As said last time, my next destination was the Battle Pike. I like it a lot. The theme of it is luck, but I think it is more a combination of skill and luck. Or as said by Lucy in Pokémon Adventures: it tests your ability to influence your luck. You don’t know exactly what awaits behind the next door, but you always have a choice. I like the somewhat creepy atmosphere in the Pike, the music makes it even better. I remember that the first time I entered it back in 2005, it scared me to the point that I didn’t even complete the round!
After playing through the Pike once again, it has become my second favorite facility in Emerald, after the Dome and Pyramid which are tied at first place. I really like the unique combination of exploration, strategy, luck and the different types of battles you can have in the Pike. It was also nice with a change of pace after going through so many rounds at the Pyramid. I really appreciated doing something different for a bit. At the Pike, I sometimes had to face trainers in regular 3vs3 battles, which never happens in the Pyramid. Those are basically the same as regular battles in the Tower, though you might be at a disadvantage if your team is damaged beforehand. I also like how quickly it goes to complete a round in the Pike. In comparison, it took me much longer to go through a round in the Pyramid. Here’s how it went.
Battle Pike
Level 50
Open Level
And that’s the end of my adventures in the Pike. Another facility I can mark as complete. While it was really fun, I will never return to it.
Afterwards, it was back to the Pyramid. As said last time, I had an ongoing streak for Open Level as well. How would it go? Only one way to find out!
Battle Pyramid (part 3)
With this, I am taking another break from the Pyramid, a considerably longer one this time.
After all of this, I’m mostly done with everything I had planned to do in Emerald regarding this Battle Facility project. When I started, I had five notable ongoing streaks in five different facilities. I have completed four of them and continued on the fifth. I also went back to a sixth facility and got a new streak there. In addition to that, I have completed all of my other (less notable) ongoing streaks, and I have tried every format I can in all of these six facilities. However, one facility remains.
The Battle Factory. I have yet to obtain the Gold Symbol from there. Though I never really tried it that much it in the past. But now, I have decided to try again. There is a lot more knowledge and resources about how the Factory works nowadays compared to in the past, I have a feeling that my odds of beating it are better now compared to in the past. Since the IVs of opposing Pokémon in the Factory are tied to your streak at the Tower, I have prepared a little by resetting my streaks at the Tower (Single and Double) back to 0.
It has always been my dream to get all 7 Gold Symbols in Emerald, maybe I’ll finally be able to get the last one this time. If I should make it all the way, I will report back about it here.
Apart from that, I have done everything I had planned on Emerald regarding this project. Alongside battling in the Battle Factory, I’m going to move on to Gen 4. I have several ongoing streaks in the battle facilities in the Sinnoh games. Once I have completed the first of them, I’ll post about it in the Gen 4 facilities thread. See you there!
After playing through the Pike once again, it has become my second favorite facility in Emerald, after the Dome and Pyramid which are tied at first place. I really like the unique combination of exploration, strategy, luck and the different types of battles you can have in the Pike. It was also nice with a change of pace after going through so many rounds at the Pyramid. I really appreciated doing something different for a bit. At the Pike, I sometimes had to face trainers in regular 3vs3 battles, which never happens in the Pyramid. Those are basically the same as regular battles in the Tower, though you might be at a disadvantage if your team is damaged beforehand. I also like how quickly it goes to complete a round in the Pike. In comparison, it took me much longer to go through a round in the Pyramid. Here’s how it went.
Battle Pike
Level 50
For level 50, I had an ongoing streak of 28, a record streak of 140, and I had cleared 35 rounds in total. I cancelled my initial streak after beating Gold Lucy for the first time because I wanted to farm BP against Silver Lucy, which I did many times. But I will never have to do it again since I have more BP than I’ll ever use at this point. I regret cancelling that streak, but nothing can be done about it. All I could do was to start a new one. My goal was to get up to Gold Lucy again, get past her, and see how far I could go afterwards. How did it go? Quite well. I didn’t get quite as far as I did in the Dome or the Pyramid, but I still got a pretty good streak (by my own standards at least). I’d say this is my third best streak in Emerald so far.
Format: Level 50, retail cart
Team:
My team varied a bit depending on the round. I am pretty sure I used Metagross for the first two rounds in the past. Here are the teams I used:
Round 1-2: Metagross/Starmie/Blissey
Round 3-6: Salamence/Starmie/Blissey
Round 7 and on: Slaking/Starmie/Blissey
Full details for them:
Metagross ** Rufus
Ability: Clear body
Flawless HP / Att / Sp.def
EVs: 148 HP / 252 Att / 110 Def
Level 50 stats: 174/205/151/95/110/75
Nature: Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Explosion
Salamence (F) @ Choice Band ** Natalow
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: Flawless Att / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 169/205/95/108/90/152
Nature: Adamant
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Aerial Ace
Slaking (F) @ Choice Band ** Liza
Ability: Truant
IVs: Flawless Att / Def / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 221/233/120/99/75/152
Nature: Adamant
- Return
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Beam
Starmie @ Lum Berry ** Zed
Ability: Natural Cure
IVs: Flawless Sp.att / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Sp.att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 125/77/99/167/97/167
Nature: Modest
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
Blissey (F) @ Leftovers ** Faszal
Ability: Natural Cure
IVs: Flawless HP / Def
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Sp.def
Level 50 stats: 362/26/68/80/142/74
Nature: Impish
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Aromatherapy
- Softboiled
Streak: 279
Picture proof:
Format: Level 50, retail cart
Team:
My team varied a bit depending on the round. I am pretty sure I used Metagross for the first two rounds in the past. Here are the teams I used:
Round 1-2: Metagross/Starmie/Blissey
Round 3-6: Salamence/Starmie/Blissey
Round 7 and on: Slaking/Starmie/Blissey
Full details for them:
Metagross ** Rufus
Ability: Clear body
Flawless HP / Att / Sp.def
EVs: 148 HP / 252 Att / 110 Def
Level 50 stats: 174/205/151/95/110/75
Nature: Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Explosion
Salamence (F) @ Choice Band ** Natalow
Ability: Intimidate
IVs: Flawless Att / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 169/205/95/108/90/152
Nature: Adamant
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
- Brick Break
- Aerial Ace
Slaking (F) @ Choice Band ** Liza
Ability: Truant
IVs: Flawless Att / Def / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 221/233/120/99/75/152
Nature: Adamant
- Return
- Earthquake
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Beam
Starmie @ Lum Berry ** Zed
Ability: Natural Cure
IVs: Flawless Sp.att / Spd
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Sp.att / 252 Spd
Level 50 stats: 125/77/99/167/97/167
Nature: Modest
- Surf
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psychic
Blissey (F) @ Leftovers ** Faszal
Ability: Natural Cure
IVs: Flawless HP / Def
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 6 Sp.def
Level 50 stats: 362/26/68/80/142/74
Nature: Impish
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Aromatherapy
- Softboiled
Streak: 279
Picture proof:
First, some words about the team. I gave Starmie a Lum Berry here. I’m not sure about the best item for Starmie in the Pike (or for the Frontier on the whole, for that matter), but this gives it an extra status immunity in one battle at least. In the past, I avoided using berries in the Pike since I thought they would be lost forever if they were used up during a round. Now I know that you get them back after completing the round, so there’s no risk of losing them permanently. They don’t get restored during a round though. Even if you get healed during the round, berries and other consumable items won’t be brought back until you have completed the round.
Blissey was chosen for the same reason as in the Pyramid. It can heal itself and the team with Softboiled and cure status with Aromatherapy, which is great. Especially here in the Pike since you don’t have any Potions or Revives, which means you must be more careful than in the Pyramid.
I used Metagross for the first 2 rounds since it destroys Silver Lucy, Salamence for the following four rounds to get past early Pokémon which might have Protect, and then Slaking for the rest of the run. I went with my CB Salamence here since it just feels better than a DD set. I used a DD Salamence for the Pike in the past but I don’t know if it is the better option. DD Salamence doesn’t have an optimal hold item for the Pike either since Lum is one-time only, and using it on Salamence would mean that I need another item for Starmie.
