PURRLOIN NO-FAINT SOLO RUN
ATTEMPT 5
Journey up to Elesa, and including her was really easy since Soloin III learned Night Slash and I think it was this Gym I taught him Return.
I got really screwed in Driftveil Gym. 1st Drilbur made one thing cleared. I'm not getting through this Gym with level 39 Purrloin. And after looking through Clay's team, I was sure I can't get pass this Gym with Purrloin at all. Why? His Krokorok destroys my strategy of setting up Hone claws with his Torment and Excadrill were resisting all my moves. Perfect. So I did simple math and leveled up to level 50 and learned Sucker Punch in a process. And I still almost died.
At this point I decided I don't want to repeat this whole run over again and so I study each Route and Gym before challenging them. I decided to dodge all the trainers I can and then grind on Audino to be save. Skyla was surprisingly easy. The only obstacle was Skarmory, but few Night Slashes took care of it.
Can't I get Hop, please?
You see this trainer? She has 3 Fighting-types. Let's just skip her.
And then this happened...
Speaking of trainers with nasty teams, there is a guy on Village Bridge with Durant and Lucario. He can't be skipped. But Soloin III is the best Purrloin in the world and beat this old man.
So at this point there is one thing clear. Fighting-types and Steel-types are the biggest threats in this run. Thankfully last Gym aren't these types.
Not much happened after that. I got really good with the strategy and had bunch of healing items in my bag just in case. Battle with Colress was fun.
Also when planning this tun, I totally forgot about these Kyurem and Ghetsis battles. But my kitty can take them both on easily.
This was the point when I was 100% sure I don't want to repeat this run from the start. So after getting through Victory Road that was btw full of Steel and Fighting-types, I got to the Elite Four and decided to grind to level 100. And to finally got held item. After few minutes of deciding which one, I picked Scope Lens.
Let's talk about E4. Shauntal and Caitlin were really and I didn't even need to set up Hone Claws. I think I got crit against every Shauntal Pokémon, which was nice. I had to set up against Grimsley and his Liepard gave me good opportunity to do so. With +6 Hone Claws I was able to one-shot his Bisharp with Return. Marshal on the other hand... I wanted to set up on Throh, but I was able to only get +3 before he started attacking with Circle Throw, so I had to take him down. Sucker Punch helped me beat both Mienshao and Conkeldurr. But his Sawk totally destroyed my Sucker Punching strategy with Sturdy. But Sawk went for Payback for some reason so Soloin III survived and was able to take Sawk down.
Battle with Iris started great. But then I was able to set up few Hone Claws and her whole team went down... Except for Haxorus. Same thing like before with Sawk happened. He had Focus Sash, so I couldn't Sucker Punch it easily. I have no idea how I survived, but at the end, Haxorus went down.
Conclusion... This was a lot harder that I thought. This run was so much harder than my Rattata No Faint Solo. There were so many Pokémon that want to kill my kitty. Last half of the game is full of Fighting and Steel-types. I taught Soloin III Return just to counter Scraggy line, Durant and rest of Steel-types and even then I had to use bunch of healing just to beat one Pokémon. But I had fun doing this. I think I'll do Sunkern in Johto next.