Emerald Battle Frontier Guide PLEASE HELP DEVELOPING

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Who are the target audience of this guide? Do they have the copies of FRLG required to get Snorlax and Aerodactyl? Do they have the time to breed for good hidden powers?
 
Who are the target audience of this guide? Do they have the copies of FRLG required to get Snorlax and Aerodactyl? Do they have the time to breed for good hidden powers?
Anyone can read and contribute, both these who think they can win with their hardy Blaziken they got as their starter and these who use 6IVs Modest Raikou from FRLG. Of course, I'd love to hear advice from the latter so I'm sticking here these days.

But I'm back because I have a question about Battle Palace in regard to:
My team utilises the “Hasty with 3 attacks + Protect” strategy. To understand how it works, consider Hasty’s properties:

Behaviour (HP > 50%): 58% Attack, 37% Defence, 5% Support
Behaviour (HP < 50%): 88% Attack, 6% Defence, 6% Support
Does this work with one attack + protect?
I want to use a shock wave Magneton against Spenser's Crobat since it's immune to toxic, will heal its confusion with a berry and attack with a super effective STAB move that cannot miss (who's the d*ck now, Double Team?) Sure, it would be awful for everything else, but it sounds pretty good against Crobat and perhaps Suicune
Since I lost so many battles due to RNG not wanting me to win, should I keep Twave for these scummy 6 percent? Horn Drill hit me on the first turn today so I guess I should be prepared for anything.
Do you think that having 3 moves would work? It seems pretty good to me. Once again, this was mainly made for his particular Crobat so I don't mind being literally walled by any ground type.
 

atsync

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Does this work with one attack + protect?
I want to use a shock wave Magneton against Spenser's Crobat since it's immune to toxic, will heal its confusion with a berry and attack with a super effective STAB move that cannot miss (who's the d*ck now, Double Team?) Sure, it would be awful for everything else, but it sounds pretty good against Crobat and perhaps Suicune
Since I lost so many battles due to RNG not wanting me to win, should I keep Twave for these scummy 6 percent? Horn Drill hit me on the first turn today so I guess I should be prepared for anything.
Do you think that having 3 moves would work? It seems pretty good to me. Once again, this was mainly made for his particular Crobat so I don't mind being literally walled by any ground type.
Hasty will function the same regardless of whether you run 1 attacking move or 3. The only difference is that Magneton will only have 1 move to pick from if it decides to use an attacking move rather than 3.

I see no reason why a Shock Wave + Protect Magneton wouldn't beat Spenser's Crobat. The only issue would be if it tries to Confuse Ray after your healing berry is consumed, but you would still need to be very unlucky to lose against it. Note that Crobat has an Adamant nature and Shock Wave is guaranteed to knock it below 50%, and from there Crobat will favour attacking moves 70% of the time and will only have a 15% chance to draw a support move (Confuse Ray or Toxic). You should be fine.

Also note that Spenser's Lapras only has Ice Beam and Horn Drill for damaging moves and is 2HKOed by Shock Wave assuming Sp. Atk is maxed out, so if you use Sturdy on your Magneton you should do decently against Lapras as well (i.e. you're not just dead weight during the silver symbol battle after Crobat dies). Use something else for Slaking though since it has Earthquake.

I'd be wary of using the same Magneton against Suicune because you only have a small chance to 2HKO it with Shock Wave and you risk having it set up Calm Mind and becoming more dangerous. Magneton also matches up poorly against Arcanine (Overheat) and Slaking (Earthquake) so Magneton doesn't seem great for the gold symbol battle in general. If you do use it I'd recommend running Thunderbolt on it instead to give yourself a better chance against Suicune. Just beware that Suicune setting up Calm Mind as you use Protect is a real possibility.

If you're running less than 3 attacks, then sure, I could see Thunder Wave being a good 3rd move for your Magneton. The 5/6% chance of a support move exists no matter what moves you run and if you do end up having your Pokemon call a support move then clearly throwing out a Thunder Wave seems better than doing nothing at all. There are some exceptions (e.g. against Guts) but otherwise it should be fine.

Hell, even 2 attacks + Protect + Thunder Wave may be decent with Hasty, although in Magneton's case it doesn't really have anything else to run aside from STAB (it does seem like an intriguing idea on other Pokemon with better move pools though).
 
I see no reason why a Shock Wave + Protect Magneton wouldn't beat Spenser's Crobat. The only issue would be if it tries to Confuse Ray after your healing berry is consumed, but you would still need to be very unlucky to lose against it. Note that Crobat has an Adamant nature and Shock Wave is guaranteed to knock it below 50%, and from there Crobat will favour attacking moves 70% of the time and will only have a 15% chance to draw a support move (Confuse Ray or Toxic). You should be fine.

Also note that Spenser's Lapras only has Ice Beam and Horn Drill for damaging moves and is 2HKOed by Shock Wave assuming Sp. Atk is maxed out, so if you use Sturdy on your Magneton you should do decently against Lapras as well (i.e. you're not just dead weight during the silver symbol battle after Crobat dies). Use something else for Slaking though since it has Earthquake.

I'd be wary of using the same Magneton against Suicune because you only have a small chance to 2HKO it with Shock Wave and you risk having it set up Calm Mind and becoming more dangerous. Magneton also matches up poorly against Arcanine (Overheat) and Slaking (Earthquake) so Magneton doesn't seem great for the gold symbol battle in general. If you do use it I'd recommend running Thunderbolt on it instead to give yourself a better chance against Suicune. Just beware that Suicune setting up Calm Mind as you use Protect is a real possibility.
I will make a completely new team for the gold symbol battle, I saw his second team and Magneton would mean it is a 2v3 battle since Arcanine has white herb so that would mean that after the OHKO battle would be like on the beggining. Unfortunately, hasty Magneton I bred has magnet pull, but I don't think I will lose because of those 30%, I have two more pokemon (preferably with levitate to check Slaking, Gengar looks like it works because of its high special Attack and immunity to two moves, but it's also weak to one of the moves Slaking has, though Weezing may be even better with it's great Defence, one immunity, one resistance and one normally effective move. Swagger may hurt because it will be physical, but I guess it will be another persim/lum holder). Last team member should be a Jolly/Bold Toxic user with a recovery move, so maybe Milotic because it resists fire while Magneton resists both electric and grass types. Shock wave won't do as good as Weezing's Sludge Bomb so it will do better than Magneton. Weezing with will-o-wisp as the support move would do good with hardy nature. I'll try this team for the silver symbol. I'll be busy today so I can wait for some advice if I can improve this team. I have all 380 obtainable pokémon (no Mew, Ho-oh, Lugia, Celebi, Jirachi and Deoxys) so I can use almost anything.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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Want to give a shout out to Suicune as hands down the best frontier Mon, applicable to all facilities and nigh unkilliable, a simple Surf/IB/CM/Rest set crushes most things.

I've been using CB Metagross, Lefties Suicune, and Latias as my primary options to get the silvers and two gold's so far with other options including Hitmonlee, Starmie, Gengar, Regirock, Jolteon, Skarmory, among others carried from old playthroughs.

Unfortunately Latias has no IVs which is serviceable but 288 in SpA/Spend is limiting, and the team is very weak to Heracross. Lost my battlow tower streak at 65 to one.

My current project is training up my Timid Metal Sound Zapdos I randomly pulled from Poke XD with decent IVs, curious to see how that goes.

If anyone has suggestions for more optimal partners with either Suicune solo or Suicune in combo with Meta/Lati I'm happy to hear them!
 
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Taylor

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I am playing Emerald randomized Frontier and want some unpredictability not knowing all the sets before going in. So I will update when my team is ready. It's simply for fun so will not be holding my heart on this.

I think you'll want Dragon Dance / Choice Band Salamence and Choice Band / Agility Metagross for a solid physical combination. Their types give neutrality to everything, which allows your Suicune's bulk to be taken full advantage of. I know it's not easy to breed a perfect Salamence, and so it might be easier to replace Latias because Sheer Cold Lapras can take out 2/3s of your team if Metagross has fainted. Raikou loses to Swampert but you have to be careful with your Metagross and Salamence's health when facing one if you think it is a wise idea to replace a limited Latias.
 

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I am playing Emerald randomized Frontier and want some unpredictability not knowing all the sets before going in. So I will update when my team is ready. It's simply for fun so will not be holding my heart on this.

I think you'll want Dragon Dance / Choice Band Salamence and Choice Band / Agility Metagross for a solid physical combination. Their types give neutrality to everything, which allows your Suicune's bulk to be taken full advantage of. I know it's not easy to breed a perfect Salamence, and so it might be easier to replace Latias because Sheer Cold Lapras can take out 2/3s of your team if Metagross has fainted. Raikou loses to Swampert but you have to be careful with your Metagross and Salamence's health when facing one if you think it is a wise idea to replace a limited Latias.
That's kind of the issue I've been having, I was considering guys like salamence and Zapdos but the major problem with Suicune and Metagross as a combo and basically every viable third partner is such a big vulnerability to electric types like Electabuzz and Zapdos itself which in theory justified Latias's existence. Especially in cases where Latias was down there were a lot of times I had to rely on Metas bulk to tank a thunderbolt.

