[Challenge] The Monotype Challenge v8, Tera Edition

[jespoke]

Monotype Poison (Soul Silver), update 2 (3rd and 4th badges)

• I beat the rival in Azelia
• After arriving in Goldenrod, I go straight past to route 34 to catch a new party member, a Nidoran♀️ that I name Klara.
• I am lucky to be a fan of puzzle games, because I am currently faced with the fact that the Gastly line learns Thunderbolt and not Thunder. So I have one way to get a real move for Radon right now: Playing Voltorb Flip up to 10.000 coins for Thunderbolt.
• I do end up doing the Voltorb Flipping, because having Thunderbolt is going to be a big deal for the whole game.
• In order to not have to do more Voltorb Flip than necessary, Pokemon in need of elemental moves will just have to live with the less accurate versions that the Department Store sells if they can actually learn them.
• On that note, I buy Solarbeam for Jonathan Lonathan, and bot hBlizzard and Thunder for Klara (Fun fact of the day: the Nidorans can all learn the Electric and Ice elemental moves, but the Fire ones can only be learned once they fully evolve)
• After only a few levels, Klara evolves to Nidorina
• I pick up the Dig TM, and am faced with a difficult decision: Which one of Sdrawkcab and Klara gets Dig, and which one gets Earthquake? I end up giving Klara dig, so she will have a Ground STAB in the time between getting the Moon Stone and reaching Victory Road
• I fight Whitney, taking down her Miltank with my newest selection of dirty tactics: Curse on Radon and Roost on Existence. It was supposed to be accompanied by paralysis from Sdrawkcab's Glare, but Miltank had a Lum Berry. She still contributed with Intimidate though. Klara did not end up having to join the fight, but I did have her Double Kick as the backup plan if I got crit or flinched to death.
• I get the Plain Badge!
• I make my way to Ecruteak, and then straight to Olivine. There, I pick up the Good Rod, which will let me catch my final team member.
• I had the idea that I wanted to use a Qwillfish this run, because when do you ever have a reason to do that? So I make my way all the way back to route 32 to fish for the 5% chance at a Qwillfish without the swarm. But this involves so much running away from the vastly superior Water/Poison pokemon Tentacool, it turns almost depressing. So eventually I decide I would rather use Tentacruel for the some-teenth time, than use something I will end up comparing unfavorably to the Tentacruel I could have had all run.
• With that motivation, I catch a Tentacool that I name Tentacute.
• After beating the rival in Burnt Tower, Sdrawkcab evolves into Arbok.
• Shortly afterwards, Existence evolves into Golbat.
• And then immediately on the next level, Existence evolves again into Crobat, taking on the X shape that inspired his name. His massive speed gives me hope that I may actually have an option that will outspeed Morty's Gengar.
• Morty turned completely free because he decided to waste a turn having Gengar use Mean Look on Existence. Klara Shadow Clawed the Gastly and Haunter down, and with the Quick Claw she even got a hit in on Gengar. After that, Existence could clean up in 2 hits due to outspeeding and the aforementioned Mean Look use. I got the Fog Badge!

The team:

Existence the lv 25 Crobat
Bite, Wing Attack, U-Turn, Roost --- Inner Focus
"Was already good as a Zubat, but now he is an absolute star, outspeeding Morty's Gengar on even level."

Sdrawkcab the lv 22 Arbok
Crunch, Rock Tomb, Glare, Acid --- Intimidate
"Intimidate + Glare is super valuable, and other than that she is a good jack-of-all-trades. Would probably have gone from solid to great with Dig, but as i reasoned in the update, she will get Earthquake later instead."

Klara the lv 21 Nidorina
Blizzard, Dig, Shadow Claw, Thunder
"Her insane TM learnset lets her use the upside of Johto's lopsided TM distribution, to get an endgame moveset the moment i caught her. And there is still potential to change it up later if need be. And now that i have Surf, i can immediately go get the Moon Stone to evolve her too!"

