Pokemon Platinum - Masochist Run Part 5: Maylene

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MoogleBoss

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Published on January 19, 2014 7:26:35 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB3CuQPfMn4

Game:

Pokémon Platinum (2008)

Duration: 5:17

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16

Our fourth gym battle. Maylene is the fighting-type specialist, and with an offensive typing that is ineffective against our best Pokemon Kricketune (I couldn't repeat the last three words with a straight face) you'd think we have a good matchup here. The matchup isn't perfect due to Rock Tomb Meditite and Machoke pack, but it's still quite bearable and Kricketune still makes a solid counter to Maylene's strongest Pokemon - her Lucario.

Since the last video, our Masochist run grew in size yet again, this time adding Finneon. Though I could've skipped the first stage entirely by catching a Lumineon (those are available at L30~L35 on one route with the Good Rod) but every single Lumineon I was able to catch had Storm Drain, bad IVs in key stats and/or nature, so I had to catch a Finneon at lv. 18 and then spend a lot of time grinding it to catch up with the two mons I've had for a while.

The decision to sacrifice a large portion of battle exp available at this point was that having the right gender (yes, I have a plan here), ability and decent stats would pay off later on. Finneon is in the Erratic experience group, which requires the most exp to level-up early on. For example, Finneon needs 55K total exp (including what it has at base, which is like 9K) to reach L35, which is the same amount of exp a Pokemon in the Medium Slow group needs to get almost to L40. The exp invested into growing Finneon could've gone into, for example, taking Kricketune from L32 to L42 - that's how big of an investment the Erratic group requires.

Swablu, another Pokemon we have to use, is in the Erratic group too, so I expect my levels to be pretty low for the endgame portion of the game. So far though, it's okay, mostly because of the team size early on.

Okay, so, Maylene.

Maylene leads with her Meditite, which packs a wallop in spite of being unevolved. I can sometimes take it down with two Pachirisu Discharges but it can hurt me back too, like with the Charm-ignoring Rock Tomb in this video. I gave all my mons Sitrus Berries (which became available at this point) so that I can get some healing without wasting a turn to use an item.

Lucario was be called in, and this is a good time to use Charm before switching out. Lucario's a generally tough foe, though less so in the Platinum version of the Sinnoh games because the chance of the player running that better available Rotom is far higher. Rotom is immune to all of its moves besides Metal Claw (which is NVE) and even if you are able to somehow change its formes, you're still ghost/electric in this generation.

No Rotom for us; but Kricketune has a pretty decent matchup here after a Charm or two from Pachirisu. Sing can be used to put Luke to sleep, after which the best we can do is start spamming Rock Smash, a move that has had very limited application since the very first gym where we swept Roark with it.

For some reason... Maylene forgets to heal? I'm not sure if this is what's supposed to happen here.

Machoke is last, and I send my Finneon to take care of it since everybody else is badly injured (and Kricketune is afraid of Rock Tomb). After a Rain Dance, Finneon has an advantage in terms of both speed and power. I think a potion of some sort is necessary on an average run of this, but here missing and confusion help Finneon emerge victorious without taking damage.

And guess what, it even evolves after the battle! Now it doesn't suck nearly as much anymore. We should be getting our last two members pretty soon, too.

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

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