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Update 13: Losing to Criminals Simply Isn’t an Option!  Last time we were Team Rocket, this time let’s take out Team Rocket and continue our trek through Gym Leader Castle. Hopefully. I held a poll determining which main character would take down Team Rocket, so let’s see what we’re working with!  (I swear I didn’t intentionally put the choices in that order for colors to match up) So we’re using Gold’s team today. Gold is able to bring out the best of baby Pokemon, but we’re not using those today so hopefully his team is good!  Aipom has a very abusable moveset depending on how your luck is, as it is the only Pokemon with access to both Double Team and Baton Pass. Many people including myself have been on the receiving end of a Double Teamer, so the ability to wield that power and apply it to any Pokemon is huge, and on top of that it also has Agility to help support Pokemon that are just slightly too slow! So what’s the catch? You’re using Aipom, and while it’s decently fast, it’ll also usually go down in two hits to anything decently strong, so if that first Double Team didn’t work out for you, you just entered a 2v3. Still, the potential upsides are massive.  Politoed is a gimmick with a decent Special Attack for Icy Wind. Its whole shtick is to trap the opponent with Whirlpool and then Perish Song. A few problems arise from this: Whirlpool is at an embarrassingly low 70% accuracy, staying alive for 4 turns is a fairly big ask, and Whirlpool could always just last 2 turns and completely negate the whole point of the set. You could save Politoed for the opponent’s last Pokemon, and for that it’s okay, but that means you’ll need to have another Pokemon besides Politoed left since you can’t use Perish Song if both trainers only have one Pokemon left. If you like relying on Whirlpool and Perish Song, Politoed might be for you.  Sudowoodo is the only mono-Rock type in the game, so of course it has some unique advantages going for it off of that alone. STAB Rock Slide is always great, 133 Attack is nothing to scoff at, and thanks to only being one type and therefore not taking 4x damage from anything, it can take special moves...sort of. Even Dig for some semblance of coverage is nice, though this is really only relevant against Poison types thanks to Magnitude and Earthquake hitting underground. If only there were a stronger Rock move available, then Sudowoodo could truly be great, but right now it’s not bad at all!  Sunflora has an amazing Special Attack...supported by Razor Leaf. It could be worse, especially seeing that it is able to be boosted with Growth. Honestly all four of Sunflora’s moves have some use, with Toxic being the most situational but still useful one. Too bad it’s slow as molasses! Sunflora’s Speed is its biggest hindrance, and with no way to heal itself it won’t stick around for as long as you want it to. If you’re looking for raw Grass power, Sunflora isn’t a bad option, but it’s weak to a bevvy of types and it’ll usually be taking the first hit.  Typhlosion isn’t as good as it deserves to be. Flame Wheel is better than Ember but not by much, and every other one of its other moves are pretty bad. You could try and disrupt with Smokescreen? I guess? Yeah I can’t say much about Typhlosion, it’s got it pretty rough.  Togetic is very bulky and has a decent Special Attack...for the no Special moves it has. You’re either hoping for Metronome to work out or using its pathetic 71 Attack. Charm is at least good for letting a stronger teammate come in on a physical attacker and Fly can be used to...stall? Sorry egg friend, you’re just not all that useful as a rental.  The only item that’s really relevant is the Berry, and in order to try and buff my stats maybe an extra turn or even come back onto the field if necessary, Aipom will get it. I have concerns for this team, mainly that almost everything is slow, but maybe we’ll be able to overpower Team Rocket anyways!   Let’s play a little game! For the first three opponents, I’m not going to give the data on these teams until after the battle. I will show what I bring (and I suppose also the nicknames among a slight other detail of the opponent’s Pokemon). This is because these first three fights all have gimmicks to them!  So let’s get right into this.   