Tentacute the lv 21 Tentacool
Surf, Blizzard, Payback, Acid --- Clear Body
"I have only just caught him, but i am already seeing how right i was to drop the idea of using Qwillfish: being a special attacker means he can already use Surf and Blizzard now, instead of having to wait for Waterfall to get a real move."


Radon the lv 19 Gastly
Thunderbolt, Curse, Hypnosis, Night Shade --- Levitate
"Thunderbolt unlocked her combat, but Curse is still her biggest contribution so far. But now Shadow Ball and evolution are about to unlock her true potential."

Jonathan Lonathan (Lonathan) the lv 19 Bellsprout
Solarbeam, Vine Whip, Sleep Powder, Stun Spore --- Chlorophyll
"Too frail for his reward for now, but Solarbeam at least gave him a move with more than 35 bp to fire off."

 

[Mochorro]

The Ultimate Monotype Challenge! (Fighting)

Yellow, HeartGold, Sigma Σmerald, Platinum, White 2, X, Ultra Sun, Sword, Violet.

Additional Rules: - No items on important battles (rival, leaders, etc.)
- Set mode for important battles.

7. FIGHTING to the end! Clearing the post-game!

Time for Pokémon Sword post-game! Hop was waiting for me at the Slumbering Weald to fight! Compared to the champion, his little brother was once again not too difficult: Bewear ran past his team with Drain Punch, knocking out Dubwool, Snorlax, Cramorant and Corviknight. His Cinderace forced me to switch, and unfortunately Pyro Ball burned Conkeldurr, so Rock Slide didn't do enough damage. Scrafty defeated Cinderace, but missed High Jump Kick against Pincurchin when it was going to knock it out (this move has 50 % accuracy for me, it is not normal the huge amount of misses!) I had to send Sirfetch'd to end the fight.

Right after this battle, Sordward surprised me, as I had not healed my team and I had to fight with my 4 remaining Pokémon. Bewear wrecked his Sirfetch'd with Thrash, but his Doublade forced me to switch, because of Choice Band. It got a crit with Iron Head and beat my Hitmonlee. Bewear's Shadow Claw finished it off, and then Hawlucha tanked two liquidations from Golisopod and sealed the deal with Acrobatics and then High Jump Kick against Bisharp.

After easily dealing with 3 Dynamax Pokémon, you are challenged by Sordward and Shielbert at the Pokémon Lab to a double battle. The fight was extremely easy. When Hop's Dubwool fainted, my Hawlucha together with Hop's Cinderace overwhelmed their teams (this time High Jump Kick didn't miss).

While going across every gym in the region, in the Fairy-type one you have to deal with Bede. I have a bad type match-up against him, and to make matters worse, Sirfetch'd missed a key Steel Wing attack versus his Gardevoir. In the end, Hitmonlee finished off the Gardevoir with Fake Out, and Bewear with Thrash managed to take down Rapidash and Hatterene, but I was down to two Pokémon by then.

The third round against Sordward was very easy, as Hitmonlee handled his Sirfetch'd and Doublade (he tried to go for Swords Dance), and then Hawlucha beat Golisopod and Bisharp.

As for the legendary Pokémon, Zamazenta was a bit annoying, as I only have physical attackers and it used Iron Defense, but a critical hit with Hawlucha's Acrobatics took it down. Finally, I used the Master Ball to catch Zacian.

The final showdown of this monotype challenge is once again against Hop and his new Zamazenta! Hop's Pokémon levels have increased quite a lot, so it should be interesting! My Sirfetch'd made good use of its Leek item to get past Dubwool after a Cotton Guard and then Corviknight, landing three critical hits in a row. It eventually went down to Cinderace. As almost always, Conkeldurr with Rock Slide defeated it, and then he sent Snorlax, which was a big help, as it allowed me to fully heal Conkeldurr using Drain Punch. Pincurchin was a joke, and his final Pokémon was Zamazenta. It took down my Conkeldurr with a couple of Play Rough, but Bewear easily tanked its attacks and put an end to the fight with two Drain Punches! To be honest, the fight would have been much harder in Pokémon Shield, Zacian would have been extremely hard to defeat with my current Pokémon, being a Fairy-type that boosts its Attack at the start of the battle and has an insane Speed stat.