I’m not convinced that Slaking is the best choice for the Pike either. It is great, but not quite as epic as in the Dome or the Pyramid. Since you can get into 3vs3 battles here, Slaking’s contributions are not quite as amazing. But it is still great. I’m not sure that Slaking/Starmie/Blissey is a perfect team for the Pike either, two of them are weak to Fighting which means that if I run into a strong Fighting-type and Starmie has fainted or is unable to beat it, I’m in a very bad situation.
I have gone over the main details for Salamence, Slaking, Starmie and Blissey in the past, but I haven’t talked that much about Metagross (just briefly mentioned it in a previous post). Time to say some things about it. This Metagross was built as a standard CB set. Meteor Mash is the obvious STAB move, it hits hard but is unfortunately a bit inaccurate. Earthquake and Rock Slide for coverage. But I have thought about changing Rock Slide to Shadow Ball. It feels like Shadow Ball offers better coverage, allowing Metagross to hit Psychic- and Ghost-types for super effective damage. In comparison, Rock Slide doesn’t really help that much. It hits Flying- and Bug-types, but they don’t feel like huge threats to Metagross. It also hits Ice-types, but I already have Meteor Mash for that. It also hits Fire-types, but I have Earthquake against them (though I’d rather switch out most of the time). I think changing to Shadow Ball would be better, but since I have no plans to use this Metagross for anything serious in the Frontier in the future, I don’t think it will make a difference in the end.
Explosion as the final move, it deals extremely heavy damage at the cost of Metagross fainting, making it great as a finishing move. Adamant Nature to hit as hard as possible. I remember that I got the EVs from a guy on Serebiiforums after asking for suggestions about EV spreads for a CB Metagross. However, I don’t think the EVs are optimal. Metagross without Speed EVs is quite slow, I think bumping up its Speed a bit would have been very helpful. I have no idea what item it was holding when I used it in the Pike in the past, but I know for sure that it wasn’t a Choice Band since I needed to use different moves against Silver Lucy.
Speaking of which, the reason I used Metagross for round 1-2 is that it completely destroys Silver Lucy. Earthquake to get rid of Seviper, then Meteor Mash Shuckle, which can’t touch Metagross since its only means of doing damage are Toxic and Sandstorm. Against Milotic, I just exploded on its phat ass for an instant OHKO. I always used this strategy during my many rematches against Silver Lucy, it is a great way to farm BP quickly.
Another idea I saw now as I looked on the leaderboards was to use a Pokémon with Guts in the Pike, such as Heracross or Swellow. That way, you actually benefit from being burned or poisoned. Which is a cool alternate strategy. Yet another idea I have seen is to lead with Starmie, allowing it to instantly switch out and Naturally Cure any status it has if it should have one at the start of the battle.
So that’s the Pokémon I used. Next, my strategy. The way I played in the Pike now was quite different from how I did in the past.
First, let’s take a look at the different rooms and what they contain:
(Taken from Bulbapedia)
In the past, I always avoided the “distinct aroma of Pokémon” rooms, since I was super scared of getting to face a strong trainer and losing. Looking back now, this is definitely not the best strategy, but it worked. It got me to Gold Lucy on my first attempt, in an unexpected combination of skill and luck.
When I went back to the Pike now, I decided to try a different strategy. I looked at some strategies used by other people who had gotten great streaks at the Pike here in this thread and decided to follow their lead. Here’s how I did regarding the different rooms:
Nostalgia: I always went for these rooms. These are the only rooms where you are guaranteed to never get into a battle, which is nice. If my team should get afflicted with status, I can cure that with Blissey’s Aromatherapy afterwards. I also have Natural Cure on Blissey/Starmie as well as Lum on Starmie. If I get the second option and get one or two of my party members healed instead, then that’s even better!
Trainer: These rooms became the new ones I always avoided. A regular trainer battle without any recovery afterwards is not worth it. Especially not later on where the regular and tough trainers are equal in terms of strength. Getting full recovery for the team is nice, but it isn’t worth the risk. I suppose I could have picked these rooms early on since the trainers you face are still weak at that point, but I didn’t. I guess I could also have picked them if they were the last room in the round and my team was healthy enough, but I never did that either.
Aroma: I always went for these rooms. A tough trainer battle shouldn’t be too hard as long as the team is healthy enough. I can use Softboiled outside of battle to heal before the battle. And then I get fully healed after the battle, which is nice. Another thing worth noting is that even the “hard” trainers are easy early on, and then they are on the same level as the regular “easy” trainers later on, so there’s nothing to lose by picking one of these rooms.
The wild Pokémon are really nice, it is basically nothing or free healing. Unlike in the Pyramid, you can run from the wild Pokémon here without problems, which is what I did most of the time since you don’t get any “reward” for beating them. If necessary, I used them as healing bait for Blissey to heal itself or the team. Here’s how I did against the individual wild Pokémon.
Seviper: Never bothered with it, I always ran from those snakes.
Milotic: Occasionally used for healing. It can annoy Blissey with Hypnosis/Toxic, it can also hurt with Surf/Body Slam, but it won’t do much damage and once I am done, I can always freely run from it.
Dusclops: I often used it for healing (mostly because I met more wild Dusclops than Milotic). It can’t touch Blissey with Shadow Punch but it can annoy with Toxic/WoW, it also has Mean Look which forces me to beat it instead of running. Blissey can unfortunately not use Seismic Toss against it, but Toxic gets the job done.
I never got to face Electrode, Breloom or Wobbuffet since I didn’t get that far.
I also noticed that the movesets for some of the wild Pokémon vary a little depending on whether you play on Level 50 or Open Level. They seem a bit more annoying in Open Level, Milotic/Dusclops notably has Ice Beam over Surf/Shadow Punch, giving them the ability to freeze you. The differences aren’t very big though.
Whispering: I always went for these rooms as well. They have either nothing which is the best of all, or a multi battle which should be easy most of the time. The only thing I had to keep in mind was that I do not get automatically healed after a multi battle, so taking as little damage as possible was preferable. I also needed to make sure my team members didn’t faint in multi battles since I can’t revive them with Softboiled. As for the trainers you face in multi battles, it seems like their Pokémon are picked from the pool of just one of them (the first one mentioned at the start of the battle), just like in the Tower and the Pyramid.
With this strategy, the odds of getting into a trainer battle are only 2/6! Assuming the odds are the same for each event in the rooms. In the past, Bulbapedia had listed that the first option is more common than the second, but they have removed that. My guess is that the odds for the events are the same and that the information Bulbapedia had in the past was incorrect. But I don’t know.
Either way, that’s my strategy. It is funny how the theme of this facility is luck, yet what you really need to beat it is strategy!
Some other observations I made were that Poison damage happens outside of battles (the same is also true for the Pyramid), which means that it can slowly wear you down if you walk too much without curing it.
While battling in the Pike, I sometimes got through a whole round without a single trainer battle! Those rounds were always appreciated.
It also seems that if you get into a room where 1-2 of your Pokémon get healed, the game will prioritize those that are damaged. From what I saw, the game won’t try to heal a Pokémon that is at full health (and full PP) if another Pokémon is not at full health or PP.
Blissey was chosen for the same reason as in the Pyramid. It can heal itself and the team with Softboiled and cure status with Aromatherapy, which is great. Especially here in the Pike since you don’t have any Potions or Revives, which means you must be more careful than in the Pyramid.
I used Metagross for the first 2 rounds since it destroys Silver Lucy, Salamence for the following four rounds to get past early Pokémon which might have Protect, and then Slaking for the rest of the run. I went with my CB Salamence here since it just feels better than a DD set. I used a DD Salamence for the Pike in the past but I don’t know if it is the better option. DD Salamence doesn’t have an optimal hold item for the Pike either since Lum is one-time only, and using it on Salamence would mean that I need another item for Starmie.
I’m not convinced that Slaking is the best choice for the Pike either. It is great, but not quite as epic as in the Dome or the Pyramid. Since you can get into 3vs3 battles here, Slaking’s contributions are not quite as amazing. But it is still great. I’m not sure that Slaking/Starmie/Blissey is a perfect team for the Pike either, two of them are weak to Fighting which means that if I run into a strong Fighting-type and Starmie has fainted or is unable to beat it, I’m in a very bad situation.
