Challenge Nothing Lasts Forever - Playing through Sapphire without healing (Finished!)

[sb879]

May (Lilycove City)

Video

Alright, so this fight is technically optional, but it’s not too difficult and she blocks the Lilycove Department Store, which has the Thunder TM. Magneton still has the same problems as last time here, so it uses the Exp Share again. May took some notes from Winona and also leads with a Level 31 Swellow. It also heavily prioritizes Double Team (especially because it’s the first turn), so Magneton can Thundershock it unscathed. It might seem dumb to not use Shock Wave here, but it’s only 1 Double Team and I really want to use this last Thundershock PP to make room for a new move.

Here’s a fun little problem: Winona’s Swellow gave me 1075 exp, yet May’s only gives 1074 despite being the same level. Why? Keep in mind that the next Pokemon gives Magneton 939 exp.

Anyways, after that May sends in Wailmer, which is OHKOd by Shock Wave. Next is Numel, which wasn’t sent in first despite having Magnitude because I think the AI poorly utlizes variable power moves and treats their power as 1. That being said Magneton’s complete Electric moveset is no match for it, so I switch to Swampert. Being the first turn (and thinking it can't OHKO Magneton with its 1 BP Ground move), Numel prioritizes setting up with Amnesia, so Swampert comes in for free and Surfs it. Last is Grovyle, and I’ve caught another Oddish to deal with it. This one I’ve taught Sludge Bomb, which makes beating Grovyle almost entirely consistent with a simple 2HKO instead of needing a little luck from Sleep Powder.

After beating her, I go and buy the Thunder plus one other mystery TM for later.

Mt. Pyre

There’s two trainers inside here that I think are worth fighting as I go and loot the place: a Pokemaniac with Lairon, and a Psychic with Kadabra. They get Shock Waved and Sparked, respectively.

Time for more Grunt fodder, yay...Magneton’s a bit higher leveled than last time at the Weather Institute, though, so it’s time to unleash Magneton’s secret power: Secret Power. As a 70 BP move off 60 base attack lacking STAB, it sucks ass. Not gonna sugarcoat it. But it does provide a nice way to dispatch of terrible Pokemon without consuming useful PP. As a good example of how bad it is, it fails to OHKO the first Grunt’s Zubat even though Magneton’s 8 levels higher. He has 3 of them, though, so I really don’t want use Electric PP. Silly as it seems, the best option here is to use an X Attack so Magneton can OHKO them all with Secret Power. It takes I assume either Bite or Wing Attack as it sets up (I forgot to record which move lol but I know Magneton loses a few HP between the 6th and 7th gyms).

The next Grunt leads with the mighty Poochyena, which is also too durable to get OHKOd by Secret Power, but it’s not worth setting up here since he only has 1 “bulky” Pokemon, so I eat the Electric PP and use Shock Wave. His other Pokemon is Carvanha, which gets OHKOd by Secret Power. The last Grunt has 2 more Carvanhas which meet the same sad fate.

Team Aqua Hideout

No one but the Admin at the end needs to be fought, but I do go out of my way to beat up one Grunt who only has a lone Carvanha with Secret Power. Carvanhas give more exp than anything else I can OHKO with Secret Power, so I’m not going to find a better bang for my buck with that PP. Admin Matt has a Carvanha of his own which gets OHKOd by Secret Power, but I need the Silk Scarf for his (I have the Amulet Coin by default) because even the slight IVs his has actually makes a pretty big difference in Carvanha’s bulk (seriously, going from 17 defense to 19 is a pretty big jump!). His Sharpedo goes down to Shock Wave, and not Spark because that triggers Rough Skin. Previously I’ve been prioritizing using Shock Wave over Spark because it’s weaker, but going forward I’m going to be conserving some Shock Wave PP for future Sharpedos. Last is Mightyena which eats a Thunderbolt for an OHKO.

