Challenge Is it POSSIBLE to beat Pokemon Black with only ONE LEVEL 100 AZELF (NO ITEMS)?

There's numerous Pokemon one has to ask themself if it's even possible to beat the game with: Ditto, Wobbuffet, Sunkern, Magikarp...but one that goes under the radar is Azelf. To date, no one has even attempted this ludicrous challenge. Today, that's going to change. I'm even going to give myself a huge advantage and start at max level just to give myself a fighting chance. One Level 100 Azelf, no in-battle items – let's get it.

First, I need to decide which starter to replace with Azelf to influence my Rivals' Pokemon. While the FWG triangle is mostly irrelevant for Azelf, the Fighting-type Tepig will evolve into will be a bit easier than the others. So I pick “Oshawott” to give Tepig to Bianca and eventually weaken her team.

With that out of the way, let's get started! The first fight is Bianca's Tepig, who gets OHKOd by Extrasensory. After that I have to fight Cheren's Snivy, which is a bit bulkier. But, I get a lucky crit and OHKO it as well. While I don't like relying on this kind of luck, these kinds of hardcore runs don't always leave you with another option. Ah well. At least the next part is a bit of a breather, since Route 1 has no trainers. Once I get to Accumula Town, though, things heat up again. It's my first encounter with Natural Harmonia Gropius, who has the Dark-type Purrloin to throw a wrench into my Extrasensory strategy. But Purrloin's awful, so I just need to use any other damaging move. I don't have a berry to use Natural Gift with, but I still use it and Extrasensory to get closer to validating Last Resort. Now I just need to use...



Hm. Well. This will certainly knock out Purrloin, so maybe it will count as a victory for me?



Nope. Well, I've got other options. Struggle is my first thought, but this runs into the exact same issue as Last Resort – I need to use Explosion to trigger it. This wouldn't be an issue if I could remove Explosion, but there's no way to do so. No TMs are available, the move deleter and relearner aren't until Mistralton, and I can't level up to learn anything new to replace it.

I then reconsider Natural Gift. While no NPCs give berries, maybe I can get one from the wild Pokemon on Route 1? The answer ends up being no, but it's tantalizingly close: Audino have a high chance of holding Oran Berries and appear on Route 1, but they don't appear until you get the first badge! The dread begins to set in...am I really going to be stuck by the third battle in the game?

I have one more idea. While I can't use Struggle, maybe I can get him to Struggle and succumb to the recoil. Extrasensory, Last Resort, and Natural Gift have 50 PP combined before I have to use Explosion. But his Purrloin knows Scratch and Growl, which combined have 75 PP. So my next attempt ends up at this:



So...it looks like Azelf's run ends here. But what if I was a dishonorable player and allowed items? Well, in that case, it would be possible. While I don't have the money to buy enough Potions to stall out the PP (I can only afford 13 plus the one you get for free, and I need to stall for 29 extra turns), Poke Balls are a bit cheaper, and far more importantly, not actually consumable when used in a trainer battle. So I can simply spend 79 turns playing tennis with N as his Purrloin wastes itself.

But, such a victory is entirely pyrrhic and demonstrates why items shouldn't be allowed in runs like this. Azelf is simply such an awful Pokemon that you can't fairly solo a game with it even at Level 100, and it's become very clear to me why I've never seen anyone else attempt this challenge before. Perhaps N has a point and forcing Pokemon through these kinds of brutal challenges is, in fact, wrong. After I had Azelf spend 50 turns doing nothing only to explode itself, it's hard to argue otherwise. In the end, I think it's only fair that I release Azelf according to N's wishes:



So to answer the title,

 
It's always such a shame how little respect is put into non-title legendaries. I remember failing an Emerald run similarly early with Registeel. I would have level-grinded given the opportunity, but the run was already doomed by the time any optional battles were available.
 
Today I learned that Azelf learns Explosion naturally, so that was fun.

It's always such a shame how little respect is put into non-title legendaries. I remember failing an Emerald run similarly early with Registeel. I would have level-grinded given the opportunity, but the run was already doomed by the time any optional battles were available.
Hha yeah I remember seeing a similar randomizer set floating around lamenting the 2 other starters choices, getting a registeel and being super excited before seeing oh, the only move it starts with is Explosion.

They actually did fix that in Platinum precisely because of this. They added Stomp as a level 1 move alongside Explosion to all the Regi because instead of being level 40 like in RSE they were level 30 and they needed another level 1 move to push explosion out of their natural learnset.
Gen 6 added several moves to their level 1 movepool to push it out, too.

Honestly? It'd be nice if they released more legendaries at level 1 or even level 5 or something. It'd be fun to take them from a spin and raise them up properly. So props to the DPt trio for being available at level 1 thanks to the HGSS Arceus event.
 

Jerry the great

Banned deucer.
There's numerous Pokemon one has to ask themself if it's even possible to beat the game with: Ditto, Wobbuffet, Sunkern, Magikarp...but one that goes under the radar is Azelf. To date, no one has even attempted this ludicrous challenge. Today, that's going to change. I'm even going to give myself a huge advantage and start at max level just to give myself a fighting chance. One Level 100 Azelf, no in-battle items – let's get it.

First, I need to decide which starter to replace with Azelf to influence my Rivals' Pokemon. While the FWG triangle is mostly irrelevant for Azelf, the Fighting-type Tepig will evolve into will be a bit easier than the others. So I pick “Oshawott” to give Tepig to Bianca and eventually weaken her team.