I have gone over the main details for Salamence, Slaking, Starmie and Blissey in the past, but I haven’t talked that much about Metagross (just briefly mentioned it in a previous post). Time to say some things about it. This Metagross was built as a standard CB set. Meteor Mash is the obvious STAB move, it hits hard but is unfortunately a bit inaccurate. Earthquake and Rock Slide for coverage. But I have thought about changing Rock Slide to Shadow Ball. It feels like Shadow Ball offers better coverage, allowing Metagross to hit Psychic- and Ghost-types for super effective damage. In comparison, Rock Slide doesn’t really help that much. It hits Flying- and Bug-types, but they don’t feel like huge threats to Metagross. It also hits Ice-types, but I already have Meteor Mash for that. It also hits Fire-types, but I have Earthquake against them (though I’d rather switch out most of the time). I think changing to Shadow Ball would be better, but since I have no plans to use this Metagross for anything serious in the Frontier in the future, I don’t think it will make a difference in the end.
Explosion as the final move, it deals extremely heavy damage at the cost of Metagross fainting, making it great as a finishing move. Adamant Nature to hit as hard as possible. I remember that I got the EVs from a guy on Serebiiforums after asking for suggestions about EV spreads for a CB Metagross. However, I don’t think the EVs are optimal. Metagross without Speed EVs is quite slow, I think bumping up its Speed a bit would have been very helpful. I have no idea what item it was holding when I used it in the Pike in the past, but I know for sure that it wasn’t a Choice Band since I needed to use different moves against Silver Lucy.
Speaking of which, the reason I used Metagross for round 1-2 is that it completely destroys Silver Lucy. Earthquake to get rid of Seviper, then Meteor Mash Shuckle, which can’t touch Metagross since its only means of doing damage are Toxic and Sandstorm. Against Milotic, I just exploded on its phat ass for an instant OHKO. I always used this strategy during my many rematches against Silver Lucy, it is a great way to farm BP quickly.
Another idea I saw now as I looked on the leaderboards was to use a Pokémon with Guts in the Pike, such as Heracross or Swellow. That way, you actually benefit from being burned or poisoned. Which is a cool alternate strategy. Yet another idea I have seen is to lead with Starmie, allowing it to instantly switch out and Naturally Cure any status it has if it should have one at the start of the battle.
So that’s the Pokémon I used. Next, my strategy. The way I played in the Pike now was quite different from how I did in the past.
First, let’s take a look at the different rooms and what they contain:
(Taken from Bulbapedia)
In the past, I always avoided the “distinct aroma of Pokémon” rooms, since I was super scared of getting to face a strong trainer and losing. Looking back now, this is definitely not the best strategy, but it worked. It got me to Gold Lucy on my first attempt, in an unexpected combination of skill and luck.
When I went back to the Pike now, I decided to try a different strategy. I looked at some strategies used by other people who had gotten great streaks at the Pike here in this thread and decided to follow their lead. Here’s how I did regarding the different rooms:
Nostalgia: I always went for these rooms. These are the only rooms where you are guaranteed to never get into a battle, which is nice. If my team should get afflicted with status, I can cure that with Blissey’s Aromatherapy afterwards. I also have Natural Cure on Blissey/Starmie as well as Lum on Starmie. If I get the second option and get one or two of my party members healed instead, then that’s even better!
Trainer: These rooms became the new ones I always avoided. A regular trainer battle without any recovery afterwards is not worth it. Especially not later on where the regular and tough trainers are equal in terms of strength. Getting full recovery for the team is nice, but it isn’t worth the risk. I suppose I could have picked these rooms early on since the trainers you face are still weak at that point, but I didn’t. I guess I could also have picked them if they were the last room in the round and my team was healthy enough, but I never did that either.
Aroma: I always went for these rooms. A tough trainer battle shouldn’t be too hard as long as the team is healthy enough. I can use Softboiled outside of battle to heal before the battle. And then I get fully healed after the battle, which is nice. Another thing worth noting is that even the “hard” trainers are easy early on, and then they are on the same level as the regular “easy” trainers later on, so there’s nothing to lose by picking one of these rooms.
The wild Pokémon are really nice, it is basically nothing or free healing. Unlike in the Pyramid, you can run from the wild Pokémon here without problems, which is what I did most of the time since you don’t get any “reward” for beating them. If necessary, I used them as healing bait for Blissey to heal itself or the team. Here’s how I did against the individual wild Pokémon.
Seviper: Never bothered with it, I always ran from those snakes.
Milotic: Occasionally used for healing. It can annoy Blissey with Hypnosis/Toxic, it can also hurt with Surf/Body Slam, but it won’t do much damage and once I am done, I can always freely run from it.
Dusclops: I often used it for healing (mostly because I met more wild Dusclops than Milotic). It can’t touch Blissey with Shadow Punch but it can annoy with Toxic/WoW, it also has Mean Look which forces me to beat it instead of running. Blissey can unfortunately not use Seismic Toss against it, but Toxic gets the job done.
I never got to face Electrode, Breloom or Wobbuffet since I didn’t get that far.
I also noticed that the movesets for some of the wild Pokémon vary a little depending on whether you play on Level 50 or Open Level. They seem a bit more annoying in Open Level, Milotic/Dusclops notably has Ice Beam over Surf/Shadow Punch, giving them the ability to freeze you. The differences aren’t very big though.
Whispering: I always went for these rooms as well. They have either nothing which is the best of all, or a multi battle which should be easy most of the time. The only thing I had to keep in mind was that I do not get automatically healed after a multi battle, so taking as little damage as possible was preferable. I also needed to make sure my team members didn’t faint in multi battles since I can’t revive them with Softboiled. As for the trainers you face in multi battles, it seems like their Pokémon are picked from the pool of just one of them (the first one mentioned at the start of the battle), just like in the Tower and the Pyramid.
With this strategy, the odds of getting into a trainer battle are only 2/6! Assuming the odds are the same for each event in the rooms. In the past, Bulbapedia had listed that the first option is more common than the second, but they have removed that. My guess is that the odds for the events are the same and that the information Bulbapedia had in the past was incorrect. But I don’t know.
Either way, that’s my strategy. It is funny how the theme of this facility is luck, yet what you really need to beat it is strategy!
Some other observations I made were that Poison damage happens outside of battles (the same is also true for the Pyramid), which means that it can slowly wear you down if you walk too much without curing it.
While battling in the Pike, I sometimes got through a whole round without a single trainer battle! Those rounds were always appreciated.
It also seems that if you get into a room where 1-2 of your Pokémon get healed, the game will prioritize those that are damaged. From what I saw, the game won’t try to heal a Pokémon that is at full health (and full PP) if another Pokémon is not at full health or PP.
I was a bit worried about how my return to the Pike would go, but I worried too much as usual, there was nothing to worry about. I made it to a rematch with Gold Lucy without any real issues. On my first try, just like during my original attempt back in 2006. Before entering the room where Lucy was, Slaking and Starmie were at full health, Blissey was slightly damaged and burned. I picked the center room, the maid offered no healing. Didn’t matter though. Here’s how the battle against Lucy went:
Lucy starts with Seviper, I send out Slaking, EQ OHKO
Next Steelix, loaf, Steelix uses EQ and gets a Crit, Slaking at 105 HP
Slaking uses EQ for around 80%, another EQ from Steelix brings Slaking to 43 HP
Loaf, Steelix uses EQ for the KO
Starmie, Surf KO
Gyara, TBolt for like 95%, it uses DD
TBolt KO!
Very similar to my original battle against her 16 years ago.
I got to rematch her again twice more afterwards since she appears at the end of every fourth round after the initial Gold battle. I used some different strategies against her during those battles, but I won both of those rematches as well.
Next, the other notable battles and things that happened. Not a whole lot, but a few that I think are worth mentioning.