Not a great start for us, as Aipom can’t do anything to Graveler.  But we can always help setup for the next teammate!   0:1 on Double Team successes, but it’s not a huge deal on Aipom.   Let’s get someone more capable on the field.  Oh dear. C’mon Double Team!  Goddamnit. 0:2.  And it unfortunately worked out great for you.   Well back to Aipom I suppose! Let’s try this again!   That’s more like it!  With a Double Team up, I decide to try and chip Koffing down.     This exchange goes on for a few turns,  But after that first miss Koffing proceeds to never do it again.   So Typhlosion has to clean up the remaining health. If Electrode or even Geodude are in the back we’re in trouble.  Nice.  And so Flame Wheel can finish the fight-  That’s uh, pretty embarrassing.   Pineco ends up finishing the job on Pineco.   I have my doubts on that one!   You’re right, Flame Wheel not even being able to take out Pineco in one hit is bad news!  Yeah, all his Pokemon could explode.   Pretty weak looking team overall honestly.  So let’s try and have some fun.   So long as it wasn’t Murkrow or Houndour Sunflora has nothing to fear. Still, Dunsparce is pretty bulky, so I decide to go for Toxic.   Alright sure, dead turn!  Fair enough, Toxic is 85% accurate after all.  So naturally I’ll find a way to miss it twice.  And so the fun begins.  And continues.   Thank gently caress.   After losing that much HP, I just decide to accept Sunflora’s demise overtime.   And now we can be a little cheeky ourselves.  Cool.   But I keep going anyways, since Toxic is doing work on Dunsparce.   I manage to throw in one Agility before Dunsparce goes down to the residual damage, which I don’t know if it’ll be enough in case of Murkrow.   And while I probably could set up against Spinarak a little more…  I’d rather not risk it.   Thanks for playing Spinarak.  Drowzee is decently bulky, but with three Double Teams up Toxic’s chances of hitting are pretty slim.   Apparently so are Rock Slide’s chances.   But Sudowoodo puts in the work next turn at least.  Fast tree.    She was a Toxic staller! Shoutouts to that Dunsparce who not only has bulk combined with Toxic+Protect, it also has Dig to stall even more turns! It’s not a hard strategy to play around especially in Gen 2, but I enjoyed the idea of sweeping with Sudowoodo.   Speaking of competency, this is no joke of a team despite a gimmick bogging her down a little.  You can actually see it right here!   Well we do have Dig and Muk’s Defense isn’t incredible, plus we resist Poison so this might be okay.  Sure whatever, have it.   Yeah that’s fair, so what’s eating this instead?  Oh that’s gonna eat this pretty well.  Or not! That crit was definitely appreciated!   But this is not a battle for Sudowoodo.  That’s why.  Nice 95% accuracy on Icy Wind.   Icy Wind actually manages to secure a hit after a lackluster Thief.  Unfortunately she also has a decently high powered Frustration backing it up, so we’re losing this damage race.   We manage to get close!  But it isn’t enough.   And so once again Typhlosion comes in on cleanup duty.  Well I can’t really swap out here, as Sudowoodo might be my win condition.  So Flame Wheel it is, despite Muk’s Special bulk being pretty good. I have major doubts about Swift doing any meaningful damage and I could always burn.  That does a lot more in return.   But I just have to accept it.  And miraculously we live to get off one more Flame Wheel!  It’s the look of indifference.  So this is troublesome, as we’ve still got something else left in the back to deal with.  But I’ve just got to go for Dig and hope it takes out Muk.   That’s not good.   And that’s the worst case scenario! It might not matter what’s left anymore, since we might not be strong enough to take them out in time!  Between Super Fang and Poison, not feeling very good about this.  There’s the Super Fang.   A crit puts us back in the game but I’m still uneasy about that poison damage.  Thankfully, I had a feeling Raticate was going for Dig. It sees the KO with the move.  I just have to hope poison doesn’t take me out first.  Hoooo...that was too close for comfort.   As we manage to clutch out a victory.   Thank goodness for that crit!   You know what would be a bigger bummer? Losing to the last opponent and going through this gauntlet again!  