Let's Play! Pokemon Ruby: Beastmaster Challenge

[JustOrdinary]

As of May 11th 2015, The Beastmaster Challenge is now complete! Thanks for watching everyone!

Greetings and salutations everyone! It brings me great pride to finally showcase a pet project I've been working on for a while. I realize the YouTube scene is over saturated with Pokemon Let's Plays, but this one seeks to break the norm by removing the one crutch that makes every single other challenge run out there possible - namely, experience gain.

That's right, experience gain has been disabled for the very first time in a Pokemon playthrough! No longer will you have to be shackled to the drudgery of repetitive grinds to trounce over every gym in the lands of Hoenn. Only raw trainer skill, clever ingenuity, and AI-exploitation can acquire you the badges to the fearsome elite 4.

The best part? While this is a self-imposed challenge, there isn't an encyclopedia of rules you need to memorize before embarking on your journey, because everything you need to know about the challenge is already in the game.

Join Pathos and JustOrdinary (that's me!) for a funtastic adventure into the world of pokemon, where dreams, friendships, and a whole lot of Zigzagoons await!

Link to the full playlist for the Beastmaster Challenge


Episode 1: In way over our heads

BM #1

Please don't be scared off by the initial low quality of the starting videos, I am re-uploading with fixed audio as fast I can. Improvement takes time, but it's more than often worth the wait!

BM Challenge #42 - Final Pokemon Team, Assemble!

BM #42

BM Finale Part 1 of 3 - Elite 4 Showdown!

BM FINALE Part 1 of 3

Elite 4 Cleanup! BM FINALE PART 2 of 3 - Pokémon Ruby

BM FINALE PART 2 of 3

The Finale of the FINALES! BM FINALE PART 3 of 3 - Pokémon Ruby

BM FINALE PART 3 of 3

 

[itsmy1stday]

how did you hack the rom?
by the way, nice idea!

 

[JustOrdinary]

how did you hack the rom?
by the way, nice idea!

Thanks!

Theres a prolific rom hacking community over on a different forum (that I won't be naming in case it breaks any rules) that has a bunch of tools and available for stuff exactly like this. The one I used was called the "Pokémon Gen III Rom Hacking Suite" and it came with a function for changing XP values pokemon give you after battle.

I'm gonna guess its intended design was to let people create new pokemon for their romhacks and assign more customizable values, but it suited my needs just fine. I had to manually set the XP values for all the pokes to 0. I'm sure a more elegant solution exists to modify the hex values for the experience gain formula inside the games somewhere, but my terribly inefficient method worked for me perfectly. Scratch that, almost perfectly. I still dont understand why ZERO MULTIPLED BY ONE EQUALS ONE, GAMEFREAK.



In other news: NEW UPDATE

BM #17

Part 17 - True Love isn't possible without Rock Smash

 

[JustOrdinary]

Hey guys! Sorry if it's been a little quiet on the channel, been trying my best to circumvent lots of problems that have been cropping up lately. Anyway, putting up a double header to celebrate the last stretch before Wattson.

Beastmaster Challenge #18 - Deja Vu and Trainer Gauntlets

BM #18

This was plagued by a slew of technical difficulties. It was not helped by our *ahem* heated discourse regarding the ethics of raising pokemon in a daycare. Anyway, we start out naming our brand new Roselia, and then just start having non-stop pokemon battles from there. At this point we're stalling for Wattson, because gosh darn it, he's going to be a problem.


Beastmaster Challenge #19 - Desperate Times, Desperate Measures, and desperate underhanded tactics oh god im sorry mudkip

BM #19

We bring to light the various problems fighting a level 23 Magneton bring when all you have are cripplingly underleveled pokes of level 12-14's. This one was actually a doozy to figure out, so I wanted to dedicate an episode to really present why we go with the path that we do. I know some people out there would just straight up prefer the Wattson fight to just happen already, but brute force was simply never going to happen. Plus I wanted to avoid the continuous bullshit re-recordings that the Brawly fight brought.
*Special Note* Our audio quality sees a drastic improvement this episode... for reasons I've still not be able to replicate in future videos. Enjoy it guys!

We bring to light the various problems fighting a level 23 Magneton bring when all you have are cripplingly underleveled pokes of level 12-14's. This one was actually a doozy to figure out, so I wanted to dedicate an episode to really present why we go with the path that we do. I know some people out there would just straight up prefer the Wattson fight to just happen already, but brute force was simply never going to happen. Plus I wanted to avoid the continuous bullshit re-recordings that the Brawly fight brought.



P.S. I'm not entirely sure on the bumping-self-thread policy on these forums, so if I'm overstepping any boundaries, I'd really love to know.

 

[Sakuretsu]

P.S. I'm not entirely sure on the bumping-self-thread policy on these forums, so if I'm overstepping any boundaries, I'd really love to know.

I'm pretty sure when it comes to things like Let's Plays and trade threads, it's OK to bump your own thread - as long as there is actually an update of some sort, instead of just bumping for the sake of bumping. However, I, myself, may be wrong - but I'm pretty positive that is how it works. Anyway, good luck.

 

[hard]

You should not cheat!
I really like your play through up to now, so I feel that advice is good at this tricky point:
Just spam 20 Potions with a Groundtype out and Magneton has no Sonicbooms left. Btw a lv9 Geodude is available in Granite Cave so pick a higher leveled one near the entrance of that cave.
Another strategy can work as well, if you paralyze it get it down with Fake tears to -6 SpD and then start to attack with Roselia. But the safest and easy way to victory is buying 20 extra potions for healing Geodude continuously.

 

[JustOrdinary]

Okay, so instead of an endless series of apologies about untimely slow updates, let's just say I'm definitely making some progress to fixing some of the problems slowing this playthrough down.

First up, today's update brings us to battle wits and trade thunder waves with the undisputed king of unfair level advantage himself, Wattson!

Beastmaster Challenge #20 - Battle for the Electric Badge, Gambling with Fire!

BM #20

This was an ambitious video. It was ambitious to think flamethrower from a pitifully underleveled Mawile was going to be enough (and it shows its inadequate Special Attack pretty HARD). It was ambitious to assume I could voice record immediately after a 5 hour long game corner binge (super legit with a metric ton of save/loads, if anyone is curious). It was most of all, overly ambitious to edit the entire session into a single video (and the spiffy little montage at the end did not help matters).

I think it came out pretty okay. It's a rare thing to feel pride in something so... shoddy, but it's definitely there. :D

You should not cheat!
I really like your play through up to now, so I feel that advice is good at this tricky point:
Just spam 20 Potions with a Groundtype out and Magneton has no Sonicbooms left. Btw a lv9 Geodude is available in Granite Cave so pick a higher leveled one near the entrance of that cave.

Another strategy can work as well, if you paralyze it get it down with Fake tears to -6 SpD and then start to attack with Roselia. But the safest and easy way to victory is buying 20 extra potions for healing Geodude continuously.

... I really wish I had been able to see your post earlier. My tunnel vision was refusing to find better alternatives to the flamethrower gamble and it's only through sheer luck I stumbled onto the latter half of your advice on my own.

Higher leveled Geodude or no, PP stalling sonic boom would have been the most efficient way to go about this. Granted this may have required a wee bit more potions than 20 (thanks to the occassional supersonic), but the idea behind your strat is definitely solid and would've been substantially more cost and time efficient than what I went with.

Also, yeeeaah, Absorb stil does piddly little at +2 even with a -6 on the Magneton. Shockwave packs a decent whollop even with Roselia's high Sp Def. Toss in the occasional crit and Roselia isn't exactly god-tier.

She is still very, very useful to chip Magneton down and can sponge a surprising number of hits. I should have seen her potential earlier, but the realization came far, far too late late. I blame this partially on my brain being numbed from game corner nonsense (most of the video showcases my sense of judgment at its absolute worst TBH). But you were still correct in valuing Roselia so highly, and I wish I could have somehow listened to you earlier.

P.S. Thanks for the vote of confidence! Sometimes I'm worried these videos come out terrible but then comments like yours motivate me to keep trying to be better because somebody's watching :D.

I'm pretty sure when it comes to things like Let's Plays and trade threads, it's OK to bump your own thread - as long as there is actually an update of some sort, instead of just bumping for the sake of bumping. However, I, myself, may be wrong - but I'm pretty positive that is how it works. Anyway, good luck.

