Which pokemon can beat HGSS's bosses by themselves?

[RichestAirPirate]

With Doduo, i contemplated whether the move Acupressure is allowed, considering it has a chance to sharply boost evasion. In the end, i decided the move was too powerful, and would trivialize every matchup in much the same way as Double Team or Minimize. Course, without Acupressure boosts, Doduo was one-shot by Dewgong; there was nothing i could do. Doduo is out.

Not sure if Acupressure would've made that much of a difference. Although, a +2 in evasion would help considering the inaccuracy of Icy Wind and ESPECIALLY non Hail boosted Blizzard.
Still, it's not like Doduo could do that much damage anyway.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Not sure if Acupressure would've made that much of a difference. Although, a +2 in evasion would help considering the inaccuracy of Icy Wind and ESPECIALLY non Hail boosted Blizzard.
Still, it's not like Doduo could do that much damage anyway.

it would have made a difference. Seel's a sitting duck; i could get in as many acupressures as i wanted. Even a Doduo is a force to be reckoned with if it has +6 in all its stats.

 

[RichestAirPirate]

it would have made a difference. Seel's a sitting duck; i could get in as many acupressures as i wanted. Even a Doduo is a force to be reckoned with if it has +6 in all its stats.

Is that so?
Hm... I wonder how far Doduo would've gotten in this challenge if it was allowed to use Acupressure....

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Kangaskhan won by spamming Silk Scarf Return, but Rhydon had it tougher. Its bad typing and bad special defense meant it was usually killed by Dewgong or Piloswine, but i found a way through. I would set up all my Swords Dances against Seel, Rest up until he decided to rest off his hail damage rather than attacking me, and then i'd hope my Quick Claw would proc against either the Dewgong or the Piloswine so i could OHKO them. In the winning attempt, it procced against Dewgong, and Piloswine missed his Blizzard so he didn't hit me either. Rhyperior also needed a Quick Claw proc despite his better bulk and Solid Rock, but i got the proc i needed. Things didn't go so well for Murkrow though. I was one-shot by both Dewgong and Piloswine on any turn when i didn't use Roost. I had no way to boost my defenses, nor any way to get my offenses to the point where i could OHKO. Murkrow is out. Things weren't as dire for Honchkrow though, even if he was just one level shy of learning Nasty Plot. Here i would OHKO Seel with Fly and 2HKO Dewgong with the same move, taking half my HP of damage from Aurora Beam. Piloswine's Ice moves could KO from here and i couldn't OHKO him, so i alternated between Roost and Protect to stall him out of all his Blizzard and Ice Fang PP. Took a few tries, but eventually i didn't get frozen and it worked. I had even equipped a Leppa Berry to restore my Roosts, but this proved unnecessary.

Houndoom Flamethrowered the one thing that could hurt him, and Thunder Fanged the two things that can't. It's fellow fire type Slugma was able to boost both its Defenses using Amnesia and Harden, and from behind that wall it wailed away at Seel and Piloswine, but since i could barely hurt Dewgong and he could heal, i had to stall him out of all his PP. Amnesia and Harden have a ton of HP though, so this was easy. With Magcargo, i ditched Harden for Flamethrower in order to effectively kill Piloswine, and 4 Charcoal Flamethrowers also proved enough to kill Dewgong just as it woke up and failed a Sleep Talk. Weavile then spammed Revenge and won, meaing we're on to Misdreavus. Misdreavus went for Specs HP Fighting, which only worked because Piloswine decided to miss all his Blizzards. Against Mismagius, Piloswine tried to prevent these events from repeating by setting up hail, but he never got to do anything else; my specs hidden powers were too strong.

