Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

[Suspicious Derivative]

Where can I find a list of which trainers can have which sets of Pokemon?

In addition to the above, there's also Bulbapedia's list of Frontier trainers:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Frontier_Trainers_(Generation_III)

If you click on the name of a trainer, you can see all the details for the sets they can have. I used it for the first time today and I find it very convenient since it has all relevant info on the same page.

 

[Kommo-o]

It's been a while since my last post on the forums and I've been busy as of lately due to work. Because of my busy schedule, I haven't had the time to discuss some of the thing that today I wanted to discuss and don't want to postpone for later. Just to let you know, I am still checking the forums from time to time but haven't found the time to respond.

First of all, congratulations to Suspicious Derivative and Purple Kecleon on their new streaks! You are both old users on the forums and I'm really happy to know that both achieved a higher streak from where you left off. I noticed that you both used your same teams but with some changes on your sets. I have updated both of your new submissions, so please let me know if I made a mistake or forgot to add something!

Regarding your non-addition AudreySP, as JoebertIII explained, you need a 42 win streak as minimum on Battle Factory to have your team included! I can only encourage you to keep going and once you reached that number, I'll be more than happy to review it!

The last point I wanted to discuss was Just_Peaches submission of a 109 win streak in the Battle Arena. As you should know, I have updated all the leader-board new records that have been posted except for this one in particular and the reason why I held off from it is because I felt that it was particularly suspicious that a huge win streak that exceeds 100 was posted with a weak Blaziken set whose 3/4 of its moveset are not even 100% accurate moves.

I can respect people trying their favorites and attempting to win a streak with their favorite Pokemon on their team. Obviously I don't have the highest opinion of Blaziken on Gen 3 but neverless, if you build a team that can cover around its weaknesses, it can definitely claim a Gold Symbol. However, what caught my attention was the streak number which felt particularly too high for me for an offensive team that it's not exploiting any of the AI's weaknesses or built based on winning judgement points.

Main reason why I haven't commented and just asked Peaches directly some questions on their team is because I have been busy reviewing it. As you should know, I give a lot of value when people go into depth how their team works and how they exploit the AI's weaknesses, specially when they go into detail how to play in certain scenarios. I appreciate that you responded at all of my questions promptly whether it was on the forums or in the Discord. However, even if you did not posted the correct numbers or got confused with the Tower sets, this did not clarify any doubts I had on the team. After this, I decided that I would play with your team using the exact team members and stats you submitted. I pretty much used the same stats and moves you described on your post and decided to do a couple of runs on Level 50 Arena.

Arena 109 Team

One of the things that caught my attention was that you used Modest Latios without Ice coverage. If you're using Metagross as a lead, I'm surprised Ice Beam was not used because this pretty much makes two of your team members having issues with Rhydon. It only needs a couple of QC activation and it will easily go through this team. If Metagross gets OHKO'd by Earthquake (255+ Atk Rhydon Earthquake vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 153-180 (98.7 - 116.1%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO) this leaves your last two team members incapable of OHKOing a massive threat you don't want to give turns because it has the right coverage move to hit all three team members for super-effective coverage. It doesn't even needs to click Horn Drill because Earthquake and Megahorn get OHKOs, so we can't say that the 30% accurate move will be the move of choice despite being a well known streak ender. Most importantly, I am surprised you did not justified Modest use because this calculation proves it was a legitimate reason to use it despite the Speed drop:

252+ SpA Latios Ice Beam vs. 255 HP / 0 SpD Rhydon: 221-260 (104.2 - 122.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

You were running Dragon Claw in here and despite having a more powerful STAB, Metagross does not comes close to OHKO Rhydon due to the lack of an item boosting its Attack. This does not necessarily means I disagree on Persim Berry being the item of choice because it was really useful against annoying leads like Crobat who can use Confusion to disrupt you. However, noticing that Metagross fails to OHKO, I am surprised this was not considered because it opens the road for Rhydon to destroy the whole team given the chance that Latios lets it survive an extra turn it can use to activate its QC.

Another Pokemon I would like to mention is that lead Pokemon that can OHKO Metagross are massive threats to this team. Lead Metagross is not a bad lead for Arena but the backups are not ideal and against team with a lead advantage of 3v2, this is a serious issue. Most notable mention goes to Houndoom who always OHKOs Metagross with Fire Blast / Overheat and has a 2nd STAB that can significantly hurt Latios. In return, a +1 Latios fails to even OHKO Houndoom:

+1 252+ SpA Latios Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Houndoom: 136-160 (90.6 - 106.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

This pretty much means that setting up is worthless because Houndoom still 2HKOs with Crunch cutting through your SpD boost through butter and you have no choice but to attack:

255+ SpA Houndoom Crunch vs. +1 24 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 86-102 (54.4 - 64.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Latios still survives the Crunch when unboosted but you see where the problem lies? Lead Houndoom takes down your lead Pokemon for free and leaves your 2nd Pokemon at such a small percentage to the point where you have a half alive mon and an unboosted Blaziken as a backup vs two opposing Pokemon at full health.

Let's dig even further, as you should know most Kindler sets also have Gengar along with Houndoom on their set pools:

Kindler sets

Kindler Andre is just a small sample size but they are several Kindler trainer classes that can have both Houndoom and Gengar and it is not particularly unheard of, for users who have experience in Arena. Where I am going into this? If a Houndoom lead shows up, it takes Metagross for free and hurts Latios. Next is Gengar but what will happen next? You are now locked into a 50/50 Speed tie where because Modest Latios speed ties and loses that tie, Gengar finishes you off and Blaziken literally has no other options to hurt Gengar significantly.

My loss battle actually came to Pokemon Ranger Tyler at battle #49:

Loss video

So to further explain what happened in here, the lead was a Jolteon 4. A Pokemon that can easily cruise through this team with some luck on its favor. As most should know by now, this Pokemon is extremely dangerous due to it being one of the few sets that are +252 Speed with a beneficial nature which makes it one of the fastest sets in Gen 3. The dangerous part about it does not comes from its raw Speed stat but rather its held item: King's Rock which gives a 10% chance to flinch. It only needs a lucky King's Rock to flinch Metagross and beat it. It also has access to Bite who already has a decent flinch chance of its own. Latios can pretty much get taken down by Bite flinches.

