Challenge 4th Generation Battle Facilities Discussion and Records

[ChickensBtasty]

you might be able to get further than me

Not likely XD

Well honestly despite being an avid Abomasnow enjoyer all I really saw from your post that I might have changed was in the fairly lower difficulty Ice set, where I would have considered running something else than Scarf since Wood Hammer/Rock Slide>Ice Shard beats basically everything aside Regice, but that just sets up for potential disaster against Jynx if Lovely Kiss connects so I can't say it would be worth it. Everything goes to shit after 170 for Abom anyways, so I can't imagine your streak with it will be surpassed given the types you had left are very likely to be death sentences.

Anyways, that was a great read, thanks again!

 

[Gingerbread_22]

Rhyperior would perhaps be better suited for doubles

Solid Rock simply doesn't matter when so many Water and Grass moves will just OHKO anyway so Rhyperior basically has to get the first strike if it wants to deal with these threats

Instead of Solid Rock, it might be possible to go with Lightning Rod in a doubles team with a Water and/or Flying type teammate. Theoretically, a Storm Drain Pokémon would be a good choice to negate Water type attacks on Rhyperior while Lightning Rod removes the threat of Electric moves, but the only Storm Drain users are Gastrodon, which won't draw out any Electric attacks due to being part Ground itself, and Lumineon, which isn't exactly the best Pokémon. Lumineon does get Tickle to soften up opposing Pokémon for Rhyperior's massive Attack stat, as well as Tailwind to boost Rhyperior's speed to a more acceptable level. Running something like Protect/Tailwind/Tickle and one of Toxic/U-turn/Blizzard/Ice Beam/Icy Wind to deal with Grass types could be somewhat viable, and Lumineon has better Defense and Special Defense than Gastrodon, as well as a pretty decent Speed stat of 91. Its HP is way worse though, and it has little offensive presence.

 

[DrDimentio]

Signing it at 49 wins for the Battle Factory, after 490 in game hours, and approximately 515ish irl hours, I finally beat this cursed cursed facility.

But yeh overall I'm glad this is over, I've been playing since January 2020 on and off, only ramping up this year where I played 300ish hours. I couldn't even find it in me to be mad about losing at battle 50, it was a nice final fuck you from the factory to me.

Nice job finally clearing it - a lot of coincidences with my Factory run, e.g. losing at battle 50 (I was given a virtually unwinnable scenario, as detailed in my post), playing it on and off since 2020, and having some unusually good luck. Although posts like yours are the reason I was putting off the Factory for so long, and why I was so grateful for finishing it in just ~27 hours, as I went in expecting something like your 500 hours. It's by far the most variable and unpredictable facility in terms of time investment. I'd therefore advise this to anyone planning a Factory Gold Print attempt: Assume the worst case scenario of several-hundred hours, so you don't get too frustrated from expecting it to be over already.

Somewhat unrelated, I’ll also use this final post of mine for 2022 to say this: The complete lack of any postgame battle facility in gen 9 makes me appreciate these older games’ facilities even more. A modern Battle Factory would be amazing/horrifying…

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

I have completed another streak in Platinum. After the Hall and the Arcade, I decided to continue with the standard facility, the Battle Tower. While I don’t think it is quite as great as the Subway/Maison/Tree, it is still pretty good and fun.

For Single, I had an ongoing streak of 105. Back in 2014, I had stopped directly after winning 105 battles in a row and gotten the TC upgrade, which I wanted from the Tower in addition to the Gold Print. I continued on that streak now.

Like I did for the Arcade, I looked up opposing trainers and their sets using Bulbapedia’s list. I also ran damage calcs using turskain’s damage calculator. Maybe I don’t need to include these links in every single post I make, but it feels better that way.

Team & streak

Latias (F) @ Choice Scarf ** Rosa
Ability: Levitate
IVs: 31/7/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252 HP / 182 Def / 76 Spd
Level 50 stats: 187/79/133/130/150/154
Nature: Timid
- Trick
- Thunder Wave
- Charm
- Recover

Registeel @ Leftovers ** Metal Man
Ability: Clear Body
IVs: 31/31/31/7/31/31
EVs: 252 HP / 100 Att / 146 Def / 12 Sp.def
Level 50 stats: 187/108/188/74/189/70
Nature: Careful
- Iron Head
- Curse
- Amnesia
- Substitute

Salamence (M) @ Lum Berry ** Nate
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/27/31/31
EVs: 252 Att / 6 Sp.def / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 170/205/100/115/101/152
Nature: Adamant
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance

Streak: 354

Picture proof:

Credit for this team goes to Bozo, his post about the team can be found here. As for my previous experiences with the team, I have talked about them here. I also made a Poképaste for the team now, it can be found here. The team name was just something I made up for fun.

About the team / how to play

I’m not sure how much I need to say about the team. It is a pretty standard TrickScarf team, and if I were to talk about it, I would for the most part just be explaining the obvious. In addition to that, I am not the original creator of the team. So maybe I should just cut this short?

...

Screw that! I’m going to do a super-long explanation about the team, including literally everything I can think of!


Let’s start with the three team members. First of all, we have the lovely Latias. Which also happens to be my favorite Hoenn Pokémon! I also think shiny Latias looks fantastic. On this team, her role is a TrickScarfer. This is a common strategy in Gen 4 Singles because of how good (and broken) it is. Trick to give the opponent a Choice Scarf and lock them into whatever move they choose to open with. Since opponents will almost never switch out in Gen 4 (even if they are locked into a move that deals no damage), this gives me a huge advantage. It allows me to set up Registeel or Salamence with ease (most of the time). The opponents will not switch out when they get down to Struggling either.

Thunder Wave to paralyze the opponents, this will also make them slow (and they may sometimes get FP which is a big bonus, though that is not something you should ever count on). Charm to lower their Attack, it is used against Pokémon that lock themselves into Physical moves. Recover as the final move, it can allow Latias to heal itself if given the chance. Why would you want to do that? Because keeping Latias alive after crippling the opposing lead is often a good idea. It gives you an extra chance if something should go wrong. You never know what might happen later on. If something should go wrong, like if Registeel or Salamence should faint or get phazed out after setting up, Latias can get back into battle and hopefully cripple the (new) opponent a bit before I try to set up again. This is where Recover is helpful. A Choice Scarf is the obvious hold item as it is the second key to TrickScarfing.

Levitate is the only Ability for Latias, it is good as it means that opponents will almost never use Ground-type moves against it (unless they are really damn stupid), which means Registeel has one weakness less to worry about. The only opponent that ever used a Ground-type move against me was Rampardos-4, which I faced a few times. It decided to use EQ instead of Head Smash for some reason. But that was really chill as it meant I could just set up Salamence on it. There’s also Pinsir with Mold Breaker, two of the Pinsir sets in the Frontier have Earthquake, but I think they are more likely to go for X-Scissor against Latias.

A Timid Nature and 76 Speed EVs gives Latias a Speed stat of 231 with a Scarf, allowing it to outrun the entire Tower apart from Porygon-Z-2 and Linoone-2 (both of these are Scarfed as well). With this, it will be able to TrickScarf almost any opponent before they can move (unless they have a Quick Claw). These EVs also give it a Speed stat of 154 without a Scarf, which is good as it allows Latias to outrun max Speed neutral base 100s after losing the Scarf. 153 Speed would have been enough, but removing 8 Speed EVs puts it at 152 rather than 153. So it has to be 154. It then has maxed HP to tank hits, the rest goes in Defense to improve its Physical bulk. Latias already has good natural Sp.def, so it is better to invest in regular Def. It doesn’t need Att or Sp.att since it doesn’t need to attack (unless it should get Taunted, but that never happened for me).

I did a comparison for a Bold Latias with 252 HP / 76 Def / 180 Speed, that would give it one less stat in both Def and Speed, making it inferior to this Timid spread. One final random thing I thought about for Latias was to go with Dragon Pulse instead of Recover as a final move. That way, I could potentially still win if Latias is the last Pokémon standing. Though it doesn’t feel like that happens very often, I guess Recover is the better option most of the time. Another alternative would be Flash in order to lower the opponent’s accuracy. I used Flash on a Latias I used for another TrickScarf team in Gen 5, and it had its uses. But most of the time, Trick/TWave/Charm are all you need, Flash could potentially be useful in some situations but it doesn’t feel as necessary as the three main moves.


Next in line is Registeel, the unbeatable tank… or so I wish. The Regis aren’t among my favorite legendary groups, but I still like them. Not sure which is my favorite among them though. But either way, I like Registeel. On this team, it is one of the two setup Pokémon which come in after Latias has crippled the opposing lead. Registeel’s role is to be a slow yet bulky tank and attacker (not sure if I can call it a “sweeper”). Iron Head is the attacking move it knows, it is the best STAB move for Registeel as it has consistent base Power, good enough Base Power and high PP. The flinch chance could be a nice bonus, but it pretty much never comes into effect since Regi will be outrun by everything after Cursing 6 times. Speaking of which, Curse is one of the two setup moves, boosting Attack and Defense at the cost of reducing Speed, making Registeel strong and physically bulky, but slower than everything. I really wish it learned Bulk Up, but you can’t have everything.

Amnesia is the second setup move. It boosts Sp.def, allowing Registeel to tank special hits as well. Substitute is the final move, an essential move for any setup Pokémon like this in the Tower. It blocks status, Crits and OHKO moves, which might otherwise put an end to Registeel’s success. Registeel holds a Leftovers since it needs some kind of recovery. I really wish I could have Rest on it as well, but 4MSS means you have to give up on something. Clear Body is the only Ability Registeel has this generation, and it is excellent as it blocks stat drops, which means I never have to worry about getting my stats lowered if the opponent is locked into Shadow Ball or something.

It has a Careful Nature. Maxed EVs in HP for high bulk. This gives it 187 HP, allowing it to Sub five times (with Leftovers) in a worst case-scenario, and still live with 3 HP left afterwards. Fortunately, that pretty much never happens. 100 EVs in Attack to improve its offense a bit. Sadly, Registeel only has a base Attack of 75, which means it does not always hit super hard even at +6. Pokémon that resist Steel and/or have high Def/HP will often survive a +6 Iron Head. But you have to do what you can. The EVs in Def and Sp.def give it almost even defenses, it gets one more point in Sp.def to give opposing Porygon a useless Attack boost (which is the standard for most Pokémon used in battle facilities from Gen 4 and on). One thing worth mentioning is that with this EV spread, it wastes 4 EVs in Defense. I suppose those could be moved to Speed. This would allow Registeel to outspeed other uninvested Neutral base 50s before it uses Curse, but that doesn’t feel like that would make a huge difference so I didn’t make the change.


For the third and final member of the team, we have Salamence. While it isn’t my absolute favorite, or even my favorite pseudo-legendary, I still think it is a really great Pokémon. And it has a great shiny form too, green isn’t one of my favorite colors but I think this shade of green is really great (in comparison, I think shiny Dragonite and Hydreigon look terrible). Outrage is the main move, gets a Base Power of 180 with STAB which means it will seriously hurt at +6. Earthquake is for coverage, it helps against Steel-types that resist Outrage, but it is also great to nail Electric-, Fire-, Rock- and Poison-types. It can also safely OHKO several other Pokémon that aren’t immune to Ground. When setting up Salamence, I often pick EQ as the first move even if Outrage might do more damage since I prefer to not get locked into Outrage if given the choice.

At +6, not many Pokémon can survive a move from Salamence. Here are some damage calcs for the few that actually live to tell the tale:

+6 252+ Atk Salamence Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Shuca Berry Steelix: 123-145 (82 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+6 252+ Atk Salamence Outrage vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 131-155 (93.5 - 110.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

+6 252+ Atk Salamence Outrage vs. 168 HP / 168 Def Skarmory: 153-180 (95 - 111.8%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

The only ones that survive are 3 Skarmory sets and one Steelix set (which has a Shuca Berry, it would have been OHKO’d by EQ otherwise). Of course, there are other Steel-types which survive an Outrage if I should be locked into it after beating the first opponent, but everything is 2HKO’d at least.

Substitute is used here for the same reason as for Registeel, to block hits. Notably OHKO moves or just general moves that can threaten Salamence. Since Salamence will be faster than everything at +6, it isn’t quite as threatened as Registeel, but there’s still the risk of hax items like Quick Claw and Brightpowder, as well as Focus Sashes/Bands. Dragon Dance is the final move for Salamence, letting it boost its Attack and Speed to monstrous levels. Intimidate is the only Ability for Salamence this generation, and it is great. Lowering the opponent’s Attack is never bad. If Salamence has to set up on a Physical move and Latias didn’t lower the opponent’s Attack to -6, Salamence can lower it with at least one stage. It also has an extra use that can come in handy from time to time. If Latias faints from a powerful Physical move used by the opposing lead, Salamence can come in before I send out Registeel, lowering the opponent’s Attack with one stage. This means Registeel will take less damage and have an easier time setting up.

Lum Berry is the item of choice, and it has two purposes. First of all, it allows Salamence to switch in on Pokémon that gets locked into a status move. Let’s say I am up against a lead Latios-1. It tends to open with Thunder Wave. I use Trick and TWave with Latias, then switch to Salamence. It will first get paralyzed (unless I get a lucky FP) and get cured by Lum, then I use Sub and the Latios just keeps spamming TWave to no effect. Second, Lum can cure Salamence once after it gets confused by Outrage. Worth noting is that if Salamence has lost its Lum, gets Confused from Outrage, and there’s one opponent left, I always switch out. There’s a risk that Salamence will hit itself, and it isn’t worth it. In the past, I lost a battle because I didn’t switch out Salamence after getting Confused from Outrage. Salamence hit itself twice and fainted, as opposed to hitting the opposing Pokémon (which was a Charizard, which then proceeded to beat Latias and Registeel).

The EVs and Nature are simple, Adamant with max Attack to hit as hard as possible. It has maxed Speed too, in case it needs to do something but is “naked”. The last EVs go into Sp.def to give it one point more in Sp.def than in Def, this is in order to screw with opposing Porygon, just like for Registeel. No HP EVs gives it a HP stat of 170, allowing it to Sub a total of 4 times and then have 2 HP left afterwards.

Another thing worth mentioning is Salamence's gender. This is actually important. Latias is Female while Salamence is Male, which allows it to safely set up on Male opponents which starts with Attract against Latias (such as Male Espeon-2, it used Attract at least once when I faced it). It also makes it safe to use against Male Pokemon with Cute Charm. I find it really good to have both genders for my Battle Facility teams, small details like this can make a difference! I know I have Registeel too, which is automatically immune to Attract as it is Genderless, but you can’t have too many safety measures.

So that’s the details for the team. But what about their origins? I have RNGed them all on my own, details below.

Latias was RNGed on HeartGold. I specifically RNG abused my ID/SID on the game to get this shiny spread. Which was a mistake when I look back at it now, because there is an alternate spread which gives IVs of 31/12/31/31/31/31 for both Timid and Modest. In comparison, the second Nature for my spread is Rash, which is pretty much useless. But whatever! Latias was the main target I wanted and I got it alongside some other cool Timid shinies such as Mewtwo, Lugia and Articuno. I’m sometimes wondering whether this was really worth it in the end, but looking back now, I think the answer is yes.

