Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records

[MDG4]

RNG manip is, in my opinion, totally the way to go. Yes it takes more time initially, but once you get the hang of it, it doesn't end up taking very long and you get stronger mons, which sometimes makes a big difference. Plus it's kinda fun. For Latios, I would compare your Latios' stats against what a Starmie would be. Due to a glitch, Pokemon caught while roaming in this generation have IVs of zero in everything except attack, which is 5 or less, and HP which is the normal 0-31. Mild is not a bad nature when considering you could've ended up with something way worse. Plug in some numbers here against opponents you might face and see the difference yourself: https://turskain.github.io/ (switch it to ADV). Also, consider the synergy. Slaking is weak to fighting, which both of the psychics resist, and metagross is weak to fire and ground, which both resist fire, but Latios is immune to ground while Starmie is neutral. That being said, if the attacker is ground type, then Starmie's stronger surf might come in handy. There's always tradeoffs.

For breeding/RNG abuse, I have a video here that goes over this whole process of start to finish of how I get a mon I want:

it's very long, so feel free to skim or not watch, but this is like an info dump of like 80% of what I know about breeding/EV training/RNG manip optimizations specifically in Emerald.

I think your team will be plenty strong and I think it's worth obtaining the team and testing at this point. There's only so much you can do with theory alone- go play with it, pay attention to your losses (or maybe you only win and get all Golds! yay!) and come back and people can help you workshop it more. Also, even if you have a great team, if you don't know why it's good and can't wield it effectively, you probably won't make it to Gold, so consider after you train your Pokemon, train yourself a bit too by playing some runs and getting used to the Frontier. Good luck!

So far my team is Do you have any advice on a 4th move for Slaking and my third pokemon?

SLAKOTH Adamant IVs 31/31/31/28/31/31 - Choice Band - EVs 4/252/0/0/0/0/252

Return
Earthquake
Shadow Ball
?? (What should I put here? Rock Slide? Brick break?)

METAGROSS Adamant IVs 27/25/29/11/28/31 - Choice Band - EVs 12/252/0/0/0/244

Meteor Mash (the accuracy on this move really pisses me off)
Earthquake
Shadow Ball
Explosion

Latios Mild IVs 18/22/8/26/19/24 ??? (Will take suggestions on a different 3rd pokemon here if anyone has please).

 

[RosieVGC]

I worked out a few possible BF Doubles teams I'd love some C&C on:

Team 1: Rain

https://pokepast.es/6037795beca58438

The first three picks for this team were easily made. Latios almost feels like an auto include for any team trying to get a high scoring run in. Given that I want to build around rain, Kingdra for its Swift Swim-Surf combo and Zapdos for its Thunder also seemed like obvious picks. That left me with one slot to fill. The first selection of three lacks a physical attacker, as well as being double ice weak with no resists. That's where Metagross comes in, bringing all of these as well as benefiting from rain through negating its fire weakness.

The idea is to lead with ZapGross, deciding on whether to set Screens, Rain or Protect to have Metagross take out a threat to Zapdos first, while Metagross either gets the offenses rolling or goes for Endure. Once Metagross has done its job, a booming farewell should get Kingdra in. Latios is there to round out the team, picking Thunderbolt over Thunder so in case things do go wrong and I cannot get or keep Rain up I have the reliable option to fall back on. Swapping out one of the offensive moves with Helping Hand to further boost Kingdra's Surfs is a possible consideration.

This team lacks one important tool though: setup removal. No Haze, no Ace, no Toxic, no Perish. I just can't find the space to justify it though as lots of team members suffer from moveslot syndrome. One idea that did cross my mind is swapping out Metagross with Scizor. He benefits from rain in similar fashion, can SD up next to Kingdra, keeping a physical attacker for the late game that way, while running HP Fighting to deal with non Water Ice types, and Aerial Ace to deal with evasion spammers. I'm not sure how viable he really would be without either Technician or priority though.

Another option to solve this problem would be Lapras. Good defenses, Shell Armor for crit protection, and access to Perish Song. Question is though, who do you sacrifice to get her in?

Team 2 (WIP): Gyarawak

https://pokepast.es/cccf96c3e49f9838

This team borrows QuentinQuonce 's GyaraWak spreads, built to outspeed the entire metagame with Gyarados after one DD, all the Regii with Wak, while adding bulk on both. Leads with Gyarados-Latios, looking to get a DD and/or Substitute (ran over Protect to keep Lum free for Latios and over Resto-Chesto to have a better Explosion answer) up whenever the opportunity arises while Latios runs coverage plus STAB. In case electric leads prove an issue, Latios switches out for Marowak. Still unsettled on who should be the final team member here though. Obviously it could do with another Fly/Levitate Pokemon. I've looked at the Dragons but fear that 4x Ice weakness is too much on doubles, even more so since both Latios and Wak are ice weak already.