So that's it! In the end I played through the tournament at Wyndon, battled Marnie once again and also had a fun battle against Game Freak Morimoto. Then this morning I also caught a few Pokémon in the Wild Area, so my team has reached level 70 (they were level 66 more or less against Hop). This is my final team (no spoiler tag this time, they deserve the spotlight!)

@ Black Belt. Lv. 70 (M). Reckless.
Lonely Nature. Blaze Kick, Close Combat, Fake Out, High Jump Kick.

@ Choice Band. Lv. 70 (M). Fluffy.
Naive Nature. Thrash, Drain Punch, Thunder Punch, Shadow Claw.

@ Assault Vest. Lv. 70 (F). Sheer Force.
Brave Nature. Ice Punch, Thunder Punch, Drain Punch, Rock Slide.

@ Leek. Lv. 70 (F). Steadfast.
Impish Nature. First Impression, Steel Wing, Brick Break, Leaf Blade.

@ Leftovers. Lv. 70 (F). Shed Skin.
Bashful Nature. Ice Punch, High Jump Kick, Drain Punch, Crunch.

@ Nothing. Lv. 70 (M). Limber.
Naughty Nature. High Jump Kick, Dig, Acrobatics, Swords Dance.

Number of losses: 1.

Well, that's it. This started with Yellow... 8 years ago! I didn't even have a job back then xD I know I didn't finish White 2 post-game, may go back to it one day, I don't know. But apart from that, this Ultimate monotype challenge is finished!

On this specific run, I remembered Gen VIII worse than it actually was, the game is quite fun, despite its problems. It was not too challenging, but Leon and the final battle against Hop can be quite tricky, especially the former, and some of the fights against Bede were also difficult. I liked my team. I didn't have any special attackers, but I had some speedy Pokémon, and also some bulkier ones. While in X and Ultra Sun Hawlucha was clearly the MVP, here I am not so sure, all of my Pokémon were important.

Speaking of Ultra Sun, what a nightmare it was, by far the hardest game of the 9 I played. Violet was not too bad except for the Professor Turo fight with the Iron Valiant. Pokémon Sword was definitely harder than Pokémon X, but still quite manageable, with some important trainers having Pokémon weak to Fighting. As for the first 5 generations, White 2 in challenge mode provided some interesting battles, and I still remember even if it was a long time ago the nightmare it was to get past Bugsy with a solitary Poliwag in HeartGold.

In general, Fighting-types hit very hard, but lack variety of special attackers, and Speed is an issue in many of the available Pokémon as well. The addition of Fairy-types made the future generations quite tricky in some instances.

Nothing more to add, I will come back to this Ultimate monotype challenge when gen X releases! Until then, I may do more monotypes, just not another ultimate challenge xD. See you on the next challenge!

The Ultimate Monotype Challenge! (Fighting)

Yellow, HeartGold, Sigma Σmerald, Platinum, White 2, X, Ultra Sun, Sword, Violet.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

I'm not sure if this message is 100% necessary, but I won't be returning to the thread for another couple months (unless something changes). Hopefully I'll still be able to moderate the "No Evolution" thread whenever someone posts there, but I don't know when I can return to my Game Mastery Challenge because of all the projects (personal, mental health-related, etc.) that I have going on. I hope it's not necessary for me to be removed from the list of challengers, but if the mods decide to let someone else moderate the "No Evolution" challenge (on the grounds that I am not currently participating), I would understand. (Rules are rules, you know.) I'll still be logged into the forum, but I cannot confirm when I'll be back in this thread (or if I'll be back by the end of this calendar year). Thank you for your time.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I can run it in your absence, if you wish. It's a simple challenge and we've already worked out the edge cases, so pretty much all I'd have to do is add people to challenger/HoF lists.