recovered my lost account of 8.5 years to also say thanks. impeccably informative and fun guide. efforts like this are hard to come by on the internet but so, so, so incredibly valuable. many people do not register new accounts or recover lost accounts just to express gratitude--it's the way the internet is, naturally--but it deserves to be said that something of this quality does not go unnoticed by the silent majority. it may have been a while since the last post but i will ensure i get notified if this gets updated for future temples. keep up the good work
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Let's Play! Guardian Signs: Wireless missions done solo
- Thread starter WarriorGallade
- Start date
Welcome back everyone! After ages, this guide finally sees an update. Can you believe it's been nearly seven months since the last post...? Ouch, that's a sharp drop off from the intended biweekly schedule I wanted to keep when I started, but hey, better late than never!
So, why has it taken this long for any news? I've lost a lot of motivation to keep this going due to real life keeping me busy, and have barely had time to play the game over the past few months, outside of charting the maps for this mission pair over today/yesterday. It's surprising how much I seem to have forgotten about various details about this. Doom and gloom aside, I also don't want to abandon this halfway, given the effort that's gone into it so far, so I'll do my best to keep at it until it's finished, slow as the pace might be.
The encouraging messages you guys have posted have also helped me, and I do appreciate that! It's glad to know that this is helpful to you ^^
Anyway, formalities out, back to mission briefings!
- Claydol can be replaced by Bronzong
- Bronzor can be replaced by Pachirisu or Natu.
- Skarmory can be replaced by Staraptor
- Manectric in the small chambers can be replaced by 2 Voltorb
- Togepi can occasionally appear at the end of the snaking pathway.
- Possibly more that I've not catalogued (this will be a recurring theme)
Map:
Map legend is the same as the previous post, but reposted below for clarity:
Well, that's a large map, huh? Certainly, it's not like large maps will go away for a while. Every mission after this will also have similarly large, if not larger maps. Fun!
Yeah, remember how I said I was level 34 when I cleared Metagross? I was level 47 with 100 power and a 5/5/5 Piplup by the time I was able to clear this (with a C rank at that). This is a terrible, terrible mission that was clearly not designed for a solo player.
Having invested a chunk of my AP into Piplup, I was reluctant to max out another partner but decided on Typhlosion since it was so dominating through the Abomasnow fight. However, this wasn't a good thing as you'll soon see. You need to capture 4 Starly for this mission, and their positions around the stage force you to backtrack a lot. The first two Starly are incidental, you'll always encounter them. The last two are scattered across a spiral-shaped maze later in the stage, and will need considerable running around to encounter.
Anyway, speaking of levels. There's another reason I wanted to wait on finishing this mission's writeup (this reason has ceased to mean anything - it was accurate four months ago), and that's because I wanted to give it a go at the maximum level of 99 to see if it was any easier. Unfortunately as you'll soon read, that was not the case. But back to the main topic...
Your first room sees you in a medium-sized branching pathway. You would prefer that Pachirisu or Natu be visible here, but it's not too bad if Bronzor's here. You will also see a defense powerup guarded by a Manectric in this room. This powerup is one of few where it's certainly a dilemma - do you take it, or not? If you're at a lower level and are having game overs due to running out of energy on prior clears, collect it. However, if you want to increase your chances of a high rank (or clearing the mission at all), avoid it because time is just that constrained. Some opponents in this mission can put up a struggle in both energy and time, so be warned.
Now, move onward. and navigate the snake shaped pathway. First, head right along this path and take the teleporter. This will take you to the first Starly of this mission, which is an extremely easy capture. Go back to the snake pathway, this time north, and head for the switch at the other end to clear a path forward. Don't claim any of the battery powerups here - the mission is far too early to need them, even if you were hit by some attacks before. Here, you might have checked the map and noticed that there's a Pokemon on the switch! Normally you'd be forced into capture to activate the switch, but if you got the Pachirisu or Natu variant here, you can, with precise positioning, activate the switch without engaging combat with them. Pachirisu especially has a tendency to move more than the other two, so it's easier to direct out of the way, and (I think) Natu stays still. However, we can't rely on consistent movement with Bronzor because its idle animation sways it back and forth while not moving it off the switch, and this takes away any of the leeway you may've had with the other Pokemon, thus forcing a capture. It's not like Bronzor, or any of the trio is a hard battle, but with this mission every second is quite vital. It's a bit finicky, but even a few seconds saved in waiting for them to launch an attack (and thereby not move for a brief period) can save you the excess lost in a capture. Now, head north again.
You will now enter a large hub room of sorts, which'll see somewhat frequent returns. Let's cover the ring road aspect of it first. From your start point, heading right, you will find your second Starly in the corner. Head upward, you will be greeted by a pair of teleporters. But before you proceed, consider whether you want to head downward to the center pathway first.
The center pathway will be guarded by one Staraptor/Skarmory on each side, that launch twisters with their wings. Most notably, these twisters will only ever hit you if you go down the central path - the birds will never specifically target you like the other Pokemon so far. These twisters will knock you back in the direction you came - there's no way to cheese these for a boost unlike other knockbacks. As such, try to minimize the amount of times you go to the center area, because it can take upwards of 6 seconds to get the timing just right. But why go there early? Well, two very important things there may justify the challenge - an attack powerup and an assist powerup! Both of them will give you quite the offensive in captures, and given some of the Pokemon you'll invariably run into, it's certainly an advantage in spades. But is it truly worth the risk of being stuck in twister limbo from the birds for a while if you get lucky? My opinion: Yes when you're starting this mission early on, the power boost is vital. Later on, you will still appreciate power, but every second tries to be optimized, and this is one that falls with such optimization.
Anyway, after you did/didn't take the powerup, head to the north of the room and take the RIGHT teleporter first. This puts you into a really large chamber, that contains either a bad enemy (Bronzong) or a terrible one (Claydol) scattered around various points. They will chase and attack you on sight, and will more often than not force you into a capture. Their range of vision is somewhat limited, so it is technically possible to evade battle, but quite difficult given that you're dealing with narrow pathways, and that if the Bronzong/Claydol is in the center of them, there's not really a way to avoid them other than hoping they turn to a side. You will also not be able to outrun them - for ancient guardians they are impressively fast and can keep up with running speed quite decently. Where's the speed powerup when we need it, huh?
Here, there are some variations that are actively rigged against you. The real kicker is Bronzong vs Claydol. As a prior post by Punchshroom has mentioned, the Claydol version is by far the worse of the two. But how different could they be? It's time for a...
Miniboss spotlight:
Both Claydol and Bronzong can teleport across the field at points during their battle, often immediately after performing an attack.
Claydol:
!: Claydol launches a barrage of psychic orbs in the broad area it's facing, that sweep outward covering a bit more than a semicircle's radius. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Claydol launches 3 psychic orbs from its center that orbit it as they fly outwards. After two cycles of out-in, the orbs fade, and this takes about 3-4 seconds to fully fade. It is possible to draw a loop a round this
!!!: Same as !! except the orbs lock on to the location where Claydol was upon using that move - so Claydol is capable of teleporting or moving elsewhere while this attack lingers on the field. They also fade after the same time. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Now, being a Ground type also means that Claydol's weak to the same types as the boss Gliscor up ahead, which is good because it's the only leeway you'll get in terms of being able to reuse and plan assists. While it is possible to draw loops around both !! and !!!, the psychic orbs will break any loop chain you have ongoing if you don't take your stylus off the screen. Claydol being able to teleport while !!! is active further makes this challenging, even though it fades away soon, because it restricts most close range assists from being useful here, limited to attack downtime or when ! is used. It's also got quite a bit of HP for this point in the game, and is all around just designed to waste your time (remember, if you run out of time in here, it's an automatic game over).
Bronzong:
!: Bronzong launches a medium sized iron ball in the direction it's facing. This orb will slowly travel in a straight line to the edge of the screen. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Bronzong launches 6 waves of psychic orbs (3 at a time) each staggered after about 0.33 seconds, in the direction it's facing - each isn't exactly the same direction. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Bronzong launches 2 waves of psychic orbs (5 at a time), each staggered after about 0.5 seconds, covering a wide area in the direction it's facing. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
Bronzong will always sway back and forth for a second or two after telegraphing an attack. This gives you a bit more time to squeeze a few more loops in. While Bronzong's HP pool is pretty similar to Claydol's, the large difference compared to it is that Bronzong's attacks simply don't waste your time that much. Even as a Steel type, which will likely resist your assist's type, any assist is useful because Bronzong has more easily exploitable blind spots to place your assist Pokemon - especially close range ones like Typhlosion will melt through Bronzong's HP. The few seconds you get extra as well as no persistent attacks are what make this capture much easier...but it still eats up at least 10 seconds of your time, if not more. If you're forced into battles with all 5 of them, that's maybe a minute off, and with how limited time is in this mission, that's not ideal. Still, it is the lesser of two evils here.
My best run here was avoiding 3/5 Bronzong and being forced to capture only the remaining two. Still, this was nowhere near the margin needed to S-rank this. For your own sanity, do not grind AP against these two Pokemon. The next mission will have many, many easier AP targets. Running before they catch you is the best option here.
Anyway, back to briefing. You must alternate between the left and right paths, as each of them has a switch at the end that unlocks a part of the other. Start right, then left, then right, and so on. This is part of why the mission is not designed for solo play, as all the back and forth travel eats into your time very heavily. In turn, this is also why it's so hard to avoid all the Claydol/Bronzong. You can avoid them once, twice, maybe thrice. But can you do it over 10 times given all the times you pass by them? Probably not. A 4 player party would be really adept at clearing this mission at breakneck pace - but alas I do not have 8 hands...or do I? Well, not for now at least.
Keep at the switch activating with each round trip, and as you do so you'll notice that time runs perilously low, even if you avoided the Claydol/Bronzong. After enough back and forth-ing, you'll find the third Starly here. But watch out, it's agitated and will fire twisters at you! This is particularly troublesome because it's near another of the switches you need to stand on, and these twisters can knock you off it, so just capture Starly first. Step on the switch and loop back around to the left, getting your fourth Starly - and make sure to step on the switch nearby. Yes, even though the clear condition's met, we aren't done yet. Now you'll be presented with a choice - head back for another round trip to access the new path, or go to the new teleporter that's now accessible?
Do not head back the way you came after capturing the fourth Starly. Instead, head to the teleporter. This takes you to a small room filled with either 1 Manectric or 2 Voltorb, both of whom will fire electricty or explode at you. It's worth being careful navigating these, as the Voltorb variant in particular can chain combo you a few times, costing precious seconds. In this room you will find two time powerups worth 120 seconds in total. Grab them and head to the teleporter you didn't enter from.
This will place you on the same platform as the Staraptor/Skarmory from earlier. If you wanted to get their slates and have the time, this is a reasonable place to try capture them. Otherwise, step on the switch and head back onto the hub area. Now, it is imperative that you don't go for the boss door just yet. Head back into the left teleporter, navigate all the way to the end of the maze, and step on the newly unlocked teleporter from the last switch you pressed in this room. This will take you to another small room similar to the last one with another 120 seconds worth of time. Grab these, head to the exit, and you will be on the other Staraptor/Skarmory platform. Now, head to the boss door, grabbing the battery refills if you need them, and the power/partner powerups even if you don't need them. Anyway, dash forth into the zone of magnets to take on Magnezone himself.
Boss:
!: Magnezone launches a Discharge of electric current in all directions around it. After agitation, Magnezone can use this attack unprovoked while moving, and has a tendency to make sharp turns. It is very difficult to draw a loop around this, and you'll likely only manage doing so as the attack starts or is about to end, and not during it.
!!: Magnezone launches a Zap Cannon in an arc in its line of sight, that lingers on the floor for a few seconds. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Magnezone summons two balls of electricity that hover around it. It is extremely difficult to draw a loop around this.
Partner choice: Yeah, this one's a doozy. AP will still be a bit scarce on your first time through to max out partners, so stick with Piplup. Alternatively if you'd like a more positive type matchup, go with a beam-type fire assist like Magmar or Flareon at the cost of any secondary effect. Given Bronzong's passivity, you might be tempted to just go all-in with a close range fire assist like Typhlosion, and it's plenty cathartic to watch it demolish the steel bells with startling speed. However, do not actually bring Typhlosion to this stage in large part because of its matchup with the stage boss. Magnezone's electric balls have just enough range to render this badger without a badge - striking it more often than not. To get some use out of Typhlosion you'll have to get very lucky. So now there's no arr to say, for there are no pirates here.
If you want to try capturing more Pokemon here (this stage is technically the easiest way to get Staravia/Staraptor and Claydol), you might want to consider another partner. The problem here is that the combination of Flying and Steel on their own renders most assist hitting neutral at best. Still, I can also recommend Lucario for this, particularly when you've enough AP to max it out because it can amp up damage pretty quickly, and while it's assist does not have the best range, the slowing effect can be what you need to de-magnetize Magnezone for just the right time.
You might have noticed I mentioned Gliscor (and sensed a pattern here. Assuming you ignore the Claydol variant, both Magnezone and Bronzong are weak to Ground, so a Ground assist seems like it'd be great? Well, that's the thing - yes and no. Magnezone's behaviors are quite different from Bronzong, so despite the shared weakness, you can't effectively use those assists as other types. What do I mean?
Sandslash is one you might be drawn to particularly because of its range and how Magnezone being an agile Pokemon (yes, 60 base speed is agile now. Welcome to the Empoleon school now, apparently. It somehow has more students, as you'll see in the next mission). Sandslash launches mud bombs across the field, (one bomb per level) that linger for a short time. If Magnezone rushes into multiple, it'll take heavy damage, especially if it moves in and out of the mud. Alas, given its erratic trajectory you will be hard pressed to aim Sandslash right, but it's still got use. Not so for Bronzong - its slow movement means Sandslash's assist will not deal as much as you hope for.
Now, back to Gliscor. It's nigh impossible to hit Magnezone with the full force of your assist (which is a trident shape of raised rocks in Gliscor's facing direction) given Magnezone's !! attack dissuading close range attacks. Still, the pausing effect will be helpful especially if it's been a while since Magnezone's last attack - time it just as the orbs fade and you're given a rare chance to blitz the magnetic menace. Even with the stage's provided attack powerup, one blitz will not get you through the full fight, as always due to our old friend, agitation. You will need at least two, but in practice I had to hit it thrice because the more I attempted this, the more the rage of the stage got to me; it simply wasn't fun solo. However, if you've got more people with you, this could make for a very interesting mission to try and blitz through.
S-ranking?:
No :D
This section doesn't really apply for the current mission, so I'll post another few of my observations as I tried clearing it at various points. At level 72, when I chose to formally repeat this mission, I timed myself for capturing each Bronzong if it caught me, avoiding any unneccessary detours, etc. Adding up all this time, as well a really lucky Magnezone split (~35 seconds) put me at around 40 seconds short of an S rank. Tragic! Perhaps I'll have to retry this mission at level 99..? Well, I'll spare you the suspense - after months of grinding on and off, I finally hit level 99, and what did my possibly best attempt with that get me, even with some pretty reasonable routing and hitting only 3 Bronzong along the way? An A rank off S by about 25 seconds - not close by any means unless I could magically avoid ALL the Bronzong. I've even tried experimenting with partners such as Gliscor to amp up the type advantage damage, but Magnezone isn't a Pokemon you can just blitz and be done with, unlike say Weavile. Unfortunate, but remember - all you need is to clear this with a C rank and it's out of the way! (unless you really like Magnezone and want its slate, in which case I have no more guidelines for a solo player :D
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Variations:
- Golem can be replaced by Hippowdon
- Manectric can be replaced by Raichu
- Jolteon and/or Delibird can occasionally show up at the bottom of the final chamber.
- Hippowdon/Golem can occasionally replace Manectric in the final chamber.
- Cranidos (in the mini chambers, can be replaced by Luxio or Beldum)
- Rampardos can be replaced by Luxray.
- And more, possibly others, that I've not catalogued.
Map:
So, this boss is a lovely, lovely breath of fresh air compared to how irksome Magnezone was. So is the mission! I find this one plenty of fun too, given how often I returned to it.
This mission will be the first of two to feature randomized paths! Well, they're not completely random, but they do force you to pay more attention to your surroundings. This time, your goal is to capture 4 Porygon-Z. They're not quite miniboss level, but can put up a good fight, so be prepared. Piplup in particular sees its damage output start to falter by this mission. Note that Porygon-Z can occasionally teleport outside of battle, but not very far. You may end up expending a few seconds trying to catch it, but time's generous here, so it's not an issue.
Of course, that's not without forgetting everyone's favorite electric Pokemon, Luxray. Isn't it the perfect fit for a mission like this? (this is sarcasm, Luxray is the bane of this mission). Without further ado, let's get into it! Electric type, generates field wide discharges, summons a rotating sphere around itself...wait! We've seen this before, haven't we? Yes, Luxray is exactly the same as Ampharos! Not quite Magnezone, but still plenty annoying - welcome back to hell (yet again).
Anyway, one more thing to keep in mind here is the same analogy of the perplexahedron I brought up last post; the correct path forward will be marked by evolved Pokemon. In the case that you somehow find all Pokemon are evolved, the powerup chest's position marks the way...but if there's no powerup, and no real way to tell the three paths apart, try the top path (if you see Manectric), or the bottom path (if you see Raichu). It is very unlikely that the middle pathway will be correct in this situation, from what I remember. However, as you look at the map, you'll notice that there are some merits to taking the longer or incorrect paths, either in the form of powerups or in the form of easy captures for more AP. Time will be generous enough that you can choose to wander a bit, but try to avoid that on your first time through.
AP? Why would I bring this up all of a sudden? Well, this is the moment I've been hinting at in prior posts - this mission will likely be the best spot for you to AP grind for quite a long time. Play all your cards right and you'll be able to score upwards of 1000 AP per clear! Of course, you probably won't be able to hit that number on your first try, but keep at it - familiarity with the layout and knowing how to tell the right path will save you quite a bit more time than you'd expect.
If you pick an incorrect path from the choice of 3, you will be taken to a large square room which has some powerups and/or Pokemon inside. The Pokemon are usually easy enough to avoid if you so wish. Head to the diagonal opposite of this room for a teleporter that takes you back to the start of the choice of 3 you got wrong. Not too much down time, thankfully.
You will know if you picked the correct path by the number of torches you see (in-game) as you reach the fork in the road - it will have one more torch visible. Keeping count helps! It definitely did disorient me a bit until I noticed that difference.
Miniboss spotlight:
Porygon-Z
!: Porygon-Z launches a weak discharge of electricity all around itself. This fades after a few seconds, and it is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Porygon-Z launches 4 orbs of electricity that linger on the field in an X shape. These fade after a few seconds, and it is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Porygon-Z launches a Hyper Beam in the direction it's facing. This fades after a few seconds (around 5-6), and it is impossible to draw a loop around this.
There's one notable aspect about Porygon-Z, it's got a reasonable amount of HP (where have we heard that line before?) and as such will take a while to capture unless you've got a Fighting type assist, though I'll go into more detail about that in the partners section. A speed-down effect like Piplup's (reliable as always) is perfect for getting Porygon-Z into a groove slow enough to blitz out a few loops. It is not particularly hard, but if you're not careful here you can lose quite a bit of styler energy, especially if you blitz recklessly.
Now, after you're done capturing two Porygon-Z in each of their three-branched chambers, you'll come across a different fork in the road as you enter a plus-shaped room. This time, there's only one true path ahead (straight), but you should check the chambers at the top and bottom for some time and battery powerups. However, the switches to these doors are guarded by angry Golem/Hippowdown, and it will be very difficult to enter those chambers without being engaged in capture - because as their appearance would imply, they are extremely fast. Yes, it makes amazing sense that Pokemon with below 50 base speed can nearly keep up with the player. It's possible but quite difficult to evade battle if they see you.
Even if you wanted to make the tactical decision to avoid doors to escape these captures, you couldn't (yet). The remaining two Porygon-Z for the clear condition are behind each door, and these two teleport quite a bit more (outside of battle) and are agitated, launching tremors all around themselves, preventing approach. You can actually be knocked back by a Porygon-Z's attack into Golem/Hippowdon range if you escaped it the first time, so this poses somewhat of a threat, even if the actual styler damage is low. The teleporting can also take a few seconds off your time, but you'll initate battle without too much of a hassle hopefully. I debated putting a miniboss segment about them here...actually sure, why not. More miniboss spotlights!
Golem:
!: Golem uses Rock Slide. Bastiodon and Rampardos say hi! (It is identical to theirs)
!!: Golem raises a chi-shaped (curved x) in a line 4 directions around them. These fade after about 2 seconds. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Identical to !!
Hippowdon:
!: Hippowdon raises a tremor in the area around itself. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Identical to Golem's !!.
!!!: Hippowdon launches a puddle of mud in the direction it's facing. This lingers on the field for about 8 seconds. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Both Pokemon seem to have reasonably large HP pools, so might be a challenge to beat without a type-advantaged assist. For whatever reason, Golem feels like an easier capture even though its attacks waste more time, and dual type Pokemon don't exist in Ranger. Perhaps it has lower HP, but since I can't measure it, I can't say for sure. Anyway, with Piplup, they aren't too much of an issue to worry about. How is the first Pokemon you obtain this good, so late into the game? The world may never know.
After claiming a capture on all four Porygon-Z, head eastward. Welcome to the same room (but not really). Perhaps you now see a pattern in this mission. Same thing (but still, not really), two Golem/Hippowdon guarding switches. In this room: If you want to collect powerups, go north first. If you accidentally missed any Porygon-Z and want to go back, head east - this will take you back to the first plus-shaped room. After you're done with anything else, head south. As for the Pokemon behind the switches, this time it's Metang, who tends to have a reasonably large HP pool, as well as the usual good defensive type of Steel. This isn't a difficult capture but can feel tedious if you end up repeating this mission often to grind for ranks or AP.
With this, you enter the final chamber which is surprisingly the least labyrinthine of all. If you're grinding for AP, this room is pretty good for it. But regardless, don't head to the boss door just yet. Head south first. If you're lucky, you will find a Delibird here which will give you a very generous 60 AP for the capture! If not, you'll likely find Jolteon here who isn't as generous, but can be a fun capture nonetheless. If neither, well, tough luck. But regardless you'll still get some good powerups here - 2 minutes, 60 battery and a defense boost. When you're ready, take a journey to the east, unlike Sun Wukong. Infernape was unfortunately not a boss here to fit this joke perfectly, so Electivire is the next best thing.
Boss:
!: Electivire looses a series of thunderbolt projectiles in the direction it's facing. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Electivire looses 3 waves of thunderbolt projectiles in batches of 3 in the direction it's facing. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Electivire launches 4 gigantic thunderbolts, usually in a vertical diamond pattern centered at the screen. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!!: Only used after agitation. Electivire generates a Thunder Cage around itself, which damages on contact. This lingers for about 15 seconds, and almost as soon as it ends, Electivire will bring it up again. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
This boss is kinda free if you pack a long range assist? However, if you want to aim for only S ranks that's a slightly different story. On average, at least early on, it will take you at least 1 minute and 20 seconds to snag this wiry beast. So, you'd want to aim at avoiding as many accidental captures during the stage to free up your time.
Now, partners!
You may or may not have noticed this, but Electivire, despite being a somewhat easy boss so far has a few tricks up his sleeve that make your partner choice a bit easier - once he starts using Thunder Cage, close range assists are essentially invalidated. So, if you brought one to this fight, you might be lulled into a false sense of security before he uses that attack (and such assists are useful before then). Electivire is not notably fast, but he's fast enough to the point that, if you can hit him with a close range assist, that Pokemon will almost always be in range of Thunder Cage as he charges around the field. However, if you're insistent on using these, only do so after Electivire telegraphs !! (and nothing else), and place your assist behind Electivire, out of Thunder Cage range. And given this speed limbo Electivire's in, of being fast but not fast enough, a slowing effect is sublime in getting Electivire slow enough to reliably blitz loops.
Piplup is old reliable as always - though this may be one of the last few missions where its power and utility still hold up. Still, it's kinda surprising how the first partner you obtain is this good so late into the missions (how many times have I said this so far lmao). Anyway, Lucario deals some very hefty damage here, and you'd want to actually bring Lucario to this mission often if you have it, because it'll give you great practice on how his assist operates. You'll need careful positioning to get hits in while Thunder Cage is active, while not getting hit in return.
You could as always choose to experiment with Ground type partners like Sandslash, but they will likely have worse matchups against the multiple Porygon-Z or Hippowdon, who don't move around enough to be affected by the assist's mud. I stuck to only Piplup, Lucario and Froslass for this mission, but Froslass had the worst time here out of all three of them, due to being the most close-range.
As for recommended strategies to S-rank this? There's not much to say other than "take a strong Pokemon and rush, rush, rush." Lucario in particular is helpful for S-ranking given how high he can output damage, especially at higher levels. That being said, for you to be able to capture every Pokemon in this mission and still get an S rank, you'll need to be around level 65 or higher, but if you can pull it off and get lucky with Delibird spawn, you can get over 1140 AP per clear - nifty! This will also be about the most AP you can earn for a mission for quite a while, given the effort needed, so in my mind it's the perfect grinding spot. And of course, if you're gunning for that all-elusive level 99, this mission will look even more friendlier :)
Still, It's very worth being content with an A rank early on here - but given that ranks will usually award more than captures, take your pick of whether you want to grind for slates or AP. There aren't any particularly notable slates I've used here, but who knows. The Metang later on are possible to avoid, so if you're low on time, they're the ones to avoid. The Golem/Hippowdon are somewhat harder to avoid, but you can if lucky with where they end up spawning. Finally, as for the electric types. Most will not chase you but rather shoot projectiles, so avoid them too if you want to save time. However, you could be chain combo'd by multiple of them, forcing you to expend a few seconds recovering. Also take note that Cranidos could appear in some of the mini-chambers instead of Luxio or Beldum, and their chasing feels a bit more aggressive.
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What's next?
