Update 48: Noel
(No, I wasn’t putting it off out of laziness this time. It seriously took my game this long to give me a day with strong sunlight)
According to Ame, the trend of giving old leaders new fields each episode stopped with Serra. Noel’s going to keep his grassy field, so I have no qualms going in without waiting until episode 16. As for strategy, I considered teaching Braveheart a move to turn the grass into a sea of flames, but the problem is that it would also hurt the rest of my team, especially Apollo. So instead, I waited for a sunny day and went in with Braveheart spamming the usual Flamethrower. It doesn’t change the field, but it does increase its power by catching the grass on fire. Combined with the free sun and STAB, that’s a 3.375x multiplier, meaning that attack goes from 90 power to a whopping 303.75! What’s more is that, after two Moxie boosts, Fire Fang does even more damage despite having a lower base power!
Despite this ridiculous amount of sheer strength, it was just barely not enough to one-shot Wigglytuff, Noel’s first Pokemon. So I went all the way back to Reborn City, went to the highest floor of the department store, and bought a fire gem (actually I bought a couple, in case I want to use more later). That was enough to take Wigglytuff down in one hit (455.625 base power by the way, up there with Dashie’s Nuclear trump card), and next up was the infamous Cinccino. This thing is famous for its multi-strike attacks, one of which is Rock Blast, coupled with its ability Skill Link, which makes those moves always hit all 5 times. It’s pretty darn fast too. If it were to outspeed Braveheart, it would have surely one shot her. Thankfully it didn’t, and instead got one shot itself by the super flamethrower.
Next was Porygon Z. Also outsped, also OHKOed. At this point, Fire Fang had become stronger than Flamethrower, not that it mattered. The fourth ‘mon was Swellow, who is also infamous. Its whole shtick is that it holds a burn orb, which activates its Guts ability, AND powers up its Facade attack, making it almost as powerful offensively as my superpowered Pyroar. What’s more is that it’s REALLY fast, even faster than Braveheart. However, since the Burn Orb takes a turn to activate, its Guts ability wasn’t activated yet and it had to go for U-turn, being switched out for Girafarig who promptly died in one hit to Braveheart’s power.
Unfortunately, this is where Braveheart’s reign of terror ends. By killing Girafarig, she went overlevel and I had to switch her out, while that dreaded Swellow was still alive. I went to Pumpkin to set up Reflect, and with it he tanked a U-turn surprisingly well. It switched Swellow out again this time with the only other team member still alive: The hated Clefable. This thing is a huge tank and can make itself even harder to kill with Cosmic Power, and its Magic Guard ability makes it that only sheer brute force can damage it. Throw in Wish, and this thing is a nightmare. It also knows Moonblast, which means I could have benefitted from setting up a Light Screen, but I didn’t. Instead, I used Misty Field, switched to Dashie, and tried to fire the Nuclear Trump Card. But alas, Clefable got two Moonblasts in, both boosted by the field, the latter of which got a lucky critical hit, and Dashie went down without landing a hit.
I reset and started the battle again, and it went the same until the part where I sent Pumpkin out against Swellow. This time, predicting the U-turn into a special attacker, I used Light Screen instead of Reflect. I predicted wrong, it used Brave Bird. Suprisingly, Pumpkin managed to survive even without the Reflect, however now Swellow had its Guts activated and was easily capable of one-shotting my entire team, even with reflect.
I used Pumpkin’s last move to set up reflect anyway, and he predictably went down immediately after. Unsure of what to do, I tried Apollo, and to my surprise he outsped the monster and killed it with Thunderbolt. Boy am I glad I didn’t give up on him back when he was a crappy Helioptile. Oh and the sunlight hurt him a bit but who cares. Now it was time for the final showdown, the rematch between the tanky faries. Not wanting to power up Clefable’s Moonblast like I did last time, I took a chance and dropped the nuke without the misty field. Before I could fire it, however, “Nomos” used Cosmic Power, and just barely survived. I tried finishing it off with Moonblast. No dice, Ultra Potion.
I switched to DiggersbyTho, who took a Moonblast to the face and ate it up like a boss. Set up Swords Dance, but by this point Clefable’s Leftovers paired with the field had brought it back to full health. Strength left Clefable with just under half HP, which was restored to just over half HP. Just then, my light screen faded. DiggersbyTho can now no longer tank Moonblasts casually. Do I use another Swords Dance, and risk getting killed by the next Moonblast? Or do I use Strength now and risk it just barely surviving? I went with option B, because I figured that if I used Strength now and it did survive, I would have the opening to Swords Dance while Noel used the Ultra Potion (assuming my girl didn’t die from the next Moonblast). Turns out Strength was enough to kill it anyway.
Now if only I had thought to use one more common Candy on Braveheart. She would have totally made this the easiest gym battle ever.