To Mossdeep

Onto Hoenn’s massive conglomeration of water routes. Mmm, I can smell the exp from here…well, in a bit, because for now I want to beat Tate and Liza for the last badge boost. On the way to Mossdeep, I Shock Wave one Swimmer’s Wailmer, and Secret Power another’s Carvanha. The Wailmer was a bit suboptimal in retrospect; I was still used to the previous water routes where it was far and away the best Pokemon, but this isn’t the case anymore.

Mossdeep Gym

A few trainers need to be fought here. The first is very nice, having just a single high-level Xatu that gets OHKOd by Spark. Next one has a Ralts and Kirlia, and I really wanted to see a reprise of X Attack->Secret Power, but Kirlia is just barely too bulky to go down to +1 Secret Power, so I use 2 Sparks instead. The last trainer grants my wish, though, because they have Ralts and Kadabra, who both go down to +1 Secret Power. Ralts uses Imprison as I set up.

Tate & Liza

Video

I could probably find some way to have Magneton work in the lead, but screw it: it gets reduced exp from being in a double battle anyways, and it’s so easy to beat this fight with a pair of Sharpedos fished up in this very town. I give Magneton the Exp Share and go in for a vicious shark attack. Solrock is the only problem, and it wastes its first turn charging up Solarbeam, so the sharks can gang up on it with Crunch and leave only helpless Lunatone remaining. Between Light Screen, Calm Mind, Hypnosis, and Hyper Potions it can waste a fair amount of time though, so I teach one of the Sharpedos Toxic as a fail-safe against time wasting. I’m pretty sure I won’t need the TM elsewhere. Lunatone is pretty unlucky with Hypnosis misses here though, so it’s totally unnecessary and goes down quickly to focused Surfs.

With that, I get the last badge boost, “Special”, or Special Attack and Special Defense. The former is obviously wonderful for Magneton, hence why I wanted this badge ASAP. The Special Defense is a nice bonus.

Next time, Magneton takes after its newfound shark friends and scours the open seas for prey…

Status:
Magneton Level 41: 66/103 HP
5/20 Shock Wave
13/15 Thunderbolt
9/20 Secret Power
16/20 Spark

 

[bwburke94]

Here’s a fun little problem: Winona’s Swellow gave me 1075 exp, yet May’s only gives 1074 despite being the same level. Why? Keep in mind that the next Pokemon gives Magneton 939 exp.

My guess is that the game's experience calculation for Exp Share mons has a rounding error. The game sees (1075/2)*2 as equal to 1074, because it floors the 1075/2.

That doesn't happen to the 939 later on, and the only thing I can think of is that the game checks for odd experience values but it fails for values >= 1024 for some reason...

 

[sb879]

My guess is that the game's experience calculation for Exp Share mons has a rounding error. The game sees (1075/2)*2 as equal to 1074, because it floors the 1075/2.

That doesn't happen to the 939 later on, and the only thing I can think of is that the game checks for odd experience values but it fails for values >= 1024 for some reason...

You mostly have the right idea for the 1075, but there's one slightly off assumption you're making; rectifying it explains the 939. For a small hint, if theoretically May had a Pokemon that gave 1815 exp, it would still give that amount with or without the Exp Share equipped.

 

[bwburke94]

You mostly have the right idea for the 1075, but there's one slightly off assumption you're making; rectifying it explains the 939. For a small hint, if theoretically May had a Pokemon that gave 1815 exp, it would still give that amount with or without the Exp Share equipped.

It can't be based on mod 4 either, because all the numbers involved are the same in that regard. I suppose we shouldn't get that worked up about being shortchanged by one experience point anyway.

 

[sb879]

To explain the exp problem from last update: bwburke94 is mostly correct that it's due to the Exp Share halving the exp, which due to that being odd means half a point of exp is rounded down from both halves, resulting in one less exp when added together. The reason why this doesn't change the 939 exp that Wailmer gives is because the exp splitting is done before the 1.5 trainer bonus is applied. Keeping this in mind, the actual values being split for Swellow and Wailmer are 717 and 626, respectively. Swellow's is still odd, but because Wailmer's is even, it splits without any rounding issue.

