I had the same problem some time ago. I ended up not breeding, but my view is that it is NOT illegal.
Anyway, finally got to the E4. Here are my comments on the most important battles:
Candice: Swords Dance + Bullet Punch lol. Seriously.
Cyrus: He was a pain in the Distortion World. I had had a VERY bad experience with him on my Mono-Poison (wasn't registered here, and I only did it on the 4th gen) due to his Weavile, so I knew I would have to face him with my +6 Attack Scizor. Problem is, Houndoom pretty much OHKO'd everything, aside from Vespiqueen. So I ended up PP stalling Houndoom thanks to Roost and Defense Order, then let Vesp die, switched out to Scizor, Swords Dance till +6, then sweep away.
Volkner: Lol. Stalled out of Charge Beams by Vespi, then switch to SD Scizor, and lawlbie. >_>'
Oh, oh oh oh! And I caught a Shiny Psyduck! I know it's nto usable, but it was my very first random shiny catch finding! :D
So, after having bought TONS of Full Restores, Revives, Hyper Potions and Full Heals, here is my team for the E4 Challenge:
Martyr, the Kricketune @ Razor Claw
Swarm Ability
Adamant Nature
Level 55
~ X-Scissor
~ Return
~ Aerial Ace
~
Perish Song
The only change was Sing for Perish Song. He's too slow to be a reliable status inflicter, and Singi sn't that good either. So I suppose Perish Song can help me against the last pokes of each E4 member. Specially Flint. I'm really scared of him.
Martyr is somewhat reliable. As I've said before, he's my secondary physical sweeper. His happiness is Maxed, and Razor Claw is there to give him the extra Critical Hit chance.
Mel, the Vespiqueen @ Leppa Berry
Pressure Ability
Bold Nature
Level 56
~ Power Gem
~ Defend Order
~ Roost
~ Toxic
Yeah, this thing did not have any changes. Quite useless on the majority of regular trainer battles (mostly leveled via Exp. Share), but VERY handy on the most important ones. Rock Gem could be replaced by Sludge Bomb for higher damage, but I value too much the protection against flyers and the power to hit steels. Aside from that, it's your usual Toxic Staller. Defend Order gives +1 Def and +1 Sp. Def, Roost recovers HP (and eliminates ice/thunder/rock weakness), and Toxic... you know the drill. Leppa Berry is there to restore PP if I run out of Roosts and need to stall the enemy a little bit longer.
Raziel, the Scizor @ Silk Scarf
Technician Ability
Adamant Nature
Level 55
~ Quick Attack
~ Bullet Punch
~ X-Scissor
~ Swords Dance
A true beast. This physical sweeper spreads panick among other pokes. Swords Dance and hack away. X-Scissor if I know I can take the hit but need a REALLY strong move. And tere really is not much else I can say. Silk Scarf is there to power up its Quick Attack.
Monday, the Yanmega @ Fist Plate
Tinted Lens Ability
Rash Nature
Level 59
~ Bug Buzz
~ Ancient Power
~ Hidden Power [Fighting, 52-Base Power]
~ Air Slash
My special version of Raziel. A little worse, true, but still reliable. Bug Buzz and Air Slash are my main means of attacking, due to STAB. Ancient Power deals with flyers and can get me the every-stat-boost, and HP allows me to hit Steels and Rocks for SE. The coverage Monday gives me, while not spectacular, far surpasses that of other pokes.
EDIT:
AND THE ULTIMATE MONOTYPE BUG CHALLENGE IS COMPLETED.
The Elite 4 was kind of a letdown, to be honest. My Mono-poison challenge was tons harder, and had some really climatic moments. This one... meh.
Aaron, a.k.a. 'The 2nd best Bug Trainer of all time'
This battle was easy, and all thanks to Monday. I had both Martyr and Monday able to hit them for SE damage, but I prefered to go for the safer choice. I Air Slashed every bug that appeared in front of me, and only Scizor managed to escape the OHKO. He retaliated, but the following Air Slash would ditacte his demise. After that, Drapion was down with 2 Ancient Powers.
Bertha, a.k.a. 'What the hell just happened?'
Seriously Scizor, you need to refrain from being so awesome. It was so easy that I don't even remember the fight. Three Sword Dances up, and Bullet Punch shattered all of the members into pieces, OHKO-ing one after another.
Flint, a.k.a. 'Overrated'
I was genuinely worried about Flint. I had no idea how I was going to beat him. All of my pokes aside from Mel would be OHKO'd by a FThrower from his lead Houndoom, and Mel had no PP to Toxic stall all of his team. I decided then to attempt a PP stall. With Defend Orders and Roosts, I managed to stall the hell out of Houndoom's FThrower. I then Power Gem'd just to make Flint waste his Full Restore. Switched out to Scizor when I knew Houndoom would Sludge Bomb, in order to avoid any unnecessary damage. I couldn't be sure that Scizor would OHKO every team member, so I really had to be cautious. Swords Dance'D 3 times, then Quick Attacked. Fortunately, they were all OHKO'd. Quite anticlimatic, I must say. I remember that even on Mono-Poison, this battle was a pain in the butt (since my tanking pokes would usually suffer from a non-STAB'd SE move from the poke they would be best-suited to tank). In any case, it was down.