If her Pokemon could learn Thief and we still had our item, they’d use it barring big damaging moves. Technically she also had Frustration on all her Pokemon but I didn’t get a good screenshot of that so I figure I’d leave that one out.    And so this is where our game ends though I may as well show these names too.  And that’s because this executive doesn’t have a gimmick unless you consider just having a really good team a gimmick. He will always bring Houndoom, and it has a disgusting moveset combined with good Speed and Scope Lens! The best way of taking this out is with a well placed Earthquake since its bulk isn’t great.   Since we don’t have Earthquake, we go with our second best option. He isn’t guaranteed to lead with it, but Sudowoodo is probably the safest lead regardless.  Here comes the sun, but if we can take it out this turn we won’t have to worry about it.   Not quite. This is where a Rock move better than Rock Slide would be helpful if one existed.   And naturally Solarbeam hurts a lot.  But it’s not enough (it actually is a roll to KO us there though it’s a pretty unlikely roll).  This is a different problem. We’re definitely too slow to get a hit off on Misdreavus and we’ll get taken out by any attack.   So I decide to go for something frankly stupid and see if I can get away with it.  Nice.   I figure I may need two Agility boosts before Sudowoodo can get a good hit off on Misdreavus, but that’s fine since Psychic shouldn’t be a 2HKO.  Oh right.   Well, sorry Sudowoodo!  Typhlosion is the only Pokemon left that can actually hurt Misdreavus.  I hope Misdreavus saw too small of a HP difference to bother with-   poo poo.  This is bad, since it could easily keep using Pain Split until I’m in range to KO.  ...or it could do that.  So while I’m glad Victreebel is last, we’re not going to OHKO and the Curse is going to take us down.  But I still can chunk a good amount off.  Combined with the Curse, Sludge Bomb is more than capable of finishing us off.  All up to Aipom now.  A clean 2HKO. All we need to do now is live a hit and we’ve got this!  Oh.   Well thanks for throwing!   Oh please I already tried the Team Rocket method last time, it went fine!  And with that, we’re free to continue taking on the gym leaders!  So let’s do just that, shall we? Next Time: Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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Jan 27, 2022 02:22
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| # ? May 2, 2024 16:59 |
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Talk about cutting it close. Nearly no HP and Poison on top of it, that third battle was way too close. The fourth also looked pretty hard. I don't remember having much issue here myself but I didn't use rentals. That helps a lot, turns out.
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Jan 27, 2022 03:29
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those were some extremely clench fights.
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Jan 27, 2022 03:37
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Leraika posted:those were some extremely clench fights. Yeah, Team Rocket didn't pull their punches here. There were definitely more aggravating gimmicks they could've used, and I can appreciate from a design standpoint that the explosion guy was put up front as a sort of wake-up call that these would be gimmicky fights. I at least don't think the Thief one would've done as well showing they were the first up, the Toxic stall, maybe.
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Jan 27, 2022 06:00
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Honestly, the harsher gimmicks being earlier on the weaker teams is pretty good way to go about it, designwise. It'd be more frustrating for a player to feel like the AI sacked a win off of (insert 3 Explosion.jpg here) if they went through three other battles first. Also, the Murkrow on the Toxic team can extend stall with Fly as well 😥
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Jan 27, 2022 07:37
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Cutting it a little close with the time allotted before a thread goes into archive  Update coming later today, couldn't figure out what kind of team I wanted for Pryce's gym initially. Let's get back to a "regular" schedule.
