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Gen III Battle Frontier Discussion and Records
- Thread starter Valentino23
- Start date
Can this gengar set work with explosion instead of substitute?
Hey! Been playing the Emerald battle frontier for decades now but just came across this thread. Been playing Emerald on an emulator recently and am currently on a streak in the Dome. First time doing the Dome in years. All Pokemon used are legal but have invalid PIDs. Below is my team at Lvl 100:
Zapdos Lum Berry, Modest
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 30 Atk, 30 SpAtk
Thunderbolt
HP Grass
Drill Peck
Toxic
Swampert Leftovers, Relaxed
EVs: 100 HP, 100 Atk, 100 Def, 100 SpAtk, 100 SpDef, 10 Speed
Earthquake
Surf
Ice Beam
Counter
Slaking Choice Band, Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk, 6 Def, 252 Speed
Hyper Beam
Earthquake
Shadow Ball
Aerial Ace
I grew up playing with Zapdos with Extrasensory traded from XD to my cartridge but I've found Toxic works better. Drill Peck for any Hera or Breloom that starts getting out of control. Toxic mostly for Cradily and any other Double Team/Curse/Calm Mind mons I run into. T bolt kills the plethora of water types strewn about the facility. (I ALWAYS fall for the T bolt into Milotic mirror coat smh). It usually survives one Ice Beam even from STAB users. Can 1v1 most water/ice types. HP Grass kills anything quad weak to Ground (namely Tucker's Swampert). Fun fact: Mirror Coat doesn't work on HP Grass. Great synergy with Swampert, can also switch into Earthquakes. I used BrightPowder for the first 20 rounds or so but switched to Lum since I kept almost losing to Ice Beam freezes.
Swampert is a monster but I've found falls off when his EVs are spread too thin (grew up playing with my starter in the BF before I knew about EVs). This spread gives him the perfect balance of bulk and offense. The speed investment lets him outspeed other Swamperts. Ice beam kills every Dragonite set and almost every Salamence set. EQ kills most T-tar sets. Only weakness is grass types and anything with Giga Drain which Zapdos switches into nicely. Decades ago I used Counter for the Swampert mirror match but found it works best on Machamps. Not familiar enough with scouting to use it to its full potential, thinking of switching it out for Rock Slide. 1v1s anything that's not Grass/has Giga Drain.
Slaking is also a monster. CB Hyper Beam obliterates anything. Shadow Ball and EQ for coverage. Aerial Ace for Double Team mons that get out of control.
Usually I'll lead Zapdos/Swampert, whatever has more favorable matchups, and Slaking in the back to clean up. The Latis can only be dealt with by Slaking Shadow Ball. T Tar and D nite are scary but Swampert can 1v1 them. Again, this is my first attempt so far, just kinda vibing doing whatever. Lost once so far to Tucker 2 on Round 10 (my team was Swampert/Zapdos/Metagross), match ended in Swampert/Zapdos v. Latias and I lost because Calm Mind exists. For some reason Tucker ALWAYS uses Swampert Metagross against this team. Makes the final fight every 5 rounds really predictable.
My original team decades ago on my cartridge was my starter Swampert with randomly spread EVs, Zapdos traded from XD with Extrasensory, and Metagross with Quick Claw Explosion. Wayyyy back when all I had was my starter leveled to 70 something and somehow got Silver on the Pike with only Swampert lol. Suuuuuuper familiar with the Emerald Battle Frontier. Everything you guys are doing here is amazing! So happy to see there's such a community around this. If my cartridge still works I'll upload screenshots of my records but so far here's what I've got on Emulator (I've got the battery file but have no idea how to upload it):
Zapdos Lum Berry, Modest
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 30 Atk, 30 SpAtk
Thunderbolt
HP Grass
Drill Peck
Toxic
Swampert Leftovers, Relaxed
EVs: 100 HP, 100 Atk, 100 Def, 100 SpAtk, 100 SpDef, 10 Speed
Earthquake
Surf
Ice Beam
Counter
Slaking Choice Band, Adamant
EVs: 252 Atk, 6 Def, 252 Speed
Hyper Beam
Earthquake
Shadow Ball
Aerial Ace
I grew up playing with Zapdos with Extrasensory traded from XD to my cartridge but I've found Toxic works better. Drill Peck for any Hera or Breloom that starts getting out of control. Toxic mostly for Cradily and any other Double Team/Curse/Calm Mind mons I run into. T bolt kills the plethora of water types strewn about the facility. (I ALWAYS fall for the T bolt into Milotic mirror coat smh). It usually survives one Ice Beam even from STAB users. Can 1v1 most water/ice types. HP Grass kills anything quad weak to Ground (namely Tucker's Swampert). Fun fact: Mirror Coat doesn't work on HP Grass. Great synergy with Swampert, can also switch into Earthquakes. I used BrightPowder for the first 20 rounds or so but switched to Lum since I kept almost losing to Ice Beam freezes.