Neverless, the Jolteon does not gets lucky and Metagross manages to KO back. Now the next mon is Gengar and because it has 252 Speed, it speed ties with Latios. Obviously Metagross has no chance and it gets destroyed by Fire Punch revealing it's one of the offensive sets running either Lum Berry or Brightpowder. This was a 50/50 which means that because Modest Latios speed ties with all the coverage Gengar sets, I needed to move first. It did not happen and instead Gengar gets to Ice Punch first before losing to Psychic. Now the last mon is Shuckle. A weakened Latios can do something but I desperately need to land hits. Latios goes into Psychic as Shuckle gets a Double Team boost. On the next turn, I decided to go for Calm Mind on the hope that if I get another hit to land, I can win Body via judgement. But this does not happens and instead Shuckle gets to land two consecutive Wraps on me. The last mon is Blaziken and obviously you can pretty much see the result. Was it worthwhile to go for Earthquake? Maybe, but with +1 evasion, Shuckle didn't really needed more than that because the Blaziken is full with imperfect accuracy moves and the most accurate one is Earthquake (which can still miss against a foe that increased their evasion). Even if got one Earthquake to hit, Blaziken would've still lost this matchup because Shuckle can easily just use Rest to win Body on the final round. A Rock Slide connect was needed to win via Mind and Skill because you get points for using super-effective moves against the opponent.

My final decision will be that due to the lack of congruent evidence and based on my own personal experience after trying your team on a couple of runs, your post fails to explain how to overcome certain threats and ignores plenty of horrible matchups that this team has against leads that can easily OHKO Metagross such as lead fast Fire types (Arcanine, Houndoom, Rapidash, etc) while having no counterplay against other threats such as opposing Steelix, Rhydon, Shuckle, Ludicolo, etc, it is hard for me to believe that this team legitimately got into 109 wins without cheating. I don't believe the story of a lucky streak because as I said before, there are certain trainer archetypes that cause this team so much trouble and it's impossible to think that you haven't encountered them at least once, specially on a +100 win streak in Arena. As a result, all of your streaks will not be added to the leaderboard Just_Peaches.

 

[Purple Kecleon]

The spreadsheet in the first post is my go-to for stuff like this; there's a tab for trainers as well as Pokemon sets.

OMG I can't believe I never noticed the Trainer tab until you pointed it out just now.

In addition to the above, there's also Bulbapedia's list of Frontier trainers:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Battle_Frontier_Trainers_(Generation_III)

If you click on the name of a trainer, you can see all the details for the sets they can have. I used it for the first time today and I find it very convenient since it has all relevant info on the same page.

Thanks, this will be very helpful.

 

[Just_Peaches]

As a result, all of your streaks will not be added to the leaderboard Just_Peaches.

Alright I understand, and don't object to your decision. I agree with basically all of your analysis and suggestions, and at this point you've probably put more effort into analyzing the team than I initially did into building it, since at the time I was mostly just looking for the gold. You've made it even more clear how lucky that streak was, since while many of the threats you mentioned did appear, many avoided becoming problems because i.e. lead Typhlosion missed a Fire Blast and Moltres missed an Overheat.

Just to be clear, do you also want me to refrain from posting streaks going forward? I don't have a good way to provide better proof of streaks, since I'm on cartridge and don't have a way to capture.

 

[Runeblade14]

I've been playing some pike again recently, and had the idea of calculating the chance of what room you could get when you enter in an unknown room in a pike run, here are the results.
(Disclaimer, I got the % from Serebii, I don't know for sure if they're correct as only a couple sites have listed them).
(Edit, thought I'd include some extra thing that influence the rooms, did include it in the post but didn't make it clear anywhere).

A Trainer? I sense the Presence of People...	Room #1 - 75%=Trainer no heal Room #2 - 25%=Full heal
I seem to have heard something...perhaps a whispering	Room #3 - 20%=Double battle Room #4 - 80%=Talk room
Distinct aroma of Pokémon wafting from around it	Room #5 - 25%=Trainer with heal Room #6 - 75%=Wild pokemon room
I felt a wave of nostalgia coming from it	Room #7 - 50%=Random status room Room #8 - 50%=Random pokemon heal, 1 or more(might just be 1/2)

​ Status Probability Poison 35% Freeze 25% Paralysis 20% Burn 10% Sleep 10%

​ Seperate Room No. Amount of Pokémon Afflicted 0-5 1 7-10 2 11-14 3

The idea was that if I know that 1 room is whispering for example(80% for a talk room and 20% for a double battle) what the odds would be of what is in the other rooms.
These are the percentages I came upon when we were done, did have the help of someone I knew who could write it up to better calc it.

The chance would be 1 out of 3 to get the other rooms, so these are about the odds to get the specific one out of the 3 you don't know.
Trainer no heal 25%
Full heal 8.333%

Whispering room=
Double battle 6.6667
No encounter=26.6667
If you only have a single mon it will never be a double battle room.

Aroma=
Trainer with heal 8.333%
Wild Pokemon 25%

Nostalgia room=
16.6667 Status depending on which room you're in, and 16,6667 for a 1/2 mon heal.
If the whole team is statused it will only be a heal.

So for example I know that on the left is a Trainer room, in that room I have a 75% chance of fighting a no heal trainer, and a 25% chance for a full heal.
I would have a 6,67% chance for a double battle, and a 8,333% chance for a trainer with heal, in total for an about 15% chance for a trainer battle.
I'd have a 25% chance for a wild room which would basically be a full heal without pp if Blissey is alive, a 16,67% for a room which would heal 1/2, a 26,67% chance of no battle at all and a 16,67% for a random status(% included above) which would be a guaranteed heal if the whole team is statused.

If for example I only have Blissey left and a trainer room is there, it would be the same % for a trainer room but 33,3% chance for no battle as a double can't happen with 1 mon, a 16,67% chance for a 1/2 room heal, if Blissey is statused that would be 33,3%, a wild room with 25% and a trainer with heal with 8,333%.

Long story short, you can calculate what would mathematically be the best choice depending on the situation.
But it's pike after all, it's still rng.
Thanks for reading, I don't know for sure if the % on Serebii are correct but found some japanese blogs with like minded % so just took that.

 

[Actaeon]

As requested, a short post about a strange team I've made once to prove the FRLG 0 IV glitched Suicune can still be good enough to get the Gold Symbol or decently far beyond 70.