Porygon and Porygon2 would carry Rain Dance just to Conversion into the water type, and thus resist everything but mud bomb. This strategy worked for them, but for Potygon-Z i instead went for Specs Hidden Power, which only ended up getting me the win due to a crit on Dewgong. This was followed by Lapras who won because he's a water type, so next are the fossils. As usual, we start off with Lord Helix; Omastar's resisted Surfs were doing more to the seals than his Returns because of his Mystic Water, so he just drowned all his foes with that. Its counterpart Kabutops then set up a bunch of swords dances, after which it killed the seals with Return and the swine with Aqua Jet. Last of the fossils was Aerodactyl, who spammed Ancientpower against Seel, hoping for an omniboost. I got the boost i needed in attempt 5, after which i killed everything with Thunder Fang and Fire Fang, Roosting up when needed.

Our last surviving baby, Munchlax, has Thick Fat, Amnesia and Defense Curl, so he can make himself completely unassailable as he wails on the enemies. His evolution Snorlax went down a different route, pulling off a Belly Drum and a Resto-Chesto before Returning everything down.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

We move on to the Kanto starters. Ivysaur once again showed the power of sleep, putting Seel to sleep, setting up all 3 Swords Dances and killing everything with Razor Leaf. Venusaur though didn't have to bother with that, as he had Choice Specs Petal Dance. Charmeleon resists Ice so he could set up Swords Dance with impunity, then he pulled a Resto-Chesto to survive Mud Bomb and destroyed everything with Return and Fire Fang. Zard's type matchups here are completely different from its pre-evo, with Mud Bomb not affecting him and ice being neutral, but he still pulled the same strat and won. Wartortle and Blastoise of course won because they are water types.

On to the legendary trios. Articuno spammed Ancientpower until he got an omniboost, then he killed everything with Fly. Zapdos OHKOd the first two pokemon with Thunderbolt, but against Piloswine i had to stall out his Blizzards with Roost before i could kill with a Sharp Beak Fly. In hindsight, i should have used Hidden Power. I didn't do this with Moltres though; instead, i killed Seel with Fly, Piloswine with Flamethrower, and Dewgong with a two-turn Solarbeam because i forgot my Power Herb had already been consumed by Fly. The beasts didn't have much trouble either; Raikou killed the seals with Thunderbolt and Piloswine with a Silk Scarf-boosted Return and Hyper Beam, Entei killed Seel with Return, Piloswine with Flamethrower and Dewgong with a solarbeam that actually was single-turn as planned, and Suicune won by being a water type.

Next up are the pseudos. This isn't the best matchup for Dragonair though. I tried several strategies, but in the end, i could not win if i could not one-shot piloswine, which i could not do. Dragonair is out. Dragonite has an even worse matchup here, but he had one thing his pre-evo did not: luck. He would OHKO Seel with Thunderpunch, then he'd 2HKO Dewgong with the same move while consuming his Yache Berry. After that, i repeatedly punched Piloswine in the face with Fire Punch while he missed Blizzard after Blizzard. Eh, a win's a win. Tyranitar had a bit less firepower than Dragonite, but he also had a bit less of a type disadvantage, so he Thunderbolted and Flamethrowered through the enemies.

The boxart legendaries of course had it easy. Lugia destroyed them with Thunderbolt and Surf, Ho-Oh with Thunderbolt and Flamethrower and Mewtwo with Specs Confusion. Mew then spammed Swords Dance and spammed Return, bringing us to the FRLG champs. Slaking had Amnesia, so he made himself impervious on the special side. This, in combination with his good physical bulk, allowed me to tank hits on my loafing turns while i Returned them to death on my active turns. Armaldo can only boost his physical defense, but since he doesn't fear crits, he still had an easy time. I'd set up all my Hardens, then i'd spam Ancientpower against Seel hoping for an omniboost. I got the boost, though i still had to rest-stall Piloswine out of his Blizzards afterward. Dewgong just died to a crit Return though. Latios then killed them with Thunderbolt and Surf, Kyogre with Thunder and Surf, and Groudon with Flamethrower and Solarbeam. Jirachi's Specs Psychics did the trick, but our final pokemon, Deoxys, didn't have an easy win button. He had Thunderbolt for the seals but not really anything for Piloswine. In fact i had to Rest-stall him out of all his PP. Did get the win though.