Wonder if it's worth swapping Metagross out for Tower purposes and rebuilding around Suicune with an Electric answer and a third
 

atsync

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If Electrics are a problem, Choice Band Flygon over Salamence is also an option. Assuming flawless Speed, Jolly Flygon outspeeds all opposing Electrics except Jolteon1/4 and possibly all Raikou sets except set 6. I say "possibly" because Raikou will either be a speed-tie or will beat Flygon by a single point depending on what level you play at (at level 75 and up, Raikou wins). The worst that Jolteon could do to you is Attract (set 1) or flinch with King's Rock + Bite (set 4). Raikou could hit with Double-Edge (set 5); set up Reflect (sets 2/4/5), Calm Mind (set 1, only has Electric moves though) or Double Team (set 2); or hit with Quick Attack (set 3, also has King's Rock) or Bite (set 5). Anabel's lead Raikou also only has Thunderbolt for damage so you could potentially stall out its PP and then switch to Suicune to set up and sweep the rest of her team.

Banded Earthquakes will make short work of all Electrics except Zapdos, but Zapdos sets generally only run STABs with some sets also running Double-Edge. If you pair Flygon up with a Flying resistant Pokemon like Metagross, you could possibly beat it just by switching back and forth until its PP is drained. Some other Steel-type could work too if you want something with Dark/Ghost resistances to help with some of the aforementioned Jolteon/Raikou sets.

I will make a completely new team for the gold symbol battle, I saw his second team and Magneton would mean it is a 2v3 battle since Arcanine has white herb so that would mean that after the OHKO battle would be like on the beggining. Unfortunately, hasty Magneton I bred has magnet pull, but I don't think I will lose because of those 30%, I have two more pokemon (preferably with levitate to check Slaking, Gengar looks like it works because of its high special Attack and immunity to two moves, but it's also weak to one of the moves Slaking has, though Weezing may be even better with it's great Defence, one immunity, one resistance and one normally effective move. Swagger may hurt because it will be physical, but I guess it will be another persim/lum holder). Last team member should be a Jolly/Bold Toxic user with a recovery move, so maybe Milotic because it resists fire while Magneton resists both electric and grass types. Shock wave won't do as good as Weezing's Sludge Bomb so it will do better than Magneton. Weezing with will-o-wisp as the support move would do good with hardy nature. I'll try this team for the silver symbol. I'll be busy today so I can wait for some advice if I can improve this team. I have all 380 obtainable pokémon (no Mew, Ho-oh, Lugia, Celebi, Jirachi and Deoxys) so I can use almost anything.
Weezing might work, and you could also try a flying-type like Salamence or Gyarados since they also resist Ground/Fighting and unSTABed Shadow Balls aren't too dangerous, espeically after Intimidate. In any case, don't forget that Slaking is still burdened with Truant which will help you a lot.

Other than that, my only suggestion is to just play the Palace and see which of your sets are working and which aren't. The Jolly/Bold Toxic + recovery move idea seems interesting in paper (Jolly seems to be slightly better if considering move selections, whereas Bold provides a more useful stat boost).
 
Then naughty dragon dance Gyarados? After Intimidate it will have lots of room to set up with it's great Special Defence. 70% does not seem enough that's same as focus miss' accuracy, but I think I couldn't get anything better. Gentle gets better attacking accuracy when at low HP, but that nature is awful and it's a bit more likely to use a support move while full. Flygon is immune to both 4x weaknesses so it seems like a great teammate (I'll use hasty + protect strategy)
 
Hi

Not long ago I managed to obtain all of the gold symbols in Emerald. I was considering making a thread about my experiences but since this thread exists, I figured I might as well post the teams I used here.

I did all of my runs at level 50 but all of them should be transferable to Open level (although maybe don't use Sitrus Berry in Open level: 30 HP is far more impressive at level 50). I prefer level 50 because it’s what I’m used to from later gens, and level 50 is more convenient anyway since it requires less grinding to get the Pokemon you’re using ready for the challenge. Playing level 50 does impose some other restrictions on what I can use however. For example, I am unable to use Dragonite or Tyranitar.

------------------------------------

Battle Tower

I decided to try out a crippler team for the Battle Tower. While options for these kinds of teams are more limited than in later generations, the strategy still works very well and is often safer than a basic goodstuffs team, although you also sacrifice speed.

Team:

View attachment 101100

Jolteon @ View attachment 101151

Timid
Volt Absorb
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 132/0/60/252/4/60

Thunderbolt
Thunder Wave
Charm
Sand-Attack

Initially, I thought about using a Trick lead with Choice Band (probably Alakazam since it’s the fastest Trick user in 3rd gen), but I then changed track and focused on stat lowering. Jolteon seems like an odd choice for this role but I found it to work pretty well because of its Speed and access to useful options like Thunder Wave and Charm. Volt Absorb is also nice to protect against Electric moves since my team is otherwise a bit vulnerable to those.

Timid with 60 Speed EVs puts me at 173 Speed, enough to outspeed all base 120 Pokemon that appear as opponents in the Frontier, with Arena Trap Dugtrio being the most important one of this group (none of them run Speed-boosting natures). The Frontier is notoriously slow compared to later gen facilities: the only sets that outspeed this Jolteon under regular conditions are Ninjask (both sets), Crobat (sets 3 and 4) and opposing Jolteon (sets 1 and 4). I also maxed out Sp. Atk to pump up Thunderbolt and then invested the remaining EVs into bulk. If preferred, a Modest Jolteon can achieve the same Speed with 180 Speed EVs and benefits from more power, but this sacrifices some bulk.


View attachment 101101

Registeel @ View attachment 101152

Sassy
Clear Body
IVs: 23/23/31/3/30/31
EVs: 252/0/176/0/80/0

Hidden Power [Steel]
Curse
Amnesia
Substitute

This Registeel was RNGed in Sapphire rather than Emerald. It’s not completely flawless. The ideal spread for a set like this would be Careful with 31/31/31/x/30/31, but such a spread doesn’t exist on a frame that could reasonably be reached and so I had to settle for something else. Specifically, I wanted something with a usable nature (I’d be fine with Impish/Relaxed/Careful/Sassy, Adamant/Brave would also be acceptable), Hidden Power [Steel] with high power (preferably 60 as an absolute minimum) and just highish values in the IVs themselves. I managed to find the Sassy, 23/23/31/3/30/31 spread on frame 122232 (requires about 34 minutes of wait time, kind of long but not out of reach) which grants a max power Hidden Power [Steel] and meets my nature requirements too.

This set functions similarly to the equivalent Iron Head-using set seen in gen 4. High bulk combined with its resistances and support from Jolteon allow it to set up easily on lots of stuff, and once it has set up Amnesia and Curse it is very difficult to lose. Substitute is nice to have to protect against hax; obviously OHKO moves and badly timed crits can ruin this set. It’s important to note that getting Substitute on Pokemon is a bit of a pain because it’s a one-time move tutor move. I use it on a lot of my Pokemon and am able to because the move tutor also exists in FRLG, but this required having to play through FRLG multiple times which requires a lot of spare time (the fact that FRLG adamantly refuse to let you trade in non-Kanto dex mons until you unlock the National dex just adds to the pain). If Substitute is too much of an inconvenience to obtain, Rest is probably an acceptable replacement.


View attachment 101102

Salamence @ View attachment 101157

Jolly
Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Dragon Dance
Substitute

Salamence is not quite as good in 3rd gen facilities because its offensive move pool is not as luxurious as it is in later gens, and so it tends to require more boosts to reliably sweep. Regardless, I find it to be a good choice for this team because of its good type synergy with Registeel and its ability to passively cripple opponents with Intimidate. Not much else to say about it really.

Overall this team was effective in getting me to 70 wins (Anabel’s Gold battle was fairly easy too since Volt Absorb Jolteon completely walls her lead Raikou). However, it does have a significant flaw in that it is highly vulnerable to Rhydon:

RHYDON (1), adamant, QC, 393,371,276,113,168,116, earthquake, rock tomb, scary face, brick break
RHYDON (2), adamant, QC, 351,394,276,113,189,116, earthquake, horn drill, rock slide, brick break
RHYDON (3), adamant, QC, 414,394,276,113,126,116, earthquake, megahorn, crush claw, horn drill
RHYDON (4), adamant, QC, 414,394,276,113,126,116, earthquake, megahorn, rock slide, horn drill

All Quick Claw, and all threatening. The worst of all are sets 2 and 4: on top of QuakeSlide coverage, they also have Horn Drill which make attempts to PP stall it through switches very unsafe. Unfortunately, there’s not much this team can do to stop this other than pray. Set 3 also threatens with Quick Claw Horn Drill but lacks Rock-type coverage and becomes a bit more managable if Salamence manages to get a sub up against it.