Okay, understood! I'll still try to play it safe and keep the thread from getting too spammy with update postings.



On a final note...

A sneak peak for the coming episodes!

 

[hard]

congrats and comments inside

This was an ambitious video. It was ambitious to think flamethrower from a pitifully underleveled Mawile was going to be enough (and it shows its inadequate Special Attack pretty HARD). It was ambitious
to assume I could voice record immediately after a 5 hour long game corner binge (super legit with a metric ton of save/loads, if anyone is curious). It was most of all, overly ambitious to edit the entire
session into a single video (and the spiffy little montage at the end did not help matters).

I think it came out pretty okay. It's a rare thing to feel pride in something so... shoddy, but it's definitely there. :D

Both of you deserve all my respect for the hardships you went through trying to defeat the bitch himself!
Your solution is definitely fine, as you use normal game resources to achieve this. (Just make sure to never use that lv 13 Mudkip again.)
You showed complete insanity :D


... I really wish I had been able to see your post earlier. My tunnel vision was refusing to find better alternatives to the flamethrower gamble and it's only through sheer luck I stumbled onto the latter half of your advice on my own.

Higher leveled Geodude or no, PP stalling sonic boom would have been the most efficient way to go about this. Granted this may have required a wee bit more potions than 20 (thanks to the occassional supersonic), but the idea behind your strat is definitely solid and would've been substantially more cost and time efficient than what I went with.

Also, yeeeaah, Absorb stil does piddly little at +2 even with a -6 on the Magneton. Shockwave packs a decent whollop even with Roselia's high Sp Def. Toss in the occasional crit and Roselia isn't exactly god-tier.

She is still very, very useful to chip Magneton down and can sponge a surprising number of hits. I should have seen her potential earlier, but the realization came far, far too late late. I blame this partially on my brain being numbed from game corner nonsense (most of the video showcases my sense of judgment at its absolute worst TBH). But you were still correct in valuing Roselia so highly, and I wish I could have somehow listened to you earlier.

P.S. Thanks for the vote of confidence! Sometimes I'm worried these videos come out terrible but then comments like yours motivate me to keep trying to be better because somebody's watching :D.

I will keep on cheering for you, maybe I can come up with some help later on.
Btw, it´s all Mawiles fault that you had to go through this massive hell... Sableye + Geodude completely murder this gym even on level 1 :)

On a final note...

A sneak peak for the coming episodes!

View attachment 16378

I need more :D

 

[JustOrdinary]

Hey fellow Smogonites (... that is what we call each other, right?), got a few more updates ready with a whole lot more on the way, so let's do this.

Featuring: Pathos's new Layout for the challenge!

Beastmaster Challenge #21 - A Journey with many Detours!

BM #21

Dialing down on the high stakes and tense action for a bit, we take a well deserved rest after acquiring the 3rd Badge to continue on our Hoenn journey. There's finally a much needed change of scenery, a bit of foreshadowing for our next confrontation with team Magma, and just a tease of locations we'll be sightseeing in the future.

Beastmaster Challenge #22 - The Ravages of Underpreparation!

BM #22

The start of a somewhat... rough patch for the beastmaster challenge. We enter Fiery Path and mostly ignore the new Pokemon there. We'd decided prior to recording to avoid spending too much time on capturing until reaching the new city. This might seem odd and counter-intuitive to our playthrough, but the reasoning is this - every trainer is murder on our underleveled team and merits a heal at the Pokecenter afterward. We wanted to show progress instead of just battles, but in the end, we end up being foiled by our own underpreparation, failing to reach even close to Fallarbor.

Unfortunately, there's going to be one more episode in a similar style of white outs. I ask that anyone annoyed by this to please be patient, we do immediately remedy our team deficits in the episodes once we reach Fallarbor. The long lapses between recording sessions have started to make me more forgetful than I should be. I have also begun taking steps to fix this as well, so expect a bit more polish to come in the playthrough as well.

congrats and comments inside

Both of you deserve all my respect for the hardships you went through trying to defeat the bitch himself!
Your solution is definitely fine, as you use normal game resources to achieve this. (Just make sure to never use that lv 13 Mudkip again.)
You showed complete insanity :D

I will keep on cheering for you, maybe I can come up with some help later on.
Btw, it´s all Mawiles fault that you had to go through this massive hell... Sableye + Geodude completely murder this gym even on level 1 :)

I need more :D

Thanks for the well wishes as always! Mudkipz gone the way of Ash's butterfree as of Episode 19 (released!), didn't really want it to be a constant source of tension between me and Pathos for the rest of the game.

Aaaaand as for Sableye... he would've stomped Brawly too. I'm thinking Pokemon Sapphire Beastmaster Challenge might've been a lot easier >_>.

 

[hard]

Nice updates. Maybe you can get a Torkoal on Fiery Path, while you go back and forth. Might help against Flannery with Curse+Smog. ...might as well not help though (lv16 yeah)

 

[JustOrdinary]

Greetings again loyal fans and silent watchers alike! We've got another update ready, along with a few other... problem ones pending and uploading, but more on that later!

Today's a solo episode for now, but I will edit this post with the additional videos when they're ready too. Feeling a bit ambitious, but I might be able to finish at least 2 (with an extra miniepisode) before the weekend comes to a close.

Beastmaster Challenge #23 - Crouching Ninjas, Hidden Trainers - The Road to Fallarbor!

BM #23

Brute force describes this episode best. Faffing about has been cut to an all time minimum, and upon reviewing this episode again, I was pleasantly surprised with the lack of whiteouts! Seems the brunt of it was all in the previous episode. We blitz through the new route as fast as possible in this one. There's little to say here that's not self evident. Underleveled team means we deliberately try to avoid trainer battles, turning Pokemon into a weird meta stealth RPG. There are trainers we're forced to lock eyes with, though we don't get trounced as much this time around.

Speeding through this section does mean leaving behind a crucial amount of Pokes and items scattered around, but like I said in the previous post, we'll be coming back for those later. I'm getting a little bit worried at our tendency to avoid interesting game elements (secret bases, contests, flutes...).

My reasoning for this is kind of reductionist. Pokeflutes aren't wholly necessary to progress --> I can manage without any --> we don't acquire them. They DO make life easier, but they don't do anything that our current items don't DO already. Any status not covered is fixed simply by switching out. But this approach feels like it's critically undervaluing the effort put in by gamefreak. I understand that we're not attempting a walkthrough so it isn't required for us to cover everything (and people who do make them have done so infinitely better)... but it still feels like we're doing a discourtesy to the developers. Anyone else bothered by this, or is it just me?

Anyway, more episodes inbound, once I clear a few last minute problems and successfully upload. See you guys soon!

Nice updates. Maybe you can get a Torkoal on Fiery Path, while you go back and forth. Might help against Flannery with Curse+Smog. ...might as well not help though (lv16 yeah)

Hello again!

Starting episode 24, we shake up our team composition to include a few heavy hitters (Swords Dance Zangoose is BEAST). Torkoal is also shaping up to be a good asset with its absurdly high defense, though I doubt its utility to withstand Flannery's Torkoal's body slams even with curse. I do admit I'm a little more curious in Torkoal's ability to soak Overheats :P. I could do with a smoother run on the Gyms for once.

 

[hard]

PEOPLES WATCH THIS SHIT!!! I am not the only one who loves tough challenges and the beast masters sure are no pussies when it comes to that.

Now moving on, I am thrilled for Zangoose (yay Ruby does not suck anymore :).... but until Strength it only has QuickAttack and Dig for most powerful moves. Still nice capture for Team Magma fights.
The problem is, that even +6 Dig will not OHKO (and maybe not even 2HKO) that Lv 28 Torkoal and Overheat will kill it in return.

You also get Geodude up to Lv 20 on the Zangoose route and .... SOLROCK in Meteor Falls up to Lv 18 (also good Numels on Jagged Pass - they have Magnitude).
Both might also help against Norman, because his gyms Lv 27-Lv 30 Pokemon against your max Lv 20-22 Pokemon (Desert and Jagged Pass) means tough shit is coming and strategy is much needed in advance.