I had one very scary battle in round 11. I got to face a Bug Maniac in a tough trainer room. Slaking and Blissey were paralyzed from an earlier encounter with a Kirlia, which made it harder than it should have been. Lead Pinsir, it uses SD, Slaking gets FP. SD again, loaf. Guillotine! Miss. Return KO. Next is Armaldo. I switch to Blissey, Armaldo SD. I try to use Aromatherapy but Blissey gets FP, Armaldo uses SD again. It then uses EQ and Blissey lives with 11 HP left! But now it successfully uses AT. After that, it was faster than the Armaldo and managed to throw in a SToss before falling. Out with Starmie, Surf for the KO. The final opposing Pokémon is a Scizor. Surf for around 60%, it uses Aerial Ace, which means it is one of the sets without Silver Wind. Another Surf and it is down.
Another notable situation was that once in round 15, the whole team got frozen by a Dusclops. Fortunately, I found a wild Pokémon room directly after, I met a wild Dusclops and switched to Blissey. But it took over 10 turns before it got defrosted! The Dusclops couldn’t do anything though, and Blissey just recovered with Leftovers along the way. Once Blissey got defrosted, I used Aromatherapy to heal the team, then I had to defeat the Dusclops with Toxic since it had used Mean Look.
I lost in room 280. It was the last room of the round, annoyingly. My team was at full health, I got into a room with a tough trainer. I don’t have a battle video since you can’t save videos in the Pike, just a summary of how the battle went.
My opponent was Pokémon Breeder Tess. She uses specific sets of various Pokémon, which means I know exactly what I am up against. Lead Salamence, Intimidate is not good for Slaking so I switch to Starmie, the Salamence uses Dragon Dance. I thought I would be faster since it has no Speed investment, but no, it is faster and KO’s Starmie with Double-Edge. I send in Slaking who tanks another Double-Edge and KO’s with Return. Next is Gyarados. It is also a DD set. It has ChestoRest too, not good at all. Since Slaking’s Attack got lowered by another Intimidate, I switch to Blissey. I try to damage the Gyarados to the point that it will be forced to use Rest a second time after using up its Chesto Berry, but I do not succeed. I manage to make it use Rest once, then SToss twice to get it to a little less than 50%. Unfortunately, it sets up with DD along the way and gets a Crit with EQ on Blissey, taking it down. Now I only have Slaking left. The Gyarados is faster and KO’s Slaking.
Mostly a fair loss, I’m not sure if I would have won even if the Gyara hadn’t got a Crit on Blissey. I wonder if I would have been able to win if I had led with Starmie instead of Slaking? It should have been able to beat the Salamence with Ice Beam and the Gyarados with Thunderbolt, leaving me with all three members of my team left against the final opponent.
I lost, but I accomplished my goal. I made another try at the Pike to see how far I could go, and I got quite far! Almost twice as far as my original streak. I’m satisfied with this, so I won’t make another try at Level 50. But what about Open Level?
Lucy starts with Seviper, I send out Slaking, EQ OHKO
Next Steelix, loaf, Steelix uses EQ and gets a Crit, Slaking at 105 HP
Slaking uses EQ for around 80%, another EQ from Steelix brings Slaking to 43 HP
Loaf, Steelix uses EQ for the KO
Starmie, Surf KO
Gyara, TBolt for like 95%, it uses DD
TBolt KO!
Very similar to my original battle against her 16 years ago.
I got to rematch her again twice more afterwards since she appears at the end of every fourth round after the initial Gold battle. I used some different strategies against her during those battles, but I won both of those rematches as well.
Next, the other notable battles and things that happened. Not a whole lot, but a few that I think are worth mentioning.
I had one very scary battle in round 11. I got to face a Bug Maniac in a tough trainer room. Slaking and Blissey were paralyzed from an earlier encounter with a Kirlia, which made it harder than it should have been. Lead Pinsir, it uses SD, Slaking gets FP. SD again, loaf. Guillotine! Miss. Return KO. Next is Armaldo. I switch to Blissey, Armaldo SD. I try to use Aromatherapy but Blissey gets FP, Armaldo uses SD again. It then uses EQ and Blissey lives with 11 HP left! But now it successfully uses AT. After that, it was faster than the Armaldo and managed to throw in a SToss before falling. Out with Starmie, Surf for the KO. The final opposing Pokémon is a Scizor. Surf for around 60%, it uses Aerial Ace, which means it is one of the sets without Silver Wind. Another Surf and it is down.
Another notable situation was that once in round 15, the whole team got frozen by a Dusclops. Fortunately, I found a wild Pokémon room directly after, I met a wild Dusclops and switched to Blissey. But it took over 10 turns before it got defrosted! The Dusclops couldn’t do anything though, and Blissey just recovered with Leftovers along the way. Once Blissey got defrosted, I used Aromatherapy to heal the team, then I had to defeat the Dusclops with Toxic since it had used Mean Look.
I lost in room 280. It was the last room of the round, annoyingly. My team was at full health, I got into a room with a tough trainer. I don’t have a battle video since you can’t save videos in the Pike, just a summary of how the battle went.
My opponent was Pokémon Breeder Tess. She uses specific sets of various Pokémon, which means I know exactly what I am up against. Lead Salamence, Intimidate is not good for Slaking so I switch to Starmie, the Salamence uses Dragon Dance. I thought I would be faster since it has no Speed investment, but no, it is faster and KO’s Starmie with Double-Edge. I send in Slaking who tanks another Double-Edge and KO’s with Return. Next is Gyarados. It is also a DD set. It has ChestoRest too, not good at all. Since Slaking’s Attack got lowered by another Intimidate, I switch to Blissey. I try to damage the Gyarados to the point that it will be forced to use Rest a second time after using up its Chesto Berry, but I do not succeed. I manage to make it use Rest once, then SToss twice to get it to a little less than 50%. Unfortunately, it sets up with DD along the way and gets a Crit with EQ on Blissey, taking it down. Now I only have Slaking left. The Gyarados is faster and KO’s Slaking.
Mostly a fair loss, I’m not sure if I would have won even if the Gyara hadn’t got a Crit on Blissey. I wonder if I would have been able to win if I had led with Starmie instead of Slaking? It should have been able to beat the Salamence with Ice Beam and the Gyarados with Thunderbolt, leaving me with all three members of my team left against the final opponent.
I lost, but I accomplished my goal. I made another try at the Pike to see how far I could go, and I got quite far! Almost twice as far as my original streak. I’m satisfied with this, so I won’t make another try at Level 50. But what about Open Level?
I decided to do Open Level as well just for fun. I had an ongoing streak of 28, a record streak of 57, and I had cleared the challenge 12 times in total in the past. I don’t remember anything about the record streak, but I guess I had farmed BP against Silver Lucy a few times here as well.
I withdrew the standard Heracross/Suicune/Raikou from my level 100 box and entered with them. Somehow, it went better than expected. I made it past Gold Lucy, but lost soon afterwards. Was it though luck or skill, or a combination of both? Either way, since I got past Gold Lucy and this streak doesn’t feel completely stupid, I might as well get it added to the leaderboards.
Format: Open Level (level 100), retail cart
Team:
Heracross (M) @ Choice Band ** Festus
Ability: Guts
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 100 stats: 285/383/176/88/212/269
Nature: Adamant
- Megahorn
- Brick Break
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
Suicune @ Leftovers ** Velvet
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 18 Sp.att / 8 Spd
Level 100 stats: 387/154/305/211/259/178
Nature: Modest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind
- Rest
Raikou @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 38 HP / 252 Sp.att / 220 Spd
Level 100 stats: 311/161/185/305/234/352
Nature: Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Crunch
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
Streak: 147
Picture proof:
(Same image as for Level 50)
I have talked about these three Pokémon before, nothing more to say about them. Though I guess I should mention that with this team, I did get to try using Heracross with Guts at the Pike! It really benefits from being burned, but being poisoned is nice as well even if burn is optimal. It doesn’t really like any other status though.
I went with the same strategy as for Level 50 even if I don’t have Blissey here. Which means that I can’t heal outside of battle, and my team has a bigger weakness to status. But Guts/Lum/Sub/Rest should hopefully help a little at least. I wasn’t really expecting a great streak, my goal was just to complete it. There were some notable battles along the way, see below for summaries of them.