And that's everyone. Of the 148 pokemon that made it to Pryce, 134 have managed to beat him, while 14 fell in defeat. Next up, these 134 will face off against Jasmine and her Steel types.

Here is a nice table showing how many pokemon beat each boss:

Start	After Falkner	After Bugsy	After Azalea Rival	After Whitney	After Burned Tower Rival	After Morty	After Chuck	After Pryce
283	254	204	189	180	168	153	148	134

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Let's now look at the stats, to see which groups of pokemon did well until now and which ones tend to underperform. As usual, we're looking at generations, types and a few miscellaneous categories. In total, 47% of all pokemon have made it this far; we've fallen below the 50% mark.

Gen 1	Gen 2	Gen 3	Gen 4
69/151, 46%	42/100, 42%	7/10, 70%	15/22, 68%

Looks like gen 1 has fallen below the 50% mark; underperforming slightly but still better than gen 2. We also see that Gen 3 has overtaken gen 4; my expectation is that gen 3 will remain the best performing gen until the end.

Normal	Fighting	Flying	Fire	Dragon	Water	Ice	Grass	Bug	Electric
27/52, 52%	9/13, 69%	24/43, 56%	14/21, 67%	3/6, 50%	24/53, 45%	8/13, 62%	7/26, 27%	9/24, 38%	13/20, 65%
Poison	Ground	Rock	Steel	Dark	Ghost	Psychic
13/37, 35%	10/29, 34%	9/21, 43%	6/8, 75%	5/9, 56%	4/5, 80%	14/30, 47%

Curiously, we did not lose any grass types against the Ice gym, so they're still at 27%, having lost nothing since Bugsy. However, this does mean that Grass is no longer the worst-performing type; Ground types are now doing slightly worse. We also see that due to the loss of Steelix, Steel is no longer the best performing type; that honour now goes to the Ghost type. Poison sustains yet another hard to explain hit, Dragon is dropped to the 50% mark and we see Psychic dip below that.

Edit: Ground being the worst was based on erroneous calculations. Grass is still the worst. The stats have been corrected.

Babies	Cross-Gen Evos	Starters	Fossils	Legendaries
1/15, 7%	22/29, 76%	13/29, 45%	4/6, 67%	15/17, 88%

Munchlax still fighting for the honour of babies everywhere. We lost a few cross-gen evos, but the other categories all stayed the same.

Now let's have a look at how our Kanto champs are doing, even though nothing has changed in 6 bosses:

Latias lost to Falkner

Starmie lost to Bugsy

Celebi lost to Bugsy

Snorlax, Zapdos, Mewtwo, Mew, Dunsparce, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Slaking, Armaldo, Latios, Kyogre, Groudon, Jirachi and Deoxys are still going strong

 

[RichestAirPirate]

Munchlax still fighting for the honour of babies everywhere. We lost a few cross-gen evos, but the other categories all stayed the same.

Munchlax is just built different.
Plain and simple.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Munchlax is just built different.
Plain and simple.

he really is tbh. unlike most baby pokemon, Munchlax has actual stats.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Next up is Jasmine. For this fight, we have access to all items obtainable before beating Jasmine. Beating Pryce only got us access to TM07 Hail. It also lets us use Whirlpool outside of battle, but that doesn't give us access to any areas with items we care about. So we jut fly right back to Olivine and challenge the gym leader. Let's have a look at her team:

Jasmine leads with the first of two identical Magnemite, at level 30. These Magnemite know Thunderbolt, Sonicboom, Supersonic and Thunder Wave. Those last two moves may make them a pain to set up on, but these pokemon have no speed or bulk so they should be easy to remove from the field. The real deal is her ace Steelix. It is level 35, is holding a Sitrus Berry and knows the moves Iron Tail, Rock Throw, Sandstorm and Screech. Jasmine, girl, wtf are you doing? Seriously, teach this thing a ground move. Sandstorm is just a wasted turn, and while Screech may be annoying, Steelix is slow and weak on the special side, so i'll probably have it off the field before it can abuse my weakened defense. Maybe this team could pose a challenge to pokemon that can't hurt Steel, but all of my guys have Hidden Power Fighting due to my chosen IV spread, so i suspect many pokemon will just slap on Choice Specs and win.

