So I wanted to start my file over again since I decided I wanted my Smogon username as my IGN instead of my irl name, and also so I could SR two of each (certain) legendaries. I restarted my save two days before the next Battle Spot comp was due to start and figured it would be cool since I could compete under the name 'cant say', little did I know you weren't able to mega evolve your 'mons over Wi-Fi if you haven't obtained the Mega Bracelet in-game (seems so obvious now), this lead to me speed running up to the Latias event in one day. You may be thinking 'but people can speedrun the entire game in a few hours!' to which I would simply reply; I suck.
I decided that I would use only things that could mega evolve (because I'm actually 12, please don't ban me) and also not use stuff that important AIs use, which
really limited my team options (and I still overlapped). I wanted to use Pidgeot and Steelix but you can't catch Pidgeotto and Onix until
after fighting Kyogre so they were out. I figured my final team would be Blaziken, Metagross (event), Gyarados, Alakazam, Manectric and Altaria, which you'd think would curbstomp the game, except I avoided nearly every battle that wasn't necessary.
Combusken and Beldum destroyed the early game for me, Beldum even became over-levelled and got KOd from not listening to my expert battling tactics, but Combusken was always there to pick up the pieces, so nothing noteworthy happened during the first two gyms. I fished up a Magikarp and caught it with the Great Ball I got from the Devon Guy, then went and tried to catch an Abra with a Luxury Ball, which was really hard because I couldn't stop it from Teleporting away, so I had to just throw a ball and hope it was caught first try. I wanted to DexNav it for a damaging egg move but got super bored and just caught a regular one. Since I had limited time, I had to use the Exp. Share since switch training both Magikarp and Abra would have SUCKED.
On my way to Mauville I wanted to catch an Electrike with Lightning Rod and Flameburst (or Ice Fang)
and in a Quick Ball. Since you can't buy Quick Balls until later (Fallarbor maybe?) I had to grind the PGL Minecart game for some, which took AGES since I was getting unlucky and just getting Dusk Balls (seriously, I nearly gave up and caught it in one of those), then I had t o level up the search function to get a good one, which also took a long time. I saw Flame Burst pop up on the display and caught it straight away, only for it to have static u_u (LR + FB was gonna be my strat against Wattson). I ended up abusing my over-levelled Metang to get me my third badge and it was time to sprint to Meteor Falls to get my Swablu.
Getting up north as quickly as possible was actually pretty easy as there are barely any forced battles. What wasn't easy was catching the Swablu I wanted. All I needed was Hyper Voice as an egg move so I could spam it in mega forme, the problem was that I was cycling around waiting for one to pop up on the DexNav but they just wouldn't! I spent wayyyyy longer than I wanted to and just caught one with 3 stars of potential (turned out to have 4 perfect IVs with the other 2 being 25+ but with a
Gentle nature, lol). With that out of the way I went to smash Team Aqua up on the volcano so I could fight Flannery. I tried to use Gyarados as much as possible so he would elvel up and learn Aqua Tail but didn't realise it came at level 35, so I had to sweep her with Dragon Rage instead. The best part about this bit is that May teleports you to Petalburg which saved a heap of time..
Norman always sucks to battle since he spams those damn Slakings (and they all have Retaliate now), so I was gonna have to get crafty. What I did in the end wasn't really that crafty, I just switched Gyarados in a bunch of times to fire off Intimidate, and Metang's Steel typing to soak up the weaker hits, but I remember the battle being really good and coming down to the wire. Pretty sure 'Dos finished it off by himself with Dragon Rage (such a good move early game). Now it's Wally's turn to Teleport me to Mauville (thank you GF) and the last part of my semi-speedrun up to Latias.