Here's the team: https://pokepast.es/2fb8aebab0ff22dc

The Stantler is straight from the Xmas team, cripples in clever ways, and gives BAD CUNE a chance to shine despite its ridiculously low stats compared to a "good Cune". I won't explain the Stantler strategy here, since it's almost the same as on the Xmas challenge team. If you're willing to take more risk against fast special attackers (Starmie, Espeon, Jolteon), you can drop Sitrus Berry for no Item. This way you can Thief straight against those Whiscash/Rhydon/etc. Don't blame it on me if you get 2HKOed trying to paralyze Lum Starmie, however...

First of all, BAD CUNE needs a Timid Nature to acquire the Speed it minimally needs to sweep. Rest is put into HP for the greatest Leftovers number it can get and some extra Defense to make the best use of Intimidate.

There's no Delibird here of course, but Salamence is still named after it as a joke. Salamence was chosen here because of Intimidate (double Intimidate makes even BAD CUNE extremely physically bulky) and its ability to go for a cheap win against problematic matchups, as well as being able to take advantage of Pokemon Suicune has to outstall completely, like Water Absorb Pokemon as the second Pokemon. It's better than Gyarados here because it's not weak to Electric, so if they Thunderbolt crit Stantler you have to chance to make a comeback, especially because Salamence has a Lum Berry, giving it a free DD in those situations.

Here's a short threatlist of lead matchups, requested by vanget backers:

• Against unknown Metagross, start with Skill Swap then switch to Mence for Intimidate, switch back for another Intimidate. Play from there depends on the set.
• Against Vaporeon, Lapras, Quagsire, Flygon, Jolteon, Registeel, Regice, Regirock start with Skill Swap, then play logically from there. You can also Skill Swap Flareon, but this isn't completely necessary. Don't Skill Swap stuff like Houndoom, since they might have Early Bird and then you waste a turn.
• Against Ludicolo, start with Twave. If it's a Double Team staller set, outstall with Cune and sweep with Mence. Otherwise, just sweep with Cune. This applies to some other Double Teaming Pokemon as well.
• After Twaving them, it's useful to Skill Swap Double Teaming Pressure Pokemon so you don't waste too much PP trying to hit them with Surf later. If it's a DT Suicune it's sometimes best to setup Mence and kill with AA after stalling it out.
• Against Synchronize special attackers you need to Twave twice sometimes because of their Lum Berry. This is where Sitrus comes in. Also handy against Sceptile sometimes.
• QC agressive physical attackers like Ursaring you want to Thief after you consume your Berry. Sometimes you can switch into Mence first (risking a crit but that's usually OK) and get into the right HP. Playing with fire though. It's not a 1000 streak team :)

During the sweep with Suicune when you encounter one of these second Pokemon (or even third), play accordingly:

• Water Absorb after Surf check usually means outstalling and setting up Mence. This can be risky against QC Lapras for example; play as conservatively as possible with Sub and Protect. Against Curse QC Quagsire you're in for a lot of trouble; Intimidate switching and beating it as quickly as possible with Salamence is your best bet. If you still have a Stantler, it's no problem.
• If you encounter a faster attacker that can kill you with a critical hit, such as Starmie or Jolteon, outstall the Tbolts (and even Psychics) by slow-subbing and Protecting before killing them.
• Dangerous QC threats like Donphan and Walrein: stall them first. Fissure Donphan won't use Fissure on Mence, so that's safe to switch in and out against until it's out of Fissures. It's BAD CUNE, so even EQ is dangerous. Play conservatively.
• DD Kingdra you stay in against and slow-stall the Double-Edge before killing it. Requires some PP, but it's worth it.

In general, if you are stalling with Suicune it's best to waste CM PP instead of the others, as long as you keep 6 of them so you can fully setup later.
Hope this helps!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

As requested, a short post about a strange team I've made once to prove the FRLG 0 IV glitched Suicune can still be good enough to get the Gold Symbol or decently far beyond 70.

This is where it turns out that the roaming 0 IV glitch was intentional all along because someone on the production team wanted to prove that even with crap IVs legendaries are still better than everything else

Nice work though (as ever)!

 

[Kommo-o]

Alright I understand, and don't object to your decision. I agree with basically all of your analysis and suggestions, and at this point you've probably put more effort into analyzing the team than I initially did into building it, since at the time I was mostly just looking for the gold. You've made it even more clear how lucky that streak was, since while many of the threats you mentioned did appear, many avoided becoming problems because i.e. lead Typhlosion missed a Fire Blast and Moltres missed an Overheat.

Just to be clear, do you also want me to refrain from posting streaks going forward? I don't have a good way to provide better proof of streaks, since I'm on cartridge and don't have a way to capture.

Sorry for getting back a bit late to this. On this case, yes, I will have to ask you to refrain from posting streak submissions. You can still ask for team advice if that's what you need.

 

[Anti Speedrun]

Well I am pleased to say that using a single team of three Pokemon, and without using any of the conventional easymons (cough, LATIOS, BLISSEY, SLAKING, AND SWAMPERT) and WITHOUT using RNG-abuse (and without a Lum Berry either due to my dead battery), I have managed to fulfill my childhood dream of getting all 7 gold symbols on the Open Level Battle Frontier!

My trusty Tyranitar, Salamence, and Starmie were able to expeditiously eradicate all opposition and elevate me into the realm of legends!

Nah, real talk though, it was a complete nightmare at times, from 150 hours in the Battle Factory, to 200+ hours breeding my team, to learning how to deal with the AI Hax (the golden rule is that fast, frail Pokemon will not work in the long run).


In terms of my experience at the individual facilities, I started at the Factory, which as stated above took... a long time, especially as I was intermittently attempting it for seven years...
The Dome was extremely tough for me as it was the first facility where I used my own Pokemon and I wasted such a long time using bad strategies. Once I had my team settled it only took like 7 attempts. I still maintain that the Dome is one of the harder facilities due to how whimsical 2v2 can be. Gold Symbol Tucker is also the most difficult battle in the game IMO.
The Pike was up next, and that took about 10 attempts. Main thing is to know the ins and outs of the hints, and try to avoid the Nostalgia room (unless all your Pokemon are status'd or you are already in the final room!).
The Arena took me only 2 tries, not much to say there.
The Palace was bad of course, not fun having Adament-Adamant-Modest there. This was the one facility where I altered my movepool slightly.
Next up was the Tower, which was tough going at first. Here I deviated from my setup of Tyranitar lead, opting to start with Salamence, which allowed me to get Gold on my 6th attempt.
And finally I had the Pyramid, which only took me 2 attempts. Things got pretty rough in rounds 6-9 when my supply of potions and revives started dwindling, but I eked out the win. Still salty I never managed to pick up a choice band in there though :(

Anyway, I would like to thank the Smogon forum for all the useful resources posted on the front page of this thread, as well as the Bulbapedia Frontier set list and Honko's damage calculator.