I stopped playing after getting the gold symbol, but I’m interested in continuing this streak some time to see how far I can go. I’d probably need to replace Jolteon with something else though – I’ve thought about Misdreavus just because it would resolve the Rhydon problem and it has a few crippler friendly moves, although its move pool and stats aren’t as good.

------------------------------------

Battle Palace

This place is annoying but I was actually very fortunate and managed to get this symbol on my first try with this team.

My team utilises the “Hasty with 3 attacks + Protect” strategy. To understand how it works, consider Hasty’s properties:

Behaviour (HP > 50%): 58% Attack, 37% Defence, 5% Support
Behaviour (HP < 50%): 88% Attack, 6% Defence, 6% Support

Hasty Pokemon generally prefer to attack directly which is what you want in the Palace (note: Pokemon tend to be reasonably sensible when selecting their attacking move most of the time, so a standard SPIT Starmie will know to use Thunderbolt against a Gyarados, for example). The key thing though is that when Hasty Pokemon choose not to attack, they’ll almost always be using a defensive move. By running 3 attacks with Protect as the defensive move, Hasty Pokemon will generally stick to using one of the 3 attacks, and when they don’t, they’ll almost always use Protect to block the opponents attack and avoid damage. This is especially effective when the Pokemon falls below 50% HP, since Hasty Pokemon heavily favour offensive moves at that point. Spenser uses a variation of this strategy on his Arcanine and Suicune - both run Hasty and Arcanine even has Protect (and Roar), although his Suicune uses Calm Mind instead.

This strategy isn’t perfect (not that there’s such a thing in the Palace). There will be times where you get unlucky and have the Pokemon attempt a Support move, which results in a missed turn with 3 attacks + Protect as a move set. There will also be times where Pokemon will attempt to use Protect multiple times in a row – this nearly cost me the battle for the gold symbol against Spenser when my Starmie tried 3 Protects in a row against his Bite-spamming Suicune, but luckily all of them worked!

Team:


View attachment 101103

Metagross @ View attachment 101153

Hasty
Clear Body
IVs: 31/31/31/27/30/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Hidden Power [Steel]
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Protect

View attachment 101104

Starmie @ View attachment 101158

Hasty
Natural Cure
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Surf
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt
Protect

View attachment 101105

Salamence @ View attachment 101162

Hasty
Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 0/4/0/252/0/252

Dragon Claw
Aerial Ace
Flamethrower
Protect

This is a fairly basic Steel/Water/Dragon set up that offers good power and type synergy. I chose Hidden Power over Meteor Mash for the accuracy, but that I found that Metagross almost never used Hidden Power even in situations where it would be the most effective move. This is probably because it recognises it as a Normal-type move rather than a Steel-type one, and so I would not recommend using Hidden Power in the Palace. It didn't end up mattering too much since QuakeSlide was good enough even without STAB (if anything, not using Meteor Mash avoided unfortunate misses). Also, having Metagross in the lead seemed like a decent idea due to its excellent defensive typing, but keep in mind that Spenser uses a lead Arcanine for his second battle and this puts the team on the back foot at the start of the battle (obviously I switched to Salamence immediately). If I did this again I'd probably use Salamence in the lead position instead.

------------------------------------

Battle Factory

Not much to say here since there’s no team building involved. It's not as difficult as the 4th gen one but still annoying. I will say that swapping doesn’t seem to be as rewarding as it is in 4th gen, at least not in level 50 (it wasn’t until the 4th round, after swapping after every battle, that one of my opening selection appeared to have better IVs and a higher ranked set compared to the other 5 choices). The guy that gives the hints is also not as helpful beyond telling you about type specialties (interestingly, I came across a trainer with Vileplume/Exeggutor/Alakazam and was told that the trainer did not specialise in any type – I guess the Grass- and Psychic-types cancelled each other out).

The final battle for the gold symbol was pretty close: I had Ampharos/Dusclops/Vaporeon against Noland’s Miltank/Xatu/Magmar. I opened with Thunder Wave on Miltank and then pivoted to Vaporeon via a switch to Dusclops. Vaporeon was assisted by full paralysis and managed to take down Miltank and Xatu on its own, but then Magmar nearly made a come back by finishing off Vaporeon (Vaporeon at least managed to take it down to the red but couldn’t KO it due to a lack of Sp. Atk EVs) and then taking out Dusclops with a crit (it had Scope Lens btw). Ampharos had already taken damage from Miltank and I thought I was about to lose because Magmar had the Speed advantage, but somehow Ampharos went first and finished it off. I later found out that the Magmar set I faced has Counter in its move set and so it must have tried to use it…even though it was already in the red and wouldn’t have been able to survive a hit to reflect back at me anyway. I owe my win to AI stupidity, but I’ll take wins where I can!

------------------------------------

Battle Pyramid

I decided to have a bit of fun with the Pyramid. While the Pyramid can be beaten with a small group of 3-5 Pokemon, I actually went out of my way to “counter” the various rounds of wild Pokemon with different teams for each round. It was quite time consuming having to breed everything for each round, but using obscure Pokemon made things a lot more fun and I ended up beating the Pyramid on my first attempt.

Note that I’m not listing items here specifically – the pyramid does not allow for Pokemon to enter while holding an item. However, I was finding stuff like Choice Band, Leftovers and the like during my challenge so these were being used where appropriate.

Team 1 (Round 1: paralysis)

View attachment 101106

Hitmonlee

Jolly
Limber
IVs: 30/30/30/20/30/31
EVs: 0/248/8/0/0/252

Brick Break
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Hidden Power [Flying]

View attachment 101107

Flygon

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

View attachment 101108

Linoone

Jolly
Pickup
IVs: 31/31/31/14/30/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Return
Shadow Ball
Hidden Power [Ground]
Surf

Limber protects Hitmonlee from paralysis and it has no issue KOing wild Pokemon with its high power and coverage. Flygon was just thrown on here but is at least immune to Electric (i.e. also guards against some paralysis) and is a good Pokemon in general. Linoone exists solely for Pickup. I managed to get a Sacred Ash and some other healing items during the first round with Pickup so it was worth it, and in any case the general weakness of the opponents during the early rounds makes Linoone tolerable to use in battle anyway.

Team 2 (Round 2: poison)

View attachment 101109

Alakazam

Timid
Synchronize
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/36/252/4/212

Psychic
Fire Punch
Thunderpunch
Ice Punch

View attachment 101110

Vileplume

Sassy
Chlorophyll
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252/0/180/0/76/0

Sludge Bomb
Giga Drain
Aromatherapy
Moonlight

View attachment 101111

Linoone

Jolly
Pickup
IVs: 31/31/31/14/30/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Return
Shadow Ball
Hidden Power [Ground]
Surf

I already had an Alakazam ready from another facility and decided to use it here since it makes short work of almost all of the wild Pokemon of this round. Ludicolo is the only one which could survive against it, and so I decided to use Vileplume to deal with it (immune to Poison and resists Dive). I also considered Venusaur since it has better stats but Vileplume has Aromatherapy and Venusaur doesn’t. Ultimately, I never used Aromatherapy though so Venusaur probably would have been better, but never mind. Linoone makes its second and final appearance for its Pickup shenanigans. Linoone managed to grab a Choice Band which was put to good use in later rounds.

Team 3 (Round 3: burn)

View attachment 101112

Houndoom

Timid
Flash Fire
IVs: 31/10/30/30/31/31
EVs: 4/0/0/248/4/252

Flamethrower
Crunch
Hidden Power [Water]
Taunt

View attachment 101115

Slowbro

Modest
Own Tempo
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 204/0/0/252/52/0

Surf
Psychic
Ice Beam
Rest

View attachment 101116

Snorlax

Adamant
Thick Fat
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 4/252/252/0/0/0

Body Slam
Earthquake
Curse
Rest

Houndoom is an excellent lead for this round and it would go on to make appearances in other rounds too. Its combination of Flash Fire and its unique STAB combination allow it to beat most of the wild Pokemon easily. In fact, against Vulpix and Weezing, you can just spam the run option because they only have Fire moves and there is no consequence of failing to escape against those two. I chose Slowbro as a back-up because I was wary of the wild Fire Punch/Hi Jump Kick Medicham surviving Flamethrower and KOing Houndoom, and in any case Slowbro happens to synergise well with Houndoom. I wasn’t sure what to use as the third so I just went with Snorlax. The double fighting weakness seemed risky but it ended up working fine.

Against Brandon’s Regis team, I swapped Houndoom out of the lead position for Slowbro. I ended up trading Slowbro with Regirock when it Exploded at the last moment. Houndoom died to Registeel because Earthquake KOed it faster than Flamethrower could manage, but from there Snorlax was able to Curse up and sweep the remains of his team.