Swampert is a monster but I've found falls off when his EVs are spread too thin (grew up playing with my starter in the BF before I knew about EVs). This spread gives him the perfect balance of bulk and offense. The speed investment lets him outspeed other Swamperts. Ice beam kills every Dragonite set and almost every Salamence set. EQ kills most T-tar sets. Only weakness is grass types and anything with Giga Drain which Zapdos switches into nicely. Decades ago I used Counter for the Swampert mirror match but found it works best on Machamps. Not familiar enough with scouting to use it to its full potential, thinking of switching it out for Rock Slide. 1v1s anything that's not Grass/has Giga Drain.
Slaking is also a monster. CB Hyper Beam obliterates anything. Shadow Ball and EQ for coverage. Aerial Ace for Double Team mons that get out of control.
Usually I'll lead Zapdos/Swampert, whatever has more favorable matchups, and Slaking in the back to clean up. The Latis can only be dealt with by Slaking Shadow Ball. T Tar and D nite are scary but Swampert can 1v1 them. Again, this is my first attempt so far, just kinda vibing doing whatever. Lost once so far to Tucker 2 on Round 10 (my team was Swampert/Zapdos/Metagross), match ended in Swampert/Zapdos v. Latias and I lost because Calm Mind exists. For some reason Tucker ALWAYS uses Swampert Metagross against this team. Makes the final fight every 5 rounds really predictable.
My original team decades ago on my cartridge was my starter Swampert with randomly spread EVs, Zapdos traded from XD with Extrasensory, and Metagross with Quick Claw Explosion. Wayyyy back when all I had was my starter leveled to 70 something and somehow got Silver on the Pike with only Swampert lol. Suuuuuuper familiar with the Emerald Battle Frontier. Everything you guys are doing here is amazing! So happy to see there's such a community around this. If my cartridge still works I'll upload screenshots of my records but so far here's what I've got on Emulator (I've got the battery file but have no idea how to upload it):
Submitting records for 6 facilities. All done on level 50. This playthrough was done on both retail and emulator. (I have the hardware required to transfer save files between formats and have occasionally moved a save from cartridge to PC to take advantage of fast-forward options and to make RNG manipulation easier during team creation, then move the save back to cartridge to play out the run. Categorize that how you want.)
This is a decently common combo for the Gen 3 Frontier, and my iteration of it is most closely modeled after Mucks's post here.
Wasn't out to shatter any records with this run, just getting the gold medals and then riding the streaks as long as the team would take me from there. I started most of these streaks last summer, then took a break from Pokemon for over half a year, then randomly decided to pick it back up a couple weeks ago and just finish playing out whatever streaks were still active. Some of them ended abruptly due to rust.
Crobat4 ended my longest streak. Didn't write down more details on this specific loss. Other scattered notes from prior runs remark that I've also been done in by Ruin Maniac Xavier (Swampert3/Forretress3/Metagross3), an Espeon2 that I swapped Heracross away from only to let it get 3 Calm Minds in and sweep my team when I probably should have just rolled the dice with Megahorn from the start, and a Medicham2 that successfully used a combination of Salac/Endure/Reversal to tear through whatever I had left at the time.
Starmie took out the opponent's first Pokemon, then was confused by his Crobat. Swapped to Heracross and sacrificed him to get another shot, got confused again and hit myself to death. I went with Mystic Water as the hold item because I figured Natural Cure would solve most of my status-related woes, but perhaps that's not optimal in a format where you're only using 2 members of your party at any given time.
Led with Starmie so that Natural Cure can be used if statused from an event. Often went for any path that had a possibility of no event, regardless of consequence. Run ended due to a double battle (Manectric + Ninetales) that knocked out Starmie and Heracross early in the sequence, and Blissey had to try (and fail) to solo a subsequent battle before healing could be found. The most likely misplay was choosing not to have Starmie and Heracross double-up on a target; one of them probably could have survived had they taken out a single target quickly and lessened the damage taken in return. My gut instinct in general is to not double-up on opponents due to fear of Protect, but I never even bothered looking up movesets to verify whether that was a valid concern in the first place.