All that is left for me is to extend my Tower winstreak from 70 to 100 to get that decoration from Scott. Not sure if I've got it in me tbh...

 

[AnonS]

Well I am pleased to say that using a single team of three Pokemon, and without using any of the conventional easymons (cough, LATIOS, BLISSEY, SLAKING, AND SWAMPERT)

Congratulations on the Symbols, and I understand your desire to avoid using the Pokemon that are most dominant in the Frontier. However, it's neither respectful nor productive to dismiss them as "easymons" as if using them makes the entire experience a joke. I myself had suboptimal IVs and Natures on several Pokemon during my challenge, but that doesn't mean it has greater value than that of those whose teams were perfect. They put in the time and effort to maximize their chances of success.

It's possible to celebrate your accomplishments without downplaying those of others.

 

[Mario60866iPod13]

In Pokemon Sapphire a few years ago, I was in the Battle Tower in Level 100 mode using Latias, Swampert, and Wobbuffet. However, at Battle 209, I encountered a trainer with another Wobbuffet. Both Wobbuffets when they were sent out were holding Leftovers, making it a mathematically impossible battle to end, which left me no recourse but to turn off my DS which had the cartridge in the bottom slot just to end this battle. 208 win streak out the window!
The Wobbuffets got against each other when mine countered the opponent's Pokemon before that, then they sent out their own Wobbuffet. I was not expecting it.

My team there (basic information):

Latias @ Soul Dew
- Mist Ball
- DragonBreath
- Surf
- Thunderbolt

Swampert @ Shell Bell
- Muddy Water
- Earthquake
- Blizzard
- Facade

Wobbuffet @ Leftovers
- Counter
- Mirror Coat
- Safeguard
- Destiny Bond

 

[Mario60866iPod13]

Congratulations on the Symbols, and I understand your desire to avoid using the Pokemon that are most dominant in the Frontier. However, it's neither respectful nor productive to dismiss them as "easymons" as if using them makes the entire experience a joke. I myself had suboptimal IVs and Natures on several Pokemon during my challenge, but that doesn't mean it has greater value than that of those whose teams were perfect. They put in the time and effort to maximize their chances of success.

It's possible to celebrate your accomplishments without downplaying those of others.

I agree with you 100%. My Latias, Swampert, and Wobbuffet I posted about earlier were just the ones I obtained in the game with no special hunting (My Latias was a roaming Pokemon I caught, my Swampert was my starter Mudkip, and my Wobbuffet hatched as a Wynaut from the gift egg at Lavaridge Town). The fact I got 208 wins with a team like this is honestly cool especially since they weren't even EV trained!

 

[Mario60866iPod13]

Well I am pleased to say that using a single team of three Pokemon, and without using any of the conventional easymons (cough, LATIOS, BLISSEY, SLAKING, AND SWAMPERT) and WITHOUT using RNG-abuse (and without a Lum Berry either due to my dead battery), I have managed to fulfill my childhood dream of getting all 7 gold symbols on the Open Level Battle Frontier!

My trusty Tyranitar, Salamence, and Starmie were able to expeditiously eradicate all opposition and elevate me into the realm of legends!

Nah, real talk though, it was a complete nightmare at times, from 150 hours in the Battle Factory, to 200+ hours breeding my team, to learning how to deal with the AI Hax (the golden rule is that fast, frail Pokemon will not work in the long run).


In terms of my experience at the individual facilities, I started at the Factory, which as stated above took... a long time, especially as I was intermittently attempting it for seven years...
The Dome was extremely tough for me as it was the first facility where I used my own Pokemon and I wasted such a long time using bad strategies. Once I had my team settled it only took like 7 attempts. I still maintain that the Dome is one of the harder facilities due to how whimsical 2v2 can be. Gold Symbol Tucker is also the most difficult battle in the game IMO.
The Pike was up next, and that took about 10 attempts. Main thing is to know the ins and outs of the hints, and try to avoid the Nostalgia room (unless all your Pokemon are status'd or you are already in the final room!).
The Arena took me only 2 tries, not much to say there.
The Palace was bad of course, not fun having Adament-Adamant-Modest there. This was the one facility where I altered my movepool slightly.
Next up was the Tower, which was tough going at first. Here I deviated from my setup of Tyranitar lead, opting to start with Salamence, which allowed me to get Gold on my 6th attempt.
And finally I had the Pyramid, which only took me 2 attempts. Things got pretty rough in rounds 6-9 when my supply of potions and revives started dwindling, but I eked out the win. Still salty I never managed to pick up a choice band in there though :(

Anyway, I would like to thank the Smogon forum for all the useful resources posted on the front page of this thread, as well as the Bulbapedia Frontier set list and Honko's damage calculator.

All that is left for me is to extend my Tower winstreak from 70 to 100 to get that decoration from Scott. Not sure if I've got it in me tbh...

I've gotten all seven symbols before with random Pokemon I got in game with no IV hunting or ev training. Just transferred my favorite Pokemon from Sapphire and FireRed to Emerald via Box, won the symbols, then took them back to their respective games. It was not easy but I like Pokemon that I am emotionally attached to better than random ones that you hunt for.

 

[Snibbor]

Hey guys, first time poster here. I’ve been diving into the battle frontier recently and have not been having great success. I’ve read many of the earlier posts in here (from around 2019-20) and have seen that many others are on ridiculous streaks of hundreds of victories, and I’m struggling to assemble a team to reach even close to that level of success. I don’t want to simply copy other successful teams. I’ve pretty
much just stayed in the battle tower so far, and usually I wash out before I even fight the Salon Leader the first time. I’ve reached her at 34 wins twice, and been defeated both times. I’ll post my team and their stats, if it’s not too much trouble, would anybody be willing to critique the team or point out obvious weaknesses? Thanks in advance.