Team 3 (ideas phase): Sun

Another team I'd love to try out is Sun. Building starts with sun abusers of course. There are three I am potentially looking at. First of all, Charizard. Outspeeds almost anything with Timid, has access to Dragon Claw to deal with Dragon types that resist all general sun team coverage, and has Heat Wave for a strong, fire type spread move. The second one is Houndoom. Outside of Entei, he's the only considerable fire type that also gets Solar Beam in this generation. STAB Crunch for further coverage to round things out. Could maybe even run a Salac-Endure set to go Modest for yet more output and get his speed up. My only issues with him are his pitiful defense stat and lack of Fly/Levitate to combine with an Earthquake user. Finally, there's Shiftry. Incredibly frail, but really fast in the Sun, access to a Boom and Fake Out. I'm wondering if he could be viable as a 'here for a good time, not a long time' partner next to a sun setter.

Edit: for sun there are two more Pokemon that came to mind. One is Blaziken. Could go Salac-Endure with the stats to perform in a mixed attacker role, Earthquake access and Aerial Ace/Brick Break as options for different purposes. The other one is Swampert. Brings STAB Earthquake to the team, deals with opposing fire types with a defensive water profile that doesn't suffer from sun as it doesn't really use it offensively anyways, and doesn't mind about the Solar Beam boost since it dies as soon as it touches grass regardless.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Team 2 (WIP): Gyarawak

https://pokepast.es/cccf96c3e49f9838

This team borrows QuentinQuonce 's GyaraWak spreads, built to outspeed the entire metagame with Gyarados after one DD, all the Regii with Wak, while adding bulk on both. Leads with Gyarados-Latios, looking to get a DD and/or Substitute (ran over Protect to keep Lum free for Latios and over Resto-Chesto to have a better Explosion answer) up whenever the opportunity arises while Latios runs coverage plus STAB. In case electric leads prove an issue, Latios switches out for Marowak. Still unsettled on who should be the final team member here though. Obviously it could do with another Fly/Levitate Pokemon. I've looked at the Dragons but fear that 4x Ice weakness is too much on doubles, even more so since both Latios and Wak are ice weak already.

Appreciate the shoutout. I've been playing around with my Lightningrod team in Gen IV lately and have been considering Mr Mime as a potential addition: after Gen III, Manectric became unviable and so I pivoted to having a fourth team member who could run out the clock on the Perish Song timer and block attacks from foes with Protect. Hitmontop has been good at that in Gen V but it's less adept at it in earlier gens. Mr Mime comes the closest to recreating that; not only does it get Fake Out, it also has Soundproof which obviously pairs well with Perish Song. It has poor bulk so is a bit less capable of clinging on after a hit and baiting attacks in the same way Marowak/Hitmontop can, but it might be more optimal to just run two attacks alongside Fake Out/Substitute anyway. Alternatively it's got the speed to make use of the various disruptive/supportive moves it learns. Overall for Gen III I would say Manectric is a better option though.

Team 3 (ideas phase): Sun

Another team I'd love to try out is Sun. Building starts with sun abusers of course. There are three I am potentially looking at. First of all, Charizard. Outspeeds almost anything with Timid, has access to Dragon Claw to deal with Dragon types that resist all general sun team coverage, and has Heat Wave for a strong, fire type spread move. The second one is Houndoom. Outside of Entei, he's the only considerable fire type that also gets Solar Beam in this generation. STAB Crunch for further coverage to round things out. Could maybe even run a Salac-Endure set to go Modest for yet more output and get his speed up. My only issues with him are his pitiful defense stat and lack of Fly/Levitate to combine with an Earthquake user. Finally, there's Shiftry. Incredibly frail, but really fast in the Sun, access to a Boom and Fake Out. I'm wondering if he could be viable as a 'here for a good time, not a long time' partner next to a sun setter.

Edit: for sun there are two more Pokemon that came to mind. One is Blaziken. Could go Salac-Endure with the stats to perform in a mixed attacker role, Earthquake access and Aerial Ace/Brick Break as options for different purposes. The other one is Swampert. Brings STAB Earthquake to the team, deals with opposing fire types with a defensive water profile that doesn't suffer from sun as it doesn't really use it offensively anyways, and doesn't mind about the Solar Beam boost since it dies as soon as it touches grass regardless.