Anyways, on to the update.
-----------------------------------
On the Open Sea

So, every route from this point on is a water route, which means Magneton has near-complete domination over everything. Getting levels here is purely a matter of optimizing exp with no danger to consider. Obviously, this means evolved Pokemon are a priority, as well as really bad Pokemon that Secret Power can KO. Given the ease in winning, I’ll just list the trainers fought:

Swimmer Barry: Gyarados (Spark)
Swimmer Kara: Seaking (Spark)
Swimmer Richard: Pelipper (Spark)
Swimmer Gilbert: Sharpedo (Shock Wave)
Cooltrainer Jennifer: Milotic (Spark) (revenge!!!)
Swimmer Herman: Wailmer (Spark), Tentacruel (Spark)
Fisherman Henry: Tentacool (Secret Power), Carvanha (Secret Power), Tentacruel (Spark)
School Kid Georgia: Shroomish (Secret Power), Beautifly (Secret Power)
Swimmer Dean: Carvanha (Secret Power), Wingull (Secret Power), Carvanha (Secret Power)
Fisherman Wayne: Tentacool (Secret Power), Tentacool (Secret Power – last one), Wailmer (Shock Wave), Tentacruel (Spark)

Unfortunately, Magneton’s PP is dwindling, so I can’t really fight much more than this, even though Magneton could otherwise easily raze the ocean. Doing all this takes it from Level 41 to 44, being close to 45. Now I teach one of my Sharpedos Dive and go to Seafloor Cavern. Thankfully there are no Grunts that need to be fought here, just Shelly and Archie. Shelly’s Sharpedo and Mightyena are easily dispatched with Shock Wave and Thunderbolt.

Archie (Seafloor Cavern)

Video

The only set-up Magneton needs for this fight is a single X Speed, but Mightyena is seemingly annoying to set this up on, Scary Facing Magneton’s speed down as long as it’s faster. And while I could just Thunderbolt Mightyena and have Crobat come in, it has Confuse Ray and is also a poor set-up target. Fortunately, the Guard Spec item exists, blocking stat drops which nullifies Mightyena’s Scary Face. After setting it up, I was expecting to take a Bite on the next turn as I used the X Speed, but as it turns out the AI doesn’t understand what a Guard Spec does and continues using Scary Face, giving Magneton free set-up. After that, Archie’s team goes down easily: Mightyena to Thunderbolt, Crobat to Spark, and Sharpedo to Shock Wave.

Trick House

And so, Kyogre is awakened and rains plague the land. This does give Thunder perfect accuracy, but it’s super overkill for anything on these routes so it’s not as fun as it seems. Oh well. Before I deal with this, I want to finally get the Magnet from the Trick House. I did the first Trick House long ago for its Rare Candy, and I started the second when I finished Magneton’s Sonicboom PP on a Ralts there. The last trainer in the second was actually completed earlier this update, if School Kid Georgia seemed out of place in the watery massacre. I waited until now to really dive into the Trick House because I wanted to get rid of Secret Power for the even worse Façade (which can’t even get rid of Carvanhas due to being contact) to deal with the underleveled Pokemon. But as it turns out, there’s very little to dive in to – the third and fourth Trick House have no required trainers, and the fifth doesn’t have any period. That just leaves the sixth one guarding the Magnet. Only one trainer needs to be fought, but I go out of my way to fight a Bird Keeper here worth a good chunk of exp. He has a high-level Swellow, Pelipper, and Xatu, which go down to Shock Wave and 2 Sparks, using up the last Shock Wave. The required trainer is somewhat annoying due to having an Electric-resist in Cacturne, but him being a Ranger and having “smart” AI is a blessing in disguise – he is very likely to spend the first turn setting up Ingrain instead of attacking. And one turn is all Magneton needs to set up an X Special to OHKO it with Thunderbolt.

