The Iron Weight of Truth, The Invulnerable Strength of Ideals--a pokemon white 2 mono-steel run

[doombotmecha]

Hey, I'm doombot, and steel is pretty much my favorite type ever. I love each and every steel type ever made (except durant. f that guy.).

So, a few days ago I picked up a mono-steel run i'd been doing of white 2, and I just now remembered that y'all like to hear about these kinds of things. I've already defeated the first 4 gyms, so I'll summarize them here:

Cheren:

actually kinda tough if you hate grinding. you basically have to ko lillipup before it sets up. Righteous the Riolu took that one.

Roxie:

my favorite gym leader ("GET READY, I'M GONNA KNOCK SOME SENSE OUTTA YA!"), but not really much of a challenge due to the theme of the run. Steelheart the Magnemite took that one handily.

Burgh:

Actually a difficult fight if you don't just exploit his weaknesses. Leavanny's razor leaf hurts even through resistance. Riolu tried to take down swadloon but ate a crit, so Steelheart finished it. Resolve the Drilbur metal-clawed the dwebble to death, and after a bunch of healing and several sonicbooms (ty pokestar studios and your infinite lemonades) I managed to KO it.

Colress 1: Resolve Used Dig! It's Super Effective!

Elesa:

I like her a lot more now that she doesn't just spam emolga-volt switch. Resolve proved her worth by Rock Tombing Emolga and digging Flaffy. Zebstrika nearly KO'd me with a critical pursuit, but a critical Dig got him in one shot.

The PC: Dusk, who thinks she's a Paladin

The Rival: Hi Noon, a strange combination of Sasuke and Naruto at the same time

The Team as of Elesa

Righteous the Lucario (male)

Steelheart the Magnemite (agender)

Resolve the Drilbur (female)

Next up: Clay (aka A Bad Time)(aka why isn't Ferrothorn available yet)(aka i might actually have to grind for this one)

Edited March 31, 2016 by doombotmecha

[Ironbound]

I already like you very much, because you too like steel, and because you are obviously a fellow devotee of the Lord Magnezone. I wish you all success on your run, even though that's pretty much guaranteed since you have the Magnet Lord on your side.

And while I disagree with your opinion of Durant (after all, he's one of the few anatomically correct bug types, with six legs, antennae, mandibles and correctly segmented body parts) the real worst steel type is Wormadamn.

All the best, and I'll keep track whenever I can!

[doombotmecha]

I already like you very much, because you too like steel, and because you are obviously a fellow devotee of the Lord Magnezone. I wish you all success on your run, even though that's pretty much guaranteed since you have the Magnet Lord on your side.

And while I disagree with your opinion of Durant (after all, he's one of the few anatomically correct bug types, with six legs, antennae, mandibles and correctly segmented body parts) the real worst steel type is Wormadamn.

All the best, and I'll keep track whenever I can!

(if this looks wierd, it's cause I typed it up in Google docs and then copy-pasted it here)

yeah, i feel ya on Wormadamnit (funnily enough, it isn't even the worst part of the family). it's just that durant appears at a point in the game long past its usefulness, in an area filled with better mons (barring heatmor, who i despise even more)

also yeah, magnezone isn't quite my favorite steel but damn if it isn't good at everything bar fighting ground/fire types. momentum? special attacker? Magnet Pull trapper? Pokemon Catcher? Magnezone does it all.

alright so, I'm on the road to my Doom Driftveil city, and I met a heartbreaker. his name...Charles. we fought a triple battle, his Siglyph and fossils vs. the crew so far. I managed to take out two of his inferior pokemon at once by focusing rock tomb (resolve) and return (righteous) on sigilyph, while steelheart ohkoed archen with volt switch. unfortunately, my positioning (and some focusing of his own) allowed him to defeat my resolve with an aqua jet. sadness...oh well.