I've long wanted to make a viable Sun team but it's so tricky. Jumpluff is a Pokemon which looks so good on paper: it's incredibly fast so will get sun up most of the time, and then has a bunch of useful support options to play with: Leech Seed, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, Helping Hand, Encore. But I feel like it'd be a poor option in general, Ice is an incredibly common weakness to have. Maybe something like Latias would be a better general lead since it's fast enough to set up sun for a slower teammate to benefit from but doesn't much care about weather itself.

Exeggutor is a potentially fantastic backup mon for a sun team, it can also boom and does better against Water-types than Shiftry in general. Houndoom is good in the sun but I find it lacking in doubles, it's very frail and doesn't hit hard enough with non-STAB moves to be reliable - I also wouldn't run Salac-Endure in doubles because there's just so much more opportunity for stuff to chip you when you're low. Double the Quick Claw bullshit and at 1 HP a miss can be disastrous.

Charizard isn't the worst option but you won't be KOing any dragons with Dragon Claw, while they're very much capable of OHKOing you with Rock Slide or Thunderbolt. Heat Wave is a potential option but I would think Overheat would be preferable; sure you only target one foe but in sunny weather you will get a lot of clean OHKOs - potentially taking out two foes (with White Herb) is huge, whereas even in sun the spread-damage penalty for Heat Wave would discourage me. Paired with a good Earthquake user though I think Timid White Herb Charizard with Overheat could be extremely good. I'd be inclined to run max Speed/SpA with Overheat, Hidden Power Grass or Ice or Bite, Protect and maybe something like Fly or Dig - unconventional maybe but Charizard's typing will draw a lot of attacks so it's a potentially very good way to avoid them while your teammate attacks. Note that thanks to being a Flying-type Charizard can use Dig and still not be hit by Earthquake. I don't know though, I'd need to test that out.

Anyway, hopefully this has given you some ideas.

 

[BeVreeze]

I worked out a few possible BF Doubles teams I'd love some C&C on:

Team 1: Rain

https://pokepast.es/6037795beca58438

The first three picks for this team were easily made. Latios almost feels like an auto include for any team trying to get a high scoring run in. Given that I want to build around rain, Kingdra for its Swift Swim-Surf combo and Zapdos for its Thunder also seemed like obvious picks. That left me with one slot to fill. The first selection of three lacks a physical attacker, as well as being double ice weak with no resists. That's where Metagross comes in, bringing all of these as well as benefiting from rain through negating its fire weakness.

The idea is to lead with ZapGross, deciding on whether to set Screens, Rain or Protect to have Metagross take out a threat to Zapdos first, while Metagross either gets the offenses rolling or goes for Endure. Once Metagross has done its job, a booming farewell should get Kingdra in. Latios is there to round out the team, picking Thunderbolt over Thunder so in case things do go wrong and I cannot get or keep Rain up I have the reliable option to fall back on. Swapping out one of the offensive moves with Helping Hand to further boost Kingdra's Surfs is a possible consideration.

This team lacks one important tool though: setup removal. No Haze, no Ace, no Toxic, no Perish. I just can't find the space to justify it though as lots of team members suffer from moveslot syndrome. One idea that did cross my mind is swapping out Metagross with Scizor. He benefits from rain in similar fashion, can SD up next to Kingdra, keeping a physical attacker for the late game that way, while running HP Fighting to deal with non Water Ice types, and Aerial Ace to deal with evasion spammers. I'm not sure how viable he really would be without either Technician or priority though.

Another option to solve this problem would be Lapras. Good defenses, Shell Armor for crit protection, and access to Perish Song. Question is though, who do you sacrifice to get her in?

I'd probably give zapdos the lum berry. With it being the lead it's probably going to get statused the most. It's also going to invite a lot of ice beams and getting frozen turn 1 by something like a starmie or quick claw lapras would be horrible. Leftovers probably isn't going to do much meaningful healing on zapdos so I don't think it will miss it that much.

I've used a little bit of rain and I was very unimpressed by the damage rain boosted surf did. I had a double surf lead, though. It might have something going for it as a cleaner in the back to finish things off that are low or to soften things up so they can be killed with thunder. Depending on how the team performs it might be worth looking into waterfall instead.