Registeel was RNGed on Platinum. I got lucky with it in a way since I did originally not have an Event Regigigas which I needed to catch the Regis in Platinum. I didn’t get one until 2012, when I finally got it through a Wi-Fi trade. Since I had learned to RNG at that point, I decided to RNG the Regis instead of just catching them regularly. I caught Registeel with a Careful Nature and this IV spread, thinking about maybe using it for a TrickScarf team at the Battle Tower later on… and that’s just what I did! It is not shiny since I hadn’t RNGed my ID/SID on Platinum and there was no way I was restarting just to get a shiny Registeel, a standard one was enough.

Salamence was RNGed on HeartGold, through RNG breeding. Fortunately, there’s no need to RNG your ID/SID for shiny breeding, making this a lot less of a hassle compared to Latias. Not much more to say about Salamence, RNG breeding in HG/SS is mostly easy as long as the moving NPC on Route 34 doesn’t troll you.

Next, let’s talk about their nicknames! Salamence and Latias are obviously named after Nate and Rosa. Why? Well, can you guess my favorite Pokémon games? Hint: it is not Platinum, even if I still like it a lot. I think I went with those two names because I couldn’t think of anything else. It is hard to come up with good and creative nicknames for species I have nicknamed multiple times before.

Registeel is named after a song by Odyssey. I can’t find it on Youtube, but you can listen to it on Bandcamp here. I find it suitable for Registeel since it is a Steel-type and its job on this team is to be an unstoppable superhero (sort of).


Let’s talk a bit more in-depth about the strategy for the team. Simply put, it is a pretty standard TrickScarf team with great defensive synergy. Latias cripples the opposing lead with Trick, TWave and then Charm (maybe not all four moves, just the ones that are necessary and/or possible to use), it can also use Recover to heal itself if necessary. I then switch to Registeel or Salamence, it depends on which is the most suitable to set up against the current opponent. I generally prefer setting up Salamence over Registeel if given the choice. The reason being that Salamence is faster, stronger, has Speed control, and takes less time to set up fully. But Registeel is often the “safer” choice, making me go for it most of the time even if it is slow, less powerful, and takes longer to set up fully. My experience is that Registeel is the safer Pokémon to set up, while I feel that Salamence is a lot safer and easier to win with if it is fully set up. Hope that makes sense.

Salamence is the one I go for most of the time if the opponent gets locked into a non-damaging move, such as Dragon Dance, Thunder Wave, Ingrain or something. Though it depends on the move. I mostly go for Registeel if the opponent is locked into a damaging move, unless the move in question is super effective against Registeel but not Salamence (this happens occasionally but very rarely) or if the move deals pitiful damage to Salamence. I start with Trick most of the time, but sometimes I go with TWave or Charm instead, it depends on what I face.

TrickScarf is a really broken strategy in Gen 4 since the opponents have bad AI, they will not switch even if they get locked into a non-damaging move. Nor will they switch if they get locked into a move which does no damage due to type immunity. Or a move which ends up dealing very little damage. This means that I can let Registeel set up for free if the opponent locks itself into a Poison-type move, or Salamence if the opponent should lock itself into a status move like Thunder Wave.

After playing with this team, I have really come to appreciate how Steel resists Ghost and Dark in Gen 2-5. This gives me a much better matchup against opponents which get locked into a Ghost- or Dark-type move, allowing Registeel to set up against them much easier. It would have been a bit harder to beat them otherwise.

When using Registeel, it’s Substitute will occasionally break as it is taking damage from the opponent’s moves. I never kept track of the damage it had taken in full detail, but I know that most unboosted STAB or otherwise powerful SE moves will break its Sub in two hits. If the move is also boosted, my Sub might break in just one hit. Other than that, I also tried to renew it when I knew it has taken a lot of damage. This strategy was far from optimal but it was what I used and it worked.

I always set up Regi/Sala to max if I can. Better safe than sorry, that’s one of the rules for a team like this. If I have Salamence out, it might not always “seem” necessary to set up to +6, but I always do it if given the option. The only exception is if my opponent only has one Pokémon left and I am in a situation where I haven’t set up (fully). In that case, I might only set up to the point where I feel that it is enough.

So that’s the team and how to play it. Why did I choose this team and not another one? Back in 2014, when I set out to get the Gold Prints in Platinum and win 105 battles at the Tower, there wasn’t an active leaderboard for Gen 4 here on Smogon. Nor was my goal to get on any leaderboard at all, I just wanted the Gold Prints and the TC upgrade. I also wanted them quickly. And I didn’t feel that I had enough skill to come up with a team of my own which had the potential to get to 105 wins at the Tower. So I looked at the (old) leaderboards here on Smogon to see if I could find a good team. I didn’t want to go for Double like I had done for D/P, so I went for Single instead. The top three streaks were (and still are) by Jumpman16, Peterko and Bozo, all of them used TrickScarf teams.

I did not have a Bold Mesprit with good IVs on Gen 4 at the time (and I was too lazy to try to get one on my own, didn’t feel like trying to get one through trade either – plus I think this was around the time when the Wi-Fi servers for Gen 4/5 were about to close down), so that’s why I didn’t use Jumpman’s team. Instead, I looked at Peterko’s and Bozo’s teams. I had a Timid Latias with the required IVs, a Careful Registeel with the required IVs, and I could easily RNG a Bagon or Gible. I will admit that I don’t remember exactly why I went with Bozo’s team over Peterko’s (basically, Salamence over Garchomp), but I think Speed control was the one thing that made me settle for Salamence. Anyway, there are some notable differences between them. I made a comparison between Garchomp and Salamence, listing their most notable positives and negatives:


Garchomp
+ STAB Earthquake
+ Swords Dance means that it only takes 4 turns to set up fully
+ Higher base Speed than Salamence, and a Jolly Nature makes it even faster
+ Electric immunity, including an immunity to TWave
+ Resists Rock, Fire and Poison
+ On a personal level, I like Garchomp better than Salamence
- No Dragon Dance, meaning no way to boost its Speed, which in turn means it will get outrun by opponents with a higher Speed stat
- Slightly lower base Attack than Salamence, and the actual Attack stat is even lower since you have to run a Jolly Nature
- No good Ability, Sand Veil is useless a majority of the time
- Shiny Garchomp is barely different from regular Garchomp
- Weak to Ice and Dragon
- Offers worse defensive synergy: the entire team is resistant/immune to every type, but between Registeel and Garchomp, there’s no resistance to Water, Ground and Fighting, Registeel happens to be weak against the last two of those types


Salamence
+ Speed control with Dragon Dance
+ Resists Bug, Grass, Fire, Water and Fighting
+ Ground immunity
+ Intimidate is a useful Ability
+ Slightly higher base Attack than Garchomp, and the Attack stat will get even higher since you can run an Adamant Nature
+ Better defensive synergy with the team: the entire team is resistant/immune to every type, while Registeel and Salamence alone are resistant/immune to every type except Electric
+ Shiny Salamence is different than regular Salamence, and it looks cool as well
- Slightly lower base Speed than Garchomp, and an Adamant Nature makes it even slower, you are slower than Garchomp when “naked” (but you will outrun everything after Dancing at least twice)
- No STAB Earthquake
- Weak to Rock, Ice and Dragon
- Dragon Dance means that it takes 7 turns to set up fully

There might be more, but these are the main things. In the end, they both have their positives and negatives, and I think it is mostly just a matter of personal preference. Though it should be noted that I have never tried Garchomp on a TrickScarf team.

Back to why I picked the team. My goal was to win 105 battles in a row to get the TC upgrade, not 2363 or 2366 (though the latter is actually 2516, I didn’t know Jumpman’s streak had ended back when I first played with the team). If Bozo could win 1159 battles with this team, then surely I should be able to win 105 battles with it. Right? Now that I have tried, I can confirm that the answer is yes. That said, I did lose a total of 6 times before finally making it (4 times with this team, 2 times with another team I used to get through battles 1-35), details can be found in the post I linked to earlier.

When I played now, going through one round with the team took around 30 minutes. Sometimes less, sometimes more. It depended on which opponents I faced, and whether I had to set up Regi or Sala more often. Unfortunately, Gen 4 feels so slow. But I’m thankful that Platinum is at least faster than D/P. Still, the slowness of Gen 4 makes me look forward to when I can move on to Gen 5 later on!

Some random things I learned now while playing with the team were the following: In Gen 4, you do not take Life Orb damage if the Pokémon you hit is behind a Substitute. I learned this from various Life Orb opponents which attacked me when I was behind a Sub, the first one was a Probopass! I also learned that the Gen 4 Frontier has two different trainers named Leslie, one Cowgirl and one Waitress.

Before going back to the streak now, I used PP Ups on all of Registeel’s and Salamence’s moves. I hadn’t done it before, but I did it now just in case of stall battles. I didn’t do it for Latias since it didn’t feel as necessary… and I didn’t have that many PP Ups on Platinum either, sadly. I decided to save the rest for the future.

Threatlist

I’m not great at writing threatlists, but there were some threatening things I noticed when I played with the team now.

• Hax. The bane of every facility team. Crits (especially when I am not behind a Sub), Quick Claw, OHKO moves, lowered accuracy or boosted evasion (notably Brightpowder and Lax Incense). All of these can spell doom for you… and one of them ended up costing me the streak.
• Pokémon with Roar/Whirlwind. This team relies on setting up Regi/Sala to full, so if a Pokémon with those moves comes out and phazes me away before I can beat it, all boosts will be lost. It is especially bad for Registeel since it is unable to OHKO certain opponents before they can Roar it out. A notable example is Entei-1, it can tank an IH and use Roar afterwards.
• Ice-type moves/Pokémon/trainers. Latias and Salamence are both weak to Ice, and while Registeel resists Ice, it does not enjoy getting Frozen. There’s also Hail which cancels out Registeel’s Leftovers recovery, it is even worse if it is a Snow Warning Aboma since that means the Hail will never end, giving Regi limited HP in the end. You also have Snow Cloak, Sheer Cold, and then there’s Mamoswine which threatens Regi with Ground-type moves.
• Opponents which start with a move with low PP. This limits my turns for setting up, and if I have to set up Regi, it means I might not be able to set up fully. It is even worse if they are immune to TWave, such as Marowak-4 which likes to open with Stone Edge against Latias.
• Pokémon that start with a status move like TWave, but are immune to my TWave. Like Electivire-1. I faced one once and I realized too late that it had Motor Drive. I had to set up a Paralyzed Registeel against it, which was scary. I suppose a safer way would have been to stall it out of PP for TWave with Latias and then set up Sala, but I didn’t think of that and I wouldn’t have had the patience to do it either.
• Pokémon who only has attacking moves that Latias resists. This team relies heavily on resistances and defensive synergy, so this can screw up my plans. Some examples are Magmortar-3, Blaziken-2 and Infernape-4. All of their moves are resisted by Latias, which means they might pick a move that one of the backups is weak to. This makes them a bit tricky to face.

There might be more but those are the most notable things I noticed while playing with the team now.

Notable battles

Along the way, there where were several battles that were close, scary, or where something unusual happened. I wrote short logs for all of them, find those below.

Battle #119, vs Pokéfan Pandora. Lead Ambipom, I cripple it with Latias and set up Registeel completely, no Freezes from Ice Punch. Registeel beats the Ambipom, next up is a Weezing. This set has Destiny Bond, which isn’t very good when Registeel is slower than everything. The Weezing uses Flamethrower, I use Iron Head which does around 90%. I expect it to use Destiny Bond next, so I go for an unnecessary Amnesia. It uses DB just as I suspected. I continue with another Amnesia, but now it uses Flamethrower instead. I gamble and use another Iron Head while it goes for DB this time, both faint. In retrospect, I should have tried to stall it out of PP for DB, but it is unpredictable when it switches between moves.

Out with Latias. I had used Recover to bring it back to full health earlier against the Ambipom, which I am really happy about now. The final opposing Pokémon is Froslass. A really horrible matchup when all I have left is 2 Dragons. It uses Blizzard which does way over half, but Latias survives and does not get frozen. I use TWave, which hits. The frozen lass holds a Lax Incense, so I use Trick in order to give it the Life Orb from the Ambipom earlier, but it misses! Another Blizzard and Latias is down. Only Salamence left. I run a quick damage calc and I will always OHKO with Outrage, but the Lax Incense makes it scary. If I miss, I am dead. Fortunately, it only has 3 PP left for Blizzard. Unfortunately, I have no recovery for Salamence. But if I can get a Sub up, I will at least get 2 tries. Sub, Blizzard, Sub broken. Sub, Blizzard, miss! Yes! I hit with Outrage and it goes down.

Battle #123, vs Veteran Alfred. One notable thing that happened here was that he switched out during battle, which rarely happens in Gen 4. Lead Leafeon, I set up Registeel on it. I used IH which does around 90%. He then switched it out for a Flareon! IH did around 95% to it. It then tried to Burn me with WoW (I was behind a Sub so lol). I beat the Flareon, the Leafeon, and the last opposing Pokémon which was a Dusknoir.

Battle #124, vs Pokémon Ranger Elise. Somewhat scary towards the end. Lead Skuntank which I Tricked, it then beat Latias with a Crit Crunch. I set up Regi on it, next opponent is a Charizard. I 2HKO with IH while it used Focus Blast + Blast Burn to break my Sub. Lastly, Empoleon. It uses EQ and gets a Crit, Regi lives but is too weak for a Sub (which I tried to do). I managed to beat the penguin with IH afterwards (I think it was 4HKO or something), it did thankfully not get any more crits.

Battle #137, vs Reporter Katie. Not a close battle, but scary. Lead Metagross, confirmed to be set 4 since I get a Quick Claw. It uses MM on Latias which does over half, getting an Attack boost in the process as well. I switch to Regi without using TWave. It then gets a Crit on Regi and keeps on hitting (missing maybe once or twice), bringing me to very low HP, I can’t set up a Sub. I set up with Curse fully, but I don’t use Amnesia. I 2HKO the Meta with IH (the second was a Crit, it would have been a 3HKO otherwise). Next is a Luxray. It uses TWave to paralyze Regi, I use IH and then try a Sub but I am still too weak after it has hit me with a Thunder Fang. I KO it instead, and last is Hypno. It uses Fire Punch but doesn’t do very much, I OHKO it with IH.

Battle #140. Here, I got to face Beauty Nadia, a high-tier trainer who uses low-tier Pokémon. She leads with a Hitmontop that locks itself into Counter (lol), I set up Salamence and nuke the Top as well as the Hitmonlee and Prinplup that followed. For some unknown reason, Nadia is considered a high-tier trainer despite using low-tier Pokémon. She only appears after battle #48, and she is number 295 out of 300 on Bulbapedia’s list. I later learned that there is at least one other trainer like her in Platinum (Parasol Lady Angie, see further below for my battle against her). It also seems like there’s a similar thing going on with Beauty Jaclyn in D/P, she’s also a high-tier trainer who uses low-tier Pokémon. I remember that when I played Platinum back in 2014, I once faced a high-tier trainer with low-tier Pokémon (I think it was Nadia then as well), I wonder if it is some kind of programming mistake… which must have carried over from D/P in that case.