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Mar 26, 2022 14:49
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Update 14: Oh, a Quick Snooze!  Unlike the pace of these updates as of lately, welcome back to Stadium 2! We managed to thwart Team Rocket’s devious plan of...annoying us slightly, and we’re now ready for Pryce. No poll was held this time, but let’s bring back the Bugsy idea of using the same type as the leader, in this case, Ice.  Articuno got absolutely ruined during the transition between Stadium 1 and 2, alongside the fact that legendaries just have worse stats this time around. The Special split gave Articuno a not so impressive Special Attack, an inaccurate move in Blizzard, and no other usable attacks! Fun bit of trivia: Articuno is the only rental to use a Gen 1 TM! Unfortunately, that TM is Razor Wind, an absolutely atrocious two turn move of only 80 power and 75% accuracy. I legitimately would rather 50% accuracy one turn moves over it. It’s specially bulky, but that’s all it has going for it.  Cloyster is the original physical tank, and it reprises that role here but with a much worse moveset, or should I say a moveset that would be great back in Gen 1. Unfortunately Clamp is no longer busted, and Cloyster is now pitifully vulnerable on the Special side on Defense. Aurora Beam is still a good move and because of the aforementioned physical bulk it can be a good check to those types of Pokemon. Cloyster in terms of rentals has seen better days, but it’s not unusable.  Dewgong is amazing, and is far and away better than in Stadium 1 if only because of Sleep Talk. Dewgong is the only recipient of Sleep Talk in rentals, and man, what an obnoxious Pokemon to give it to. Decently bulky, gets both of its typing as STAB in its moveset, and has access to its own Rest. Who cares if its Water move is worse, or if its stats are slightly worse when Sleep Talk ensures it can both be offensive and defensive depending on how the dice are rolled, because oh yes, if Sleep Talk rolls Rest in Gen 2, you reset Rest. You heal again, and you wait another two turns before waking up. If you aren’t speedrunning and just looking to beat Stadium 2, Dewgong can carry you for much of the run.  Jynx got a worse moveset, but STAB Ice Punch off of a good Special Attack paired with good Speed is still strong. Notably, instead of the incredibly useful Psychic, we’re stuck with Confusion, and instead of Lovely Kiss, we’ve got Lick and Mean Look. It usually ends up spamming one move and dealing good damage. I wish it kept Psychic, but it’s still perfectly usable.  Lapras in Stadium 2 is a gimmick, nothing more, and it’s the same gimmick as Politoed, though I’d argue Lapras makes better use of it with its huge HP giving it bulk and STAB Icy Wind for at least a bit of firepower. In fact the only difference in moveset between the two is Mist over Swagger, which may as well not matter. It may be slower, but at least it will likely stay on the field long enough to actually finish the job.  Sneasel is extremely fast and has a formidable Attack stat...working off of non-STAB Headbutt. Screech might seem good on paper but Sneasel doesn’t really have the bulk to pull that off, and while it does have dual STAB, 65 Special Attack isn’t cutting it. It’s one of a good number of Pokemon that appreciate the Physical/Special split in Gen 4, since then it can actually be very effective with its STAB options. At least the Dark typing allows for switch ins. Sneasel as a rental is...fine, nothing more.  Because we’re using only Ice types, the Burnt Berry doesn’t really matter at all, so poor Sneasel will be the only one without an item, though maybe it could’ve done more with the PrzCureBerry. Ah well, it probably won’t matter (hopefully).    Alvin is a breather after what Rocket Bridge put us through with mostly weak Pokemon and with bad movesets to boot. Kingler and Flaaffy are the only Pokemon that are consistently a threat, Kingler dishing out heavy hitting Stomps and Flaaffy having STAB Thunderpunch.   Sneasel is a pretty safe lead so long as Cloyster is in the back in case of Kingler. This time it’s Swinub so we’re free to start doing damage.  Or not.   Luckily Shellder really can’t do much of anything, and this is one of the very few times when using Faint Attack is actually a good use of our time.   Shellder tries to Withdraw but to no avail.   Swinub returns, and if this is his best option for Sneasel, the rest of the fight is pretty much won.  