Hey, all, it's been a while. I picked up a new role as a Staff Composer, Arranger, and Orchestrator for a local community orchestra, and we're going to be doing some video game music. I was in a rush from November through April to try and get that music ready, and then the lovely stuff happening around the world took shape. Unfortunately, this means that although I tried to find time, I eventually became so focused on all that work that I did not have a chance to keep working on this. However, I picked it back up today and sort of condensed my notes about what I had previously done (which was Absorb the heck out of Roxanne's mons and then Gust the heck out of Brawly's...so, super cheese).
But here's where I am and where I'm going.
I do remember it taking a number of attempts to finally beat Roxanne, but I eventually did. It all came down to Absorb. And Absorb. I do remember struggling for quite some time, trying all sorts of different things to avoid using Absorb.
As for Brawly? It basically ended up being the same thing, but with Gust. It's incredibly cheesy to just use the one 'mon, but unfortunately, I wasn't well trained up with my Nincada. And Gust is good against them. I remember fighting
That's basically where I stopped, after being ready to head north from Slateport towards my third gym battle. Unfortunately, May was ticking me off, as her Slugma kept using Ember and knocking out both of my 'mons.
Today, I picked the game back up and decided to see where I had left off. I'd recently got my wife interested in monotype - she's running Steel on Gen8 while I'm joining her by running Fairy. It was something to do, so I pulled this game back out and figured now was the best time to pick back up on the Ultimate Monotype I had started.
I gave May a shot and wiped. Went back and spammed Gust...and that worked on the third time. Yay. Made the rest of my way through the route and into Mauville. Wally is a pushover with just the one Psychic type Pokemon when you have all Bug types. Even if Leech Life sucks. (Not an intended pun.)
As a result of the battle with Wally, I was sitting at around 4h30m for time. But, in greater news, Nincada evolved, and that gave me both the Ninjask and the Shedinja. Party was finally up to 3. And it was at the point that I remembered the remaining two I can catch are just outside of town. I caught the Illumise easily enough, but unfortunately the 1% Volbeat (I'm on Emerald, keep in mind) took over an hour to spawn. I'm now at about 6h10m for play time.
I need to do some leveling, because I know this is going to suck. In Emerald, Wattson has four Pokemon. Three are straight Electric, but one is Electric/Steel (albeit without a Steel move). His Voltorb is the only one that can hit my Shedinja due to it knowing Rollout. Every other move known by his Pokemon is either Electric or Normal.
- For my Volbeat, I'm thinking about getting it to level 25, because it will learn Signal Beam. 75 base is nice.
- For my Illumise...I dunno. It's a very crap Pokemon. No Bug moves whatsoever. This one is probably going to be my most random Pokemon that gets the crappy TMs thrown at it.
- I'm not worried about my Shedinja - it already knows Fury Cutter, which is OP as hell.
- Ninjask is similar to Shedinja. It's ready to go for now. Swords Dance at 25 would be nice.
- With my Beautifly currently sitting at 23, I could level it up one more time to get Mega Drain, and replace Absorb.
Likely end goal is everyone at 25 before fighting Wattson. Not necessarily a bad idea, as his levels are 20/20/22/24.
Based on base stats alone, Volbeat and Illumise are my tankers (75 def and 85 spdef). The rest are attackers. But while I don't anticipate any trouble here with Wattson, I believe Flannery is next. Yay Fire Gym. Looking ahead to that, Dig is available just outside Fallarbor Town, and both Ninjask and Shedinja can learn it. It would be better to have on Ninjask, as it has much higher speed. Ninjask's base speed is 160. That's insane, as my next highest are Volbeat/Illumise at 85.
Here's what my team currently looks like. Please ignore the listing of Fairy type - I'm just too lazy to go in and program a way for it to recognize what type it was before it changed. Hint: Charm and Moonlight were both Normal.
Aim for tonight: Grind and then challenge Wattson.