So let's get started. Typhlosion outsped and OHKOd everything with Specs Flamethrower, and Croconaw and Feraligatr repeated this with Specs Surf. Pidgeot's Specs Hidden Powers then one-shot all but Steelix, who missed a Rock Throw and died a turn later. For Fearow the Steelix was actually a 3-shot due to the berry, but a Screech-Iron Tail left me with 7 HP so i still won on my first try. Noctowl has the best Special Attack of the birds, so of course he won. Raticate lucked out, getting the low roll on his first hit and the high roll on his second, thus bypassing the berry and getting the two-shot. Raichu has an actual Special Attack stat so of course his Hidden Powers were enough, and butterfree narrowly tanked a 4x effective Rock Throw to two-shot with Hidden Power.

Crobat Hidden Powered, but Clefairy apparently has a speed tie with the Magnemites. The second one hit a Confuse Ray, which caused me to hit myself enough to lose to Steelix on try 1. In try 2 though, Hidden Power proved enough. It was also enough for Clefable, Togekiss, Arbok, FRLG champ Dunsparce, Jasmine's boy Ampharos, Haunter, Gengar, James's boy Victreebel, and Jumpluff.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Specs Hidden Power continued to do the trick for Parasect, Poliwrath and Politoed, but it didn't work out for Slowking. You see, Slowking is rather slow. Because of that, every enemy could get a hit in, and together they got the better of me. I had to ditch the specs and instead run a Chesto Berry. The strat was to use Disable on the first Magnemite to disable Thunderbolt, then Rest up and have enough HP remaining to tackle the other two enemies. This didn't work out, i disabled Thunder Wave, but because i survived the second thunderbolt on a sliver and Steelix missed his Rock Throw, i still won. We now return to Specs-HP; Hypno, Kadabra, Alakazam, Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Yanmega and Exeggutor won with that strat. However, Sudowoodo's special attack isn't good enough to remove the Magnemites in one hit. I had to use Dig to remove the magnets from the field, and Black Belt-boosted Low Kicks on Steelix. I should add that this only worked because Steelix wet for Screech and then missed an Iron Tail, but a win's a win.

Venomoth then won with Specs Hidden Power, but for Scyther that didn't cut it. He has a double weakness to Rock, and could not remove Steelix from the field before he two-shot me. Without the specs though, i could not one-shot Magnemite. I also didn't have any physical moves to work with; i had to do it with my crappy special attack. I tried various strategies, including a Lum Berry to stave off paralysis, a Black Belt to increase Hidden Power's damage, a Charti Berry to reduce the damage from Steelix's first hit and even Natural Gift to get one of the two Magnemite off the field in one move. Nothing worked though; i'd always get paralyzed, which meant i couldn't Roost up and ditch my Flying type for a turn. In the end, i found no way to win with Scyther. Scyther is out. Scizor of course avenged his fallen brother with Specs Hidden Power, and Pinsir, Heracross, Weezing and Muk followed.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

We start today with a mirror match. Course, it's the most boring mirror match ever; Magnemite killed its counterparts and the steelix with ease using HP Fighting. Its evolutions followed suit, as did Electrode, Granbull, Ninetales, Growlithe, Arcanine, Stantler, Azumarill, Primeape, Persian, Machoke, Machamp, Hitmonchan and Hitmontop. Unfortunately for Tauros though, his special attack is so crappy he couldn't one-shot the Magnemite, so i actually had to come up with a different strat for him. What i went for was Specs Flamethrower, which was strong enough. I had some hopes that this fight would also spell the end of Whitney's demon cow, as the same Special Attack issues that hindered Tauros also affect this abomination and it doesn't have flamethrower. But alas, my hopes were dashed when i noticed Focus Blast in its moveset. It blasted through the steel types and continues to plague this challenge with its hideous presence. Magmortar went back to Hidden Power though, but Jynx could not one-shot Steelix with that and she was one-shot in return. I didn't need the specs to one-shot the magnemite though, nor to two-shot the Steelix, so i just equipped a Babiri Berry to tank the Iron Tail and killed them with Hidden Power.