First one in round 5. Prior to it, I had been in three Multi battle rooms in a row. Heracross had fainted, I had Raikou and Suicune left, both at good health. I got into a tough battle room, facing a Ruin Maniac. He leads with a Forretress, I send out Suicune. CM and then Surf for around 60%, Forry uses Zap Cannon twice but misses with both of them. I use Surf again, expecting a KO, but Forry lives thanks to having a Focus Band. It uses Explosion, Cune lives with a little HP left. Next is Aerodactyl. Not good. I’ll risk losing Raikou if I switch, so I let Cune stay in, the Aerodactyl is of course faster and KO’s. Raikou comes out and uses TBolt for the KO. If the last opposing Pokémon is a Ground-type, it is basically game over. But it isn’t. For better or worse, the last opposing Pokémon is a Shuckle. It is the set with Substitute/Attract/Toxic/Double Team. It can’t touch Raikou once I set up a Sub, which I of course do instantly. But the Shuckle has Double Team and Substitute, which is annoying. This might become a long stall battle. I set up some CMs while the Shuckle first uses DT, then tries Toxic a few times. I eventually hit it but I don’t KO. I then try a few more times and get another hit, beating it. That was a scary battle.
I had another close battle in round 8. It was another tough trainer battle, I was up against a team of Meganium/Feraligatr/Swampert. The Meganium was no problem, I then misplayed a bit against the Feraligatr and lost Raikou, then I beat it with Heracross. The Swampert was the Curse set which managed to beat Heracross, but it only had a little HP left afterwards so Suicune could finish it off with Surf.
To my own surprise, I made it all the way to Gold Lucy. Before the battle, Heracross/Suicune were at full health while Raikou was poisoned, somewhat damaged, and had lost its Lum Berry. I picked the right room and the maid healed one of my Pokémon, which was Raikou.
Here’s how my battle against Lucy went:
Seviper, Hera EQ OHKO
Gyara, switch to Raikou, DD
TBolt OHKO
Steelix, Crunch for like 10% lol, Sp.def drop, EQ, Raikou at 40 HP
Crunch again brings it to maybe 70%, another Sp.def drop! RS, Raikou dead
Hera, BB KO
I then lost in round 11, room 148. It was in a tough trainer room, my opponent was a Dragon Tamer. My team was at full health before the battle. He started with a Latias, Heracross was faster and OHKO’d with Megahorn. Next was a Dragonite. I switched to Suicune, it used TWave. It then used Outrage which didn’t do much damage, I used CM and then defeated it with Ice Beam. Last out is Kingdra. It uses DD, I use IB which doesn’t do very much. This could be bad if it is the set with Double-Edge. It sets up some more DDs while I CM, then it uses Hydro Pump, confirming the EndFlail set. Once it is out of PP for Hydro Pump, it uses DD to max. I set up CM to max, then use Rest to recover and get rid of the paralysis. The Kingdra now starts altering between Endure and Flail, the latter does very little damage since it is at high HP. I try to predict a bit and I successfully use IB on a turn when it uses Flail. I expect it to faint, but it lives with very little HP left! It then destroys my whole team with a Flail that must have been at full power or very close.
This was a fair loss, I misplayed a bit which cost me the streak. I think I should have either used Surf first to dent the Kingdra, allowing IB to KO afterwards. Or maybe I should have stalled it out of PP for Flail before attacking, but I really thought I would KO with a+6 IB. Doesn’t matter though, the streak is over and it went better than I expected.
I have now made it past the Gold Boss on both Level 50 and Open Level in three different facilities. 15-year-old me would have been amazed. Heracross/Suicune/Raikou have been doing way better than expected. I still don’t think they are a particularly great team, but they are definitely better than I thought at first and I am impressed by them.
I withdrew the standard Heracross/Suicune/Raikou from my level 100 box and entered with them. Somehow, it went better than expected. I made it past Gold Lucy, but lost soon afterwards. Was it though luck or skill, or a combination of both? Either way, since I got past Gold Lucy and this streak doesn’t feel completely stupid, I might as well get it added to the leaderboards.
Format: Open Level (level 100), retail cart
Team:
Heracross (M) @ Choice Band ** Festus
Ability: Guts
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Att / 252 Spd
Level 100 stats: 285/383/176/88/212/269
Nature: Adamant
- Megahorn
- Brick Break
- Rock Slide
- Earthquake
Suicune @ Leftovers ** Velvet
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 232 Def / 18 Sp.att / 8 Spd
Level 100 stats: 387/154/305/211/259/178
Nature: Modest
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Calm Mind
- Rest
Raikou @ Lum Berry
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 38 HP / 252 Sp.att / 220 Spd
Level 100 stats: 311/161/185/305/234/352
Nature: Timid
- Thunderbolt
- Crunch
- Calm Mind
- Substitute
Streak: 147
Picture proof:
(Same image as for Level 50)
I have talked about these three Pokémon before, nothing more to say about them. Though I guess I should mention that with this team, I did get to try using Heracross with Guts at the Pike! It really benefits from being burned, but being poisoned is nice as well even if burn is optimal. It doesn’t really like any other status though.
I went with the same strategy as for Level 50 even if I don’t have Blissey here. Which means that I can’t heal outside of battle, and my team has a bigger weakness to status. But Guts/Lum/Sub/Rest should hopefully help a little at least. I wasn’t really expecting a great streak, my goal was just to complete it. There were some notable battles along the way, see below for summaries of them.
First one in round 5. Prior to it, I had been in three Multi battle rooms in a row. Heracross had fainted, I had Raikou and Suicune left, both at good health. I got into a tough battle room, facing a Ruin Maniac. He leads with a Forretress, I send out Suicune. CM and then Surf for around 60%, Forry uses Zap Cannon twice but misses with both of them. I use Surf again, expecting a KO, but Forry lives thanks to having a Focus Band. It uses Explosion, Cune lives with a little HP left. Next is Aerodactyl. Not good. I’ll risk losing Raikou if I switch, so I let Cune stay in, the Aerodactyl is of course faster and KO’s. Raikou comes out and uses TBolt for the KO. If the last opposing Pokémon is a Ground-type, it is basically game over. But it isn’t. For better or worse, the last opposing Pokémon is a Shuckle. It is the set with Substitute/Attract/Toxic/Double Team. It can’t touch Raikou once I set up a Sub, which I of course do instantly. But the Shuckle has Double Team and Substitute, which is annoying. This might become a long stall battle. I set up some CMs while the Shuckle first uses DT, then tries Toxic a few times. I eventually hit it but I don’t KO. I then try a few more times and get another hit, beating it. That was a scary battle.
I had another close battle in round 8. It was another tough trainer battle, I was up against a team of Meganium/Feraligatr/Swampert. The Meganium was no problem, I then misplayed a bit against the Feraligatr and lost Raikou, then I beat it with Heracross. The Swampert was the Curse set which managed to beat Heracross, but it only had a little HP left afterwards so Suicune could finish it off with Surf.
To my own surprise, I made it all the way to Gold Lucy. Before the battle, Heracross/Suicune were at full health while Raikou was poisoned, somewhat damaged, and had lost its Lum Berry. I picked the right room and the maid healed one of my Pokémon, which was Raikou.
Here’s how my battle against Lucy went:
Seviper, Hera EQ OHKO
Gyara, switch to Raikou, DD
TBolt OHKO
Steelix, Crunch for like 10% lol, Sp.def drop, EQ, Raikou at 40 HP
Crunch again brings it to maybe 70%, another Sp.def drop! RS, Raikou dead
Hera, BB KO
I then lost in round 11, room 148. It was in a tough trainer room, my opponent was a Dragon Tamer. My team was at full health before the battle. He started with a Latias, Heracross was faster and OHKO’d with Megahorn. Next was a Dragonite. I switched to Suicune, it used TWave. It then used Outrage which didn’t do much damage, I used CM and then defeated it with Ice Beam. Last out is Kingdra. It uses DD, I use IB which doesn’t do very much. This could be bad if it is the set with Double-Edge. It sets up some more DDs while I CM, then it uses Hydro Pump, confirming the EndFlail set. Once it is out of PP for Hydro Pump, it uses DD to max. I set up CM to max, then use Rest to recover and get rid of the paralysis. The Kingdra now starts altering between Endure and Flail, the latter does very little damage since it is at high HP. I try to predict a bit and I successfully use IB on a turn when it uses Flail. I expect it to faint, but it lives with very little HP left! It then destroys my whole team with a Flail that must have been at full power or very close.