1. Dragonite-Lonely 220ATK/100SPATK/100SPD/88HP
Dragon Dance
Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Brick Break

2. Milotic-Bold
252HP/252DEF/4SPATK
Surf
Ice Beam
Toxic
Recover

3. Alakazam-Modest
252SPATK/220SPD/36HP
Psychic
Calm Mind
Recover
Thunderpunch

I feel that out of these 3, Milotic is by and far the best Pokémon on the list. Tanks everything thrown at it with no issues outside of STAB electric attacks, and I can use toxic and just wait out the opponent in most matchups. Dragonite does a lot of work for me but he feels very fragile. If I can get them off, 2 dragon dances is usually enough for me to sweep the enemy team with him alone, but when that doesn’t happen I find he gets destroyed by any enemy with access to an ice attack (which happens way too frequently for my liking). I don’t know if it’s bad luck, or if the AI recognizes the giant weakness to ice, but I swear the majority of teams I face in the tower have an ice move. As for Alakazam, he has similar issues with being a glass cannon. Calm mind lets me eat more special attacks than I’d usually be able to, but setting it up reliably without getting KO’d by anything physical is a struggle. When he gets going, he absolutely decimates the opposition, however. I want to eventually teach Alakazam Fire Punch, but at the moment I do not have enough BP to do so. If its not obvious, I’m relatively inexperienced with optimizing Pokémon builds and with understanding the meta-game for the Battle Frontier. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks again!

Edit: I read some very recent posts and it seems that there’s a discord for this kind of thing? May I get an invite link if possible?

 

[Anti Speedrun]

Hey guys, first time poster here. I’ve been diving into the battle frontier recently and have not been having great success. I’ve read many of the earlier posts in here (from around 2019-20) and have seen that many others are on ridiculous streaks of hundreds of victories, and I’m struggling to assemble a team to reach even close to that level of success. I don’t want to simply copy other successful teams. I’ve pretty
much just stayed in the battle tower so far, and usually I wash out before I even fight the Salon Leader the first time. I’ve reached her at 34 wins twice, and been defeated both times. I’ll post my team and their stats, if it’s not too much trouble, would anybody be willing to critique the team or point out obvious weaknesses? Thanks in advance.

1. Dragonite-Lonely 220ATK/100SPATK/100SPD/88HP
Dragon Dance
Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Brick Break

Why does your Dragonite have a Lonely nature, did you initially plan on it being a mixed attacker? An easy way to level up your team would be to swap it for an Adamant Salamence (you can keep the exact same moveset), because Intimidate works wonders in the Frontier, it will make setting up dragon dance so much easier.


Also do you breed for good IV's?

 

[Snibbor]

Why does your Dragonite have a Lonely nature, did you initially plan on it being a mixed attacker? An easy way to level up your team would be to swap it for an Adamant Salamence (you can keep the exact same moveset), because Intimidate works wonders in the Frontier, it will make setting up dragon dance so much easier.


Also do you breed for good IV's?

I did originally intend for Dragonite to be a mixed attacker. My plan was to give him Thunder instead of Brick Break, but I was not satisfied with the damage output he was getting out of Thunder, so I switched over to full physical offense, and added the electric move to Alakazam’s arsenal instead. The downside is obviously now some of Dragonite’s EV’s and his nature are wasted. Do you think it’d be viable to use Dragonite if I retrained another, with appropriate EV’s and nature for full physical offense? I recognize the superiority of Salamence, but to be honest, I really love Dragonite haha.

I don’t breed for IVs, I don’t yet know how they work. I’ve really only started trying to optimize my Pokémon stats recently, since it seems necessary to do so in order to consistently win at the Battle frontier. I’ll have to look up a guid to gain a better understanding of it.

 

[Anti Speedrun]

I did originally intend for Dragonite to be a mixed attacker. My plan was to give him Thunder instead of Brick Break, but I was not satisfied with the damage output he was getting out of Thunder, so I switched over to full physical offense, and added the electric move to Alakazam’s arsenal instead. The downside is obviously now some of Dragonite’s EV’s and his nature are wasted. Do you think it’d be viable to use Dragonite if I retrained another, with appropriate EV’s and nature for full physical offense? I recognize the superiority of Salamence, but to be honest, I really love Dragonite haha.

I don’t breed for IVs, I don’t yet know how they work. I’ve really only started trying to optimize my Pokémon stats recently, since it seems necessary to do so in order to consistently win at the Battle frontier. I’ll have to look up a guid to gain a better understanding of it.

Ah, I should have realized from your profile picture that Dragonite was your favourite Pokemon!

Regarding IV's, they are not too difficult to understand, and I'm sure you can find many resources to read up on them. The main thing that you can do ASAP is to check your current Pokemon IV's to see how good they are.

This can be done at the Battle Frontier in Emerald. Go to the house directly North of the Pokemon Center at the Frontier. Inside is an old man who will judge your Pokemon's IV's. He will either say "Decent" (the IV's are crap), "Above Average" (the IV's are okay), "Quite Impressive" (the IV's are good), or "Wonderfully Outstanding" (The IV's are excellent). He also gives a comment about which stat has the best IV.

As a very, very simple rule of thumb you want your overall IV's to be at least "Quite Impressive", and the highest individual stat should be Attack/Speed for Dragonite, Sp.Attack/Speed for Alakazam, and HP/Defense/Sp.Defense for Milotic.

Read more here: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Stats_judge#In_Generation_III

 

[QuentinQuonce]

3. Alakazam-Modest
252SPATK/220SPD/36HP
Psychic
Calm Mind
Recover
Thunderpunch

I've dabbled a bit with Alakazam (it was one of the main Pokemon I used to use back in the day) and I can say that it does not work as a bulky Calm Mind user at all. Even with a few boosts it's just not tanky and it dies to anything sufficiently powerful.

The best way to use Alakazam is either as a crippler (since its one of the few Pokemon in Gen III to learn Trick) or as an out-and-out sweeper. It learns all three elemental punches which give it phenomenal coverage alongside Psychic and it has two great abilities - Synchronise combines well with a Lum Berry and Inner Focus is just generally helpful to bypass random Fake Outs. It can run CM but only then as a "one and sweep" type of thing; it's not going to survive long term. Substitute is one final option but it depends what you're trying to achieve.

As it's incredibly fast it should have full speed investment; I actually never used a Modest nature but it's more optimal to do so as even without a speed-boosting nature it outruns damn near the entire Frontier (in fact only six Pokemon outspeed it and it ties with seven). There aren't a lot of great items for special sweepers in Gen III but as mentioned Lum Berry is great on it or you could even run a Twistedspoon to boost Psychic further and potentially nudge some 2HKOs into straight OHKOs. Even then it's outclassed overall by Latios or Starmie as a special sweeper but it is very powerful and can do extremely well given the right conditions. Given your team I actually think it'd work better as a lead.