Battle #160, vs Worker Boyce. He leads with a Toxic Orb Breloom which locks itself into Stone Edge. I don’t use TWave (which might have been a mistake), instead I switch in Regi directly, even if I won’t be able to set up fully. I manage to set up 1 Amnesia and 5 Curse (since Boyce uses Fighting- and Rock-types which generally run Physical sets, I put prio on Curse). However, the Breloom gets 3 Crits in a row with Struggle, leaving Regi at very low HP, but still enough for a Sub at least. I manage to beat it as well as the Infernape and Rhyperior which followed, but it was a bit scary.

Battle #169, vs PI Ralph. He leads with a Glalie which locked itself into Sheer Cold… and missed all five hits against Latias! I sent in Salamence once it was out of PP, managed to Dance 4 times. The Glalie Struggled to death, Salamence then beat the Nidoking and the Steelix which appeared after it.

Battle #170, vs Jogger Austin. Similar situation as above. He leads with a Rapidash which locks itself into Horn Drill, but this one hits Latias on the fourth try. It then hits Salamence as well (was behind a Sub so it didn’t matter). I manage to Dance 3 times here before the horse faints from Struggle. Next is a Weezing which I OHKO with Outrage, followed by a Bastiodon that I 2HKO (got locked into 3 turns).

After these two battles, I realized that maybe I should change my strategy against leads which (might) know an OHKO move. Maybe I should TWave some of them first. Too bad I didn’t actually do this later on, when it mattered the most…

Battle #172, vs Bird Keeper Eliza. Third time this round where a notable battle happens! She leads with a Gyarados, it gives me a Lum Berry and uses Ice Fang, confirming set 2. I cripple it with Latias and set up Regi on it. Just as I attack with IH, it uses Struggle, leaving it at around 15%. On the next turn, my opponent does the very unexpected thing as she switches the Gyarados for a Moltres! I used Sub that turn just as a safety measure, too bad I didn’t use IH. Now I do so, but the Moltres first uses Fire Blast to break my Sub. Fortunately, I get a Crit with IH and it faints. Out comes a Drifblim. Shadow Ball, Sub, Shadow Ball again, IH OHKO, Aftermath damage. The Gyarados comes back, uses Waterfall and I KO with IH. Yet another battle where my opponent unexpectedly switched, I guess it was because I used IH and the Gyara survived, coupled with the fact that she had a Moltres in the back, which resists the move? Can’t think of any other reason.

Battle #178, vs Ace Trainer Sawyer. He leads with a Regigigas. I miss with Trick, confirming the Brightpowder set, it uses Crush Grip. I then Trick and TWave it as it uses Stone Edge, I switch to Registeel and start setting up. However, the Gigas gets a total of 3 Crits with Struggle against me, two while I am setting up, the third on the last Struggle, breaking my Sub. I am at so low HP afterwards that I decide to not try to set up a new Sub. I manage to 2HKO the Regirock and Raikou that followed, they did thankfully not get any Crits.

Battle #186, vs Ace Trainer Thad. He leads with a Regice, I misclick and accidentally use TWave instead of Trick, the Regi uses Ice Beam, Latias gets frozen. Not exactly a good start. I switch to Registeel, hoping it isn’t Regice-4, since that one has Focus Blast. I set up 3 Amnesia to start with, the Regice gets FP and then continues using Ice Beam (I later confirm it to be set 3, which is chill – pun intended). However, it manages to freeze Registeel as well, and it takes over 10 turns for me to thaw. Once that is done, I successfully set up fully, including a Sub, then OHKO with IH. Next is a Lapras which I 2HKO, and finally a Glaceon which annoys me a little with Double Team before being OHKO’d. I won this battle easily despite misplaying, I blame it on not being concentrated enough while playing.

Battle #218, vs Pokémon Ranger Alma. She leads with a Raikou-2 which I easily set up Regi on, followed by a Regirock-3 that I also beat. Her last Pokémon is a Registeel-2. It sets up with Double Team and Iron Defense, making my attacks deal little to no damage. Fortunately, it can’t really damage me either, so I have pretty much won. But I want this to be over as quickly as possible. So once it is out of PP for Iron Head, I send in Salamence, set up a Sub and DD 6 times. I then manage to hit it with EQ twice, which is enough for a KO. I thought this battle would get down to Struggling in the end, but thankfully, it didn’t. Thus, Registeel is not my Cradily in Platinum.

Battle #238, vs Worker Boyce. He leads with a Rhydon, which immediately gives me a bad feeling. I use Trick and obtain a Quick Claw, the Rhydon uses Horn Drill. It then hits Latias on the third hit, out with Salamence. I manage to dance 4 times before the Rhydon falls to Struggle, but it also breaks my Sub on the last hit. The last two opponents were a Lucario and a Medicham which were OHKO’d by EQ and Outrage, respectively. This battle wasn’t close but scary in the beginning.

Battle #244, vs Idol Cocoa. Not going to describe it in detail, but it was notable because like some previous opponents, she switched during the battle. She leads with a Leafeon-4 which I set up Regi on, I attack with IH and it survives, she switches out to Flareon on the next turn to tank the next hit. Worth noting is that in a previous situation where my opponent switched, it was also against a lead Leafeon which got switched out for a Flareon. Not sure if that is a specific trigger for the game to switch. Either way, this battle was easy as I beat both the Flareon, the Leafeon, and the last mon which was an Espeon.

Battle #272, vs Waitress Kathy. She leads with a Jynx. Trick, it locks itself into Perish Song. Not exactly optimal. TWave and then Charm, we both switch out on the final Perish turn (I know that the AI will switch in those situations, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary). I send in Salamence, Kathy sends in Granbull. It is the set with Facade and the Elemental Fangs, so it is not optimal but it could have been worse. I switch to Regi first to tank an Ice Fang, then back to Latias to tank a Fire Fang and start crippling. TWave and then Charm to lower it to -6, then back to Regi again. I manage to set up fully, but it takes a while as I have to keep guard of Fire Fangs. I eventually beat the Granbull with IH. Next up is a Swampert. It is the Curse set, and fortunately, it just keeps using Curse, allowing me to KO with IH after a while. Last is the Jynx again, and it is safely KO’d by IH. This battle wasn’t close but very scary in the beginning due to the Jynx using Perish Song.

Battle #293, vs Reporter Katie. She leads with an Electivire, I hope it isn’t set 1 and my wish is granted as it is set 4 which locks itself into Ice Punch. I set up Regi and beat it. Out next is a Slowbro. It uses Flamethrower, confirming the Specs set. It also breaks my Sub, IH does less than half. Another Flamethrower, and Regi gets burned! Not good at all. I then manage to beat the Bro in a few more turns, but Regi faints from the burn at the same turn. Only Lati and Sala left against an unknown opponent, not a particularly good situation to be in. Out with Lati, last opponent is a Jynx! It can’t be the Specs set 4 due to the item clause, but both set 1 and 3 have Ice moves. TWave, it gets FP. Recover and it uses Lovely Kiss, confirming the safe set 2. Phew! I send in Salamence while the Jynx uses Perish Song, dooming itself. Sub, then Outrage for a safe KO.

Battle #298, vs PI River. Lead Walrein. Trick, Sheer Cold hit, Latias down. Out with Salamence. I manage to set up 4 Dances, but the Walrein hits me with Sheer Cold a few times and then gets a Crit with Struggle, forcing me to Sub 4 times, leaving me at 2 HP left, but behind a Sub. EQ for a KO, out comes Wailord. QC activates and it hits with Blizzard, Sub breaks, Outrage OHKO. Last out is Heatran. Not good at all. Outrage Crit, it lives with Sash and KO’s with Flash Cannon. Out with Regi. Is this the end? Magma Storm MISS! IH KO. Phew. Closest battle so far!

I ran some damage calcs afterwards:

+4 252+ Atk Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Wailord: 355-418 (128.1 - 150.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+4 252+ Atk Salamence Outrage vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 165-194 (99.3 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

252+ SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 252 HP / 12+ SpD Registeel: 144-170 (77 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery and trapping damage

100 Atk Registeel Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 10-12 (6 - 7.2%) -- nice chip damage

I could have gone for EQ against the Wailord as it would have been a clean OHKO just like Outrage, but it didn’t really matter due to the QC activating. I didn’t really need the Crit against the Heatran either since I would have brought it down to 1 HP even at the lowest possible roll. The Heatran would then have needed a Crit to OHKO Regi while I always had a safe KO with IH. Still, this was a very close battle.

Battle #308, vs Gentleman Joachim. He leads with an Articuno. It uses Hail, confirming set 1. I would love to set up Salamence here but the Hail will chip away more HP than I am comfortable with, so I go for Regi instead. I successfully set up fully and beat the Articuno. Next out is an Entei. It uses Reflect, confirming set 1… which also knows Roar. Not good. It tanks an IH, then it tries to use Roar on the next turn but I flinch it! Nice. It then tanks a third IH and successfully uses Roar, Sala is brought in. The Entei uses Return which doesn’t do a lot, I DD. I don’t want to Dance too much here since I risk getting hit by a Crit, so I KO with EQ instead. Last opponent is a Regice. Not good at all. I switch out to Steel, the Ice uses Double Team, confirming set 2… which is good and bad at the same time. I start setting up but I realize I must try to cripple it in order to win. I switch to Lati which successfully hits with both TWave and then Trick (trading the Articuno’s Icy Rock for the Regice’s Leftovers) despite the Ice having several DT boosts. I then switch back to Steel and set up fully… second time this battle. The Ice shifts between DT and Hammer Arm, it doesn’t use Curse a lot though, which is good. It also gets FP a lot. I eventually manage to hit it with IH twice, which was enough for a KO. This was a somewhat scary and annoyingly long battle.

Battle #310. Here, I met another high-tier trainer with low-tier Pokémon. Parasol Lady Angie, 293 out of 300 on Bulbapedia’s list. She had a team of Chansey/Kadabra/Lumineon. Her Chansey decided to use Sing, I sent in Salamence, set up and swept. Just like Nadia, Angie also appears to have a D/P counterpart in the form of her little sister Christa.

Battle #333, vs Dragon Tamer Nicolas. Somewhat scary. Lead Milotic, it turns out to be set 3 which uses Blizzard, doing over 50% to Latias. I switch to Regi directly and manage to set up 2 Amnesia and 4 Curse before the Milotic falls to Struggle. Next is Charizard. 3 sets are Special, one is Physical, so I go for the final Amnesia… only to be hit by Flare Blitz, confirming the Physical set. It breaks my Sub. It does not get a Crit or a Burn on the next turn, fortunately. I set up a Sub again, then Curse, then Sub, then IH, then Sub again and the Zard falls to recoil damage. Last opponent is Bastiodon. It turns out to be the super chill set 2 which is 2HKO’d by IH.

Battle #342, vs Veteran Alfred. Lead Scizor. Trick, X-Scissor leaves Latias at very low HP, I switch to Regi. I set up fully, but the Scizor gets 2 Crits along the way, leaving me with less than half of my HP left after using Sub. IH 2HKO. Out next is Donphan. EQ, Sub break, IH miss due to Lax Incense. Another EQ leaves me at exactly 47 HP! Sub, 1 HP left. IH 2HKO, it breaks my Sub again. Last opponent is Houndoom. It uses WoW and Burns Regi, I use IH for around half. FT Crit KO on the next turn. I quickly check the Speed tiers and see that Lati is faster, so out with it. TWave, Sludge Bomb KO. Out with Sala, EQ KO. Not super close but a bit scary.

The loss

I lost in Battle #355, against Ace Trainer Leda. She uses Ice-types, any sets.

I have a short battle log for the loss, and a video of the battle. Pick whichever you want, or both.

Battle summary – Peterko style!

You are challenged by Ace Trainer Leda!
Ace Trainer Leda sent out Articuno!
Go! Rosa!
The foe’s Articuno is exerting its Pressure!

Rosa used Trick!
Rosa switched items with its target!
Rosa obtained one Charti Berry.
The foe’s Articuno obtained one Choice Scarf.
The foe’s Articuno used Sheer Cold!
It’s a one-hit KO!
Rosa fainted!

Go! Metal Man!
The foe’s Articuno used Sheer Cold!
It’s a one-hit KO!
Metal Man fainted!

Go! Nate!
Nate’s Intimidate cuts the foe’s Articuno’s Attack!
The foe’s Articuno used Sheer Cold!
It’s a one-hit KO!
Nate fainted!

…

Streak over.

And here’s the video:

What went wrong? Apart from Sheer Cold hitting three times in a row, I should have used TWave instead of Trick. I took a closer look at the Articuno sets afterwards, and none of them have any moves that threaten Registeel (outside of Sheer Cold on set 4 of course). Prior to this battle, I always used Trick against any lead Articuno I faced. One thing I had noted is that set 4 tended to pick random moves. In a past battle, it used Air Cutter against Latias, despite knowing both Ice Beam and Sheer Cold.

But even with my misplay, this was a very haxy loss. There was a 1 in 4 that it was this Articuno, 1 in 4(?) that it would pick Sheer Cold, and the odds of it hitting three times in a row is 1 in 37? If I have calculated correctly (I wish I was better at math!). If it had missed at least once against either Regi or Sala, I could have set up and won. But that didn’t happen. I guess you learn from your mistakes, too bad I learned this too late.

This loss happened on December 12th. I held off posting about it until today since I wanted to make it my final post of the year… and writing this post took a while.

After my failures at the D/P Tower, it was great to get a much better streak in Platinum. I’m really satisfied with this streak. While I had hoped to get further, I think I did well enough. It is also my fourth best streak ever! I have absolutely zero interest in making another try, I consider myself done with Single in the Platinum Tower. However, I am not quite done with the Tower on the whole. I am going to try Double as well, but that will be in the future. Next up, I’ll continue with my final unfinished streak on Platinum, which is at the Castle.

And with this, 2022 is coming to an end. Happy new year everyone! See you in 2023!

 

[pokemon4eva]

A modern Battle Factory would be amazing/horrifying…

Nowadays we don't even have the tower haha . It's a shame because the level of challenge provided by post game facilities is sth you aren't going to see in the rest of the games themselves outside of online battles.

With how easier is to get battle ready mons nowadays I would welcome a facility like the frontier with open arms. I also liked what the Battle Agency and SWSH Tower did with the ranking system, so losing while getting to the boss isn't as punishing as starting all over from the start and having to face weakmons for an hour again. Of course it would be nice to keep the classic streak format as an option for players, like BDSP did.

 

[xcomtourist]

Just an update on my ongoing emulator crusade, my hypothesis for how an Extremespeed Dragonite (Adamant. Focus Sash; Outrage, Earthquake, Fire Punch, Extremespeed) can counter Weavile in the Battle Hall has been proven shockingly incorrect.

I can tell you this because I just ran into the little pr*ck while in Battle Hall; my Dragonite went for Fire Punch to bring him down to the Sash, he did the same with Ice Punch, bringing me down to my sash.

With utmost confidence and devilish aplomb, I confidently pressed Extremespeed, assured in my victory over the Weavile menace. But then my illusions of victory shattered as Weavile then promptly used Quick Attack to take the match. In a fury, I rushed to Bulbapedia as I thought that Extremespeed was +2 Priority.

