Pokemon Silver - 0 Exp Challenge Part 11: Elite Four Will
25Finally our party challenges the Elite Four and its champion.
The difficulties of this part of the end of the maingame are fairly self-explanatory. On the one hand, we can't go back in-between any of the battles to heal and re-arrange our team. This means that we face five tough battles in a row without a chance to modify our party (though I do teach some TMs in the process when I feel that is necessary for success). On the other hand, we are quite underlevelled and often the highest-levelled Pokemon in the party face a type or stat disadvantage.
The party I ended up with is, in order from most useful to least in the Elite Four battles + Lance:
Tentacruel
Jynx
Wobbuffets
Golem
Steelix
In retrospect, I should've got rid of Steelix, replacing him with Red Gyarados (with Fire Blast and Thunder TMs), but oh well. Steelix did have some use as you'll see in the later vids.
Will is quite dangerous in that his team mostly consists of fast Pokemon with powerful attacks (besides Slowbro and Exeggutor who are both very slow). Let's do a Pokemon-by-Pokemon analysis of our tactics here:
- two Xatus
Tentacruel at lv. 34 with base stats can outspeed the lower-levelled Xatu but not the higher-levelled one. Giving him some speed stat experience (either by buying vitamins or grinding wild Pokemon and boxing him, latter is far more efficient with the emulator's turbo function) solves this problem. A combination of Surf and Blizzard is enough to kill either Xatu. However, Xatu has a super-effective Psychic which won't kill Tentacruel who has very high natural special defence, but still hurt quite a bit.
Jynx is the best possible counter, in spite of her remarkably low level. Resistance to Psychic and possibility to 2HKO the low-level Xatu with Ice Punch shouldn't be underestimated. Bitter Berry necessary to prevent confusion.
- Jynx
Tentacruel resists Ice Punch but not Psychic (which is too powerful). Golem and Steelix don't like confronting Jynx either, and Rock Throw doesn't kill (but Ice Punch does OHKO Golem).
This is very luck-reliant as we have to let a Wobbuffet in and hope he Mirror Coats an Ice Punch. Jynx will often Doubleslap a few times first, making Mirror Coat fail, and then finish Wobby off with the anticipated Ice Punch. She may also put us to sleep repeatedly with Lovely Kiss, and then proceed to destroy. Using Safeguard might seem like a good idea but it's not - if the prediction fails and Jynx starts off by icepunching, Wobby will be at ~30% HP, and once in that range, the AI will continue icepunching until it either hits critical or we run out of healing i tems.
This is unfortunate, but we have to Mirror Coat and pray there's an Ice Punch. Mint Berry to prevent a possible Lovely Kiss, but the second one will screw us over. There's another Wobbuffet if the first one fails.
- Slowbro
He packs Curse and Amnesia and with his stats he's an obvious tank. We have nothing that penetrates his weaknesses - that is, no bug, shadow, electric or grass type attacks. Wobby will fail more likely than not, as Slowbro will first curse until his attack skyrockets, and then OHKO with Body Slam. Steelix resists both Body Slam and Psychic, but doesn't really do anything in return. Golem can do plenty of damage and finish off by selfdestructing if needed, but dies in two Psychics.
Jynx is faster than Slowbro, who is a slow bro, so a Lovely Kiss should be used ASAP, and then it's a good idea to switch to Golem and try to kill him before he wakes up. I thought I should save EQ uses for the future and use Rock Throw instead here - I thought wrong as I didn't really need so many EQs in these five battles (plus most of the Ethers I took along weren't needed as it turned out in the end).
- Exeggutor
Will's last pokemon also comes with tankish attributes. The same strategy might not work here, as he is faster than Golem and uses Reflect to double defence.
Exeggutor can be baited to use Egg Bomb if he faces Wobbuffet, and countering two of these is enough to finish him off. Egg Bombs are inaccurate but might miss which is nothing dangerous, seeing how when we counter, we don't take any damage either. Just a matter of time until the counters do the job here.
Next up: Koga.
Playlist, updated with every new video:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2C9F40CFE5FA6C8F