The Battle Pike
The Battle Pike, as it is in-game, is the ultimate blend of luck and skill. It presents the player with a gauntlet of risk evaluation challenges, forcing the player to balance the need to pass to the next room with the need to preserve Pokemon for the showdown with the Pike Queen, Lucy.
This is, by far, BBP's most complex progression facility. It is intended to put veteran battlers in unique and unprecedented battle situations.
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For Entry
- Challenging the Battle Pike costs 8 JC.
- Silver Rank and Gold Rank challenges additionally require a Maid Token.
- The challenger's Pokemon must be stage 3 or higher.
- The challenger must unlock Silver Rank or Gold Rank before challenging those ranks.
A challenger selects three Pokémon to brave the Battle Pike. The Pike itself consists of consecutive rooms containing battles and rewards, headed off with a final arena in which the player battles Pike Queen Lucy. In each of these rooms, three unique doors are assigned random opponents and challenges by the referee, and the challenger then considers their contents. Each door holds both a battle and an reward type. While the specific reward is unknown, the challenger must consider the possible rewards of each door to decide what they want to bring to the final showdown.
In the Mind arena, where the first team gets more substitutions, you must leverage a broader knowledge than your opponent.
In the Body arena, where attacks deal less damage, you must both wield and endure ongoing hardships.
In the Heart arena, where status is harder to inflict, you must brazenly strike the foe to seize victory.
It is then the player's job to consider the risk and reward of each door, and select one. The player then meets whatever awaits beyond with the Pokemon the player believes best suited for the challenge. Upon completion of the room, the player receives their choice of random reward and advances to the next room and set of doors. Damage and status changes suffered in battles will persist from battle to battle, meaning the player must carefully consider how much harm they can suffer before facing Lucy in the final room.
Contents
Post 1: Procedure and Rules
Rulings / Hotfixes
Challenge Flow
Starting a Challenge
Room Types
Ending a Challenge
Tips
Challenge Form
Backpacks
Head Maid Tokens
Rewards
Approved Referees
Post 2: Room FlowPost 3: Boon and Banes
Post 4: Head Maids and Their Teams
Post 5: Pike Queen Lucy
Post 6: Bronze Rank Opponents
Post 10: Silver Rank Opponents
Post 13: Gold Rank Opponents
Rulings / Hotfixes
- 2023-xx-xx: Overhauled the Pike to version 5.0, for Generation 9.
A Pike Challenge occurs in the loop of Battle and Reward phases.
To elaborate:
1. Challenge Signup:
When signing up for the Pike, you will choose your challenge's Rank, post a team of three Pokemon, select a starting gift, and decide whether you will opt to bring any Maid Tokens.
The Battle Pike offers three distinct difficulty levels; being Bronze Rank, Silver Rank, and Gold Rank in order of strength. At first, challengers will only be qualified to challenge Bronze Rank. You may unlock Silver Rank and Gold Rank by defeating Pike Queen Lucy in the previous Rank. You may also challenge any Rank that you have previously beaten, if you find the rewards desirable.
Your chosen gift and any Boons you selected using Maid Tokens will be added to your challenge inventory in the first post of your challenge. Your referee will take the information from your signup post and begin processing your Pike Challenge, starting with Battle Selection.
2. Battle Selection:
Your referee posts your team's profiles, status, and your current challenge inventory. In addition, the current Gauntlet will be offered to you by the referee for you to choose a Room from.
Each option leads to a Battle Room, in one of the Pike's three fixed arenas, wherein you will battle random opponents under varying rules. Depending on the random challenge that awaits you, each arena could become advantageous or disadvantageous for you.
You play out the chosen Battle with the referee playing as your opponent. In the Gauntlet, this battle will last only a single round, you will always order first against the Pike, and you will be rewarded based on how much damage you manage to deal. Meanwhile, the Pike will try their best to prevent your damage and stop you from earning those rewards.
Any damage, Energy loss, status changes, and so on inflicted upon your Pokemon during battle will persist between rooms, weakening your ability to fight Pike Queen Lucy at the end. If your team of Pokemon are ever all fainted, your challenge immediately ends. (Any remaining effects won't even resolve!)
In order to earn the chance to challenge the Pike Queen, you will first have to battle at least one of the Pike's Head Maids in a Boss Battle. These opponents are much more powerful than normal Maids, but defeating them will earn you certain rewards to keep even if you later lose or forfeit the challenge.
3. Reward Selection
After you finish a Gauntlet room, you earn an amount of Pike Serpents, a currency to spend on items and services during your challenge, equal to the amount of HP your opponent or opponents were missing.