At some point it tries to be cute and go for Endure. What for I’m not entirely certain.  It doesn’t work out for them.   And with Smoochum revealed to be the last Pokemon…   Victory was sealed.   This fight can vary in difficulty if he decides to bring Kingler, but it’s usually not too big of a hassle all the same.   Carol is a somewhat different story.  Carol’s team is still fairly weak, but they have a much more potent strategy with every Pokemon having Icy Wind and Headbutt. The strategy is fairly obvious here; lower our Speed and flinch us to death with Headbutt. Seadra by far is the biggest threat thanks to STAB Surf and a good Speed stat.  It can’t really touch Lapras though if it’s out first.  Even better honestly.  Azumarill might be bulky…   But it sure as poo poo isn’t breaking through Lapras with a double resisted Icy Wind.   And so I decide to have some fun and figure out what the AI will do if I set up Perish Song first while Azumarill continues to try its best. The AI should swap and if it does something’s getting smacked with Whirlpool for chip damage.  To my surprise though, Azumarill stays in, so that’s a free KO for Lapras!  Flinching isn’t much better, don’t give me that.   One more round of Icy Winds later and it’s time to leave.   I opt for Cloyster here as another double resist to Icy Wind and Cloyster is something that doesn’t mind being too slow with its massive Defense against Headbutt.  Thanks for playing Azumarill!  I only found this out recently, but Carol here is guaranteed to bring Delibird every time.   Which is convenient since Delibird is a pretty bad Pokemon.   0:1 on flinches there, one more chance left.   Alright y’know what, fair enough I’ll accept that flinch.   She doesn’t get another.  Last comes Dratini and I think you know how this’ll go.     Just because you can live one Aurora Beam doesn’t mean you can threaten the clam.   So two fairly easy fights, with Pryce remaining.   And this is when Stadium 2 reminds you that this is Stadium 2, freebies have been done for a while.  Ursaring and Donphan hit like trucks, and Jynx isn’t exactly a soft hitter either. Piloswine, who is guaranteed to come, would normally not be a huge threat but thanks to holding a Quick Claw, it can get the jump on what would otherwise be good answers to it. Really only Cloyster and Dewgong are “easy”, and they’re only easy due to the squad we brought along.   “This is a good matchup.” I think to myself forgetting something very crucial.   “Ah poo poo that’s right Thunderpunch.”   I probably should’ve just let Cloyster go down, but I tried to predict another Thunderpunch.  I predicted wrong and eat a Thrash for heavy damage. Not a great start to the fight!   We manage to chip a little bit of damage before going down at least.  It’s Dewgong’s time to shine.     Thanks to Dewgong’s bulk, we can survive two hits of Thrash, and while we could finish off Ursaring now, there’s a few Pokemon that are faster than Dewgong and would take us out in hit.  So I opt for Rest. Sleep Talk no matter what will give me something favorable here, either in healing or the finishing blow.  For gently caress…  sake. Turns out it was a roll for us to survive two hits!   Cloyster follows suit due to the previous chipping of Thunderpunch.   Been a while since we’ve lost huh? The killer part is looking at this lineup, Dewgong would’ve been able to win. But I suppose we’ll have to run it back.    Let’s try this again, this time leading with Lapras, and bringing Articuno and Dewgong in the back. Thunderpunch ensures Cloyster can’t stick around, and Jynx and Sneasel are allergic to bears.  Not to say Lapras takes these hits too well either, because she really doesn’t.  But at least she can strike back with Icy Wind for decent damage. And now we’re faster!   Once again, somehow 95% accuracy is coming to bite me.   We’re able to chunk off a little more HP before going down. But I need to soften up Ursaring a little more before Dewgong’s safe to come out.  That is what Articuno’s job will be. Ursaring luckily is in the middle of Thrash, so it can’t swap to something that could handle Blizzard better.   Could you be clutch just this once Articuno?   Ursaring knocks us down low enough for a Berry, but we might be able to survive one more hit of Thrash if necessary.   OH. Well that makes up for the miss!   Just in case I need Articuno to chip some damage off of Piloswine, we’ll swap to Dewgong. This is actually a safe swap, since the check for de-thawing is done at the end of a turn, and it’s only a 10% chance of doing so.  