Kyogre

Video

With Shock Wave now depleted, I finally teach Magneton Thunder over it. Between this and my newly acquired Magnet, Magneton has around a 40% boost in power compared to its old Thunderbolt. And what better way to show off its newfound power than to engage in an epic duel with Kyogre, Lord of the Sea? Well, it’s not much of a duel, Magneton just outspeeds and OHKOs with Thunder, enjoying perfect accuracy from Kyogre’s own Drizzle. It requires a little bit of luck with Kyogre’s IVs; it needs to be on the lower half of speed for Magneton to outspeed, and to not have really have high Special Defense to OHKO. Truthfully, it’s not even really worth fighting Kyogre (can run away guaranteed with Smoke Ball). The exp it gives is similar to evolved Pokemon in the sea due to not being in a Trainer fight, but it requires a stronger move. I definitely appreciate later gens significantly bumping up the base exp of legendaries. That being said, I could hardly feel like my raving about Magneton’s ocean dominance would be justified if I ran away from the Lord of the Sea!

Wallace

Video

No required trainers in this gym, and surprisingly none are worth going out of my way for. This is mainly because of the obnoxious gym design - to get where most of the trainers are, I need to go to the top area, but in order to get back to Wallace I have to go through the lower 2 areas and fight 4 suboptimal traners, ruining whatever chance there was at getting good exp. I do need to catch something beforehand to deal with his Whiscash. For once I’m not catching an Oddish to deal with my problems, and instead I catch a Gloom, an entirely different Pokemon. I give it a couple tools to deal with Whiscash: the Sun Stone to evolve it into Bellossom, and the Sunny Day and Solarbeam TMs. Now for Wallace!

Wallace leads with the laughable Luvdisc, but truthfully it’s not much more pitiful than most Water-types versus Magneton. It goes down to Spark, and then Whiscash comes in. I switch out to Bellossom, who is only 3HKOd by Earthquake despite being 11 levels lower. Whiscash will then either try to set up Rain Dance or Amnesia, neither of which change its fate, but Amnesia is annoying and wastes time. Thankfully here it just uses Rain Dance, which Bellossom immediately reverses with Sunny Day. Next turn it outspeeds due to Chlorophyll and obliterates it with Solarbeam.

He then sends in Sealeo, which I just Acid as Bellossom gets KOd by Aurora Beam. In a slightly annoying routing error, Bellossom could’ve used Solarbeam as its final move and knocked Sealeo into healing range, giving Magneton a free turn to set up. However, the desired set-up would be an X Accuracy, which I didn’t have on me. But I saved in front of Wallace, and the layout of his gym means I can’t leave without breaking the ice and falling into the trainer-infested pit below. So uh, nevermind. Anyways, Magneton easily KOs Sealeo and Seaking with Spark. Milotic is still an annoyingly bulky Pokemon and survives even Thunderbolt, so I have to use Thunder, sadly with no accuracy boost due to my error. Don’t really like ending a 3 minute fight with a 70 accuracy move, but oh well. I could have technically set up with an X Special and used Thunderbolt, but I think Thunderbolt will be more important later on due to its accuracy.

Topping Off

With that, the final badge is mine! No real reward other than Waterfall, which lets me get the last of the Rare Candies, bringing my total up to 12. At Level 47, Magneton isn’t particularly overleveled and is going to lose a lot of its type dominance, so I want to dump a bunch of them onto it. I want to save 3 of them for other purposes, but the remaining 9 will go to Magneton. Before I do that, I want to get Magneton to Level 48 (it's almost there) so it doesn't waste the exp it's gotten since reaching Level 47. So, I teach it Façade over Secret Power and fight a few trainers around the world, prioritizing money over PP optimization. I fight Pokefan Miguel, Pokefan Vanessa, Rich Boy Winston, Lady Cindy, Beauty Melissa, and Beauty Shirley, all of which have 1 very underleveled Pokemon each that go down to a Façade.