Additionally, if any of your opponents' remaining HP were below their Reward Threshold, you will gain that Pokemon's Boon to be allocated to one of your own Pokemon. You will enjoy the benefit of that Boon for the rest of your challenge.
Lastly, depending on the room you selected, you may be awarded additional Pike Serpents, additional Boons, held items, a Shop Visit, or other advantages to overcome the damage you are suffering and improve your odds of defeating Pike Queen Lucy.
4. Repeat
You and your referee will repeat steps 2 and 3 until you've completed the required number of doors for the Rank of your challenge.
In any post where you are not in battle, such as when selecting Doors and rewards, you may manage your inventory and use Medicine on your Pokemon.
After you've defeated the specified number of intervening trainers, you get one final Shop Visit (see Room Flow), before moving on to Lucy's Throne Room to attempt to complete your challenge.
Starting a Challenge
A Pike challenge starts by posting here, in the Pike challenge thread.
- Players indicate a Pike Rank they intend to challenge out of the Ranks available to them. Players may challenge Silver Rank and Gold Rank only if they have defeated Lucy in a previous rank.
- Players post three Pokemon they intend to challenge the Battle Pike with. For each Pokemon, one of their Abilities is chosen by the player for use during their challenge.
- Players are given a starting gift or gifts of their choosing at the start of their challenge, which may consist of consumables, held items, or currency. These gifts, like the rest of the challenge inventory, is returned to the Battle Pike at the end of the challenge.
- Players may bring attachments for their Pokemon, such as a Rotom Appliance, if they so choose. The attachment chosen must remain on its Pokemon for the entire duration of the challenge.
- A referee takes players' challenges from the queue in this thread. Players challenging Bronze Rank for the first time are prioritized, then first-time Silver Rank challenges, then first-time Gold Rank challenges; then any challenges seeking a subref in posting order; then all other repeat challenges in post order.
- The referee generates the player's first set of Doors, and then posts the Doors in the player's thread after their profiles and inventory.
In each room the challenger visits; doors leading to the three arenas are each given a Battle type and a Reward type.
- The Battle Type determines the opponent the challenger will face, as well as the conditions of the battle. Depending on the room, the challenger either has to defeat their foe or meet some stated objective in order to receive the room's stated reward. As their Pokemon faint, the challenger continues sending in Pokemon until their foe is defeated or until they lose the challenge.
- The Reward Type determines what benefit the challenger gains for defeating the room's opponent. They can gain additional Boons, Pike Serpents, items, or recovery; or trade one of these resources for another, depending on the specifics of the room.
- The doors themselves, in the order they're generated, lead to the Mind, Body, and Heart arenas. Each alters the battle with one last effect. Depending on their team, their Boons, and their condition, a challenger may favor one arena heavily or switch back and forth as the situation demands.
- Mind: Pokemon on the team ordering first in each round has +1 bonus Substitution.
- Body: The damage dealt by attacks is reduced by three (3), to a minimum of one (1).
- Heart: Prevent the first named Major status and the first named Minor status each Pokemon would suffer. (That isn't self-inflicted.)
Ending a Challenge
A player's Battle Pike Challenge ends under the following conditions:
- If all three of the player's or Lucy's Pokemon are fainted at any given point, the player's Pike challenge ends immediately. The referee posts prizes for the player and for themselves. They earn profile rewards for each battle fought, including the door that defeated them if applicable.
- Fighting Lucy to a draw counts as a loss for the player.
- If the player defeats the Pike Queen, they receive additional rewards specified below. If they defeated the Pike Queen on the current rank for the first time, the rank of their challenge thread increases accordingly.
- If the referee that originally posted your Battle Pike challenge thread is unavailable, message a forum moderator to have your thread's title updated.
- It is permissible for a player to forfeit a challenge between doors if they determine that their chances of defeating Lucy are too low. Most commonly, if one of their Pokemon is fainted in battle in a normal door. In this case, the player is rewarded for any doors completed, and the referee is reward for any doors where at least one round was reffed.
With your team of three Pokemon, you must defeat a minimum of 4 / 5 / 7 Pokemon before facing Lucy, depending on your challenge rank. To stand a chance of survival, consider some of the advice below.
- Carefully balance gaining additional power with opportunities to heal, to meet Lucy both strong enough and healthy enough to win.
- Use moves such as Refresh, Rest, and Psycho Shift to remove permanent harmful status effects such as Toxic.
- Use moves such as U-turn or Haze to restore lost stat stages, especially Accuracy; or prevent stat drops with Safeguard or Substitute.
- Use moves such as U-turn and Magic Coat in 1v1 Battles to fight against disruptive temporary status such as Taunt.
- Use moves such as Roar and Haze to beat opponents whose trainers use stat-boosting moves or items.