Now, where are we going to go from here? Regardless of how slow future updates end up being (I probably won't be able to keep the biweekly schedule I had in mind, hopefully not too much longer - but it's hard to give a specific schedule on this) this is the structure I plan to feature for the remainder of the guide, in order, with each bullet point representing a post of its own, with the number in brackets representing how much is complete so far. Hopefully this helps build anticipation and keep y'all posted on what's happening/left to do.
- Assist compendium and a brief write-up of what I noticed in the game's save structure [50%]
- Something odd and mysterious! [0%]
- Dark Temple 1+2 [15%]
- Dark Temple 3+4 [20%]
- Light Temple [Finale] [0%] (the only thing my prior notes on this mission contain is aptly "hahahahahahahahaha". past me must really not have wanted to write anything about this...)
Thank you for staying tuned so far - the encouragement does mean a lot to me :D
Look forward to the next part, which may very well have some surprising info for you!
So, why has it taken this long for any news? I've lost a lot of motivation to keep this going due to real life keeping me busy, and have barely had time to play the game over the past few months, outside of charting the maps for this mission pair over today/yesterday. It's surprising how much I seem to have forgotten about various details about this. Doom and gloom aside, I also don't want to abandon this halfway, given the effort that's gone into it so far, so I'll do my best to keep at it until it's finished, slow as the pace might be.
The encouraging messages you guys have posted have also helped me, and I do appreciate that! It's glad to know that this is helpful to you ^^
Anyway, formalities out, back to mission briefings!
Mission 17: A Shock Everywhere You Turn
Objective: Capture 4 Starly
Boss: Magnezone
Variations:Objective: Capture 4 Starly
Boss: Magnezone
- Claydol can be replaced by Bronzong
- Bronzor can be replaced by Pachirisu or Natu.
- Skarmory can be replaced by Staraptor
- Manectric in the small chambers can be replaced by 2 Voltorb
- Togepi can occasionally appear at the end of the snaking pathway.
- Possibly more that I've not catalogued (this will be a recurring theme)
Map:
Map legend is the same as the previous post, but reposted below for clarity:
Map legend:
Blue tile: You start the mission on this square.
Red tile: You must complete the mission's condition to step on it. Takes you to the boss room.
Green tile: Teleports you to a specific location on the map.
Yellow tile: Stand on this tile to make a bridge (connected to this tile) appear. Tiles that need multiple players to activate will have a red dot, and are unusable during a solo run.
Orange circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will chase you on sight.
Brown circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will launch projectiles at you on sight (but not chase you).
Purple circle: The Pokemon is scared, and will run away from you on sight.
Powerups:
View attachment 645350 Icons like this one give you extra time. The number represents how many seconds are gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645351 Icons like this one give your styler extra energy. The number represents how much energy is gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645354 This icon increases your styler's power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645355 This icon increases your partner's assist power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645352 This icon reduces the damage your styler takes by 33% rounded down (I think? somehow my notes don't mention this but I did experiment with this during the Vespiquen mission) when collected, but will not lower a damage of 1 down to 0.
View attachment 645353 This icon increases your movement speed in the overworld when collected.
Blue tile: You start the mission on this square.
Red tile: You must complete the mission's condition to step on it. Takes you to the boss room.
Green tile: Teleports you to a specific location on the map.
Yellow tile: Stand on this tile to make a bridge (connected to this tile) appear. Tiles that need multiple players to activate will have a red dot, and are unusable during a solo run.
Orange circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will chase you on sight.
Brown circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will launch projectiles at you on sight (but not chase you).
Purple circle: The Pokemon is scared, and will run away from you on sight.
Powerups:
View attachment 645350 Icons like this one give you extra time. The number represents how many seconds are gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645351 Icons like this one give your styler extra energy. The number represents how much energy is gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645354 This icon increases your styler's power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645355 This icon increases your partner's assist power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645352 This icon reduces the damage your styler takes by 33% rounded down (I think? somehow my notes don't mention this but I did experiment with this during the Vespiquen mission) when collected, but will not lower a damage of 1 down to 0.
View attachment 645353 This icon increases your movement speed in the overworld when collected.
Well, that's a large map, huh? Certainly, it's not like large maps will go away for a while. Every mission after this will also have similarly large, if not larger maps. Fun!
Yeah, remember how I said I was level 34 when I cleared Metagross? I was level 47 with 100 power and a 5/5/5 Piplup by the time I was able to clear this (with a C rank at that). This is a terrible, terrible mission that was clearly not designed for a solo player.
Having invested a chunk of my AP into Piplup, I was reluctant to max out another partner but decided on Typhlosion since it was so dominating through the Abomasnow fight. However, this wasn't a good thing as you'll soon see. You need to capture 4 Starly for this mission, and their positions around the stage force you to backtrack a lot. The first two Starly are incidental, you'll always encounter them. The last two are scattered across a spiral-shaped maze later in the stage, and will need considerable running around to encounter.
Anyway, speaking of levels. There's another reason I wanted to wait on finishing this mission's writeup (this reason has ceased to mean anything - it was accurate four months ago), and that's because I wanted to give it a go at the maximum level of 99 to see if it was any easier. Unfortunately as you'll soon read, that was not the case. But back to the main topic...
Your first room sees you in a medium-sized branching pathway. You would prefer that Pachirisu or Natu be visible here, but it's not too bad if Bronzor's here. You will also see a defense powerup guarded by a Manectric in this room. This powerup is one of few where it's certainly a dilemma - do you take it, or not? If you're at a lower level and are having game overs due to running out of energy on prior clears, collect it. However, if you want to increase your chances of a high rank (or clearing the mission at all), avoid it because time is just that constrained. Some opponents in this mission can put up a struggle in both energy and time, so be warned.
Now, move onward. and navigate the snake shaped pathway. First, head right along this path and take the teleporter. This will take you to the first Starly of this mission, which is an extremely easy capture. Go back to the snake pathway, this time north, and head for the switch at the other end to clear a path forward. Don't claim any of the battery powerups here - the mission is far too early to need them, even if you were hit by some attacks before. Here, you might have checked the map and noticed that there's a Pokemon on the switch! Normally you'd be forced into capture to activate the switch, but if you got the Pachirisu or Natu variant here, you can, with precise positioning, activate the switch without engaging combat with them. Pachirisu especially has a tendency to move more than the other two, so it's easier to direct out of the way, and (I think) Natu stays still. However, we can't rely on consistent movement with Bronzor because its idle animation sways it back and forth while not moving it off the switch, and this takes away any of the leeway you may've had with the other Pokemon, thus forcing a capture. It's not like Bronzor, or any of the trio is a hard battle, but with this mission every second is quite vital. It's a bit finicky, but even a few seconds saved in waiting for them to launch an attack (and thereby not move for a brief period) can save you the excess lost in a capture. Now, head north again.
You will now enter a large hub room of sorts, which'll see somewhat frequent returns. Let's cover the ring road aspect of it first. From your start point, heading right, you will find your second Starly in the corner. Head upward, you will be greeted by a pair of teleporters. But before you proceed, consider whether you want to head downward to the center pathway first.
The center pathway will be guarded by one Staraptor/Skarmory on each side, that launch twisters with their wings. Most notably, these twisters will only ever hit you if you go down the central path - the birds will never specifically target you like the other Pokemon so far. These twisters will knock you back in the direction you came - there's no way to cheese these for a boost unlike other knockbacks. As such, try to minimize the amount of times you go to the center area, because it can take upwards of 6 seconds to get the timing just right. But why go there early? Well, two very important things there may justify the challenge - an attack powerup and an assist powerup! Both of them will give you quite the offensive in captures, and given some of the Pokemon you'll invariably run into, it's certainly an advantage in spades. But is it truly worth the risk of being stuck in twister limbo from the birds for a while if you get lucky? My opinion: Yes when you're starting this mission early on, the power boost is vital. Later on, you will still appreciate power, but every second tries to be optimized, and this is one that falls with such optimization.
Anyway, after you did/didn't take the powerup, head to the north of the room and take the RIGHT teleporter first. This puts you into a really large chamber, that contains either a bad enemy (Bronzong) or a terrible one (Claydol) scattered around various points. They will chase and attack you on sight, and will more often than not force you into a capture. Their range of vision is somewhat limited, so it is technically possible to evade battle, but quite difficult given that you're dealing with narrow pathways, and that if the Bronzong/Claydol is in the center of them, there's not really a way to avoid them other than hoping they turn to a side. You will also not be able to outrun them - for ancient guardians they are impressively fast and can keep up with running speed quite decently. Where's the speed powerup when we need it, huh?
Here, there are some variations that are actively rigged against you. The real kicker is Bronzong vs Claydol. As a prior post by Punchshroom has mentioned, the Claydol version is by far the worse of the two. But how different could they be? It's time for a...
Miniboss spotlight:
Both Claydol and Bronzong can teleport across the field at points during their battle, often immediately after performing an attack.
Claydol:
!: Claydol launches a barrage of psychic orbs in the broad area it's facing, that sweep outward covering a bit more than a semicircle's radius. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Claydol launches 3 psychic orbs from its center that orbit it as they fly outwards. After two cycles of out-in, the orbs fade, and this takes about 3-4 seconds to fully fade. It is possible to draw a loop a round this
!!!: Same as !! except the orbs lock on to the location where Claydol was upon using that move - so Claydol is capable of teleporting or moving elsewhere while this attack lingers on the field. They also fade after the same time. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Now, being a Ground type also means that Claydol's weak to the same types as the boss Gliscor up ahead, which is good because it's the only leeway you'll get in terms of being able to reuse and plan assists. While it is possible to draw loops around both !! and !!!, the psychic orbs will break any loop chain you have ongoing if you don't take your stylus off the screen. Claydol being able to teleport while !!! is active further makes this challenging, even though it fades away soon, because it restricts most close range assists from being useful here, limited to attack downtime or when ! is used. It's also got quite a bit of HP for this point in the game, and is all around just designed to waste your time (remember, if you run out of time in here, it's an automatic game over).
Bronzong:
!: Bronzong launches a medium sized iron ball in the direction it's facing. This orb will slowly travel in a straight line to the edge of the screen. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Bronzong launches 6 waves of psychic orbs (3 at a time) each staggered after about 0.33 seconds, in the direction it's facing - each isn't exactly the same direction. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Bronzong launches 2 waves of psychic orbs (5 at a time), each staggered after about 0.5 seconds, covering a wide area in the direction it's facing. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
Bronzong will always sway back and forth for a second or two after telegraphing an attack. This gives you a bit more time to squeeze a few more loops in. While Bronzong's HP pool is pretty similar to Claydol's, the large difference compared to it is that Bronzong's attacks simply don't waste your time that much. Even as a Steel type, which will likely resist your assist's type, any assist is useful because Bronzong has more easily exploitable blind spots to place your assist Pokemon - especially close range ones like Typhlosion will melt through Bronzong's HP. The few seconds you get extra as well as no persistent attacks are what make this capture much easier...but it still eats up at least 10 seconds of your time, if not more. If you're forced into battles with all 5 of them, that's maybe a minute off, and with how limited time is in this mission, that's not ideal. Still, it is the lesser of two evils here.
My best run here was avoiding 3/5 Bronzong and being forced to capture only the remaining two. Still, this was nowhere near the margin needed to S-rank this. For your own sanity, do not grind AP against these two Pokemon. The next mission will have many, many easier AP targets. Running before they catch you is the best option here.
Anyway, back to briefing. You must alternate between the left and right paths, as each of them has a switch at the end that unlocks a part of the other. Start right, then left, then right, and so on. This is part of why the mission is not designed for solo play, as all the back and forth travel eats into your time very heavily. In turn, this is also why it's so hard to avoid all the Claydol/Bronzong. You can avoid them once, twice, maybe thrice. But can you do it over 10 times given all the times you pass by them? Probably not. A 4 player party would be really adept at clearing this mission at breakneck pace - but alas I do not have 8 hands...or do I? Well, not for now at least.
Keep at the switch activating with each round trip, and as you do so you'll notice that time runs perilously low, even if you avoided the Claydol/Bronzong. After enough back and forth-ing, you'll find the third Starly here. But watch out, it's agitated and will fire twisters at you! This is particularly troublesome because it's near another of the switches you need to stand on, and these twisters can knock you off it, so just capture Starly first. Step on the switch and loop back around to the left, getting your fourth Starly - and make sure to step on the switch nearby. Yes, even though the clear condition's met, we aren't done yet. Now you'll be presented with a choice - head back for another round trip to access the new path, or go to the new teleporter that's now accessible?
Do not head back the way you came after capturing the fourth Starly. Instead, head to the teleporter. This takes you to a small room filled with either 1 Manectric or 2 Voltorb, both of whom will fire electricty or explode at you. It's worth being careful navigating these, as the Voltorb variant in particular can chain combo you a few times, costing precious seconds. In this room you will find two time powerups worth 120 seconds in total. Grab them and head to the teleporter you didn't enter from.
This will place you on the same platform as the Staraptor/Skarmory from earlier. If you wanted to get their slates and have the time, this is a reasonable place to try capture them. Otherwise, step on the switch and head back onto the hub area. Now, it is imperative that you don't go for the boss door just yet. Head back into the left teleporter, navigate all the way to the end of the maze, and step on the newly unlocked teleporter from the last switch you pressed in this room. This will take you to another small room similar to the last one with another 120 seconds worth of time. Grab these, head to the exit, and you will be on the other Staraptor/Skarmory platform. Now, head to the boss door, grabbing the battery refills if you need them, and the power/partner powerups even if you don't need them. Anyway, dash forth into the zone of magnets to take on Magnezone himself.
Boss:
!: Magnezone launches a Discharge of electric current in all directions around it. After agitation, Magnezone can use this attack unprovoked while moving, and has a tendency to make sharp turns. It is very difficult to draw a loop around this, and you'll likely only manage doing so as the attack starts or is about to end, and not during it.
!!: Magnezone launches a Zap Cannon in an arc in its line of sight, that lingers on the floor for a few seconds. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Magnezone summons two balls of electricity that hover around it. It is extremely difficult to draw a loop around this.
Partner choice: Yeah, this one's a doozy. AP will still be a bit scarce on your first time through to max out partners, so stick with Piplup. Alternatively if you'd like a more positive type matchup, go with a beam-type fire assist like Magmar or Flareon at the cost of any secondary effect. Given Bronzong's passivity, you might be tempted to just go all-in with a close range fire assist like Typhlosion, and it's plenty cathartic to watch it demolish the steel bells with startling speed. However, do not actually bring Typhlosion to this stage in large part because of its matchup with the stage boss. Magnezone's electric balls have just enough range to render this badger without a badge - striking it more often than not. To get some use out of Typhlosion you'll have to get very lucky. So now there's no arr to say, for there are no pirates here.
If you want to try capturing more Pokemon here (this stage is technically the easiest way to get Staravia/Staraptor and Claydol), you might want to consider another partner. The problem here is that the combination of Flying and Steel on their own renders most assist hitting neutral at best. Still, I can also recommend Lucario for this, particularly when you've enough AP to max it out because it can amp up damage pretty quickly, and while it's assist does not have the best range, the slowing effect can be what you need to de-magnetize Magnezone for just the right time.
You might have noticed I mentioned Gliscor (and sensed a pattern here. Assuming you ignore the Claydol variant, both Magnezone and Bronzong are weak to Ground, so a Ground assist seems like it'd be great? Well, that's the thing - yes and no. Magnezone's behaviors are quite different from Bronzong, so despite the shared weakness, you can't effectively use those assists as other types. What do I mean?
Sandslash is one you might be drawn to particularly because of its range and how Magnezone being an agile Pokemon (yes, 60 base speed is agile now. Welcome to the Empoleon school now, apparently. It somehow has more students, as you'll see in the next mission). Sandslash launches mud bombs across the field, (one bomb per level) that linger for a short time. If Magnezone rushes into multiple, it'll take heavy damage, especially if it moves in and out of the mud. Alas, given its erratic trajectory you will be hard pressed to aim Sandslash right, but it's still got use. Not so for Bronzong - its slow movement means Sandslash's assist will not deal as much as you hope for.
Now, back to Gliscor. It's nigh impossible to hit Magnezone with the full force of your assist (which is a trident shape of raised rocks in Gliscor's facing direction) given Magnezone's !! attack dissuading close range attacks. Still, the pausing effect will be helpful especially if it's been a while since Magnezone's last attack - time it just as the orbs fade and you're given a rare chance to blitz the magnetic menace. Even with the stage's provided attack powerup, one blitz will not get you through the full fight, as always due to our old friend, agitation. You will need at least two, but in practice I had to hit it thrice because the more I attempted this, the more the rage of the stage got to me; it simply wasn't fun solo. However, if you've got more people with you, this could make for a very interesting mission to try and blitz through.
S-ranking?:
No :D
This section doesn't really apply for the current mission, so I'll post another few of my observations as I tried clearing it at various points. At level 72, when I chose to formally repeat this mission, I timed myself for capturing each Bronzong if it caught me, avoiding any unneccessary detours, etc. Adding up all this time, as well a really lucky Magnezone split (~35 seconds) put me at around 40 seconds short of an S rank. Tragic! Perhaps I'll have to retry this mission at level 99..? Well, I'll spare you the suspense - after months of grinding on and off, I finally hit level 99, and what did my possibly best attempt with that get me, even with some pretty reasonable routing and hitting only 3 Bronzong along the way? An A rank off S by about 25 seconds - not close by any means unless I could magically avoid ALL the Bronzong. I've even tried experimenting with partners such as Gliscor to amp up the type advantage damage, but Magnezone isn't a Pokemon you can just blitz and be done with, unlike say Weavile. Unfortunate, but remember - all you need is to clear this with a C rank and it's out of the way! (unless you really like Magnezone and want its slate, in which case I have no more guidelines for a solo player :D
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Mission 18: Panic at the Perplexing Temple
Objective: Capture 4 Porygon-Z
Boss: Electivire
Objective: Capture 4 Porygon-Z
Boss: Electivire
Variations:
- Golem can be replaced by Hippowdon
- Manectric can be replaced by Raichu
- Jolteon and/or Delibird can occasionally show up at the bottom of the final chamber.
- Hippowdon/Golem can occasionally replace Manectric in the final chamber.
- Cranidos (in the mini chambers, can be replaced by Luxio or Beldum)
- Rampardos can be replaced by Luxray.
- And more, possibly others, that I've not catalogued.
Map:
So, this boss is a lovely, lovely breath of fresh air compared to how irksome Magnezone was. So is the mission! I find this one plenty of fun too, given how often I returned to it.
This mission will be the first of two to feature randomized paths! Well, they're not completely random, but they do force you to pay more attention to your surroundings. This time, your goal is to capture 4 Porygon-Z. They're not quite miniboss level, but can put up a good fight, so be prepared. Piplup in particular sees its damage output start to falter by this mission. Note that Porygon-Z can occasionally teleport outside of battle, but not very far. You may end up expending a few seconds trying to catch it, but time's generous here, so it's not an issue.
Of course, that's not without forgetting everyone's favorite electric Pokemon, Luxray. Isn't it the perfect fit for a mission like this? (this is sarcasm, Luxray is the bane of this mission). Without further ado, let's get into it! Electric type, generates field wide discharges, summons a rotating sphere around itself...wait! We've seen this before, haven't we? Yes, Luxray is exactly the same as Ampharos! Not quite Magnezone, but still plenty annoying - welcome back to hell (yet again).
Anyway, one more thing to keep in mind here is the same analogy of the perplexahedron I brought up last post; the correct path forward will be marked by evolved Pokemon. In the case that you somehow find all Pokemon are evolved, the powerup chest's position marks the way...but if there's no powerup, and no real way to tell the three paths apart, try the top path (if you see Manectric), or the bottom path (if you see Raichu). It is very unlikely that the middle pathway will be correct in this situation, from what I remember. However, as you look at the map, you'll notice that there are some merits to taking the longer or incorrect paths, either in the form of powerups or in the form of easy captures for more AP. Time will be generous enough that you can choose to wander a bit, but try to avoid that on your first time through.
AP? Why would I bring this up all of a sudden? Well, this is the moment I've been hinting at in prior posts - this mission will likely be the best spot for you to AP grind for quite a long time. Play all your cards right and you'll be able to score upwards of 1000 AP per clear! Of course, you probably won't be able to hit that number on your first try, but keep at it - familiarity with the layout and knowing how to tell the right path will save you quite a bit more time than you'd expect.
If you pick an incorrect path from the choice of 3, you will be taken to a large square room which has some powerups and/or Pokemon inside. The Pokemon are usually easy enough to avoid if you so wish. Head to the diagonal opposite of this room for a teleporter that takes you back to the start of the choice of 3 you got wrong. Not too much down time, thankfully.
You will know if you picked the correct path by the number of torches you see (in-game) as you reach the fork in the road - it will have one more torch visible. Keeping count helps! It definitely did disorient me a bit until I noticed that difference.
Miniboss spotlight:
Porygon-Z
!: Porygon-Z launches a weak discharge of electricity all around itself. This fades after a few seconds, and it is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Porygon-Z launches 4 orbs of electricity that linger on the field in an X shape. These fade after a few seconds, and it is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Porygon-Z launches a Hyper Beam in the direction it's facing. This fades after a few seconds (around 5-6), and it is impossible to draw a loop around this.
There's one notable aspect about Porygon-Z, it's got a reasonable amount of HP (where have we heard that line before?) and as such will take a while to capture unless you've got a Fighting type assist, though I'll go into more detail about that in the partners section. A speed-down effect like Piplup's (reliable as always) is perfect for getting Porygon-Z into a groove slow enough to blitz out a few loops. It is not particularly hard, but if you're not careful here you can lose quite a bit of styler energy, especially if you blitz recklessly.
Now, after you're done capturing two Porygon-Z in each of their three-branched chambers, you'll come across a different fork in the road as you enter a plus-shaped room. This time, there's only one true path ahead (straight), but you should check the chambers at the top and bottom for some time and battery powerups. However, the switches to these doors are guarded by angry Golem/Hippowdown, and it will be very difficult to enter those chambers without being engaged in capture - because as their appearance would imply, they are extremely fast. Yes, it makes amazing sense that Pokemon with below 50 base speed can nearly keep up with the player. It's possible but quite difficult to evade battle if they see you.
Even if you wanted to make the tactical decision to avoid doors to escape these captures, you couldn't (yet). The remaining two Porygon-Z for the clear condition are behind each door, and these two teleport quite a bit more (outside of battle) and are agitated, launching tremors all around themselves, preventing approach. You can actually be knocked back by a Porygon-Z's attack into Golem/Hippowdon range if you escaped it the first time, so this poses somewhat of a threat, even if the actual styler damage is low. The teleporting can also take a few seconds off your time, but you'll initate battle without too much of a hassle hopefully. I debated putting a miniboss segment about them here...actually sure, why not. More miniboss spotlights!
Golem:
!: Golem uses Rock Slide. Bastiodon and Rampardos say hi! (It is identical to theirs)
!!: Golem raises a chi-shaped (curved x) in a line 4 directions around them. These fade after about 2 seconds. It is not possible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Identical to !!
Hippowdon:
!: Hippowdon raises a tremor in the area around itself. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Identical to Golem's !!.
!!!: Hippowdon launches a puddle of mud in the direction it's facing. This lingers on the field for about 8 seconds. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Both Pokemon seem to have reasonably large HP pools, so might be a challenge to beat without a type-advantaged assist. For whatever reason, Golem feels like an easier capture even though its attacks waste more time, and dual type Pokemon don't exist in Ranger. Perhaps it has lower HP, but since I can't measure it, I can't say for sure. Anyway, with Piplup, they aren't too much of an issue to worry about. How is the first Pokemon you obtain this good, so late into the game? The world may never know.
After claiming a capture on all four Porygon-Z, head eastward. Welcome to the same room (but not really). Perhaps you now see a pattern in this mission. Same thing (but still, not really), two Golem/Hippowdon guarding switches. In this room: If you want to collect powerups, go north first. If you accidentally missed any Porygon-Z and want to go back, head east - this will take you back to the first plus-shaped room. After you're done with anything else, head south. As for the Pokemon behind the switches, this time it's Metang, who tends to have a reasonably large HP pool, as well as the usual good defensive type of Steel. This isn't a difficult capture but can feel tedious if you end up repeating this mission often to grind for ranks or AP.
With this, you enter the final chamber which is surprisingly the least labyrinthine of all. If you're grinding for AP, this room is pretty good for it. But regardless, don't head to the boss door just yet. Head south first. If you're lucky, you will find a Delibird here which will give you a very generous 60 AP for the capture! If not, you'll likely find Jolteon here who isn't as generous, but can be a fun capture nonetheless. If neither, well, tough luck. But regardless you'll still get some good powerups here - 2 minutes, 60 battery and a defense boost. When you're ready, take a journey to the east, unlike Sun Wukong. Infernape was unfortunately not a boss here to fit this joke perfectly, so Electivire is the next best thing.
Boss:
!: Electivire looses a series of thunderbolt projectiles in the direction it's facing. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Electivire looses 3 waves of thunderbolt projectiles in batches of 3 in the direction it's facing. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!: Electivire launches 4 gigantic thunderbolts, usually in a vertical diamond pattern centered at the screen. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!!: Only used after agitation. Electivire generates a Thunder Cage around itself, which damages on contact. This lingers for about 15 seconds, and almost as soon as it ends, Electivire will bring it up again. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
This boss is kinda free if you pack a long range assist? However, if you want to aim for only S ranks that's a slightly different story. On average, at least early on, it will take you at least 1 minute and 20 seconds to snag this wiry beast. So, you'd want to aim at avoiding as many accidental captures during the stage to free up your time.
Now, partners!