Once I get to Level 48, I dump 9 Rare Candies into Magneton and turn it into a very fearsome Level 57 beast. I then delete Façade for the ultimate in Normal moves. Return? Hell no, I’m talking about Hyper Beam. Who says Gen 3 Magneton doesn’t have coverage? It’s worth noting that Façade still had 14 PP left when I deleted it which might seem ridiculous, but this isn’t a big deal. I really need to emphasize how shitty Façade is at this point: each PP is worth maybe, like, 200 exp if I’m being optimal. My earlier Secret Power uses took out most of the good non-Carvanha targets. It’s not worth fussing over.

Victory Road

Before going in, I fish up a high level Wailmer (43) and give it a Rare Candy so it evolves into Wailord. I buy 2 Carbos to reach an important speed benchmark, then enter Victory Road. The first trainer has a Roselia that resists Magneton’s Electric moves, but it sure doesn’t resist the Hyper Beam that OHKOs it. Now Magneton has some trouble ahead, so it dons the Exp Share and sits back. The next trainer has a Claydol which is what I got Wailord for. In theory the 2 Carbos would let it outspeed and OHKO it with Water Spout, but apparently it has a Speed-boosting nature so that’s out the window. That being said, it can’t do much to Wailord anyways. It starts with Cosmic Power, which barely prevents Water Spout from OHKOing. I use Surf as a Full Restore is used, then finish it with Water Spout, taking around 10% from an Ancientpower in the process. I later realized that a different route can be taken and a trainer with Lairon/Dodrio/Kadabra can be fought instead, but at this point Magneton’s PP is so low that I’d rather something else do the fighting for it if possible.

Now there’s a trainer with Sandslash and Ninetales. Wailord was supposed to be used for this fight too, but Ninetales is annoying with Confuse Ray. Swampert is actually better here, because Ninetales is heavily discouraged from using Confuse Ray due to Swampert’s low HP (this is a general smart AI property). Swampert has just enough HP to take a Slash and a Quick Attack from the two Pokemon and OHKO them with Torrent Surf. With just 7 HP remaining, Swampert's basically finished, though. The last normal trainer has a Cacturne, which sadly survives Magneton’s Hyper Beam, but its low Special Defense means it’s OHKOd even by a resisted Thunder.

Wally

Video

Wally’s Altaria is easy set-up, usually preferring Dragon Dance or Safeguard over attacking. And with only 1 turn of set-up needed (X Special), this fight is pretty easy. Magneton uses its last 2 Spark PP on Altaria and Delcatty, then OHKOs the remaining Magneton, Roselia, and Gardevoir with Thunderbolt despite the resistances.

All that remains now is the Pokemon League. Magneton will definitely need some help to get through this, but I’ll leave that until next time, where we’ll finish this run!

Status:
Magneton Level 58: 105/142 HP
7/10 Thunder
7/15 Thunderbolt
4/5 Hyper Beam
0/20 Spark

 

[sb879]

Making the Final Team

Magneton is the heavy lifter of my team, but I’m still going to need some help. Even excluding the obvious showstoppers like Flygon and Claydol, it quite literally does not have the PP to sweep the Pokemon League – 7 Thunders and 7 Thunderbolts is only 14 PP of usable (for this caliber of Pokemon) damaging moves for 26 Pokemon.

Two of the Pokemon are Swampert and Wailord from before, though Swampert’s just for moral support at this point, really. I then want to unlock the Regis. Regice has obvious use against Drake, and Registeel can do some odd jobs to help out. Being the routing genius that I am, the Wailord I’ve gotten already fulfills one of the criteria for unlocking them, so I just need to get a Relicanth and then I can-

The only slight wrinkle is Dig still had 1 PP when I forgot it, but it’s not a big deal.

Um..shit. Maybe there were more wrinkles to that. Well...as I most definitely always planned, this is now a no legendaries run!

After some deliberation, I decide I need a Medicham, Lairon, and Loudred, all found in Victory Road. The first two can be found up to Level 44, while Loudred is always Level 40. Conveniently, Wailord is Level 44 and Swampert is Level 40, so Repels help greatly in filtering out unwanted Pokemon. Medicham and Lairon are found on the same floor, but despite appearing the same amount of the time normally and with the same level range, Level 44 Lairons are much more common than Level 44 Medichams. So I end up using my Master Ball on the rarer Medicham.