By this time it's really late at night and I'm ultra tired. The Battle Spot comp is well underway (did I mention I didn't start the playthrough until the Sunday night, even though I actually restarted the save on like Thursday? Yeah that's because I didn't know I needed the Mega Bracelet..) so I'm keen to get this done and play a couple of battles before having a sleep and playing the rest of the battles in the morning. I did kinda want to SR for a good Latias, but since I didn't have time (and I have a pretty good Timid and Bold one already), I figured I wouldn't bother getting my Calm sync from Y and trying for an OK one, and just take the first one. Funny thing is, the first one I got was Calm with 31/31/30/28/18/31, so obviously not perfect but fine by me for a first try, no-sync catch! Now I was finally able to mega evolve my Blaziken in the Battle of Hoenn (
here's the team if anyone's keen on looking, in the end my effort was barely worth it as I was only able to play a handful of games), I was way too tired to do anything so I figured I would sleep and play in the morning, except I slept until 10am and the thing finished at 11 :(
With that out of the way I figured I could relax and just enjoy the game a bit more. Now that I can mega evolve stuff (Manectric and Alakazam), battling was pretty easy. I cruised through to Fortree, learned none of my team members had a useful Hidden Power type (Manectric had Electric, lol), punched a Kecleon in the face and took on Winona. Since I play on set mode, Manectric was my main lead for most battles during the game with Volt Switch (and Intimidate if needed), so between that and cleaning out Winona's gym, he was starting to gain a few levels. But apart from him my team was starting to fall behind, when I did run into a trainer they would very often have higher-levelled 'mons than I did. That girl with the Milotic on route 120(?) nearly swept me since that thing was sooo bulky (Manectric died to Water Pulse confusion hax). I decided I needed to battle more and gain some much needed exp.
Mt. Pyre turned out to be the best place, Gyara just spammed Bite and quickly caught up. He was now my MVP as I rushed down route 123 to grab his mega stone for even more sweeping. Team Aqua hinted at the fact that they'd be going to their cave in Lilycove, and I looked at my team. Alakazam was seeing no love, he was barely out of the 20s and I was pretty sure he had never even mega evolved yet, so what better place to level him up than a place filled with dark types? Dazzling Gleam + Psychic was brutal (especially the former against that horde battle) and now he was the main 'mon. I'm statrting to see a trend here, I need to share the workload instead of just using one 'mon for a section of the game. The trouble was that I was now up to the water routes, and Manectric is already one of the higher-levelled party members. I figured that Metang should have a go since he can at least kill the millions of Tentacool with Zen Headbutt, and there probably won't be a time t use him until the E4 anyway (if that).
Mega Gyarados was really fun to use in Tate & Liza's gym, since everything would aim Psychic moves at normal Gyara, only to do nothing to mega Gyara, it really took me back to the old days of spamming Zoroark facading as Emboar in BW haha. Him + Metang made easy work of the twins and so I made my way to the Seafloor Cavern. This was Altaria's time to grind, and actually did a pretty good job. He really only had to avoid the Golbats / Muks but they were easily handled by Metang (who also needed training). I decided that since I missed out on Hyper Voice that I would instead just spam
Echoed Voice instead, which was hilariously powerful after the first hit. If I was up to the 3rd / 4th hit and they sent out a Poison type, I would just use it again and it would usually KO! Of course this meant the 15PP got used up pretty quickly.. I was able to even out my party's levels pretty well by the end of it and went to take on Kyogre..
So I figured I could just mega evolve Manectric and take him out with Discharge, but he was outsped and OHKO'd by Origin Pulse, and since I did mega evolve him I couldn't just use Mega 'Dos to do it. Kyogre just seemed to keep selecting the right moves, it got Altaria with Ice Beam, Blaziken with another Origin Pulse, paralyzed Metang with Body Slam and haxed it to death with Origin Pulse. Alakazam managed to do some damage but also died, Gyarados was able to finish it off with Crunch though. It ended up being a pretty epic battle, especially considering that my over-levelled Sceptile OHKOd it on my previous playthrough... At least now I could just rush to Victory Road and wipe the E4.
