Thursday, January 23, 2014

The quest for Nita: Climbing up the ladder

Day 2 started out a lot better than the previous one, with nothing special happening for a long time. It's worth noting, however, that battle #17 revealed something interesting about the AI - namely, its erraticness. Even in the face of a Blaziken, the opposing Starmie would not always go straight for Psychic, instead using the likes of Cosmic Power (don't worry, Heracross still mopped the floor with it) and even Reflect Type. Weird, I would've expected Psychic spam all day every day.

Battle #19 saw the opponent lead with a... Flame Orb Floatzel? Weird choice... anyway, this meant that I was on a timer to set up, so I could forget the six Hone Claws. I only had time for two before Floatzel died. The next Pokémon was just about the worst thing I could hope to see... Skarmory. The first Rock Blast just barely failed to get the kill, but the Brave Bird recoil finished it off. Luckily, the final opponent was Magnezone, so the lack of substitute (the first time it ever fell, mind you) didn't mean much.

On battle #22, I ran into a Muk that loved to use Acid Armor far too much. Worse, I knew it had Flamethrower, because that's what it instantly used on Durant. So, could my Mega Heracross withstand a Muk with quadruple defense, which only Rock Blast hit for neutral damage? Once again, I just barely fell short of the KO, which goes to show the sheer destructive power of Mega Heracross, and Poison Jab got rid of the substitute. The next opponents? Seismitoad and Excadrill. Next fight, please!

Battle #23 began with... a Skarmory roaring my Durant out immediately after the Entrainment. ARE YOU SERIOUS? At this point, I had no choice: I had to get a sub and three Hone Claws in. I managed to get them in, and considered going for more, but I felt getting greedy was going to get me killed. It was a good call, as three was more than enough for the remaining Aerodactyl and Klinklang.

Battle #27 turned the tables on me, with a leading Gallade that loved to use Protect on my Entrainments! In desperation, I switched to Heracross during an expected Protect, and considered not megavolving to make sure I'd be faster, but then I almost definitely wouldn't get the kill without Skill Link and a much lower attack stat. So I said "fuck it", megavolved, and still outsped Gallade and killed it comfortably with Pin Missile. The following Wailord had a Quick Claw, and nailed me with an Ice Beam, but it did just over a quarter damage. Bullet Seed took care of it, and Arm Thrust killed the Beartic that was left. I'll admit, I nearly had a panic attack on this one.

It would also be the last one (panic attack, that is, not battle) for today. The rest of this session went by without so much as a hiccup, and with 37 battles down I'm feeling confident I can do this, unlike yesterday where I avoided catastrophes right out of the gate. It's also worth noting that I haven't seen a single legendary yet, but they're probably going to start coming pretty soon.

7 comments:

  1. Something I've always wondered about the battle frontier...are the trainers randomly created or are they set? And if they've random has it always been that way? I'm approaching the frontier in emerald and having unlimited trainers would be a nice incentive to catch all 386.

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    1. I'm pretty sure that they're randomly generated with the exception of the brains. The evidence I have for that is that shiny pokemon randomly appear in the Battle Frontier. I know I've seen a Shiny Pidgey there

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    2. They're set. Inlcuding the shinies.

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  2. The only explanation I can come up with for that Buizel is Water Veil + Switcheroo combination... but since the ability of those Pokémon is random, it would still be pretty weird for GameFreak to program in a gimmicky set like this that has a 50% of completely backfiring.

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    1. *50% chance of completely backfiring.
      Sorry, might have skipped a word here.

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  3. A team that worked well for me last gen was Hippowdon with yawn, that switched out onto excadrill on the next turn and set up with a sub and swords dance. I also had a shell smash swift swim Omastar and a sand rush Stoutland for backup.

    That was back when sand stream was eternal.

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  4. "So I said "fuck it", megavolved, and still outsped Gallade and killed it comfortably with Pin Missile. "
    You may already know this and I misread it, but the turn order is already set the turn you mega evolve.
    If your Heracross outsped Gallade before mega evolving, then you would still go first even if Mega Heracross had 2 speed. This is also why Banette doesn't get to abuse Prankster on the turn it mega evolves, it's already set.

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