Pokemon Brilliant Diamond - 0 Exp Part 3: Commander Mars

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MoogleBoss

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Published on March 18, 2022 6:29:49 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P71_LbsbBz4

Game:

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (2021)

Duration: 2:00

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Much like it was in Platinum, this is yet again the shortest battle in the challenge. Mars uses two Pokemon - a Zubat that's always been an evil team staple as well as a Purugly that's fully evolved at the low level of 16. Considering that wild Pokemon are available at much lower levels and its combination of high level and evolved stats, it's supposed to be hard to face (think Starmie-strong, if you want a comparison with RBY).

Zubat runs Absorb to potentially nail those Onixes and Geodudes you may be packing to counter it (I'm not), but its strongest move has to be its U-Turn. If you use a slower mon that's outsped by Zubat, it's not a surprise if it doesn't stick around for very long.

Then you have Purugly, who has phat stats but no stronger attacking moves than Scratch. It had Faint Attack in OG DPPt, which has been replaced with the tamer Thief (but be careful not to run any restorative berries like Oran this time).

I'm sure it would take me a very long time to deal with both of Mars' Pokemon (her Zubat has Supersonic in addition to being reluctant to stay in) if it weren't for the Heracross I was lucky enough to trigger to appear off one of the two honey trees available at this stage of the game. In the original games, manipulating time was enough easy to reset the encounter (I would abuse my PC's clock playing on the emulator), but this wasn't the case on the Switch. Still, a couple attempts later, one of the two trees yielded a (low level) Heracross, and I had indeed saved prior to this to exploit that.

A few minutes resetting with an Adamant Synchronizer in the lead got me a lv. 15 Heracross with Guts. It had 48 base attack, for a total of 72 attack when poisoned or suffering from another affliction. Compare this to Onix's attack of 12. Heracross deals 12x damage with Rock Smash compared to the ol' rock snake.

Still funnily enough, Heracross doesn't OHKO Purugly with SE Rock Smash. It also loses a lot of its HP despite laughing at Scratch damage, probably because of the residue poison damage taken each turn. Nevertheless, outspeeding Zubat and OHKOing with Aerial Ace and getting an easy 2HKO on Purugly makes it invaluable in this matchup.

I'd been using Heracross so much around this point in the game that it eventually grew in affection. It never got important enough to matter, as all it did was allow it to avoid KO (which shouldn't happen anyway), but it did make me question whether I should do something about preventing affection from having a say in the future. Lacking good STAB moves and eventually losing to higher-levelled, this Heracross doesn't last quite as long as you'd think, but it is far and away the most potent mon at this point. It will have another moment of greatness quite soon.

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