Team 4 (Round 4: PP draining moves + Pressure)

View attachment 101113

Houndoom

Timid
Flash Fire
IVs: 31/10/30/30/31/31
EVs: 4/0/0/248/4/252

Flamethrower
Crunch
Hidden Power [Water]
Taunt

View attachment 101114

Slowbro

Modest
Own Tempo
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 204/0/0/252/52/0

Surf
Psychic
Ice Beam
Rest

View attachment 101117

Flygon

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

This team is 2/3 identical to the last one. It turns out Houndoom works well in this round too. The wild Pokemon are predominantly Ghost-types, with Absol, Dunsparce and Nintales thrown in for good measure, and Houndoom matches up well against many of them. Taunt is pretty good here since many of the Pokemon here rely on passive moves to lower your PP. I also made sure to max out Houndoom’s PP which made this round much less stressful. Slowbro is still here for its type synergy. I decided to remove Snorlax since I didn’t feel the need to hold on to it with Brandon’s first battle behind me. I don’t exactly remember why I chose Flygon. I suppose it was just out of convenience, but it does offer some synergy with the other two and at this point I had the Choice Band that Linoone got for me earlier so it ended up working out.

Team 5 (Round 5: Levitate)

View attachment 101119

Gengar

Timid
Levitate
IVs: 31/19/31/21/31/31
EVs: 28/0/4/252/4/220

Hidden Power [Dark]
Psychic
Ice Punch
Thunderbolt

View attachment 101120

Snorlax

Adamant
Thick Fat
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 4/252/252/0/0/0

Body Slam
Earthquake
Curse
Rest

View attachment 101118

Flygon

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

Using Gengar was my attempt to counter the wild Pokemon as best as I could. Its power is a bit subpar at times but its coverage is very good and its immunity to things like Weezing’s Selfdestruct and Flygon’s Earthquake is very handy. Hidden Power Dark is an odd choice but it covers the Ghosts. I could have used Shadow Ball but that would mean having to run Hasty/Naïve and moving EVs from bulk to Attack, and even then it’s still rather weak. I just threw Snorlax and Flygon in as back-ups again.

Team 6 (Round 6: trapping abilities)

View attachment 101121

Sceptile

Timid
Overgrow
IVs: 31/10/30/31/31/31
EVs: 44/0/0/252/0/212

Leaf Blade
Crunch
Hidden Power [Ice]
Roar

View attachment 101122

Lanturn

Modest
Volt Absorb
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/196/252/52/4

Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Rest

View attachment 101123

Charizard

Hasty
Blaze
IVs: 31/31/30/30/31/31
EVs: 0/4/0/252/0/252

Flamethrower
Hidden Power [Ice]
Earthquake
Toxic

Sceptile can easily out-speed and OHKO the various Ground-type trappers. Roar is used here to cover Wynaut and Wobbuffet. Back-ups were selected based on type synergy. Starmie is often the go-to choice for the role of a team’s Water-type, but I had Lanturn from another facility and I prefer it here since it synergises with Sceptile much better. The addition of Charizard turns this into a Grass/Water/Fire core. I considered Blaziken for the Fire role since its much stronger and more offensively versatile, but I prefer Charizard’s Speed and superior defensive typing (I didn’t like the idea of doubling up on Ground weaknesses).

Charizard is running Toxic. It seems like an odd choice, but after building this team I realised that I was at risk of being screwed over by Blissey, and Toxic is helpful for this reason alone. The decision paid off, because it just so happens that I did encounter a trainer with Blissey during this round!

Team 7 (Round 7: Ice-types)

View attachment 101174

Medicham

Hasty
Pure Power
IVs: 31/31/30/31/30/30
EVs: 4/252/0/4/0/248

Brick Break
Shadow Ball
Hidden Power [Rock]
Psychic

View attachment 101126

Lapras

Modest
Water Absorb
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 156/0/100/252/0/0

Surf
Ice Beam
Thunderbolt
Rest

View attachment 101127

Metagross

Adamant
Clear Body
IVs: 31/31/31/31/30/31
EVs: 4/252/0/0/0/252

Hidden Power [Steel]
Earthquake
Rock Slide
Rest

Probably the silliest team I used through-out my Pyramid campaign, and definitely the least optimal. The round is probably the most difficult of the 10 rounds required to get the gold symbol. Medicham, with a Choice Band, works well as an Ice-type slayer, although as a general purpose Pokemon for trainer battles its middling Speed and defences hurt it a bit. Lapras might seem odd as a back-up since it doesn’t synergise with Medicham particularly well defensively (although Medicham covers its Rock and Fighting weaknesses), but I do like its immunity to freeze, Water Absorb, and its resistance to Ice moves. There are a couple of wild Pokemon in this round that Lapras can easily switch-in on and safely deal with, especially Cloyster, and at the very least this allowed me to preserve Medicham’s PP. I didn’t find Lapras to be too bad against trainers either. It has good coverage and can tank things well too. Metagross takes the last spot and covers Flying and Rock for the team, while also being adequate against Ice-types. The move set is identical to the one I used in the palace but this is a different Metagross with Adamant over Hasty, which was no longer needed.

Team 8 (Round 8: Selfdestruct/Explosion/Destiny Bond)

View attachment 101128

Gengar

Timid
Levitate
IVs: 31/19/31/21/31/31
EVs: 28/0/4/252/4/220

Psychic
Fire Punch
Thunderbolt
Rest

View attachment 101129

Steelix

Adamant
Sturdy
IVs: 31/31/31/27/30/31
EVs: 76/252/4/0/176/0

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Hidden Power [Steel]
Rest

View attachment 101130

Milotic

Modest
Marval Scale
IVs: 31/10/31/30/31/31
EVs: 180/0/76/248/4/0

Surf
Ice Beam
Hidden Power [Grass]
Rest

Gengar makes another appearance here, albeit with a tweaked move set. Its immunity to Selfdestruct and Explosion is what makes it so useful as a lead in this round. The move set is designed to beat as many of the wild Pokemon as possible. Psychic covers Weezing and opposing Gengar, and Fire Punch is great for Pineco, Forretress and Shiftry. Levitate combined with Ghost-typing completely walls Golem, which leaves Solrock and Electrode. Electrode is completely screwed by Steelix, hence its inclusion here. Funnily enough, Solrock is the most annoying Pokemon because of potential high-damage Psywaves and ability to survive hits from Gengar (HP Dark doesn't always KO against higher-leveled ones which is why I dumped it from this move set), and usually I just had to wail away at it until it died. I figured that at this point in the streak I could afford to go in without a particular plan for Solrock since I had plenty of healing items anyway. Steelix, in addition to blocking Electrode, happens to synergise with Gengar nicely in general, and Milotic completes a solid defensive core.

Team 9 (Round 9: Psychic-types)

View attachment 101131

Houndoom

Timid
Flash Fire
IVs: 31/10/30/30/31/31
EVs: 4/0/0/248/4/252

Flamethrower
Crunch
Hidden Power [Water]
Taunt

View attachment 101132

Lanturn

Modest
Volt Absorb
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/196/252/52/4

Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Rest

View attachment 101133

Flygon

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

Houndoom makes a comeback here in the lead position. It should be pretty obvious why it works well for this round – I particularly like the combination of Psychic immunity and Taunt since it nullifies Wobbuffet. Lanturn is a pretty helpful back-up for this round since it’s slightly safer against Slowking (who can tank Crunch and can respond with STAB Surf) and also Starmie. Otherwise Fire/Dark covers things well. Flygon comes in as the third to complete a solid core.

Team 10 (Round 10: Rock-types)

Heracross

View attachment 101135

Jolly
Guts
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 0/252/4/0/0/252

Brick Break
Megahorn
Earthquake
Rock Slide

View attachment 101136

Swampert

Brave
Torrent
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252/252/0/0/4/0

Earthquake
Surf
Ice Beam
Rest

View attachment 101137

Aerodactyl

Jolly
Rock Head
IVs: 31/31/30/15/30/30
EVs: 100/252/16/0/0/136

Hidden Power [Rock]
Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Double-Edge

Pretty straight forward. The only complication with building a team for this round is trying to make sure your team is able to handle Brandon’s birds whilst also ensuring it can deal with the Rock-types that appear in this round. This is not particularly difficult though. Between Brick Break, Earthquake and Surf, this team worked just fine. The team also synergises reasonably well too so it can handle random trainers.

Once I reached Brandon, I swapped Choice Band Aerodactyl into the lead position and attempted a sweep. Articuno went down, but unfortunately Hidden Power fell just short of a KO on Zapdos and Aerodactyl ended up KOed itself. I suspect Rock Slide might have ensured a KO, but no matter. Swampert was able to clean up from there anyway.

And with that, the Pyramid was finally conquered.

