Pokemon Emerald - Monotype Bug Part 2: Rival, Gym Leader Brawly, Rival again
29Three more recordings in the second video of this challenge, two battles against your rival (who doesn't last for long in this generation) with the second gym battle against the fighting master Brawly in between. I might not record the later battles against the rival if they turn out to be simplistic, but these two were really easy to fail since we don't cover our weaknesses yet and the rival always has something that's threatening... especially when your two Pokemon's types are bug/flying and bug/ground, making you weak to a lot of things.
In the first battle against the rival, Wingull is somewhat of a threat. Its Wing Attack hurts quite badly; however, the AI is so inconsistent it will neglect to use it sometimes (better not count on it and use Potions just in case then). There haven't been many efficient opportunities to level yet, so our levels here are pretty much the same we got out of Roxanne's gym.
The starter is a good opportunity to level up Nincada who really appreciates its split evolution at lv. 20, both of whom are really useful in just about any major battle. Treecko's Absorb seems to get about as much HP back as we take away from it with Leech Life, since Nincada's ground typing negates the bug type's resistance to grass-type moves. That's kinda bad but it also means it doesn't fear rock-type moves nearly as much as Beautifly, and it can fight electrics for hours without fearing of receiving significant damage or getting paralysed.
Brawly is a surprisingly easy gym leader to face, maybe because Beautifly (who's levelled a lot by just fighting everything in the gym) resists the fighting STABs seen here 4x thanks to its typing. It also learns Gust by this point, which gets the same type attack bonus and hurts everything super effectively in here. Bulk Up (and also Meditite's Reflect) reduce the damage they receive from Gust, but it's nothing but stupid sandbagging, and Beautifly is hardly threatened, especially seeing how much Focus Punch is spammed, failing each time.
Then we are forced to face the rival again before we get to Wattson's electric gym of doom. He's been raising his Pokemon just as we have, and his team now features Slugma. It's a fire-type Pokemon and dealing with those is still quite hard at this point. Beautifly is so overlevelled just by taking on all those trainers on the way together with Nincada that it 2HKOs with Gust while surviving an Ember with no trouble. Not sure if it would survive Slugma's Rock Throw though, but that wasn't used. Wingull is not such a problem anymore as we know Stun Spore to get a speed advantage + possible para hax against it, and Grovyle is more of a problem with higher base stats that make it potentially dangerous. I have Nincada take it on again since the experience it provides is rich and takes us a step closer to Ninjask/Shedinja, but of course Beautifly would do it better. Sand-Attack raises Nincada's chances of winning the duel, but basically what needs to happen is that Absorb should miss (or not be used at all).
It's a good thing I picked Mudkip as my starter because Torchic's forms might not have nearly as easy to deal with (compared to slow Slugma).
The area we reach after this provides us with an opportunity to catch Illumise and Volbeat. The latter is extremely rare but can function as a setup special attacker which is welcome. Illumise is okay for support purposes and I'm hesitant to train one at the moment, but it definitely has more usage than Dustox (or Masquerain who is pretty much absent in the Emerald version) potentially speaking.