Crit definitely mattered  Huh, maybe Donphan is in the back if this is his best switch?   Naturally the Quick Claw activates allowing Piloswine to chunk me decently hard.  Waterfall does the same back. So long as another Quick Claw activation doesn’t occur we should be safe to-   Oh boy.  This is going to be a long one.   An immovable object meets an immovable object. That’s not how the line goes but there’s no unstoppable force on this field.  Damnit, I didn’t bother going for Sleep Talk to try and preserve PP in case it was necessary. I guess I’ll roll it this time!   Good. At least we wake up this turn so Waterfall will work fine here.   ...even if it’s against you.   Luckily for me, its best move is Take Down, which will slowly chip itself away while I can heal it all back in an instant.   This goes on for a while.  Eventually the other Dewgong decides it doesn’t want to lose HP anymore and swaps to Surf.  But also eventually my Dewgong reigns supreme. That took a solid five minutes.  But hey, a Waterfall should be enough to take out Piloswine.     Even despite yet another Quick Claw activation.   If Dewgong had been taken out, it might’ve been close between Articuno and Piloswine, and it would’ve likely came down to Blizzard and Take Down accuracy battles.  With that we’re almost to the Elite 4, which stops a fair number of players dead in their tracks in the Gym Leader Castle. But before then…  We’ve got a dragon tamer to battle. Next Time: One final test. FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Mar 26, 2022 |
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Mar 26, 2022 23:04
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The only time in history an Ice type Gym Leader has ever been hard.
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Mar 26, 2022 23:57
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Ursaring is a monster
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Mar 26, 2022 23:59
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Glad to see this LP come back. The frustration the garbage rentals have caused 6 year old me needs to be avenged.
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Mar 28, 2022 05:06
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Update 15: The Difference in Power is Evident  Clair is very prideful and stubborn about her powerful “dragon” Pokemon, and hates losing to trainers she doesn’t believe are ready. As a So let’s humiliate her with a bunch of babies!  Chinchou is one of the bulkiest unevolved Pokemon you can get, and as a rental it has a great moveset to go alongside that. It gets both Surf and Thunder for STAB, Rain Dance if you need to guarantee Thunder or just need Surf to pack a bit of extra oomph, and Confuse Ray can be good combined with Chinchou’s decent Speed. Chinchou will rarely be a sweeper, but it threatens a good chunk of Pokemon all the same.  Magnemite is one strong unevolved Pokemon I’ll give it that. Its Thunder is among some of the strongest available in rentals, and it has Thunder Wave for support too. Unfortuantely there’s not much reason to use Magnemite, and that’s because Magneton shares these exact same qualities while actually having the strongest Thunder in rentals available. We’re using it here because we’re using babies, but otherwise Magneton is always your better option.  Sandshrew falls into a similar boat to Magnemite in where there’s not many reasons to use it over its evolved form in Sandslash. Sandshrew may have Slash to hit Flying types which is more than Sandslash can say, but the stat deficit is too much. STAB Earthquake is on both of them after all.  Abra packs the always useful and powerful Psychic alongside a great Speed stat, but also carries coverage thanks to the elemental punches in Gen 2! Abra’s punch of choice is Ice Punch, which is convenient considering where we’re going, but if you’re feeling ballsy you can also attempt to Attract+Swagger in order to buy more turns of damage. It’s rarely your best option, but it is there. However it is very much a glass cannon, where most physical attacks will 1HKO and even many special moves will threaten a 2HKO. Abra is a solid choice for rentals despite being a first form Pokemon.  