------------------------------------

Battle Dome

This was the first facility I completed. I consider the Battle Dome to be one of the easiest facilities to get the gold symbol in. Doing so requires a paltry 40 wins, and the facility even gives you a pseudo-team preview before each battle so you can better plan ahead. The only complication with team building for this facility is ensuring that your Pokemon synergise well in pairs and not just as a team of 3, since the battles are 2-on-2. Otherwise, most standard goodstuff teams should be fine here.

Team:

View attachment 101138

Skarmory @ View attachment 101154

Impish
Sturdy
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 252/0/0/0/252/4

Drill Peck
Toxic
Protect
Rest

Toxic-stalling Skarmory. It’s pretty effective in the Frontier since the AI isn’t particularly good at dealing with it and Skarmory can easily stall stuff out with its resistances and bulk. Just poison stuff and Protect/Rest as needed.

View attachment 101139

Lanturn @ View attachment 101166

Modest
Volt Absorb
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/196/252/52/4

Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Thunder Wave

This is the same Lanturn that I used in the Pyramid, but since Rest isn’t really as important in the Dome, I used Thunder Wave instead to help cover its low Speed. Surf/Thunderbolt/Ice Beam grant excellent coverage.

Lanturn’s stats may not be as impressive as other Waters but its defensive typing and Volt Absorb make it a good choice for this team. A lot of the other Waters would share an Electric weakness with Skarmory and that’s not ideal. Lanturn doesn’t really have this issue, and the Ice resistance is also a nice advantage over Swampert. Skarmory also covers Lanturn’s Ground and Grass weaknesses, so together they form a good duo. The only issue is that neither Pokemon has a huge amount of immediate power and they are somewhat vulnerable to set-up Pokemon with Rest so careful consideration needs to be made when deciding if using these Pokemon together in battle.

View attachment 101141

Flygon @ View attachment 101168

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

Choice Band Flygon rounds out the team and provides more immediate power. It pairs well with both Skarmory and Lanturn; Flygon covers Electric, Fire and Ground, and Dragon (Skarmory) and Ice (Lanturn) are both covered too. It’ll mostly be spamming Earthquake, with Rock Slide coverage on Flying-types. Fly is solely for Breloom. Quick Attack is filler that was accidently inherited from the Gligar I used as a parent during breeding. I decided to keep it since I couldn’t think of anything else to run, but it’s mostly useless.

I was reasonably happy with this team, but it has a significant flaw in that it has problems dealing with Tucker’s Latias. For this reason, I would suggest running Hidden Power [Bug] on Flygon, probably over Quick Attack since that didn’t get used at all (it would probably be better to run Aerial Ace over Fly too). Luckily for me, he didn’t pull Latias out for the gold symbol battle and I was able to beat him with few problems.

------------------------------------

Battle Arena

I’m not too fond of this facility. The inability to switch is one thing, but the fact that the game forces you to send your Pokemon in the order in which they are entered feels a bit cheap. I suppose it does add another element to team building though, since you have to ensure that the Pokemon that goes in is able to take out opponents that are likely to KO the previous Pokemon.

Mostly this facility favours hyper-offense: while defensive moves still have their place, the short battles and the unique scoring system reward Pokemon that focus on attacking rather than stalling.

Team:

View attachment 101143

Swampert @ View attachment 101155

Brave
Torrent
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 124/252/4/0/4/124

Earthquake
Surf
Ice Beam
Substitute

Swampert worked ok as a lead here. Great coverage and defensive typing allow it to beat lots of things one-on-one and gain an advantage. I generally found it could take down at least 1.5 Pokemon on its own reliably, and sometimes it would sweep entire teams.

Probably the thing that might need explaining here is the EV/nature combination. I wanted to boost attack, but I didn’t want to cut into special attack or defences, which made Brave the nature of choice. But at the same time, I still wanted to invest in some speed to ensure I could get the jump on Greta’s Umbreon in the gold symbol battle, lest I end up confused before throwing a sub up. With a Brave nature, 124 Speed EVs puts me at 86 Speed, enough to beat Umbreon. The remaining EVs are used to max out Attack and buff defences. I’m uncertain if this is the absolute best nature/EV combination to achieve what I want, but in the end it worked so I’m not losing sleep over it.

View attachment 101145

Alakazam @ View attachment 101159

Timid
Synchronize
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/36/252/4/212

Psychic
Fire Punch
Thunderpunch
Ice Punch

This worked decently as a back-up to Swampert because it generally ends up coming in against a Pokemon that has already been weakened slightly, which Alakazam can then finish off with its excellent Speed and power. The set is straight-forward: Psychic for STAB and elemental punches to maximise coverage.

Timid with 212 Speed EVs gets Alakazam to 183 Speed, enough to out-speed every single Pokemon in the Frontier except Jolteon4 (200 Speed). The rest go into power and bulk. The 36 Def EVs may seem meaningless for such a frail Pokemon, but there were a number of occasions where Alakazam managed to survive a hit where it wouldn’t have otherwise, including one battle where Exploud’s Shadow Ball left Alakazam with just 1 HP.

View attachment 101146

Salamence @ View attachment 101163

Hasty
Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 0/252/0/4/0/252

Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Brick Break
Fire Blast

Salamence is here again just because I can, although this one is an all-out attacker rather than a set up sweeper. Usually it’s good enough on its own to finish the battle off assuming I have the lead already.

The battle for the gold symbol was easy. Swampert used its faster Substitute to shut down Umbreon and from there I was in an unloseable position.

One Pokemon that gave this team problems was Sceptile. It KOes Swampert, and while Alakazam has the speed advantage and can take a Leaf Blade, Alakazam isn’t quite strong enough to OHKO Sceptile and that leaves it vulnerable to a crit KO. From there, Sceptile can get a hit in on Salamence (which could be a super-effective Dragon Claw) before I can finish it off. Even if Salamence survives, I’m in a bad position if Sceptile has dangerous back-ups. Strangely enough, I also has a bad experience with Pinsir2 of all things: it endured a hit from Alakazam and then swept the rest of my team with Flail (I think it got a Swords Dance at some point too).

------------------------------------

Battle Pike

Finally, we have the Pike. In regards to team building for this place, the things to consider are the lack of guaranteed healing after every battle, and the possibility of double battles.

Team:

View attachment 101147

Flygon @ View attachment 101169

Jolly
Levitate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 20/252/4/0/4/228

Earthquake
Rock Slide
Fly
Quick Attack

Flygon appears again. Banded Earthquakes are just so good, and the addition of double battles makes Earthquake all the more valuable.

View attachment 101148

Gyarados @ View attachment 101164

Adamant
Intimidate
IVs: 30/30/30/22/30/31
EVs: 0/248/8/0/0/252

Hidden Power [Flying]
Earthquake
Protect
Dragon Dance

For this slot, I wanted something strong that would also pair up well with Flygon in doubles. Gyarados works well here because it’s immune to Ground, and so Flygon can spam Earthquake safely. Intimidate is another asset in doubles. Gyarados itself is otherwise a competent Pokemon than can perform well in singles too as a Dragon Dancer where needed. I like Protect on this set mostly for doubles – Gyarados is highly vulnerable to Electric moves and it works well as a lure option.

View attachment 101149

Blissey @ View attachment 101156

Bold
Natural Cure
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252/0/252/0/0/4

Seismic Toss
Flamethrower
Aromatherapy
Softboiled

Clerics are invaluable in any facility without guaranteed healing, and this is especially true for the Pike (the Pyramid at least gives you healing items).

Blissey is hands down the best cleric. Nothing comes close to pulling off what Blissey can do. With Softboiled and its enormous HP, Blissey easily recovers the HP of its team mates without having to sacrifice too much of its own total HP (one Softboiled is often enough to heal something else completely), and with Aromatherapy/Heal Bell removing status, Blissey is essentially a Pokemon Centre in your pocket, bar the PP recovery.

I think the key thing to Blissey’s success as a cleric in the Frontier is Natural Cure; without it, I don’t think it would be as effective. Natural Cure basically allows Blissey to not care about the status inflicted by the various wild Pokemon in the Pike, and that allows Blissey to use these encounters as an opportunity to remove status from its team with little consequence. Even if Blissey gets statused after using Aromatherapy, simply fleeing eliminates the status and so it doesn’t have to worry about wasting more Aromatherapy PP and/or hoping the wild Pokemon uses something else before it escapes. This is one of the main things that distinguishes Blissey from Miltank, the only other Pokemon (excluding Smeargle) with access to both Softboiled/Milk Drink and Heal Beal/Aromatherapy (I mention Miltank because, unlike Blissey, it is readily available in Emerald and is the main alternative for those who can’t trade for Chansey/Blissey).

Blissey is not as great for actual battles. I think its use as a Cleric more than makes up for this though. At the very least, it still has its insane special bulk to wall lots of things. The other moves outside of Softboiled/Aromatherapy can be changed as desired: BoltBeam is reasonable, or perhaps Toxic/Protect could work.