Turns out that in Gen 4, Extremespeed shares its priority with attacks like Ice Shard and Quick Attack, and as Weaville's monstrous speed is only outmatched by his disrespect for human decency, the little weasel will always go first with his priority move against my poor Dragonite.

It is in Gen 5 that Extremespeed moves to a +2 priority. My brilliant plan to outprioritize the priority move of Weavile is literally hindered by the technology of its time.

As such, unfortunately if you're using a 4x weak to Ice Pokemon to take the Battle Hall, your only options against Weaville are Swagger (hoping he hits himself) or prayer.

Unrelated but I've actually switched my emulator from HG to SS, as I wanted to use the war machine that is Latios. As such, happy to report that off the back of my favourite blue-and-white engine of destruction, I have beaten Gold Battle Tower with another team (again, playing on emulator - this is not for leaderboards). I also used the Universal Randomizer to gift myself a Chimchar starter - Johto is my favourite region, Gen 4 are my favourite starters - so it all worked out really well in that regard.

Team Alpha Strike:

Shiitake - Latios (Timid. Choice Specs)
Max Special Attack and Speed
Dragon Pulse
Shadow Ball
Surf
Thunderbolt

Tiramisu - Gengar (Timid. Focus Band)
Max Special Attack and Speed
Shadow Ball
Energy Ball
Thunderbolt
Destiny Bond

Miso - Infernape (Jolly. Choice Band)
Max Attack and Speed
Flare Blitz
Close Combat
Thunder Punch
U-Turn

As evinced by the moves, the team is all high-power, high-speed offense. Latios leads and instantly sweeps most teams with Dragon Pulse. If he runs into something tricky, Gengar or Infernape can swoop into troubleshoot. Gengar used to run Focus Blast, but I was finding the 70% unreliable so switched to Energy Ball. A fast and reasonably strong Grass move is also very useful, particularly against Grass/Water pokemon which can be troublesome for the other two members of the team.

Infernape is also fantastic - a strong and fast physical attacker is greatly appreciated by my two special attackers. He's a bit of a break in case of emergency button, but when there is an emergency, Miso carries hard.

While it can be tempting just to use Latios like a missile, an important point in using the team is in fact to preserve Latios, as taking it out and bringing it in again to use a different Choice Specs move can be huge. Swapping out a wounded Latios, then bringing in Gengar to absorb a hit, then take out the troublemaker with Destiny Bond to give Infernape or Latios a free reset really helps in securing runs.

Loss came from a trainer rocking an Entei, Raikou and Registeel. Can't remember how it went, but I would chalk it up to my own misplays. Essentially I thought for some reason that Gengar is faster than Raikou and didn't get to Destiny Bond, and I sacked Infernape too early, which left a wounded Latios vulnerable against an undamaged Registeel.

If I didn't rush and slowed down (particularly as I'm not familiar with Raikou and a quick Smogon/Bulbapedia check would have confirmed that "yes" a Timid Max Speed Raikou is indeed faster), I'm sure I could have taken the match. Lesson for me is that when running hyper-offense teams, mentally pressing the brakes is particularly important, especially in the later rounds when Latios can't just oneshot everything with Specs Dragon Pulse.

 

[atsync]

Thread updated.

ANNOUNCEMENT: some of you may have already noticed that most of the links in the records lists are currently not working properly. Due to Smogon's Admins purging and review of the Greatest Hits archive (which is where Peterko's old 4th gen threads was located), any records and resources that were posted in those threads currently don't have functional links. I anticipate that the threads will be reinstated at a later date, but I am uncertain as to when that will be so we'll have to just accept that those records and resources are inaccessible for now.

In the meantime I would recommend using an alternate source for looking up sets and trainer pools. Bulbapedia has all sets and trainers for the PtHGSS Frontier Tower/Castle/Arcade and Hall on their site, and all Frontier sets are loaded in the facilities damage calc. At some point I may try to pull together or reproduce some of the lost resources (e.g. speed tiers).

Battle #244, vs Idol Cocoa. Not going to describe it in detail, but it was notable because like some previous opponents, she switched during the battle. She leads with a Leafeon-4 which I set up Regi on, I attack with IH and it survives, she switches out to Flareon on the next turn to tank the next hit. Worth noting is that in a previous situation where my opponent switched, it was also against a lead Leafeon which got switched out for a Flareon. Not sure if that is a specific trigger for the game to switch. Either way, this battle was easy as I beat both the Flareon, the Leafeon, and the last mon which was an Espeon.

This is just a resist switch. In this and some other gens, if you hit a Pokemon with an attack and the opponent has a Pokemon that resists that attack, there is a chance that it will switch out to the resistant Pokemon in an attempt to "out-play" you. In this case, you hit Leafeon with Iron Head and then the opponent switched to its Steel-type resist Flareon. Obviously didn't matter much in this situation but sometimes it can be useful to switch to a different move if you have an alterative option that will do equivalent damage since you can catch the opponent out on the off chance it makes these kinds of switches.

Just an update on my ongoing emulator crusade, my hypothesis for how an Extremespeed Dragonite (Adamant. Focus Sash; Outrage, Earthquake, Fire Punch, Extremespeed) can counter Weavile in the Battle Hall has been proven shockingly incorrect.

I can tell you this because I just ran into the little pr*ck while in Battle Hall; my Dragonite went for Fire Punch to bring him down to the Sash, he did the same with Ice Punch, bringing me down to my sash.

With utmost confidence and devilish aplomb, I confidently pressed Extremespeed, assured in my victory over the Weavile menace. But then my illusions of victory shattered as Weavile then promptly used Quick Attack to take the match. In a fury, I rushed to Bulbapedia as I thought that Extremespeed was +2 Priority.

Turns out that in Gen 4, Extremespeed shares its priority with attacks like Ice Shard and Quick Attack, and as Weaville's monstrous speed is only outmatched by his disrespect for human decency, the little weasel will always go first with his priority move against my poor Dragonite.

It is in Gen 5 that Extremespeed moves to a +2 priority. My brilliant plan to outprioritize the priority move of Weavile is literally hindered by the technology of its time.

As such, unfortunately if you're using a 4x weak to Ice Pokemon to take the Battle Hall, your only options against Weaville are Swagger (hoping he hits himself) or prayer.

Worth noting that Dragonite can beat Weavile by using Rock Tomb first to lower Weavile's Speed and then ExtremeSpeed after. This is obviously inconsistent but it gives Dragonite a roughly 72% chance of victory which is not only the best set of odds it can manage, but is also higher than the odds of Garchomp or Salamence beating Weavile with their "best" strategy (Swagger).

Unfortunately it is difficult to fit both of those moves into a single set for post-170 play. I did try to make it work and thought a set of Outrage/Superpower/Rock Tomb/ExtremeSpeed would be a good anti-Ice set that could probably be extended to other types, but inevitably you fall short against other Pokemon that exist alongside Pokemon in types you might use this for. For example, this set would be good in Dark for Weavile and Tyranitar, but it's very shaky against the Focus Sash Sharpedo, and trying to use it in Rock to cover Tyranitar there would be hard against some of the bulkier Rocks (namely Regirock). Hall Dragonite just runs into a bad case of 4-move-slot syndrome in general and it isn't helped by its mediocre base Speed.

 

[atsync]

All links to legacy records and resources should be restored now.

 

[xcomtourist]

Real life kept me from Battle Frontier for a little bit, but back with more results.

Achieved Gold on Battle Arcade with a Garchomp, Starmie, Blissey team.

Arcade Stars:

Katsu - Garchomp (Jolly, Max Attack and Speed)
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Fang (GOT THE LUVDISC SWARM LET'S GO)
Swords Dance

Melon - Starmie (Modest, Max Special Attack and Speed)
Surf
Psychic
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt

Lavender - Blissey (Bold, Max HP and Defence)
Toxic
Flamethrower
Softboiled
Heal Bell

Nothing too innovative here - the team is built to weather Arcade RNG from the various status effects with both Melon and Lavender rocking Natural Cure. Katsu always leads, and if he isn't statused or facing an opponent with a potential ice move, always Sword Dances and sweeps. If he/team is statused, then Lavender usually comes in to Heal Bell and can sometimes pull off a (very slow) sweep herself since the AI oftentimes can't deal with a Toxic Blissey. Flamethrower was chosen for her in case she ran into a Steel or Grass/Poison type, and that move certainly came in very handy in a few fights. I particularly enjoyed how she just dumpstered those Toxic/Double Team Cradily as that setup sends my blood pressure to the roof.

The team has great synergies with each other and cover each other exceptionally well. Katsu is a very strong physical attacker, Melon is a great special attacker, Lavender is an amazing wall and has fantastic utility, particularly in Arcade. Both Melon and Lavender can handle opposing Ice types. Enemy fighting Pokemon that force Lavender out can be handled by Melon, or outsped by Katsu. And Katsu of course can tag back into a Thunderbolt directed at Melon.

However, the team is by no means immune to Arcade RNG. I lost a number of times to Trick Room and twice to my own team. In a particularly infuriating loss, the trainer who beat me with my own team snidely said "I've figured out your weakness". Yes, it would appear that one of my weaknesses is when my own team beats the sh1t out of me (what can you do).

The streak ended at Match 63. Arcade boomed me by putting an asleep status on Lavender (uh oh). Opponent sent out a Snorlax. I led with Katsu. Katsu sword danced, but the Snorlax then oneshot him with Ice Punch. The sloppy play continued with me then sending out Lavender (asleep, I know), as I was hoping she would wake up, Toxic the Snorlax and wear it down like that. I wanted to hold Melon in reserve for the other two Mons and also didn't particularly want to send it out against a Snorlax.

In any case, Lavender took a couple of rounds of punishment from the Snorlax, woke up, Toxic'd and in a somewhat humorous event, was denied as the Snorlax was rocking Immunity (lmao). Snorlax then took down Lavender and Melon in quick succession. This match was admittedly sloppy by me (I didn't even check the list of Facility Mons), but frankly, I was rushing the streak and I was just happy enough to walk away with Gold from this facility.

 

[GG Unit]

Real life kept me from Battle Frontier for a little bit, but back with more results.

Achieved Gold on Battle Arcade with a Garchomp, Starmie, Blissey team.

Arcade Stars:

Katsu - Garchomp (Jolly, Max Attack and Speed)
Outrage
Earthquake
Fire Fang (GOT THE LUVDISC SWARM LET'S GO)
Swords Dance

Melon - Starmie (Modest, Max Special Attack and Speed)
Surf
Psychic
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt

Lavender - Blissey (Bold, Max HP and Defence)
Toxic
Flamethrower
Softboiled
Heal Bell

Nothing too innovative here - the team is built to weather Arcade RNG from the various status effects with both Melon and Lavender rocking Natural Cure. Katsu always leads, and if he isn't statused or facing an opponent with a potential ice move, always Sword Dances and sweeps. If he/team is statused, then Lavender usually comes in to Heal Bell and can sometimes pull off a (very slow) sweep herself since the AI oftentimes can't deal with a Toxic Blissey. Flamethrower was chosen for her in case she ran into a Steel or Grass/Poison type, and that move certainly came in very handy in a few fights. I particularly enjoyed how she just dumpstered those Toxic/Double Team Cradily as that setup sends my blood pressure to the roof.

The team has great synergies with each other and cover each other exceptionally well. Katsu is a very strong physical attacker, Melon is a great special attacker, Lavender is an amazing wall and has fantastic utility, particularly in Arcade. Both Melon and Lavender can handle opposing Ice types. Enemy fighting Pokemon that force Lavender out can be handled by Melon, or outsped by Katsu. And Katsu of course can tag back into a Thunderbolt directed at Melon.

However, the team is by no means immune to Arcade RNG. I lost a number of times to Trick Room and twice to my own team. In a particularly infuriating loss, the trainer who beat me with my own team snidely said "I've figured out your weakness". Yes, it would appear that one of my weaknesses is when my own team beats the sh1t out of me (what can you do).

The streak ended at Match 63. Arcade boomed me by putting an asleep status on Lavender (uh oh). Opponent sent out a Snorlax. I led with Katsu. Katsu sword danced, but the Snorlax then oneshot him with Ice Punch. The sloppy play continued with me then sending out Lavender (asleep, I know), as I was hoping she would wake up, Toxic the Snorlax and wear it down like that. I wanted to hold Melon in reserve for the other two Mons and also didn't particularly want to send it out against a Snorlax.

In any case, Lavender took a couple of rounds of punishment from the Snorlax, woke up, Toxic'd and in a somewhat humorous event, was denied as the Snorlax was rocking Immunity (lmao). Snorlax then took down Lavender and Melon in quick succession. This match was admittedly sloppy by me (I didn't even check the list of Facility Mons), but frankly, I was rushing the streak and I was just happy enough to walk away with Gold from this facility.

The AI cannot deal with any Blissey. The AI is even less able to deal with a Blissey with Substitute/Seismic Toss/Double Team/Softboiled (and more Speed EVs so it can put up a Substitute before various things would try to hit it with status moves). When all its moves are PP Maxed the only things that wall it (Ghost types and Rest users) are themselves PP stalled.

That set should be a major improvement in the Arcade, and even more so in any other 4th gen facility you try since Heal Bell isn’t as needed. I don’t even think it’s needed in the Arcade since you can see the matchup going in, and in most matchups Blissey is able to set up against the lead and sweep, making it totally fine to sacrifice one or both teammates if that’s what it takes to bring in a healthy Blissey.

 

[xcomtourist]

The AI is even less able to deal with a Blissey with Substitute/Seismic Toss/Double Team/Softboiled (and more Speed EVs so it can put up a Substitute before various things would try to hit it with status moves).

True - but I want to go to heaven when I die.

 

[GG Unit]

True - but I want to go to heaven when I die.

I'm sure when you're at the pearly gates, the AI trainers will thank you for using a Pokemon that lost to them way more frequently and also took more turns to KO them once you were finally able to hit them with Toxic.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

So I finally got bored of my save state-aided Garchomp Hall streak and let myself face the unwinnable focus sash Weavile matchup. I'm looking into the other record streaks right now but so far they all seem to be juggling multiple sets, which I just can't bring myself to bother with. Besides the focus sash SD Garchomp, what are some other good single sets to face the Hall with? I assume some other species have effective boost+sash sets as well.

EDIT: I see atsync has a short list in this post, now digging through his post history to see if there are topics with more. If so, this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for.

 

[REONPoint]

Hi, I’m extremely new to the Battle Frontier in HGSS, and I was planning on making a team that would help me reach the Silver and Gold Prints. I have been looking through some of the stuff in this and other forums, and I came up with a team…only to realize it was specifically for D/P Battle Tower and not PtHGSS. So now I’ve come to ask about my team and how i can improve it for the HGSS Battle Tower. I can change mostly anything but I would like some specifics (like changing EVs or moves or species). Any help is greatly appreciated.