This was a fair loss, I misplayed a bit which cost me the streak. I think I should have either used Surf first to dent the Kingdra, allowing IB to KO afterwards. Or maybe I should have stalled it out of PP for Flail before attacking, but I really thought I would KO with a+6 IB. Doesn’t matter though, the streak is over and it went better than I expected.
I have now made it past the Gold Boss on both Level 50 and Open Level in three different facilities. 15-year-old me would have been amazed. Heracross/Suicune/Raikou have been doing way better than expected. I still don’t think they are a particularly great team, but they are definitely better than I thought at first and I am impressed by them.
Afterwards, it was back to the Pyramid. As said last time, I had an ongoing streak for Open Level as well. How would it go? Only one way to find out!
Battle Pyramid (part 3)
It was time to continue on my streak for Open Level. I had an ongoing streak of 21 here. I had beaten Silver Brandon for the first time here and then stopped, just as usual. I have no Blissey for level 100 and I have a rather limited pool of Pokémon to choose from, so I wasn’t expecting to get very far. IIRC I used a Blissey when I played through the first three rounds back in 2006, but that Blissey was at level 60 and it is probably stored on Box R/S now (if I still have it at all). While playing now, I used the same resources as for Level 50. Here’s how it went!
Round 4:
PP stalling. Heracross should be able to take care of half of the wild Pokémon here. The other half are all weak to Dark, so Raikou should hopefully be able to Crunch them away. Then Suicune in the last slot because I couldn’t think of anything better.
Upon entering, I checked my bag and saw that I did not have a lot of items. Some Hyper Potions, one Revive, one Max Revive and 4 Lum Berries. And a few other things, no good hold items though. I gave Lum Berries to all team members for now. Then Heracross immediately got burned by a wild Banette, using up the Berry. I realized that getting burned would actually benefit Heracross a lot, so I did not give it a new Lum Berry afterwards… and it did not get burned again until I was on floor 7.
I expected the trainers to be easy since this is still an early round. However, the first trainer I ran into had a Sceptile which managed to hurt Heracross and Raikou pretty badly, I had to use a Hyper Potion on both of them afterwards. I also realized that Hyper Potions are a lot less efficient on level 100 since they only restore up to 200 HP, which is a lot on level 50 but not that much on level 100.
There were a lot of things that happened along the round, but I didn’t write everything down. I found two King’s Rock along the way, gave one to Hera for now. I made it to the end, but it was not easy. It felt like it cost me more items than I found, which isn’t very good. Playing through the Pyramid without Blissey and with teams that are less than optimal turned out to be harder than I thought.
Round 5:
Pokémon with Levitate. I entered with Raikou/Swampert/Heracross. I thought about using Articuno at first, but Swampert felt like a more solid choice. Raikou has Crunch for the Ghost/Psychic-types while Swampert has Surf/Ice Beam for Claydol and Flygon. Hopefully the wild Weezing won’t be too bad (though after going through the round, I can confirm that they were). Heracross in the last slot since I couldn’t think of anything better. I gave a King’s Rock to Heracross, Lum to Raikou/Swampert.
The first trainer battle I had here was against another Sceptile, same set as in the last round! It beat Heracross and managed to seriously hurt Raikou, costing me one Revive and 3 Hyper Potions in total.
On floor 1, I somehow got into a trainer battle as I stepped on the exit tile.
This has never happened before, I didn’t even know it was possible. After beating the trainer, I had to step off the exit panel, then walk onto it again in order to get transported to the next floor.
One other thing that happened here was that I successfully ran away from a wild Gengar. It defeated Raikou, I tried to run afterwards instead of sending out a new Pokémon, and it worked!
Many other things happened during this round, not going to list them all. It was extremely tough. My team kept getting badly damaged and fainted a lot, to the point that I had to use way more items than I found. But I somehow made it all the way to the end. Upon arriving at the top, Raikou and Swampert had fainted, Heracross was alive with 23 HP left. I had no Potions or Revives left, just some Berries and other items. At this point, I needed a miracle in order to complete one more round.
Round 6:
Trapping Abilities. Heracross in the lead, hoping it will be able to Megahorn the wild Wynaut and Wobbuffet to death even without a Choice Band. The others should be easy, or so I hope. They are just frail Ground-types. Raikou and Suicune to go along with Heracross because I don’t know what else to use. I was expecting to lose here anyway.
I lost Heracross almost immediately in an idiotic situation against a wild Wynaut on the first floor. Megahorn megamiss, the Wynaut uses Destiny Bond. I use BB, hoping it won’t do too much, but it does over half and the Wynaut uses Counter for a clean OHKO. I beat it with Raikou, but Hera stays fainted since I have no Revives. Then I found a Choice Band almost immediately afterwards. And then a Revive! I used it on Hera and gave it the Choice Band. After that, I found 3 Hyper Potions and one Ether. Suddenly, things were looking bright! Maybe a miracle is about to happen after all?
Nope. On floor 3, Heracross fainted again, against a trainer’s Hariyama. I had not given it a Hyper Potion so it wasn’t at full health, the Hariyama got a Crit with Cross Chop which was enough for a KO. I then beat it with Suicune. This forced me to use Suicune in the lead for the rest of the round, but it was okay since it beat all the wild Pokémon. I ran a damage calc against the wild Wynaut and learned that I needed to be at +2 to safely OHKO them with Surf.
Later in the round, I had a trainer battle against an Espeon, the Pokémon which cost me my streaks with this team at the Tower and the Dome. I beat it this time around, but I decided to not let Suicune use Rest. Instead, I used all of the Hyper Potions I had left. I beat the Espeon and then I found another Hyper Potion directly after the battle.
I then finally lost, ending with a streak of 39 floors. I was going to check one area to see if the exit was there, but I got ambushed by a trainer. I had no Revives or Hyper Potions left. This trainer had a Dugtrio, it used Fissure on Suicune and hit. Raikou didn’t KO with Crunch and got OHKO’d by Earthquake.
I lost, but that’s okay. I wasn’t expecting to go very far, my only goal was to complete the streak. I now know that battling in the Pyramid without Blissey and without teams that are optimized is very difficult.
I’ll never try Open Level for the Pyramid again. It is yet another format I can add to the list of ones I am done with. Instead, I went back to Level 50.
Round 4:
PP stalling. Heracross should be able to take care of half of the wild Pokémon here. The other half are all weak to Dark, so Raikou should hopefully be able to Crunch them away. Then Suicune in the last slot because I couldn’t think of anything better.
Upon entering, I checked my bag and saw that I did not have a lot of items. Some Hyper Potions, one Revive, one Max Revive and 4 Lum Berries. And a few other things, no good hold items though. I gave Lum Berries to all team members for now. Then Heracross immediately got burned by a wild Banette, using up the Berry. I realized that getting burned would actually benefit Heracross a lot, so I did not give it a new Lum Berry afterwards… and it did not get burned again until I was on floor 7.
I expected the trainers to be easy since this is still an early round. However, the first trainer I ran into had a Sceptile which managed to hurt Heracross and Raikou pretty badly, I had to use a Hyper Potion on both of them afterwards. I also realized that Hyper Potions are a lot less efficient on level 100 since they only restore up to 200 HP, which is a lot on level 50 but not that much on level 100.
There were a lot of things that happened along the round, but I didn’t write everything down. I found two King’s Rock along the way, gave one to Hera for now. I made it to the end, but it was not easy. It felt like it cost me more items than I found, which isn’t very good. Playing through the Pyramid without Blissey and with teams that are less than optimal turned out to be harder than I thought.