Okay, now I'm actually curious about testing Alakazam again...

 

[Snibbor]

Ah, I should have realized from your profile picture that Dragonite was your favourite Pokemon!

Regarding IV's, they are not too difficult to understand, and I'm sure you can find many resources to read up on them. The main thing that you can do ASAP is to check your current Pokemon IV's to see how good they are.

This can be done at the Battle Frontier in Emerald. Go to the house directly North of the Pokemon Center at the Frontier. Inside is an old man who will judge your Pokemon's IV's. He will either say "Decent" (the IV's are crap), "Above Average" (the IV's are okay), "Quite Impressive" (the IV's are good), or "Wonderfully Outstanding" (The IV's are excellent). He also gives a comment about which stat has the best IV.

As a very, very simple rule of thumb you want your overall IV's to be at least "Quite Impressive", and the highest individual stat should be Attack/Speed for Dragonite, Sp.Attack/Speed for Alakazam, and HP/Defense/Sp.Defense for Milotic.

Read more here: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Stats_judge#In_Generation_III

Ah, upon checking my pokemons IV’s, they’re all crap except for Alakazam, who is slightly above average with notable speed. Well that’s disappointing, lol. So I’d have to breed for the superior Pokémon, which would have to have both a favorable nature AND have sufficient IVs? That’s going to be quite the time-sink haha. Thanks for the tips, I’m going to focus on breeding the best version of my Pokémon that I can.

 

[Snibbor]

I've dabbled a bit with Alakazam (it was one of the main Pokemon I used to use back in the day) and I can say that it does not work as a bulky Calm Mind user at all. Even with a few boosts it's not just tanky and it dies to anything sufficiently powerful.

The best way to use Alakazam is either as a crippler (since its one of the few Pokemon in Gen III to learn Trick) or as an out-and-out sweeper. It learns all three elemental punches which give it phenomenal coverage alongside Psychic and it has two great abilities - Synchronise combines well with a Lum Berry and Inner Focus is just generally helpful to bypass random Fake Outs. It can run CM but only then as a "one and sweep" type of thing; it's not going to survive long term. Substitute is one final option but it depends what you're trying to achieve.

As it's incredibly fast it should have full speed investment; I actually never used a Modest nature but it's more optimal to do so as even without a speed-boosting nature it outruns damn near the entire Frontier (in fact only six Pokemon outspeed it and it ties with seven). There aren't a lot of great items for special sweepers in Gen III but as mentioned Lum Berry is great on it or you could even run a Twistedspoon to boost Psychic further and potentially nudge some 2HKOs into straight OHKOs. Even then it's outclassed overall by Latios or Starmie as a special sweeper but it is very powerful and can do extremely well given the right conditions. Given your team I actually think it'd work better as a lead.

Okay, now I'm actually curious about testing Alakazam again...

My original goal with Alakazam was to have him as a special sweeper, I have recover on him as a placeholder for the time being until I have enough BP to give him fire punch. I do like the idea of giving him ice punch as well, however the Milotic I have knows ice beam already so an ice-type attack is already covered. Do you think it’d be wiser to replace calm mind with ice punch, and find another move for Milotic? If not, what would you say is a good 4th move for Alakazam aside from Psychic, Thunderpunch, Fire punch? I like calm mind for the attack advantage it gives Alakazam too, and I feel like that helps him sweep. But as you say, he is not bulky at all and simply can’t take big hits with or without the Sp def boost. Is calm mind worth having on him if the goal is to sweep?

 

[Anti Speedrun]

Ah, upon checking my pokemons IV’s, they’re all crap except for Alakazam, who is slightly above average with notable speed. Well that’s disappointing, lol. So I’d have to breed for the superior Pokémon, which would have to have both a favorable nature AND have sufficient IVs? That’s going to be quite the time-sink haha. Thanks for the tips, I’m going to focus on breeding the best version of my Pokémon that I can.

Damn that's unlucky. Breeding is not too difficult in Emerald, and the mechanics are quite simple. Nature is not a problem (if a female Pokemon/Ditto in a breeding pair holds an everstone then the egg has a 50% chance of inheriting the holder's nature. You get everstones in Granite Cave). Eggs inherit 3 of their 6 IVs from their parents, so when the parents have good IVs then the egg is gonna turn out much better than a random wild Pokemon.

This is going to be somewhat long, but here is the lowdown on how to breed Pokemon with 3 perfect IVs and the correct nature in Emerald:

Let's say we want to breed an Adamant Dragonite with perfect Attack, Special Attack, and Speed IV's. This is a little overkill because you don't need the special attack, but lets just assume you do for the sake of this demonstration:

1) Catch a Ditto with a perfect attack IV, a Ditto with a perfect special attack IV, and a Ditto with a perfect speed IV.
2) Catch/obtain a female Dratini/Dragonair/Dragonite with an adamant nature.
3) Breed the perfect attack Ditto with the female dragon from step 2. You want to obtain a male Dratini with a perfect attack IV. Don't worry about its nature. Repeat this step for the other 2 Dittos. In the end you want three male Dratini's, one with perfect attack IV, one with perfect special attack IV, and one with perfect Speed IV.
4) Give your female from step 2 an everstone to hold. Breed it with the male Dratini with the perfect attack IV, until you produce a female adamant Dratini with a perfect Attack IV.
5) Swap the old female parent for the new female Dratini you just created. Make sure to give it the everstone. Now that the female parent has the perfect attack IV, we can swap the male parent to the second Dratini which has a perfect Speed IV.
6) Breed these two Dratinis until you get a female adamant Dratini with perfect Attack AND perfect Speed IVs. If you get a male Dratini with the wrong nature but 2 perfect IV's along the way thats fine- you can swap it out for the male parent (this will make getting the female with 2 perfect IVs easier).

NOTE: For 2 perfect IV's we can stop around here. Once we have 2 parents which both have perfect Attack and Speed this will maximize the chance of the offspring having perfect Attack and Speed. We can keep breeding till we produce a Dratini with perfect Attack, perfect Speed, and reasonable IVs in other stats (because obviously we want good HP and defenses!).