Now back to the next gym. The Gym trainers are mostly unavoidable I think so bring Magnitude Numel/Geodude or Solrock to make it faster but for Flannery this is not enough.
Torkoal has three(!) nice moves to make the gym leader a breeze: Smokescreen, Curse, Smog. Use the first one as often as you need against Fugma, use the second six times, use the last one to Poison all her Pokemon to death... Flannery cannot heal Poison once you have achieved it so it slowly kills them all, while you can soak quite some hits and don't need to spend much Potions, because you might still need the money for your evil Daddy.
Alternative could be six times Smokescreen, switch to Zangoose, Swords Dance up, Double Team six times and then hopefully Dig your way to victory.

Afterwards collect Toxic from Fiery Path and Toxic stall your Daddy to death! But you will die a lot against the Zangoose in his gym, so bring some Intimidating Death Fodder with you (Go Yunalesca!)

 

[JustOrdinary]

:/

Sorry guys to disappoint, but it looks like I won't be able to get those two episodes ready after all. There's a substantial amount of audio distortion that makes them nearly unwatchable... so I'm thinking I need closed captioning on both before they'll be live.

Deadline's kicked in so it's Monday now, meaning I'll be heading home for my summer break. My PC's a desktop, so no more editing work until I get back next week. I DO have one last update ready before I sign off though, so hopefully it'll tide you guys over until I'm back (next Tuesday).

Enjoy!

Beastmaster Challenge #23.5 - Off-screen Shenanigans!

BM #23.5

The long awaited (short) episode of backtracking and other assorted filler is finally here! On a serious note, this is probably a necessary episode in terms of content since I finally take some initiative on capturing new Pokes for the team. Not all of them see screentime, but that's kind of a thing in regular pokemon playthroughs too. I also take the time to acquire some key items we forget on the ride to Fallarbor (like the HM for strength?!).

This is also the first episode I recorded solo, so no Pathos in this one. Needless to say, it is a different dynamic when recording and the 'cringe' factor is at an all time maximum. There's a lot more issues I've never had to account for (like my breathing, what the hell), so the episode comes across as a bit more amateur than we are generally. I apologize for that, but there'll be more apologies for bigger stuff coming... so I hope we can all remember that since we're new, stuff like this is going to happen and any mishaps created are experiences that we will learn from and improve.

That's everything then, enjoy!

PEOPLES WATCH THIS SHIT!!! I am not the only one who loves tough challenges and the beast masters sure are no pussies when it comes to that.

Now moving on, I am thrilled for Zangoose (yay Ruby does not suck anymore :).... but until Strength it only has QuickAttack and Dig for most powerful moves. Still nice capture for Team Magma fights.
The problem is, that even +6 Dig will not OHKO (and maybe not even 2HKO) that Lv 28 Torkoal and Overheat will kill it in return.

You also get Geodude up to Lv 20 on the Zangoose route and .... SOLROCK in Meteor Falls up to Lv 18 (also good Numels on Jagged Pass - they have Magnitude).
Both might also help against Norman, because his gyms Lv 27-Lv 30 Pokemon against your max Lv 20-22 Pokemon (Desert and Jagged Pass) means tough shit is coming and strategy is much needed in advance.

Now back to the next gym. The Gym trainers are mostly unavoidable I think so bring Magnitude Numel/Geodude or Solrock to make it faster but for Flannery this is not enough.
Torkoal has three(!) nice moves to make the gym leader a breeze: Smokescreen, Curse, Smog. Use the first one as often as you need against Fugma, use the second six times, use the last one to Poison all her Pokemon to death... Flannery cannot heal Poison once you have achieved it so it slowly kills them all, while you can soak quite some hits and don't need to spend much Potions, because you might still need the money for your evil Daddy.
Alternative could be six times Smokescreen, switch to Zangoose, Swords Dance up, Double Team six times and then hopefully Dig your way to victory.

Afterwards collect Toxic from Fiery Path and Toxic stall your Daddy to death! But you will die a lot against the Zangoose in his gym, so bring some Intimidating Death Fodder with you (Go Yunalesca!)

Thanks man :)

I really, really wanted to score a Geodude, but the actual level variation is 5-20. And it's just a chance for spawning on rocksmash. If the Gym (or Team Magma for that matter) pose a big enough problem, we'll probably come back for one. Otherwise, it's just a whole lot of time of spent rocksmashing.

Solrock is a damn fine idea though, and I'm thinking coupled with Torkoal and Zangoose (and our newly acquired HM strength) it should bring enough firepower for Flannery. Magnitude Numels are also available in case things get rough. I'm thinking this is probably going to be one of the easier gyms to run simply by virtue of all the tools we have. Poison stall seems a little bit unnecessary, but we'll definitely keep in mind, just in case.

Norman's a different matter, but when that mountain comes, we'll cross it. As an aside, I'm not really in favor of using up Toxic this early. TM's are one-time use in Ruby, so anything we're forced to use now is another move we can't use in the future. Ideally, I'd like to save it for Walrein in the E4, but Wallace's Milotic is going to be a MASSIVE pain as well. We have to conserve, else we might end up digging ourselves into a hole.

 

[hard]

Flannery... easy... I will enjoy the minutes when you restart in front of her ;)

perfect Lv. 17 Zangoose(31IV each stat) against all 0IV Lv. 28 Torkoal
+4 Strength does a maximum of 48HP damage (it has at least 77HP)
while Overheat does a minimum of 82HP damage on the first hit

those level gaps are not easily overcome, I fear that Norman will be able to OHKO everything on your team.
Afterwards it will be much more plain sailing ;)
Tentacools up to Lv 35, Pelippers and Marills are easily accessible.
SafariPokemon like Girafarig, Xatu and Golduck should make the psychic gym manageable.
And for the Elite Four you have a lot of nice VictoryRoad encounters to rely on.

Do you allow RareCandies and EvolutionStones?

 

[JustOrdinary]

Holy geez, I'm sorry for how late these updates are. I was back last week but my youtube kept cancelling my uploads at 96% for whatever strange reasons.

Anyway, moving on from pointless apologies to more relevant apologies:

So I have good news, bad news, and ... something neutral news?

The good news is that today features a triple update, INCLUDING the battle for the 4th Gym! Super condensed and less-time-wastier than usual videos!

The bad news is the audio on episodes 24 and 25 are shot to hell (episode 26 is fine). I've tried my damned hardest to get them to sound well... but truthfully, they sound like shit. There was some kind of awful high pitched whistling in the original audio file with huge rumbly static, and while I have minimized both, it did not come without the cost of completely butchering up the audio file.

The somewhat neutral update is that I've taken the effort to manually type subtitles for our audio transcript, so if you can't stand the awful audio, I'd suggest lowering the volume and turning those on. You can enable them via the 'CC' button on the youtube player, and selecting language: English.


Onto the actual episodes, then:

Beastmaster Challenge #24 - Technology is Hard!

BM #24

Turn on subtitles by clicking the 'CC' button on the youtube player. Trust me, you're going to need them.

I know I usually use this space to discuss backstagey kind of things, but I kinda dedicated a filler episode to that already. We've acquired pretty much the lineup we wanted, and Zangoose is a really, really awesome Pokemon. Desperately needed a boosting move to even the odds, and Swords Dance delivers exquisitely. It's a shame there's not enough battles in this one to showcase that, but you should probably blame GameFreak on that one for not including a mandatory showdown at Meteor Falls with Team Magma.

There IS a particular moment in the video where I apologize for 'sounding tired' because I'm worried that might detract from the viewing experience. I literally laughed out loud at how trivial that sounds now. Especially considering I forgot to turn on the in-game audio when I rendered the final video.

Believe me, I am really, really sorry for shitty audio quality though. I know this video reflects poorly on us, but I tried super hard to fix it. Like, 18 hours of constant audio editing hard. I've already placed an order for a new microphone, which should improve our audio drastically and get rid of these problems once and for all. Look out for that featuring in a few episodes!


Beastmaster Challenge #25 - Thwarting the Evil of Real Estate Agents!

BM #25

Note: The audio on this episode fixes to normal at the timestamp 12:31

Mt. Chimney, HO. Maxie was a daunting opponent coming up. Our team of widdle unevolved Pokes were not ready for the triple combination of Mightyena, Golbat, and Camerupt. With Pathos on the helm, things were a little more co-piloty than usual. Transcribing the audio has made me aware just how bad I am when it comes to micromanaging. I'm thinking I need to fix that habit, ASAP.