It's known that Blissey works very well as a cleric in this facility. My basic operation is to lead with either Heracross or Starmie throughout the dungeon (whichever tends to have the most advantageous match-ups against the current round's wild Pokemon) and lead with the opposite one against trainers (in order to conserve PP and HP for the team). When either Heracross or Starmie drop below ~60% HP, use Softboiled as a field move to recover between battles, then abuse advantageous wild match-ups to switch in Blissey so that she can heal herself with Softboiled in battle. Between Softboiled, Aromatherapy, and Natural Cure, this team can do a lot to conserve Hyper Potions and Lum Berries. I tried not to use Revives in the upper floors of each round, hoping to get to the remaining exits with only 2 party members in tow if I could. Fluffy Tails were mostly used against Explosion users in the later rounds. I used a pair of Scope Lenses as hold items for the majority of the streak, switching one out for a Choice Band on Heracross when I finally got one, then a Shell Bell for Starmie that was eventually replaced by a second Leftovers. Shell Bell might actually be more effective for recovery on Starmie across multiple encounters than Leftovers is, but by doubling up on Leftovers it frees up another spot in the Bag for another type of unique item.
A trainer's Crobat took me out. Outsped and OHKO'd Heracross and Starmie, then got a crit Sludge Bomb on Blissey. Beginning to think I have a really bad blind spot for this specific Pokemon. :V
Metagross @
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 6 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Speed
IVs: 21 SpAtk
Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Sludge Bomb
- Shadow Ball
Replaced Blissey with a Metagross specifically for this facility, as I figured that Blissey would be dead weight here. Also swapped out Heracross's Choice Band for a Black Belt since switching is prohibited. The team worked well enough. Things eventually came crashing down to (IIRC) a Quick Claw Sheer Cold Lapras.
Jolteon @ Magnet
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 0 Atk
Hasty
- Substitute
- Wish
- Thunderbolt
- Bite
Salamence @ Lum Berry
Ability: Indimidate
EVs: 6 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Speed
Hasty
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace
- Rock Slide
Kingdra @ Mystic Water
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 0 Atk
Hasty
- Rain Dance
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Dragonbreath
Do not use this team. It was a first attempt that I decided to be stubborn with instead of adjusting as I went because I didn't want to make another team just for this facility. Go read somebody else's breakdown from somebody who actually knows how to optimize for this facility.
After looking over the Nature behavior chart on Bulbapedia, I decided to go for Hasty for my whole team, with the idea being that they would be roughly equally biased toward attacking and boosting at high HP, then biased toward attacking at low HP. This worked for Salamence, who carried my team. It had mixed results for Jolteon, who used Substitute intelligently but who frequently attempted to Wish for multiple turns in a row when at high HP. Kingdra was *awful* and would constantly choose Rain Dance for multiple turns in a row, regardless of how much HP it had remaining, and regardless of whether it had a supereffective attack against the current opponent. Fortunately, the opponent AI was often every bit as crippled as I was, and after getting over the Silver battle hump (which took 3 attempts), it was relatively smooth sailing to Gold. Mostly.
I also scored a 59-win streak for the Factory, but I manipulated the RNG in most rounds to get optimal drafts, which I think is against the spirit of this thread and thus am not submitting it for the list. FWIW, it's pretty funny when you mistime the draft manipulation in such a way that you end up giving your first opponent an extremely overpowered team, which did happen at least a couple of times.
Heracross @ Choice Band / Lum Berry
Ability: Guts
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 21 SpAtk
Jolly
- Brick Break
- Megahorn
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
Starmie @ Mystic Water / Shell Bell
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 4 Atk
Modest
- Surf
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Def / 86 Speed
IVs: 4 Atk
Bold
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Soft-Boiled
- Aromatherapy
Ability: Guts
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
IVs: 21 SpAtk
Jolly
- Brick Break
- Megahorn
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
Starmie @ Mystic Water / Shell Bell
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 4 Atk
Modest
- Surf
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 172 HP / 252 Def / 86 Speed
IVs: 4 Atk
Bold
- Seismic Toss
- Toxic
- Soft-Boiled
- Aromatherapy
This is a decently common combo for the Gen 3 Frontier, and my iteration of it is most closely modeled after Mucks's post here.
Wasn't out to shatter any records with this run, just getting the gold medals and then riding the streaks as long as the team would take me from there. I started most of these streaks last summer, then took a break from Pokemon for over half a year, then randomly decided to pick it back up a couple weeks ago and just finish playing out whatever streaks were still active. Some of them ended abruptly due to rust.
Crobat4 ended my longest streak. Didn't write down more details on this specific loss. Other scattered notes from prior runs remark that I've also been done in by Ruin Maniac Xavier (Swampert3/Forretress3/Metagross3), an Espeon2 that I swapped Heracross away from only to let it get 3 Calm Minds in and sweep my team when I probably should have just rolled the dice with Megahorn from the start, and a Medicham2 that successfully used a combination of Salac/Endure/Reversal to tear through whatever I had left at the time.