Lucian, a.k.a. 'I can't do squat!'
I remember on my mono-poison, constantly switching between Drapion and Crobat in order to lure innefective Psychics and EQs from Brozong, PP-stalling him out. This battle was the hardest of all, though not hard at all.
I lead with Martyr to deal with Mr. Mime, since I wanted a non-crippled (Mime has TBolt) Scizor at full HP for Gallade. I couldn't risk the Paralyz. Neither I could risk not being able to OHKO Zong and getting Psychic'D in the face right after. Scizor is VERY frail on his special side. So I decided to do things the non-cheap way.
Two X-Scissors from Martyr did the trick, and one would have been enough if Mime didn't set up the god damn screen. When Gallade came, I knew Scizor was the only one capable of taking the Stone Edge. So with some X-Scissoring, Gallade was down. Now I had to face Zam, Espeon, and Zong, all of which could do immense damage, set-up or not. I couldn't fight them directly, because Scizor was already low on HP, and the oncoming Zam would kill me, even if I healed. As I said, Scizor's special defense is just a no-no. So I sent in Mel, and proceeded to do what she does best: to stall. After all, she is a special tank, and his physical attacker (Gallade) was already down. I maxed out Mel's defenses, and then Toxic'D + Roost + Power Gem'd. It was funny to watch Zam Recovering time after time, believing he could surpass the power of Toxic. He even got to Struggle. Espeon was down in a matter of time too. Brozong started setting up as well, but then again, that was why Mel was there. I couldn't afford to get Psychic'D in the face by him with Scizor, since I doubted he'd be able to OHKO Zong even after 3 SD. Nor I could take the change of getting Brozong to Calm Mind and then sweep me. Mel was the obvious sollution: even with +6 Sp. Attack, Zong's power was not enough to deal with Mel's insane stalling capabilities. Pressure helped once again, and soon Zong was only a mere, flying metal bell, able to do nothing but to Calm Mind. I stalled CM too (Seriously, with his +6Sp. Def, Power Gem did JACK!), and he eventually killed himself due to struggle.
Cynthia, a.k.a. '*Yawns*'
Seriously. I started the battle with Mel because I thought Scizor's sweep would end up on Luke anyway, and then I'd just get owned by Swords Dance. Unfortunately, I got a crit, and Mel died to Spiritomb. I brought Scizor, set up, and started to sweep. Then Luke came. I Bullet Punch'D, and as I suspected, Luke didn't die, even when I had +6 Attack. However, his Aura Sphere did NOT OHKO Scizor. That was a surprise. I guess his Sp. Def isn't that bad after all. From then on, it was a Bullet Punch/Quick Attack parade. And so the champion fell to my knees.
Ultimate Monotype Bug Challenge overview:
This was a hell of a challenge, when it comes to fun. My main difficulty was related to movepool: bugs have it severely limited. I did not, however, find the challenge too hard. In fact, if you knew what you were doing, it was reasonably straightfoward. Bugs also have limited defensive capabilities, so I often relied on a 'hit fast and hit hard' kind of approach. Psycho, Ace, Bughamut, Shuriken, Blade (after the BP), Raziel, and to a lesser extent, Monday, were good examples of that. Tanking is hard with bugs: I was only able to tank successfully with Shuck and Mel, being that Shellshock was more of a secondary choice than anything else.
To sum up, Bug-type pokemon aren't really all that balanced. They are usually fast, but also frail. So you have to plan some turns ahead in order to make sure that no member goes to waste due to a mistake of yours. Fortunately, there are also some heavy hitters, such as Scyther and Scizor, Heracross, Armaldo, and hell, even Ninjask. They might require some set-up, but after that, they're unstoppable. Due to their frailness, however, that's not always that easy to accomplish. I guess the main thing to keep in mind is that you have to focus on team-oriented playing, and be ready to make some sacrifices in order to have someone else do all the dirty work. Support-oriented bugs are severly lacking: only Ladybug and Linda managed to fulfil this role adequatly, and even then, the occasions when they were decisive were VERY few. Hell, Ladybug only got on one fight. (an important one though :p)
IMO, the 4th gen was the less interesting one. I just don't like Platinum that much, although I love the new game mechanics. Both the 1st and 2nd gen were very interesting (and fun!) playthroughs. Emerald was more of an annoyance than anything else. Probably my fault, since I chose the pokes wrongly.
So I'd like to thank Psycho, Ace, V-Gun, Linda, Funghi, Predator, Webmaster, Bughamut, Shellshock, Shuck, Ladybug (even if she only did one battle, lol), Blade, Rachel, Shuriken, BioHazard, Raziel, Mel, Martyr and Monday for making this challenge possible. I'd also like to thank the Topic Creator for the idea, Monday Sucks and Charmaggedon for the input, and Thomas for all the chats on MSN where we discussed how things would be going. Next challenge? Who knows!