As far as strategy in the Pike is concerned, I always ask the attendant for a hint when selecting rooms. There’s no reason not to unless you’re trying a speed run it or something. Generally, I aim to avoid battles if possible. My strategy for dealing with each statement is as follows:

“It seems to have the distinct aroma of Pokemon wafting around it…”

I usually go for these rooms. In most cases this will be a wild Pokemon room which is pretty much a free room if you have a remotely fast lead to flee the battles (Wobbuffet prevents this but doesn’t start to appear until well after you have done enough battles to receive the gold symbol; if you get far enough in just shove Roar/Whirlwind or some other passive move on the lead). It’s also a great opportunity to remove status from the team if required.

Occasionally you’ll end up in a single battle with a “tough” trainer when entering these rooms. I usually don’t mind this as long as I’m reasonably healthy though. “Tough” is mostly meaningless since battle outcomes depend more on match-ups – a team of 3 slow Ground-weak Pokemon is hardly a “tough” opponent for this team, for example. You also get healed after the battle anyway, so the battle is of little consequence in the long run, as long as you win.

“I seem to have heard something… It may have been whispering…”

I also find these rooms safe to go into most of the time. The outcomes are either an idle NPC room with no battle, or a double battle. Double battles are usually fine with a healthy team since it’s a 3-on-2 situation.

“Is it… A Trainer? I sense the presence of people…”

I usually avoid these rooms. Most of the time you’ll end up in a single 3-on-3 battle with no healing after it, and the more you avoid these, the better off you’ll be.

These rooms have a small chance of containing a nurse that heals all of your Pokemon, which sounds great in theory. The problem with this, though, is that the only time where you’d likely need this is if you team is already badly weakened and attempting to enter this room with a weakened team when you are more likely to encounter a trainer sounds like a bad idea to me.

“For some reason, I felt a wave of nostalgia coming from it…”

This room will either result in status being inflicted on your team, or 1-2 team members being healed (usually the former). The interesting thing about this room is that it’s the only one which is guaranteed not to contain a trainer, which in turn guarantees the extension of your streak by at least 2 rooms.

As good as this sounds, I avoid this room in most cases. Status is a killer in the Pike, and while having a cleric can negate this to an extent, you still need to enter a battle to use Aromatherapy/Heal Bell, and the last thing you’d want is to have your entire team frozen and then be challenged to a trainer battle immediately afterwards.

There are a couple of situations where I would enter these rooms. Firstly, if this is the last room of a particular run through the Pike, there is little reason not to enter it. Since there is no battle in this room, you are guaranteed to make it through, and any status inflicted on your team is basically irrelevant since the challenge is finished immediately after.

The other situation where I might enter this room would be if my team is already statused. I’m fairly certain that you can’t encounter a status room if your entire team is already statused, which means that entering this room guarantees a heal and safe passage to the next room. There may also be merit to this strategy if 1-2 Pokemon are statused: at that point, you’re in a bad situation anyway so might as well try for a heal. If it doesn’t pay-off and the remains of your team get status too…well that sucks, but at least you avoided a battle.

------------------------------------

Thanks for reading :)
THIS. IS. AWSOME. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who are the target audience of this guide? Do they have the copies of FRLG required to get Snorlax and Aerodactyl? Do they have the time to breed for good hidden powers?
Everything is admitted, making even possible add pokemom from XD/Colosseum

MOD EDIT: Please do not double post
 
Are we going to include teams for people who don't have access to luxuries like FRLG, someone to trade with to evolve Alakazam, or enough time to breed for hidden powers?
Well there are lots of great pokémon in Hoenn, Swampert, Latios, Registeel, Salamence, Flygon, Gyarados, Alakazam, Slaking... I could count all day. In fact, out of 12 pokémon I currently have for Frontier (first 12 on the picture) only 2 are from Leaf Green (Suicune and Espeon).
Pokemon - Emerald Version (U)_1518598933823.png

By the way my Tower team:
Pokemon - Emerald Version (U)_1518599508848.png
Pokemon - Emerald Version (U)_1518599519392.png
Pokemon - Emerald Version (U)_1518599526248.png


Simply pass Speed to anyone, pass sub if possible and if you use Swords Dance Metagross will be ready to sweep. Since you don't have Suicune Gardevoir works same. It can also learn will-o-wisp so it may work even better. This team will however probably lose to a critical fire attack the way I lost to Thunder crit when I was on 60ish streak. Basically this game is evil and I'm unhappy for playing it. I wish I had Platinum. Facilities seem a bit more normal tbh.
 
Are we going to include teams for people who don't have access to luxuries like FRLG, someone to trade with to evolve Alakazam, or enough time to breed for hidden powers?
Well i started this thread to make a totally competitive analysis for all the facilities (both silver and gold run possibly) so i wanted to allow everything, but maybe it could be a good idea mentioning substitutes for the ones who does not have the acces to FRLG or XD/Colosseum, as i think pokemon present in the emerald verson are enough to set up a strategy.

Talking about breeding obviously i did not mention IVs as for some pokemon they require too much efforts, but HPowers can be easily detected by the guy in Mossdeep City; if you can’t put HPowers then you can obbiously find an alternative on your own (maybe checking smogon’s competitive archives) but i think it is not necessary to mention this change.

If you don’t want to allow FRLF and platforms this is the list (i think) of some of the most notably banned pokemon:
- Suicune
- Raikou
- Entei
- Moltres
- Zapdos
- Articuno
- Snorlax
- Aerodactyl
- Blissey
- Tyranitar
- Dragonite
- Charizard (and the other starters)
- Lapras
- Espeon/Umbreon (and Eevee’s)
- Hitmonlee (and Co.)
- Gengar
- Typhlosion/Feraligatr/Meganium

In the end i want to precise that i ALLOW even Soul Dew Latias/os, but as you asked they might be considered banned.

Thank you all guys for having considered (finally) my thread, i’m waitng for other strategies and comments for mine!!!
 
If you don’t want to allow FRLF and platforms this is the list (i think) of some of the most notably banned pokemon:

...

- Typhlosion/Feraligatr/Meganium
Johto starters are available after completing the Hoenn Dex. They are not obtainable if you don't have a Meditite, Surskit, Roselia (any), Zangoose (ruby) and Lunatone (sapphire).

By the way I completed all master contests today. Woohoo! Silver trainer card is mine! If anybody wants to see what I used I can post all pokemon here. But I don't think you have problems with contests. I lost only once because my pokémon was nervous twice. So I'm back in Frontier, but I don't think I'll ever beat Factory. Any new ideas? I'm getting decent pokémon, but I can't beat everyone and the old man's advice is awfully useless.
 
NPCs are unpredictable. I switched from Staryu to Rhyhorn when I was facing a Chinchou and I ate a water type attack instead of spark. I'd rather see a thread on "how to read an rng's mind" but that probably doesn't exist.
In gen 4 they use random attacks until like round 3 or something. The advice for Platinum is to never switch unless you're literally immune to all its options or something, at least until the AI "smartens up".
 
Palace Maven Spenser is such a jerk!! I lost because he kept using swagger and my pokémon two shot themselves. He won because of luck and after the battle he called me wimpy! Urghh I wanted to rip him off! Anyway, on our second battle I almost swept his team. Flygon just hated Lapras' Ice Beam. I could switch, but I had no reason to do so. One pokémon was untouched though. Team I used (with changes I would make next time) :
Aimbot (Magneton) @ Magnet
Ability: Magnet Pull
Level: 60
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Shock Wave
- Thunder Wave
- Protect

Spenser's Crobat is a gimmick. It can sweep whole team with double team and toxic. Really annoying. Fortunately there is a pokémon that twice resists Crobat's only attacking move (fly), is immune to toxic and doesn't care about double teams since shock wave has infinite accuracy and is super effective. Watch out for the confuse ray though. Protect and TWave are there if you use something else than attacking move, which will happen a lot because Hasty Nature has 42% of not attacking when it's HP is above 50%. When hurt, that chance drops to only 12% which is almost like rock slide missing, so pretty unlikely. Since Protect does nothing for a turn, chances you will attack or just skip a turn are whooping 94%. That's why this nature is the best (credits to atsync for telling me about this nature). So basically sturdy would work better (NPCs never switch unless your pokémon is immune to every single move they have) and it would protect you from Horn Drill Lapras has. I used a magnet as the hold item, but honestly this pokémon doesn't even need an item. You can use Focus Band if you want. Maybe even Quick Claw would work (Crobat is faster than Magneton). Sturdy Magneton walls Lapras so you can use it against 2 out of 3 pokémon. Don't forget to switch out of Slaking and it's annoying Earthquake.