Round 5:
Pokémon with Levitate. I entered with Raikou/Swampert/Heracross. I thought about using Articuno at first, but Swampert felt like a more solid choice. Raikou has Crunch for the Ghost/Psychic-types while Swampert has Surf/Ice Beam for Claydol and Flygon. Hopefully the wild Weezing won’t be too bad (though after going through the round, I can confirm that they were). Heracross in the last slot since I couldn’t think of anything better. I gave a King’s Rock to Heracross, Lum to Raikou/Swampert.
The first trainer battle I had here was against another Sceptile, same set as in the last round! It beat Heracross and managed to seriously hurt Raikou, costing me one Revive and 3 Hyper Potions in total.
On floor 1, I somehow got into a trainer battle as I stepped on the exit tile.
This has never happened before, I didn’t even know it was possible. After beating the trainer, I had to step off the exit panel, then walk onto it again in order to get transported to the next floor.
One other thing that happened here was that I successfully ran away from a wild Gengar. It defeated Raikou, I tried to run afterwards instead of sending out a new Pokémon, and it worked!
Many other things happened during this round, not going to list them all. It was extremely tough. My team kept getting badly damaged and fainted a lot, to the point that I had to use way more items than I found. But I somehow made it all the way to the end. Upon arriving at the top, Raikou and Swampert had fainted, Heracross was alive with 23 HP left. I had no Potions or Revives left, just some Berries and other items. At this point, I needed a miracle in order to complete one more round.
Round 6:
Trapping Abilities. Heracross in the lead, hoping it will be able to Megahorn the wild Wynaut and Wobbuffet to death even without a Choice Band. The others should be easy, or so I hope. They are just frail Ground-types. Raikou and Suicune to go along with Heracross because I don’t know what else to use. I was expecting to lose here anyway.
I lost Heracross almost immediately in an idiotic situation against a wild Wynaut on the first floor. Megahorn megamiss, the Wynaut uses Destiny Bond. I use BB, hoping it won’t do too much, but it does over half and the Wynaut uses Counter for a clean OHKO. I beat it with Raikou, but Hera stays fainted since I have no Revives. Then I found a Choice Band almost immediately afterwards. And then a Revive! I used it on Hera and gave it the Choice Band. After that, I found 3 Hyper Potions and one Ether. Suddenly, things were looking bright! Maybe a miracle is about to happen after all?
Nope. On floor 3, Heracross fainted again, against a trainer’s Hariyama. I had not given it a Hyper Potion so it wasn’t at full health, the Hariyama got a Crit with Cross Chop which was enough for a KO. I then beat it with Suicune. This forced me to use Suicune in the lead for the rest of the round, but it was okay since it beat all the wild Pokémon. I ran a damage calc against the wild Wynaut and learned that I needed to be at +2 to safely OHKO them with Surf.
Later in the round, I had a trainer battle against an Espeon, the Pokémon which cost me my streaks with this team at the Tower and the Dome. I beat it this time around, but I decided to not let Suicune use Rest. Instead, I used all of the Hyper Potions I had left. I beat the Espeon and then I found another Hyper Potion directly after the battle.
I then finally lost, ending with a streak of 39 floors. I was going to check one area to see if the exit was there, but I got ambushed by a trainer. I had no Revives or Hyper Potions left. This trainer had a Dugtrio, it used Fissure on Suicune and hit. Raikou didn’t KO with Crunch and got OHKO’d by Earthquake.
I lost, but that’s okay. I wasn’t expecting to go very far, my only goal was to complete the streak. I now know that battling in the Pyramid without Blissey and without teams that are optimized is very difficult.
I’ll never try Open Level for the Pyramid again. It is yet another format I can add to the list of ones I am done with. Instead, I went back to Level 50.
I decided to go back and clear a few more rounds here because there was one small thing I really wanted to do… but I didn’t think about it until after I had cleared round 43 last time, and at that point, I was pretty tired of the Pyramid so I did not feel like playing through a few more rounds just for the sake of doing this thing. Instead, I decided to do it now.
Format: Level 50, retail cart
I cleared 7 more rounds now, putting me at 50 rounds cleared, 350 floors in total, still ongoing.
Picture proof:
I went over all the details for the teams and my strategies last time, won’t do it again. Like I did for the last rounds in my previous post, I will only do a short summary of how it went for each round and talk about the notable things that happened, if there were any. Here we go!
Round 44:
PP stalling. I just played through it as round 4 in Open Level, now it is time again! But with a way better team, more items in the bag, and best of all, Blissey! Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey worked last time, so I’m going with them again. Unlike on Open Level, this is serious business. I have no intention to lose here!
On floor 1, I had to explore the entire floor before finding the exit. It was in one of the corners, the very last area I explored. I also had to fight all trainers on the floor, though there were only 3 in total.
On floor 7, I had a semi-scary battle against a DD Latios. Blissey missed with Toxic twice (the Latios had a Brightpowder) but the Latios used unboosted EQs at first, it didn’t start dancing until it was too late, so it became an easy victory in the end.
Otherwise nothing special. It felt like I had to use many Lum Berries here though, Houndoom got hit by status a lot. But there’s nothing to worry about since I still have way over 50 left. I also had to use some Ethers and Leppa Berries (the theme was PP stalling after all), including one I accidentally used on the wrong move, but it doesn’t matter much.
Round 45:
Levitate. And Brandon. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey worked last time, going with them again.
On floor 3, I got into a Multi battle against a Wailord and Granbull. I defeated the Wailord first since it had Fissure, allowing the Granbull to OHKO Starmie with Shadow Ball. But it was a CB set so I auto-won against it afterwards.
Otherwise no problems. I beat all the wild Pokémon, trainers and Brandon with ease. That said, I had to use a lot of Lum Berries here, just like during the last round. And some Hyper Potions too. I met a lot of wild Weezing, several of them decided to use Protect followed by Selfdestruct or Sludge Bomb, the latter poisoned Slaking on two occasions. But I still have over 60 Hyper Potions and over 50 Lum Berries left, so no worries. I also found some more items during this round.
Round 46:
Trapping Abilities. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey.
Compared to the two previous rounds, this was an easy round on the whole. I found the exits very quickly on the first three floors. I also had a trainer battle against an Arcanine, I switched in Salamence and it got a Crit with Body Slam which caused paralysis. But I beat it with Blissey afterwards. Otherwise nothing worth talking about.
Round 47:
Ice-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey. Sorry Jojo!
This round went very well on the whole. Nothing notable happened. I beat all trainers and wild Pokémon with ease, I also found many great items without having to use any. In addition, I found the exit quickly on most floors, making it a rather fast round.
Round 48:
Self-destructing moves. Slaking/Gengar/Blissey.
During this round, Gengar once fainted against a trainer’s Armaldo. I used EQ with Slaking, the Armaldo used Swords Dance. I switched to Gengar, it tanked a Brick Break like a champ. The Armaldo then gets a QC activation, it uses Rock Slide and Gengar faints. Out with Slaking again, another EQ for the KO.
Other than that, it was easy. It felt like I found a lot of useful items here, especially Hyper Potions (I had a total of 73 in my bag after completing this round) but also several Lum Berries and Revives. And the only item I had to use was one Revive to bring Gengar back to life after it had fainted.
Round 49:
Psychic-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.
On floor 6, I was surrounded by trainers upon entering. I had to fight two of them in a Multi battle, they had Dusclops and Vileplume. The Dusclops was no problem, but the Vileplume was a Double Team set which could have been annoying. It set up several Double Teams, but Blissey still managed to hit it with SToss four times in a row, which was enough for a KO! That was really cool.
Otherwise a very easy round. I found a lot of Lum Berries here, but I didn’t have to use any items. All wild Pokémon were easily disposed of.
Round 50:
Rock-types feat. honorary Rock-type Steelix. And Brandon at the end, maybe he is a honorary Rock-type too? Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.
Easy round on the whole. No problems against the wild Pokémon or trainers.