You may or may not have noticed this, but Electivire, despite being a somewhat easy boss so far has a few tricks up his sleeve that make your partner choice a bit easier - once he starts using Thunder Cage, close range assists are essentially invalidated. So, if you brought one to this fight, you might be lulled into a false sense of security before he uses that attack (and such assists are useful before then). Electivire is not notably fast, but he's fast enough to the point that, if you can hit him with a close range assist, that Pokemon will almost always be in range of Thunder Cage as he charges around the field. However, if you're insistent on using these, only do so after Electivire telegraphs !! (and nothing else), and place your assist behind Electivire, out of Thunder Cage range. And given this speed limbo Electivire's in, of being fast but not fast enough, a slowing effect is sublime in getting Electivire slow enough to reliably blitz loops.
Piplup is old reliable as always - though this may be one of the last few missions where its power and utility still hold up. Still, it's kinda surprising how the first partner you obtain is this good so late into the missions (how many times have I said this so far lmao). Anyway, Lucario deals some very hefty damage here, and you'd want to actually bring Lucario to this mission often if you have it, because it'll give you great practice on how his assist operates. You'll need careful positioning to get hits in while Thunder Cage is active, while not getting hit in return.
You could as always choose to experiment with Ground type partners like Sandslash, but they will likely have worse matchups against the multiple Porygon-Z or Hippowdon, who don't move around enough to be affected by the assist's mud. I stuck to only Piplup, Lucario and Froslass for this mission, but Froslass had the worst time here out of all three of them, due to being the most close-range.
As for recommended strategies to S-rank this? There's not much to say other than "take a strong Pokemon and rush, rush, rush." Lucario in particular is helpful for S-ranking given how high he can output damage, especially at higher levels. That being said, for you to be able to capture every Pokemon in this mission and still get an S rank, you'll need to be around level 65 or higher, but if you can pull it off and get lucky with Delibird spawn, you can get over 1140 AP per clear - nifty! This will also be about the most AP you can earn for a mission for quite a while, given the effort needed, so in my mind it's the perfect grinding spot. And of course, if you're gunning for that all-elusive level 99, this mission will look even more friendlier :)
Still, It's very worth being content with an A rank early on here - but given that ranks will usually award more than captures, take your pick of whether you want to grind for slates or AP. There aren't any particularly notable slates I've used here, but who knows. The Metang later on are possible to avoid, so if you're low on time, they're the ones to avoid. The Golem/Hippowdon are somewhat harder to avoid, but you can if lucky with where they end up spawning. Finally, as for the electric types. Most will not chase you but rather shoot projectiles, so avoid them too if you want to save time. However, you could be chain combo'd by multiple of them, forcing you to expend a few seconds recovering. Also take note that Cranidos could appear in some of the mini-chambers instead of Luxio or Beldum, and their chasing feels a bit more aggressive.
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What's next?
Now, where are we going to go from here? Regardless of how slow future updates end up being (I probably won't be able to keep the biweekly schedule I had in mind, hopefully not too much longer - but it's hard to give a specific schedule on this) this is the structure I plan to feature for the remainder of the guide, in order, with each bullet point representing a post of its own, with the number in brackets representing how much is complete so far. Hopefully this helps build anticipation and keep y'all posted on what's happening/left to do.
- Assist compendium and a brief write-up of what I noticed in the game's save structure [50%]
- Something odd and mysterious! [0%]
- Dark Temple 1+2 [15%]
- Dark Temple 3+4 [20%]
- Light Temple [Finale] [0%] (the only thing my prior notes on this mission contain is aptly "hahahahahahahahaha". past me must really not have wanted to write anything about this...)
Thank you for staying tuned so far - the encouragement does mean a lot to me :D
Look forward to the next part, which may very well have some surprising info for you!
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Welcome back!! The Magnezone mission is absolute hell, the only thing that it got me was an appreciation for Donphan, who I think deserves a spotlight!! It’s got a really good assist when fully maxed out that makes enemies pause—this can even stop Electivire from setting up its electric cage if you time it right. I’ve gotten to the point where a Donphan assist can get me through Electivire’s mission with upwards of 9 minutes on the clock, which will never fail to be hilarious to me. I’m trapped in light mission grinding hell, and I still find myself coming back to this mission because it’s so consistent for AP (though I’ve found Salamence to have higher rewards if I can squeeze out an A rank)
Oh good lord, bro actually did it
I don’t know how or why this keeps happening, but it would be my luck that this thread gets updated when and only when I take my mental wellness breaks away from the Internet and go a while without posting. In any case, this temple and this mission specifically has given me irreversible brain damage and speaking as someone who has played through this game three times, I’m not over-exaggerating when I claim this to be the single worst mission in the game from a design standpoint. It was only on my most recent playthrough when I finally decided to put in the grinding hours towards 100% and actually beat this abomination or a mission, and I say that because the best I can manage is a 3:17 A-Rank at Level 76. If I read this post correctly, WarriorGallade managed roughly a 4:20 A-Rank at Level 72. Trust us when we say that big of a timesave on this mission is absolutely insane. Bro might have actually stolen the unofficial title of “Smogon’s biggest Guardian Signs fan” from me with this one, and I mean that as the biggest compliment I can give to you. Am I being a little over-dramatic with this post? Maybe, but I’m doing so in an effort to get a point across, because that’s a run right there that I have nothing but sheer respect for, on top of me already appreciating the fact you made this thread so more people could enjoy what this game my beloved brings to the table.I may have to give Donphan a try after reading this. Is it really as good as people say it is? I’ve heard a few other people say this, but I’ve always struggled to make many of the Ground-Type assists work for one reason or another. Thanks to all the levels I got from grinding preparing for the Magnezone mission, I actually managed to S-Rank the Electivire mission on my second attempt (technically my first, but I also did an A-Rank attempt before this for the Slate) with a maxed out Sandslash. It’s far from the best choice for this fight, but I found that if you aim just right, you can actually hit Electivire on the spot where the sand piles overlap on top of each other, which actually counts as multiple hits and makes the agitated phase much faster. As for the Salamence mission, I recommend studying the Route and getting yourself an Ice assist that you’re comfortable with. You’ll want to study the fastest route to the guaranteed Speed Up and the locations of the Time Extenders, as you can figure out which switches to press on the split paths based on which chests have them. You can also try a Bagon or a Shelgon assist for this prior to getting your first S-Rank.
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I recall Donphan/Hariyama/Primeape assists being remarkably slow on activation, but I don't remember if that's actually the case for the Past version of themselves (ex: Past Gallade and current Gallade have different assists). I do however remember using Hippopotas for my assist in the Magnezone mission; I didn't max out Hippopotas's assist but iirc it makes the target Tired, which is especially nice when Magnezone summons its electric ball force field and starts zipping around the field. I am surprised WarriorGallade had trouble hitting the "trident Ground assist" on Magnezone because that is imo the best assist to punish Zone with due to how quickly it moves, meaning it can very easily run over multiple columns (often repeatedly), shredding its HP considerably.
While Electivire is honestly a breeze to clear after you grinded like hell to clear the Magnezone mission (especially with your overleveled Ground assist), the Dark Temple honestly provides a decent challenge despite your seemingly wide level gap. I've already said my piece on how I tackled the Dark Temple bosses, but tl;dr:
- All bosses in this Temple WILL track your assist; you cannot prematurely place your assist before they commit to an attack and they should not linger on the field for too long
- Vespiquen is an annoying pos whose Poison Sting attacks can be randomly unsafe to place an assist against; Piplup can probably work here if you're unwilling to invest in a "Flying-type assist"
- Exploiting Gliscor's dark wind is key to the fight; Piplup is undoubtedly the best assist for this fight
- Salamence is surprisingly straightforward; the only attacks of concern are its homing flame and quick stomp. Honestly the mandatory Gardevoirs are the more annoying pokemon in this mission, but otherwise this is a solid farming stage
- Dusknoir's frequent teleporting mandates quick DPS assists; you can opt for high damage like from Weavile assist or inflict Dusknoir with Tired, but Slow barely affects Dusknoir tbh unless it decides to waddle across the screen (and even then the constant stage hazard can limit your loop spam)
While Electivire is honestly a breeze to clear after you grinded like hell to clear the Magnezone mission (especially with your overleveled Ground assist), the Dark Temple honestly provides a decent challenge despite your seemingly wide level gap. I've already said my piece on how I tackled the Dark Temple bosses, but tl;dr:
- All bosses in this Temple WILL track your assist; you cannot prematurely place your assist before they commit to an attack and they should not linger on the field for too long
- Vespiquen is an annoying pos whose Poison Sting attacks can be randomly unsafe to place an assist against; Piplup can probably work here if you're unwilling to invest in a "Flying-type assist"
- Exploiting Gliscor's dark wind is key to the fight; Piplup is undoubtedly the best assist for this fight
- Salamence is surprisingly straightforward; the only attacks of concern are its homing flame and quick stomp. Honestly the mandatory Gardevoirs are the more annoying pokemon in this mission, but otherwise this is a solid farming stage
- Dusknoir's frequent teleporting mandates quick DPS assists; you can opt for high damage like from Weavile assist or inflict Dusknoir with Tired, but Slow barely affects Dusknoir tbh unless it decides to waddle across the screen (and even then the constant stage hazard can limit your loop spam)
So I've started with this task too as of a few days ago, though more because this game was at my local library, and I was like "yo I can finally get Eruption Heatran!". But upon seeing the level requirements for Deoxys (yes I know its co-op only, my solution is that my library has 2 copies of the game, gonna pick up the 2nd later lol), I was like "oh I need to start doing these missions". Just to note, I only started doing these after what I assume is very close to the end of the story mode!
Anyways, I did notice something about Feraligatr's fight: Feraligatr seemed to prioritize hitting my styler rather than my Pokemon at various points (especially when its chilling in that irritating pool of water). It turned that fight from a horrifying road block into something more managable. I'd bring out Drapion whenever Feraligatr started stalling, then drag my styler on the opposite side to distract. Worked well enough to get the clear!
As for that horrific Magnezone mission in the Thunder Temple..
I DID IT!
I wish I had some amazing knowledge to share considering it seems like I cleared it at a lower level compared to you WarriorGallade , but honestly it was just "use a maxed out Donphan and reset until I get Bronzong instead of Claydol" lol. Folks in this thread where not kidding about Donphan being legit. Just look at this maxed out attack!
So when you max out its attack (not its power of course!), Donphan sends out a circle of these stalagmites that get progressively larger. It turns Donphan into a long range attacker, and mons that get damaged each time they move into a stalagmite! Since I totally maxed Donphan out, its got a recharge time of 6.00 and 360 power. It was a massive help for taking down Magnezone and the 3 Bronzongs I ran into during that hell mission!
Ironically I'm having a lot of trouble against Electivire right now. Not because of Donphan (since Donphan can easily attack through that electric cage), but more because I suck pretty hard at drawing circles fast against that electric cage and have sucked at timing Donphan right to consistently stop it from using the cage. Almost makes me wonder if Hippowdon was the better choice for the tired effect, but it's a bit too late now!
Alternately, maybe it's just because I might be too low leveled? I mean I certainly had to grind for that Magnezone mission, but maybe Donphan worked a bit too well there lol.
By the way, my main way of grinding was fighting Metagross. That entire stage and fight is a total cinch for Donphan even before it's totally maxed out. I was consistently getting at least A ranks, so I was getting around 300 AP per mission! Maybe I gotta do more of those since I'm doing badly against Electivire lol
Anyways, I did notice something about Feraligatr's fight: Feraligatr seemed to prioritize hitting my styler rather than my Pokemon at various points (especially when its chilling in that irritating pool of water). It turned that fight from a horrifying road block into something more managable. I'd bring out Drapion whenever Feraligatr started stalling, then drag my styler on the opposite side to distract. Worked well enough to get the clear!
As for that horrific Magnezone mission in the Thunder Temple..
I DID IT!
I wish I had some amazing knowledge to share considering it seems like I cleared it at a lower level compared to you WarriorGallade , but honestly it was just "use a maxed out Donphan and reset until I get Bronzong instead of Claydol" lol. Folks in this thread where not kidding about Donphan being legit. Just look at this maxed out attack!
So when you max out its attack (not its power of course!), Donphan sends out a circle of these stalagmites that get progressively larger. It turns Donphan into a long range attacker, and mons that get damaged each time they move into a stalagmite! Since I totally maxed Donphan out, its got a recharge time of 6.00 and 360 power. It was a massive help for taking down Magnezone and the 3 Bronzongs I ran into during that hell mission!
Ironically I'm having a lot of trouble against Electivire right now. Not because of Donphan (since Donphan can easily attack through that electric cage), but more because I suck pretty hard at drawing circles fast against that electric cage and have sucked at timing Donphan right to consistently stop it from using the cage. Almost makes me wonder if Hippowdon was the better choice for the tired effect, but it's a bit too late now!
Alternately, maybe it's just because I might be too low leveled? I mean I certainly had to grind for that Magnezone mission, but maybe Donphan worked a bit too well there lol.
By the way, my main way of grinding was fighting Metagross. That entire stage and fight is a total cinch for Donphan even before it's totally maxed out. I was consistently getting at least A ranks, so I was getting around 300 AP per mission! Maybe I gotta do more of those since I'm doing badly against Electivire lol
Mission Interlude: Assist compendium and a lot of filler
As always, welcome back everyone!
Let's begin possibly the longest post in this thread. Yes, even though I have not written anything about the Light Temple, I am still pretty confident this one will top it in length.
First off, I had grossly underestimated how much work this section involved, and due to some errors on my part (including but not limited to over 80 recordings being blurry as hell until I found an alternative), the actual amount of work I had done prior would be around 10% instead of 50% D:
Very literally, all I had done was about 10 lines on the save file write-up, thinking that'd be enough to count for a coherent read. Turns out, it left out a LOT of context, so it needed nearly an entire revamp along the way to not sound like it was written by a deranged caveman who was discovering light for the first time. And of course, I had sorely underestimated how much effort would be needed to record each and every assist.
This post will feature the write-up on the save file, and details my journey making the assist compendium. It contains quite a bit of filler, so if that's not your cup of tea, feel free to skip this post. That being said, I do think it was a journey worth cataloguing.
The assist compendium itself will be in the next post. (posted soon after this one)
With that done, let's begin!
I'm sure some of you might have been anticipating the part about my findings on the Guardian Signs save file, and here they are! We'll start this narration with an example to better illustrate why I started digging around in the save file to begin with.
Let's say that I used Lucario a lot during the course of the game, and upgraded him to Level 5 in Assist level, Power, and Recovery. Now, how would I go about getting footage of Lucario's lower level assists for the compendium? One answer might be to have a save backup, and while you're not entirely wrong, that guess isn't quite right either. Perhaps the only time I had a backup of Level 1 Lucario was when I didn't have enough AP to upgrade, or not enough missions cleared to have the right practice dummy? Also, this would involve me manually having to make a backup of every assist...and given that I was playing primarily on console, this was not going to happen. However, I did have a plan in mind. What if I was able to modify my save file to change Lucario's level (or any Pokemon, for that matter) whenever I wanted to record? And with that, inspiration struck!
There's another reason I chose to go with this approach - while I obviously grinded a lot and recruited a lot of Pokemon, there are many, many ones that I didn't recruit. For example, let's take our ever so lovely Magnezone. No way would you see me legitimately earn its slate, but if I was able to modify the save file to flag it as unlocked, I'd be easily able to catalog its assist! Not only that - there's another aspect to this which makes save editing so useful. Let's assume that I somehow had the foresight to record Lucario's assists without needing to go back in time. But, if I had to tell someone how much it cost to upgrade Lucario to each level, I would be clueless. That's not the case with save editing - as I'd simply need to downgrade Lucario back to level 1 and be privy to the upgrade costs all over again. Certainly, quite the useful endeavor! With this hope in mind, I went to work experimenting.
I was able to backup my save file from console and transfer it to my laptop to look more closely at it, using a program called HxD to view it in hexadecimal.
As you'd expect of a niche game, Guardian Signs does not have any public save editors to make reading its save data any easier. However, there is one thing you need to keep in mind. The past partner save data is not encrypted and follows a weighted checksum. This is an observation I came to after a while of looking for patterns - this is one of the first things you should aim to go for when trying to modify a save file. I wanted to analyze levels of the past partner assists - and at this time, my Piplup's assist was maxed out at 5/5/5, and the next Pokemon, Prinplup, was at 1/1/1, while the subsequent Pokemon Empoleon was not unlocked at all. As such, I was looking for some patterns in the save file that fit this bill.
Obviously, it wasn't that easy. Searching for a pattern of "555" didn't give me any results, no matter where the space was. I then looked for "55". It's very, very important to make a clarification here - I was searching for hex values, NOT the default text search! There's a very notable difference, and one that needs to be taken note of! That being said, this second spot of "55" was a bit trickier to find, given that I ran into nearly 100 hits. But eventually I settled on an intriguing area of the save file that seemed to pique my interest.
Before I explain what I found, I should explain what'd happen if I didn't find anything...well, honestly this approach was very literally my only lead. If the search failed, I would've concluded that the save file was encrypted, and there was no way to get editable info out of it, and thus the dream of making the assist compendium would've crumbled. While I like to pride myself a bit on my analytical skills, there's no way you'd catch me going into Desmume's RAM to figure out what meant what. So, finding this was a momentary success. But what did I find? A string of numbers that looked eerily suspicious: "51 55 11 11 00 00".
Does it look random? Well, it certainly did to me at one point. But do you remember what I said about the three Pokemon I'd unlocked before? Let's take a look at "51 55". Doesn't this look similar to what a Piplup who is at Level 5 in all 3 categories might be? By that logic, the remaining 1 might well be the flag for having the Pokemon unlocked. Next, "11 11" surely seemed like the Prinplup, given that no aspect of it was upgraded it, and by process of elimination, "00 00" would mean this was Empoleon. But this did bring up an intriguing query - which brought up a small flaw in my approach (that I didn't realize until writing this, wow! Really got lucky with that, aye...). Program counters typically start at 0, so by that logic a level 5 Pokemon would be represented with the number 4, right? Wouldn't that mean I was barking up the wrong tree? However, that's not quite how this save structure works, and the order of how the "51 55" correlates to each assist's aspect is also worth mentioning.
00 00 = Pokemon is locked
11 11 = Pokemon is unlocked, all aspects at level 1
21 43 = Pokemon is unlocked, assist = level 2, recovery time = level 3, power = level 4
51 55 = Pokemon is unlocked, all aspects at level 5
You might be seeing what I'm seeing here, and that's a lack of encryption (kinda)! This was a great find.
So, case closed? All we need to do is set every partner to 01 00 and we're solid, right? Not quite, but that's a reasonable guess. If such a save file is loaded, you are given a message that the save file has been corrupted (specifically, "The save data is corrupted. The previous data will be read instead.") So clearly, this means some checksum business is afoot, and it's not clear where the checksum is, or how exactly it's calculated. But fortunately for us, Guardian Signs does not use a weighted checksum!
Alright, here's a quick explanation on what (weighted) checksums are if you're unsure of what I mean.
Let's say you have a small dataset of 5 numbers, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. A checksum is essentially a way to check that the data has not been tampered with.
A simple checksum might be as simple as adding all the values in the dataset, so the checksum would be 15. However, this isn't foolproof as you could simply change the dataset to [3, 3, 3, 3, 3] and the checksum of simple addition would be the same. This is an example of an unweighted checksum, and is the easiest to trick.
A weighted checksum gives each dataset value a different weight, for example the first entry can be multiplied by 1, the second by 2, and so on, so our weighted checksum for [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] would be 1+4+9+16+25 = 55. However if we tampered with it to be [3, 3, 3, 3, 3], then the checksum would be 9+9+9+9+9 = 45, which is a mismatch. Generally, adding weights makes data more resilient to tampering, and the actual checksums used are notably more complex, that one usually can't estimate the formula for calculating them, even if the final value is obtainable. If such a checksum existed within Guardian Signs' save structure, I would certainly have given up due to my lack of expertise (but it would still be doable in theory for a reverse engineer dedicated enough).
A simple checksum might be as simple as adding all the values in the dataset, so the checksum would be 15. However, this isn't foolproof as you could simply change the dataset to [3, 3, 3, 3, 3] and the checksum of simple addition would be the same. This is an example of an unweighted checksum, and is the easiest to trick.
A weighted checksum gives each dataset value a different weight, for example the first entry can be multiplied by 1, the second by 2, and so on, so our weighted checksum for [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] would be 1+4+9+16+25 = 55. However if we tampered with it to be [3, 3, 3, 3, 3], then the checksum would be 9+9+9+9+9 = 45, which is a mismatch. Generally, adding weights makes data more resilient to tampering, and the actual checksums used are notably more complex, that one usually can't estimate the formula for calculating them, even if the final value is obtainable. If such a checksum existed within Guardian Signs' save structure, I would certainly have given up due to my lack of expertise (but it would still be doable in theory for a reverse engineer dedicated enough).
Specifically, the checksum here is reliant on the number of things that are the same. So to put it more clearly, here's a recap of what you can modify via HxD edits:
Original save:
Prinplup Level 1, unlocked // Empoleon, locked
You CAN modify this to:
Prinplup locked // Empoleon, Level 1 unlocked
You CANNOT modify this to:
Prinplup [any level], unlocked // Empoleon [any level], unlocked
OR
Prinplup, locked // Empoleon, locked
OR
Prinplup, locked // Empoleon [any level that's not 1], unlocked
OR
Prinplup [any level that's not 1], unlocked // Empoleon, locked
What does this mean in practice?
If you swap the data of any two Pokemon, you will be fine.
Being limited to only swapping Pokemon data didn't hold me back, as I had enough AP stocks to max out a few Pokemon at a time, and if I ran out, I'd just load a previous save. With a list of each Pokemon's browser number, it was easy to keep track of who was what, especially if I left markers of oddly levelled Pokemon in the save file. As such, I essentially made two saves - one original, and the other that was its complement. This way, every single Pokemon's assist would be accessible to me by swapping these save files.
There's another unconfirmed suspicion I've had for quite a while through various save edits. I don't have any specific details on this, but I believe that your currently active partner Pokemon can influence where in the save file (specifically, the hex offset) this partner data is stored. Since I used Piplup (51 55) as an anchor, I never ran into any issues here, but if you're doing any modifications and seeing that in-game, no changes have taken place, perhaps you've run into an area where the save data is duplicated for redundancy, and is not actually loaded. Looking back for reference, the hex offset where this starts is 00001a30, but do keep in mind that it may not always be found there.
Of course, remember to keep your own Piplup's levels in mind while trying this modification - if it's not upgraded, you will have a harder time looking. But as long as you max out any one Pokemon (Chingling is among the cheapest to do so, if you are low on AP), you can use that as an anchor to find your bearings and make adjustments accordingly.
But there's something you might still be curious about. What if the save file was edited to have a Level 0 partner? Can you actually use such a partner? Well, the answer is yes!...but you'd never actually want that. Let me explain.
Let's say you've a partner active, and overwrite them with (00 00), by swapping their data with another Pokemon's when you load back in the game.
When you load back into the game, you will see something like this:
A mess to be sure! But what the game reads from the save file is absolute, no matter the displayed values.
You can use it in battle, but selecting another partner deletes your original pick. Note that in doing so, you don't get a prompt to confirm your change of Pokemon like usual. But worry not, you can always edit the save file back to what it was to continue experiments.
When you use this Piplup's assist, you will notice it has the properties of a Level 1 assist, deals 0 damage, but still inflict its secondary effect. This is remarkable because every single strike deals 0 damage - and there's no legitimate way to have this otherwise. The recharge time is also wrecked - it takes 35 seconds to recharge naturally. If your Pokemon is hit by an attack, as opposed to the normal wait time of around 20 seconds, you're stuck waiting for a painfully long 50 seconds instead! While I didn't test other Pokemon at Level 0, I estimate they'd show similar aberrant behavior.
The assist compendium will be split into 3 segments: (it is in the next post, if you'd prefer to jump to it)
1: A list of each assist's description, and what Pokemon get each one
2: A list of each Pokemon's assist stats, and how much AP they need for each upgrade
3: Gifs/Videos of each level of assist (this is technically combined together with (1), but they're separated here for clarity)
As you guys might have been observing, I'd set up a poll in this thread asking how you wanted to see the assist compendium. For better or worse, both options were tied for a period of multiple months, and even when the option of in-thread gifs won, it was only by 1 vote - not really decisive. As a result, you get both! Win :D
..but there's a catch. Given that a video needs time to render, and can't easily be modified once uploaded, there's a risk to putting it out there right away, especially if there are any mistakes. So, here's what I'm doing - I will post the in-thread gifs now, and if there are any notable omissions to fix, they will be in the subsequent video, which should not take too long to patch up...hopefully. But the plan is definitely to have both accessible to users - no platform is infallible, after all.
Regardless of whether or not changes are needed, I will upload the video with assists in roughly a week from now and edit the post with its link.
So, how did I go about making these?
Initially, I used Desmume to record clips, as it had a built-in recording option, which would've been lossless. However after taking a few clips, I noticed that any result obtained from Desmume was incredibly blurry, even if I fiddled with the settings. Now, I thought this could easily be solved by upscaling the video. I was wrong, it made the blur even worse. With this, I looked for other emulators with in in-built recorder, as my physical DS does not have a capture card (which might have made this a bit easier, but alas). I settled on melonDS a few months ago, and while it didn't have in in-built recorder, it was pretty apparent that this emulator solved the issue of blurry graphics quickly.
Now, here's another thing I learnt in my video making journey. There's a difference between video cutting and video cropping. Let's say I have a 1280x720 video that lasts for 2 minutes. Cutting would involve cutting out a 30 second segment from this video. Cropping would involve taking a slice of the resolution, for example, extracting a 640x360 video (this would be one quarter of the dimensions of the original video - half length and half width). Why is this relevant? Well, we'll get there. Here is also where I define another thing in videos - keyframes. Basically, they're anchors of a sort that are dispersed regularly throughout a video. Lastly, one more term to cover before I explain the entire situation.