• Starmie @ Expert Belt (Natural Cure)

Modest (252 Sp Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Sp Def)

• Surf
• Psychic
• Thunderbolt
• Ice Beam

• Gengar @ Focus Sash (Levitate)

Timid (252 Sp Atk, 252 Spd, 4 HP)

• Shadow Ball
• Thunderbolt
• Counter
• Destiny Bond

• Togekiss @ Leftovers (Serene Grace)

Modest (252 HP, 252 Sp Atk, 4 Spd)

• Air Slash
• Aura Sphere
• Shadow Ball
• Nasty Plot

• Tyranitar @ Lum Berry (Sand Stream)

Jolly (252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Def)

• Crunch
• Rock Slide
• Earthquake
• Dragon Dance

• Garchomp @ Choice Scarf (Sand Veil)

Adamant (252 Atk, 160 HP, 96 Spd)

• Outrage
• Earthquake
• Fire Fang
• Aerial Ace

• Scizor @ Sitrus Berry (Technician)

Adamant (252 Atk, 172 Spd, 84 HP)

• Bullet Punch
• Superpower
• Substitute
• Swords Dance

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

After completing my streaks at the Hall, Arcade and Tower, I had one final ongoing streak left in Platinum, which was at the Castle. It has now been completed as well… actually quite a while ago, it has just taken a lot of time to get around to making this post.

I didn’t look up trainers this time. There was no need to do that due to the way the Castle works. Instead, I looked up opposing Pokémon using Bulbapedia’s lists, mostly the list for Group 2 but also Group 1 when I got to face a Pokémon from the earlier sets (it rarely happened during Single, and only during the early rounds in Double). I also used turskain’s damage calculator a lot, doing damage calcs before and during pretty much all battles for Single, and most of the time for Double.

Single

Team & Streak

For single, I had an ongoing streak of 49 wins, with 214 CP. It was the usual, I had beaten the Gold Boss and then stopped since I had reached my goal, which was to get the Gold Print.

Team:

Salamence (M) @ Choice Band ** Salamander
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/25/31/31
EVs: 252 Att / 6 Sp.def / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 170/187/100/114/101/167
Nature: Jolly
- Outrage
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

Milotic (F) @ Leftovers ** Mirage
Ability: Marvel Scale
IVs: 31/0/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Spd
Level 50 stats: 202/58/144/120/145/102
Nature: Bold
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Toxic
- Recover

Blissey (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Spd
Level 50 stats: 362/15/68/95/155/76
Nature: Bold
- Seismic Toss
- Flamethrower
- Aromatherapy
- Softboiled

Streak: 105

Picture proof:

The CP difference is because I spent 60 CP on hold items for my team in the beginning of the final round (where I lost in the first battle).

This is the same team as I used for the Arcade, but now for the facility it was originally made for! They can also hold items here without having to rely on the luck and the randomness on the board. And thanks to the way the Castle works, I can have Leftovers on both Milotic and Blissey.

Credit for this team goes to Bozo, his post about it can be found here. As for my previous experiences with this team at the Castle, I have talked about them here. This will be the last time I link to that post, I promise.

About the team / How to play

I’m not going to do a super-long explanation like I did last time. Instead, some short notes.

Salamence is a standard CB set. Outrage and Aerial Ace are the best STAB moves, Earthquake and Rock Slide for coverage. The latter is inaccurate and should not be relied on too much, but I used it a few times when it was reasonably safe and the best possible option. A Jolly Nature with maxed Speed gives Salamence a Speed stat of 167, which is very good for the Castle. This allows it to outrun max Speed neutral base 100s which have been raised to level 55, that gives them a Speed stat of 166. Salamence can outrun many other opponents as well. Max Attack to hit as hard as possible, then the final EVs in Sp.def to screw over opposing Porygon with Download. Intimidate is useful to lower the Attack of leading opposing Physical attackers, making it easier for Milotic and Blissey to deal with them.

Milotic is the first of the two tanks. Surf and Ice Beam are the main moves for most Special Water-types, Milotic doesn’t have super great Sp.att so they don’t hit super hard unless they are super effective, but they get the job done unless the opponent resists Water and Ice. Toxic to slowly whittle down opponents, Recover to heal. Leftovers lets it heal even further. It has maxed HP and Defense to tank Physical hits, it already has good Sp.def naturally. Milotic is also pretty fast, a Speed stat of 102 lets it outrun uninvested neutral base 81s and everything below. The Defense boost from Marvel Scale can be useful to tank Physical hits better if it should be stuck by status, but that rarely happened.

Blissey is the second tank. Everyone knows about its great HP and Sp.def, nothing more to say there. Seismic Toss is the main means of dealing damage, it always deals 50 HP of damage which is great as it is consistent. Flamethrower to hit Ghosts, but it can also hit harder than Seismic Toss against various opponents that are weak to Fire. Aromatherapy to cure itself and the team from status, Softboiled to heal. It can also use Natural Cure to cure itself from status by switching. Like Milotic, it has maxed HP and Defense to tank hits, the Defense is extra helpful against Physical attacks which Blissey does not enjoy all that much.

While playing now, I really wish I had Toxic on Blissey. That would have made life a lot easier against certain targets I’d rather beat slowly, as opposed to using Seismic Toss/Flamethrower. Though I’d rather not get rid of any of Blissey’s moves, they all have their uses. I need Softboiled and Aromatherapy to heal/cure status, and getting rid of Flamethrower leaves me helpless against Gengar, a Pokémon which I use Blissey to beat. Getting rid of Seismic Toss would be pointless since that move is the reason I have this Blissey in the first place. This is good example of 4MSS, I guess. But even without Toxic, this set worked.

In addition to the above, I felt that many of the opponents I wanted to use Toxic on were either immune to it, Grass/Electric-types that threatened Milotic, or Pokémon which had Grass/Electric-type moves. Because of all this, Toxic on Milotic wasn’t as great as I had hoped.

I guess that’s it for the team. Next, how to play. First, there's the notes from Bozo on how to play the team.

Bozo’s notes

1. Before EVERY battle I identify every one of the opponent's pokemon, and generally check their summary. Then I compare it to the moveset list - only in very rare occasions will I need to pay to check the moves as well, if there is more than one of a certain pokemon with the same stats and item, which poses different kinds of threats to my team. For example, jolly focus sash houndoom - one has counter (I use milotic to deal with it), the other has reversal (salamence takes care of this one, although it nearly screwed me over big time in the youtube video because of paralysis on thunder fang).

2. OHKO users are promptly sent down to level 45 so they don't pose a threat. These guys are the primary source of problems to teams like this in the battle tower.

3. Anything I know for certain can be handled at level 55 is leveled up to get me more castle points. Probably not much point detailing how I decide this. Hmmm I wonder if blissey can handle that modest bastiodon, or if salamence can OHKO that sash'less lead heracross.

4. Toxic on milotic is very useful for killing bulky pokes (milotic and blissey can stall/switch/whatever while the foe slowly dies). It is also crucial for dealing with some salac/reversal pokes - hit it with toxic, and then KO with salamence without fear - even though salamence resists reversal, it is not worth risking a possible crit, and then seeing the rest of my team destroyed. Even activating guts on heracross is usually worth it (sacrificing milotic or blissey to get salamence in safely). Also deals with focus sash/band to an extent as well. It has to be said that occasionally getting poison synchronized from an umbreon has helped milotic later when facing a powerful sweeper.

5. Blissey and milotic try and heal themselves towards the end of the battle so there is minimal cost in healing my teams between battles. Toxic really helps with this, as they are often slower, and can recover/softboil after taking the last hit, just before the opponent finally succumbs to the poison. Roost would be an interesting option on salamence for this reason, although it obviously doesn't go well with choice band (lol), and I don't want to lose the power by switching to leftovers.

6. In most battles, salamence is just there for intimidate (I've never once had to restore his PP), but he occasionally does get to rip through a team just using outrage.

7. Finally, possibly the most important thing. NEVER be a scrouge with castle points. Lower the opponent's level if you feel you must. In extreme situations I even passed a few battles (probably about 3-4 in my streak so far). It sucks, and you lose LOTS of points (50 plus the points you don't get for winning the battle), but it's better than losing and dreaming of all the points you saved. The last one I remember passing had I think that focus sash exploding electrode, another bulky exploder with a quick claw (golem or claydol?) and some kind of bulky normal sweeper. It's just not worth risking it.

There’s also the info from Bulbapedia regarding how much CP you get for every battle:
- Number of Pokémon that have not fainted: No. ×3CP
- Number of Pokémon with full HP: No. ×3CP
- Number of Pokémon with more than half HP remaining: No. ×2CP
- Number of Pokémon with less than half HP remaining: No. ×1CP
- Number of Pokémon with no status ailments: No. ×1CP
- Under 5 PP used in battle: 8CP
- Under 10 PP used in battle: 6CP
- Under 15 PP used in battle: 4CP
- Number of opponent's Pokémon that gained 5 levels: No. ×7CP

The highest possible CP you can get after a battle is 50, but that rarely happened for me.

And finally, some personal notes that I decided to write down as I played with the team now:
- Opposing Porygon with Download will always get an Attack boost, no matter what. This is due to all members of the team having higher Sp.def than Def.
- Salamence’s Intimidate will remove White Herbs from any leads.
- Be careful of stuff with similar names. For instance, I once mixed up Jolteon-4 (Razor Fang) with Jolteon-2 (Razor Claw), putting me in a bad situation.
- When facing opposing Pokémon with the same hold item on multiple sets, take note of their Nature/Stats (EV spread) since it can help you identify their set in some occasions. For instance, Espeon-1 and Espeon-3 both hold a Lum Berry, but set 1 is Timid while set 3 is Modest.
- Also take note of the Ability when facing an opponent which can have two Abilities, this is especially useful for those where one Ability is more dangerous than the other, or if the Abilities force you to play differently (like against Bronzong, I can Earthquake if it has Heatproof, but not if it has Levitate).

Those are all the notes for the team that I have.

Looking back, I’m not sure if I always played the team correctly. While I did win 105 battles in a row, there were many situations where I was unsure if I was playing correctly.

Before I started now, I used PP Ups on Milotic’s Recover and Blissey’s Softboiled. I would have liked to max the PP for all moves on the team, but I don’t have enough PP Ups on Platinum for that. I think I have more PP Ups on D/P, so I guess I could have traded over my team to those games and used the PP Ups I have there. But I didn’t do that since it felt pointless.

Later on, I used PP Ups on Blissey’s Seismic Toss after round 9. I also used PP Ups on its Flamethrower after round 12.

CP revenue / How I played / Notable battles / The loss

CP revenue:

When I started, I had 214 CP. After going through round 8, I had about half of that left, and I had been close to losing in some battles as well. I realized that if I wanted to win, I would have to play more seriously. So I did that for round 9 and on. It worked at first, since I had a net profit of around 50 CP after round 9. After that, I started gaining CP after each round, then losing again… and then I ended up gaining CP again. It went a bit up and down.

How I played:

When I played, I planned the battles in advance and tried to predict what my opponent would do and which Pokémon they would bring in after their lead had fainted. It worked most of the time, but not always. Doing damage calculations and checking matchups helped a lot as well.

I saw a lot of resist switches here. I guess they happen from time to time. While playing this and last year, I have seen several both here and at the Tower, but I can’t recall ever seeing that many in the Platinum Frontier or the D/P Tower in the past.

Notable battles:

There were some battles early on that I didn’t write down the details for. I remember one where I had Blissey up against a Raikou-4 which had CMed a bit, making it dangerous since it kept dealing a ton of damage. There was also another battle (or it might have been the same) where I only had Blissey left at low HP at the end of the battle, but I did at least win.

Then there’s two battles I have the full details for:

Battle #76. This was against a team of Honchkrow-3 (raised to level 55), Muk-4 and Drapion-1. Blissey took care of the Honchkrow without problems, I then switched to Salamence to KO the Muk with EQ, but it started with Gunk Shot and got a QC activation on the second turn, 2HKOing Salamence. I beat it with Milotic, but it took heavy damage since the Muk finished with Explosion. The Drapion was then faster and KO’d Milotic before I could Recover. I managed to beat it with Blissey, Seismic Toss had a guaranteed 3HKO, but it was tough since the Drapion was faster and hit hard with its STABs. It also Poisoned me and I considered using Aromatherapy, but I decided not to.

Battle #80. An insane stall battle against a Manectric-4 (raised to level 55), Gengar-3 and Mismagius-3 (raised to level 55). My plan was to beat all three with Blissey, but it didn’t really go as planned. One unexpected thing that happened was that my opponent randomly switched out Manectric for Gengar (probably because I used Seismic Toss against it). Anyway, I managed to beat the Manectric and the Gengar with Blissey, then I was going to beat the Mismagius… but I didn’t have enough PP left for Flamethrower! I couldn’t switch in Salamence since it would be outrun and OHKO’d by Icy Wind, and Milotic was heavily damaged from the Gengar (I had switch-stalled a bit) so it would just be OHKO’d by Energy Ball. In the end, it was Blissey against Missy, and it got down to Struggling… for both of them, fortunately. The Missy ended up killing itself before my team was done with. But this battle was both close, scary, and annoying. I decided to use three of my remaining PP Ups on Blissey’s Flamethrower after this round.

The loss:

I lost in battle #106. I had just started on another round and was hoping to win 7 more battles, but that didn’t happen. Here’s the video:

Before the battle, I had identified the opposing team as Aggron, Aerodactyl and Arcanine, all set 4. My strategy was to let Milotic beat them, with Blissey and Salamence as backups in case anything went wrong. I raised Aggron to level 55 since I would have an easy time against it.

The battle starts with Salamence against Aggron. Intimidate, I then switch to Milotic, Aggron uses Stone Edge and misses. A good start. I use Ice Beam due to Focus Sash and Metal Burst, Surf wouldn’t have had a guaranteed OHKO either:

0 SpA Milotic Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Aggron: 150-176 (94.3 - 110.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

The Aggron hits with Stone Edge, but it doesn’t do a lot. I KO with Surf on the next turn. Arcanine comes out. My plan here was to use Toxic and then maybe KO with Surf, but things didn’t go my way. It uses Thunder Fang, I use Recover to heal. The Arcanine continues with Thunder Fang and it makes Milotic flinch twice in a row, followed by a Crit, which is enough to defeat Milotic. Not good. I decided to continue with Blissey. Flare Blitz is seriously going to hurt though:

252+ Atk Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 178-210 (49.1 - 58%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

So I go for Softboiled to insta-heal. However, the Arcanine gets a Crit and a Burn, Blissey lives with 5 HP left and heals itself, but the Burn damage afterwards is enough to put it below 50%. The Arcanine also takes really heavy recoil. This went from bad to even worse. I decide to switch to Salamence in order to cure Blissey and let Salamence beat the Arcanine. I have a guaranteed KO with Outrage on both it and the Aerodactyl, but the Aerodactyl will be faster, so I won’t win unless it misses with Stone Edge.

I switch to Salamence, it tanks a Flare Blitz and KO’s the Arcanine with Outrage. Aerodactyl comes in, hits Salamence with Stone Edge and gets a clear KO. Out with Blissey again. If Stone Edge misses here, I might still have a chance to win. But it hits, Blissey goes down, and I lose.

This was a quite haxy loss, but I could still have won if I had done things differently. If I had lowered the Aerodactyl to level 45, Salamence would have been faster and could have KO’d with Outrage. At level 45, the Aerodactyl would have had a Speed stat of 164, while Salamence is at 167. This was a bit of a sour loss, and even worse, it happened on my birthday! Not really the present I had hoped for.