As for Brandon… I mentioned that there was one thing I really wanted to do. You can’t save battle videos here, but I really wanted to include a video from the Pyramid somewhere. So I decided to do a live recording of my battle against Brandon at the end of this round! It also showcases my team and the items in my bag. Watch it below:
This is my standard way of beating Brandon. It is a bit slow, there are probably better ways if you just want to beat him quickly. But this is the safest way to beat him with this team. I didn’t use Toxic since Zapdos has a Lum Berry and Moltres knows Safeguard.
And that’s the end of Round 50! As well as my adventures in the Pyramid… for now. Maybe I’ll go back to this streak yet once more in the future. If I can win 11 more rounds, I will have the overall highest streak for the Pyramid in this thread, which would be cool. When/if that happens will depend on how it goes with my next project.
Format: Level 50, retail cart
I cleared 7 more rounds now, putting me at 50 rounds cleared, 350 floors in total, still ongoing.
Picture proof:
I went over all the details for the teams and my strategies last time, won’t do it again. Like I did for the last rounds in my previous post, I will only do a short summary of how it went for each round and talk about the notable things that happened, if there were any. Here we go!
Round 44:
PP stalling. I just played through it as round 4 in Open Level, now it is time again! But with a way better team, more items in the bag, and best of all, Blissey! Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey worked last time, so I’m going with them again. Unlike on Open Level, this is serious business. I have no intention to lose here!
On floor 1, I had to explore the entire floor before finding the exit. It was in one of the corners, the very last area I explored. I also had to fight all trainers on the floor, though there were only 3 in total.
On floor 7, I had a semi-scary battle against a DD Latios. Blissey missed with Toxic twice (the Latios had a Brightpowder) but the Latios used unboosted EQs at first, it didn’t start dancing until it was too late, so it became an easy victory in the end.
Otherwise nothing special. It felt like I had to use many Lum Berries here though, Houndoom got hit by status a lot. But there’s nothing to worry about since I still have way over 50 left. I also had to use some Ethers and Leppa Berries (the theme was PP stalling after all), including one I accidentally used on the wrong move, but it doesn’t matter much.
Round 45:
Levitate. And Brandon. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey worked last time, going with them again.
On floor 3, I got into a Multi battle against a Wailord and Granbull. I defeated the Wailord first since it had Fissure, allowing the Granbull to OHKO Starmie with Shadow Ball. But it was a CB set so I auto-won against it afterwards.
Otherwise no problems. I beat all the wild Pokémon, trainers and Brandon with ease. That said, I had to use a lot of Lum Berries here, just like during the last round. And some Hyper Potions too. I met a lot of wild Weezing, several of them decided to use Protect followed by Selfdestruct or Sludge Bomb, the latter poisoned Slaking on two occasions. But I still have over 60 Hyper Potions and over 50 Lum Berries left, so no worries. I also found some more items during this round.
Round 46:
Trapping Abilities. Houndoom/Salamence/Blissey.
Compared to the two previous rounds, this was an easy round on the whole. I found the exits very quickly on the first three floors. I also had a trainer battle against an Arcanine, I switched in Salamence and it got a Crit with Body Slam which caused paralysis. But I beat it with Blissey afterwards. Otherwise nothing worth talking about.
Round 47:
Ice-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey. Sorry Jojo!
This round went very well on the whole. Nothing notable happened. I beat all trainers and wild Pokémon with ease, I also found many great items without having to use any. In addition, I found the exit quickly on most floors, making it a rather fast round.
Round 48:
Self-destructing moves. Slaking/Gengar/Blissey.
During this round, Gengar once fainted against a trainer’s Armaldo. I used EQ with Slaking, the Armaldo used Swords Dance. I switched to Gengar, it tanked a Brick Break like a champ. The Armaldo then gets a QC activation, it uses Rock Slide and Gengar faints. Out with Slaking again, another EQ for the KO.
Other than that, it was easy. It felt like I found a lot of useful items here, especially Hyper Potions (I had a total of 73 in my bag after completing this round) but also several Lum Berries and Revives. And the only item I had to use was one Revive to bring Gengar back to life after it had fainted.
Round 49:
Psychic-types. Slaking/Starmie/Blissey.
On floor 6, I was surrounded by trainers upon entering. I had to fight two of them in a Multi battle, they had Dusclops and Vileplume. The Dusclops was no problem, but the Vileplume was a Double Team set which could have been annoying. It set up several Double Teams, but Blissey still managed to hit it with SToss four times in a row, which was enough for a KO! That was really cool.
Otherwise a very easy round. I found a lot of Lum Berries here, but I didn’t have to use any items. All wild Pokémon were easily disposed of.
Round 50:
Rock-types feat. honorary Rock-type Steelix. And Brandon at the end, maybe he is a honorary Rock-type too? Starmie/Slaking/Blissey.
Easy round on the whole. No problems against the wild Pokémon or trainers.
As for Brandon… I mentioned that there was one thing I really wanted to do. You can’t save battle videos here, but I really wanted to include a video from the Pyramid somewhere. So I decided to do a live recording of my battle against Brandon at the end of this round! It also showcases my team and the items in my bag. Watch it below:
This is my standard way of beating Brandon. It is a bit slow, there are probably better ways if you just want to beat him quickly. But this is the safest way to beat him with this team. I didn’t use Toxic since Zapdos has a Lum Berry and Moltres knows Safeguard.
And that’s the end of Round 50! As well as my adventures in the Pyramid… for now. Maybe I’ll go back to this streak yet once more in the future. If I can win 11 more rounds, I will have the overall highest streak for the Pyramid in this thread, which would be cool. When/if that happens will depend on how it goes with my next project.
After playing Emerald quite a lot for the past few months, I have (for better or worse) finally maxed out my playtime on the game!
I have had Emerald for almost 17 years now (got it in October 2005, which is when it was released in Europe). While it isn’t my favorite Pokémon game anymore, it is without the one I have played the most. The playtimes for my other games aren’t anywhere close to being maxed out. I know I have over 500 hours clocked on Black, and I have over 400 hours on several other games, though I don’t know the exact playtime for all of my games (and I’m too lazy to check them now). All I know is that none of them are close to being maxed out. I have spent a lot of time on Emerald, yet it feels like I haven’t really done anything serious on it. I didn’t battle that much at the Frontier in the past, sadly. But now I’m making up for that.
One more thing. After all my recent battles, I now have a total of over 2000 BP on Emerald.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever use them on anything though. Maybe I should buy a Snorlax Doll and put in my Secret Base, that would be cozy.
I have also won a total of over 3000 BP according to my Trainer Card.
I have had Emerald for almost 17 years now (got it in October 2005, which is when it was released in Europe). While it isn’t my favorite Pokémon game anymore, it is without the one I have played the most. The playtimes for my other games aren’t anywhere close to being maxed out. I know I have over 500 hours clocked on Black, and I have over 400 hours on several other games, though I don’t know the exact playtime for all of my games (and I’m too lazy to check them now). All I know is that none of them are close to being maxed out. I have spent a lot of time on Emerald, yet it feels like I haven’t really done anything serious on it. I didn’t battle that much at the Frontier in the past, sadly. But now I’m making up for that.
One more thing. After all my recent battles, I now have a total of over 2000 BP on Emerald.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever use them on anything though. Maybe I should buy a Snorlax Doll and put in my Secret Base, that would be cozy.
I have also won a total of over 3000 BP according to my Trainer Card.
The Battle Factory. I have yet to obtain the Gold Symbol from there. Though I never really tried it that much it in the past. But now, I have decided to try again. There is a lot more knowledge and resources about how the Factory works nowadays compared to in the past, I have a feeling that my odds of beating it are better now compared to in the past. Since the IVs of opposing Pokémon in the Factory are tied to your streak at the Tower, I have prepared a little by resetting my streaks at the Tower (Single and Double) back to 0.
It has always been my dream to get all 7 Gold Symbols in Emerald, maybe I’ll finally be able to get the last one this time. If I should make it all the way, I will report back about it here.
Apart from that, I have done everything I had planned on Emerald regarding this project. Alongside battling in the Battle Factory, I’m going to move on to Gen 4. I have several ongoing streaks in the battle facilities in the Sinnoh games. Once I have completed the first of them, I’ll post about it in the Gen 4 facilities thread. See you there!
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