Challenge Postgame challenges thread

[Mulan15262]

New challenge for any 5th gen game:
Start in Nimbassa City, with any one pokemon of your choice caught from the adjacent routes, without any level grinding (or hatched from an egg and at level 1). Walk around the big loop in Unova (Nimbasa, Driftveil, Mistralton, Icirrus, Opelucid, Lacunosa, Undella, and Black City/White Forest; either all in that order, or all in reverse order). You may not stop to heal your pokemon, except for medicine that you bought using money earned during this challenge (no finding it on the ground). You may not use Fly during the challenge, and you may not have any HM slaves (you must use pokemon in your party for any HM you want). You may only catch pokemon with pokeballs that you bought during the challenge with money you earned during the challenge. TMs and HMs are fine to use, but no using the move tutors unless you found the shards that you will use during your challenge.
You also may not use anything that would break the spirit of the challenge, such as rare candies and repels.
OPTIONAL ADDITIONS: Visit other cities on your loop (for example, Lentimas Town) in addition to the ones in the loop itself.
Play on an emulator and do not remove the no experience code that emulators have, for added difficulty.

 

[sb879]

Codraroll

well, i think i'm ready to tackle the elite 4!
(X version)

team

Tyrunt @ Lucky Egg
Adamant/Sturdy
100 Atk/100 Spd
~Protect
~Dragon Dance
~Fire Fang

Durant @ Focus Sash
Truant
~Entrainment

Sableye @ Focus Sash
Prankster
~Will-o-wisp

Sableye @ Focus Sash
Prankster
~Will-o-wisp

Aron @ Shell Bell
Sturdy
~Endeavor

Magnemite @ Berry Juice
Sturdy
~Swagger
~Recycle

basic premise is just to get past the first E4 member while tyrunt gets as much exp as possible (which was bred on a different game for traded exp bonus), then sweep the rest of the E4 with entrainment shenanigans. with tyrunt as the chosen sweeper, wikstrom pretty much has to be first since his scizor's bullet punch will put an end to tyrantrum's sweep if i tried to do him later.

battles

WIKSTROM (exp lv3 o-power used)
Klefki
i lead with tyrunt so it can get full exp, then switch to sableye. sableye burns klefki before it dies. aron comes out and survives the hit with sturdy, then finishes klefki with endeavor+burn (and is healed to full with shell bell). cue three and a half minutes of tyrunt and aron leveling up.
Probopass
shift mode is on, so i go back to tyrunt and basically repeat the same process as above with my second sableye, except aron isn't fully healed by shell bell after endeavor since it leveled up too much.
Aegislash
the worst. can't be endeavored, poisoned, or entrained. the original plan was just to focus sash destiny bond this, but destiny bond is a comparatively boring strategy (in theory, if you're willing to blow through 22 focus sashes, you can just sash destiny bond every pokemon except diantha's mega gardevoir, which you can mirror coat with a wobbuffet that's been getting trained with the exp share). so i opted for a much more amusing strategy- swagger! aegislash 2hkos itself in blade form (which it never switches from since it's always trying to get the kill) after even one swagger. so it's just a matter of waiting until it kills itself, and recycle berry juice magnemite stalls the best. it gets hit, berry juice triggers, then swaggers aegislash. from there it can take another hit while using recycle to get the berry juice back so it can take another hit, etc, etc. if aegislash breaks out of confusion before it dies, magnemite can swagger it again the next turn, but it will die the next turn if aegislash doesn't hit itself. if that happens tyrunt can stall for 3 turns with protect+sturdy. so basically aegislash needs to hit itself twice with two swagger uses. anyways in practice tyrunt is sent out first to get exp, then aron is sacrificed so magnemite can come in and do its thing. i actually got pretty unlucky and had to reset on my first attempt, since both my swaggers were two turns and aegislash didn't hit itself at all, but oh well.
Scizor
tyrunt is lv 32 at this point, so it's strong enough to start doing some damage. durant is sent out to entrainment scizor, which tyrunt uses to set up 3 DDs and then 2hko it with fire fang.

from here on out it's just entrainment abuse, with durant's sash being replaced every battle. i chose malva to do second, though drasna works fine too-both of their signature types are weak to tyrunt's stabs, which is important since tyrunt is still unevolved and only at level 35 (worth noting that level itself is a factor in damage calculation, so being low-leveled has an exponential decrease in damage), so even at +6 it's not going to be sweeping anything it can't hit super-effectively.

MALVA (exp lv3 o-power used)
i teach tyrunt rock slide, and give it a life orb. it also learned stealth rock as it leveled up versus wikstrom, which i used here to secure a KO on torkoal with rock slide. stone edge can be used for that too, but fuck stone edge. battle itself was entrainment on pyroar->5 DD+SR->rock slide sweep, with dragon claw being learned by level-up mid-battle and taught over stealth rock. tyrunt gets to level 42 by the end and evolves into tyrantrum.

DRASNA (exp lv3 o-power used)
now that tyrunt's evolved, it can smash through drasna and her dragon claw-weak team without a life orb, so lucky egg goes back on to get more exp. dragalge gets entrained, and then 3 DDs are used so dragon claw KOs everything. level 49 by the end.

SIEBOLD
no exp power used because i couldn't be bothered to wait for o-power to recharge when i don't even really need the exp at this point. life orb is used over lucky egg to get KOs. clawitzer gets entrained, then tyrantrum sets up to the max and sweeps siebold. level 51 by the end.

DIANTHA (exp lv3 o-power used)
i don't need the exp at this point (+6 lv51 tyrantrum KOs her entire team with a life orb), but my o-power was almost recharged anyways and i wanted to see how high tyrantrum would get. so i put back on the lucky egg (gourgeist is the only guaranteed KO i could miss by doing this, and that's guaranteed by lv53 which i reached since gourgeist was the 5th pokemon she sent out). i also taught tyrantrum earthquake over rock slide so i wouldn't miss gardevoir. anyways, battle itself was trivial, hawlucha got entrained, then tyrantrum set up to +6 and dragon clawed everything but gardevoir, which died to earthquake. got to level 58 by the end, and taught tyrantrum head smash for the hell of it.

this was a fun challenge to plan out and do, though obviously it gets a lot easier as you progress. i am fairly sure XY are the easiest games you can do this in- even though the E4 are higher leveled than a lot of games, the exp you can get with full exp upon switching and o-powers more than counteract this. only gen v with its level-scaled exp (and higher exp in general) could really come close. the smaller e4 teams help too. going back to a gen iv game could be interesting, since you lose sturdy (the lynchpin of most level 1 strategies), prankster, and entrainment durant to set up a sweeper for later on (though i feel this can be replaced with some kind of defensive battle/shell armor pokemon and x-item spam), but still have focus sash. pre-gen iv just seems ridiculously luck-based- i don't really see how you'd get past the first member without copious amounts of focus band/quick claw use.