Even so, I’m happy about this streak. It is my fourth best streak on Platinum and my fourth streak on Platinum where I have gotten over 100 wins in a row. So that’s great. With this, I had completed all of my ongoing streaks on Platinum. But I still had one thing left to do at the Castle, and it ended up going in a direction I had never expected…

Double

Team & Streak

Before leaving the Castle, I wanted to try Double as well. Just like I did at the Hall and Arcade, and I’m planning to do it at the Tower and Factory later on as well. I didn’t expect to get very far, but to my own surprise… I made it on the leaderboards! Which means I can join the five people who have streaks for Castle Doubles on the leaderboards. Even better, I made it quite a bit further afterwards. So this definitely deserves a category of its own.

I had never tried Double at the Castle before, and I wasn’t sure what team to use. In addition, Double battles with just three Pokémon is really weird, I wish I could use four just like at the Tower. Either way, I looked at the Pokémon I had trained for the Frontier on Platinum and threw together three which seemed like they could work well together.

Team:

Salamence (M) @ Choice Band / Expert Belt / Life Orb / No Item ** Salamander
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/25/31/31
EVs: 252 Att / 6 Sp.def / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 170/187/100/114/101/167
Nature: Jolly
- Outrage
- Aerial Ace
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide

Gengar (M) @ Wise Glasses / Life Orb / Focus Sash / Choice Scarf / Choice Specs / Colbur Berry / No Item ** Funki
Ability: Levitate
IVs: Flawless Sp.att / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Sp.att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 125/75/67/182/95/178
Nature: Timid
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb (previously Focus Blast)
- Thunderbolt
- Destiny Bond

Metagross @ Muscle Band / Expert Belt / Lum Berry / Aspear Berry / Shuca Berry / No Item ** Big Blue
Ability: Clear Body
IVs: Flawless Attack
EVs: 174 HP / 252 Att / 84 Spd
Level 50 stats: 174/205/135/103/106/94
Nature: Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Thunderpunch
- Bullet Punch

Streak: 97

Picture proof:

About the team and the streak

To start with, I will be completely honest here. I won many of the battles with this team through luck rather than skill, including some battles I absolutely didn’t deserve to win (check the battle logs further below for details on them). But there were also many battles I won through skill and strategy, so I decided to submit the streak for the leaderboards, joining the five other players who have streaks for Castle Doubles. This is also my first Double streak on Platinum where I made it on the leaderboards, but if all goes as planned, it will not be the last.

Let’s go over the team. Salamence is the same as for Single. The moveset is not optimized for Double battles, but it worked. Outrage isn’t very good in Double since it is uncontrollable, you can’t choose which opponent to target. That said, it is useful if there’s only one opponent left, or in the instances where Gengar/Metagross can take down one opponent, which allows Salamence to Outrage the other one. Aerial Ace for secondary STAB, Earthquake and Rock Slide for coverage. Worth noting here is that they are both spread moves. Earthquake can be used freely if Gengar is on the field alongside Salamence, but I can’t use it when I have Metagross out. Rock Slide is inaccurate and I rarely used it, but it saved me on a few occasions. Intimidate and Salamence’s Speed stat of 167 was useful in many instances here, just like for Single.

As for the hold items, they varied a bit. Choice Band was used when I needed to hit hard but had no need to switch between attacks. Life Orb and Expert Belt whenever I needed a power boost but also needed to use different attacks. Life Orb offered more power at the cost of losing HP, while Expert Belt was useful when I knew I was going to use Super effective moves. There were also times when Salamence wasn’t holding an item. This was either in the early rounds, when I couldn’t afford an item, or when I just didn’t need one.

Next, we have Gengar and Metagross. I think I need to talk about the background for these two before going over their details. When I was about to start battling at the Platinum Frontier back in 2009, I decided to raise 12 Pokémon for it to start with. The reason was that when I had started battling at the Emerald Frontier in 2006, I had originally raised 12 Pokémon for it as well (these later expanded to 48 as time went by). I wanted to recreate that.

However, it didn’t work. I was seriously burnt out on Pokémon at the time and it took a long time before they were ready. I started breeding these 12 Pokémon in mid-late 2009, but I hadn’t obtained all of them until the beginning of 2010, and I didn’t start battling at the Frontier until the middle of 2010. I used these Pokémon to get all of the Silver Prints, but not any of the Gold Prints (even if I tried a little for some of the facilities). Those 12 Pokémon are not RNGed since this was long before I learned to RNG in Gen 4. RNG abuse had been discovered when I obtained them, but I never even bothered giving it a try since I felt that it was way too complicated for me at the time. Instead, I went for traditiona breeding, I bred for Pokémon that had Flawless IVs in 1-2 stats and decided to stick with them.

So that’s their backstory. Back to the details for them. Gengar is a standard special attacker (more or less) with three attacks and Destiny Bond. Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb for STAB, Thunderbolt for coverage. It initially had Focus Blast in the second slot, but while playing now, I changed it to Sludge Bomb after going through round 1. While I was not expecting to get on the leaderboards at that point, I still felt that it was better to use accurate moves, and it’s not like I am going to use that Sludge Bomb TM on anything else in the future. Or if I should, I can just buy a new one. The reason I used Focus Blast in the past was probably because it is a common choice on Gengar used for competitive battling, and as I was still aspiring to be a competitive battler at that point, so that was what influenced me. But as I know now, and should have known back then, inaccurate moves are terrible choices for semi-competitive battling. I’m not sure if this is the best set for Gengar on the whole, Shadow Ball is pretty much mandatory but it gets some other coverage options like Hidden Power and Energy Ball, not sure if either of these are better.

A Timid Nature with maxed Sp.att and Speed allows Gengar to hit hard and outrun a ton of opponents. Levitate also lets Salamence and Metagross quake freely when they are on the field with it. One other notable thing is that due to the way the Castle Works, Destiny Bond could be incredibly useful even when Gengar had fainted. If one of your Pokémon faints in a battle, it will get revived, but only to 1 HP. When that happened to Gengar, it could act as bait for slower Pokémon and use Destiny Bond while being targeted, allowing me to take down one opponent with ease.

Gengar had the most item variation throughout the run. Below is a short description for all of the items it was holding.
Wise Glasses: When I needed a slight power boost with the option to switch between moves, only used early on.
Life Orb: Same function as Wise Glasses, but used in the later rounds.
Focus Sash: Mostly used in combination with Destiny Bond, it allowed Gengar to tank one hit and live, then defeat an opponent with Destiny Bond. Or in other situations where I wanted Gengar to survive at least one hit.
Choice Scarf: Only used once, which after getting it from an opposing Porygon-Z-2 which used Trick!
Choice Specs: Used when I needed a great power boost but didn’t need to switch between moves, it doesn’t work very well with Destiny Bond though.
Colbur Berry: Used on two occasions to survive a Dark-type move from an opponent, both times were against Skuntank!
No Item: This was either used early on, if I couldn’t afford an item, or if I didn’t need one, like for the Destiny Bond sacrifices described above.

Next up is Metagross. It is a standard Physical attacker. Meteor Mash is the main STAB move, it deals heavy damage and has a chance to boost Attack, the downside is that it is inaccurate. Iron Head might be a better alternative, it has lower base power but higher accuracy. When I played now, I was often afraid of Meteor Mash missing, but it never happened in any of the later battles. Earthquake is the main coverage move, Metagross can always use it freely alongside Salamence and Gengar. Thunderpunch for more coverage, it helps against Water- and Flying-types. Bullet Punch in the last slot for priority, it can be used to chip targets, KO weakened targets, or even 2HKO frail opponents like Weavile. Not sure if this is the best moves though. Like Gengar, Metagross gets many other moves such as Hammer Arm/Brick Break, Explosion, Rock Slide, Ice Punch and Zen Headbutt. So there might be better options. A Steel-type move and Earthquake feels mandatory though.

It has an Adamant Nature with max Attack to hit as hard as possible. Not sure what I had in mind with the HP and Speed EVs, but they give it a bit more bulk and Speed at least. A Speed stat of 94 allows it to outspeed some slower Pokémon at least. Clear Body is useful to block Intimidates and other random stat drops. Like Salamence, Metagross didn’t have a whole lot of different hold items. Muscle Band was the standard item for it most of the time, giving it a slight Attack boost while still allowing it to switch between moves. Expert Belt served a similar function. Lum and Aspear for battles where I had to switch in Meta on an Ice-type move and prevent it from getting Frozen. Technically I only needed Aspear and not Lum, but Lum is universally better and it can be useful later on if it shouldn’t get used up during the battle. Shuca Berry was used once to tank a potential Earthquake from a Gliscor, but it never ended up being used in the battle. No Item was like for Salamence, it happened early on or if I couldn’t afford an item for Metagross, or if it didn’t need to hold one.

So that’s the team. While this is far from the best possible team for Castle Doubles, it worked surprisingly well. I can’t really recommend it though, or at least not this version of it. Maybe it would be better with the same Pokémon but with different sets, I’m not sure though. Looking back at it now, the hold items I used here varied a lot. In comparison, I always had the same hold items for the Single team.

While I played, I wrote logs for all rounds (and all battles starting from battle #50). When I started, I didn’t expect to get very far, so I just wrote a short summary for every round. But once I got past 49 battles, I decided to write logs for every battle. I put the logs in a separate document which can be found here. If the link doesn’t work, tell me and I’ll fix it.

As for the streak, I got surprisingly far, much further than expected. As you can read in the logs, there were several situations where I thought I would lose, and some battles that I definitely didn’t deserve to win. In the end, I lost in battle #98. Here’s the video for that battle:

Before the battle, Gengar was at 1 HP, Metagross was at full HP. Salamence was damaged from previous battles, but I healed it before the battle. As for their items, Gengar wasn’t holding anything, Salamence and Metagross were both holding an Expert Belt.

I had identified the opposing team as Lopunny-3, Empoleon-3/4 and Mr.Mime-3. I expected the Empoleon to be set 3 because the others were set 3 (and this turned out to be true). Either way, this wasn’t a particularly good matchup. My plan was to let Gengar use Destiny Bond to sacrifice itself, it should work unless the Empoleon gets a QC activation. Salamence would mostly be dead weight since the Lopunny has Ice Beam and the Empoleon likely has Blizzard, but hopefully it can at least do something before falling. I had to count on Metagross here.

Battle start. Intimidate, I switch Salamence for Metagross, Gengar uses Destiny Bond, Lopunny uses Ice Beam on Metagross, which gets Frozen! Not good. Though it doesn’t do a lot of damage, so that’s at least something. The Empoleon uses Blizzard, Gengar faints and takes the penguin down with it, Metagross takes more damage and is almost at 50%. Out with Salamence, my opponent sends out Mr. Mime.

What to do? Salamence can’t use Earthquake here, Aerial Ace won’t KO either opponent, Rock Slide might Flinch but won’t KO, while Outrage will KO Mime and has a 18.8% chance to OHKO Lopunny. I need Metagross to defrost if I want to win. Either way, I go for Outrage. It hits the Mime, which faints. Lopunny uses Ice Beam to defeat Salamence. Metagross is still Frozen. The Lopunny then uses Focus Blast and hits, Metagross remains Frozen. Focus Blast, miss, Metagross Frozen. Repeat twice more. Lopunny then hits Metagross with the final Focus Blast, and I lose.

After all of the lucky victories I had, it feels suitable that I lost in such a haxy way. That said, one thing I could have done differently was to give an Aspear Berry to Metagross before the battle. That way, it wouldn’t have been Frozen (unless the Empoleon’s Blizzard had frozen it as well), allowing me to beat the Lopunny with ease.

Here's the original battle log if anyone wants to read it:

Original battle log

Battle 7: Lopunny-3, Empoleon-3, Mr.Mime-3. Empoleon is likely set 3 this time since the others are (this turned out to be true). Either way, doesn’t look fun. Lopunny is a joke, the others are bad though (but in retrospect, Lopunny wasn’t that much of a joke).
Gar can sac itself as long as the Emp doesn’t get a QC activation, and even so, Lop should be faster which means I still have to deal with Empoleon with Sala. Can’t do much more than rely on Meta here, I suppose.
Heal Sala, then begin. 2 CP left.
Turn 1: Switch Sala for Meta, Gar DB, Lop Ice beam on Meta, Frozen! Empoleon uses Blizzard, hits Gar, both faint. Meta takes a little damage. That did not go as planned! Out with Sala and Mime.
Turn 2: Sala is faster than Lop, but Meta is Frozen. Too bad I didn’t give it an Aspear Berry here. Oh well. What can I do but gamble? Sala Outrage, hits Mime, OHKO. Lop Ice beam on Sala, OHKO. Meta Frozen.
Turn 3: Lop Focus Blast brings Meta to 25% or so. Meta Frozen.
Turn 4: Lop Focus Blast, miss. Meta still Frozen.
Turn 5: Lop Focus Blast, miss. Meta still Frozen.
Turn 6: Lop Focus Blast, miss. Meta still Frozen.
Turn 7: Lop Focus Blast, hits, Meta down. Streak finally over!

I got haxed to death in the final battle. I think I deserved that.

And that’s the end of my journey with Castle Doubles.

Final thoughts on the Castle

The Castle is my favorite Facility in Platinum. I really like how it is based on strategy and resource management, you need skill in order to win (though luck still plays a part, as shown with my Doubles streak). I like how you can get a full team preview of the opponent and plan your battles in advance, as well as adapt your strategy depending on the opposing team, by means such as changing your hold items and lowering/raising the levels of the opponents.

That said, it is a bit slow-paced. Going through one round in Single usually took me about an hour. This was because I had to prepare and plan before the battles, and the team was pretty slow-paced, with both Blissey and Milotic being bulky stallers, making the battles take some time as well. The later rounds in Double could also take up to one hour to go through, mostly due to all the planning I had to do before the battles. The battles themselves were generally more fast-paced due to the nature of the team.

But even with that, I am a big fan of the Castle. However, I will never return to it. I consider myself done with it once and for all, just like with the Hall and Arcade. I have no intention of trying Multi here, just like for the other facilities.

With this, I have completed all of my ongoing streaks in Platinum. But I still have three things left to do in the Platinum Frontier.

- Battle Tower Double. I want to give it a try using the team I made for Pearl last year. I feel like I let the team down by losing immediately, so I want to use it again, but it will be here on Platinum instead of on Pearl. I know the team is capable of getting a longer streak, my goal is to get a streak of 105 wins in a row or more.
- Battle Factory Single. I want to beat it since it is the only facility from which I have yet to get the Gold Print. Not sure if I will be able to do it, but I will at least try. I have already made a few tries, but no success yet (obviously).
- Battle Factory Double. I just want to try it a little since I want to try Double at all facilities in Platinum. I’m not going to try to get a good streak, but I want to win at least one round in both Level 50 and Open Level.

So that’s what I have left in Platinum and Gen 4.

My battle facility project has now been going on for over a year. It started on March 6th last year and I made my first post about it exactly a year ago, on March 12th, 2022. While I have completed a lot of the streaks I was planning to continue on, there’s still quite a few left (all on Gen 5-7). I also have even more extra ideas left in addition to the three I talked about above. Because of all this, I don’t think I will be done until next year!