Starmie took out the opponent's first Pokemon, then was confused by his Crobat. Swapped to Heracross and sacrificed him to get another shot, got confused again and hit myself to death. I went with Mystic Water as the hold item because I figured Natural Cure would solve most of my status-related woes, but perhaps that's not optimal in a format where you're only using 2 members of your party at any given time.
Led with Starmie so that Natural Cure can be used if statused from an event. Often went for any path that had a possibility of no event, regardless of consequence. Run ended due to a double battle (Manectric + Ninetales) that knocked out Starmie and Heracross early in the sequence, and Blissey had to try (and fail) to solo a subsequent battle before healing could be found. The most likely misplay was choosing not to have Starmie and Heracross double-up on a target; one of them probably could have survived had they taken out a single target quickly and lessened the damage taken in return. My gut instinct in general is to not double-up on opponents due to fear of Protect, but I never even bothered looking up movesets to verify whether that was a valid concern in the first place.
It's known that Blissey works very well as a cleric in this facility. My basic operation is to lead with either Heracross or Starmie throughout the dungeon (whichever tends to have the most advantageous match-ups against the current round's wild Pokemon) and lead with the opposite one against trainers (in order to conserve PP and HP for the team). When either Heracross or Starmie drop below ~60% HP, use Softboiled as a field move to recover between battles, then abuse advantageous wild match-ups to switch in Blissey so that she can heal herself with Softboiled in battle. Between Softboiled, Aromatherapy, and Natural Cure, this team can do a lot to conserve Hyper Potions and Lum Berries. I tried not to use Revives in the upper floors of each round, hoping to get to the remaining exits with only 2 party members in tow if I could. Fluffy Tails were mostly used against Explosion users in the later rounds. I used a pair of Scope Lenses as hold items for the majority of the streak, switching one out for a Choice Band on Heracross when I finally got one, then a Shell Bell for Starmie that was eventually replaced by a second Leftovers. Shell Bell might actually be more effective for recovery on Starmie across multiple encounters than Leftovers is, but by doubling up on Leftovers it frees up another spot in the Bag for another type of unique item.
A trainer's Crobat took me out. Outsped and OHKO'd Heracross and Starmie, then got a crit Sludge Bomb on Blissey. Beginning to think I have a really bad blind spot for this specific Pokemon. :V
Metagross @
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 6 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Speed
IVs: 21 SpAtk
Adamant
- Meteor Mash
- Earthquake
- Sludge Bomb
- Shadow Ball
Replaced Blissey with a Metagross specifically for this facility, as I figured that Blissey would be dead weight here. Also swapped out Heracross's Choice Band for a Black Belt since switching is prohibited. The team worked well enough. Things eventually came crashing down to (IIRC) a Quick Claw Sheer Cold Lapras.
Jolteon @ Magnet
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 0 Atk
Hasty
- Substitute
- Wish
- Thunderbolt
- Bite
Salamence @ Lum Berry
Ability: Indimidate
EVs: 6 HP, 252 Atk, 252 Speed
Hasty
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Aerial Ace
- Rock Slide
Kingdra @ Mystic Water
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 6 HP, 252 SpAtk, 252 Speed
IVs: 0 Atk
Hasty
- Rain Dance
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Dragonbreath
Do not use this team. It was a first attempt that I decided to be stubborn with instead of adjusting as I went because I didn't want to make another team just for this facility. Go read somebody else's breakdown from somebody who actually knows how to optimize for this facility.
After looking over the Nature behavior chart on Bulbapedia, I decided to go for Hasty for my whole team, with the idea being that they would be roughly equally biased toward attacking and boosting at high HP, then biased toward attacking at low HP. This worked for Salamence, who carried my team. It had mixed results for Jolteon, who used Substitute intelligently but who frequently attempted to Wish for multiple turns in a row when at high HP. Kingdra was *awful* and would constantly choose Rain Dance for multiple turns in a row, regardless of how much HP it had remaining, and regardless of whether it had a supereffective attack against the current opponent. Fortunately, the opponent AI was often every bit as crippled as I was, and after getting over the Silver battle hump (which took 3 attempts), it was relatively smooth sailing to Gold. Mostly.
I also scored a 59-win streak for the Factory, but I manipulated the RNG in most rounds to get optimal drafts, which I think is against the spirit of this thread and thus am not submitting it for the list. FWIW, it's pretty funny when you mistime the draft manipulation in such a way that you end up giving your first opponent an extremely overpowered team, which did happen at least a couple of times.
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