Porygon...well it’s kinda bulky, its Blizzards are fairly strong, Tri Attack and Sharpen is a good combo. These are good traits, but what holds Porygon back is its Speed. It will be outsped by many threats you’re hoping to answer, and in turn doesn’t let Porygon get as much done as it would really want to. It’s not a terrible rental by any means, and in this scenario I’ve placed myself in it’s one of the stronger unevolved Pokemon, but it’s also not amazing, especially when you consider how plentiful the Normal type is.  Ponyta in Stadium 1’s Poke Cup was weird with a Horn Drill set of all things, but luckily for it, in Stadium 2, it’s the fastest Sun setter available in rentals, and its moves aren’t bad either! Fire Blast after setting up the sun does great damage even off of Ponyta’s middling Special Attack, Headbutt for flinching and Iron Tail for coverage do work too. It’s no superstar by any means, and is usually only used for setting up the sun, but it does that job very well.  To be honest, I don’t think the other berries aside from PRZCure and Mint will really come into play in this gym, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. The scales are stacked against us pretty heavily after all.    Gloria isn’t the most exciting trainer, and since Sleep Clause exists, she’s rarely a hassle to deal with.   Ponyta should be able to sweep after setting up Sunny Day barring some incredibly bad luck, since 2/3rds of her team are comprised of weak Grass types after all.   Clefairy manages to hit a 50% accurate Thunder through the Sun because of course it does.   And then a crit Fire Blast and a miss from Ponyta. I suppose there’s that “incredibly bad luck”!  Now you’re just rubbing it in with Pound.   Thankfully even though Porygon is quite slow, Clefairy is just a little bit slower, so it makes for an easy revenge KO.   Venonat does what you’d probably expect it to do, but at this point it’s all over for Gloria.   Abra doesn’t really care for whatever Venonat hits it with, and in return…     Abra does what Abra does best.   You keep telling yourself that!   Starter hoarder.  Vince will bring a Grass/Fire/Water core every time, and all of his Pokemon are rocking solid movesets! There’s just one small thing that makes them not as threatening as they should be, and it’s that they’re still first form starters.  Leading with Chinchou forces two of the three Pokemon he could sent out to swap, and even if it is the Grass type, a swap wouldn’t be too big of a hassle so long as we bring Porygon.   There’s the Fire type, so Vince will be swapping to a Grass type immediately, which gives us also a safe swap.  Abra will deal heavy damage to just about anything.   Especially good ol’ Bulbasaur over here.  It didn’t really matter who Vince brought out next to be honest…   As Abra would just keep trucking on.  And ultimately win the 1v1.   Of course due to Abra’s frailty it can’t stay on the field forever, but we still have two Pokemon in the back, and one of them happen to be Chinchou.  But let’s give Porygon some time in the sun, shall we?  Surf hurts a bit,   But Tri Attack’s better.   Well, we’ll see how true that is very shortly. So two pretty easy fights back to back feels odd seeing how late into the game we are. But don’t worry.   Clair more than makes up for it.  Nothing on her team is a joke or easy to deal with. Rhydon might have the most exploitable weaknesses but nothing wants to eat an Earthquake from it either. Dragonair might not have the raw power of Dragonite but it has insane coverage. Lapras can stay on the field for longer than you would like while dealing good damage, and Kingdra (the one she will always bring) combined with a great moveset also has Scope Lens for extra crits. Ampharos is the most “vulnerable” but without a Ground type it can just as easily run through your team as anything else. I decide on Chinchou, Magnemite, and Sandshrew. I need Sandshrew in case of Arcanine/Ampharos after all, or else I’m just food for them. Here’s hoping for the best.   This is the best lead for us, since Arcanine will go for Dig here, allowing for a safe swap to Sandshrew.   Sandshrew doesn’t mind a 60BP physical move after all.  And Arcanine doesn’t much appreciate Earthquake.  Of course Sandshrew isn’t that powerful either though, so it’s not able to secure a OHKO, meaning a swap is mandatory here.  Chinchou and Sandshrew synergize well together to wall out this Arcanine, and one more swap dance later…   That’s one problem taken care of. But despite what Clair claims, this is far from all over.  This is probably the best case scenario to see here, since Chinchou might be able to take on Rhydon and Kingdra by itself.  