But before I continue, I am going to take a break. Not only from the project, but also from Pokémon on the whole. I am quite tired of Pokémon at the moment and I think taking a break will just be for the better. My plan is that this break shall last for one month at the least, maybe even longer. But once it is over, I will be back.

 

[Gimmy]

I improved my Lv50 Factory streak from 49 to 50, full video here:

 

[atsync]

I have updated the thread to here, let me know if I screwed up, etc.

I don't have any new records that I'm ready to write-up properly just yet, but I did get 241 with this in the tower:

Garchomp @ Focus Sash, Jolly 252/252, Outrage/Earthquake/Swords Dance/Substitute
Metagross @ Lum Berry, Adamant (can't remember EVs right now), Iron Head/Earthquake/Explosion/Bullet Punch
Starmie @ Life Orb, Timid 252/252, Surf, Psychic, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt

"Goodstuffs" Dragon/Water/Steel set-up, nothing fancy. Only things I'll note for now:

• Focus Sash is a nice lead item for more offensive teams like this due to the protection against OHKOes, just grants more freedom on turn 1
• Lum Berry Steels are decent back-ups for lead Dragons to intercept Ice moves more safely although it's hard to find a Steel that does everything I would like, Metagross works pretty well and Explosion is awesome in emergencies sometimes but some Ice mons have Sheer Cold as well so I find it's better to just stay in and attack against those ones, Metagross would be way better if it could have Sturdy, also its part-Psychic typing is annoying and unhelpful more often than not...............
• This was a relatively lucky streak and I consider 241 to be at the upper echelon of what I would expect for a team like this (I lost another streak before 60 wins just to give you an idea, albeit with Scizor over Metagross), teams like this are good for quick runs to the symbol/105 trophy though so if you want something fast and fun this is pretty good

 

[Rimefang]

Idk if this is the place to ask but can anyone give me a opinion on which is easier, Lvl 50 or Open Level Battle Factory? I have been spamming both for about 2 weeks now. 1 attempt I went to fight 40 in Lvl 50 and I lost. Then I got 3 attempts into Wave 6 in Open Level probaly fights 38-40 and lost again each time. Ik lvl 50 goes faster cuz faster HP bars but the Silver Fight is brutal even if you trade every round possible. One time my elevations for Wave 3 in Lvl 50 were a Shuckle and Vespiquen lol. The Open Level takes longer but the Silver Print battles definitely go smoother cuz you get all fully evolved mons like Thorton.

 

[atsync]

Idk if this is the place to ask but can anyone give me a opinion on which is easier, Lvl 50 or Open Level Battle Factory? I have been spamming both for about 2 weeks now. 1 attempt I went to fight 40 in Lvl 50 and I lost. Then I got 3 attempts into Wave 6 in Open Level probaly fights 38-40 and lost again each time. Ik lvl 50 goes faster cuz faster HP bars but the Silver Fight is brutal even if you trade every round possible. One time my elevations for Wave 3 in Lvl 50 were a Shuckle and Vespiquen lol. The Open Level takes longer but the Silver Print battles definitely go smoother cuz you get all fully evolved mons like Thorton.

The general consensus is that level 50 is easier in the long-run, although it definitely has a harder Thorton1 fight and a few other difficulty spikes, and I think if you are trying to decide which mode to play and relying on "difficulty" as the main deciding factory, Level 50 is probably the better choice (the fact that the HP bars go by faster doesn't hurt either).

One of the key reasons is that there is a point in your Factory streak where the trainers you face will begin to use ANY set of their Pokemon (including Legendaries) against you which makes it harder to figure out what set your facing and how to play against it, and the point that this occurs is earlier in Open Level (Wave 5) than in Level 50 (Wave 8). In fact, in Level 50, you don't start facing "any set" trainers until after the Thorton Gold fight, so for the duration of a 49 win streak, you'll be able to know exactly which set you are facing as long as you note the trainer and have a reference sheet (the only exception is Thorton2 in HGSS since he can use any set Legendaries against you alongside his set 4 high tiers). In Open Level, you often won't know that exact set you're facing in any particular battle once you get to Round 5 (although you might be able to eliminate some possibilities with item clause) which means you often have to account for more scenarios when deciding the optimal play on any particular turn, which not only adds more uncertainty but also makes battles go by even slower overall (and makes losses even more demoralizing given you sank more time into the run).

Having said that, Level 50 is still hard, and some people maybe just prefer Open for other reasons, so maybe the best choice is just the one you're more likely to enjoy playing and stick with. Level 50 might be "easier" but if you find yourself getting more frustrated by the early difficulty spikes and therefore more likely to abandon the quest for the symbol, Open Level may in fact end up being the mode that gives you personally a higher chance of success.

 

[Rimefang]

Ty for the reply I've been thinking the same, especially about set variety. A lot of my Open Level attempts seemed more difficult just because I'm guessing and hoping for the best which set the mon is using Round 5 and onward. I hit Wave 5 today in level 50 after a few attempts vs Thorton and onward but lost to a status at fight 5 of 7. Other then that it seemed much smoother just cause they were either set 1 or 2. Will be trying again soon.

 

[Ab2658]

Posting a 888 win streak I achieved in Battle Tower Doubles (platinum). I did it on an emulator which I know isn't allowed so if you don't want to list it that's fine, but I figured people might be interested in the streak anyway. I used Pokegen for the mons but didn't use any save states during the streak (obviously).

I made this team a few years ago after some tinkering and have done about 1-2 runs a year, usually getting to 400 or 500 before losing while on autopilot to something preventable, so I finally wanted to focus on getting a good streak without losing from a silly error.

Team: Dancing in the Rain

@ Lum Berry
Modest, 84 HP / 4 Def / 252 Sp Att / 4 Sp Def / 164 Spe
- Fake Out
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Energy Ball

Analysis

Ludi makes up one of the two rain stars of the show. As the only swift swimmer with Fake Out he's the obvious lead choice, with a very useful typing for beating out other water types. I had Grass Knot originally but Energy Ball is more useful for hitting the little fishies like Vaporeon and Lanturn, and against the heaviest chunguses Grass Knot is generally overkill given the rest of the team. Originally I had fewer speed EV's so it would hit 106 speed to outspeed Electrode in the rain, but I added more to get to 111 so that we can outspeed and OHKO Yanmega 3 and 4 after a speed boost, who has ended streaks before

@ Focus Sash
Adamant, 252 Att / 4 Sp Def / 252 Spe
- Rain Dance
- Helping Hand
- Low Kick
- Sucker Punch

Analysis

I got inspired to use this Toxicroak from Peterko's team, so I'm happy I was able to beat that streak. I used to have Kingdra in the lead spot but Toxicroak is the better choice. Although it's not too tanky, Rain + Surf heals it a lot each battle. Low Kick helps deal with all the annoying Hail users, especially Glalie with Inner Focus. Although most battles I start out Fake Out + Rain Dance, I don't always.

Against Ice trainers or Fisherman, it's often better to come firing right out of the gate instead of using Rain Dance turn 1. For double ices, Low Kick can grab a quick kill when using Rain Dance could lead to an awkward position where they use Hail after and break sash. And against a water trainer Rain Dance ends up not being too useful given they all resist Surf, and the extra momentum turn 1 can make a big difference.

Psychic trainers can be tricky because of Trick Room but I have a way to shut down most of them. I'll usually Fake Out the potential trick roomer turn 1, then if:</p><p>Exeggutor: Ice Beam + Helping Hand (Fake Out turn 1 breaks the sash)
Slowbro: Energy Ball + Helping Hand
Slowking: Luckily it's set 1 with TR which shows up less often. Energy Ball + HH isn't a kill
Hypno: Surf + Sucker Punch (he likes to attack)
Claydol: Surf + Helping Hand
Porygon2: Surf + Low Kick
Dusknoir: Surf + Helping Hand doesn't KO but it's not much a threat

A lot of them like to use Trick Room before attacking so I don't use Sucker Punch against those specific psychic types right away. But it's very useful for OHKO'ing Espeon, Alakazam, Mismagius and Gengar

@ Wise Glasses
Modest, 192 HP / 4 Def / 252 Sp Att / 8 Sp Def / 52 Spe
- Rain Dance
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Pulse

Analysis

Kingdra is the powerhouse, and also the bulkiest member of the team. Having a second Rain Dancer is essential for this team, as otherwise turn 1 flinches on Croak from various Air Slashes and Extrasensorys would mean almost certain loss. Wise Glasses are used because there isn't really a better option, and it's better than mystic water because the 20% boost makes Surf kill Scizor in one shot + one round of LO, even at 75%. I try not to use Surf with Scizor exposed but in a tight spot the breathing room has saved me. Finally I never considered Draco Meteor as Dragon Pulse is too useful for consistent damage to water types.

@ Life Orb
Adamant, 84 HP / 252 Att / 4 Def / 4 Sp Def / 164 Spe
- Bullet Punch
- Bug Bite
- Superpower
- Protect

Analysis

Finally we have Scizor. I don't love him but he plays an essential role as a 2nd physical attacker and hired gun for deleting Ice and Psychic Trainers, who are otherwise problematic. He's not as bulky as it feels like he should be, especially with Life Orb, but the powerful priority is very useful. Aerial Ace might be better than Superpower as I almost lost a couple times to DT'ers, but it really helps against Water/Ice, Normal and things like Registeel

General Threats

In no particular order:
- Fishermen: Ironic, but against all Water types the biggest strength of the team, mega boosted Surfs, is mostly negated. Ludicolo is useful here but if she goes down early it can turn into a slog where a Lanturn, Poliwrath or Politoed has a chance to hax me out.
- Psychic Trainers: Trick Room is a big potential threat as I can't always prevent it from coming up. Luckily Sucker Punch does a lot, most of them don't resist surf and Bug Bite one shots.
- Golduck: Cloud 9. One of the closest calls this streak came against a Golduck + Staraptor lead. Negating Swift Swim allowed Staraptor to one shot Ludi as Toxicroak was taken out as well after only getting off a RD and Sucker on Staraptor. Luckily that was enough for BP to finish the bird off
- Gardevoir/Porygon2: Trace can pick up Dry Skin or Swift Swim and potentially cause problems, especially if I'm not paying attention
- Froslass 4: Sucker Punch is not a OHKO and I need Surf + Helping Hand to take out. If that misses from lax incense, he will use hail turn 2 and put me in a bad spot
- Bronzong: The only mon with 2 Trick Room sets, and too tanky to take out first.
- Crobat: Air Slash flinch + Inner Focus. If Toxi gets flinched turn 1 I'll try to focus on taking out the bat with IB + HH so that Kingdra can set up rain
- Random Sandstorm/Sunny Day users. Most of these are weak to Surf and are slower and easier to take out luckily, but you have to be careful to use Fake Out on them, and some have evasion items like Blaziken 2 who have almost caused a loss before
- Fast Fake Out users: Luckily most of these sets are set 1 or 2 so they don't show up as often.

Ice Trainers were not as threatening as you might think, especially after I started to attack with Toxicroak turn 1 and rack up kills with Low Kick. OHKO generally was not too much an issue given that Low Kick, Surf, Energy Ball, and Superpower tend to one shot a lot of them. I'd say most kills were achieved through Surf + Surf or Surf + HH spam.

I lost against a PI.

Turn 1 Articuno and Skuntank vs Ludicolo and Toxicroak
I RD and Fake Out on Skuntank as Poison Jab is a OHKO on ludi. Articuno hits Sheer Cold on Ludi

Turn 2 Articuno and Skuntank vs Kingdra and Toxicroak
I Helping Hand + Surf to take out Skuntank and chunk Arti, who lands Ice Beam on Kingdra with a Critical Hit + Freeze, leaving her with <5%

Turn 3 Articuno and Forretress vs Kingdra and Toxicroak
Kingdra stays frozen while Toxicroak takes out Articuno with Low Kick. Forretress uses EQ, knocking out Kingdra and taking down Toxi to 10%

Turn 4 Pinsir and Forretress vs Scizor and Toxicroak
At this point I know I'm doomed, both of them are maxed on physical defense. I run a bunch of calcs and see that while I could try and one shot pinsir with Bug Bite + Helping Hand, Scizor has basically no chance of 1v1ing Forretress at full health, especially with Life Orb recoil. So I go for low kick on forre and protect on Scizor, hoping they'll each EQ and hurt each other, but no such luck.

Turn 5 Pinsir and Forretress vs Scizor
All I can do is Bug Bite Pinsir as they Close Combat + Rock Slide for the kill.

Happy to answer any questions about the team or streak! I was having trouble embedding the screen shot of the record in the post so I attached it as a file

 

[Rimefang]

It took 200 hours of attempts but i finally got a gold print for Lvl 50 in the Battle Factory. Got insanely lucky with Staraptor4 in my loadout and beating Garchomp4 my first battle with a Laturn4 at the end added for ice water resist and some special attacks. For the Thorton Gold battle he has 2 darks and leads Weavile4 vs Raptor who has Intimidate. For once in my god damn attempts I don't get frozen or critted, U-Turn out to Chomp n get my first KO. Houndoom4 comes out next, Dark Pulses no flinch dies to quake. The last mon was underwhelming but oh well, Probopass4. Quake seals the game and I finally get my 2nd gold print.

 

[Rimefang]

So after the factory stone walled me for ages I got to work and finished the rest of the frontier and did a 105 streak in the tower for the trainer star. The Tower I used Scarf Trick Latias and Double Dance Registeel like some of the teams posted here with very high streaks and a Sash Gengar with DBond for backup in case something went wrong (rarely happened, maybe once idk.) The Arcade and Castle I used SD Garchomp, AoA Zapados and a SD Scizor. A little Ice weak but Sciz helps that and this is a solid powerful offensive core. For the Hall I used Garchomp again swapping between Sash and Band depending on the typing, even running Flamethrower to help with random dangerous counter mons (Forretress, Sash BP Scizor). The Matron I wont lie I got insanely lucky with as she pulled a Luxray for the Silver and then Raikou for the Gold. She had no chance lol. S/O to all here and elsewhere who posted their teams, strats and other helpful pieces of info. They were a big help to my own success.

 

[NatIsAwesome]

I've been lurking this thread for more than a year now, but didn't want to do my first post until I got all the Gold/Colorful symbols in the Gen IV Battle Frontier. Well, now it's done. First, the streaks:

• DP Battle Tower Singles: 120 wins (achieved in July 2019)
• PtHGSS Battle Tower Singles: 49 wins (April 2022)
• Battle Hall Singles: 186 wins (August 2022)
• Battle Arcade Singles: 49 wins (October 2022)
• Battle Castle Singles: 49 wins (January 2023)
• Battle Factory Singles level 50: 49 wins (May 2023)

I'll talk a little bit about my teams and streaks, but nothing too boring since all teams aren't optimal at all and all streaks were done in order to get the symbols, nothing more. The Battle Factory part will be the longest and the most interesting part due to its strategy in rounds 6 and 7. Notice that not a single Pokemon is repeated in any two different facilities (I did that on purpose as a challenge).

Note: All the pokemons I used were bred without RNG manipulation.