Aside from that, I think it's a fairly standard run of Mt.Chimney. We even capture a few Pokes on the way to Lavaridge!


Beastmaster Challenge #26 - Battle for the 4th Badge - Fanning the Flames of Flannery!

BM #26

The audio in this episode is NORMAL.

I seriously hate the unavoidable trainers in this gym. I hate them almost as much the stupid teleportation puzzle. But nothing compares to the fiery hate of a thousand suns I feel for Flannery's stupid Torkoal and it's stupid Body Slamming and paralysis spreading on everything. I still have nightmares about Jirachi on PokemonShowdown, and I did NOT need this stupid thing to remind me of it.

There's actually fewer restarts than usual on this one. Part of it has to do with there being fewer attempts than usual, the other part actually has a technical reason behind it. I'll explain in the description for Episode 27 when I've updated here, but suffice to say it is a silly one. Don't worry, there's only 2 more tries that got trimmed out (not on purpose).

The strategy for Flannery was actually clear cut. I had a stroke of genius when I noticed Harden on Solrock, and since it didn't OHKO with Overheat, Torkoal became a lot less difficult than it could have been. Granted, we did luck out a bit with Spoink's confusion HAX on the end of the video, but that situation would have never arose if I had bought enough Super Potions to heal up Solrock with anyhow.

That said, the 4th badge marks our halfway point into this challenge.

And Dad?
You're next.

Flannery... easy... I will enjoy the minutes when you restart in front of her ;)

perfect Lv. 17 Zangoose(31IV each stat) against all 0IV Lv. 28 Torkoal
+4 Strength does a maximum of 48HP damage (it has at least 77HP)
while Overheat does a minimum of 82HP damage on the first hit

those level gaps are not easily overcome, I fear that Norman will be able to OHKO everything on your team.
Afterwards it will be much more plain sailing ;)
Tentacools up to Lv 35, Pelippers and Marills are easily accessible.
SafariPokemon like Girafarig, Xatu and Golduck should make the psychic gym manageable.
And for the Elite Four you have a lot of nice VictoryRoad encounters to rely on.

Do you allow RareCandies and EvolutionStones?

HAH! It took... fewer restarts than usual :P.

Don't forget it was never a one Pokemon affair, there's still a good 5 others to complement the Zangoose. The Solrock in particular worked like a champ!

As for Norman... I have a plan. A very cheesy plan. But that's for another time. I should have it recorded and uploaded soon enough this week.

Future gyms, not so much. Winona, I'm thinking magnemite from New Mauville. Don't even know about the psychics and Wallace yet (level 42+ is scary). E4 is a mountain of issues but everything is FUTURE PROBLEMS FOR LATER.

Pathos and I are on an agreement for Evolution Stones currently. The discussion for Rarecandies is a little less... agreeable. Along with the discussion on Groudon. Future problems, right? :)

 

[JustOrdinary]

Hmm, technical problems seem to never stop. New Mic's working great though. Anyway enough dallying around, today we're jumping straight into the updates:


Beastmaster Challenge #27 - Days of Future Past

BM #27

Okay, so apparently we lost some VIDEO footage this week as well. Technically, the video included Flannery's gym battle too, so if you were wondering why there's fewer restarts than usual in that last video, this is why :D. I had to actually use some 'trial run' footage, which I sometimes have lying around for when I'm playing through the Beastmaster solo. Don't worry, it's just to gauge a little bit ahead to see if any problematic areas might be coming up and streamline a plan. We generally have a terrible pace when we're clueless, so I just wanted to put a stop to that.

Anywho, this is a pretty short video showcasing us backpedaling over to Petalburg from Lavaridge. Unfortunately, some time had lapsed since the original recording... so my memory was kind of hazy about whch route I had to take. It leads to some... goofy and funny moments, so I guess everythings turns out well enough. Minor spoilers will be had, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?
Beastmaster Challenge #28 - Battle for Dad's Badge, A Swords Dance to Remember!

#28

I can foresee at least someone finding my methods... disagreeable. In my defense, Marriland and other popular YouTubers make liberal uses of the X-items too, and I'm not exactly doing a multiplayer challenge only playthrough so....

Alternate strategy for this gym includes shuffling three Mawiles with two arbitrary switch-ins to soak hits. Operation Zangoose Swords Dance Sweep still works if the original Slaking is -6 attack since Faint Attack never kills.

Alternate, alternate strategy involves utilizing Toxic, Wurmple String Shot, Zubat Super Sonics with the Mawiles and Curse/Body Slamming Torkoal. I did not want to waste Toxic though, since I have to think of Wallace's Milotic. And the Elite 4 needs every tool at my disposal as well, so if I can find an alternate solution for Milotic too, that would be awesome.

That's a conundrum for the future. The umm, distant one anyway.

 

[JustOrdinary]

Hey guys, got another quick update already. It's gonna be a single one this week cause YouTube's being a little finicky with the uploads again, but if I can squeeze another one in I'll just edit it in this post.

We're umm, going to be returning shortly to old Microphone for a few episodes because this was footage recorded before the new one arrived. Crystal clear audio returns by episode 33!


Beastmaster Challenge #29 - Volts, Magnets, And Human GPS Systems

BM #29

Who's ready for sidequests?

Hot off a series of gym battles, we're in for a bit of a long road until the next one comes around (in Fortree). Unfortunately, we're still in comfortably familiar West Hoenn for now, but we're up for a change in scenery very, very soon once we head East.

Anywho, this episode features us backpedaling home to snag a crucial Amulet Coin pickup, an item that doubles money gained from trainer battles. We normally avoid those to the best of our ability (since each one is kind of difficult), but the double money is going to be an important investment toward potion funds to sustain us through any difficult gyms coming ahead. Our second goal this episode is to head to New Mauville at the behest of Wattson, in exchange for the thunderbolt TM and possibly acquire a high level Magnemite to combat the upcoming flying gym (steel/electric typing 4x resists almost everything there).

Commentary-wise, this was kind of grating for me personally. The latter part of the episode's title actually refers to myself, because backseat driving was at an all-time high. I've decided that whenever handing Pathos the reigns in future episodes, we'll have kind of a mini-discussion of sorts beforehand of where we need to go, what to do, etc so I don't have to direct him. Who knows, maybe some day these episodes will actually have halfway decent commentary? For now, the learning process continues.

Anyway guys, hope you enjoy it.

By the way, normally this goes without saying, but we're actively looking for critique on these episodes. Learning blind has its benefits, but finding out what works can sometimes be upstaged by doing what's comfortable instead - and these kinds of things can end up taking a while to notice on their own. Please don't hesitate to say anything negative or hold back on words because they might sound harsh, because no matter the feedback, we'd very deeply appreciate your insight. Thanks in advance!

 

[hard]

Awesome that you both still do this. Sorry that I didn't even found the time to drop a comment, I´m seriously too busy for Pokemon itm.
Nevertheless, if you are still in New Mauville there is a 1% chance to catch Electrode and Magneton, but that might need a huuuuuuge amount of time - the chance to encounter a 1% species after 69 encounters is 50%... awesome... and then Altaria uses Earthquake ;)

Btw I would recommend to delay Winona right now. Just skip her until you really need to beat her after the Water type gym, because IceBeam and Lanturn might be great additions, especially for that Altaria. The higher leveled Pokemons you get after her gym will save a lot of time for you.
You both did an awesome job with daddy! Have a lot of fun in the jungle, your team needs more RAWR :D
see ya

 

[JustOrdinary]

*Sigh* another single update for today. No excuses this time, it's just the prelude to a kiiiiinda difficult recording schedule for both me and Pathos. I'll throw together an update video sometime in the future, but it's not looking great. Whatever happens, I promise I'll try my hardest to get these videos up.
Even if it probably means I have a lot of binge editing to do this weekend.

Beastmaster Challenge #30 - The Zigzagoon Embargo Begins!

BM #30

Perpetual rain in a Kyogre-less terrain, woo!

Hoenn really shines for the first time in these zones. The Tall grass feels like an exclusive Hoenn thing, and there's always that slight fear where you can't tell which direction a trainer's looking toward. It's fun to waddle through and the oppressive rainfall just adds a unique sense of... ambience to the game, I guess. When I think back on these games, it's the trumpets and these thickets in particular that feel the most familiar. I don't know, I guess I'm rambling a bit since there's not much content-wise that happens in these sections.