 

[RichestAirPirate]

Gee. I'm kinda shocked that Jasmine isn't really putting up that much of a fight so far. There's been a few close calls here and there but a ton of Pokémon are blowing right past the girl!

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Gee. I'm kinda shocked that Jasmine isn't really putting up that much of a fight so far. There's been a few close calls here and there but a ton of Pokémon are blowing right past the girl!

tbh this is entirely because of my chosen IV spread. Jasmine's difficulty comes from how hard it is to hurt Steel types, but because everyone has Hidden Power Fighting, that difficulty is entirely nullified. If Hidden Power was locked behind Jasmine, she'd cause the same problems the rival's Magnemite caused in earlier fights, except more severe because i can't use Natural Gift to remove 2 of them.

Course, it doesn't help that she has 2 unevolved Magnemites on her team rather than, say, Scizor or Skarmory.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Electabuzz, Electivire and Mr. Mime won with Specs Hidden Power, but this wasn't gonna work for Smeargle. He can sketch the move off the Unown in the Ruins of Alph, but he has pretty much no offensive stats. So i had to go for a different strat. I tried many things though, including setting up both my defenses, putting my foes to sleep, and even a hail-mary with Focus Punch, but in the end, nothing worked. Steelix could just Screech my defense back down before i could kill him, even with 6 curses under my belt. They'd also never stay asleep long enough for me to get the kill. Smeargle is one of the most interesting pokemon in a challenge like this, but unfortunately, his terrible stats spelled his doom. Smeargle is out.

Farfetch'd did make Specs Hidden Power work thanks to a crit on Steelix, and it also worked for Qwilfish, Kingler, Octillery, Chinchou, Lanturn, Seel even though Magnemite was a range, Dewgong, Lickitung, Lickilicky, Tangrowth, Jolteon, Flareon, Glaceon, Seadra and Kingdra.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Gligar couldn't one-shot the Magnemites with Specs Hidden Power, so it might have run into trouble if they could attack it or if it ever hit itself in confusion. It didn't though, and Steelix wasted time with Sandstorm, so i could three-shot him. For Gliscor the magnemites were a range, but they still couldn't do anything in return so i won. Piloswine would have lost had Steelix consistently gone for Iron Tail rather than setting up Sandstorm, but he did set up Sandstorm so i killed him with Hidden Power. Mamoswine had no issues though and destroyed them with Specs-Hidden Power, as did Teddiursa, Ursaring and Mantine, but Skarmory could not one-shot the Magnemites that way and they dealt massive damage in return. The strategy i ended up going for was to use Natural Gift to delete the first Magnemite, then the second one would paralyze and thunderbolt me as i hidden powered it down. I'd then spam Hidden Power against Steelix and Roost up whenever needed, hoping he wouldn't lower my defense too much. This took forever, as non-secs Hidden Power off a base 40 Special Attack does very little even when super effective. Things worked out in attempt 5 though, and Steelix went down.

Specs-HP did work out for Dodrio, Ponyta and Rapidash, but Kangaskhan's special attack was too low. So instead she took the magnets out with Dig and then spammed Surf against Steeix's weaker defensive stat, winning in attempt 2. We now return to the standard formula; Specs-HP worked out for Rhydon, Rhyperior, Honchkrow and Houndoom. Slugma however was too slow for this to work; the Magnemites would kill me before i could kill them all. I tried several strategies, but nothing seemed to work, so in attempt 10 i tried a hail-mary. My plan was to use Yawn and Protect to put my enemies to sleep, Recover up so i could tank the next pokemon's hit, and then Flamethrower. One early wakeup would have spelled doom, but everyone cooperated and Slugma lives to die another day. Quite proud of that strat tbh. Magcargo didn't need those strats though; he speed-tied the Magnemite and outsped Steelix, so he could kill everything with Specs Flamethrower.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