I really like having perish song to deal with annoying last pokemon. Have you considered using gengar over latios? I've seen some success with thunderbolt, ice punch, perish song, protect on one of my teams. You won't be as tanky as latios, but the damage is very similar. You could also try out thunder over thunderbolt if you find that you can reliably get gengar/latios in with rain up. There are a lot of ohkos that they just barely miss with thunderbolt.

I've not used scizor yet, but I think that setting up with such a slow pokemon isn't the best.

Team 2 (WIP): Gyarawak

https://pokepast.es/cccf96c3e49f9838

This team borrows QuentinQuonce 's GyaraWak spreads, built to outspeed the entire metagame with Gyarados after one DD, all the Regii with Wak, while adding bulk on both. Leads with Gyarados-Latios, looking to get a DD and/or Substitute (ran over Protect to keep Lum free for Latios and over Resto-Chesto to have a better Explosion answer) up whenever the opportunity arises while Latios runs coverage plus STAB. In case electric leads prove an issue, Latios switches out for Marowak. Still unsettled on who should be the final team member here though. Obviously it could do with another Fly/Levitate Pokemon. I've looked at the Dragons but fear that 4x Ice weakness is too much on doubles, even more so since both Latios and Wak are ice weak already.

I'm a bit of a leftovers hater when it comes to doubles. I think it would work better on a bulky last mon, so I'm going to suggest something like a cheri berry on the gyarados. I think lightningrod works on thunder wave, but that won't help you when marowak isn't on the field and there are a lot of random pokemon that have thunder wave. You have substitute to block it, but you won't always be able to.

I'm not sure about a 4th and don't have too much time to think about it at the moment but another ground immune sounds good when you have to powerful pokemon that want to spam EQ. Articuno is nice as a pokemon that isn't weak to ice and also can't be frozen. Not sure how well it fits on this team.

Team 3 (ideas phase): Sun

Another team I'd love to try out is Sun. Building starts with sun abusers of course. There are three I am potentially looking at. First of all, Charizard. Outspeeds almost anything with Timid, has access to Dragon Claw to deal with Dragon types that resist all general sun team coverage, and has Heat Wave for a strong, fire type spread move. The second one is Houndoom. Outside of Entei, he's the only considerable fire type that also gets Solar Beam in this generation. STAB Crunch for further coverage to round things out. Could maybe even run a Salac-Endure set to go Modest for yet more output and get his speed up. My only issues with him are his pitiful defense stat and lack of Fly/Levitate to combine with an Earthquake user. Finally, there's Shiftry. Incredibly frail, but really fast in the Sun, access to a Boom and Fake Out. I'm wondering if he could be viable as a 'here for a good time, not a long time' partner next to a sun setter.

Edit: for sun there are two more Pokemon that came to mind. One is Blaziken. Could go Salac-Endure with the stats to perform in a mixed attacker role, Earthquake access and Aerial Ace/Brick Break as options for different purposes. The other one is Swampert. Brings STAB Earthquake to the team, deals with opposing fire types with a defensive water profile that doesn't suffer from sun as it doesn't really use it offensively anyways, and doesn't mind about the Solar Beam boost since it dies as soon as it touches grass regardless.

For Charizard I would probably suggest hidden power ice over dragon claw. You're not going to one shot anything with dragon claw, but you can with hp ice. It won't hit kingdra as hard, but it's probably worth it for all the other dragons. Moltres may also be worth considering. It's not quite as fast as charizard, but it's quite a bit stronger and its bulk is a bit better. Hidden power ice will have a lot more rolls to kill bulky dragons when used by moltres. Maybe you could even run both if you really want that ground immunity.

I used lead shiftry on my sun team to help to get the sun up on turn 1. It's definitely not the best pokemon, but fake out, solar beam, explosion seems like a good combination for a sun team. It's quite easy to lose the shiftry turn 1, though. My own sun team wasn't very successful

I like the idea of swampert in the back. A lightning rod user to support charizard/moltres might be good too.

 

[RosieVGC]

I've long wanted to make a viable Sun team but it's so tricky. Jumpluff is a Pokemon which looks so good on paper: it's incredibly fast so will get sun up most of the time, and then has a bunch of useful support options to play with: Leech Seed, Stun Spore, Sleep Powder, Helping Hand, Encore. But I feel like it'd be a poor option in general, Ice is an incredibly common weakness to have. Maybe something like Latias would be a better general lead since it's fast enough to set up sun for a slower teammate to benefit from but doesn't much care about weather itself.