Oooh, I guess I could mention Tropius, who I always thought was super cool looking! He's exclusive to this area. And we also find, albeit briefly, for the first time an evolved Pokemon to add to our team. I'm personally very distraught at the lack of Zigzagoons in our future, but Linoone is kinda cool too. I guess. He's not the same though.

Other than that, we're pretty much in one of those 'transitiony' episodes where we've finished off the Wattson sidequest and gearing up for a fight with Team Magma at the Weather Institute (and a rival battle too!). Hope you enjoy guys, oh and we'll be back to the new microphone by episode 33! So just a few more to suffer through.

Awesome that you both still do this. Sorry that I didn't even found the time to drop a comment, I´m seriously too busy for Pokemon itm.
Nevertheless, if you are still in New Mauville there is a 1% chance to catch Electrode and Magneton, but that might need a huuuuuuge amount of time - the chance to encounter a 1% species after 69 encounters is 50%... awesome... and then Altaria uses Earthquake ;)

Btw I would recommend to delay Winona right now. Just skip her until you really need to beat her after the Water type gym, because IceBeam and Lanturn might be great additions, especially for that Altaria. The higher leveled Pokemons you get after her gym will save a lot of time for you.
You both did an awesome job with daddy! Have a lot of fun in the jungle, your team needs more RAWR :D
see ya

Hey! You don't have to apologize, when you've got stuff to do, you've got stuff to do. It's totally cool if you need to catch a break for a while, that just means there's more episodes for when you come back :).

We're probably going to settle with just a Magnemite for now. It's more than enough for everything the game can throw at us until Altaria, and as you correctly point out, neither Electrode nor Magneton do well against it either. I'm toying around with ideas right now (Castform, Solrock, Absol, Tropius, etc), but I think if we dedicate the entire rest of our team, we should be able to clear through it. Not with ease, but with a little bit of luck. As much as I would like to just outright skip it, Pokemon Ruby requires a LOT of backtracking. FLY is almost essential if I want to save time (... our game time total is frankly embarrassing at this point).

I think we can handle it. We're almost at the end now. Can't back down from a challenge when there's harder stuff down the road, right?

 

[JustOrdinary]

Holy hell guys, we finally managed to double update again! Was beginning to think we'd take until Spring to finish the playthrough at the pace we were keeping. Current status, am editing up a storm to have as much content ready for when Pathos's examinations kick in (... soon, unfortunately, but we're recording heavily nowadays as well!), so hopefully guys we can maintain stuff all regular like when the worst comes.

In other news, this is the last update to our Smogon thread with the old microphone. BETTER AUDIO INCOMING NEXT TIME, YOU GUYS!


Beastmaster Challenge #31 - Weathering the Storm of Chumpy Grunts!

BM #31

For the first time since forever, we're finally properly equipped with a Team that can breeze through the trainers in this game; Linoone Surf crushes Numels, Magnemite Thunderbolt fries Zubats, and pretty much everything else stomps Poochyena variants.

We're in the weather institute in this one, and we blaze through Team Magma like they were absolutely nothing until we find May, who ALSO gets pretty much demolished with her heavily countered lineup of 3 Pokemon.

In fact, we have such an easy time of the battles in this update we actually manage to reach Fortree city and even beyond! Hurray for PROGRESS. Just an Absol away and we can probably even take on the Gym. We thought about skipping, but we feel confident now. We can do this.


Beastmaster Challenge #32 - Battle for the Flying Badge, Altaria Must Die!

BM #32

It is super weird to think we were still at Wattson (gym 3) just a bit more than 10 episodes ago. Feel like we're churning out a much better pace for the series now than we originally started.

Just the gym in this episode guys. All trainers and the many, many, attempts at taking Altaria. Now, it might seem like I had a major lapse in judgment and kept throwing my Team to die pointlessly, but in my defense, we'd already beaten Altaria before in a previously wiped recording with the same Team so... yeah. In hindsight, it's pretty painful to watch the lack of Solrock and Castform. Magnemite absolutely crushes everything she has but the Altaria is in some other kind of tier altogether. Takes an entire Team of 5 to bring her down, and that too if she decides not to potion.

On the brightside, I did get to showcase another fancy music montage with the repeated attempts. It's very reminiscent of Wattson and I feel like I did a better job on this one. Was reaaaaally disappointed with how the Flannery one turned out, so I was happy this turned on fairly well. AND I got to use SoulSilver music. I NEVER GET TO USE SOULSILVER MUSIC.

Anyway, that's todays updates guys, see you in a week for more. Enjoy!

 

[JustOrdinary]

Arise, forgotten Beastmaster thread! Heed my necromantic summons from the depths of the ORANGE ISLANDS!

I think it goes without saying this hobbyist/project of ours is starting to look like a sinking ship. Gonna be honest at this point, the amount of work each episode required was starting to become more than we were willing to put in.

We've technically had all the footage recorded since... October, I think. Victory road and the E4 looked like they were going to be hellish to edit so I've been putting it off, but yeah.

But you guys are here for updates, and there's quite a few. Forewarning, it's going to look a little spammy. I'm baaasically just pasting over updates I put up on Youtube but didnt get around to posting here (fresh videos will show up by tomorrow there and here in a discrete edit).

BM Challenge #33 - A Feeling of Déjà vu

BM #33

Celebrating our new microphone... kind of! It's appeared in previous segments already so the magic has worn off a bit. Also, my memory's hazy over these episodes since its been so LONG ago we made them.
Fun fact: This particular episode was recorded over twice! Since the audio was completely unusable. Equipment malfunction seems to be a running theme for this series.

Not much else to talk about here, it's pretty battle-centric episode from Fortree through Mt.Pyre.


BM Challenge #34 - Vigilante Police Raid!

BM #34

Adventures through Slateport and Lilycove everybody! The plot to Pokemon Ruby finally kicks off in this high-octane, high stakes game of cat and mouse with tyrannical leader Maxie and trainer Snow.
I hope you like watching people teleport in bases over and over!

Fun trivia fact for this episode: I had completely forgotten we were supposed to get a Masterball in the hideout and stumbled onto it by pure accident. With some strategical oversight by Pathos.


EDIT BY JO: It's more than a double update, I'm just being lazy. Filling in more in a bit.

 

[JustOrdinary]

Oh yeah! Semi-yearly update to the beastmaster challenge incoming ya'll!

.... I'm just going to skip past the apologies and post the videos now before it's suddenly november. By the way, I'm gone on a crazy editing binge so if this update seems spammy, it's intended.

Good news fan(s), this playthrough is going to be completed and chronicled by the first week of May. I've technically edited until the final bit of the Elite 4 fights, so this means that the only thing preventing updates are internet connections to upload to YouTube. I've since given them to Pathos, so he should be promptly doing that now.

Without further adieu, the largest update to the Beastmaster Thread thus far:


BM challenge #35 - Psychic Woes, The Trials of Mossdeep Gym!

BM #35

Let's see if I can settle into my old thought processes regarding these behind-the-scene snippets.
Right, so this one starts off SUPER PROFESSIONALLY with a complete lack of audio commentary. I recall the audio having some sort of amazing screechy noise making it impossible to use. Ordinarily, we would've just re-recorded this bit but I recall at the time being weeeeeeks behind on editing alone. Getting together was a hassle as well since, well, exams and stuff so I made the executive decision to follow through.

You know, because I thought we'd probably make up for that sloppiness with volume of videos. Silly JO, you can be so delusional at times.

Rest of the video is pretty standard battles and stuff. Title is accurate, majority of the video is just the gym trainers leading up to a very, very underleveled attempt at the gym leader(s). We kinda knew about the Safari Zone, but I wanted to at least reach a new city first before spending a boring 20 minutes of Safari Zone captures and hopping in place.


BM Challenge #36 - Safari Loopholes

BM #36

The dreaded safari zone episode! I usually hate this part in any Pokemon game. It's soooo tedious walking through patches and watching Pokemon flee and then running out of steps to start the entire waste of time again. PLUS ITS USUALLY ESSENTIAL TO FINISH TO PROGRESS THE PLOT.

3rd gen is much better though. You can hop in place forever to save cash on repeated entries. And Pokeblocks are super good to attract the particular breed you want, but I hate that silly mechanic so we never use it.

In other news we grab a super rod at the very start, which we never use at like, all, since the water pokemon levels are so friggin inconsistent.

