Pokemon Sun - 0 Exp Part 7: Olivia & Nihilego

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MoogleBoss

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Published on January 28, 2017 5:27:01 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuszUz0maT8

Game:

Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016)

Duration: 5:15

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Two battles combined into one video, since the former isn't very challenging and the latter is a bit on the short side. Olivia is likely the easiest island kahuna in the game (something that I hope will change for the Elite Four rematch), though frankly speaking Nanu also doesn't amount to much (giving him better dark-types of those available would considerably spice things up imho).

I guess the single good thing about Olivia is how sexy she is. With Fire Emblem getting exposure with the 3DS games recently, I see FE and Pokemon as part of some unified contemporary trend, in which the two try to refer to each other as much as possible. If you ever wonder why a character like Olivia appears in a kids' game with kid characters, well, look no further than Tharja and Camilla for a highly likely source of inspiration.

Why would she use the Pokemon she does though? Nosepass may have been a pain in the arse as the Roxanne's main Pokemon in Hoenn's first gym, what with its bulk and general lack of effective rock-type counters (in 0 exp runs at least, all Hoenn starters do a good job there, Torchic once fully evolved), but we've faced Wishiwashi and Salazzle by now - is this an appropriate lead for the second island kahuna? With a base 45 attack, it's not doing much - perhaps the most it can do is get in the way of a sweep with Thunder Wave? They should've given it Stealth Rock and like Sandstorm or something (I just realised how underwhelming its supportpool actually is), which ironically they did do in the case of the route 3 Rockruff/Slowpoke generic trainer.

What else has Olivia got? Boldore, who can inflict some pain with Rock Blast proccing more hits and not whiffing, but it's not impossible to survive with one of the many rock-resists available at this point.

Lycanroc looks more dangerous with adequate speed (for an Alolomon anyway) and a rock-type Z-move off Rock Throw, but you don't even need something particularly tanky to withstand its attack while 2HKOing.

I show off my Wishiwashi for the first time here - the ones below lv. 20 are useless and as soon as higher-levelled ones can be caught, they're instantly in, whatever team formation you've got planned. The base stats are ridiculous, but you can see that even such high don't result in a "technical" KO for Nosepass (since it's got Sturdy after all).

Boldore is handled by a traded Poliwrath (or rather, Poliwhirl evolved with a Water Stone) using Scald since its secondary typing lets it take any of Boldore's rather ineffective attacks, and a Passimian which I spent too much time hunting for takes on Olivia's main - Lycanroc. It can take 1 Rock Throw + 1 Z-move since its physical bulk is quite respectable. Low Sweep doesn't help here since being at a level disadvantage renders us unable to outspeed even after dropping Lycanroc's speed by a third. Weird, since Passimian's supposed to be sorta fast (again, for Alolan standards) and this is the slower forme of Lycanroc, but at the same time I suppose we haven't got any EVs while island kahunas are in the group where it's a thing.

So that's how that is. The rock-type Z-move we get at the end will be useful a little later on, though I try not to use these too much when I can end the battle quickly and elegantly enough without one.

The second fight is the forced Nihilego encounter @ Aether Paradise. It runs away after some turns, so you needn't actually defeat it, but hey, why not try to accomplish exactly that? It is, after all, the only mandatory legendary beast battle in the games (not counting the cover legends obviously).

Nihilego's typing is the new and unique rock/poison, leaving it with a 4x weakness to ground in addition to 3 normal weaknesses. The stat it cares about are all quite high, except for defence, which could be a bit higher, but it still has some semblance of bulk because of its high base HP.

Much like totem Pokemon, Nihilego receives a stat boost at the start of the fight - a +2 boost to defence. This means hitting it with ground-type attacks likely isn't going to result in a OHKO, unless you've trained up a mean Mudbray by this point. My Mudbray isn't so good at taking Venoshocks and lacks High Horsepower to OHKO, so the safest bet is the cute hairy Alolan-Diglett who is immune to poison, and can only be damaged by Headbutt and Psywave, neither of which can OHKO.

Bulldoze has the most reliable damage output, but since Magnitude's average power is 71, I go for that and hope for the best (Tangling Hair helps me outspeed anyway). I proc Magnitude 8 and 9 on the two turns I don't get flinched by Headbutt, resulting in attacks with a power of 90 and 110 respectively. The latter is even stronger than Earthquake would be at this point, and that's very nice for Diglett since neither the Pokemon itself nor its evolution are favoured with powerful moves until very late in the game.

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