KO on numerous Pokemon thanks to Super Fang and speed!  And Primeape was responsible for our best damage (...when it wanted to hit Cross Chop)!  I did not expect to not lose a single time through the cup. Turns out Team Rocket could’ve done it if they just thought a bit more!  That was a lot longer of an update, but since we’re returning back to Gym Leader Castle next and those’ll be shorter updates, I feel this is fine. Time to turn traitor against Team Rocket. But who will take them on? Next Time: Team Rocket’s Blasting Off Again!
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Jan 20, 2022 20:09
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You had some impressively bad RNG luck on this one, huh? And even with that and the suboptimal rental mons you managed to win without losing once, impressive.
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Jan 20, 2022 21:06
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Goddamn, RNGesus was absolutely in love with that Youngster in the 2nd round.
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Jan 20, 2022 22:30
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Just, wow the RNG was wild in this one  FlamingRok posted:
Raticate is best rat
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Jan 20, 2022 22:38
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