In case you're wondering what we're here for, it's basically Wobbufett for the psychic gym, with a safety net Girafarig to "check". The Gloom, Pikachu, and Heracross are all future proofing for the final gym and the upcoming Team Magma fights, along with the Pelipper from the last video. I think that about covers it for this one.


BM Challenge #37 - Battle for the Mind Badge, Ft. Wobbufett The Executioner!

BM #37

So there's a little bit we needed to take care of to prep for the gym. Technically, it's not the psychic gym these steps are essential for... but they're critical for the water gym.

Also, if the layout Pokemon look better quality, that's because I started taking over the "art" photoshopping as well at this point. Not to rag on Pathos or anything, but the inconsistent aesthetic on the Pokes was driving me nuts (some in pencil, some in ink color etc). Was more of a time factor if anything else.

HAVENT EVEN GOTTEN TO THE MOST IMPORTANT BIT OF THE VIDEO THOUGH. This marks the first and last time an evolution occurs on screen. We decided to use evolutionary stones! But no rare candies or god damn daycares.

And because I'm such a massive nerd, I edited an animation to match on the layout when they evolve.
The gym battle itself though occurs halfway in the video itself. Apologies for that. I'm bad at editing :(.
It's also disappointly anti-climactic like the Norman fight. Scratch that, it's actually pretty hilarious. Takes only 2 moves xD. Good thing smogon bans Wobuffet from competitive, eh?

Despite it's low level, it's shockingly resillient. Sees plenty of use for the entirety of the playthrough.... perhaps even until the finale?!

BM Challenge #38 - One Year Later

BM #38

So if this episode feels like the commentary was a rush job, that's cause it probably is. Because SOMEONE forgot to turn on the video recording before the session. Fortunately, I'm a little more prepared for technical hiccups and backup every save file just in case we, oh I dont know, overwrite our only save slot and happen to skip the main plot of the game.

Hope you guys like zubats and numels, because this episode features a metric fuckton of them. As much as I love the featured villian teams in most of the games (except Team galactic), I really wish Gamefreak would mix up their Pokemon a bit with more than a simple 'dark type, something type' theme. Sorta like how N is defined by his completely different lineup you fight him.

Also, even though i despise zubats, I don't exactly associate it with 'evil'. And crobat's one of my favorites, so it's always a bit of a disappointment to have to fight one.

So about the actual episode: Interestingly enough, the commentary feels a touch better. If I had to guess, it's cause me and Pathos aren't as distracted by the actual playing aspect. It's an interesting look at an alternate future where we've played/commented enough games and actually get semi-quasi okay at this sort of thing. Well, better than how we started off anyway.

Most of the grunts are a breeze as well since, well, we know exactly what to expect. Even Team Magma boss Maxie is easier on round 2, especially with Wobbufett beasting all over the place.
... I guess that's about all there's to say on this one. Onto the next!


BM Challenge #39 - A Wild Groudon Appears! Also, Battle for the Final Badge!

BM #39

I think I may have realized what I hate most in the world. Repetition. This marks the second time I'm writing up this batch of episode 'behind the scenes commentary'ish things', because my power keeps cutting out and I forget to save in wordpad. Awesome.

Anyway, this episode is a pivotal moment for the beastmaster challenge. WE FINALLY FIGHT GROUDON. Took just a year, hell yeah!

Speaking of, oh man what a perfect episode to showcase how overpowered the legendaries can be. There's being outclassed, and then there's the ability to OHKO and outspeed an entire lineup.

I'm being serious, I have absolutely no way of touching this thing. I tried to capture it in the 'conventional' way and realized there's absolutely jack all I can do to touch it with any mix of Pokes. The only thing I can maybe think of is grabbing Pelippers and Relicanths to bait and stall out Earthquake and teaching something protect to waste the fireblasts/solar beams too. Maaaaybe a duskull to negate the slashes too.

Hmm, come to think of it, I probably could have done this in hindsight. Oh well, just considering my options here.

So the latter half of this video features another important milestone for the Lets Play. ITS THE FINAL GYM HOLY HELL WE MADE IT.

AND it's a fairly smooth run too, considering he's the most annoying Water trainer in the game (bloody Milotic and BLOODY horn drill Seaking). Much thanks was had to my past self for my level of over-preparedness I have. Just to round up the advantages we had going into this battle:

Raichu (electric evolved type)
Bellossom (grass evolved type with SLEEP POWDER)
Magnemite (electric type with steel typing to resist ice/normal attacks)
Heracross (fighting moves for partial ice-types)
Aaaaaand the always amazing Wobbufett.

Don't worry though, no Groudon. I'm a fan of making things harder for myself. Aaaand that's it for this one.


BM Challenge #40 - This Road is Hell

BM #40

I hate these next two videos. I hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The Victory Road is normally the absolute low point in any Pokemon game as far as I'm concerned, and it appropriately marks the WORST portion to edit. I recall mentioning in the video it was recorded sometime in August, so considering it's nearing April now, you now get to see the exact point at which I stopped editing these videos out of sheer frustration.

See, the Elite 4 aren't exactly a cake-walk to edit either. And neither is the video right before, since it involved editing around 8 hours of preparatory content. I put off EVERYTHING because the stupid victory road was this mountain of editing and all I could see were more and more obstacles in the process too.
Fuck the victory road.

So during the actual recording of these videos, I had the great idea to simply try to facerush the caves. It took multiple deaths to sway my stubborness into capturing a golbat and others. If you're wondering why I keep saying that in the first person, that's because Pathos was SUPER against this and got fairly irate me offscreen when I kept at it.

I don't say it often, but I should've bloody listened to you Pathos. Might've saved this playthrough at a critical time when it needed my care and attention.

... You know what, there's two of these, I'll talk about the actual roads themselves in the second description.


BM Challenge #41 - This Road is Still Hell

BM #41

Oh my god, we haven't died this much since that terrible stretch of gameplay after Mawille. Technically the deaths all happen last video, so this one marks the moment I finally listen to good sense and capture something.

See, my stubborness involved laziness. I knew I had to spend HOURS capturing victory road Pokemon of specific IVs and natures, so I was trying to avoid capturing any unnecessary Pokes before that.

WHAT A GOD DAMN STUPID IDEA THAT WAS.

Have I mentioned Victory road is hell? The trainers here are ridiculously diverse. Considering you have to stock up on HMs up the wazoo, it's really, really limiting on your Pokemon. The level gap of the wild types are hell too, so I'm forced to keep a Poochyena to be able to avoid the fights too.

I actually need a 'run-away-from-wild-pokemon' slave to survive this. We somehow discovered a type of useless slave serving a singular purpose to FURTHER cripple our lineups.

GOD I HATE VICTORY ROAD.

HATE. HATE. HATE.

I get my ass kicked by a Kecleon. It is incredibly embarassing.

HATE VICTORY ROAD SO MUCH.

I straight up preferred dying to the trainers and losing ALL of our money because walking outside the cave to heal Pokes at the end of every battle is another hell.

I HATE THIS ROAD AND EVERYTHING IT STANDS FOR.

Wally on the other hand was actually kind of a fun battle. I get to utilize unconventional moves to secure a victory here, and I cut it kind of close too! Double Team Gardevoir was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be.

You know what Wally makes so great though? Unlike every other trainer at this point of the game, he still uses Super potions, instead of full restores and hyper potions. It's a god-send, I swear.

.... And that's all for this segment of the descriptions. Next up, one super-special video showing our strats for the finale (sorta like the pre-watson fight), aaaaand then the ELITE FOUR. WE ACTUALLY MADE IT.

Thank god it's almost over.

super secret edit: It appears the thumbnails are glitching out on these two hellish videos. I'll fix them as soon as I can, but it's good to know victory road is consistent in trying to annoy me.

 

[hard]

Great progress so far and much arguing as always :]
Looking forward to see some Mudfish action, just for the amnesia+rest annoyance do it!

btw

It starts to take a lot of time to load this page, so get some hide tags

 

[JustOrdinary]

BM Challenge #42 - Final Pokemon Team, Assemble!

BM #42

Another post-commentary! This one chronicles our adventures through Hoenn to bolster our team, acquire necessary movesets, and farm up lots and lots of cash to buy potions.