To get an ideal video that contains the assist, I would need only the bottom screen, and have it last only the duration of the assist. As such, both cutting and cropping would need to be employed. However, it is impossible to crop a video losslessly - from what I understand, this is because video algorithms correlate color patterns and removing one segment would affect the other (or something, this didn't make much sense to me and I didn't care enough to dig deeper). If I kept cropping the recording of both screens to show only the bottom one, somewhere along the editing journey I would lose quality aplenty, and that's not good! I experimented a bit with ffmpeg, and it didn't quite work out...but there's definitely a solution here, I just didn't care enough to excavate one (perhaps you see a theme with my work ethic here..?)
To get around this, melonDS has a particularly neat feature that allows only the bottom screen to be displayed, so the resulting video does not need to be cropped! But, that still leaves the problem of cutting...or does it? This is where keyframes come back into play - it is possible to cut a video losslessly as long as your start and end points are keyframes. Quite convenient! There is one catch to this - your keyframe interval (the timespan between two successive keyframes) cannot be set lower than one second in OBS Studio. For this project, that was perfectly fine, as one second wasn't going to add fluff. But it is imperative to note that the default setting for OBS' keyframe interval is "auto", which in my experience is 1 keyframe every 2.5 to 3 seconds. This didn't make for good recording, and I was quite proud when I noticed this detail from scouring various websites and forums to understand why the video cuts were being imprecise, even with specified timestamps. Changing this to its lowest possible interval of 1 keyframe per second let me cut with ease.
A neat fact you may not have known is that Guardian Signs is nearly fully playable from only the touch screen! The top screen is typically reserved for the map and heads-up display, so it's not strictly necessary for gameplay, and is mostly used to get your bearings. Why is this relevant here? In melonDS, I could choose to display only the bottom screen, and thus eliminate the need to crop the resulting video entirely!
Given that my laptop's display size is obviously much larger than the game's window, there'd be black bars on both horizontal sides, due to the mismatched aspect ratios. I was not particularly impressed with stretching the image to fill this, and OBS was fighting with me whenever I tried following online guides to change the output video's dimensions to eliminate these black bars - they're from melonDS, but I could find no way to directly remove them. Well, that changed.
After I had recorded about a third of the clips, I decided to try my hand at gif conversion (which is explained more later). And while I did that, I realized that the black bars became more of an eyesore at lower resolutions, and made the gif harder to view. So I finally figured out how to remove them entirely...and it involved increasing the output resolution in OBS, of all things. Crazy how that works, you have to increase the resolution to remove detail from the video. It made sense looking back, but there's no way I'd have made that conclusion starting out. Anyway, after that was done I realized I had to redo the recordings AGAIN because while the Youtube video wouldn't be affected by the black bars, the gifs certainly would be. Sometimes I hate production.
Well, now all that was left was to make each of the clips. But easier said than done...the average time needed to generate a single clip was anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes. If any assist required multiple attempts to capture correctly, or wait for longer to fully record the animation and secondary effect, this time would only increase. Did I mention that each assist has 5 levels, with each level possibly being distinct from the last? Nope? Well, I also didn't mention that there are over 60 assists in this game...so there'd be over 300 clips to collect. How wonderful. Did I forget something?
Whatever do you mean, there are more than 5 levels? Surely not, ahahaha...there are, aren't there? Well, this is an observation I noticed after about 120 clips were made, but fortunately this didn't involve having to scrap all that I'd made for the second time. While there are only 5 conventional levels, there is technically a 6th level your partner's assist can have - that's when your partner is already level 5, and you pick up an assist powerup in the dungeon. And what's even more vexing, is that not all missions have this powerup in an easily accessible location. Alas, I could not stick to my plan to use exactly two backgrounds - one black, and the other blue; for no mission in the Dark temple has this powerup. Instead, the Thunder temple helps fill in the gaps, even if this leads to some backgrounds clashing with the assists. It was not practical to use any temples prior to Ice - they either lack the powerup entirely, or their Pokemon have such low max HP that the assist cannot be properly showcased. At the very least, I was thankful that some alternative could be salvaged - color mismatches weren't that bad...right? Well, they certainly irked me.
Do you remember what I said earlier, about me knowing my limits? "There's no way you'd catch me going into Desmume's RAM"..? Well, that may have been foreshadowing about this part. This color mismatch from the last paragraph felt terribly out of place, and was annoying, so I sought to fix it, somehow. The first thing I looked up were some possible cheats that may add the powerup to my active partner, without necessarily having to collect it during the mission. Nope, no dice there, not even in that expansive ~50 MB database. Next, after more forum searching about how to create a cheat that doesn't exist, I stumbled onto Cheat Engine. It was somewhat straightforward to get the hang of, or so I thought. However, it did not seem like the bytes responsible for handling the player's current powerup state followed any logic - I made sure to use save states and record in cheat engine the value before and after collecting the powerup, all the while varying inputs. This gave me 3 resulting values after about 25 such loops, but they all were unrealistically large and modifying them didn't seem to do anything. Frustrated, I tried out both Desmume's and melonDS' RAM viewer, despite my initial feelings about not wanting to go anywhere near them. Much to my chagrin, both of them were like reading archaic runes. I could very literally glean 0 information, and any trial and error led nowhere. I like to think of myself as a bit scrappy, but this was too much to deal with and I promptly gave up on this idea. With some annoyance, I consigned myself to dealing with colors being out of tune.
Really, absolutely splendiferous or something. In practice, this was not some work I could wrap up in a couple of hours. No, this thing took me about two weeks of high effort and I'd estimate the total time spent was closer to 25 hours I miss being able to play games in my free time u_u. On the bright side, I did at least get to see a lot of assists that I'd glossed over while playing through, and it's possible I might reflect my strategies for the remaining missions to incorporate the ones I find useful. Some learning did at least come out of this, even if this was a Sisyphian endeavor.
How bad was it to be awarded such a label? Well, this is a snapshot of what my clips folder looked like, after everything was compiled. Note that the raw footage took up a lot more space, and was continually deleted, so I have no snapshots of how much space that occupied.
Why does it have that name, you might ask?
The "sad" part is because I was sad about discarding the old clips with black bars in them, which were around a third of the total. The other names were to make organization easier.
Sometimes, I really hate production.
With the video clips all assembled, I threw them into DaVinci Resolve, along with some transition images I threw together in Aseprite (which is also the same program I use to make the dungeon maps here), and boom, done! Well, I say done, but outside of a few trial mergers to familiarize myself with the software, the video isn't ready yet, heh. That being said, I haven't edited a video anywhere near this much before, so it's going to be worse than one might expect. But what matters to me is getting this out eventually rather than studying video design to make it "perfect", so here we are.
Gifs though, were a slightly different issue. Online converters were, quite frankly, atrocious. No way in hell I'd be relying on them, so I dug around. Resolve can certainly export videos as a gif, so you'd think that would be really straightforward, right? Well, no. It was straightforward to export the gif certainly, but the result had a particularly large file size - going against the whole point of the format! I tried changing the few options I could see, and while I was able to get one down to a reasonable file size...it looked like absolute garbage, so it was a very easy decision to scrap that plan.
So, I went online to look for more ideas. A solution quickly presented itself in the form of the program/library, called gifski. While the GUI version of the program felt pretty nice to use, it lacked the feature I specifically needed (mkv -> gif). Fortunately, it had a CLI version available as well, and with the sample commands provided on their home page I could generate a quick batch file to automate this conversion quite easily! There's one catch to this (which was quickly apparent). Even a quick 10 second video or so would generate a lot of intermediate png images; for reference, a 15-second video generated about 1150 png images, totaling to 1.5 gigabytes of space taken! Ouch! Wasn't there a better way to do this? Sure, this resulted in a respectably small filesize for the final gif, and it actually looked great! Given how many videos were there, it felt like my poor SSD would eat through its lifespan before finishing this task if I ran all these as-is. Fortuitously, hope came in the form of checking the page's github page, of all things. Turns out the examples (and version) on their home page neglected to mention one specific feature addition that removes the need for temp png files if a specific command was used, and this was a great thing to find (for once, before I started the gif conversion with the old command)!
With the video production finished, comparatively, the other two documents here were just simple (albeit tedious) catalogues in Word and Excel - no extra research needed. Funnily enough these two were complete a long, long time ago - all the way back in November last year, soon after I announced my observations about the save file. Without that observation, it would be impossible to make the compendium at all, so while these documents get only a small footnote in this write-up, they are significant all the same for kick-starting this whole process - without them, this would never have gotten off the ground.
Anyway, that's this filler arc wrapping up slowly. Keep scrolling down this veritable wall and you shall find all the info you need, and more!
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Guardian Signs: Assist Compendium [Missing Video, but complete otherwise]
Your one-stop shop to all things assist-y in the past.
Your one-stop shop to all things assist-y in the past.
If there are any errors or questions you wish to bring up, feel free to post about them below.
You might have seen me break down the three datasets I'd be posting in here. As a reminder, the video with all the assists will be out in roughly a week's time from now.
I actually can't believe this all fit into a single post. Amazing that it did though - I was fully prepared to make multiple posts breaking it up if it didn't.
Here's how this works:
First off, assists have been arranged in order of type. Do note that the text on some assists is identical between types, so I have manually put the type in brackets - such a distinction is not made in game. Within the type and assist-specific lists, Pokemon have been arranged as per their past browser numbers. If a Pokemon's name is bolded, that is the one who has been chosen to represent the particular assist, and if only one Pokemon's name appears in an assist, it's got a unique one.
Do note that the damage numbers you see take type effectiveness into account! Not every Pokemon will inflict the same damage - yes, even if two Pokemon share the same assist, they will deal different damage to the same opponent.
Are you wondering why the assist clip seems to go on for too long? It's to measure the length of the secondary effect inflicted by all applicable assists (you can check the timer in the top right to get a good estimate)
Three practice dummies have been used - Sunflora, Mareep, and Manectric. As a result, you will always see one of the three featured in any given clip, and through background and assist contrasts I aim to make each Pokemon's assist clearly visible.
Resisted attacks deal 0.5x their normal damage.
Super effective attacks deal 1.5x their normal damage.
As well, note that the level 6 assists, due to being affected by a powerup, deal 1.2x times the damage per hit when compared to level 5.
Sometimes, a Pokemon can be hit by an assist multiple times in quick succession - this will also increase the visible damage. This is also the reason why you may calculate a multiplier larger than 1.2x, because the same assist hits multiple times.
To view the upgrade costs and stat values associated with each assist, and each level, I have attached a PDF through Google Drive - here it is. It should have all the info needed, but if any changes are needed, as always, let me know. For anyone who wants the data to use for any experiments or the like, this excel sheet (which is identical to the pdf) also exists, but still, I recommend you refer to the PDF for general use, as it has better fonts and spacing.
Normal:
Aipom, Ambipom, Ursaring, Munchlax, Dodrio, Dunsparce, Purugly, Stantler, Lickilicky
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Pineco, Forretress, Voltorb, Electrode
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Eevee, Teddiursa, Togepi, Glameow, Snubbull, Blissey
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Metagross, Porygon-Z
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Arceus
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
[10/10 laser would laser again. this is also the only assist to inflict a secondary effect (tired) when no prior level of it does, quite a unique feat!]
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
[10/10 laser would laser again. this is also the only assist to inflict a secondary effect (tired) when no prior level of it does, quite a unique feat!]
Fire:
Torchic, Magby, Magmar, Magmortar, Vulpix, Ninetales
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Combusken
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Blaziken, Chimchar, Monferno
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Cyndaquil, Quilava, Typhlosion
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Numel, Camerupt
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Flareon, Charmander, Charmeleon
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Water:
Piplup, Prinplup, Marill, Azumarill
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Empoleon, Buizel, Floatzel
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Totodile, Feraligatr, Vaporeon, Politoed
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Croconaw, Mudkip, Marshtomp, Wingull, Pelipper
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Wooper, Quagsire, Blastoise
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Grass:
Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venusaur
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Oddish, Treecko, Grovyle, Sceptile, Carnivine
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Bellossom, Chikorita, Bayleef, Sunkern, Turtwig, Grotle, Tangrowth
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Meganium, Sunflora, Leafeon
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Electric:
Shinx, Luxio, Mareep, Flaaffy, Pachirisu
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Luxray, Electrike, Manectric, Electivire
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Jolteon, Ampharos
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Pikachu, Raichu
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Magnezone
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Flying:
Pidgey, Hoothoot, Noctowl, Chatot, Togetic, Starly, Combee
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Pidgeotto, Pidgeot, Mothim, Togekiss, Skarmory
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Staravia, Staraptor
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Rock:
Bonsly, Geodude, Graveler, Golem
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Sudowoodo, Shuckle, Probopass, Kabuto, Kabutops, Anorith, Armaldo
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Tyranitar, Cranidos, Rampardos
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Ground:
Sandshrew, Sandslash
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Hippopotas, Hippowdon, Gligar
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Phanpy, Donphan, Larvitar, Pupitar, Swinub, Piloswine, Swampert, Gliscor
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Steel:
Aron, Lairon, Bastiodon
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Aggron, Bronzong
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Shieldon, Bronzor
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Beldum, Metang
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Poison:
Gloom, Vileplume
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Skorupi, Zubat, Golbat, Crobat
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Croagunk, Toxicroak, Stunky, Skuntank
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Koffing, Weezing
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Fighting:
Tyrogue, Hitmonchan, Mankey*, Primeape*, Riolu, Heracross, Infernape
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Hitmonlee, Hitmontop*
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
*: The assists of Mankey, Primeape and Hitmontop are functionally identical to others in their category. However they stagger on the field for a few seconds after unleashing their assist, and are vulnerable to attacks during this time. This occurs over and above the advertised recharge time and (always) happens independently of the Pokemon's assist level.
Makuhita, Hariyama, Gallade
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Lucario
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Psychic:
Chingling, Mime. Jr, Ralts, Kirlia, Gardevoir
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Chimecho, Girafarig, Smoochum, Baltoy, Claydol
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Espeon, Natu, Xatu, Slowking, Wobbuffet
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Mew
Fun fact! Mew actually has multiple assists - which one you get depends on how far Mew is from the opponent. If it is further away from the opponent, you get the fast, single-line assist. If it is closer to the opponent, you get the slow, spread assist...and a mystery if the conditions are just right.
Level 1 - Line:
Level 2 - Line:
Level 3 - Line:
Level 4 - Line:
Level 5 - Line:
Level 6- Line:
Level 1 - Spread:
Level 2 - Spread:
Level 3 - Spread:
Level 4 - Spread:
Level 5 - Spread:
Level 6 - Spread:
Level 5 - Spiral [bet you didn't expect this to appear out of nowhere, huh? neither did i!]:
Level 6 - Spiral:
Level 2 - Line:
Level 3 - Line:
Level 4 - Line:
Level 5 - Line:
Level 6- Line:
Level 1 - Spread:
Level 2 - Spread:
Level 3 - Spread:
Level 4 - Spread:
Level 5 - Spread:
Level 6 - Spread:
Level 5 - Spiral [bet you didn't expect this to appear out of nowhere, huh? neither did i!]:
Level 6 - Spiral:
Deoxys
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Dark:
Umbreon, Poochyena, Mightyena, Granbull
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Houndour, Houndoom, Absol, Sableye
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Sneasel, Weavile, Murkrow, Honchkrow
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Ghost:
Gastly, Haunter, Gengar
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Duskull, Dusclops, Dusknoir, Misdreavus, Mismagius
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Drifloon, Drifblim
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Ice:
Delibird, Spheal, Sealeo, Walrein
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Glaceon, Abomasnow
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Snover, Froslass
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Bug:
Kricketot, Kricketune
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Drapion, Vespiquen
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Level 2:
Level 3:
Level 4:
Level 5:
Level 6:
Dragon:
Bagon, Shelgon, Salamence
Level 1:
Level 2:
Level 3:
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Level 6:
Level 2:
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Level 6:
Gible, Gabite, Garchomp
Level 1:
Level 2:
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Level 6:
Level 2:
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Level 6:
Unfortunately, I cannot offer any time estimates on when the next mission catalogues will be here - but do note that I have not worked on them since, so the percentages stay the same (and I can confirm they are actually accurate this time), so it'll be a while at least, especially because I now want to take a break for a while. Thank you for reading, and as always, I hope you stay tuned for when it drops ^_^
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Yeah, so, uh… I’ve been sitting here for the better part of the past two days or however long you’ve been working on that, I lost count, and I genuinely cannot think of anything to say. Somehow, someway, your dedication to this game continues to shock and inspire me. Not only is this an incredible resource, but the way everything is organized and accessible is just… well…
Like, I want to say “Thank You”, cringe as that might sound given my borderline addiction to this game. But honestly, I don’t even know if that covers it. And you’re still not even done with all the missions yet! I thought I was supposed to be the self appointed super-fan of this game! …I think what I’m trying to say here is that this is the kind of stuff I love to see. For basically my entire life ever since I started calling myself a Pokémon fan, this is the kind of stuff I’ve wanted to do and allow people to enjoy. I’m… speechless. It took me this long to come up with something.
Back we go, to the land of oddness and mysteriosity.
Happy new year :D
(...what do you mean it's not new year yet? Well, this post commemorates it anyway.)
Hopefully this post is another of the new year's gifts to you, and that it brings you some happiness along the way.
Five months since the last post, huh? Well, it's not as long as the last extra-long wait time, but still, not a great showing. I've not really had any motivation to work on this, and have barely played the game at all in that time. I've all but given up on grinding out ranks on the final mission. But then again, I'll need to do so anyway once I need to make a post about it. I've mostly dissociated from this, but I am bound by the feelings of regret when I see other abandoned works on the internet, and I don't want this to end up similarly. So, I definitely plan to complete my catalog of the wireless missions, even if it takes a while.
On the bright side, exactly three posts are remaining - two for the Dark Temple, and one for the Light Temple, so it will surely be done by 2026..? Surely, right? Well, very likely, and I also hope it won't take that long. To clarify, it does not actually take me these many weeks/months to draft these posts up, maybe about a week or two to turn my shorthand notes into something more elaborate, including the map. Though given how thorough this needs me to be, it tends to require time that I either can't or don't want to spend, and would rather spend it either sleeping or playing a different game, and as such I try to procrastinate as much as I can. But anyway, formalities aside once more. We're here for missions, and missions they are! Deoxys time!
Okay, so your first question is obviously this - how does one play this mission solo? The game even goes out of its way to tell you that multiple people are needed, and you'll see as much if you try. Well, the answer is that you can't - but there are two workarounds to this.
1) If you have 2 DS systems, you can play with yourself as the second person. This is of course, slightly hard to coordinate, especially that you'll be capturing Pokemon on effectively one system. Do note that you will need two copies of the game for this - there's no easy way like Download Play that can be used to alleviate the need for a second copy, unless you've access to a flashcart or hacked console.
2) If you have only one DS system, then you might have to use two specific cheat codes - one to enable multi-person switches, and another for 1.5x movement speed (or 2x if you feel 1.5x isn't enough. However, don't go higher than 2x speed or you will move too fast to easily control, and you will run into some visual glitches that make it less fun to play). As loath as I am to use cheats for normal gameplay, without these two, the mission becomes downright impossible to complete for a solo player.
If you're on flashcart, and it supports cheats, you can press Y upon selecting a game to load up its cheat database and select the applicable codes. If it doesn't have a database, or you're not using a flashcart, look for the DeadSkullJr cheat database. Loading it in your emulator/flashcart of choice will display what codes do/don't work, and you can select from there. This is easier than looking up various old forums for codes that may or may not work. (If you're curious, yes, this is the same database I talked about in the assist compendium writeup).
For the purposes of this guide, I am attempting the missions here using option 1 and using that as a basis for my choices and playstyle throughout, using one DSi XL and one launch (old) 3DS. This choice was primarily made because it feels more authentic. but it's obviously hard to manage 2 systems with one person, especially if you have to draw circles on both of them (as those of you who made DPP poffins might remember). Still, don't be dissuaded from using cheats here if you're solo - if they're necessary to progress, how else should one experience this content?
Anyway, before we get started, you might have one more question. Why is this mission being covered here, especially when the game says the recommended level is 25? Well, try playing it, and you'll see why. The recommended level is...actually accurate, for one. However, it's accurate under exactly one special condition - that you have 4 people playing this mission.
Anything else, and you will be struggling a bit, and much, much more so as a solo player. So, level 45, around the time I was halfway through the Thunder Temple (I think), seems like a good spot that offers sufficient leeway while still being a challenging experience.
Variations:
none :D
Map:
Side note: I loved the pink used for the dungeon tiles here. Such a pity I only get to use it for one map...
Map legend is the same as the previous post, but reposted below for clarity:
The layout of this mission is generally straightforward, and as you'd expect, many of the rooms here are recycled from other missions. Bonus points if you can figure out which one are!
The first two rooms are pretty standard, nothing to see here. However, the end of the second room is the first 2-person switch in here, and as you'd expect it is mandatory to use it - hence the need for an actual second person or the cheat code. Move on, and you'll be on a snaking pathway eerily reminiscent of the Graveler mission from ages ago, but surprisingly this room seems to be unique (unless my memory has failed me). Coincidentally, Graveler are also found here, among the Ursaring and Hariyama. All of them will attack you on sight, and you'll need to be careful to avoid being combo'd from one attack into a capture, given the narrow pathway.
Head northward into this new large room that you might find very very familiar if you've experience with chasing foxes. Except this time, the foxes are bigger and much much faster. And they're not alone. Yay! This room's very large, but if you're playing solo, head straight for the center with multi-person switches and claim 120 seconds, an assist powerup and an attack powerup. These will be pretty good timesaves, and will make captures much, much easier (especially Deoxys). Note that this is a 4-person switch, so unless you're using a cheat or in a 4-player squad, you won't be able to access it.
Now, if you're in 2-player mode, most importantly: do not split up. The two of you need to be able to essentially pincer-attack the Ninetales to successfully catch them. They will always move in a set circluar-ish path, so by having the players follow it from different points on this preset path, you will be very nearly guaranteed to force a capture. Ninetales itself is not particularly hard to capture, once you're in battle. However, do keep note of its !! attack, which is a circular volley of fire columns. These fade quickly, but they can trip you up, especially if you're one person playing with two systems. If you're in this situation, I highly recommend doing the captures on only one system, and using the second system only for assists.
Not only do the Ninetales take up plenty of time as is to chase, you can also notice the field to be littered with our lovely old friend Aggron. (Note: All Aggron here will try to attack you on sight, but will not go out of their way to chase you.) And guess what, he's as painful as ever to capture, and he also gets agitated like before. It's definitely possible to evade capture, especially made easier if you're using the movement cheat, but for the same person controlling 2 systems, just a slight imprecision in movement can force you into a capture with one. And of course, as you're probably aware, any assist that's good on Deoxys will be resisted by Aggron (perhaps you see why Steel/Psychic was such a good type combo back in the day?), so Aggron's capture will take a while, it's recommended more than normal to avoid it. Aggron's pretty identical to its showing in the Fire Temple, so the same miniboss spotlight from there applies.
So, back to Ninetales. This fiendish fox is the sole reason you need the speed cheat if you're playing solo. Is it possible to chase it down without the cheat? Yes. Is it something that will frustrate you to no end? Yes. I have managed to catch only 3 of the 5 Ninetales without cheats, and by the time I'd done so, I'd barely any time left for Deoxys, and thus ended up failing the mission. For your own sanity, if you're playing solo, you need a speed cheat active here.
So anyway, this chamber has 2 of the 5 Ninetales you need to capture, and you'll see both of them as you enter it. It is notable that you get 10 AP for capturing them, which is a decent amount early on - if you're with other people this mission might be a good place to grind AP. Do note that if you're in a 4-player squad, or have the multi-switch cheat active, you can snag quite a few good powerups from the center of this room. These may be vital for a high rank later on.
The next chamber probably won't be familiar to you yet, if you haven't started the Dark Temple. But well, you'll know where it is when you get there. The remaining 3 Ninetales are in this room, and they are significantly harder to catch here, in large part due to the lack of corners to snipe them at. Now, it might be possible for a solo player to capture one, two, or maybe three Ninetales without the help of another DS or cheats. But that's as far as you will go. The Ninetales move ever so slightly faster than your player, and you need to cut them off at corners very precisely to break their momentum and force a capture. This part is just not fun solo.
Step on the two switches to gain access to the rest of this circular room. It's got two teleporters, one at the northeast corner, the other at the northwest. The exit is at the northeast, so go there last. Head northwest first, and you will be taken to a chamber that seems very reminiscent of the Mime Jr. mission all that time ago. This room has two angry Pelipper that chase you, as well as 90 seconds and 60 battery. For the powerups alone, it's worth the risk of entering this room. The Pelipper are slightly hard to avoid due to their somewhat large range, especially if your player is unable to move while target clearing the powerup chests. Don't step on the switch here, it contains another angry Pelipper that will chase you. If, by accident, you activated that switch, you may think of the idea to leave the room to reset this Pelipper's position. Not so! The switch-spawned Pelipper resets to a position very near the entry teleporter, and you'll almost always be forced into capture when you enter the room. Again, it's not like Pelipper is a very hard capture, even if you're forced into three of them. Hell, it's an enemy from all the way back in the Ice Temple, and if you're here, you're already able to clear that with ease. Nonetheless, it's got significant potential to waste your time, and any time wasted is less time you have to chase down Ninetales.
Now, head back into the large circular room and use the pincer-attack formation to snag all remaining Ninetales. You may of course, have to contend with even more angry Pelipper here, but the ones here are far easier to avoid naturally.
Finally, you enter the last chamber (wait, really? It's that short? Yes, surprisingly), You've got 4 powerups giving you a total of 120 seconds and 120 battery. Use these to top up your styler, and you should ideally be at full battery on both systems. But before you enter the boss chamber, you must face its final guard, Venusaur! It may be possible to dodge Venusaur, but I've not been able to do so. It's a huge difficulty spike compared to the Pokemon in this mission so far. Why, it's an enemy in the upcoming Dark Temple too, and boy do I have a bit to talk about that mission when the time comes! A solo player will be bogged down a bit by its large HP pool. So much so that it's time for an impromptu...