I witnessed the old plasma vs. new plasma cutscene, and now i'm in driftveil. on a related note, now the strength of my resolve can move boulders. that's a thing now.

Aaaand now my rival is yelling at the team plasma splinter group sage. how rood. rood gives me a zorua, who goes straight into the box. thanks mate, I'm sure it'll see the light of day someday!

Also, i’ve got a ton of screenshots, but I don’t know how post images from my computer. Where is the option to attach an image from my files?

Grinding through the gym trainers, one of the baltoys got the ancientpower boost, survived strength #2 from Resolve, and would’ve 2ko’d her had i not switched her out ugh

Went back to route 5 for some extra wild mon grinding, found the artist Horton with a sigilyph. Took all 3 mons to defeat it. Impressions:

1. Sigilyph, why

2. Did he hear a who?

Welp, here’s earthwall, take a deep breath, and…

"Harrumph. Kept me waitin' din'cha? Well come on and show me what'cha got!"

The short answer is, He. Kicked. My. Butt.

The long answer is, I would kill his first two mons, then excadrill (the best non-uber ground imo) would sweepmurder my entire team with bulldoze. Thing is, each of the five times I fought him, all that xp went onto Righteous the Lucario, so after 4 times he was even with excadrill. The formula went like this:

Lucario got a Righteous Force Palm onto Krokorok, paralyzing it, while the krokorok used a move. If KK used bulldoze and I didn’t paralyze, I lose right there. The next turn Clay heals and I deal, and on the next turn after that I kill the gater. Sandslash was pretty interesting. None of my physical attacks did anything to him, so what I did was

1. If Righteous was hurt, sac Steelheart (I<3U sturdy) into SS so I could hurt it with mirror shot and heal

2. If Righteous wasn’t hurt, skip that step and send him in

3. Righteous is out with full health and uses counter, surviving the Bulldoze to ko SS in return

Excadrill would then proceed to come in and sweep.

On the last run, however, the Hax Gods took pity on me. First off, my FP did enough to force KK into the red (burning the potion), and it also paralyzed. Secondly, on the turn I healed Righteous (aka the turn Steelheart died from 1 hp) sandslash made the questionable decision of using Rollout. Lucario takes about as much damage from rollout as pidgey takes from earthquake. Thanks to the earlier damage from mirrorshot, 2x Righteous Force Palms took out the Slash. For the Final piece of Hax, Excadrill used metal claw, despite being able to KO with Bulldoze. While that critted, it still only did about 30% of the Righteous Healthbar, and the RIGHTEOUS FORCE PALM OF THE HAX GODS critted and OHKO’D.

YES! Demon fight #1 beaten

Demon fights remaining:

???

???

Kyurem White w/ Blue Flare

Marshall, Fighting-type elite 4 member

So, uh, that’s the first real-time update to the Honorable and Glorious White Two Steel Monorun. Let me know if I misspelled anything, upcoming demon battles, and if this run could use some more paragraph breaks (hint: it probably could)

NEXT TIME: the rest of my team evolves, and Steelheart reclaims their honor at the Pokemon World Tournament!

Edited March 31, 2016 by doombotmecha

[Ironbound]

Congratulations! Even if was due to hax, beating a disadvantageous leader on a mono-run is quite difficult, especially when you do not have access to all the Pokémon that you eventually could gain.

Keep it up.

[doombotmecha]

Hey thanks man! that means a lot. So, in preparation for a tournament where all the pokemon are at a fixed level, I now paradoxically have to grind in order to evolve my mons. Here's their new forms:

Steelheart Lvl. 30

Resolve Lvl 32

and of course, The Hero Righteous is still a level 34 Lucario

to summarize the Driftveil Tournament:

"it was a totally lopsided battle! Dusk was the winner!"