Most of what's needed to said is conveyed in the video itself, but just a few highlights I can touch up on a bit more:

1) We're not using legendaries. Groudon OHKO's literally half the E4 and turns the challenge into a joke, the Regi's are largely inaccessible due to requiring Wailmer to evolve (which it cant without a whole lot of rare candies).

2) No EV boosters like Carbos/Proteins etc. This is because 3rd Gen requires a level up to apply the stat bonuses, and we're blacklisting rare candies. HP-UPs still work, but we both agreed on settling without.

3) IVs are crucial though. We need Pokemon with high stats and beneficial natures. This going without saying

4) Team members ANALYSES:
I) Medicham (Psychic/Fighting) [Emphasis Attack/Speed, with nature not worsening SP ATK] -
Hot damn this Poke is amazing. Fantastic stats and its signature High Jump Kick schools the dark-type Elite 4 and the partial ice-type Elite 4. Even more amazing is that it learns the elemental punches with heart scales, so Ice Punch is an incredible asset for the dragon-type. AND, it learns a lot of useful abilities like Bulk Up (thanks fighting typing!) and Reflect/Calm Mind/Light Screen (thanks psychic type!). Medicham is amazing.

II) Mawile (Steel) - Intimidate softens a lot of physical attackers (except Metagross... ugh), and since it has a resistance to Ghost that makes it super good. Toxic stall works great on the right types like Flygon, but more importantly, Fake Tears + Crunch is devastating to ghosts.

III) Wobbuffett - Only 2 people mentioned so far, and they cripple 3/5 of the Elite 4. Awesome! This is where Wobbuffett comes in, a surprisingly resillient Poke for its low level from the Safari zone. For everything that doesn't OHKO, Mirror Coat and Counter are amazing. For everything that does, Destiny Bond works perfectly fine, so long as there's adequate set-up (like tricking the AI into going solar beam and switching).

IV) Golbat (Poison/Flying) [Emphasis Speed/Attack, with nature boosting Speed] -
Secondary Attacker for pokes Medicham can't touch, critical for setting up Destiny Bonds as well. It has a wealth of moves it can make use of too, but I'm not sure we end up using it to its full potential.

V) Solrock (Rock/Psychic] [Ability: Levitate]
Too low offense, but fantastic against the Elite 4 trainers whose Pokes can be baited to earthquake. Rock Typing baits out Solar Beams too, as well as other beneficial physical moves for the final poke...

VI) Slugma Lvl 15 [Ability: Flame Body]
This ones unusual, but it's meant as a desperate measure. Most statuses don't stick thanks to full restores, so this is just a 'soft' counter meant to be used as a backup. I debated between Raichu and the Slugma since both perform essentially the same role, but in the end I thought burn feels a bit more potent. Parafusion is pretty powerful in conjunction with Golbat though. But there's two Pokes in the Elite 4's arsenal that transcends its annoyance with raw power. So I gotta prepare for them more.

And that's it for this one! See you in the Elite 4, guys!


BM Finale Part 1 of 3 - Elite 4 Showdown!

BM FINALE Part 1 of 3

THE GAUNTLET BEGINS
Let's talk strategy.
First up, Elite 4 Sidney! Dark type user. Super cool! And Super Easy.

Mightyena (46)
Crunch, Take Down, Sand attack, Roar
Starts off with intimidate, but aside from that, is awful slow and fragile. Goes down in a single High Jump kick, so we just need to waste one Poke to fall for the intimidate.

Absol (49) - Sitrus Berry
Swords Dance, Slash, Aerial Ace, Snatch
Aerial Ace is pretty dangerous to Medicham, but on the down-side it's slower and is OHKO'ed too. A point to keep in mind, High Jump is 85% chance to hit, and if you've ever played on Showdown, you know that means like 1 in 3 hits or something.

Cacturne (46)
Faint Att, Needle Arm, Cotton Spore, Leech Seed
Weak, bland, uninteresting. OHKO'ed by Kick. NEXT.

Sharpedo (48)
Surf, Crunch, Slash, Swagger
The only real challenge from Sidney. Sharpedo's lightning fast and hits like a truck. Worse still, it starts off with the always annoying swagger: A guarenteed confusion on Medicham makes for a 100% chance of assisted suicide if he hits himself or if he misses high jump (since Sharpedo is always faster the next turn). We brute force it till it hits.

Shiftry (48)
Fake Out, Extrasensory, Double Team, Swagger
Fake Out is annoying, but its slow and fragile too. Kick kills the next turn.

First one out of the way, let's talk Phoebe, the Ghost User!

Dusclops (48)
Curse, Confuse Ray, Future Sight, Shadow Punch
Curse/Confusion is annoying, but curable with Potions. Toxic Stall reigns supreme here, but the 'stall' portion coming in from potion spam.

Dusclops (51) - Sitrus Berry
Confuse Ray, Shadow Ball, Ice Beam, Earthquake
Earthquake's painful, but Mawile comes with Iron Defense. And Intimidate. It's a pretty rad Poke. Fake Tears + crunch hurts it back more, so long as confusion doesn't annoy too much.

Banette (49)
Spite, Will O', Faint Att, Shadow Ball
Wil O' does nothing to Mawile since Crunch isn't physical in Gen III (dark type is still Special). Tears and Crunch works here too.

Sableye (50) [F]
Faint Att, Shadow Ball, Psychic, Attract
Psychic from a Sableye hurts way too much for Mawile to handle, and its ghost/dark typing grants it a neutral hit to Crunch. I put the gender there specifically to emphasize Attract, which is SO ANNOYING MY GOD.

And thus the reason for the Female Golbat was justified. Nintendo hates lesbians, so they can't attract each other. Also, while Psychic hurts Golbat a lot too, Golbat 2 OHKO's it first, especially with Confuse ray evening the odds.

But that doesnt happen BECAUSE I HAVE THE WORST LUCK ON THE PLANET.

Banette (49)
Toxic, Skill Swap, Shadow Ball, Psychic
Another fairly standard fight. We were low on Crunches thanks to earlier Spites, but we made it through just fine I think with the Ol' Tears/Crunch on Mawile.

And that's it for this episode. Next up, ICE.

Great progress so far and much arguing as always :]
Looking forward to see some Mudfish action, just for the amnesia+rest annoyance do it!

btw

It starts to take a lot of time to load this page, so get some hide tags

Thanks for the tip! I umm, had some trouble with keeping the text in the boxes (it kept making extra boxes for some reason?) so I kept just the embedded videos in the spoiler tags instead (since that's what takes the most loading). If there's still problems with loading, I'll try keeping the text in boxes too.

Once again thanks for sticking with us this far :), the finish line's almost here.

 

[JustOrdinary]

With great sorrow, we regret to inform you the Beastmaster challenge will not be continuing. Despite all of the hard work put into this series, me and Pathos have both decided to keep the integrity of the playthrough intact above all else and shut it down before it falls apart. The reasons behind this decision are... fairly complicated, but the basic crux of it is WE FINISHED THE GOD DAMN PLAYTHROUGH AND THE FINAL UPDATE IS HERE SO LETS DIVE RIGHT INTO THIS HYPE TRAIN STRAIGHT THROUGH THE FINISH LINE BOYS


Elite 4 Cleanup! BM FINALE PART 2 of 3 - Pokémon Ruby

BM FINALE PART 2 of 3

So Glacia marks the exact point at which the level difference starts to matter and the rest of our needs to start pulling its weight. The first two Elite 4's may have been pushovers, but Glacia requires a lot of forethought and planning to get through successfully.

Glalie (50)
Hail, Light Screen, Ice Beam, Crunch
Hail is dangerous. Far too many of her future Pokemon know blizzard and Medicham doesn't outspeed all of them anymore (and banking on Quick Claw won't always work). Also, Medicham typically survives hits from her Pokes on low ranges, some of which can be enough for Hail to kill (e.g Glalie's Ice beam T.T)
Speaking of which, man, Glalie's ice beam hits everything HARD. There's not enough time to spam Calm Mind for risk of crits, so prior to the battle we teach Medicham Light screen to provide the immediacy of a SP DEF boost.

Glalie's Light screen is actually beneficial to us if it uses it (since we rely on Physical moves).
But... High Jump Kick no longer OHKO's any of Glacia's Pokemon. A single Bulk Up accomplishes this, with the added bonus of softening future Poke's physical attacks.