Oooooor that could happen! That’s very fortunate since if Rhydon was healthy enough, Clair could decide to swap it out for later on a predicted Surf, but now it’s very likely she just lets it get taken out for a safe swap to Kingdra.   You did good champ.   After Rhydon gets its bath, it’s time for Kingdra, the main threat.   This is exactly why we had the PRZCureBerry on Chinchou, since it’s bulky enough to take a few Dragonbreaths and being paralyzed would spell trouble. But Chinchou isn’t quite strong enough by itself.  So we’ll need at least a little bit of luck here. One confusion hit is likely enough for the combined efforts of Magnemite and Chinchou to take out Kingdra.   0:1   Well it’s still confused so there’s a chance! gently caress. That was my absolute best answer to Kingdra. If Chinchou was able to chip it either through confusion or Thunder, Magnemite could probably finish the job.  But I’ve dug this grave and I get to lay in it now.   Glad to see that Confuse Ray doing work. But if I want any hope of making it past this,  We’re going to play to our win condition.  Parafusion.   One round!   Two rounds!!  And the finishing blow, dealt by Kingdra herself!    This time, it’s the truth.   So that wasn’t so bad right? What’s that, you want to know my loss count? Oh sure! Losses: 9 It could’ve easily been a lot more as well. Let’s go over three of them, each with different team compositions just to see where exactly everything can go wrong! First up is the team of Chinchou, Abra, and Sandshrew.   This fight has Chinchou against Kingdra up first, so we go with the best chance of taking out Kingdra.     Despite hitting a Thunder, Kingdra refused to hit itself in confusion.  Sandshrew would be torn a new one if it went against Kingdra, so Abra’s our only sensible answer.   Abra doesn’t exactly appreciate Hydro Pump either, but it’s able to do the job with two Psychics.   Out comes Dragonair, and while Abra deals good damage to it, we’re weakened enough where Outrage is able to take us out.   Sandshrew is able to tank an Outrage and take out Dragonair in return…   But we’ve seen how this matchup goes.  A new start, this time we have Porygon and Abra in the back. This is a familiar start.   And while Dig does comparable damage to Porygon as it did to Sandshrew,  Tri Attack is much weaker in comparison, which means swapping in and out will eventually wear down Chinchou too much to safely take Kingdra on.   And this allows Arcanine to freely Flamethrower twice while we do very little in return.   Abra isn’t a good answer either thanks to Extremespeed!  So while our Psychic does good damage, it isn’t enough.  And from here Chinchou absolutely cannot 1v3 Clair’s entire team.  One last match, this one has Porygon and Sandshrew supporting Chinchou.   Once again we try to take on Kingdra the way we know how.   And proceed to miss our Thunder. No worries, confusion will stick around for a little longer.   But then Clair decides to swap, which is intriguing seeing as she was fine with Kingdra being in just a minute ago.  At least Thunder hits this time!   I bring in the digital duck to take on Outrage, and it tanks it surprisingly well even with the 10% boost from the Dragon Fang.   In return Porygon can fire off a Blizzard, taking out Dragonair after the chip damage Thunder granted.   Lapras was clearly not very amused.   From here it’s technically winnable, but it requires a lot of luck, so I go straight for it.  Working out wonderfully for me.   Surprisingly Lapras did hit itself afterwards allowing for two Thunders to take it out.  But then this problem comes back.   And Sandshrew is very unprepared for the power wash awaiting it.  It does manage to get an Earthquake off with a lucky Hydro Pump miss!    An Earthquake.  Clair is definitely an obstacle there’s no doubt about that. But coming back to the timeline when we won…     The staircase to glory awaits us. But before we do that, it’s time to take on a few more Stadiums. This will be the last poll before the Elite 4. Which team do you want represented in Ultra Ball Cup? FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Mar 29, 2022 |
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Mar 28, 2022 22:50
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Clair isn't descended from Lance, she's his cousin.
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Mar 29, 2022 00:12
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Blugh, fixed.
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Mar 29, 2022 00:13
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