When i tried the Specs Hidden Power strat with Weavile, i found that i was one-shot by Iron Tail, so i did something different. I set up a few Nasty Plots against the first Magnemite and then pulled a Resto-Chesto to rid myself of the paralysis. I found that two nasty plots wasn't enough to OHKO Steelix, but i also found out that his Iron Tail is a range to kill me; i survived with 4 HP and killed the Steelix and remaining Magnemite. Specs-HP did work for Misdreavus, Mismagius, the Porygon clan, Lapras, Omastar, Kabutops and Aerodactyl, but Munchlax was both too slow and too weak offensively to make it work. However, while he doesn't have any speed or special attack, Munchlax does have great defenses, which he can boost further with Amnesia and Defense Curl. I boosted to the max against Magnemite, Resting up whenever needed, and then i let loose with Flamethrowers. Thus our sole surviving baby survives yet another match. Snorlax outsped everything though (yes, these enemies are that slow), so he could just use Specs Flamethrower to fry everything. As for the Kanto starters, Ivysaur, Venusaur, Charmeleon, Charizard, Wartotle and Blastoise all won with Specs-HP.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Time for the legendaries, pseudos and FRLG champs. Specs-HP brought victory to Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Mewtwo, Mew, Slaking (he's bulky enough to survive the truant turns), Armaldo, Latios, Kyogre, Groudon, Jirachi and Deoxys.

And that's everyone. Of the 134 pokemon that made it here, 132 managed to beat Jasmine, while only Scyther and Smeargle fell in defeat. Next time, these 132 will be facing the Goldenrod rival; let's hope he'll actually put up a fight.

Here's a nice table showing how many pokemon beat each boss:

Start	After Falkner	After Bugsy	After Azalea Rival	After Whitney	After Burned Tower Rival	After Morty	After Chuck	After Pryce	After Jasmine
283	254	204	189	180	168	153	148	134	132

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Let's now look at the stats, even though almost nothing has changed. 47% of pokemon have made it here, so numbers above that are good and numbers below are bad.

Gen 1	Gen 2	Gen 3	Gen 4
68/151, 45%	41/100, 41%	7/10, 70%	15/22, 68%

Gen 1 and 2 each lost one. nothing real has changed.

Normal	Fighting	Flying	Fire	Dragon	Water	Ice	Grass	Bug	Electric
26/52, 50%	9/13, 69%	23/43, 53%	14/21, 67%	3/6, 50%	24/53, 45%	8/13, 62%	7/26, 27%	8/24, 33%	13/20, 65%
Poison	Ground	Rock	Steel	Dark	Ghost	Psychic
13/37, 35%	10/29, 34%	9/21, 43%	6/8, 75%	5/9, 56%	4/5, 80%	14/30, 47%

Looks like the Normal type is now exactly at the 50% mark. Nothing else of note happened; Ghost is still performing the best and Ground the worst.

Edit: Ground isn't actually doing the worst; i made an error. The stats have been corrected. Grass is still doing the worst, despite no grass types having lost since Bugsy.

Babies	Cross-Gen Evos	Starters	Fossils	Legendaries
1/15, 7%	22/29, 76%	13/29, 45%	4/6, 67%	15/17, 88%

Smeargle and Scyther are not in these categories. Munchlax still going strong, bringing glory to all babykind.

Now let's have a look at how our Kanto champs are doing, even though nothing has changed in 7 bosses:

Latias lost to Falkner

Starmie lost to Bugsy

Celebi lost to Bugsy

Snorlax, Zapdos, Mewtwo, Mew, Dunsparce, Suicune, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Slaking, Armaldo, Latios, Kyogre, Groudon, Jirachi and Deoxys are still going strong

 

[There Is No Arceus]

slight correction; at some point, i misread the total amount of Ground types as being 39 rather than 29 which it actually is, leading to the type doing much worse in the stats than how it actually did. I will correct this in the stats everywhere.