Hi Noon was the only one who could defeat my Righteous Spirit (who had a 9 level advantage), and that took 2 pokemon to do. He subsequently fell to my Resolve. Other than that, Righteous Force Palm of the Hax Gods OHKO'd Cheren and Colress.

after that, Clay congratulated us and reflected on how rich he'd be, and Hi Noon spotted a plasma goon and took off yelling. Cheren and Team Dusksteel raced after him.

the plasma boat...got rocked! (geddit)

none of the plasma goons could do anything to me! my incredible resistances and evolved mons crushed everything they had in one or two hits. there WAS a slight mishap with a grimer mud bombing my Steelheart, but it only got to do that once. Even My partner mons were quite competent, with Stoutland and Servine serving admirably despite their inferior types. Unfortunately, Chilly Sage Zinzolin and used the special bad guy HM "black out the screen and run away". Oh well, I can always teach them the error of their ways later.

Continuing on to Chargestone Cave, I picked up my HM slave Humilty, a level 10 Oshawott who I'll need as there aren't any water/steels in this game (Empoleon where art thou). I might Dump him if I find Aggron, who learns surf for some ungodly reason. Forget if he appears in this game.

Edited March 31, 2016 by doombotmecha

[Ironbound]

Get a Ferrothorn. You'll need it. And you can also finally evolve your magneton into the lord and saviour Magnezone!

[doombotmecha]

exactly!

rn i've got magneton at 80% exp but I need to get them past all the wild brush and stuff so they can level up in the cave proper. Ferrothorn is probably going to solo himulau, given how virzion solo'd them in my last playthrough.

while your admiration of the Magnet God Magnezone is much appreciated, the real "end goal" for me is having a (shiny?) Metagross named Perfection in the front slot of my party. I still can't get a clear answer over whether the area metang appears in is pre- or post-e4, because you can get to twist mountain but you can't get to every bit of it....ugh.

basically, metagross is the best, because it's a pokemon that's a computer, and that it learns a crapton of of moves with p good stats. and it looks cool. it looks really freaking cool.

edit: I've caught all the steel types in chargestone and mistralton caves, and apparently

1. aron is a part of that

2. aggron learns surf b/c surfing metal godzilla

So, please welcome Efficiency the klink, Courage the Aron, and Retributon (damn you character limit) the Ferroseed. of those, Courage and Retribution will probably become permanent members, Retri because I need him to sweep himilau and Courage to use Surf, freeing up Humility to take strength (once I evolve it) so that Resolve can use a better move later on. At this point, the only swap that might occur pre-e4 is bisharp/skarmory for Courage/Humility, or Metagross with somebody if i find out i can get him be4 the end of the game.

Next Time: I slog through chargestone and take on Skyla, where Steelheart will regain his honor by trashing the whole damn gym.

Alright, so, we got through chargestone, (little challenge, beside a triple battle involving a sandslash that left Resolve in the red) and arrived at Mistralton. Professor Juniper and later Skyla have a brief chat, then Juniper heads off to the celestial tower for some research. Good job, you're the first professor since Birch who actually does stuff. ANyway, we're given the choice about whether to go look for Juniper and go train or challenge the gym. Given that I have electric god magnezone, I move to just take on skyla and move the story forward. Additionally, while it's been fall for the last few weeks, with spring break starting my game decided that winter was the season for the season, as it were. so it's winter, and everyone is buffeted by the hail. thank you gamefreak I was really looking forward to 4 slow animations at the end of each doubles turn.

The gym's puzzle was harder than the fights. Magnezone OHKO'd the entirety of the gym (volt switch OP) except for Skyla's sturdy Skarmory, along with what I let Resolve's Rock Slide deal with. I sent Retribution out to leach some xp off of Skarmory, forgetting that she was going to heal it. I hit it with metal claw to break sturdy, swapped back to steelheart, and ko'd that too.

having thought i'd skipped an arduous bout of level grinding, I am informed that the Prof still hasn't returned, and so I still had to go and get her. Wasn't that hard, although the trainer's levels made me realize that I need to get Righteous and Retribution leveled up for the next gym.I found Juniper and returned for the flight. Ah yes, a wonderful 3d plane flying off into a 2d background.