7) Now we have the adamant female with 2 perfect IVs (Attack and Speed) it is time to swap the male out to the final Dratini from step 3, the one with the perfect Special Attack IV. Breed these two Pokemon. You likely won't get a child with 3 perfect IVs. More likely is that you will get a male which has 2 perfect IV's. Lets say we get a male egg which has perfect Attack and Special Attack, or perfect Speed and Special Attack, that's obviously an upgrade to the male parent who only has perfect Special Attack.
8) So now we have two parents, each with 2 perfect IVs (lets say the female has perfect Attack and Speed, and the male has perfect Special Attack and Speed). Now comes the really tricky bit, trying to get a child which inherits perfect Attack, Special Attack, and Speed. THIS STEP IS LONG! But eventually you will get a female adamant, or a male Dratini with all 3 perfect IVs. If its other defensive IVs are good then you can stop here, congratulations. If not, swap it out for the parent.
9) Once you have two parents, both with 3 perfect IVs (Attack, Special Attack, and Speed), the odds of an egg inheriting all 3 perfect IV's is 1/20. The actual odds are a little higher because the egg could inherit 2 perfect IVs and then randomly generate the 3rd one to be perfect out of luck. But once both parents have 3 perfect IV's, the odds of creating a Dratini with 3 perfect IVs and 3 good defensive IVs is maximized. Using this method the best Pokemon I have ever bred was a Diglett with FOUR perfect IVs, and extremely good IVs in the other two stats (31/31/31/27/27/31).

FINAL NOTE: DO NOT TRY BREEDING FOR HP AND DEFENSE IVS IN EMERALD. Emerald has a stupid breeding mechanic which makes inherit HP and Defense IV's very difficult to inherit. If you decide to breed your Milotic I would focus on getting perfect Special Attack, Special Defense, and/or Speed.

My name is Anti Speedrun and thank you everybody for attending my Science Lecture :P

 

[Mario60866iPod13]

Hey guys, first time poster here. I’ve been diving into the battle frontier recently and have not been having great success. I’ve read many of the earlier posts in here (from around 2019-20) and have seen that many others are on ridiculous streaks of hundreds of victories, and I’m struggling to assemble a team to reach even close to that level of success. I don’t want to simply copy other successful teams. I’ve pretty
much just stayed in the battle tower so far, and usually I wash out before I even fight the Salon Leader the first time. I’ve reached her at 34 wins twice, and been defeated both times. I’ll post my team and their stats, if it’s not too much trouble, would anybody be willing to critique the team or point out obvious weaknesses? Thanks in advance.

1. Dragonite-Lonely 220ATK/100SPATK/100SPD/88HP
Dragon Dance
Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Brick Break

2. Milotic-Bold
252HP/252DEF/4SPATK
Surf
Ice Beam
Toxic
Recover

3. Alakazam-Modest
252SPATK/220SPD/36HP
Psychic
Calm Mind
Recover
Thunderpunch

I feel that out of these 3, Milotic is by and far the best Pokémon on the list. Tanks everything thrown at it with no issues outside of STAB electric attacks, and I can use toxic and just wait out the opponent in most matchups. Dragonite does a lot of work for me but he feels very fragile. If I can get them off, 2 dragon dances is usually enough for me to sweep the enemy team with him alone, but when that doesn’t happen I find he gets destroyed by any enemy with access to an ice attack (which happens way too frequently for my liking). I don’t know if it’s bad luck, or if the AI recognizes the giant weakness to ice, but I swear the majority of teams I face in the tower have an ice move. As for Alakazam, he has similar issues with being a glass cannon. Calm mind lets me eat more special attacks than I’d usually be able to, but setting it up reliably without getting KO’d by anything physical is a struggle. When he gets going, he absolutely decimates the opposition, however. I want to eventually teach Alakazam Fire Punch, but at the moment I do not have enough BP to do so. If its not obvious, I’m relatively inexperienced with optimizing Pokémon builds and with understanding the meta-game for the Battle Frontier. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks again!

Edit: I read some very recent posts and it seems that there’s a discord for this kind of thing? May I get an invite link if possible?

The AI does recognize Dragonites weakness to ice for sure. I always have trouble bringing in Pokemon like Dragonite and Salamence because they are always targeted by random ice attacks.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

My original goal with Alakazam was to have him as a special sweeper, I have recover on him as a placeholder for the time being until I have enough BP to give him fire punch. I do like the idea of giving him ice punch as well, however the Milotic I have knows ice beam already so an ice-type attack is already covered. Do you think it’d be wiser to replace calm mind with ice punch, and find another move for Milotic? If not, what would you say is a good 4th move for Alakazam aside from Psychic, Thunderpunch, Fire punch? I like calm mind for the attack advantage it gives Alakazam too, and I feel like that helps him sweep. But as you say, he is not bulky at all and simply can’t take big hits with or without the Sp def boost. Is calm mind worth having on him if the goal is to sweep?

Milotic's job isn't to sweep though so in this case having Ice Punch on Alakazam isn't necessarily a hindrance. It's a very strong offensive type and you can't reliably beat things like Salamence and Flygon without Ice Punch and they will OHKO you. Salamence for instance can overwhelm Milotic if it's a boosting set. What if Milotic faints and Alakazam is the only one left and it's Alakazam (sans Ice Punch) vs Flygon? You miss a KO with Psychic and then Flygon OHKOs you with Earthquake. You have to consider these scenarios because in 70+ plus battles, they will all happen at some point.

Calm Mind is useful on Alakazam because if it manages to get one off it can become unstoppable, and those 2HKOs like the one I just mentioned will be pushed up to OHKOs. But it's high risk, high reward - can it reliably get one? Not really. Too much can KO it - most physical attacks destroy it. Lots of bulky physical attackers like Swampert, Metagross, and Ursaring can OHKO despite their strongest attacks not being super-effective.

If you do want to drop one of the punches for CM I'd recommend losing Fire Punch. Thunderpunch and Ice Punch is stellar coverage with Psychic, you hit almost everything neutrally. You do lose a useful option against most Steel-types (you can't OHKO Scizor anymore for instance) but a lot of them, like Metagross and Registeel, probably beat you anyway so it's not the worst thing in the world as long as your other team members can deal with them (Milotic can't against most Steels).

Ultimately if you want to sweep with Alakazam my recommendation would be to have it in the lead position, run max Speed with a Lum Berry equipped and use all four elemental punches.

 

[Snibbor]

Damn that's unlucky. Breeding is not too difficult in Emerald, and the mechanics are quite simple. Nature is not a problem (if a female Pokemon/Ditto in a breeding pair holds an everstone then the egg has a 50% chance of inheriting the holder's nature. You get everstones in Granite Cave). Eggs inherit 3 of their 6 IVs from their parents, so when the parents have good IVs then the egg is gonna turn out much better than a random wild Pokemon.