With that out of the way, let's get started! The first fight is Bianca's Tepig, who gets OHKOd by Extrasensory. After that I have to fight Cheren's Snivy, which is a bit bulkier. But, I get a lucky crit and OHKO it as well. While I don't like relying on this kind of luck, these kinds of hardcore runs don't always leave you with another option. Ah well. At least the next part is a bit of a breather, since Route 1 has no trainers. Once I get to Accumula Town, though, things heat up again. It's my first encounter with Natural Harmonia Gropius, who has the Dark-type Purrloin to throw a wrench into my Extrasensory strategy. But Purrloin's awful, so I just need to use any other damaging move. I don't have a berry to use Natural Gift with, but I still use it and Extrasensory to get closer to validating Last Resort. Now I just need to use...



Hm. Well. This will certainly knock out Purrloin, so maybe it will count as a victory for me?



Nope. Well, I've got other options. Struggle is my first thought, but this runs into the exact same issue as Last Resort – I need to use Explosion to trigger it. This wouldn't be an issue if I could remove Explosion, but there's no way to do so. No TMs are available, the move deleter and relearner aren't until Mistralton, and I can't level up to learn anything new to replace it.

I then reconsider Natural Gift. While no NPCs give berries, maybe I can get one from the wild Pokemon on Route 1? The answer ends up being no, but it's tantalizingly close: Audino have a high chance of holding Oran Berries and appear on Route 1, but they don't appear until you get the first badge! The dread begins to set in...am I really going to be stuck by the third battle in the game?

I have one more idea. While I can't use Struggle, maybe I can get him to Struggle and succumb to the recoil. Extrasensory, Last Resort, and Natural Gift have 50 PP combined before I have to use Explosion. But his Purrloin knows Scratch and Growl, which combined have 75 PP. So my next attempt ends up at this:



So...it looks like Azelf's run ends here. But what if I was a dishonorable player and allowed items? Well, in that case, it would be possible. While I don't have the money to buy enough Potions to stall out the PP (I can only afford 13 plus the one you get for free, and I need to stall for 29 extra turns), Poke Balls are a bit cheaper, and far more importantly, not actually consumable when used in a trainer battle. So I can simply spend 79 turns playing tennis with N as his Purrloin wastes itself.

But, such a victory is entirely pyrrhic and demonstrates why items shouldn't be allowed in runs like this. Azelf is simply such an awful Pokemon that you can't fairly solo a game with it even at Level 100, and it's become very clear to me why I've never seen anyone else attempt this challenge before. Perhaps N has a point and forcing Pokemon through these kinds of brutal challenges is, in fact, wrong. After I had Azelf spend 50 turns doing nothing only to explode itself, it's hard to argue otherwise. In the end, I think it's only fair that I release Azelf according to N's wishes:



So to answer the title,

OK I thought you'd just breeze through the whole game, but it looks like N just utterly humiliated you.
IMG_20200401_163701.jpg
 

tondas

YOU DONT WANT NO PROBLEMS YOU JUST TALKING
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You have a level 100 Pokemon with no gym badges, so could you theoretically get lucky with obedience rng and force the Purrloin to PP stall and faint through Struggle? I demand a redo.
 
You have a level 100 Pokemon with no gym badges, so could you theoretically get lucky with obedience rng and force the Purrloin to PP stall and faint through Struggle? I demand a redo.
The level check with badges has always been for traded Pokemon specifically. Doing it in this way, where you just replace a gift Pokemon, still has the Pokemon belong to you.

The real trouble with a Traded Azelf run would be it disobeying itself into an Explosion anyway
 

CTNC

Doesn't know how to attack
You can have a Level 100 Legend for a starter and still have this happen... Impressive. No wonder people were unironically afraid of Purrloin and its evolution! (Seriously, Prankster with the infamous Swagger+Foul Play combo and Thunder Wave was evil enough to get Swagger banned from Ubers and make Numel viable in Anything Goes.)
 
You have a level 100 Pokemon with no gym badges, so could you theoretically get lucky with obedience rng and force the Purrloin to PP stall and faint through Struggle? I demand a redo.
R_N is right that a Pokemon is always obedient if you own it but they are not correct that disobeying into Explosion is an issue. While a possibility in earlier generations, disobedient Pokemon in Gen 5 do not ever select other moves - they just do nothing, sleep, or hit themselves in confusion. The first two options are wonderful, but confusion presents another issue. To have the Optimal Azelf, it should be Bold with a 0 Attack IV and max HP and Defense IV/EVs to minimize this damage. Purrloin is actually helpful and Growls once, but N has AI and will not do it again until he runs out of Scratch. Factoring in Purrloin's Scratch damage, Azelf can take around 15 or 16 confusion hits at first. This might be problematic, but Azelf's durability increases dramatically in the second half of the fight when Purrloin spams Growl. Sleep also gives you several risk-free turns. The only other issue would be running out of your PP, but that's a complete non-issue. Earlier gen documentation suggests around a 10% chance to actually do what you want, which seems to hold up in practice, so Azelf barely even burns through its own PP. So...



Azelf wins! I tried it a second time and won with 128 HP left too, so it seems pretty consistent.

Now, one does have to question the legality of having maxed defensive EVs when the only Pokemon to grind on are Lillipup and Patrat, both of which give Attack. And they'd be right to. But that concern's already introduced by virtue of having a traded Pokemon at all. See, trading isn't actually available at this point of the game, so a disobedient Pokemon is illegal. Of course, legality is a bit of a fuzzy concept when Azelf has to be hacked in to exist at all, but purists would argue that this kind of run should utilize the smallest amount of hacking possible for the run to start. Take it as you please.

So to answer the title again,

 

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