- Because the challenge ends with a 3v3 battle, trapping moves and entry hazards to help ease matchup control are advised.
- Bring a mix of physical and special attackers to take advantage of any item you may find.
- Bring a wide variety of weather, terrain, and non-attacking moves to ensure you can make use of any Boons you roll.
- If you pick a Doubles room, be conscious of your energy usage in regards to combinations.
- If you have an excessive amount of Pike Serpents to spend, consider picking a Gift Shop event so you can buy out two shops' selections.
- You can move items around between each door. Put your strongest items on your healthiest Pokemon.
- When you have Revives in your inventory, use moves like Explosion to clear battles quickly, or use Healing Wish to get recovery for other Pokemon as well.
- When using a Pike Serpent starting gift, clear a room leading to a Gift Shop to purchase an early advantage for your Challenge.
- When using a Berry starting gift, use Pokemon with Berry-renewing moves and abilities to get more value out of your items.
- In Bronze Rank, a large number of opponents will be Normal-typed or rely on Normal-typed coverage. Resisting this type can greatly ease matchup control.
- In Silver Rank, most opponents are Fighting-, Flying-, or Water-typed. Being able to hit these types offensively is the key to a smooth run.
- In Gold Rank, as expected of the seat of legends, you fill face primarily Dragon-, Psychic-, and Fighting-typed foes.
When signing up for the Battle Pike, copy or approximate the following template in your signup post.
Code:
[B]Name:[/B] (name)
[B]Thread:[/B] (thread)
[B]Rank:[/B] (rank)
[B]Backpack:[/B] (backpack)
[B]Token:[/B] A Token from your profile, or none if you prefer.
[B]Pokemon % Ability[/B]
(profile)
[B]Pokemon % Ability[/B]
(profile)
[B]Pokemon % Ability[/B]
(profile)Starting Gifts
Players start each challenge with a starting gift of their choosing. Starting gifts are items, advantages, or currency that you may use during your run to increase the power of your team. In higher ranks, stronger starting gifts are available to help challengers face the greater dangers ahead.
Unless specified, the challenger cannot use items as medicine during a battle. All enhancing Medicines (such as X Attack and Dire Hit) provided by the Pike last for six (6) steps or until the receiving Pokemon leaves battle. If they're used during battle via an effect, this duration excludes the step they're used.
When starting a Bronze Rank challenge
- 100 Pike Serpents
- 2 x Potion
- 1 x Dire Hit
- 2 x Enigma Berry
- 1 x Expert Belt
- 1 x Leftovers
TBD
TBD
Approved Referees
Referees are expected to play, in short, vindictively. The goal of each battle leading up to Lucy is not to defeat the challenger then and there, but to ensure that they cannot defeat the Pike Queen. To this end; littering the challenger's party with harmful status, worsening their Accuracy stage or other stat stages, abusing substitutions to waste their time and energy, and more such petty maneuvers will be necessary. To defeat the challenger, every Pike trainer but the Pike Queen herself may be considered expendable.
Referees can increase their standing by performing consistently well when refereeing the Pike, as well as in other content such as the Battle Tree and in Tournament battles. Both a referee's strength in battle, and the clearness and timeliness of their rounds, contribute to their standing.
When starting a player's challenge, use or approximate the following template:
Only the Pike Owner, the challenger, and their current referee should post in this thread.
@PlayerName is challenging the [ Rank ] Rank of the Battle Pike!
[b]Team[/b]
[ The challenger's Pokemon team ]
[b]Inventory[/b]
[ The challenger's inventory, including any Tokens ]
[b]Boons:[/b] [ rolls here ]
[ list their banes here ]
[IMG]https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rasalhage/CAPBBP/master/BattleFacilities/Pike%20Maid.png[/IMG]
[ a greeting from the pike maid. have fun with it! ]
[ the player's 3 doors to choose from ]
@PlayerName is challenging the [ Rank ] Rank of the Battle Pike!
[b]Team[/b]
[ The challenger's Pokemon team ]
[b]Inventory[/b]
[ The challenger's inventory, including any Tokens ]
[b]Boons:[/b] [ rolls here ]
[ list their banes here ]
[IMG]https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rasalhage/CAPBBP/master/BattleFacilities/Pike%20Maid.png[/IMG]
[ a greeting from the pike maid. have fun with it! ]
[ the player's 3 doors to choose from ]
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Enigma Berry in Bronze Rank, 
Quick Powder in Silver Rank, and 
Metal Powder in Gold Rank, instead of their usual items.
Fafnir the Rayquaza, except against challengers who have defeated Gold Rank.
![9uH8X6h.png]](https://i.imgur.com/9uH8X6h.png])