 

[There Is No Arceus]

Next up is the fight versus ??? in Goldenrod. For this fight, we get access to all the items obtainable before the Goldenrod rival. Beating Jasmine got us TM23 Iron Tail, and this is also the point where our mother buys us the Choice Scarf. No new areas to explore though, so we head to Goldenrod to investigate the strange radio programs. We beat up a bunch of grunts as well as an admin in order to get access to the warehouse, where the real director is kept. Once we set foot there though, we are ambushed by ???. So let's have a look at what we're up against.

First off, there are two peculiarities about this fight. The first is that for some reason, the Quilava team does not fully evolve his starter while the other two do. The second peculiarity is that the pokemon on the Feraligatr team are all two levels lower than their counterparts on the other two teams. This will not affect our level cap; since all teams stay below Jasmine's level cap of 35, that's the level cap we will be using here as well.

Now let's look at his mons. ??? leads with a Golbat at level 32/30, who knows Air Cutter, Confuse Ray, Bite and Astonish. Confuse Ray will be annoying when setting up, but this thing doesn't pack too much of a punch. Second is his Magnemite at level 30/28, with the moves Thunder Wave, Spark, Supersonic and Sonicboom. Everyone got through 2 of these on Jasmine's team, but Specs-HP isn't viable here so pokemon with weak special attack may have to rely on Natural Gift to remove this. Third up is his level 32/30 Haunter, with Shadow Ball, Confuse Ray, Mean Look and Curse. Thank god he doesn't lead with this thing anymore. Curse is probably still a death sentence, but he also likes to use Mean Look which does nothing. Up fourth is Sneasel, level 34/32, knowing Faint Attack, Quick Attack, Icy Wind and Fury Swipes. This thing will at most get one hit off before i delete it with Hidden Power, but it's got a decent Attack stat and Icy Wind is annoying, so he might be trouble.

Finally there's the starter. Quilava and Meganium will be at level 34, while Feraligatr is level 32. Quilava will know Smokescreen, Swift, Quick Attack and Flame Wheel. This is more or less the same Quilava we fought in the Brass Tower; accuracy strats are still annoying, as is priority, but everyone here has tools to deal with him. Feraligatr will know Water Gun, Ice Fang, Crunch and Thrash. No more Scary Face spam, it seems. He's got some good coverage, but i question the logic behind ???'s decision to not use a better water move. Lastly, there's Meganium. It's got mostly the same strats as before, knowing Reflect, Petal Dance, PoisonPowder and Synthesis. This was the toughest starter to face in the previous battles, but while its new move Petal Dance is far stronger than anything it had before, it also locks him into spamming it, meaning he can't always Synthesis when that's ideal.

As usual, which team a pokemon faces is determined by their primary type. Grass, Bug, Ice, Steel and Normal types will face the Quilava team, Fire Ground, Psychic, Ghost, Dragon and Poison types will face Feraligatr and Water, Rock, Electric, Dark and Fighting types will face Meganium.

So let's get started. With Typhlosion, i tried Specs Flamethrower, which to my surprise actually worked. Feraligatr has no good water moves, so he just got me into Blaze range; everything else was an OHKO. A similar strat unsurprisingly didn't work out for Croconaw, in part because Meganium outsped and one-shot me. When i tried it with a Scarf to outspeed, i found out that i didn't even do half in return. My sole remaining strat was to equip a Rindo Berry, hit a Swagger after i tanked a hit and then hope he hit himself often enough. He never did; Croconaw is out. Feraligatr however did have tools. He outsped Meganium and had Agility to outspeed the rest, so he could just Swords Dance to the max, set up one Agility and then kill everything with Ice Fang.