Gyarados @ Persim Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Level: 60
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Return
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Leer

If you think that Leer is an awful move to have on a Dragon Dance pokémon, you're goddamn right. But in my case I didn't really care that Gyarados can learn Swagger, Taunt, Torment, Roar, Toxic, Attract and Thunder Wave since Leer was basically a Dragon Dance with some modifications. Besides, it's not a big deal anyway. Chance for a naughty pokémon to use a support move (the ones I mentioned) is 10% at full HP and 8% below 50% HP so you won't see it that much. Why naughty, you're asking? Naughty Nature firstly raises Attack. So whatever happens, Naughty Gyarados is pretty good anyway, but the main reason are, again, the moves it will use. With whooping 70% preference for defensive moves when pokémon has over 50%HP and same 70% preference towards attacking moves when below 50% HP, Naughty Nature is definitely the one to use for any dancer, regardless if it prefers dragon or sword. Gentle Calm Mind users work similarly, though they will have better chance of attacking when they have less than half HP so they can work good too. Gyarados however eats Earthquakes and Digs perfectly so you want to use it with Magneton. That's basically it. Return and Earthquake hit extremely hard with couple of dragon dances and attacking nature, persim berry ruins confuse ray/swagger user's day (all 3 Spenser's pokémon have these moves) and Gyarados itself has respectable Attack stat. It pulled me out of so many awful situations, though 30% of using something you don't want is really risky when you have around 200HP and not-so-good defences. Use with caution.

Flygon @ Lum Berry
Ability: Levitate
Level: 60
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Screech
- Protect

4x weakness to ground, huh Magneton? 4x weaknesses to electric types, is that so Gyarados? Not a big deal. Flygon doesn't care about any of these two. With nice Attack and Speed and previously mentioned Hasty Nature, Flygon is a force to be reckoned. With the popular quakeslide combo only Breloom resists (but has paper defences so it feels like it doesn't) Flygon rips through enemy teams like there's no tomorrow. Screech is here this time instead of thunder wave and the only time it was used was against a Chansey which fell to an Earthquake immediately after. Seriously, don't mess with this pokémon. Lum Berry helped me more than once, but the main reason you want it is for Swagger. Imagine getting a free Swords Dance from an opponent. Sounds wonderful. I easily 2HKOed enemy Slaking after it used swagger (and nothing else because of truant) and took about 2/3 of Lapras' HP with rock slide (got a flinch there as well!).

You can't go wrong with this team, just make sure you equip it with confusion healing items and you're good to go. I'll make another team for gold symbol so stay here if you have any problems with battle palace.

In gen 4 they use random attacks until like round 3 or something. The advice for Platinum is to never switch unless you're literally immune to all its options or something, at least until the AI "smartens up".
By the way that is really useful. But does it work in emerald too? They are constantly using Thunder Wave on my Substitute in battle tower on ~40 win streak so I'm not sure if I can rely on that in this game.

MOD EDIT: Merged double posts
 
I don't know if it's random for all facilities or just the Factory, and I can't talk as to whether it works in Emerald or not anyway. My recommendation would be to check out videos of people trying the facilities and see if the opponents use their best move or not on the Pokémon the player is using, and if there seems to be a correlation between this and streak level or facility.
 
Been trying to prep teams and I am on day three of random encountering with a six man team of Pickup Linoones trying to get an Earthquake TM... Got the other 1% Leftovers which you can already get on the SS ship. Ugh lol.
 

atsync

Where the "intelligence" of TRAINERS is put to the test!
is a Pokemon Researcheris a Contributor to Smogon
In regards to AI behaviour in the Emerald Factory, I found that the AI tended to select moves "randomly" during the first 4 rounds. This is likely intended to make these rounds easier, and it does, but it also means that switching a Pokemon in is riskier since you can't be certain about which move the opponent has selected. Therefore, I advice against switching things in directly unless you know it is completely safe (i.e. the Pokemon you switch in to can't harm you whatsoever).

In later rounds, the AI starts to act "smarter" and will favour the most powerful move against your Pokemon instead of just randomly selecting moves. This means you can't rely on wins by hoping that the AI uses a dumb move. However, the AI becomes more predictable and switching is much safer as a result.

I wasn't really paying attention to AI tendencies in other facilities. If I had to guess, the "4 rounds" rule probably applies to the Tower and the Arena as well. I'm unsure about the Dome but that facility does 4 battles per round rather than 7, so possibly it takes 7 rounds before the AI smartens up (note: 7 rounds of 4 = 28 battles, the same as 4 rounds of Tower/Factory/Arena). I don't know about Pyramid and Pike: there is a point where the AI becomes "smart" but I'm not sure how many rounds you have to go through before that happens, although the "tough" trainers found in certain rooms of the Pike seem to have "smart" AI no matter when you encounter them.

Palace obviously takes control out of the trainer's hands, but I believe "smart" AI does come in to play in situations where the Pokemon picks an move category and has multiple options to pick from in that category (e.g. if "Attack is selected and you have Surf and Ice Beam to pick from). In my experience, "smart" AI allows these Pokemon to select the appropriate move for the match-up. I also observed this with the Pokemon on my team and found that my Pokemon almost always selected the most powerful move for the Pokemon they faced out of the 3 attacking moves they had.

Note that Frontier Brains use "smart" AI no matter what.

Some other things I noted about the "smart" AI behaviour in facilities:
  • If the AI is in a situation where they know they have a move that can/will KO your Pokemon, it will generally favour this move no matter what.
  • The AI will favour priority moves like Quick Attack if you are at low enough HP to be KOed by them.
  • Pokemon with status moves tend to use these moves against Pokemon currently not inflicted by status if they are unable to KO you with one of their moves, although I saw some exceptions to this so can sometimes be hard to predict.
  • The AI is terrible at playing against Substitute. For example, they will happily spam status moves repeatedly into Substitute.
  • The AI almost never switches out of your Pokemon no matter how bad the match-up is for them - they'll stick with the Pokemon even if it has absolutely no way to damage your Pokemon (e.g. a mono-Electric attacker against a Ground-type). This is what allows crippling strategies to work.
  • They are some situations where the AI may switch:
    • If you attack a Pokemon with one of your moves, and the opposing Pokemon has a back-up Pokemon that resists or is immune to that attack, they may switch to the resistant Pokemon in an attempt to predict the same move. I am not certain if this also extends to immunities/resistances granted by abilities (Volt Absorb, Thick Fat, etc.). The AI only cares about resistances in these situations and has no regard for whether the Pokemon that it is switching in can actually do damage to your Pokemon or not.
    • Some Pokemon carry moves like Explosion and Baton Pass which, when used, results in the opponent "switching" their Pokemon.
  • If a opponent's preferred move runs out of PP, the opponent seems to attack somewhat randomly after that (rather than select their second strongest attack). This one probably needs more research since I haven't been in many situations where the AI has run out of PP in one move, but it was something I observed once during my gold symbole campaign.
  • A Pokemon with Sleep Talk will favour this move if sleeping. Pokemon with Rest+Sleep Talk are unable to figure out when it is about to wake up after using Rest and will attempt to use Sleep Talk on the turn it wakes up, resulting in failure. The same probably applies to Snore, but the only set that has Snore in the Frontier is Sealeo1, which as far as I know only appears during the early "random" AI rounds in level 50, and not at all in Open level.
  • Opponent's like to use recovery moves like Recover when sitting at around 60% HP, although if said Pokemon also has a move that can KO you, they tend to prefer KOing you over recovering.
  • The AI is not always smart when using Counter/Mirror Coat - I have observed opponents attempt to use these moves when their HP is in the red, for example.
 
In regards to AI behaviour in the Emerald Factory, I found that the AI tended to select moves "randomly" during the first 4 rounds. This is likely intended to make these rounds easier, and it does, but it also means that switching a Pokemon in is riskier since you can't be certain about which move the opponent has selected. Therefore, I advice against switching things in directly unless you know it is completely safe (i.e. the Pokemon you switch in to can't harm you whatsoever).

In later rounds, the AI starts to act "smarter" and will favour the most powerful move against your Pokemon instead of just randomly selecting moves. This means you can't rely on wins by hoping that the AI uses a dumb move. However, the AI becomes more predictable and switching is much safer as a result.

I wasn't really paying attention to AI tendencies in other facilities. If I had to guess, the "4 rounds" rule probably applies to the Tower and the Arena as well. I'm unsure about the Dome but that facility does 4 battles per round rather than 7, so possibly it takes 7 rounds before the AI smartens up (note: 7 rounds of 4 = 28 battles, the same as 4 rounds of Tower/Factory/Arena). I don't know about Pyramid and Pike: there is a point where the AI becomes "smart" but I'm not sure how many rounds you have to go through before that happens, although the "tough" trainers found in certain rooms of the Pike seem to have "smart" AI no matter when you encounter them.

Palace obviously takes control out of the trainer's hands, but I believe "smart" AI does come in to play in situations where the Pokemon picks an move category and has multiple options to pick from in that category (e.g. if "Attack is selected and you have Surf and Ice Beam to pick from). In my experience, "smart" AI allows these Pokemon to select the appropriate move for the match-up. I also observed this with the Pokemon on my team and found that my Pokemon almost always selected the most powerful move for the Pokemon they faced out of the 3 attacking moves they had.