This is going to be somewhat long, but here is the lowdown on how to breed Pokemon with 3 perfect IVs and the correct nature in Emerald:

Let's say we want to breed an Adamant Dragonite with perfect Attack, Special Attack, and Speed IV's. This is a little overkill because you don't need the special attack, but lets just assume you do for the sake of this demonstration:

1) Catch a Ditto with a perfect attack IV, a Ditto with a perfect special attack IV, and a Ditto with a perfect speed IV.
2) Catch/obtain a female Dratini/Dragonair/Dragonite with an adamant nature.
3) Breed the perfect attack Ditto with the female dragon from step 2. You want to obtain a male Dratini with a perfect attack IV. Don't worry about its nature. Repeat this step for the other 2 Dittos. In the end you want three male Dratini's, one with perfect attack IV, one with perfect special attack IV, and one with perfect Speed IV.
4) Give your female from step 2 an everstone to hold. Breed it with the male Dratini with the perfect attack IV, until you produce a female adamant Dratini with a perfect Attack IV.
5) Swap the old female parent for the new female Dratini you just created. Make sure to give it the everstone. Now that the female parent has the perfect attack IV, we can swap the male parent to the second Dratini which has a perfect Speed IV.
6) Breed these two Dratinis until you get a female adamant Dratini with perfect Attack AND perfect Speed IVs. If you get a male Dratini with the wrong nature but 2 perfect IV's along the way thats fine- you can swap it out for the male parent (this will make getting the female with 2 perfect IVs easier).

NOTE: For 2 perfect IV's we can stop around here. Once we have 2 parents which both have perfect Attack and Speed this will maximize the chance of the offspring having perfect Attack and Speed. We can keep breeding till we produce a Dratini with perfect Attack, perfect Speed, and reasonable IVs in other stats (because obviously we want good HP and defenses!).


7) Now we have the adamant female with 2 perfect IVs (Attack and Speed) it is time to swap the male out to the final Dratini from step 3, the one with the perfect Special Attack IV. Breed these two Pokemon. You likely won't get a child with 3 perfect IVs. More likely is that you will get a male which has 2 perfect IV's. Lets say we get a male egg which has perfect Attack and Special Attack, or perfect Speed and Special Attack, that's obviously an upgrade to the male parent who only has perfect Special Attack.
8) So now we have two parents, each with 2 perfect IVs (lets say the female has perfect Attack and Speed, and the male has perfect Special Attack and Speed). Now comes the really tricky bit, trying to get a child which inherits perfect Attack, Special Attack, and Speed. THIS STEP IS LONG! But eventually you will get a female adamant, or a male Dratini with all 3 perfect IVs. If its other defensive IVs are good then you can stop here, congratulations. If not, swap it out for the parent.
9) Once you have two parents, both with 3 perfect IVs (Attack, Special Attack, and Speed), the odds of an egg inheriting all 3 perfect IV's is 1/20. The actual odds are a little higher because the egg could inherit 2 perfect IVs and then randomly generate the 3rd one to be perfect out of luck. But once both parents have 3 perfect IV's, the odds of creating a Dratini with 3 perfect IVs and 3 good defensive IVs is maximized. Using this method the best Pokemon I have ever bred was a Diglett with FOUR perfect IVs, and extremely good IVs in the other two stats (31/31/31/27/27/31).

FINAL NOTE: DO NOT TRY BREEDING FOR HP AND DEFENSE IVS IN EMERALD. Emerald has a stupid breeding mechanic which makes inherit HP and Defense IV's very difficult to inherit. If you decide to breed your Milotic I would focus on getting perfect Special Attack, Special Defense, and/or Speed.

My name is Anti Speedrun and thank you everybody for attending my Science Lecture :P

Wow, incredible read, thank you for taking the time to write it up. As someone who’s never dabbled in IVs before, this has made it 1000x easier for me to know what to look for and to begin breeding Pokémon without confusion.

In regards to your final note, I assume that means that defense and HP IVs are not passed down in the same way that the other stat IVs are in emerald. Is there no way to reliably get a parents HP or DEF IV to pass down at all, even in the other gen 3 games? I have copies of all the other games if by chance the IVs work differently in them.

On another note, I’m seriously blown away by how much depth there is to these games, especially when it comes to optimizing a Pokémon. I’ve been playing these games for about 15 years now, and the whole competitive side of them has been completely unknown to me until very recently. Part of that is rough though, because I look at the Pokémon that I’ve always used and realize now that they’re kind of crap! I feel I’ve learned more over the last few weeks than I have the entire rest of my time playing haha.

 

[Anti Speedrun]

Wow, incredible read, thank you for taking the time to write it up. As someone who’s never dabbled in IVs before, this has made it 1000x easier for me to know what to look for and to begin breeding Pokémon without confusion.

In regards to your final note, I assume that means that defense and HP IVs are not passed down in the same way that the other stat IVs are in emerald. Is there no way to reliably get a parents HP or DEF IV to pass down at all, even in the other gen 3 games? I have copies of all the other games if by chance the IVs work differently in them.

On another note, I’m seriously blown away by how much depth there is to these games, especially when it comes to optimizing a Pokémon. I’ve been playing these games for about 15 years now, and the whole competitive side of them has been completely unknown to me until very recently. Part of that is rough though, because I look at the Pokémon that I’ve always used and realize now that they’re kind of crap! I feel I’ve learned more over the last few weeks than I have the entire rest of my time playing haha.

No problem!

HP and Defense are inherited normally in the other gen 3 games- unfortunately in those games you can't pass down natures the way you can in Emerald so its a bit of a downer.

In Emerald, say you have 2 parents which both have perfect Attack IVs (or Sp.ATK, Sp.DEF, Speed). The odds of an egg inheriting that perfect IV is exactly (2/12) + (10/12 * 2/10) + (10/12 * 8/10 * 2/8) = (2/12 + 2/12 + 2/12) = 6/12 = 1/2 = 50%.

Now repeating the above scenario for Defense, the inheritance odds are only 2/12 + 2/12 = 4/12 = 33.33%.

And for HP, the inheritance odds are just 2/12 = 16.66%.

You can find the reason for this here: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_breeding#Generation_III

And I feel your pain in regards to learning about this hidden mechanics so late. I was lucky that a friend introduced me to EV training as a kid around 2009 and I discovered Smogon a few months later.