Miniboss spotlight:
!: Venusaur launches 3 seeds slightly far apart from each other. These seeds sprout into thorned vines upon hitting the ground, lingering for about 4 seconds. Venusaur can walk over these vines. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Venusaur launches 3 razor leaves in the direction it's facing. These travel somewhat fast. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest time waster here is !. If the seeds fall just right, you may struggle to draw loops around Venusaur. Fortunately, this is nowhere near as bad as Feraligatr, and you'll get through this with enough brute force.
Done with this frog, if you're ready. now jump forth into the vortex of hell to take on the DNA Demon, Deoxys! (well, if you're not ready, better hope you're good at dodging attacks..! Deoxys gives no quarter.)
Boss:
Deoxys starts off battle in its Normal Form, but can shift into any of its other three forms as the battle progresses. After using an attack in a particular form, it will usually change back into normal forme. It can also teleport to a random spot on the field at any time, though this is not very frequent.
Normal Form:
!: Deoxys launches 3, 5 or 7 balls of energy in the direction it's facing that spread out over time.
After agitation, in addition to the above, this can telegraph any of:
8-12 balls of energy in a semicircular arc
3 waves of 3-5 balls in the direction it's facing
4-7 balls in a semi-spiral
Do note that Deoxys' attacks seem to have more range than you'd expect - what seems like a near-miss might as well be a hit.
Deoxys unleashes balls of energy in all directions upon changing into a non-Normal form. Deoxys will almost never chain forms, it will alternate between Normal and non-Normal.
Attack Form:
Lasers launched by Deoxys are in a helical fashion - as in, every two of them twirl around each other and have significantly more range than if they were simple straight lines.
!!: Deoxys launches 4 laser pairs in a + shape. These may or may not spiral and fade in a few seconds.
After agitiation, this may also telegraph:
-
!!: Deoxys launches 8 laser pairs in all directions around it. These do not spiral and fade in a few seconds.
!!!: Deoxys will generate 12 lasers spiraling outward from it (used at the center of the screen). This fades after a few seconds. (unsure of this)
Defense Form:
!: Deoxys goes to the center of the screen and bundles up into a ball of energy - not moving from there. In this state, touching Deoxys with your styler will cause you to take damage, but this is a very generous allowance - unless you're really close, this property won't matter. To attack, it will launch 3 orbs of energy at a time, with an interval of 1-2 seconds. It is possible to draw loops around Deoxys in this state - but PokeAssists will only deal 10% of their original damage to Deoxys in this state.
After agitation:
!!!!: (Yes, I'm aware of the hilarity of no !! and !!! for this form):
This telegraph will very often be followed by !, multiple times. Here, Deoxys can launch either a full circle or a semicircle of 12 energy balls (as you'd assume, the semicircle's balls are more concentrated), or 2 pairs of balls in four opposing directions (for a total of 8). It is very risky (if not impossible) to draw loops around it in this state. However, Deoxys does rest for about a second after each ! telegraph, making it a great time to blitz out a few loops each time it does so.
Speed Form:
The telegraphing for this form seems odd, it's easier to pay attention to what Deoxys does rather than what it telegraphs.
Deoxys conjures up many illusions of itself across the field. Before agitation, it will generate 7 illusions - a hexagon and one in the center. After agitation, it generates 9 illusions in an X shape. While these illusions are active, touching your styler anywhere on the screen will cause you to take damage. As the battle gets more intense, when Deoxys uses this attack, after a second, it will populate the screen with even more illusions - for a total of 13.
Yes, even if you know where the real Deoxys is, your only recourse here is to wait the attack out - you cannot loop it during this phase. But if you know the real one's location, use a PokeAssist at this time for a clean damage opportunity - especially if the assist is long-drawn. After a few seconds, these illusions will fade. It is possible to keep track of the real Deoxys through two methods: 1) by inflicting a status on it (this includes agitiation), or 2) paying attention to it as the attack starts, and see which illusion moves a bit faster than the others. Do note that if your Pokemon is midway through its assist, and you touch the stylus near it during this phase, Deoxys will strike the assist-user and drive it away.
As the battle nears its conclusion (this feels a bit like a certain Lucario...), Deoxys will grow even more aggressive.
Overall, this is maybe a medium difficulty boss battle. While powerful, Deoxys tends to leave itself open to taking damage quite often, courtesy of its Defense and Speed forms. I still find it incredibly hilarious that the game's designers made a Speed forme where Deoxys effectively does not move when attacking.
How easy to clear/S-rank?
Well, first it's worth considering whether you want to grind for Deoxys' slate. If you're captivated by the dark laser in the assist compendium and want Deoxys, this mission is much easier to do when playing solo with the two aforementioned cheats, and is likely doable with ease by the time you're able to handle the Dark Temple. It's not overly difficult as a boss, though bear in mind I did not replay this mission as many times as the others. If you're attempting this on two systems, come back at a much, much higher level (~65 or so is my estimate). Rather than Deoxys, the real time sinks are the Pelipper, Aggron, and chasing down the Ninetales, so it's much easier to practice that for this mission and improve your time. First successful clear for me was a B rank (using 2 systems, no cheats), but I think an A rank is pretty feasible even at that stage. An S-rank would need you to be two very good players, or use the multi-switch cheat to snag all the bonuses on the largest room's center platform.
Partner choice:
Now, the thing with this mission is that, to simulate something of an authentic experience, rather than use my Level 99 file to have an easier time and steamroll, I used a save backup when I was level 45, as mentioned earlier. This helps in two ways - by placing coverage of this mission at this point in the thread, you get an organic sense of progression, and that you experience an adequate level of difficulty if attempting the mission at this level (though more levels would be great...)
Great you say, but what does this have to do with partner choice? Well, that's the thing. At level 45, I obviously did not have many of the heavy hitting assists (bar Piplup) that carried their weights through the later missions. As a result, you'll see some unexpected picks. And hey, you can also look through the assist compendium if you need help theorycrafting :D
So, Psychic type weaknesses. We aren't getting many Ghosts this early, but we do have a few Dark types. Sneasel and Weavile are decent choices given that they're off the field in a relatively short timespan, but their damage potential is somewhat low. (And if you want to compare the damage each assist does, check out the pdf I linked in the compendium post. It's really useful, even if I toot my own horn about it.) Deoxys does not exactly burst around the field, so a slowing effect is not particularly revolutionary, but any gain is helpful. Mightyena gets an honorable mention for being a short-range type advantage that smacks Deoxys with blistering damage, though it will need a decent bit of AP to max out, which you may not have.
What about grabbing a Dark/Ghost type from later? Absol, Houndour/Houndoom, Duskull/Dusclops are reasonable options, but Deoxys is a fast Pokemon, and all of those Pokemon's assists leave them vulnerable to contact from Deoxys' attacks, so they're not great choices, often forcing you to use them only during Deoxys' Speed forme. But if you're invested in this idea, get Gengar. I'll explain more in a future mission, but Gengar does have a pretty good matchup here.
Well, what about Bug types? Drapion is basically the only notable one you'll have access to at this point, what with its gatling gun of an assist, and Kricketot/Kricketune's assists are far too slow. If you didn't notice in the assist compendium, there are only 4 Bug type Pokemon available here! Maybe that's why Drapion's not a Poison or Dark assist...in any case Drapion's a reasonable pick in case you're tired of Piplup here.
I recommend here that instead of going for type matchups, pick something that's at least neutral against both Deoxys and Aggron (if you're forced to capture some) and doesn't stay on the field for very long. Fortunately, Piplup fits this bill very well, but do make sure to avoid Froslass unless you use it only during the Speed form phase. Lucario is also pretty usable if you max it out, despite the type disadvantage.
Remember that there's an assist powerup locked behind the multi-switch area here - it'll significantly boost your assist and make Deoxys much easier!
Extra note:
As the game tells you, the Deoxys you capture in this mission can actually be sent back to the mainline Gen 4 games! The form and moves of the Deoxys are determined based on the rank you get while clearing it, with the rare Meteor Mash Attack forme being the coveted S-rank prize. If you end up with an A-rank, a Detect Defense forme is your reward (even though Protect is more useful here...). Finally, B-rank gets you Speed forme with no special move, and C-rank gives you a completely normal Normal forme. There's no limit on sending Deoxys to the mainline games either - the relevant line that the game tells you upon first completing the mission: "You can now transfer Deoxys using the Ranger Net! When you've transferred one, you can clear the mission to transfer another. You can transfer as many Deoxys as you like. But beware that you can only receive it once."
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So, you might be noticing something missing from the last post. Yes, the assist compendium in video form, where did that go? I know how I said I didn't value perfection for this, but my skills with video creation are really not up to par for a project of this scale. To keep the interval between two successive clips constant, I wasn't able to find an easy way to do so. Watching temporary drafts made me realize that it really didn't look good, the intervals were all messed up, and I didn't record any buffer space before/after the clips to make for those cool transitions, not to mention the music for all of them doesn't align properly - there's no way to isolate only the sound effects. So, sorry about that, but while it's not completely impossible for me to make the video at some point in future, it's pretty unlikely to happen at all, unless I find an easy way to make it. Honestly, it might be easier to write a script to ffmpeg everything into one video rather than breaking my head trying to use Resolve or Kdenlive. I did not have fun using those programs ;-;
Because of the disjointed nature of this mission, it will be the only one covered in this post. As always, I have not been able to work on the other missions (which kinda makes my foreshadowing fall flat, but what can you do).
Anyway, that's Deoxys done and dusted! Next post, we return to your regularly scheduled solo-run with the Dark Temple, featuring a slight difficulty spike but nothing as unfair as Magnezone's mission. I had a decent bit of fun repeating the Dark Temple multiple times as I grinded upto level 99. Hopefully it won't be too long a wait this time!
Happy new year :D
(...what do you mean it's not new year yet? Well, this post commemorates it anyway.)
Hopefully this post is another of the new year's gifts to you, and that it brings you some happiness along the way.
Five months since the last post, huh? Well, it's not as long as the last extra-long wait time, but still, not a great showing. I've not really had any motivation to work on this, and have barely played the game at all in that time. I've all but given up on grinding out ranks on the final mission. But then again, I'll need to do so anyway once I need to make a post about it. I've mostly dissociated from this, but I am bound by the feelings of regret when I see other abandoned works on the internet, and I don't want this to end up similarly. So, I definitely plan to complete my catalog of the wireless missions, even if it takes a while.
On the bright side, exactly three posts are remaining - two for the Dark Temple, and one for the Light Temple, so it will surely be done by 2026..? Surely, right? Well, very likely, and I also hope it won't take that long. To clarify, it does not actually take me these many weeks/months to draft these posts up, maybe about a week or two to turn my shorthand notes into something more elaborate, including the map. Though given how thorough this needs me to be, it tends to require time that I either can't or don't want to spend, and would rather spend it either sleeping or playing a different game, and as such I try to procrastinate as much as I can. But anyway, formalities aside once more. We're here for missions, and missions they are! Deoxys time!
Mission EX: Deoxys and the Odd Temple
Objective: Capture 5 Ninetales
Boss: Deoxys
Objective: Capture 5 Ninetales
Boss: Deoxys
Okay, so your first question is obviously this - how does one play this mission solo? The game even goes out of its way to tell you that multiple people are needed, and you'll see as much if you try. Well, the answer is that you can't - but there are two workarounds to this.
1) If you have 2 DS systems, you can play with yourself as the second person. This is of course, slightly hard to coordinate, especially that you'll be capturing Pokemon on effectively one system. Do note that you will need two copies of the game for this - there's no easy way like Download Play that can be used to alleviate the need for a second copy, unless you've access to a flashcart or hacked console.
2) If you have only one DS system, then you might have to use two specific cheat codes - one to enable multi-person switches, and another for 1.5x movement speed (or 2x if you feel 1.5x isn't enough. However, don't go higher than 2x speed or you will move too fast to easily control, and you will run into some visual glitches that make it less fun to play). As loath as I am to use cheats for normal gameplay, without these two, the mission becomes downright impossible to complete for a solo player.
If you're on flashcart, and it supports cheats, you can press Y upon selecting a game to load up its cheat database and select the applicable codes. If it doesn't have a database, or you're not using a flashcart, look for the DeadSkullJr cheat database. Loading it in your emulator/flashcart of choice will display what codes do/don't work, and you can select from there. This is easier than looking up various old forums for codes that may or may not work. (If you're curious, yes, this is the same database I talked about in the assist compendium writeup).
For the purposes of this guide, I am attempting the missions here using option 1 and using that as a basis for my choices and playstyle throughout, using one DSi XL and one launch (old) 3DS. This choice was primarily made because it feels more authentic. but it's obviously hard to manage 2 systems with one person, especially if you have to draw circles on both of them (as those of you who made DPP poffins might remember). Still, don't be dissuaded from using cheats here if you're solo - if they're necessary to progress, how else should one experience this content?
Anyway, before we get started, you might have one more question. Why is this mission being covered here, especially when the game says the recommended level is 25? Well, try playing it, and you'll see why. The recommended level is...actually accurate, for one. However, it's accurate under exactly one special condition - that you have 4 people playing this mission.
Anything else, and you will be struggling a bit, and much, much more so as a solo player. So, level 45, around the time I was halfway through the Thunder Temple (I think), seems like a good spot that offers sufficient leeway while still being a challenging experience.
Variations:
none :D
Map:
Side note: I loved the pink used for the dungeon tiles here. Such a pity I only get to use it for one map...
Map legend is the same as the previous post, but reposted below for clarity:
Blue tile: You start the mission on this square.
Red tile: You must complete the mission's condition to step on it. Takes you to the boss room.
Green tile: Teleports you to a specific location on the map.
Yellow tile: Stand on this tile to make a bridge (connected to this tile) appear. Tiles that need multiple players to activate will have a red dot, and are unusable during a solo run.
Orange circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will chase you on sight.
Brown circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will launch projectiles at you on sight (but not chase you).
Purple circle: The Pokemon is scared, and will run away from you on sight.
Powerups:
View attachment 645350 Icons like this one give you extra time. The number represents how many seconds are gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645351 Icons like this one give your styler extra energy. The number represents how much energy is gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645354 This icon increases your styler's power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645355 This icon increases your partner's assist power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645352 This icon reduces the damage your styler takes by 33% rounded down (I think? somehow my notes don't mention this but I did experiment with this during the Vespiquen mission) when collected, but will not lower a damage of 1 down to 0.
View attachment 645353 This icon increases your movement speed in the overworld when collected.
Red tile: You must complete the mission's condition to step on it. Takes you to the boss room.
Green tile: Teleports you to a specific location on the map.
Yellow tile: Stand on this tile to make a bridge (connected to this tile) appear. Tiles that need multiple players to activate will have a red dot, and are unusable during a solo run.
Orange circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will chase you on sight.
Brown circle: The Pokemon is angry, and will launch projectiles at you on sight (but not chase you).
Purple circle: The Pokemon is scared, and will run away from you on sight.
Powerups:
View attachment 645350 Icons like this one give you extra time. The number represents how many seconds are gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645351 Icons like this one give your styler extra energy. The number represents how much energy is gained upon collecting one.
View attachment 645354 This icon increases your styler's power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645355 This icon increases your partner's assist power by 20% when collected.
View attachment 645352 This icon reduces the damage your styler takes by 33% rounded down (I think? somehow my notes don't mention this but I did experiment with this during the Vespiquen mission) when collected, but will not lower a damage of 1 down to 0.
View attachment 645353 This icon increases your movement speed in the overworld when collected.
The layout of this mission is generally straightforward, and as you'd expect, many of the rooms here are recycled from other missions. Bonus points if you can figure out which one are!
The first two rooms are pretty standard, nothing to see here. However, the end of the second room is the first 2-person switch in here, and as you'd expect it is mandatory to use it - hence the need for an actual second person or the cheat code. Move on, and you'll be on a snaking pathway eerily reminiscent of the Graveler mission from ages ago, but surprisingly this room seems to be unique (unless my memory has failed me). Coincidentally, Graveler are also found here, among the Ursaring and Hariyama. All of them will attack you on sight, and you'll need to be careful to avoid being combo'd from one attack into a capture, given the narrow pathway.
Head northward into this new large room that you might find very very familiar if you've experience with chasing foxes. Except this time, the foxes are bigger and much much faster. And they're not alone. Yay! This room's very large, but if you're playing solo, head straight for the center with multi-person switches and claim 120 seconds, an assist powerup and an attack powerup. These will be pretty good timesaves, and will make captures much, much easier (especially Deoxys). Note that this is a 4-person switch, so unless you're using a cheat or in a 4-player squad, you won't be able to access it.
Now, if you're in 2-player mode, most importantly: do not split up. The two of you need to be able to essentially pincer-attack the Ninetales to successfully catch them. They will always move in a set circluar-ish path, so by having the players follow it from different points on this preset path, you will be very nearly guaranteed to force a capture. Ninetales itself is not particularly hard to capture, once you're in battle. However, do keep note of its !! attack, which is a circular volley of fire columns. These fade quickly, but they can trip you up, especially if you're one person playing with two systems. If you're in this situation, I highly recommend doing the captures on only one system, and using the second system only for assists.
Not only do the Ninetales take up plenty of time as is to chase, you can also notice the field to be littered with our lovely old friend Aggron. (Note: All Aggron here will try to attack you on sight, but will not go out of their way to chase you.) And guess what, he's as painful as ever to capture, and he also gets agitated like before. It's definitely possible to evade capture, especially made easier if you're using the movement cheat, but for the same person controlling 2 systems, just a slight imprecision in movement can force you into a capture with one. And of course, as you're probably aware, any assist that's good on Deoxys will be resisted by Aggron (perhaps you see why Steel/Psychic was such a good type combo back in the day?), so Aggron's capture will take a while, it's recommended more than normal to avoid it. Aggron's pretty identical to its showing in the Fire Temple, so the same miniboss spotlight from there applies.
So, back to Ninetales. This fiendish fox is the sole reason you need the speed cheat if you're playing solo. Is it possible to chase it down without the cheat? Yes. Is it something that will frustrate you to no end? Yes. I have managed to catch only 3 of the 5 Ninetales without cheats, and by the time I'd done so, I'd barely any time left for Deoxys, and thus ended up failing the mission. For your own sanity, if you're playing solo, you need a speed cheat active here.
So anyway, this chamber has 2 of the 5 Ninetales you need to capture, and you'll see both of them as you enter it. It is notable that you get 10 AP for capturing them, which is a decent amount early on - if you're with other people this mission might be a good place to grind AP. Do note that if you're in a 4-player squad, or have the multi-switch cheat active, you can snag quite a few good powerups from the center of this room. These may be vital for a high rank later on.
The next chamber probably won't be familiar to you yet, if you haven't started the Dark Temple. But well, you'll know where it is when you get there. The remaining 3 Ninetales are in this room, and they are significantly harder to catch here, in large part due to the lack of corners to snipe them at. Now, it might be possible for a solo player to capture one, two, or maybe three Ninetales without the help of another DS or cheats. But that's as far as you will go. The Ninetales move ever so slightly faster than your player, and you need to cut them off at corners very precisely to break their momentum and force a capture. This part is just not fun solo.
Step on the two switches to gain access to the rest of this circular room. It's got two teleporters, one at the northeast corner, the other at the northwest. The exit is at the northeast, so go there last. Head northwest first, and you will be taken to a chamber that seems very reminiscent of the Mime Jr. mission all that time ago. This room has two angry Pelipper that chase you, as well as 90 seconds and 60 battery. For the powerups alone, it's worth the risk of entering this room. The Pelipper are slightly hard to avoid due to their somewhat large range, especially if your player is unable to move while target clearing the powerup chests. Don't step on the switch here, it contains another angry Pelipper that will chase you. If, by accident, you activated that switch, you may think of the idea to leave the room to reset this Pelipper's position. Not so! The switch-spawned Pelipper resets to a position very near the entry teleporter, and you'll almost always be forced into capture when you enter the room. Again, it's not like Pelipper is a very hard capture, even if you're forced into three of them. Hell, it's an enemy from all the way back in the Ice Temple, and if you're here, you're already able to clear that with ease. Nonetheless, it's got significant potential to waste your time, and any time wasted is less time you have to chase down Ninetales.
Now, head back into the large circular room and use the pincer-attack formation to snag all remaining Ninetales. You may of course, have to contend with even more angry Pelipper here, but the ones here are far easier to avoid naturally.
Finally, you enter the last chamber (wait, really? It's that short? Yes, surprisingly), You've got 4 powerups giving you a total of 120 seconds and 120 battery. Use these to top up your styler, and you should ideally be at full battery on both systems. But before you enter the boss chamber, you must face its final guard, Venusaur! It may be possible to dodge Venusaur, but I've not been able to do so. It's a huge difficulty spike compared to the Pokemon in this mission so far. Why, it's an enemy in the upcoming Dark Temple too, and boy do I have a bit to talk about that mission when the time comes! A solo player will be bogged down a bit by its large HP pool. So much so that it's time for an impromptu...
Miniboss spotlight:
!: Venusaur launches 3 seeds slightly far apart from each other. These seeds sprout into thorned vines upon hitting the ground, lingering for about 4 seconds. Venusaur can walk over these vines. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
!!: Venusaur launches 3 razor leaves in the direction it's facing. These travel somewhat fast. It is possible to draw a loop around this.
Unsurprisingly, the biggest time waster here is !. If the seeds fall just right, you may struggle to draw loops around Venusaur. Fortunately, this is nowhere near as bad as Feraligatr, and you'll get through this with enough brute force.
Done with this frog, if you're ready. now jump forth into the vortex of hell to take on the DNA Demon, Deoxys! (well, if you're not ready, better hope you're good at dodging attacks..! Deoxys gives no quarter.)
Boss:
Deoxys starts off battle in its Normal Form, but can shift into any of its other three forms as the battle progresses. After using an attack in a particular form, it will usually change back into normal forme. It can also teleport to a random spot on the field at any time, though this is not very frequent.
Normal Form:
!: Deoxys launches 3, 5 or 7 balls of energy in the direction it's facing that spread out over time.
After agitation, in addition to the above, this can telegraph any of:
8-12 balls of energy in a semicircular arc
3 waves of 3-5 balls in the direction it's facing
4-7 balls in a semi-spiral
Do note that Deoxys' attacks seem to have more range than you'd expect - what seems like a near-miss might as well be a hit.
Deoxys unleashes balls of energy in all directions upon changing into a non-Normal form. Deoxys will almost never chain forms, it will alternate between Normal and non-Normal.
Attack Form:
Lasers launched by Deoxys are in a helical fashion - as in, every two of them twirl around each other and have significantly more range than if they were simple straight lines.
!!: Deoxys launches 4 laser pairs in a + shape. These may or may not spiral and fade in a few seconds.
After agitiation, this may also telegraph:
-
!!: Deoxys launches 8 laser pairs in all directions around it. These do not spiral and fade in a few seconds.
!!!: Deoxys will generate 12 lasers spiraling outward from it (used at the center of the screen). This fades after a few seconds. (unsure of this)
Defense Form:
!: Deoxys goes to the center of the screen and bundles up into a ball of energy - not moving from there. In this state, touching Deoxys with your styler will cause you to take damage, but this is a very generous allowance - unless you're really close, this property won't matter. To attack, it will launch 3 orbs of energy at a time, with an interval of 1-2 seconds. It is possible to draw loops around Deoxys in this state - but PokeAssists will only deal 10% of their original damage to Deoxys in this state.
After agitation:
!!!!: (Yes, I'm aware of the hilarity of no !! and !!! for this form):
This telegraph will very often be followed by !, multiple times. Here, Deoxys can launch either a full circle or a semicircle of 12 energy balls (as you'd assume, the semicircle's balls are more concentrated), or 2 pairs of balls in four opposing directions (for a total of 8). It is very risky (if not impossible) to draw loops around it in this state. However, Deoxys does rest for about a second after each ! telegraph, making it a great time to blitz out a few loops each time it does so.
Speed Form:
The telegraphing for this form seems odd, it's easier to pay attention to what Deoxys does rather than what it telegraphs.
Deoxys conjures up many illusions of itself across the field. Before agitation, it will generate 7 illusions - a hexagon and one in the center. After agitation, it generates 9 illusions in an X shape. While these illusions are active, touching your styler anywhere on the screen will cause you to take damage. As the battle gets more intense, when Deoxys uses this attack, after a second, it will populate the screen with even more illusions - for a total of 13.
Yes, even if you know where the real Deoxys is, your only recourse here is to wait the attack out - you cannot loop it during this phase. But if you know the real one's location, use a PokeAssist at this time for a clean damage opportunity - especially if the assist is long-drawn. After a few seconds, these illusions will fade. It is possible to keep track of the real Deoxys through two methods: 1) by inflicting a status on it (this includes agitiation), or 2) paying attention to it as the attack starts, and see which illusion moves a bit faster than the others. Do note that if your Pokemon is midway through its assist, and you touch the stylus near it during this phase, Deoxys will strike the assist-user and drive it away.
As the battle nears its conclusion (this feels a bit like a certain Lucario...), Deoxys will grow even more aggressive.
Overall, this is maybe a medium difficulty boss battle. While powerful, Deoxys tends to leave itself open to taking damage quite often, courtesy of its Defense and Speed forms. I still find it incredibly hilarious that the game's designers made a Speed forme where Deoxys effectively does not move when attacking.
How easy to clear/S-rank?
Well, first it's worth considering whether you want to grind for Deoxys' slate. If you're captivated by the dark laser in the assist compendium and want Deoxys, this mission is much easier to do when playing solo with the two aforementioned cheats, and is likely doable with ease by the time you're able to handle the Dark Temple. It's not overly difficult as a boss, though bear in mind I did not replay this mission as many times as the others. If you're attempting this on two systems, come back at a much, much higher level (~65 or so is my estimate). Rather than Deoxys, the real time sinks are the Pelipper, Aggron, and chasing down the Ninetales, so it's much easier to practice that for this mission and improve your time. First successful clear for me was a B rank (using 2 systems, no cheats), but I think an A rank is pretty feasible even at that stage. An S-rank would need you to be two very good players, or use the multi-switch cheat to snag all the bonuses on the largest room's center platform.