Pidgeot had no issues. He killed Golbat and Quilava with Silk Scarf Return, Magnemite and Sneasel with Hidden Power and Haunter with Pluck. Fearow however could not one-shot Magnemite or Sneasel with Hidden Power, so i instead deleted Magnemite with Natural Gift and hoped Sneasel decided to not use Icy Wind. In attempt 6, i crit Sneasel so he never got to use a move, and so i won. With the third early-game bird, Noctowl, i did what i should have done with Fearow and slapped on a Black Belt so that my hidden powers would get the kill. Raticate was next, and Guts Return and Dig killed Golbat and Magnemite. I then pulled a Resto-Chesto on Quilava and hit a few Digs to kill him. Unfortunately i did take a Sand-Attack, which caused me to miss against Sneasel and allowed him to bring me to low health. I tanked a Quick Attack on 1 HP though, and finished him. I then hit a Thief on Haunter before he killed himself with Curse.

For Raichu, the strat was to hit two Charge Beams on Golbat hoping for 2 boosts, which happened in attempt 2. This allowed me to one-shot everything but Meganium, who spammed Synthesis a few times to delay the inevitable before she too fell to Hidden Power. Things weren't so good for Butterfree though. He had Sleep Powder to work with, but he needed Golbat, Quilava and Magnemite to stay asleep for longer than they were willing to. I could two-shot Golbat, but Quilava was a 4-shot and if he woke up early i was dead. I'd then put Magnemite to sleep and Roost up so that i could deal with Sneasel and Haunter. Every time i reached Haunter though, i was so weakened he could kill me with Shadow Ball. Butterfree is out. Next up is a family reunion, though it was more massacre than match. Crobat easily beat his younger brother with Fly, and the others also fell to Fly and Hidden Power, with a few Roosts in between.

We move on to Clefairy, who Cosmic-Powered to the max and then killed them with Charge Beam and Hidden Power. Clefable sadly doesn't get Cosmic Power, but what she does get is enough bulk to not need that move. She killed Golbat with Charge Beam and got a boost in the process, then Magnemite and Sneasel fell to Hidden Power, and Quilava and Haunter to Shadow Ball. Togekiss didn't get Charge Beam, nor did she need it; Golbat and Quilava died to Air Slash, Magnemite and Sneasel to Aura Sphere and Haunter to Shadow Ball. Thereafter came Jessie's boy Arbok, who set up 3 Stockpiles at the start to make himself impervious to their moves, and then fired away with Crunch and Hidden Power. On to our FRLG champ, Dunsparce. Dunsparce would hit Golbat with a Yawn, then he'd start a Rollout, hoping his Lum would protect him from confusion. This first Rollout ran out when dealing the killing blow on Magnemite, so i hit Quilava with Yawn, Rested up and started a new Rollout, which wrecked the rest of ???'s team. This worked out on attempt 3; Dunsparce won again.

Jasmine's boy Ampharos was another mon that could win through pure offense; Thunderbolt, Fire Punch, Hidden Power and the occasional Rest took care of things. On to our first mirror match of this fight. In my first attempt, i found that Haunter was outsped and OHKOd by Sneasel, but when i went in with a Colbur Berry, i found that it was actually a range. I lost that attempt because i couldn't OHKO Feraligatr and he could Crunch me, so i then went in with a Magnet to power up my Thunderbolt, and i kept trying until i survived Faint Attack. The magnet gave me the power to kill feraligatr and win. Gengar of course outsped and OHKOd everything, but Victreebel had issues. It has some interesting tools in Sleep Powder, Stockpile and Swords Dance, but it's severely lacking in offense. I'd need to run at least two of these moves in addition to Rest to stand any kind of chance, but that would leave me with just one attacking move. Victreebel's only offensive moves that can hit all these mons are Thief and grass moves, but i ran out of Thieves before the enemies were all gone and 4 of his 5 pokemon resist Grass, leaving me too vulnerable to crits. I even tried the strat i used last time where i didn't use rest but rather just Sleep Powder, Swords Dance and offense, but that didn't work either. Victreebel is out, and we've lost a grass type for the first time since Bugsy. Last for today is Jumpluff, who doesn't have Stockpile but does have Synthesis and U-Turn. She also outspeeds all of the enemies, so she could put them to sleep before they could move. With this combination, she set up all her Swords Dances and spammed U-Turn, with the occasional Synthesis in between. This was enough for Jumpluff to succeed where Victreebel failed.