Before moving on, I have my last 2 Rare Candies to use. With an unevolved Lairon and Loudred on my team, their use should be clear – turning them into the much more useful Aggron and Exploud. With my final team assembled, it’s time to tackle the Pokemon League!

Sidney

Sidney is pretty easy and can be soloed with Medicham. Magneton could easily do it too, but it needs to conserve PP for the harder fights. Anyways, Mightyena’s Intimidate is nullified with a White Herb, and then it’s destroyed by Brick Break. Absol comes out next, but despite having a super-effective Aerial Ace off 130 base attack, it fails to KO Medicham because, well, it’s still an Aerial Ace. This provides a good turn to set up an X Speed. Since it’s the first turn and Absol can’t KO but has a set-up move, it actually prioritizes using Swords Dance over attacking. This saves Medicham a lot of HP, but truthfully this doesn’t matter. With the X Speed set up, Medicham runs through Sidney’s team with ease, only taking damage from Sharpedo’s Rough Skin and Shiftry’s Fake Out (which I could’ve bought a Protect TM to negate even that).

Phoebe

Phoebe’s a bit more annoying. Dusclops is a pain in the ass to set up on due to Curse, and drains more PP than usual with Pressure. Fortunately, Curse can be prevented by using Taunt (conveniently obtained from the Trick House before the Magnet reward), but a lot of set up is needed to OHKO her very bulky pair of Dusclops. This is where Exploud comes in. Once Taunted, Dusclops can only use Shadow Punch and Future Sight. Exploud is immune to the former, and the latter is pretty bad usually, and especially bad when it’s the only move you can use. Future Sight isn’t stackable, so Dusclops wastes a number of turns using it when it’s already active. This grants Exploud the whopping 7 turns of set-up it needs (+6 Attack, +1 Speed), only taking damage 4 times in the process. Well, one Future Sight missed, but Exploud likely would’ve survived – the Future Sights in the recording were all high rolls. I should’ve give it some Zinc for safety, though. Once set up, Exploud OHKOs all of her pure Ghost types with Shadow Ball, and her Sableye with a Soft Sand Earthquake. Little Sableye is actually the hardest Pokemon to OHKO, iirc I only need +5 for everything else.

Glacia

Glacia is really bad for underleveled Pokemon to deal with, so Magneton takes the reins here. Her lead Glalie has Light Screen and Hail (which Magneton will take 5 turns of damage from), so Magneton just uses the inaccurate Thunder to remove it turn 1. After that she sends in her 3 Water Pokemon, all of which are easy OHKOs with Thunderbolt. Last is her second Glalie, where I opt for a safer strategy and use X Special to OHKO it with Thunderbolt. It has a strong preference for setting up Hail turn 1, so Magneton just takes a single turn of hail damage from this fight.

Drake

Now it’s Aggron’s time to shine. Even though it resists Shelgon’s entire moveset, it still takes a lot from Dragon Claw. However, an AI exploit can be used. By setting up an X Speed on the first turn, Shelgon will instead usually use Rock Tomb to neutralize the speed advantage. But by using Guard Specs, the speed drop will never happen and Shelgon will keep futilely trying to lower Aggron’s speed with the much weaker Rock Tomb. This lets Aggron set up 3 X Speeds and 3 X Specials. X Specials? Hey, if the Champion of Hoenn uses a special Aggron, there must be something there, right? And sure enough, Aggron uses its special powers to demolish Drake’s team with Ice Beam.