Partner choice:
Now, the thing with this mission is that, to simulate something of an authentic experience, rather than use my Level 99 file to have an easier time and steamroll, I used a save backup when I was level 45, as mentioned earlier. This helps in two ways - by placing coverage of this mission at this point in the thread, you get an organic sense of progression, and that you experience an adequate level of difficulty if attempting the mission at this level (though more levels would be great...)
Great you say, but what does this have to do with partner choice? Well, that's the thing. At level 45, I obviously did not have many of the heavy hitting assists (bar Piplup) that carried their weights through the later missions. As a result, you'll see some unexpected picks. And hey, you can also look through the assist compendium if you need help theorycrafting :D
So, Psychic type weaknesses. We aren't getting many Ghosts this early, but we do have a few Dark types. Sneasel and Weavile are decent choices given that they're off the field in a relatively short timespan, but their damage potential is somewhat low. (And if you want to compare the damage each assist does, check out the pdf I linked in the compendium post. It's really useful, even if I toot my own horn about it.) Deoxys does not exactly burst around the field, so a slowing effect is not particularly revolutionary, but any gain is helpful. Mightyena gets an honorable mention for being a short-range type advantage that smacks Deoxys with blistering damage, though it will need a decent bit of AP to max out, which you may not have.
What about grabbing a Dark/Ghost type from later? Absol, Houndour/Houndoom, Duskull/Dusclops are reasonable options, but Deoxys is a fast Pokemon, and all of those Pokemon's assists leave them vulnerable to contact from Deoxys' attacks, so they're not great choices, often forcing you to use them only during Deoxys' Speed forme. But if you're invested in this idea, get Gengar. I'll explain more in a future mission, but Gengar does have a pretty good matchup here.
Well, what about Bug types? Drapion is basically the only notable one you'll have access to at this point, what with its gatling gun of an assist, and Kricketot/Kricketune's assists are far too slow. If you didn't notice in the assist compendium, there are only 4 Bug type Pokemon available here! Maybe that's why Drapion's not a Poison or Dark assist...in any case Drapion's a reasonable pick in case you're tired of Piplup here.
I recommend here that instead of going for type matchups, pick something that's at least neutral against both Deoxys and Aggron (if you're forced to capture some) and doesn't stay on the field for very long. Fortunately, Piplup fits this bill very well, but do make sure to avoid Froslass unless you use it only during the Speed form phase. Lucario is also pretty usable if you max it out, despite the type disadvantage.
Remember that there's an assist powerup locked behind the multi-switch area here - it'll significantly boost your assist and make Deoxys much easier!
Extra note:
As the game tells you, the Deoxys you capture in this mission can actually be sent back to the mainline Gen 4 games! The form and moves of the Deoxys are determined based on the rank you get while clearing it, with the rare Meteor Mash Attack forme being the coveted S-rank prize. If you end up with an A-rank, a Detect Defense forme is your reward (even though Protect is more useful here...). Finally, B-rank gets you Speed forme with no special move, and C-rank gives you a completely normal Normal forme. There's no limit on sending Deoxys to the mainline games either - the relevant line that the game tells you upon first completing the mission: "You can now transfer Deoxys using the Ranger Net! When you've transferred one, you can clear the mission to transfer another. You can transfer as many Deoxys as you like. But beware that you can only receive it once."
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So, you might be noticing something missing from the last post. Yes, the assist compendium in video form, where did that go? I know how I said I didn't value perfection for this, but my skills with video creation are really not up to par for a project of this scale. To keep the interval between two successive clips constant, I wasn't able to find an easy way to do so. Watching temporary drafts made me realize that it really didn't look good, the intervals were all messed up, and I didn't record any buffer space before/after the clips to make for those cool transitions, not to mention the music for all of them doesn't align properly - there's no way to isolate only the sound effects. So, sorry about that, but while it's not completely impossible for me to make the video at some point in future, it's pretty unlikely to happen at all, unless I find an easy way to make it. Honestly, it might be easier to write a script to ffmpeg everything into one video rather than breaking my head trying to use Resolve or Kdenlive. I did not have fun using those programs ;-;
Because of the disjointed nature of this mission, it will be the only one covered in this post. As always, I have not been able to work on the other missions (which kinda makes my foreshadowing fall flat, but what can you do).
Anyway, that's Deoxys done and dusted! Next post, we return to your regularly scheduled solo-run with the Dark Temple, featuring a slight difficulty spike but nothing as unfair as Magnezone's mission. I had a decent bit of fun repeating the Dark Temple multiple times as I grinded upto level 99. Hopefully it won't be too long a wait this time!
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fwiw and I don't know if this serves as motivation or not but I am interested in recording footage of these missions done solo so that it exists somewhere, I have an HDMI capture card now and plan to get a wii u to use for emulating the games, I don't know if that will be anytime soon but it is on my list of things to do
I actually have all three of Guardian Signs, a Wii U, and a capture card I could theoretically use. I also have a good time frame in place for when I could get a PC for recording (yes, even with the RAM and GPU prices). The reasons I haven’t gotten around to this are twofold. For starters, my GamePad is in pretty bad condition right now, and while I can fix it I still need to find a replacement battery and possibly take a look for any stick drift that might be present. The second and more annoying problem is, of course, the PC market, since the way I want to do this (if possible I’d like to play all three games and Mystery Dungeon too) requires I have something that can actually record Wii U footage and I can tell you right now my crummy ahh MacBook from college isn’t doing that
(For context it can’t even run Steam without overheating)If and when I can get these figured out in 2026, and if you have other questions about this game I would be happy to help you out. Consider it my gratitude.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to this thread again! Perhaps this post is a bit quicker than you expected? Like I mentioned in the last post, I am aiming to wrap this series up as soon as I can. Without further ado, welcome back to hell!
Stage variations:
- Swampert can be replaced by Venusaur.
- Heracross can be replaced by Stantler.
...huh, that's the least non-zero variations so far, isn't it? Surprising, to be sure, but it definitely makes routing easier.
Map:
Note:
While the map legend stays the same as always, it's important to note that for the Dark Temple, I will not be denoting solo-inaccessible tiles with gray, as that's now the ambient tile color. When applicable, these tiles will be given a dark purple color instead; however no such tiles appear in the missions featured in here.
If you've played Scarlet or Violet, this mission might give you some deja vu - because it's Brassius' gym test all over again, but with half the Sunflora to find. Fortunately, the Sunflora are as easy to capture as you'd expect, but it's important to note that from here on out, a lot of HP pools will see a notable increase making captures a good bit harder. Fortunately, this is the last such spike in HP, and the last few missions will only see steady increases, for the most part.
As you enter the map and head forth, you will see a switch. Step on it to activate and reveal the hidden Sunflora. Like the Mime Jr. mission, the Sunflora here will be hidden below certain switches. Head forth and you will see a fork in the road. If you are playing solo, you must head right. The path there will be obstructed by 2 Combee, one of whom moves back and forth in the narrow corridor, and another who fires Gusts at you. They're not too hard to avoid, but this serves as practice for avoiding them later on. Do note that Combee is an extremely easy capture that awards you with 10 AP. If you want to grind up to a high level at some point, Combee are going to be the lowest risk option. That being said, if you want to clear this mission with a high rank, avoid as many as you can, as the time spent capturing them will add up. This room also features a Venusaur, who you might remember from the last post featuring the Odd Temple. Make sure to avoid it if you can, because while it is not particularly difficult to capture, its large HP pool will expend time faster than you'd prefer.
Anyway, you might have already figured out from the floor layout that this mission, like Magnezone's, significantly rewards co-op play. Fortunately, it's nowhere near as bad, but it does necessitate a specific path to be taken as a solo player. After capturing the first Sunflora, head right. through the teleporter to the new room. You might notice that the path to the left is still split off - don't worry about it just yet. Keep heading north in this room, but make sure to stop at the small crevice at the right to get a time powerup, all while dodging the Combees' Gust attacks. This can be particularly tricky if you're frozen in place while the target clear animation progresses, so try to force them to attack, move out of range, and then target clear. After getting the powerup, head north to the new chamber.
Here, you will see some battery powerups to your right. It's still reasonably early in this stage, so you shouldn't need them yet, but they're there if you do. This room has the most Combee compared to all others in this mission, and they can certainly be quite tricky to avoid! You've also got a defense powerup as well as 60 more seconds to collect, scattered across the Combees' path, so they're well worth taking the risk to collect. Do note that given the Combees' positions, an attack from one may combo into another attack, knocking you a hefty distance behind, or may force you into a capture with one! It may be worth taking the time to capture one or two Combee by running into them, so that you have more wiggle room with the remaining ones. After you're done, keep heading north into the new chamber.
In this new chamber, you have a few things to do. Ignore the first switch you see in this room, as it has two hidden Combee under it. Head slightly north, do not advance past the Combee just yet and step on the switch here to reveal a Sunflora. Catch it, then head left and trigger the leftmost switch. This will create a platform connecting the left and right sides of the stage. This platform is the reason you had to start with the right side all the way at the initial fork - if you headed left at the start instead, you would well and truly be rendered unable to progress without backtracking all the way. Head to the left side of the stage, and you will see two switches in front of you. Step on the northern one to reveal another Sunflora, which you should catch. Now, if you're willing to take some risks for time, you'll be spending some more time on the left side of this stage. Head slightly north until you see a Swampert/Venusaur, and try to sneak past it into the left crevice. This has a 60 second time powerup, and after collecting it, head back to where you got your last Sunflora. It's possible to escape capture with the Swampert/Venusaur here, but is quite difficult given that it will chase you on sight.
Head through the bottom-left portal (yes, this does mean we're going backwards). Keep heading backwards until you see another small crevice on your left, dodging the starters you see on your path; these are slightly easier to dodge. Here, you can find 30 more seconds, which, if you evaded any captures during this backtracking, will give you a net profit on time. However, if you're not confident with escaping them, don't backtrack here for the time powerup. Once you have this, head back the route you came, and go back to the right side of the stage - it's imperative you do not stay on the left side. Now, head north through the final line of Combee to see another Sunflora switch. Step on it, catch it, and head north again.
Now, you'll find yourself in an eerily empty room. Activate the switch here and keep proceeding north to a large horizontal area with two switches. The switch on the left contains the final Sunflora, catch it, and you're ready to face the boss...but that being said, why did I recommend you not stay on the left path? While yes, you can indeed reach this final room from there, and you won't find more Swampert/Venusaur chasing you, you end up with someone arguably worse - Heracross (or Stantler)! The switch to the final platform is guarded by two of them who will charge at you on sight, and they are very, very difficult to avoid. Speaking of Heracross/Stantler, they're also on the final platform's right switch, so avoid that. Anyway, once you're ready, make a beeline for the bees, and beelieve in yourself, for the conclusion to your upcoming fight is not forbeegone.
Side note: I'm very confused why the Combee are arranged in this manner for this mission. It would make sense to switch to the left platform midway to avoid a full barrage of Combee (which was in the Defense powerup room), at the risk of being forced into 2 Heracross captures, basically weighing your risks. But the way the stage is setup currently, there's no reason to stick to the left side of this stage after getting the Sunflora or the time powerups. Curious indeed.
Vespiquen:
!: Vespiquen launches Fell Stingers in a singular blast of 10. Vespiquen does not move. No loop.
!!: Vespiquen launches Fell Stingers in multiple batches; it will launch ~8 in its first barrage, pause for about 0.3 seconds, take a curved turn, launch ~6 stingers as it keeps curving, pause for about 0.3 seconds, take a curved turn and launches a final ~5. keep moving in a circular motion when using this. It is very hard if not impossible to draw a loop around this, and you will likely only be able to do so during the 0.3 second pauses.
!!!: Three large whirlwinds are launched in Vespiquen's facing direction. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!!: Vespiquen uses Toxic which causes medium sized poison bubbles to erupt at random areas om the stage. Each bubble lingers for about 2 seconds before being replaced by another. Vespiquen will draw up around 6 bubbles, one after another. It is possible to draw a loop around this. This attack will only be used after agitation and can combo into random attacks. However, it is important to note that Vespiqen does not move as long as Toxic bubbles are being spawned on the field - if it uses !! in tandem, it will only turn around and not move.
Partner choice:
This fight can be extremely frustrating, especially on early attempts. Vespiquen has gone to the same school as Empoleon, in the sense that neither's speed stat reflects how fast they move; and so she has a tendency to move around surprisingly quickly. Blitzing out loops becomes surprisingly hard without any assistance, and for this reason, I would prioritize a secondary effect over type effectiveness. You're still probably not at the point of having lots of AP to max out an arbitrary Pokemon yet, so stick with Piplup for this one. While the damage it inflicts has fallen off by this point, you're using it for a relatively quick execution, as well as its potent slowing effect. My suggestion is to return here much later with a partner that absolutely shatters this boss fight if you've got quick reaction time, and is also my pick for #1 assist - and that's Gengar. While Gengar's pausing effect is not as powerful as Piplup's slowing in this fight, with good timing, you can effectively cause Vespiquen to whiff a Toxic, thus leaving it vulnerable to being chain looped. Both Froslass and Lucario have an absolutely miserable time here, don't bring them at all. More unconventional picks here would be Electric types, for a Gengar-esque effect of pausing, like Luxray, but they won't inflict very much damage.
As for type matchups, there are essentially none that also inflict a secondary effect across Fire or Flying, and in fact Fire has an awful matchup into this mission, given Vespiquen's aggressive attack patterns. Typhlosion has some potential for heavy damage if you time its assist as Vespiquen uses Toxic (which as you may remember, leaves it immobile), but you will not have any chances to use its assist otherwise, so I don't recommend it. You can definitely get use out of Rock however, as some assists of it have quick usage time. Rock does also have one assist type that inflicts Tired (Tyranitar/Cranidos/Rampardos), but its usefulness is situational. High damage is inflicted no doubt, but the tired secondary effect is not exactly doing much in this fight. While Vespiquen's regeneration speed is normal, and its movement speed is high, you will almost always have the opportunity to quickly loop it once or twice to prevent it from regaining too much health.
How easy to clear/S-rank?
Well, there's a good bit of struggle here, especially attempting this early on, around the time it's newly unlocked. The hardest part here is trying to get the time powerups on the left side of the stage without being forced into Swampert/Venusaur captures, because those will eat up quite a bit of time. It's worth getting the one closer to the third switch-Sunflora at least, because that one will guarantee you a time profit if you're forced into capture with the starter guarding it - the same cannot be said for the other one. The Combee will also expend a good bit of time if you're not careful - if you take too much damage from their attacks and forget to pick up any battery refills before Vespiquen, you stand a real chance of running out of battery in the fight against it. I very much recommend you clear this early on, even a C-rank is adequate, and returning much later when you've got many more styler levels and upgraded partners under your belt to effectively brute force some of the difficulty this fight presents. Gengar is one of the best tools in S-ranking this mission, so returning here with a maxed out Gengar makes this task much easier; you can use Gastly or Haunter if you can't get Gengar, but obviously they'll deal less damage.
Another notable thing about this mission is how it stacks up for AP grinding. The Combee themselves award 10 AP apiece, which is quite high for their ease of capture. While you're now at the point where ranks will typically award more than solo captures, it's important to consider the ease of them - you can blitz out a few Combee captures with relative ease, without having to think about where you're going (like in the Electivire mission). So what I'm saying is, if you need a few AP to level up your styler or upgrade a partner, play this mission, and when you have the AP you need, deliberately game over against a Sunflora (who is one of the quicker targets to do so against). This will cause you to keep any AP you earned in that grind session, and is far quicker than having to fight Vespiquen again.
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- Houndoom can be replaced by Absol.
- Shelgon can be replaced by Espeon.
- Croconaw can be replaced by Bayleef.
Map:
I find the layout of this mission quite charming, as it feels unlike anything before and after it. In fact, I think the Dark Temple is where the mission layouts are generally a lot more fun to explore!
One thing you might notice as you start the mission is the time, or lack thereof. With only 2 and a half minutes, you might think this mission is a mad dash to the finish, but that's not entirely accurate, as there's plenty of time to be found throughout the stage. Another thing you might notice is that the exit portal is visible from where you start! Perhaps this is the only mission for which this happens? Anyway, your starting chamber is small, but make sure to go around all of it, collecting the 4 time extensions you see for a total of 120 seconds, then head into the teleporter.
The next room has a pretty unusual layout, but is effectively what you saw in the Combee mission on steroids. You've got to step on the switch you see in front of you to open a path to progress. However, the switch is guarded by two Shelgon, who spare no expense in rolling after you, inflicting damage and/or forcing you into capture. You could also run into Espeon instead of Shelgon, who are easier in some ways, and harder in others. Both species are agitated, and will attack you on sight; while Shelgon physically charges towards you, Espeon launches a psychic orb towards you - very similar to Combee's Gust. However, while this would give the impression that Espeon is a more desirable spawn for this level, Espeon's movement speed seems slightly higher than Shelgon's, which comes into play a little later.
Again, neither of Shelgon/Espeon is a particularly exactly difficult captures, but when you don't have much time to start with, every bit of time saved will count. You will need to repeat this process twice, stepping on two switches. When you cross the second platform, a fifth Shelgon/Espeon will barrel towards you very quickly - if you aren't aware that it's coming, you may well walk into its path and be forced into another capture. Try to incline your player towards either the left or right side, moving diagonally, and avoid the center if you can. The end of this chamber features a teleporter guarded by yet another Pokemon, but don't go in just yet. Make sure to take the trek along both left and right arms in this chamber to collect the time powerups at each end. Do note that along this path, you'll find multiple Espeon (or even more Shelgon) blocking the way, and due to how narrow the path is, you may be forced to wait a while for them to change direction, or for them to walk far enough away such that upon seeing you, they won't catch you. With the additional downtime provided by the target clear animation, this is quite difficult, but doubtlessly possible. A funny thing you can observe if you have the Espeon variant is that you can get two Espeon to overlap completely as they chase you (if they charge into a corner area, and don't have much space to turn.)
When you head north after getting the time powerups, you will now be in a large room. As you head north, you will see multiple chests with time and battery powerups. Do keep in mind that these are essentially a breadcrumb bait - while the powerups themselves are useful, what awaits you at the end of them is an Absol or Houndoom that will chase you, and is monstrously difficult to catch. So much so that...
Miniboss spotlight:
Houndoom:
!: Houndoom uses Flamethrower, launching a barrage of small flames in the direction it's facing.
!!: Houndoom uses Dark Pulse, bringing up puddles of dark energy at random points on the field. These fade extremely quickly, but they can overlap with each other and cover a very large effective area. It is impossible to predict where this attack will land, but the corners of the capture arena seem relatively safer.
!!!: Houndoom uses Inferno, launching an arcing fireball that erupts into a column of fire upon hitting the ground. This column will persist for about 9 seconds. While Houndoom is launching this attack, it stays still for a couple of seconds, giving you a good chance to blitz out a few loops.
Absol:
!: Absol launches a flurry of dark blades that spread outwards in a semicircular arc.
!!: Absol launches a flurry of dark blades in the same arc as !, but the blades will converge back towards Absol's position after travelling halfway across the screen, as well as moving more slowly.
!!!: Identical to Houndoom's Dark Pulse.
Houndoom's attacks also inflict a large amount of damage - 10 for Flamethrower, 8 for Dark Pulse and Inferno! Absol's no slouch either, dealing 10 with Dark Blades and 8 with Dark Pulse as well! Be careful of this, because you will encounter multiple of them all throughout this stage, and they will chase you relentlessly. It is entirely possible you will run out of energy if you fight them too often, especially when attempting this mission initially.
Houndoom's biggest issue here is Dark Pulse. This move can snipe your assist user before you know what to expect, so it is absolutely imperative you don't use your assist during it. Houndoom also moves around the field pretty quickly, and will also get agitated after losing about 60% HP, which is the reason you're likely to have an assist-user out often. However, Absol does not get agitated, making it a sligtly better Pokemon to encounter.
After dodging or capturing the Houndoom/Absol, keep heading west. This time, based on your stage layout, there will be a slight difference - if you see Houndoom, then there are even more time powerups to collect, for a total of 90 seconds. However, they're guarded by a Honchkrow this time. It is very unlikly you'll be able to get all three powerups without being forced into a capture with Honchkrow. You know what that means, time for yet another miniboss spotlight!
Honchkrow:
!: Honchkrow launches 3 dark blades in the direction it's facing. These travel at a medium speed and do not change direction.
!!: This is identical to Houndoom's Dark Pulse.
!!!: Identical to the above.
Remember what I said was Houndoom's biggest problem? Welcome to even more of that. To compensate for spamming Dark Pulse, Honchkrow does not get agitated, making it a far easier capture - because even if your assist user is hit by Dark Pulse, you can still blitz out loops and close out the capture in a reasonable amount of time.
As you'd expect from its amazing base speed of 71, Honchkrow has the capacity to fly around the arena slightly faster than Houndoom, with a base speed of 95. Conversely, it tends to stay still more often than Houndoom. Still, it is ideal to avoid Honchkrow if you can. Remember, you can't run from any captures in the past!
You might notice something very surprising here - five of the Murkrow that you need to capture for the mission objective are right here, and they don't run from you either! Of course, a Honchkrow is waiting behind them, but as long as you approach Murkrow from the front, taking care to avoid the big bird, you will avoid it - this second one is much easier to dodge. As for the Murkrow, they will also walk up to you when you're close enough, which further increases your distance from Honchkrow - the small birds are easy captures as well, yay! Grab all five of them (..wasn't the mission goal to catch six of them? We'll get there.), keep heading southwest to the next teleporter. But before we proceed, there's something else to talk about with regard to stage variations.
If you saw Absol in this room instead of Houndoom, then the positions of Murkrow/Honchkrow and their associated powerups will be switched - this means that after encountering Absol in this room and heading west, you will see Murkrow + Honchkrow, and no time powerups. In this case, when you head south, you will find a lone Honchkrow with the aforementioned powerups, and it is easier to collect all 3 powerups in this variant without being forced into a Honchkrow capture.
Regardless of whatever variant you get, both of them have an attack powerup near the right corner of the final sub-room here. Make sure to grab it - and if you've rolled the Absol variant, do get the powerup before capturing the 5 Murkrow! At a lower level, this will make a notable difference.
Now, head into that teleporter, and you'll end up in a + shaped room, at the north end. This one gives very slight deja vu of the Electivire mission, but this is actually a different room. The west and east and right chambers of this room are guarded by Croconaw/Bayleef, who are easy captures, albeit with an oddly high amount of HP, but as always a bit annoying to avoid entirely. Go to the west room first to get a speed powerup (you'll need it) and another 60 seconds of time. Now, head to the east chamber to find the last Murkrow - however this one will run from you.
And when I say run, this bird will absolutely run from you as if it was a Ninjask in a past life. Perhaps this specific Murkrow is who Empoleon, Vespiquen and all the slow Pokemon have been learning speed from - because I believe it to be the fastest Pokemon entirely in the entire past missions - and if it's not, it's at worst tying with the inglorious Togekiss from the Light Temple; who you can actually chase down without a speed powerup. If it wasn't for the fact that Murkrow does not leave this small east chamber and follows a very simple square path, you would not be able to capture it, I'm pretty sure. Fortunately, being a human means that you can use diagonal movements to snipe this Murkrow at the midpoints of each line with a reasonable amount of effort - but trying this without the speed powerup makes it nigh impossible. Of course, once you engage it in battle, it's exactly like all the other Murkrow you fought before. Still, a very notable presence that can absolutely guzzle down your time if you're unable to force an encounter with it easily. With all Murkrow captured, head down - but make absolutely damn sure you're not in the center, and always are looking at the bottom of the screen! There's one more Houndoom/Absol lying in wait for you, and once it sees you, it will pounce. It's highly unlikely you will escape this encounter, I've managed it once but cannot replicate this success reliably. Once you're done with this, head through the teleporter at the bottom to head to yet another chamber.
Now, you might recognize this chamber, and that's because you're on the opposite end of the starting room! This room is filled with a few more Houndoom/Absol, as well as Honchkrow that fire large Twisters at you, instead of chasing you themselves. It's pretty difficult to outrun the Houndoom/Absol, so try to hug the room's outer edge as far as possible to have a greater chance of escape. When you enter this room, head right to grab the speed powerup. That's correct - do not take the shortest route to the red teleporter via the left. Head to the bottom-right corner and take the teleporter to reach a new small room. This has a few chests 40 battery and 90 seconds to claim. However, these chests are guarded by a Twister Honchkrow as well as a Croconaw/Bayleef. It's extremely difficult to get both powerups without taking some damage from their attacks, or being forced into a capture, so it's desirable to prefer the 90 seconds if you are confident about claiming only one. When you're done here, hug the south edge of the large room, and try to avoid the last Houndoom/Absol in your path, and step into the red teleporter to come face to face with your next boss, who is definitely a dark type, yep, totally. No doubt about it, after all, the hardest captures in here were all Dark type, right?
Gliscor:
!: Gliscor uses Slash, cleaving the area in front of it. Very often but not always, this move will be accompanied by an untelegraphed launching of eight dark blades directly behind it, which boomerang back towards Gliscor's front. Like !!!!, these cover nearly all the distance to the edge of the screen. They also grow in size the more time that they are on screen.
!!: Gliscor raises up rocks around it. This will take the form of 6 rock pillars surrounding it in the form of a hexagon at short range, a hexagon with rocks slightly further apart, or raise up 3 lines of rocks in the direction it's facing (like Tyranitar, but the rocks are still small), or dispersing the rocks in 4 lines, of a 4-3-4-3 pattern across the entire battlefield. It is impossible to draw a loop around all variants besides the close-range hexagon. All variants will fade quickly, after about 2 seconds.
!!!!: Gliscor launches eight dark blades directly behind it. However these act like boomerangs and they will actually loop back towards Gliscor's front. These blades have extremely high range, and cover nearly all the distance to the edge of the screen. They also grow in size the more time that they are on screen.