Glalie (52)
Hail, Ice Beam, Shadow Ball, Crunch
More of the same, except this one comes with Shadow Ball... which is an inferior attack to Ice Beam so I dont know why it insists on using it.

Sealeo (50)
Surf, Ice Ball, Hail, Body Slam
Wow, 2 turns and already our initial strategy fell apart. In hindight, we should've healed Medicham before Glalie shadow ball'ed it. Instead, we have to take this down the harder way.
On an unrelated note, I LOVE SEALEO's DESIGN. Its evolution is terrible looking though :0

Sealeo (52)
Hail, Blizzard, Dive, Attract
Easier to play around without the Surf. Plus it always Hails before Blizzard, so we have that in our favor too.

Walrein (53) - Sitrus Berry
Blizzard, Surf, Body Slam, Sheer Cold
This thing's a monster. Fortunately I had a perfect plan to take it down.

Golbat with Confusion/Protect. It's the ultimate annoyance factor. All we needed to do is stall out the 100% accurate Hail Blizzards, then switch into Wobbuffett while its confused and misses its hits for Destiny Bond. Unfortunately, I'm a future masochist. See, I forgot to teach Protect.

Blegh, the hard way is murder on our revives (WHICH I'd METICULOUSLY PLANNED ON PRACTICE RUNS). Hail eventually does run out though, allowing our beautiful Wobbuffett to shine when we need it most.

That's 3 of the eponymous Elite 4 down. Next up, the Dragon trainer Drake! He's tough, just like Glacia.

Shelgon (52)
Dragon Claw, Rock Tomb, Protect, Crunch
First there was Shel-gon, but now he will Be-gone!
.... Sorry. Let's talk strategy.

This thing is a chump. It's basically setup fodder. So we retaught Medicham Calm Mind to set up ice punches, but it can't keep this up for long. See, Medicham's really slow now, and it doesn't have any moves to augment speed.
NO EASY SWEEP ON DRAKE FOR US.

Flygon (53)
Fly, Dig, Dragonbreath, Sandstorm
Man, this Flygon's moveset makes me want to cry. This thing should count as Pokemon abuse. How the hell did this guy make it to the elite 4?

In case it's not obvious from its moveset, it's got nothing to touch Mawile, so Toxic stall is the name of the game here with an iron dense thrown in neuter Dig.

Flygon (53)
Flamethrower, Crunch, Dragonbreath, Sand-attack
Flygon's my favorite Hoenn Poke, so I'm glad at least one of them isn't terrible (BUT WHY SAND ATTACK).

Tony fanboyism aside, flame thrower makes Mawile impossible to use. Time to bust out out the Wobbufett! I tested it earlier, so I already knew Crunch didn't OHKO, even with sandstorm active. Fairly easy to take down really.

Salamence (55)
Flame thrower, Dragon Claw, Crunch, Fly
The BEAST AWAKENS!

Dragon Claw kills everything but mawile, Flame thrower makes quick work of it too. Crunch even kills Wobufett. So what to do?

Oh right, time to bait out the Fly.

But first, Intimidate stare-down with Mawile to soften Salamence's physical aspects.
Second, switch into a full HP Medicham to force the AI into a 'Fly'
Third, switch into Wobufett midflight, and counter the relatively weak hit to OHKO.
WE ACTUALLY STRATEGIZED THIS TIME YOU GUYS.

Altaria (54)
Take Down, Dragonbreath, Dragon Dance, Refresh
So glad this thing ditched Aerial Ace. Makes it much more manageable with a Medicham too since it's got decent bulk on its defense side.

Fairly standard series of turns. Its moves (even +1 Take Down) are at least 2 hit ko's so there's plenty of breathing room to boost and Ice punch it. It looks like a clutch fight, but its really not :P.

And that's it for the Elite 4! Time to face the champion... in the NEXT EPISODE. The FINALE OF THE FINALES.


The Finale of the FINALES! BM FINALE PART 3 of 3 - Pokémon Ruby

BM FINALE PART 3 of 3

WE'RE HERE. THE END GAME. THE TOUCH DOWN. THE FINALE OF THE FINALES. And since we're not playing Emerald, we're not having a lame anticlimactic showdown with wallace but a GOD DAMN BRAWL WITH THE STEEL TYPE USING CHAMPION STEVEN.

LETS
DO
THIS!

[Umm... hate to kill the hype for a moment, but I'd like to sincerely apologize for the lack of background game audio for the first half of the video. Considering how long this video ended up taking anyway, it's for the best. Had a couple days of voltage spikes preventing me from getting the video up. SEEMED APPROPRIATE TO FUCK UP TILL THE VERY END, EH?]

Skarmory (57)
Toxic, Steel Wing, Aerial Ace, Spikes
In retrospect, I wish I had a taunt user. But Steel Wing does a crapton on Wobbufett even on the switch, so that was a no-go. Counter was always the best option here, with a slight prayer that the AI didn't just spike up all over the place.

Cradily (56) RK/GRS (56)
Confuse Ray, Sludge Bomb, AncientPower, Giga Drain
Easy foe for the Medicham! Bulkup for the strong high jump kick and resistance to sludge bomb, while Calm Mind for the powered Ice Punch / resistance to Giga Drain (more important for it to heal less). Pretty simple run of the mill fight here!

Armaldo (56) RK/BUG
Slash, AncientPower, Aerial Ace, Water Pulse
Armaldo! The spanish native-american Pokemon! We uh, don't have a straight counter to this so we Potion + Toxic stall with Mawile. Wobufett woulda worked great here, but he's kinda low from the previous hit from Skarm. And Aerial Ace facerushes Medicham to the grave. Golbat sucks against both WaterPulse and Ancient Powers, so... natural candidate is Mawile here. :D Lame and cheesy strats reign supreme, unless the AI gets clever.

Claydol (55) GR/PSY
Earthquake, AncientPower, Light Screen, Reflect
It's amazing what a little retrospective thinking can do to fix a potentially tedious series of events. Solrock learns Sunny Day, Solar Beam, and Calm mind. All TMs. Coupled with Cosmic Power, guarenteed wall and kill on Claydol without needing to Potion spam.

I am so sorry for doing this run sleep deprived. You can hear the weariness in Pathos's voice at this point, but I'm the strategist here. So, pretty much all blame's on me at this point.

Aggron (56)
Earthquake, Dragon Claw, Thunder, SolarBeam
Salamence v2, the classic bait and switch. Solrock forces a Solar Beam, Wobuffett reflects it on the switchover. Easy as cake.

Metagross (58) - Sitrus Berry
Meteor Mash, Psychic, Hyper Beam, Earthquake
So we're here. The real monster. The problem Pokemon. The final challenge. The level 58 Metagross.

Our strategy for it is incredibly stupid, and once again, could've easily been fixed with some hindsight.
So the idea was always to inflict burn with Slugma's Flame body, then counter with Wobuffett on the reduced Meta Meteor Smash attack.

The better idea would've been to teach Golbat, Slugma, Mawile protect and stall with a healthy dose of confusion. Alternatively, swap the Slugma for Raichu to inflict paralysis. Add a confuse ray on top, and it's nearly always a guarenteed Wobufett Destiny Bond.

An even better idea would've been to use the previous Claydol to X-speed the Solrock to ability swap out the Metagross clear body.

An even betterer idea would've been to buff the Medicham with X-speeds on the Cradily and sweep the Elite 4 after sufficient Bulkups. Whoops.

... But we did it anyway! And self-congratulations are in order FOR THIS MARKS THE END OF THE GAME HOLY SHIT. ITS OVER AND WE ACTUALLY DID IT. WE FINISHED THE GAME WITHOUT NEEDING EXPERIENCE :D

THANKS EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED US BY WATCHING, YOU"RE THE BEST. Made us stick through to the end when everything else pointed to it being a huge waste of time.

THE BEASTMASTER CHALLENGE DRAWS TO A CLOSE, but whether we pursue anything in the future is still... up for debate, honestly. Personally speaking, we both want to, but expect a changeup to the formula if and when we do tackle another game. Both of us have a love for the Black and White games (which this challenge was originally inspired by and designed for), but our current rigs suffer a lot of recording stutter for them... so until we figure things out, just keep your fingers crossed!

You guys have been phenomenally amazing throughout this roller coaster of absurdity. Let's hope we can meet up again some time :).