Oh yes, I love Jumpluff! probably too frail for Gen 3 though. What I am looking at is Jumpluff in Gen IV, as Focus Sash should keep her alive for at least one turn. First turn Sunny Day paired with a Fake Out user. Then look to get in Scarf Typhlosion and start swinging out Helping Hand Eruptions. Maybe that's also where Shiftry could shine? Has Fake Out. If he dies turn one that's a safe entry for Typhlosion. If he doesn't you go Explosion-Protect on Jumpluff next turn, also a safe entry for Typhlosion?

Charizard isn't the worst option but you won't be KOing any dragons with Dragon Claw, while they're very much capable of OHKOing you with Rock Slide or Thunderbolt. Heat Wave is a potential option but I would think Overheat would be preferable; sure you only target one foe but in sunny weather you will get a lot of clean OHKOs - potentially taking out two foes (with White Herb) is huge, whereas even in sun the spread-damage penalty for Heat Wave would discourage me. Paired with a good Earthquake user though I think Timid White Herb Charizard with Overheat could be extremely good. I'd be inclined to run max Speed/SpA with Overheat, Hidden Power Grass or Ice or Bite, Protect and maybe something like Fly or Dig - unconventional maybe but Charizard's typing will draw a lot of attacks so it's a potentially very good way to avoid them while your teammate attacks. Note that thanks to being a Flying-type Charizard can use Dig and still not be hit by Earthquake. I don't know though, I'd need to test that out.

Anyway, hopefully this has given you some ideas.

White Herb-Overheat Charizard sounds quite interesting. You don't even need max Speed on Timid to outrun what's important so that's some EVs left for bulk as well. Gyarawak sun is an idea I was actually looking at before as well. Perhaps that's just the way to go? Sun would further secure Wak's bulk, get Zards Overheats going. 2 Earthquake users in, Lightningrod, Perish as an end game option. I'm Thinking Latias-Gyarados lead with a classic setup just one move slot on Latias switched for Sunny Day? I'd have to check the damage calcs on Heat Wave. Sun and STAB does get you back to 100%, if that would be enough for some KOs it could be worth running both Overheat and Heat Wave. And those Fly/Dig suggestions sound really interesting as well!

https://pokepast.es/cab16f9b92263f7a

I'd probably give zapdos the lum berry. With it being the lead it's probably going to get statused the most. It's also going to invite a lot of ice beams and getting frozen turn 1 by something like a starmie or quick claw lapras would be horrible. Leftovers probably isn't going to do much meaningful healing on zapdos so I don't think it will miss it that much.

I've used a little bit of rain and I was very unimpressed by the damage rain boosted surf did. I had a double surf lead, though. It might have something going for it as a cleaner in the back to finish things off that are low or to soften things up so they can be killed with thunder. Depending on how the team performs it might be worth looking into waterfall instead.

I really like having perish song to deal with annoying last pokemon. Have you considered using gengar over latios? I've seen some success with thunderbolt, ice punch, perish song, protect on one of my teams. You won't be as tanky as latios, but the damage is very similar. You could also try out thunder over thunderbolt if you find that you can reliably get gengar/latios in with rain up. There are a lot of ohkos that they just barely miss with thunderbolt.

I've not used scizor yet, but I think that setting up with such a slow pokemon isn't the best.

Fair call on the Lum allocation. I had originally intended Latios-Metagross to be the lead, then switched Zapdos there, should have brought the Lum along. I can see the downside on the Surf damage. Maybe I could get away with dropping one Rain Dance (or moving the other over to Latios) to run both Surf and Waterfall on Kingdra? The way I'm looking at it though is that Kingdra (who should be damaging both at 1.1 with Surf after -50%, then applying all bonuses) gets in the consistent spread damage with a partner that secures urgent KOs. I have definitely considered Gengar, but heard many people complain about the lack of bulk and vulnerability to QC Psychic users, which had me worried he would be too risky as a backline option while also just not staying around long enough from the frontline to get in Perish though. Two options I am looking at to make that short presence count are Metagross-Gengar pairing with either double Boom from Endure-Salac Metagross, or Skill Swap on Gengar to make Metagross levitate?

Or perhaps you could even look to combine the strategies of double Boom and Perish Gengar? Salac Metagross, Shadow Ball-Explosion-Perish Song-Protect Jolly Gengar. If not facing evasion or problematic resists, double boom. If facing ghost leads you have double Shadow Ball. If double boom isn't viable you can Boom on Metagross and Protect on Gengar, then next turn Perish?