After agitation, Gliscor will quickly fly across the screen in multiple directions in quick succession, and this will often be untelegraphed. It's possible to draw a loop around it in this state, as you can feasibly track its movement.
Gliscor is particularly poised to strike your assist users thanks to its dark blades having positively ludicrous range, no matter where it uses the attack. It's quite difficult to ensure that they aren't hit by an incoming attack. For this mission, you want to prioritize assist users that have a reasonable chance of staying out of range, either by virtue of short assist time, or a secondary effect that ensures they provide some value even if hit by an attack. So, for example, Typhlosion is one of the absolute worst Pokemon you can bring to this mission.
A good aspect to Gliscor is that it will often stay still for a second or so at various points in the fight. As such, having an assist with the Tired secondary effect is not as useful, since you can usually jam in a loop to prevent regeneration.
Partner choice:
Okay, strategies, partner choice. Gliscor is thankfully not very fast, but Piplup sees its last hurrah in this mission, as it's the absolute last time you will get any use out of it, with the good type matchup helping to patch up the low damage, and the slowing effect being useful as always. Gengar, Frosslass and Lucario all struggle with this mission for multiple reasons, but some have their merits; while Gengar deals great damage, and can let you chain blitz very effectively, it's difficult to time its pausing effect just right, given how often Gliscor uses untelegraphed attacks. Frosslass has potential to deal heavy damage here thanks to the type matchup, but you will often be restricted to using it during only the !! attack, which doesn't last very long to begin with - so if you're looking for an Ice assist, use Glaceon or Abomasnow instead, as they will heavily punish a moving Gliscor with their Icicle spikes. Lucario...well, I think you already know why it's an abyssmal fit here. Not only will Gliscor move out of its range reasonably often, it's pretty likely to be in dark blade range no matter where you place it.
What about other good type matchups? Grass assists have an absolutely miserable time here - because they either inflict bad damage, have range that does not suit Gliscor's movement patterns, or simply stay on the field too long, don't use any of them here. Some more water assists like Wingull will work, as their assist convers a large area, providing a useful slowing effect, while also limiting the time they spend on the field, but their damage leaves a lot to be desired. As for Ice, Glaceon or Abomasnow put up a decent showing here, so if you're not using Piplup, use one of them, as even if they're hit by an attack from Gliscor, using them well will inflict gargantuan amounts of damage; do note that Gliscor needs to be moving to take the most damage from their assists.
How easy is this to clear/S-rank?
Gliscor itself is not that bad of a boss, it's about the expected level of difficulty for how far into the missions you are - but make no mistake, it is very much a challenge. The biggest pain of course, are the Houndoom or Absol. They will chase you like a pursuit predator, and have no hesitation in dealing decisive blows to both your time and styler energy. It's extremely difficult to avoid them consistently, but if you're able to stick to the walls of the room and use diagonal movements, you may escape. Besides them, there's not much to worry about here. While Shelgon or Espeon can force you into multiple battles, they are not particularly difficult captures. In fact, due to all the bonus time scattered around this stage, it's very likely you will end up with an A rank if you don't have too bad of an experience with Houndoom/Absol on your first attempt. An S rank is also very doable early on, but you will need to become adept at dodging them.
When is the next post coming, I hear you ask? Well, there's good news. Even though I haven't worked on the last two Dark Temple missions much, outside of my very basic notes from months ago, the Light Temple's writeup is about 60% done - albeit missing the map and a few more strategies. It is surprisingly long, but I don't think it's topping the assist compendium in length, so far at least. Essentially, expect the wait time to not be multiple months like before for the remaining two posts. As always, I hope you look forward to it! ...man, I'm only going to be able to say that once more, huh?
That being said, since I'm in the process of wrapping this up, if there are any specific aspects you want me to cover about the past missions in terms of other mechanics or oddities, do let me know! This may be the last chance to make any such requests.
Dark Temple: The fifth circle of hell
Mission 19: A Fork in the Dark Road
Objective: Capture 5 Sunflora
Boss: Vespiquen
Mission 19: A Fork in the Dark Road
Objective: Capture 5 Sunflora
Boss: Vespiquen
Stage variations:
- Swampert can be replaced by Venusaur.
- Heracross can be replaced by Stantler.
...huh, that's the least non-zero variations so far, isn't it? Surprising, to be sure, but it definitely makes routing easier.
Map:
Note:
While the map legend stays the same as always, it's important to note that for the Dark Temple, I will not be denoting solo-inaccessible tiles with gray, as that's now the ambient tile color. When applicable, these tiles will be given a dark purple color instead; however no such tiles appear in the missions featured in here.
If you've played Scarlet or Violet, this mission might give you some deja vu - because it's Brassius' gym test all over again, but with half the Sunflora to find. Fortunately, the Sunflora are as easy to capture as you'd expect, but it's important to note that from here on out, a lot of HP pools will see a notable increase making captures a good bit harder. Fortunately, this is the last such spike in HP, and the last few missions will only see steady increases, for the most part.
As you enter the map and head forth, you will see a switch. Step on it to activate and reveal the hidden Sunflora. Like the Mime Jr. mission, the Sunflora here will be hidden below certain switches. Head forth and you will see a fork in the road. If you are playing solo, you must head right. The path there will be obstructed by 2 Combee, one of whom moves back and forth in the narrow corridor, and another who fires Gusts at you. They're not too hard to avoid, but this serves as practice for avoiding them later on. Do note that Combee is an extremely easy capture that awards you with 10 AP. If you want to grind up to a high level at some point, Combee are going to be the lowest risk option. That being said, if you want to clear this mission with a high rank, avoid as many as you can, as the time spent capturing them will add up. This room also features a Venusaur, who you might remember from the last post featuring the Odd Temple. Make sure to avoid it if you can, because while it is not particularly difficult to capture, its large HP pool will expend time faster than you'd prefer.
Anyway, you might have already figured out from the floor layout that this mission, like Magnezone's, significantly rewards co-op play. Fortunately, it's nowhere near as bad, but it does necessitate a specific path to be taken as a solo player. After capturing the first Sunflora, head right. through the teleporter to the new room. You might notice that the path to the left is still split off - don't worry about it just yet. Keep heading north in this room, but make sure to stop at the small crevice at the right to get a time powerup, all while dodging the Combees' Gust attacks. This can be particularly tricky if you're frozen in place while the target clear animation progresses, so try to force them to attack, move out of range, and then target clear. After getting the powerup, head north to the new chamber.
Here, you will see some battery powerups to your right. It's still reasonably early in this stage, so you shouldn't need them yet, but they're there if you do. This room has the most Combee compared to all others in this mission, and they can certainly be quite tricky to avoid! You've also got a defense powerup as well as 60 more seconds to collect, scattered across the Combees' path, so they're well worth taking the risk to collect. Do note that given the Combees' positions, an attack from one may combo into another attack, knocking you a hefty distance behind, or may force you into a capture with one! It may be worth taking the time to capture one or two Combee by running into them, so that you have more wiggle room with the remaining ones. After you're done, keep heading north into the new chamber.
In this new chamber, you have a few things to do. Ignore the first switch you see in this room, as it has two hidden Combee under it. Head slightly north, do not advance past the Combee just yet and step on the switch here to reveal a Sunflora. Catch it, then head left and trigger the leftmost switch. This will create a platform connecting the left and right sides of the stage. This platform is the reason you had to start with the right side all the way at the initial fork - if you headed left at the start instead, you would well and truly be rendered unable to progress without backtracking all the way. Head to the left side of the stage, and you will see two switches in front of you. Step on the northern one to reveal another Sunflora, which you should catch. Now, if you're willing to take some risks for time, you'll be spending some more time on the left side of this stage. Head slightly north until you see a Swampert/Venusaur, and try to sneak past it into the left crevice. This has a 60 second time powerup, and after collecting it, head back to where you got your last Sunflora. It's possible to escape capture with the Swampert/Venusaur here, but is quite difficult given that it will chase you on sight.
Head through the bottom-left portal (yes, this does mean we're going backwards). Keep heading backwards until you see another small crevice on your left, dodging the starters you see on your path; these are slightly easier to dodge. Here, you can find 30 more seconds, which, if you evaded any captures during this backtracking, will give you a net profit on time. However, if you're not confident with escaping them, don't backtrack here for the time powerup. Once you have this, head back the route you came, and go back to the right side of the stage - it's imperative you do not stay on the left side. Now, head north through the final line of Combee to see another Sunflora switch. Step on it, catch it, and head north again.
Now, you'll find yourself in an eerily empty room. Activate the switch here and keep proceeding north to a large horizontal area with two switches. The switch on the left contains the final Sunflora, catch it, and you're ready to face the boss...but that being said, why did I recommend you not stay on the left path? While yes, you can indeed reach this final room from there, and you won't find more Swampert/Venusaur chasing you, you end up with someone arguably worse - Heracross (or Stantler)! The switch to the final platform is guarded by two of them who will charge at you on sight, and they are very, very difficult to avoid. Speaking of Heracross/Stantler, they're also on the final platform's right switch, so avoid that. Anyway, once you're ready, make a beeline for the bees, and beelieve in yourself, for the conclusion to your upcoming fight is not forbeegone.
Side note: I'm very confused why the Combee are arranged in this manner for this mission. It would make sense to switch to the left platform midway to avoid a full barrage of Combee (which was in the Defense powerup room), at the risk of being forced into 2 Heracross captures, basically weighing your risks. But the way the stage is setup currently, there's no reason to stick to the left side of this stage after getting the Sunflora or the time powerups. Curious indeed.
Vespiquen:
!: Vespiquen launches Fell Stingers in a singular blast of 10. Vespiquen does not move. No loop.
!!: Vespiquen launches Fell Stingers in multiple batches; it will launch ~8 in its first barrage, pause for about 0.3 seconds, take a curved turn, launch ~6 stingers as it keeps curving, pause for about 0.3 seconds, take a curved turn and launches a final ~5. keep moving in a circular motion when using this. It is very hard if not impossible to draw a loop around this, and you will likely only be able to do so during the 0.3 second pauses.
!!!: Three large whirlwinds are launched in Vespiquen's facing direction. It is impossible to draw a loop around this.
!!!!: Vespiquen uses Toxic which causes medium sized poison bubbles to erupt at random areas om the stage. Each bubble lingers for about 2 seconds before being replaced by another. Vespiquen will draw up around 6 bubbles, one after another. It is possible to draw a loop around this. This attack will only be used after agitation and can combo into random attacks. However, it is important to note that Vespiqen does not move as long as Toxic bubbles are being spawned on the field - if it uses !! in tandem, it will only turn around and not move.
Partner choice:
This fight can be extremely frustrating, especially on early attempts. Vespiquen has gone to the same school as Empoleon, in the sense that neither's speed stat reflects how fast they move; and so she has a tendency to move around surprisingly quickly. Blitzing out loops becomes surprisingly hard without any assistance, and for this reason, I would prioritize a secondary effect over type effectiveness. You're still probably not at the point of having lots of AP to max out an arbitrary Pokemon yet, so stick with Piplup for this one. While the damage it inflicts has fallen off by this point, you're using it for a relatively quick execution, as well as its potent slowing effect. My suggestion is to return here much later with a partner that absolutely shatters this boss fight if you've got quick reaction time, and is also my pick for #1 assist - and that's Gengar. While Gengar's pausing effect is not as powerful as Piplup's slowing in this fight, with good timing, you can effectively cause Vespiquen to whiff a Toxic, thus leaving it vulnerable to being chain looped. Both Froslass and Lucario have an absolutely miserable time here, don't bring them at all. More unconventional picks here would be Electric types, for a Gengar-esque effect of pausing, like Luxray, but they won't inflict very much damage.
As for type matchups, there are essentially none that also inflict a secondary effect across Fire or Flying, and in fact Fire has an awful matchup into this mission, given Vespiquen's aggressive attack patterns. Typhlosion has some potential for heavy damage if you time its assist as Vespiquen uses Toxic (which as you may remember, leaves it immobile), but you will not have any chances to use its assist otherwise, so I don't recommend it. You can definitely get use out of Rock however, as some assists of it have quick usage time. Rock does also have one assist type that inflicts Tired (Tyranitar/Cranidos/Rampardos), but its usefulness is situational. High damage is inflicted no doubt, but the tired secondary effect is not exactly doing much in this fight. While Vespiquen's regeneration speed is normal, and its movement speed is high, you will almost always have the opportunity to quickly loop it once or twice to prevent it from regaining too much health.
How easy to clear/S-rank?
Well, there's a good bit of struggle here, especially attempting this early on, around the time it's newly unlocked. The hardest part here is trying to get the time powerups on the left side of the stage without being forced into Swampert/Venusaur captures, because those will eat up quite a bit of time. It's worth getting the one closer to the third switch-Sunflora at least, because that one will guarantee you a time profit if you're forced into capture with the starter guarding it - the same cannot be said for the other one. The Combee will also expend a good bit of time if you're not careful - if you take too much damage from their attacks and forget to pick up any battery refills before Vespiquen, you stand a real chance of running out of battery in the fight against it. I very much recommend you clear this early on, even a C-rank is adequate, and returning much later when you've got many more styler levels and upgraded partners under your belt to effectively brute force some of the difficulty this fight presents. Gengar is one of the best tools in S-ranking this mission, so returning here with a maxed out Gengar makes this task much easier; you can use Gastly or Haunter if you can't get Gengar, but obviously they'll deal less damage.
Another notable thing about this mission is how it stacks up for AP grinding. The Combee themselves award 10 AP apiece, which is quite high for their ease of capture. While you're now at the point where ranks will typically award more than solo captures, it's important to consider the ease of them - you can blitz out a few Combee captures with relative ease, without having to think about where you're going (like in the Electivire mission). So what I'm saying is, if you need a few AP to level up your styler or upgrade a partner, play this mission, and when you have the AP you need, deliberately game over against a Sunflora (who is one of the quicker targets to do so against). This will cause you to keep any AP you earned in that grind session, and is far quicker than having to fight Vespiquen again.
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Mission 20: Danger! Surrounded by Pokemon!
Objective: Capture 6 Murkrow
Boss: Gliscor
Stage variations: Objective: Capture 6 Murkrow
Boss: Gliscor
- Houndoom can be replaced by Absol.
- Shelgon can be replaced by Espeon.
- Croconaw can be replaced by Bayleef.
Map:
I find the layout of this mission quite charming, as it feels unlike anything before and after it. In fact, I think the Dark Temple is where the mission layouts are generally a lot more fun to explore!
One thing you might notice as you start the mission is the time, or lack thereof. With only 2 and a half minutes, you might think this mission is a mad dash to the finish, but that's not entirely accurate, as there's plenty of time to be found throughout the stage. Another thing you might notice is that the exit portal is visible from where you start! Perhaps this is the only mission for which this happens? Anyway, your starting chamber is small, but make sure to go around all of it, collecting the 4 time extensions you see for a total of 120 seconds, then head into the teleporter.
The next room has a pretty unusual layout, but is effectively what you saw in the Combee mission on steroids. You've got to step on the switch you see in front of you to open a path to progress. However, the switch is guarded by two Shelgon, who spare no expense in rolling after you, inflicting damage and/or forcing you into capture. You could also run into Espeon instead of Shelgon, who are easier in some ways, and harder in others. Both species are agitated, and will attack you on sight; while Shelgon physically charges towards you, Espeon launches a psychic orb towards you - very similar to Combee's Gust. However, while this would give the impression that Espeon is a more desirable spawn for this level, Espeon's movement speed seems slightly higher than Shelgon's, which comes into play a little later.
Again, neither of Shelgon/Espeon is a particularly exactly difficult captures, but when you don't have much time to start with, every bit of time saved will count. You will need to repeat this process twice, stepping on two switches. When you cross the second platform, a fifth Shelgon/Espeon will barrel towards you very quickly - if you aren't aware that it's coming, you may well walk into its path and be forced into another capture. Try to incline your player towards either the left or right side, moving diagonally, and avoid the center if you can. The end of this chamber features a teleporter guarded by yet another Pokemon, but don't go in just yet. Make sure to take the trek along both left and right arms in this chamber to collect the time powerups at each end. Do note that along this path, you'll find multiple Espeon (or even more Shelgon) blocking the way, and due to how narrow the path is, you may be forced to wait a while for them to change direction, or for them to walk far enough away such that upon seeing you, they won't catch you. With the additional downtime provided by the target clear animation, this is quite difficult, but doubtlessly possible. A funny thing you can observe if you have the Espeon variant is that you can get two Espeon to overlap completely as they chase you (if they charge into a corner area, and don't have much space to turn.)
When you head north after getting the time powerups, you will now be in a large room. As you head north, you will see multiple chests with time and battery powerups. Do keep in mind that these are essentially a breadcrumb bait - while the powerups themselves are useful, what awaits you at the end of them is an Absol or Houndoom that will chase you, and is monstrously difficult to catch. So much so that...
Miniboss spotlight:
Houndoom:
!: Houndoom uses Flamethrower, launching a barrage of small flames in the direction it's facing.
!!: Houndoom uses Dark Pulse, bringing up puddles of dark energy at random points on the field. These fade extremely quickly, but they can overlap with each other and cover a very large effective area. It is impossible to predict where this attack will land, but the corners of the capture arena seem relatively safer.
!!!: Houndoom uses Inferno, launching an arcing fireball that erupts into a column of fire upon hitting the ground. This column will persist for about 9 seconds. While Houndoom is launching this attack, it stays still for a couple of seconds, giving you a good chance to blitz out a few loops.
Absol:
!: Absol launches a flurry of dark blades that spread outwards in a semicircular arc.
!!: Absol launches a flurry of dark blades in the same arc as !, but the blades will converge back towards Absol's position after travelling halfway across the screen, as well as moving more slowly.
!!!: Identical to Houndoom's Dark Pulse.
Houndoom's attacks also inflict a large amount of damage - 10 for Flamethrower, 8 for Dark Pulse and Inferno! Absol's no slouch either, dealing 10 with Dark Blades and 8 with Dark Pulse as well! Be careful of this, because you will encounter multiple of them all throughout this stage, and they will chase you relentlessly. It is entirely possible you will run out of energy if you fight them too often, especially when attempting this mission initially.
Houndoom's biggest issue here is Dark Pulse. This move can snipe your assist user before you know what to expect, so it is absolutely imperative you don't use your assist during it. Houndoom also moves around the field pretty quickly, and will also get agitated after losing about 60% HP, which is the reason you're likely to have an assist-user out often. However, Absol does not get agitated, making it a sligtly better Pokemon to encounter.
After dodging or capturing the Houndoom/Absol, keep heading west. This time, based on your stage layout, there will be a slight difference - if you see Houndoom, then there are even more time powerups to collect, for a total of 90 seconds. However, they're guarded by a Honchkrow this time. It is very unlikly you'll be able to get all three powerups without being forced into a capture with Honchkrow. You know what that means, time for yet another miniboss spotlight!
Honchkrow:
!: Honchkrow launches 3 dark blades in the direction it's facing. These travel at a medium speed and do not change direction.
!!: This is identical to Houndoom's Dark Pulse.
!!!: Identical to the above.
Remember what I said was Houndoom's biggest problem? Welcome to even more of that. To compensate for spamming Dark Pulse, Honchkrow does not get agitated, making it a far easier capture - because even if your assist user is hit by Dark Pulse, you can still blitz out loops and close out the capture in a reasonable amount of time.
As you'd expect from its amazing base speed of 71, Honchkrow has the capacity to fly around the arena slightly faster than Houndoom, with a base speed of 95. Conversely, it tends to stay still more often than Houndoom. Still, it is ideal to avoid Honchkrow if you can. Remember, you can't run from any captures in the past!
You might notice something very surprising here - five of the Murkrow that you need to capture for the mission objective are right here, and they don't run from you either! Of course, a Honchkrow is waiting behind them, but as long as you approach Murkrow from the front, taking care to avoid the big bird, you will avoid it - this second one is much easier to dodge. As for the Murkrow, they will also walk up to you when you're close enough, which further increases your distance from Honchkrow - the small birds are easy captures as well, yay! Grab all five of them (..wasn't the mission goal to catch six of them? We'll get there.), keep heading southwest to the next teleporter. But before we proceed, there's something else to talk about with regard to stage variations.
If you saw Absol in this room instead of Houndoom, then the positions of Murkrow/Honchkrow and their associated powerups will be switched - this means that after encountering Absol in this room and heading west, you will see Murkrow + Honchkrow, and no time powerups. In this case, when you head south, you will find a lone Honchkrow with the aforementioned powerups, and it is easier to collect all 3 powerups in this variant without being forced into a Honchkrow capture.
Regardless of whatever variant you get, both of them have an attack powerup near the right corner of the final sub-room here. Make sure to grab it - and if you've rolled the Absol variant, do get the powerup before capturing the 5 Murkrow! At a lower level, this will make a notable difference.
Now, head into that teleporter, and you'll end up in a + shaped room, at the north end. This one gives very slight deja vu of the Electivire mission, but this is actually a different room. The west and east and right chambers of this room are guarded by Croconaw/Bayleef, who are easy captures, albeit with an oddly high amount of HP, but as always a bit annoying to avoid entirely. Go to the west room first to get a speed powerup (you'll need it) and another 60 seconds of time. Now, head to the east chamber to find the last Murkrow - however this one will run from you.
And when I say run, this bird will absolutely run from you as if it was a Ninjask in a past life. Perhaps this specific Murkrow is who Empoleon, Vespiquen and all the slow Pokemon have been learning speed from - because I believe it to be the fastest Pokemon entirely in the entire past missions - and if it's not, it's at worst tying with the inglorious Togekiss from the Light Temple; who you can actually chase down without a speed powerup. If it wasn't for the fact that Murkrow does not leave this small east chamber and follows a very simple square path, you would not be able to capture it, I'm pretty sure. Fortunately, being a human means that you can use diagonal movements to snipe this Murkrow at the midpoints of each line with a reasonable amount of effort - but trying this without the speed powerup makes it nigh impossible. Of course, once you engage it in battle, it's exactly like all the other Murkrow you fought before. Still, a very notable presence that can absolutely guzzle down your time if you're unable to force an encounter with it easily. With all Murkrow captured, head down - but make absolutely damn sure you're not in the center, and always are looking at the bottom of the screen! There's one more Houndoom/Absol lying in wait for you, and once it sees you, it will pounce. It's highly unlikely you will escape this encounter, I've managed it once but cannot replicate this success reliably. Once you're done with this, head through the teleporter at the bottom to head to yet another chamber.
Now, you might recognize this chamber, and that's because you're on the opposite end of the starting room! This room is filled with a few more Houndoom/Absol, as well as Honchkrow that fire large Twisters at you, instead of chasing you themselves. It's pretty difficult to outrun the Houndoom/Absol, so try to hug the room's outer edge as far as possible to have a greater chance of escape. When you enter this room, head right to grab the speed powerup. That's correct - do not take the shortest route to the red teleporter via the left. Head to the bottom-right corner and take the teleporter to reach a new small room. This has a few chests 40 battery and 90 seconds to claim. However, these chests are guarded by a Twister Honchkrow as well as a Croconaw/Bayleef. It's extremely difficult to get both powerups without taking some damage from their attacks, or being forced into a capture, so it's desirable to prefer the 90 seconds if you are confident about claiming only one. When you're done here, hug the south edge of the large room, and try to avoid the last Houndoom/Absol in your path, and step into the red teleporter to come face to face with your next boss, who is definitely a dark type, yep, totally. No doubt about it, after all, the hardest captures in here were all Dark type, right?
Gliscor:
!: Gliscor uses Slash, cleaving the area in front of it. Very often but not always, this move will be accompanied by an untelegraphed launching of eight dark blades directly behind it, which boomerang back towards Gliscor's front. Like !!!!, these cover nearly all the distance to the edge of the screen. They also grow in size the more time that they are on screen.
!!: Gliscor raises up rocks around it. This will take the form of 6 rock pillars surrounding it in the form of a hexagon at short range, a hexagon with rocks slightly further apart, or raise up 3 lines of rocks in the direction it's facing (like Tyranitar, but the rocks are still small), or dispersing the rocks in 4 lines, of a 4-3-4-3 pattern across the entire battlefield. It is impossible to draw a loop around all variants besides the close-range hexagon. All variants will fade quickly, after about 2 seconds.
!!!!: Gliscor launches eight dark blades directly behind it. However these act like boomerangs and they will actually loop back towards Gliscor's front. These blades have extremely high range, and cover nearly all the distance to the edge of the screen. They also grow in size the more time that they are on screen.
After agitation, Gliscor will quickly fly across the screen in multiple directions in quick succession, and this will often be untelegraphed. It's possible to draw a loop around it in this state, as you can feasibly track its movement.
Gliscor is particularly poised to strike your assist users thanks to its dark blades having positively ludicrous range, no matter where it uses the attack. It's quite difficult to ensure that they aren't hit by an incoming attack. For this mission, you want to prioritize assist users that have a reasonable chance of staying out of range, either by virtue of short assist time, or a secondary effect that ensures they provide some value even if hit by an attack. So, for example, Typhlosion is one of the absolute worst Pokemon you can bring to this mission.
A good aspect to Gliscor is that it will often stay still for a second or so at various points in the fight. As such, having an assist with the Tired secondary effect is not as useful, since you can usually jam in a loop to prevent regeneration.
Partner choice:
Okay, strategies, partner choice. Gliscor is thankfully not very fast, but Piplup sees its last hurrah in this mission, as it's the absolute last time you will get any use out of it, with the good type matchup helping to patch up the low damage, and the slowing effect being useful as always. Gengar, Frosslass and Lucario all struggle with this mission for multiple reasons, but some have their merits; while Gengar deals great damage, and can let you chain blitz very effectively, it's difficult to time its pausing effect just right, given how often Gliscor uses untelegraphed attacks. Frosslass has potential to deal heavy damage here thanks to the type matchup, but you will often be restricted to using it during only the !! attack, which doesn't last very long to begin with - so if you're looking for an Ice assist, use Glaceon or Abomasnow instead, as they will heavily punish a moving Gliscor with their Icicle spikes. Lucario...well, I think you already know why it's an abyssmal fit here. Not only will Gliscor move out of its range reasonably often, it's pretty likely to be in dark blade range no matter where you place it.
