Pokemon Platinum - Masochist Run Part 12: Elite Four (Aaron, Bertha, Flint, Lucian)

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,670

Published on March 28, 2014 7:52:07 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mjXYgF18MA

Game:

Pokémon Platinum (2008)

Duration: 24:12

2,567 views

32

We round up with this challenge run. This video shows the E4 battles that our masochist team faced, excluding Cynthia.

To make strategising more interesting for these battles, I decided to try beating the E4 trainers without resorting to using items. This worked out pretty well, though I couldn't keep up the tradition against Cynthia (next video) - her Pokemon were too tough for such a task (I doubt that even a setup/sweep strat with Dragon Dance Altaria would've worked out there).

Aaron

You'd think he sucks, what with being a bug-type specialist, but the bug-types greatly improved between generations 3 and 4 it seems, with better movepools and some new evolutions introduced (Yanmega). The new bug-types were mostly pretty lousy though. Aaron also uses Drapion, who's a... bug in appearance but not in typing? His typing makes him pretty tough here.

Yanmega is the lead and its special STABs can strike pretty hard, and there's Double Team for evasion hax. Sudowoodo can handle this one and still come in later with enough HP take down the weak Vespiquen.

Scizor is the reason why I have the Specs on Altaria - just enough to secure a OHKO with Flamethrower.

Heracross is probably the biggest threat in Aaron's team, but is neutralised effectively with Pachirisu's Charm, after which Altaria can safely switch in and OHKO with Fly without fearing a Stone Edge OHKO (the crit still kills obviously).

Bertha

All of her ground-types besides Hippowdon have 4x weaknesses, but this still is quite a bit harder than it should be even taking that into account.

The only weakness of the lead Whiscash can be penetrated by Pachirisu's Grass Knot, or Sudowoodo's Wood Hammer (from which he doesn't receive any recoil damage), but these two are likely KO'd before they can achieve anything. I use Kricketune here, and he kinda depends on a turn being wasted using Sandstorm to be successful here.

The rest are more or less handled by Lumineon, though it needs the Specs to OHKO Gliscor, and needs to be switched out to be locked into Surf for Rhyperior. The permanent sand that Hippowdon sets raises the special defence of the rock-types here, so some of the attacks you could expect to OHKO may not achieve that - Specs-powered Surfs do the job though (but fail to get the OHKO without the Specs I'm pretty sure).

Flint

The fire-type seems like such a poor one, but it can be quite dangerous too, especially with all the newfangled coverage moves.

Houndoom is taken out with Sudowoodo, which causes Infernape to switch in. Even if Houndoom set up intense sun, Altaria is more or less safe against him. Though I could easily sweep with Dragon Dance + Earthquake here, I choose to spread the exp around and play in a more 'fun' way (I've uploaded plenty of setup-sweep strats in various challenges by now).

Flareon has Will-o-Wisp so a special attacker like Lumineon does best here.

For Rapidash and Magmortar, switching in Sudowoodo and abusing Solarbeam's charge by using Dig on the same turns Solarbeam is used can lead to a neat exploitation of the AI, but the AI is inconsistent and sometimes actually really clever - Rapidash may set up intense sun, and Magmortar can just go for Thunderbolts (wonder how good Magmar would've been in the early gens if he had Thunderbolt access).

Finally, Lucian

Mr. Mime like setting up Reflect, so Kricketune is likely taking an attack before going down, making it useless for the rest of the fight since I banned healing items - too bad because X-Scissor tears through everything besides Bronzong and Gallade here. He's dumb here and uses Light Screen instead - too bad for him.

Gallade is the main threat by far. I have to resort to Charming it with Pachirisu - what else can I do really? Afterwards, Altaria can tank non-critical Stone Edges fairly well.

I gave Sudowoodo Blackglasses, and he does a really fine job against the remaining Pokemon. Sucker Punch OHKOs Alakazam and can finish off Espeon after Lumineon (the suffix makes it look like it's some sort of fish Eevee huh) chips in.

Bronzong is tough defensively, but goes under Altaria's Flamethrower spam with some luck. If not, the remaining healthy members of the team should patiently chip away at its HP until it dies.

So that's that; E4 can be cleared without item spam with a pretty bad team (Altaria's matchups are generally pretty good here, though, and I find some use for everyone at some point). Next, we fight Cynthia to see who gets to be the champion of the Sinnoh region!

Challenge playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c3vl0kl6cnJuW9diUa6J_fR

Other Statistics