Pokemon Omega Ruby - 0 Exp Finale / Part 16: Steven Stone
59It's time to fight the ultimate battle!
Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1PNYH-llf1dNbuoB3ONrsG
Steven must be the sole person to cause any significant trouble on this run (which was objectively harder than the XY one, what with lower levels of wild Pokemon to reflect the design of the original games). I was actually forced to restart the Elite Four with a new team due to the spanking I'd received here. Firstly, Skarm turned out to wall everything on my team back then, including the lv. 50 Corsola and T-bolt Starmie - tanking their hits while setting up three layers of Spikes. By the time Skarm fell down, I barely had a half of my team still alive, and they all switched into big HP penalties from Spikes and couldn't deal with threats like Aggron and Armaldo effectively. Don't think I even got to see Metagross.
Now time's come to exact vengeance. I wasn't sure if I could beat Steven with as few casualties as in most other battles in this run, but it turned out I could do exactly that with some good old optimisation of the resources available to me.
Skarm's new counter was Electrode, a Pokemon I'd neglected previously. With limited contributions so far in the E4 (T-waving Salamence was something at least, to compensate for the lack of Corsola who could survive Dragon Rush and OHKO with Life Orb Ice Beam), the ball of thunder shines here. It can 2HKO with STAB Thunderbolt without any held items, but before it starts attacking it has to Taunt Skarm so that it doesn't try to put up any Spikes. Both of its STABs are resisted, which is important to remember as we want Electrode switching out in healthy shape - i.e. healthy enough not to be OHKO'd by Mega Metagross's Bullet Punch.
Aggron will enter the field next, and boy did I find him tough on my 1st run. The level advantage means he's outspeeding Medicham, easily taking on both Gyarados and Mawile in either normal or mega evolved form. I actually brought Golem with me back then to get around Sturdy, but was the Pokemon slot worth it? The answer is no.
What turned out is that Starmie can solo Aggron without any outside support. Setting up Reflect causes Stone Edge to barely 2HKO, and Sitrus Berry should help me in the event the first SE does too much damage. Crits still screw Starmie, but SE is more likely to miss than it is to crit anyway. Surf 2HKOs w/o boosts, and the Reflect set up here will help out in our next matchup.
Gyarados is sent to deal with Armaldo and while the matchup is in Gyarados's favour it isn't a perfect one. With Reflect up + Intimidate, Rock Blast can still destroy us if it procs all 5 hits (12,5% chance) and critting with just one of the hits tears off a huge amount of Gyarados's health. It's good to remind ourselves that Rock Blast too is inaccurate, but on all of my attempts I have never seen it whiff... or Gyarados to flinch with Waterfall for that matter. Should Gyarados fall to bad luck here, Life Orb Mawile could try to outstall Armaldo whose best move for him would be Metal Claw. Mawile isn't needed anywhere else in this battle, in spite of being likely the most useful member of this E4 line-up (Starmie and Medicham were about as prominent in the roles they played).
Cradily is coming next, and Medicham can OHKO with HJK whether it has Life Orb or uses the mega stone. I opt for the latter, as mega evolving makes Medicham fast enough to outspeed Claydol in what is the 2nd most difficult challenge in this battle (after Mega-Metagross). Claydol tanks hits with incredible ease, setting up dual screens and hurting everything quite hard (if I'd brought Honchkrow, it would've been immune to both of Claydol's moves). Mega Medicham with Ice Punch/Brick Break is guaranteed to emerge victorious in this matchup however, and leave no Reflect up on the foe's side when Mega-Metagross switches in.
Metagross is the last enemy to face. Hurting him is hard, taking hits from it is harder due to Tough Claws (Tough Claws must be an uber-tier ability because it's limited to Mega Metagross, Aerodactyl and Charizard, as well as Barbaracle Bill the Sailor for whatever reason), hell, it's even really fast when it goes mega. No landing Intimidates on it prior to it mega evolving either.
The plan is to cripple Metagross with Electrode - firstly, outspeeding and paralysing it; secondly, forcing it to use Giga Impact (it seems to have forgotten it has Zen Headbutt and I'm pretty sure Electrode would die to Meteor Mash easily as well). Now we can get TWO attacks on Mega Metagross before it can start attacking again, possibly getting restored and getting its good status back if it's low on HP and Full Restore is used. I gave Electrode a Rocky Helmet so that it'd hurt Metagross for 1/8th of its HP just before going down.
(continued in the comments section)
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