Victory Road is was too easy in this game. It's way too short and the trainers suck. I
finally evolve Metang into Metagross and decide to let him do all the work to celebrate, he even sweeps Wally. Now that I'm at the Pokemon League I can fly back to Lilycove and delete all the horrible HMs I had been running, Gyarados's moveset was Waterfall / Dive / Surf / Crunch for crying out loud! For some reason I decided that Altaria could keep Fly since it gives it Flying STAB, but it isn't needed to in hindsight it should have been Dragon Dance or Earthquake. I do forget to take Rock Smash off Metagross though which is annoying.
As for the E4, the battles are pretty interesting! I can't remember them in as much detail as last time so I'll just be brief. I tried to make Altaria sweep Sidney with Echoed Voice, but he was KO'd by Sharpedo's Poison Fang after confusion hax from Mightyena's Swagger, Blaziken was able to clean up though. Gyarados had no trouble sweeping Phoebe with Crunch, luckily Dusknoir is super weak so Thunder Punch couldn't KO, same as Sableye (it tanked a Waterfall). I used Manectric to sweep Glacia, Discharge + Flamethrower worked wonders here, luckily Walrein missed Sheer Cold! Drake was kinda tough, I wanted to do another Echoed Voice sweep but I got stopped at his Salamence (after first KOing his Altaria, Kingdra and a Flygon), Gyarados was able to come in and Ice Fang it and the second Flygon to death. Steven was one of the better AI battles I've had playing the series, which sucks because I can barely remember how it went down! I was too caught up in the moment, trying to figure out how I was going to win. My team was soooooo under-levelled (average of 45 compared to his 57) but I was mostly able to trade 1-for-1 until it came down to a fitting battle between his and my Metagross (or both of his Metagross? The OT is Steven after all...). Neither of us could touch each other since all our moves were resisted. I had to rely on Rock Smash (why didn't I swap it for Earthquake??) getting defense drops. Like I said, I have no idea how I did it, but I did!
And now, the team that made the Hall of Fame!
Harland
Lv. 44
- Blaze Kick
- Double Kick
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
Named for Colonel Sanders for obvious reasons. This guy put in work the whole game, was always a higher level than everyone right up until the water routes.
Metagross
Lv. 47
- Bullet Punch
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Rock Smash (lol)
Would probably have named him Linux or something but Steven's OT stops that. I heard somewhere that this guy unlocks some special dialogue in the story like N's Zorua would but I didn't notice anything... The fourth moveslot was the rotating slot, it saw a bunch of moves like Rock Tomb, Power-up Punch and Bulldoze. Kinda sucks that he evolves so late so he was a Metang for the bulk of the story while the rest of its teammates were busy mega evolving...
Gary Jr.
Lv. 46
- Waterfall
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Earthquake
The name came from Gyara-dos > Gary dos > Gary 2 (the 2nd) > Gary Jr. lol... This thing is a machine, and easily a top tier 'mons once you get it to level 20. Intimidate makes him bulky AF, Bite and Dragon Rage do lots of damage early-game, and Aqua Tail, Ice Fang and Crunch come later. 10/10 would recommend
#2spoony4me
Lv. 43
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Grass Knot
Yeah horrible name but like what else do you call it? This guy would also be good if used as a teams solo or 2nd mega but it was overshadowed by its teammates :( Early Alakazam was fun as hell though, he just monstered the early game.
ACdogeC
Lv. 47
- Discharge
- Flamethrower
- Volt Switch
- Hyper Beam
Another subpar nickname but I thought it was kinda funny. ACDC coz electricity (and badass rock band), just replace D with a timeless doge reference... This guy was probably MVP for the playthrough since Volt Switch is hella good when playing set mode. Trying for Flame Burst was useful but did stop me from using Blaziken as much as I thought I would. Did have Strength but Hyper Beam seemed more appropriate for the E4 run (also has no other moves smh)
Alister
Lv. 47
- Dragon Pulse
- Echoed Voice
- Fly
- Flamethrower
The name seems obvious coz of Altaria but Alister Wright is the name of the lead singer of Cloud Control, so cool little double meaning there. I was initially disappointed that I didn't get Hyper Voice but like I said earlier, Echoed Voice is fun as hell (and makes me want to try it in the Maison).