Battle Tower

This first streak was done in order to get the 4th trainer card star in my 700h Pokemon Pearl game. As a challenge, I wanted this team to only have gen IV pokemons. Moreover, only pokemons that were in the Sinnoh pokedex in DP. I came up with the idea of a Sandstorm team. The same team was used to achieve the 49 wins in my SoulSilver game.

Team: BIG 3

Djokovic (Garchomp) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 27 HP / 31 Atk / 30 Def / 10 SpA / 26 SpD / 29 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Shadow Claw
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Outrage

Nadal (Hippowdon) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 200 HP / 70 Def / 240 SpD
IVs: 22 HP / 24 Atk / 15 Def / 20 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
Careful Nature
- Slack Off
- Earthquake
- Protect
- Toxic

Federer (Lucario) (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 21 HP / 27 Atk / 28 Def / 31 SpA / 16 SpD / 29 Spe
Timid Nature
- Aura Sphere
- Psychic
- Dark Pulse
- Calm Mind

The team is far from optimal and the strategy is very basic. Sweep with Garchomp, switch to Hippowdon when Garchomp is confused and stall everyone. Lucario basically for some Ice type mons. Team weaknesses are Ice type mons (Lucario is too weak), some fast Water with Ice moves and some levitating Steel/Poison types if Garchomp is dead and Hippowdon is low. I rarely used Lucario and even less often I used Calm Mind. It's just there cuz I wanted it to be special attacker. For the 120 streak, it was the first one I got to 100 wins, but got stuck a little bit at 60/70 wins. Palmer Gold is far easier than Palmer Silver. The 49 wins streak in SoulSilver was achieved the first time I tried it and lost almost on purpose immediately after Palmer Gold. I just wanted to get the symbol. I don't remember any of the losses.

Battle Hall

I know the best mon in Hall is probably Garchomp. Since I already used it in the Tower, I wanted to use a different mon. Second best mon may be Salamence.

Bad Gyal (Salamence) (F) @ Choice Band
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 100
EVs: 252 Atk / 6 SpD / 252 Spe
IVs: 31 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 31 SpA / 28 SpD / 31 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Outrage
- Fly
- Earthquake
- Fire Fang

Yes, I got a 5 perfect IVs (almost 6) Bagon after around 300 eggs and four 4 perfect IVs Bagons. Very lucky. Moves and nature may not be the best, but they do the job. I don't exactly remember the order of types I played before battle 170, but the start was like this: Water, Ice, Rock, Ground, Steel, Psychic, Electric. I left rank 9 and 10 Ice battles for Argenta. Argenta Gold had a Porygon-Z if I recall correctly. After 170 I played every type, leaving Ice for the last one. I lost at 187th battle against Dewgong.

Battle Arcade

For the Arcade, I wanted a team that is not affected by some of the red outcomes or gets advantage in some weather conditions. Again, very basic under this idea.

Team: Overcast Gamers

Riley9989 (Gengar) (F)
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 6 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 29 HP / 13 Atk / 22 Def / 31 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sludge Bomb
- Energy Ball
- Destiny Bond

xClafx (Metagross)
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 100 Def / 100 SpD / 18 Spe
IVs: 28 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 16 SpA / 31 SpD / 29 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Zen Headbutt
- Earthquake
- Explosion

Strangey (Kingdra) (M)
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 84 HP / 88 Def / 248 SpA / 84 SpD / 6 Spe
IVs: 31 HP / 10 Atk / 28 Def / 28 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
Modest Nature
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Dragon Pulse
- Blizzard

Metagross and Gengar are not affected by poison, Kingdra can benefit from rain or hail. I got the colorful symbol after 5/6 attempts. Gengar and Metagross are pretty good, but Kingdra deceived me a little bit.

Battle Castle

In the Castle the best idea is to bring sweepers because this way you get more Castle Points.

Team: Insane Dungeons

Vechs (Alakazam) (M)
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 6 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
IVs: 26 HP / 19 Atk / 31 Def / 31 SpA / 19 SpD / 31 Spe
Modest Nature
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Energy Ball
- Signal Beam

Xekaj (Infernape) (M)
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 24 HP / 31 Atk / 25 Def / 22 SpA / 31 SpD / 31 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Close Combat
- Fake Out
- Thunderpunch

DarthVid (Dragonite) (M)
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 210 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 44 Spe
IVs: 26 HP / 31 Atk / 31 Def / 6 SpA / 22 SpD / 31 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Waterfall
- Dragon Dance

Alakazam works very well as a lead, and the other two are coverage. I find Infernape a good pokemon with good moves but maybe not the best for the Castle due to recoil damage. The strategy is to get as many CP as I can in the first 3 rounds, then make a good use of them. I almost always bought a Lum Berry for all 3 mons (very cheap). I rushed round 7 by skipping all the battles. That's why I lost immediately after Darach.

Battle Factory

Now coming the infamous Battle Factory. I started playing it the first out of the five because I was lazy to breed for the other facilities. After a month where the furthest I got was 34 wins (didn't look at sets and calculators), I soon realized that the Factory is the hardest challenge of them all. With that in mind, I tried Hall, Arcade and Castle in this order. In January this year I finally got the second last colorful symbol and it was again only me and the Factory. Started trying on 11th March, finished on 24th May.

My approach this time has been more serious. I've started to play the "always trade" strategy for the first two rounds to get two elevations for Thorton Silver. I have to say that I only remember losing to Thorton once in these two months, whereas a year ago I probably lost against him 60% of the time. From round 4 onwards I've used Turskain's calculator to help me. Instead, I've got really frustrated, always losing in round 5. Sometimes due to bad luck, sometimes due to bad play (I'm a noob at knowing how AI works).

So, on 22nd May I first got to round 6 and asked for help on the Discord server. The only thing I remember from round 5 is that I had Lickilicky3 and Skarmory2 (good stall mons) from the draft and alternating leads depending on the information. In round 5-7 I got lucky with Skarmory at +4 evasion against an Electrode3 that missed Thunder five or six times.

Round 6

Round 6-1
No info. Draft: Garchomp3, Weezing4, Venusaur4, Tentacruel4, Nidoking3, Electivire4. I pick Chomp, Cruel, Venus. Opponent has Hariyama2, Blastoise2, Mr mime2. Easy win, I didn't even need to do the Hypnosis/Dream Eater dance around Mime.

Round 6-2
Ice types. I don't switch. My team is still Garchomp3, Tentacruel4, Venusaur4. Opponent's team is Froslass3, Dewgong3, Infernape3. Tentacruel misses a Hyperpump so I have to flip a Stone Edge against Froslass, but luckily it hits. Then Dewgong hits a Sheer Cold to Chomp but Cruel finishes the job. Got away from a haxy match.

Round 6-3
No info. Trade Froslass for Venusaur. My team is Garchomp3, Tentacruel4, Froslass3. Opponent has Probopass2, Exeggutor2, Ninetales2. Probo and Ggutor are easy but Chomp dies to 9tales. I had to flip a Hyperpump. Fairly easy win.

Round 6-4
No info. No trades. My team is Garchomp3, Tentacruel4, Froslass3. Opponent has Breloom3, Marowak3, Lopunny3. Breloom is a OHKO. Marowak is dangerous but not to this Garchomp. Flipped two Aqua Tails (81% chance) but had a backup plan with FLass and Dbond. Dbond killed Loppuny in the end. Fairly easy win.

Round 6-5
No info. No trades. Opponent's team is Claydol2, Yanmega2, Venusaur2. Claydol is tough, an Earth Power crit would have been devastating on FLass. The other two are symbolic. I did a break and returned next day.

Round 6-6
Psychic types. Trade Venusaur for Tentacruel. My team is Garchomp3, Venusaur2, Froslass3. Opponent has Gardevoir3, Slowking3, Toxicroak3. Voir died to a Dragon Rush that missed at first but OHKOed at second. Slowking was killed between Chomp and FLass. Toxicroak Dbonded. Easy win before the storm.

Round 6-7. This was one the toughest battle.
Poison type. May seem like good news after a battle against Psychic mons, but the reality is that Gardevoir and Slowking are almost equally bad and slow against the fastest and most dangerous Poison types (Crobat, Drapion, Gengar, Nidoking, Skuntank). Moreover, Garchomp3 is the only Garchomp set to not have a Ground type move. Conclusion: none of them is a perfect lead. In the end, I picked Gardevoir for Venusaur because item clause reduced some possibilities that made Grass/Poison mons more probable. Starting the battle. My team: Garchomp3, Gardevoir3, Froslass3. Opponent lead with Victreebel. Best play here was to 2HKO it with Aerial Ace and wasting Chomp's Focus Sash. Switch to Voir was not viable because of Clorophyl. Next mon was Dugtrio4. With my Chomp at 60% health it was an easy Aqua Tail. But Dugtrio got a critical hit and turned the combat upside down. What it had to be an easy Dbond win, was now a very very dangerous situation. Had to kill Dtrio with Voir since Flass was OHKed by Stone Edge. Last mon, Drapion, entered the field with my Voir at 20HP and Froslass at the back. It was a "pray for brightpowder, or freeze" situation. Couldn't switch to Froslass cuz Night Slash OHKOed her, or could I? Wildcat pointed out that, since Gardevoir was so low, every move from Drapion OHKO her. Then AI would use any of the four moves randomly and there was a spot to switch to FLass and Dbond. The play worked as planned. I have to admit that I definately wouldn't have won this match without help from others. Shout outs to Wildcat. We got to round 7.

Round 7

Round 7-1
No info. Draft: Dusknoir4, Raikou1, Rhypherior3, Dugtrio3, Yanmega4, Typhlosion3. I picked Raikou, Rhy, Typh. Opponent has Ampharos4, PorygonZ4, Altaria4. I light screened and switched to Typh to knock down Amph and then P-Z. Altaria was OHKOed by Avalanche. Easy win.

Round 7-2
Flying types. Trade Typh for P-Z. Opponent's team is Charizard3, Exploud3, Skarmory3. Tbolt OHKOes Chari, P-Z got Exploud and Skarmory wasn't a threat. Easy win.

Round 7-3
Poison types. Trade Rhy for Chari. My team: Raikou1, Charizard3, PorygonZ4. Thank god I switched to Charizard. Opponent had Roserade4, Vileplume4, Victreebel4. The three Grass/Poisons were swept. Easiest match in the run.

Round 7-4
Ground types. Sadly, I have to leave Raikou. I need Chari for safe switches and P-Z is better against grounds. The question is: Which Grass/Poison do I pick? Some others preferred Vileplume, some others preferred Victreebel, but I chose Roserade risking the 90% accuracy Leaf Storm. It payed off, you'll see why. Opponent had Rhyperior4, Abomasnow4, Golem4. Leaf Storm flip went good. Abo required to switch to Chari. Avalanche critted but didn't kill. Chari Flare Blitzed, killed and died due to recoil damage. Still a 2v1 against a Ground type. Roserade in. Golem was scary cause of Quick Claw. Thought I had to flip another Leaf Storm? Well, no. Wildcat saw that Roserade's Weather Ball was usefull thanks to Abo's hail. It was a safe win on a tough battle. Roserade mvp. I leave a calculation for the memes.
252+ SpA Roserade Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Golem: 732-864 (481.5 - 568.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Round 7-5
No info. No trades cuz they are all slow. My team: Roserade4, Charizard3, PorygonZ4. Opponent's team: Espeon3 (hell), Breloom3, Scizor3. When Espeon showed up, we concluded that it would take 1.5 mons to kill it. Sacrificed Roserade. To compensate the bad luck of facing Espeon, I got lucky facing two mons that charizard OHKOes. This match looked like a loss, but stars aligned in the second half. Charizard mvp.

Round 7-6
No info. Espeon for Rose is a must. Opponent's team: Venusaur4, Aggron4 Lickilicky4. I flipped a 50% OHKO Psychic to Venus. Aggron killed Espeon being at 10% health but P-Z finished him. I had to flip two Lax incenses but got lucky. Tricky win. Time for Thorton Gold

Round 7-7. Thorton Gold
No info. No trade. Things were destined to go well, Thorton gave a 90/100 on my team. Thorton's team: Politoed4, Shiftry4, Regice2. Luckily, I got Charizard, one of the best mons against Regice. Espeon took Politoed, who missed an Hypnosis. An easy win against the most dangerous and important opponent. Colorful medal in my pocket.

So, in my first chance at round 6, I ended getting to Thorton and achieving the last Frontier symbol. Unfortunately, in Round 8 it all went down. Round 8-1 against bug types. Draft: Jynx2, Mamoswine2, Leafeon2, Nidoking3, Entei2, Vespiquen3. Bad draft. Picked Entei, Nidoking and Mamoswine. Opponent showed a Marowak and a Yanmega that killed entire team. Entei turned out to be worse than I expected.

I want to thank Rodripped, Dank, Honeymoon, Wildcat Formation, The First Letter of the Alphabet and Miquel Demo for joining me on Discord, helping me and saving the run through some tough situations.

Proof pictures

Feedback about my teams is appreciated, especially about the Battle Tower team. I'll do a pause of a few moths but I plan on trying to hit some streaks in all five facilities, so get ready. First one will be Battle Hall.

 

[BT100x]

The little Starmie that could.

This is my Battle Tower team for HG/SS. I got up to 109 wins.

Use this database for help in the tower: http://www.psypokes.com/hgss/frontier_trainers.php
Click on the trainer you are facing, and you can deduce the pokemon from the move it uses.

TEAM STRATEGY: Starmie goes out to hit a SE move, or to scout. Focus Sash let's it KO the first poke.
Scizor is to set up Swords Dance, Garchomp is to get you out of a pickle with Outrage/EQ (even though I used AA in this vid).

Starmie @ Focus Sash
Natural Cure Ability
Timid
31 Speed IV
252 SPA/252 SPD
-Surf
-Psychic
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Beam

Other item options include Expert Belt for SE damage increase. Starmie can either take out the first 1-2 pokemon by hanging on with that Focus Sash. Don't be afraid to switch out so you keep the Focus Sash in tact. Switch to Scizor on grass types for a Swords Dance setup. Switch to Garchomp for electric types. My favorite Starmie shenanigan is that it can take out Slaking at full health (Surf>get hit, activate sash>Surf>Truant>Surf for kill).

Scizor @ Lum Berry
Adamant
Technician Ability
Mixed IV's
252 ATK/128 HP/64 DEF/64 Sp.DEF
-Bullet Punch
-Super Power
-Bug Bite/U-Turn
-Swords Dance

Bullet Punch revenge kills everything pretty much. Unbuffed Super Power can take out all versions of Snorlax (just watch out for your defensive drop after use). You can use Brick Break here because it breaks screens, but Superpower is just too powerful (120 base power).
U-Turn for more damage, I prefer Bug Bite for Technician boost. 1 Swords Dance and a Bug Bite OHKO's Palmer's Creselia. 1 Swords Dance and Super Power OHKOs Palmer's Regigigas.

Garchomp @ Choice Band
Jolly
30-31 Attack IV
252 ATK/252 SPD
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Arial Ace

Hits for extreme power. Basically your back life of defense. As you see in the video, hax can happen at any time, but Jolly makes Chomp faster than most and can usually 1-2 hit KO everything thrown at you with Outrage (as long as it hits for at least neutral).