Note that Frontier Brains use "smart" AI no matter what.

Some other things I noted about the "smart" AI behaviour in facilities:
  • If the AI is in a situation where they know they have a move that can/will KO your Pokemon, it will generally favour this move no matter what.
  • The AI will favour priority moves like Quick Attack if you are at low enough HP to be KOed by them.
  • Pokemon with status moves tend to use these moves against Pokemon currently not inflicted by status if they are unable to KO you with one of their moves, although I saw some exceptions to this so can sometimes be hard to predict.
  • The AI is terrible at playing against Substitute. For example, they will happily spam status moves repeatedly into Substitute.
  • The AI almost never switches out of your Pokemon no matter how bad the match-up is for them - they'll stick with the Pokemon even if it has absolutely no way to damage your Pokemon (e.g. a mono-Electric attacker against a Ground-type). This is what allows crippling strategies to work.
  • They are some situations where the AI may switch:
    • If you attack a Pokemon with one of your moves, and the opposing Pokemon has a back-up Pokemon that resists or is immune to that attack, they may switch to the resistant Pokemon in an attempt to predict the same move. I am not certain if this also extends to immunities/resistances granted by abilities (Volt Absorb, Thick Fat, etc.). The AI only cares about resistances in these situations and has no regard for whether the Pokemon that it is switching in can actually do damage to your Pokemon or not.
    • Some Pokemon carry moves like Explosion and Baton Pass which, when used, results in the opponent "switching" their Pokemon.
  • If a opponent's preferred move runs out of PP, the opponent seems to attack somewhat randomly after that (rather than select their second strongest attack). This one probably needs more research since I haven't been in many situations where the AI has run out of PP in one move, but it was something I observed once during my gold symbole campaign.
  • A Pokemon with Sleep Talk will favour this move if sleeping. Pokemon with Rest+Sleep Talk are unable to figure out when it is about to wake up after using Rest and will attempt to use Sleep Talk on the turn it wakes up, resulting in failure. The same probably applies to Snore, but the only set that has Snore in the Frontier is Sealeo1, which as far as I know only appears during the early "random" AI rounds in level 50, and not at all in Open level.
  • Opponent's like to use recovery moves like Recover when sitting at around 60% HP, although if said Pokemon also has a move that can KO you, they tend to prefer KOing you over recovering.
  • The AI is not always smart when using Counter/Mirror Coat - I have observed opponents attempt to use these moves when their HP is in the red, for example.
Very detailed analysis as always. Thank you. I had experiences with substitute trolling, it happens every time I use Ninjask. Thunder Wave users (all status users, but Confuse Ray, TWave and Swagger seem most common to me) let me get 3 Swords Dances and pass them to Metagross. It's so cheap but it gets me wins.

I just got the silver pyramid symbol. Blissey is officially the greatest ADV pokémon. I'll breed a little more of them and they will probably be in most of my Frontier teams.

Blissey
Ability: Natural Cure
Level: 60
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Toxic
- Aromatherapy
- Soft-Boiled
- Seismic Toss

Ah the classic Smogon Blissey. This website never ceases to amaze me. Though the calm mind set is a bit more popular, "Gen 7 Chansey" set is definitely better. Toxic and Aromatherapy are not so hard to get, you only need a male Roselia. And if you have a Blissey in emerald, you probably also have a Roselia since trading with R/S is easier. Chansey/Blissey learn Softboiled before level 20 and Seismic Toss is in that house west of Battle Dome. Don't hesitate, those were the best 24BP I spent in my life.

Reason why this Blissey is spectacular is Softboiled. Heals allies outside battles, heals her in battles. Basically makes HP for everyone out of thin air. And healing is really important in battle pyramid since you can't heal your pokémon between battles unless you found a Hyper Potion. Aromatherapy is very useful, but I had a Starmie teammate so they both lost status simply by switching out. Suicune was in the team, but it's only use was to eat an explosion from Regirock and try to harm Regice. (I used so many water types because the woman at entrance tells you what will you face. My theme were burns so I used these pokémon)
 
Battle Arena

I’m not too fond of this facility. The inability to switch is one thing, but the fact that the game forces you to send your Pokemon in the order in which they are entered feels a bit cheap. I suppose it does add another element to team building though, since you have to ensure that the Pokemon that goes in is able to take out opponents that are likely to KO the previous Pokemon.

Mostly this facility favours hyper-offense: while defensive moves still have their place, the short battles and the unique scoring system reward Pokemon that focus on attacking rather than stalling.

Team:

View attachment 101143

Swampert @ View attachment 101155

Brave
Torrent
IVs: 31/31/31/31/31/31
EVs: 124/252/4/0/4/124

Earthquake
Surf
Ice Beam
Substitute

Swampert worked ok as a lead here. Great coverage and defensive typing allow it to beat lots of things one-on-one and gain an advantage. I generally found it could take down at least 1.5 Pokemon on its own reliably, and sometimes it would sweep entire teams.

Probably the thing that might need explaining here is the EV/nature combination. I wanted to boost attack, but I didn’t want to cut into special attack or defences, which made Brave the nature of choice. But at the same time, I still wanted to invest in some speed to ensure I could get the jump on Greta’s Umbreon in the gold symbol battle, lest I end up confused before throwing a sub up. With a Brave nature, 124 Speed EVs puts me at 86 Speed, enough to beat Umbreon. The remaining EVs are used to max out Attack and buff defences. I’m uncertain if this is the absolute best nature/EV combination to achieve what I want, but in the end it worked so I’m not losing sleep over it.

View attachment 101145

Alakazam @ View attachment 101159

Timid
Synchronize
IVs: 31/4/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4/0/36/252/4/212

Psychic
Fire Punch
Thunderpunch
Ice Punch

This worked decently as a back-up to Swampert because it generally ends up coming in against a Pokemon that has already been weakened slightly, which Alakazam can then finish off with its excellent Speed and power. The set is straight-forward: Psychic for STAB and elemental punches to maximise coverage.

Timid with 212 Speed EVs gets Alakazam to 183 Speed, enough to out-speed every single Pokemon in the Frontier except Jolteon4 (200 Speed). The rest go into power and bulk. The 36 Def EVs may seem meaningless for such a frail Pokemon, but there were a number of occasions where Alakazam managed to survive a hit where it wouldn’t have otherwise, including one battle where Exploud’s Shadow Ball left Alakazam with just 1 HP.

View attachment 101146

Salamence @ View attachment 101163

Hasty
Intimidate
IVs: 31/31/31/21/31/31
EVs: 0/252/0/4/0/252

Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Brick Break
Fire Blast

Salamence is here again just because I can, although this one is an all-out attacker rather than a set up sweeper. Usually it’s good enough on its own to finish the battle off assuming I have the lead already.

The battle for the gold symbol was easy. Swampert used its faster Substitute to shut down Umbreon and from there I was in an unloseable position.

One Pokemon that gave this team problems was Sceptile. It KOes Swampert, and while Alakazam has the speed advantage and can take a Leaf Blade, Alakazam isn’t quite strong enough to OHKO Sceptile and that leaves it vulnerable to a crit KO. From there, Sceptile can get a hit in on Salamence (which could be a super-effective Dragon Claw) before I can finish it off. Even if Salamence survives, I’m in a bad position if Sceptile has dangerous back-ups. Strangely enough, I also has a bad experience with Pinsir2 of all things: it endured a hit from Alakazam and then swept the rest of my team with Flail (I think it got a Swords Dance at some point too).
Thanks so much for the guide. Working through the Frontier now and just aiming for the Silver Medals for now. For the Battle Arena team you suggested, it worked great but for the Silver Run I would suggest to anyone trying to run this team to switch the order and maybe an item too. In my Silver battle, Greta sends out Heracross first. Two Megahorns destroyed Swampert and it resists Earthquake and Surf did pretty much no damage. Alakazam outsped and OHKOed Heracross but is walled pretty hard by Umbreon. I got in two Thunderpunches for little damage especially with Leftovers. Salamence was able to take town Umbreon with Brick Break but was confused in the process. It hit itself in confusion twice in a row and died to two Shadow Balls from Shedninja before I could get off an Aerial Ace.

My suggestion is to lead with Zam and OHKO Heracross. Zam will die to Umbreon. Swampert can Substitute and Earthquake spam and potentially win by referee decision. Maybe a different Pokemon would be better here for the Silver Battle though. Salemence can clean up Umbreon with Brick Break if it is left. Then, use Aerial Ace on Shedninja to win. I would also suggest a Persim Berry for Salamence in this battle to heal a potential Umbreon Confuse Ray. Umbreon has Body Slam though too so maybe for the Silver run use a Lum on Mence to heal a potential confusion or Body Slam paralyze and give Zam something else since it will be leading for that run.

Anyway those are my thoughts. Thanks for the guide and hopefully I can get a Silver win tonight.
 
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