Pokemon Emerald - Monotype Bug Part 5: Gym Leader Norman
38Norman, the fourth gym leader and our father, is mainly known for his SLAKING. This thing has raging high base stats and its Facade tears things to shreds even when it's not status'd, plus it has that Faint Attack for those who think they can get away with switching their Shedinja in... which is us actually, since we've been training a Shedinja in this challenge (and to be frank, I am beginning to regret it, as it is dubious if Shedinja needs the exp share investment after making Wattson's Magneton so much easier, because it stops being needed as Pokemon with superior coverage arrive and are able to sweep whole teams far easier than Shedinja with his non-existent defence does).
Norman does have three other Pokemon besides Slaking (he has two Slakings in Ruby/Sapphire, which further fortifies my opinion that Emerald is the easier of the three games), but really, it's all about determining how to counter this big boy.
An interesting observation is that Dustox learns Protect at lv. 17. It protects itself during one of Slaking's active turns and while he's passive does... something. Psybeam and Gust are horrible offensive options and its TM learnpool is about as bad, so the best thing Dustox would theoretically do is go for the poison with Poison Sting, as pitiful as that sounds, and then just stall with Protect until the enemy is slowly suffering poison damage.
I hope this description was enough to explain why I'm not training a Dustox. Instead, we set up on Spinda, somewhat of a joke Pokemon, especially considering it replaces another Slaking as a lead in the Emerald version. Paralysing it makes Facade twice as powerful, but the 25% of missing a turn is worth it and it won't be OHKOing Ninjask anyway. Sand-Attack/Flash also helps securing Ninjask's survival while it's setting up.
We need to use Swords Dance all three times if we want to sweep, otherwise we won't have enough attack to OHKO besides Slaking.
As for Slaking... Dig makes it surprisingly easy. Ninjask outspeeds it even without that auto Speed Boost buff each turn, so it digs into the ground on the active turn and hurts it on the passive one. 3HKO, so that should tell you just how bulky Slaking is.