Steven

And here we are, the final battle. His Skarmory lead is a dream come true for Magneton. It uses one turn to set up Spikes, and can then only muster Steel Wing and Aerial Ace to attack with, both of which Magneton is 4x resistant to. Magneton can set up plenty here. But what about that Claydol? Well, despite my earlier claim, it’s not a showstopper at all for Magneton. By setting up 4 X Attacks, Magneton can OHKO it with a Silk Scarf Hyper Beam! With this in mind, I set up those 4 X Attacks on Skarmory, as well as an X Accuracy (should’ve been 2, but I only bought 1 forgetting that +1 accuracy Thunder is only 91%) and an X Special for everything else. I Thunderbolt Skarmory once I'm done, then Thunderbolt his Aggron and Thunder his Metagross. Next is his Claydol, which meets a very confused end from a Magneton Hyper Beam. Steven’s earlier send-out order was very important – by sending out Aggron and Metagross before Claydol, no Earthquake users remain to destroy Magneton on its recharge turn. Only Armaldo comes out, which Water Pulses for little damage, though it gives me a temporary scare with confusion. Magneton ignores it and OHKOs Armaldo with its last Thunderbolt. Steven’s last Pokemon is Cradily, but Magneton breaks out of confusion and does over half with Thunder. Cradily Ancientpowers in return dropping Magneton to red health, but it isn't quite enough as Magneton finishes it off next turn with a final Thunder.

And with that…we’re done!

Hall of Fame:

Starting as just a little Mudkip, it was able to get through over half of the game before accumulating too much damage to continue on in the lead. It still performed odd jobs throughout the rest of the game, managing to live until the very end…but with almost nothing left.

Magneton came in to take Swampert’s place in the lead, and it did an admirable job. Outside of some growing pains at the start, Magneton’s HP managed to stay remarkably high throughout the game, entering Steven in the green before expending almost everything for one last push.

Wailord beat a Claydol in Victory Road, and that’s it. Hurray? To be fair, it was considered as an option for Phoebe (set up rain with something else, then have super strong Water Spouts) and for Drake (Light Screen support to set up enough X Special+Speed for Ice Beam sweep). It could also 1v1 Steven’s Armaldo, which was important back when I didn’t think Magneton could survive the fight. But none of that came to fruition, so it’s just kind of here. I still felt it deserved a slot in the final party since it had so many “almosts”.

Not that Sidney is hard, but being able to OHKO an Elite Four member’s entire team at base with no X Attacks is some real impressive shit. Medicham is actually by far the most important Pokemon for the 0 EXP run’s League run, but its shenanigans couldn’t quite be replicated here since it requires a lot of healing to aid set-up.

Phoebe was a very messy fight during initial planning, so shout-outs to Exploud for simplifying it so much. It also has the dubious honor of most PP used in a single fight – 27 in total.

Well, I wanted Regice and Registeel; instead I have an Ice Beam-using Steel-type. Can’t complain if it got the job done, though.

And lastly, a quick shout-out to all the various helpers and death fodder that fainted throughout the run. Oh, and thanks to the Sharpedo duo, who exist in the weird limbo of not being in my final party but never having fainted.

Closing Thoughts

This was a lot of fun! I think I succeeded in what I set out to do, as unlike my Yellow run my “resources” were very sparse at the end. Both Swampert and Magneton ended the run in red HP, and in Magneton’s case, with very little PP to boot. If I have any qualms about this run, it’s that being able to freely use helper Pokemon as bandages felt a little cheap at times. That being said, both Swampert’s and Magneton’s arcs both had bosses near the end (Archie&Norman, Glacia&Steven, respectively) where helpers were of, well, little help and therefore required careful training to get Swampert and Magneton up to par in dealing with them.

I’ve mentioned it before, but yeah, if you liked this run, definitely check out my Yellow No Center/Shops run if you haven’t already. It’s pretty similar to this one conceptually. I also have my Untrained NFE Run/Aurorus Solo, which you should check out if you enjoyed some of the quirkier strategies in this run – there’s loads more where that came from.

Thanks for reading!

 

[King Feraligatr]

Been silently watching this run. It's been pretty interesting. Congrats on finishing it.

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

This was a really interesting run, and super fun to read! As always, you discussed the points of interest in an engaging way that provided some real insight into your thought processes. I love the routing aspect of challenge runs, so it was really satisfying to see how a well-constructed plan translated to your eventual success. Great job!