What about other good type matchups? Grass assists have an absolutely miserable time here - because they either inflict bad damage, have range that does not suit Gliscor's movement patterns, or simply stay on the field too long, don't use any of them here. Some more water assists like Wingull will work, as their assist convers a large area, providing a useful slowing effect, while also limiting the time they spend on the field, but their damage leaves a lot to be desired. As for Ice, Glaceon or Abomasnow put up a decent showing here, so if you're not using Piplup, use one of them, as even if they're hit by an attack from Gliscor, using them well will inflict gargantuan amounts of damage; do note that Gliscor needs to be moving to take the most damage from their assists.
How easy is this to clear/S-rank?
Gliscor itself is not that bad of a boss, it's about the expected level of difficulty for how far into the missions you are - but make no mistake, it is very much a challenge. The biggest pain of course, are the Houndoom or Absol. They will chase you like a pursuit predator, and have no hesitation in dealing decisive blows to both your time and styler energy. It's extremely difficult to avoid them consistently, but if you're able to stick to the walls of the room and use diagonal movements, you may escape. Besides them, there's not much to worry about here. While Shelgon or Espeon can force you into multiple battles, they are not particularly difficult captures. In fact, due to all the bonus time scattered around this stage, it's very likely you will end up with an A rank if you don't have too bad of an experience with Houndoom/Absol on your first attempt. An S rank is also very doable early on, but you will need to become adept at dodging them.
When is the next post coming, I hear you ask? Well, there's good news. Even though I haven't worked on the last two Dark Temple missions much, outside of my very basic notes from months ago, the Light Temple's writeup is about 60% done - albeit missing the map and a few more strategies. It is surprisingly long, but I don't think it's topping the assist compendium in length, so far at least. Essentially, expect the wait time to not be multiple months like before for the remaining two posts. As always, I hope you look forward to it! ...man, I'm only going to be able to say that once more, huh?
That being said, since I'm in the process of wrapping this up, if there are any specific aspects you want me to cover about the past missions in terms of other mechanics or oddities, do let me know! This may be the last chance to make any such requests.
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Good to know there's a good way to smooth out the Vespiquen fight; it was the only Dark Temple boss I didn't manage to find an easy fix for. The Gengar assist should also prove very useful for the upcoming Dusknoir fight as well.
One thing I didn't notice in your Gliscor review is trying to exploit its dark wind attack, but to summarize my earlier statements:
The dark wind can be summoned by Gliscor's ! and !!!! attacks, but the ! attack only occasionally summons it so !!!! is easier to punish. Gliscor also always summons dark wind after flying across the screen, so get your assist ready as soon as it returns to the center.
For reference, this is what the dark wind attack looks like:
Yeah, that covers the full screen. Well, almost.
This is by far the most optimal moment and position to place your Piplup assist, aka the very instant Gliscor shoots out its dark wind. This is a safe spot where the dark wind won't intersect as it loops back around, and Gliscor will not perform another action until the dark wind leaves the screen. Here, Piplup can not only unleash the full force of its assist, but can also leave the field quickly enough before Gliscor can make a second attack (as you can see from the screenshots, Gliscor is rendered immobile for ~2 seconds during each dark wind attack).
Because of this golden window of opportunity, the range of your assist doesn't actually matter much; instead you want assists that can do big damage and ideally leave the field quickly enough. Ironically, Froslass performs better here as a level 4 assist instead of a level 5 assist. Gengar honestly could also work well here since its Pausing effect can guard Gengar from follow-up attacks despite its longer duration on the field. To be honest, it looks like Gengar has play into ALL of the Dark Temple bosses since Pausing is just that busted of an effect and greatly increases safety (though Dusknoir may likely just teleport away from the full force of the assist so you'd still need to time it properly).
One thing I didn't notice in your Gliscor review is trying to exploit its dark wind attack, but to summarize my earlier statements:
The dark wind can be summoned by Gliscor's ! and !!!! attacks, but the ! attack only occasionally summons it so !!!! is easier to punish. Gliscor also always summons dark wind after flying across the screen, so get your assist ready as soon as it returns to the center.
For reference, this is what the dark wind attack looks like:
Yeah, that covers the full screen. Well, almost.
This is by far the most optimal moment and position to place your Piplup assist, aka the very instant Gliscor shoots out its dark wind. This is a safe spot where the dark wind won't intersect as it loops back around, and Gliscor will not perform another action until the dark wind leaves the screen. Here, Piplup can not only unleash the full force of its assist, but can also leave the field quickly enough before Gliscor can make a second attack (as you can see from the screenshots, Gliscor is rendered immobile for ~2 seconds during each dark wind attack).
Because of this golden window of opportunity, the range of your assist doesn't actually matter much; instead you want assists that can do big damage and ideally leave the field quickly enough. Ironically, Froslass performs better here as a level 4 assist instead of a level 5 assist. Gengar honestly could also work well here since its Pausing effect can guard Gengar from follow-up attacks despite its longer duration on the field. To be honest, it looks like Gengar has play into ALL of the Dark Temple bosses since Pausing is just that busted of an effect and greatly increases safety (though Dusknoir may likely just teleport away from the full force of the assist so you'd still need to time it properly).
Interesting! I didn't mention that part since it seemed mostly un-dodgeable to me as long as the attack was on screen. I hadn't thought to place Piplup as soon as possible, since usually it ended up in attack range, and I ended up either waiting out the attack or taking damage along the way. Having screenshots also makes it much more clear that there's a blind spot. Also it's good you reminded me about your earlier post; I'd read it way back when but forgot to look at it when writing this summary.
You're right that Gengar does indeed match up well into all the Dark Temple bosses! It's part of why I ranked it highly; but alas there's a reason it shows up so late. I tried to upgrade Froslass level 5 as soon as possible, so haven't used 4 in this fight personally, but given that it's a much quicker execution, it would indeed be a lot better suited to this fight.
You're right that Gengar does indeed match up well into all the Dark Temple bosses! It's part of why I ranked it highly; but alas there's a reason it shows up so late. I tried to upgrade Froslass level 5 as soon as possible, so haven't used 4 in this fight personally, but given that it's a much quicker execution, it would indeed be a lot better suited to this fight.
For the Vespiquen mission: Blaziken absolutely shreds it, because its 1) super effective and 2) almost covers the entire screen.
For Gliscor: My old friend Donphan proved to be a good assist
For Salamence: Shelgon will be your best bet, both for just clearing, S-ranking and grinding AP. (Funnily, Shelgon proved to be the better assist than Salamence since the lower cooldown makes up for less damage)
For Dusknoir: Absol. The pause effect will save your life.
For Gliscor: My old friend Donphan proved to be a good assist
For Salamence: Shelgon will be your best bet, both for just clearing, S-ranking and grinding AP. (Funnily, Shelgon proved to be the better assist than Salamence since the lower cooldown makes up for less damage)
For Dusknoir: Absol. The pause effect will save your life.
I see that you struggled more than I did with Feraligatr and Magnezone, so I figured I'd share what Pokemon I used for them. For Feraligatr, I used Crobat. Crobat is a nice choice because, in addition to inflicting the Tired status condition, it also continuously deals damage over a 6.5 second interval. Unless I'm mistaken, each hit from Crobat's assist resets the timer on the Tired status, so the assist duration effectively stacks with the status's duration. Crobat can also overlap its sludge puddles with Feraligatr's water puddles, allowing you to continuously damage Feraligatr as long as it hides in its water puddles. The other thing it can do is position its sludge puddles in both the center and the corner of the screen so that all of the rest positions where Feraligatr pauses during its ramming attack are on top of sludge puddles. Crobat does have difficulty avoiding being sniped by Feraligatr, but since Feraligatr only tries to snipe your Pokemon during the agitated phase, you don't need to worry about HP regeneration at that time. Using Crobat, I think I beat Feraligatr at around level...23? I think it was about 2 levels above the recommended level.
For Magnezone, I used Sandslash. I see you actually did try Sandslash retroactively. However, you used it differently than I did, and you also used it at assist level 5. Since assist level 5 costs...was it 5000 AP? Whatever it was, it was expensive, so I only used assist level 4. This is basically the same except you only get 3 mud puddles rather than 5.
According to your analysis, you tried to use Sandslash when the opponent was moving so that you could maximize the number of mud puddles they moved over. Since I was only at assist level 4, that was not viable, and I'm not sure whether that is even the better way to use it at level 5 anyway. What I did was use it when the opponent was stationary. I did this because I noticed that each mud puddle dealt damage continuously, not just once. Consequently, I figured it was more important to maximize the time spent on mud puddles rather than the number of them that the opponent crossed over. When used in this manner, every assist level hits the same number of times and has the same duration, making assist level mostly irrelevant (level 3 still matters because it increases range). Sandslash's assist hits 6 times, and at power level 5, it has 336 power. With type matchup included, that comes out to over 3000 damage. It also has a 6.5 second duration, which is bad for DPS but good for preventing HP regeneration. The fact that most of its DPS comes from high power rather than low cooldown also means that it costs less of your styler's DPS to deploy it than it otherwise would.
Sandslash has a great matchup against both Magnezone and the Bronzongs that you encounter during that mission because they both idle for extended periods of time during their attack patterns. This presents an excellent opportunity to deal continuous damage to them with Sandslash. Magnezone, in particular, has a Discharge attack that is normally annoying without Sandslash but becomes an opportunity for free damage with Sandslash. Using Sandslash, I believe I beat this mission at level 40 (about 7 levels above the recommended level). In fact, I beat it at such a low level that for the entire time up until you posted your analysis of the mission, I was confused why everyone thought it was such a big deal. It was hard, yes, but when I only needed to be 7 levels overleveled for it and I needed to be 5 levels overleveled for most of the Dark Temple missions, it wasn't that much worse in comparison.
With regards to your assist compendium, I am pleased to see that such a resource finally exists, and I am also pleased to see that it is much more comprehensive than what I put together when playing through the game (I only had data for a tiny handful of Pokemon). I do have some feedback, however. First, I was unable to easily import your tables into Excel because they were in a PDF format. It would be nice if an alternative format was available that was more conducive to importing. I don't need that format now, but it might be useful to others. Second, I found some errors/omissions (although it is possible you've caught them by this point):
1. Sandslash has 336 power at level 5.
2. Voltorb has 128 power at level 1.
3. The Assist Plus powerup provides a 1.2x multiplier, not 2.4x. For some Pokemon, it might look like 2.4x, but that is only because their 6th assist level hits twice as many times.
4. Hariyama has some extra startup lag compared to other Pokemon with the same assist type.
Speaking of your compendium, when you published it, I used it to compute DPS numbers for several Pokemon at both assist levels 5 and 6 and to sort them by those DPS numbers. When I did, I discovered that Forretress might be a Pokemon that we have all overlooked. Forretress deals a whopping 6444 damage at assist level 6 and has a DPS of over 500 (according to my calculations, which do depend on an assumption of how long it takes you to deploy your assist). It also has a quite reasonable damage output of 2688 at assist level 5 (228.766 DPS). It is only a normal-type assist, but its damage is so nuclear that it hardly matters. I tested it on the Arceus mission and it basically OHKOs the agitated HP bars of the minibosses as well as 2HKOs Arceus's agitated HP bars. This means that in the best case scenario you can get through the minibosses' agitated phases in about 5 seconds and Arceus's agitated phases in about 15 seconds. In practice, it doesn't work quite that well against Arceus because it needs a 4 second window to attack and Arceus only occasionally gives you that long of a window. But it is an interesting idea.
I should clarify that it has been a long time since I've played the missions in question, so I might be misremembering some details. I completed both Feraligatr and Magnezone around...I think it was 6-12 months before you posted your Magnezone analysis. My tests of Forretress were more recent: they were right after you posted your assist compendium.
For Magnezone, I used Sandslash. I see you actually did try Sandslash retroactively. However, you used it differently than I did, and you also used it at assist level 5. Since assist level 5 costs...was it 5000 AP? Whatever it was, it was expensive, so I only used assist level 4. This is basically the same except you only get 3 mud puddles rather than 5.
According to your analysis, you tried to use Sandslash when the opponent was moving so that you could maximize the number of mud puddles they moved over. Since I was only at assist level 4, that was not viable, and I'm not sure whether that is even the better way to use it at level 5 anyway. What I did was use it when the opponent was stationary. I did this because I noticed that each mud puddle dealt damage continuously, not just once. Consequently, I figured it was more important to maximize the time spent on mud puddles rather than the number of them that the opponent crossed over. When used in this manner, every assist level hits the same number of times and has the same duration, making assist level mostly irrelevant (level 3 still matters because it increases range). Sandslash's assist hits 6 times, and at power level 5, it has 336 power. With type matchup included, that comes out to over 3000 damage. It also has a 6.5 second duration, which is bad for DPS but good for preventing HP regeneration. The fact that most of its DPS comes from high power rather than low cooldown also means that it costs less of your styler's DPS to deploy it than it otherwise would.
Sandslash has a great matchup against both Magnezone and the Bronzongs that you encounter during that mission because they both idle for extended periods of time during their attack patterns. This presents an excellent opportunity to deal continuous damage to them with Sandslash. Magnezone, in particular, has a Discharge attack that is normally annoying without Sandslash but becomes an opportunity for free damage with Sandslash. Using Sandslash, I believe I beat this mission at level 40 (about 7 levels above the recommended level). In fact, I beat it at such a low level that for the entire time up until you posted your analysis of the mission, I was confused why everyone thought it was such a big deal. It was hard, yes, but when I only needed to be 7 levels overleveled for it and I needed to be 5 levels overleveled for most of the Dark Temple missions, it wasn't that much worse in comparison.
With regards to your assist compendium, I am pleased to see that such a resource finally exists, and I am also pleased to see that it is much more comprehensive than what I put together when playing through the game (I only had data for a tiny handful of Pokemon). I do have some feedback, however. First, I was unable to easily import your tables into Excel because they were in a PDF format. It would be nice if an alternative format was available that was more conducive to importing. I don't need that format now, but it might be useful to others. Second, I found some errors/omissions (although it is possible you've caught them by this point):
1. Sandslash has 336 power at level 5.
2. Voltorb has 128 power at level 1.
3. The Assist Plus powerup provides a 1.2x multiplier, not 2.4x. For some Pokemon, it might look like 2.4x, but that is only because their 6th assist level hits twice as many times.
4. Hariyama has some extra startup lag compared to other Pokemon with the same assist type.
Speaking of your compendium, when you published it, I used it to compute DPS numbers for several Pokemon at both assist levels 5 and 6 and to sort them by those DPS numbers. When I did, I discovered that Forretress might be a Pokemon that we have all overlooked. Forretress deals a whopping 6444 damage at assist level 6 and has a DPS of over 500 (according to my calculations, which do depend on an assumption of how long it takes you to deploy your assist). It also has a quite reasonable damage output of 2688 at assist level 5 (228.766 DPS). It is only a normal-type assist, but its damage is so nuclear that it hardly matters. I tested it on the Arceus mission and it basically OHKOs the agitated HP bars of the minibosses as well as 2HKOs Arceus's agitated HP bars. This means that in the best case scenario you can get through the minibosses' agitated phases in about 5 seconds and Arceus's agitated phases in about 15 seconds. In practice, it doesn't work quite that well against Arceus because it needs a 4 second window to attack and Arceus only occasionally gives you that long of a window. But it is an interesting idea.
I should clarify that it has been a long time since I've played the missions in question, so I might be misremembering some details. I completed both Feraligatr and Magnezone around...I think it was 6-12 months before you posted your Magnezone analysis. My tests of Forretress were more recent: they were right after you posted your assist compendium.
Cool! Crobat in particular is a nice pick for the Feraligatr mission, because while I did try using its assist for other missions, I was slightly discouraged as Poison isn't too good an attacking type generally, but this mission is one of the few places that having a Tired effect is valuable. As for Sandslash, it's indeed possible I wasn't using its assist optimally, as I found it generally harder to aim with compared to my usual assists.
It's particularly impressive you could beat Magnezone's mission at Level 40, nice!
Glad to know you've liked the compendium and found it useful :D
Also good catch on those errors, I'll modify the sheet and post accordingly. While Hariyama does lag a bit, I feel it's not as long as Mankey and the others and still seems quick enough, so I'll leave that part out. Part of the reason I put it as a PDF was that I assumed most people would just casually browse it, so figured a generalized format would be better; but since you've mentioned a possible use case for the excel sheet I'll also throw that on there in a bit, if anyone else needs it.
Forretress especially is an interesting mention, those damage numbers seem gargantuan enough to break past Normal's lack of type coverage! I'll also look into it a bit, would be interesting if it turned out to be a dark horse of sorts, as I fully expected most Normal assists to be middling at best (based on how woeful Metagross' was).
It's particularly impressive you could beat Magnezone's mission at Level 40, nice!
Glad to know you've liked the compendium and found it useful :D
Also good catch on those errors, I'll modify the sheet and post accordingly. While Hariyama does lag a bit, I feel it's not as long as Mankey and the others and still seems quick enough, so I'll leave that part out. Part of the reason I put it as a PDF was that I assumed most people would just casually browse it, so figured a generalized format would be better; but since you've mentioned a possible use case for the excel sheet I'll also throw that on there in a bit, if anyone else needs it.
Forretress especially is an interesting mention, those damage numbers seem gargantuan enough to break past Normal's lack of type coverage! I'll also look into it a bit, would be interesting if it turned out to be a dark horse of sorts, as I fully expected most Normal assists to be middling at best (based on how woeful Metagross' was).
You're right that Sandslash (and by extension Crobat, since it is basically a clone of Sandslash) are hard to aim. It is even more of a problem when you use them against stationary opponents because, if you miss, you deal 0 damage. Against a moving opponent there would at least still be a chance of them moving into the assist retroactively. Because of this, I adopted the tactic of only using Sandslash when the opponent was in the middle of the screen. This allowed me to memorize the correct placement in advance so I could aim accurately. This did reduce the frequency that I could use Sandslash, but I felt that accuracy was more important than speed. I found that at low assist levels I could accurately hit the center by placing Sandslash diagonally up-left from the assist menu button and at high assist levels I could accurately hit the center by placing Sandslash directly left of the assist menu button such that it was equidistant from the assist button and my HP bar.
And to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm using it right, either. I have noticed that each mud puddle deals damage independently, so it is theoretically possible to do more damage to a moving target. I never found that to be very consistent, but I didn't try it much and also never got to assist level 5. And even if it is better to use it the way I used it, there are noticable downsides. With a 5.5 second duration and only one position you can put it in to accurately hit the opponent, the risk of counterattack is high, and with the aforementioned duration, a 6.5 second recharge time, and having to wait for the opponent to move to the center of the screen, you are taking a huge hit to your DPS.
That being said, if you are mainly using it during long enemy attacks, they may not have an opportunity to counterattack. For instance, Magnezone's Discharge doesn't have enough range to hit Sandslash, and it is long enough that Magnezone typically can't use another attack before Sandslash leaves the screen. The counterattack risk never seemed very serious to me prior to the Dark Temple, and fortunately all of Sandslash's super-effective matchups are before that point. And as for the DPS, my calculations say that Sandslash does still have a better DPS than most other ground types (which isn't surprising, because most Pokemon that lack a status condition tend to have better DPS to compensate). In particular, Sandslash has about 150 DPS, Donphan has about 70 DPS, and Gliscor has about 80 DPS, although this doesn't account for my strategy of waiting for the opponent to move to the center of the screen before using Sandslash. I haven't measured Hippowdon's DPS yet.
And to be honest, I'm not sure if I'm using it right, either. I have noticed that each mud puddle deals damage independently, so it is theoretically possible to do more damage to a moving target. I never found that to be very consistent, but I didn't try it much and also never got to assist level 5. And even if it is better to use it the way I used it, there are noticable downsides. With a 5.5 second duration and only one position you can put it in to accurately hit the opponent, the risk of counterattack is high, and with the aforementioned duration, a 6.5 second recharge time, and having to wait for the opponent to move to the center of the screen, you are taking a huge hit to your DPS.
That being said, if you are mainly using it during long enemy attacks, they may not have an opportunity to counterattack. For instance, Magnezone's Discharge doesn't have enough range to hit Sandslash, and it is long enough that Magnezone typically can't use another attack before Sandslash leaves the screen. The counterattack risk never seemed very serious to me prior to the Dark Temple, and fortunately all of Sandslash's super-effective matchups are before that point. And as for the DPS, my calculations say that Sandslash does still have a better DPS than most other ground types (which isn't surprising, because most Pokemon that lack a status condition tend to have better DPS to compensate). In particular, Sandslash has about 150 DPS, Donphan has about 70 DPS, and Gliscor has about 80 DPS, although this doesn't account for my strategy of waiting for the opponent to move to the center of the screen before using Sandslash. I haven't measured Hippowdon's DPS yet.
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Hello! I'm late joining this thread but pokemon guardian signs was one of my favourite games growing up and it's been fun reading this thread especially about one part of the game that s very much undercovered ( few youtube vids or guides). Thank you for the time put in this thread. I've replayed it lately and these are some of the stuff i'd add to this thread :
- If you manage to get the Aggron slate, he destroys the Tyranitar and Weavile missions ( 3/4/3 Aggron oneshots most of the pokemons in the temple due to type advantage, and does serious damage to the bosses). He's also very strong against Abomasnow.
- In the lightning temple, you can start with the metagross mission since it is very forgiving with time. I grinded my donphan there till i maxed out its stats which helped me beat magnezone at level 37 and beat lucario ( donphan assist is useful against lucario since he moves a lot) and electivire. Donphan can also be used in dark temple so it remains useful.
- Everything has already been covered for the dark temple already, but for S ranking dusknoir, gengar ( albeit hard to get slate) is the best assist for this stage ( oneshots the gengars if placed properly, does damage quickly which is a must against dusknoir s constant teleports). I also managed to S rank it with Mightyena/ Granbull. Altho, one variation of the stage is much easier to S rank than others.
- Managed to beat Arceus stage at level 70 with Gallade.
To add resources / useful info to this thread, i found a japanese blogger / youtuber who has managed to S rank magnezone mission (with a guide on how to avoid the bronzongs) and did a challenge to beat the temples with the lowest styler level possible ( for example beating magnezone at level 17 with a 3/1/3 Donphan, beating Gliscor at level 26). He also managed to solo S rank arceus mission at level 67 with Gallade and with Lucario and he has a video showcasing it.
- If you manage to get the Aggron slate, he destroys the Tyranitar and Weavile missions ( 3/4/3 Aggron oneshots most of the pokemons in the temple due to type advantage, and does serious damage to the bosses). He's also very strong against Abomasnow.
- In the lightning temple, you can start with the metagross mission since it is very forgiving with time. I grinded my donphan there till i maxed out its stats which helped me beat magnezone at level 37 and beat lucario ( donphan assist is useful against lucario since he moves a lot) and electivire. Donphan can also be used in dark temple so it remains useful.
- Everything has already been covered for the dark temple already, but for S ranking dusknoir, gengar ( albeit hard to get slate) is the best assist for this stage ( oneshots the gengars if placed properly, does damage quickly which is a must against dusknoir s constant teleports). I also managed to S rank it with Mightyena/ Granbull. Altho, one variation of the stage is much easier to S rank than others.
- Managed to beat Arceus stage at level 70 with Gallade.
To add resources / useful info to this thread, i found a japanese blogger / youtuber who has managed to S rank magnezone mission (with a guide on how to avoid the bronzongs) and did a challenge to beat the temples with the lowest styler level possible ( for example beating magnezone at level 17 with a 3/1/3 Donphan, beating Gliscor at level 26). He also managed to solo S rank arceus mission at level 67 with Gallade and with Lucario and he has a video showcasing it.
Interesting. I had assumed prior to your post that Sandslash was better than Donphan since no one else here had managed to do as well with Donphan. Your post shows that that might not be the case, and in fact it might be the reverse: maybe Donphan is better after all.
That being said, I notice that you probably have a higher loop speed than me, because when I tried to beat Arceus at level 70 with Gallade, I consistently came about 1 minute short. So in light of that, you would probably do better with Sandslash than I did. That means that Sandslash is probably still relatively comparable to Donphan at worst, with Donphan maybe having a slight edge. At best, Sandslash might still be better. It would be interesting to see how they compare when used by the same person.
Or maybe the reason you did better on Arceus is because you're better at using the paused status than I am. In that case, Donphan probably is better, but only for people who can use the paused status effectively.
On another note, it looks like that guide for S ranking Magnezone says something about using a second DS to handle the branching paths? I can't read Japanese, and Google Translate isn't terribly accurate, but it looks like it is trying to argue that using a second DS still counts as solo completion because he only used one DS while capturing Magnezone. I'm not sure I buy that logic. EDIT: Never mind, I think you're right. I see that later on he mentions having to go past the Bronzongs repeatedly. Google Translate must have translated the introduction poorly.
That being said, I notice that you probably have a higher loop speed than me, because when I tried to beat Arceus at level 70 with Gallade, I consistently came about 1 minute short. So in light of that, you would probably do better with Sandslash than I did. That means that Sandslash is probably still relatively comparable to Donphan at worst, with Donphan maybe having a slight edge. At best, Sandslash might still be better. It would be interesting to see how they compare when used by the same person.
Or maybe the reason you did better on Arceus is because you're better at using the paused status than I am. In that case, Donphan probably is better, but only for people who can use the paused status effectively.
On another note, it looks like that guide for S ranking Magnezone says something about using a second DS to handle the branching paths? I can't read Japanese, and Google Translate isn't terribly accurate, but it looks like it is trying to argue that using a second DS still counts as solo completion because he only used one DS while capturing Magnezone. I'm not sure I buy that logic. EDIT: Never mind, I think you're right. I see that later on he mentions having to go past the Bronzongs repeatedly. Google Translate must have translated the introduction poorly.
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