We arrived in Lentimas Town in the middle of a glorious sandstorm. Why is it Glorious, you might ask? Because I'm Immune, that's why! everybody gets chip damage except for me, yay! Presently, I'm hunting down my final key member--Skarmory! the only problem is that they have like a 5% chance to appear, so i could be stuck here a while...

And I'm coming to the dawning realization Reversal mountain is going to be filled with types I fear.

Edited April 1, 2016 by doombotmecha

[Ironbound]

Congratulations on embracing the power of the one true Lord and Saviour. (Metagross is cool too, dw~)

All the best. Yes, Reversal mountain will indeed contain a bunch of ground and fighting types. Perhaps you can get a Bronzong somewhere? i don't really remember where you can get one, if you can get one.

And yeah, the Metagross is after e4, I'm fairly sure of it. I remember them making an appearance in Giant Chasm, though I could be wrong. I last played this game fully years ago.

[doombotmecha]

Aha! after days of searching, the final piece of the mono-steel puzzle is MINE! AHAHAHAHAHHA!

so basically everyone welcome Freedom to the team!

<image broke ugh> Lvl. 38

He's a bird! He's a plane! in fact, i'll need him to be BOTH! (esp. seeing as no other steel learns fly). Also, caught him with a net ball. My Pokeball rng is a lil messed up.

So, as it stands, I resolve at 37, steelheart and freedom at 38, righteous at 35, and Retribution at….29. Ouch.

So, I’m flying back to castelia to get that exp. Share so he can get back in it, and giving the lucky egg to righteous to get him back up to speed.

...after a moment, I removed the xp share from Retribution when it became clear that nobody was getting any experience at all. I ended up leveling Righteous to 37, Retribution to 34, Resolve to 38, and Based God Steelheart to 39, where it Finally was able to ditch Mirror Shot for the Amazing and Almighty Flash Cannon. Barring sonicboom (for catching stuff) they’ve almost got a competitive set!

So, having stocked up on every regenerative assistant known to man or pokemon, I entered Reversal Mountain to find...Bianca? Oh, right, you were researching here. What a convenient coincidence! It really takes the burden off the grinding that I’m doing. With her help, I get nearly everyone on my team barring Steelheart to 40, while abusing Freedom’s Fly and especially Resolve’s Earthquake to bring down the various fighting and fire types, which primarily consisted of gurdurr (who learns dynamicpunch at about this level, who knew) and camerupt. So, my mole’s useful underground. Who knew? I also heard a legend about Heatran living in this volcano...once I defeat the E4, I may need to return here.

Having beaten Reversal, I Biked it all around the beach, picking up various hidden items, then assumed I needed to head up through the water. I came to a cave, where a black belt with 3 roggenrola told me that he was waiting for a STRONG trainer. Apparently, 6 badges and level 40 mons aren’t strong enough. Oh well. I check my map, and head for the route north of to--

Oh hey rival, fancy seeing you here. You’ve still got only 3 mons? That’s Cute. Face my 6-man team of fully-evolved (mostly) OU mons. I also decided something then: I seemed to have things under control, so I swapped over to set battle style.

After that distraction, I set forth down the route into two trainers that were honestly more threatening than my rival was: a black belt and a battle girl. I managed to get the BB with Freedom’s Fly, but the Battle Girl’s Scrafty beat it with sick HJK prediction skills, so Righteous had to finish the job. The rest of the route was mostly uneventful, until a fateful encounter just outside of Lacunosa town. This was the Iron Muskedeer, Coballion! I threw a wide variety of great and ultra balls at it, but in the end it was caught in a simple pokeball. I then fought a pokemon ranger in a triple battle, which was actually quite frightening given her killer combination of Vibrava, Flareon, and Larvesta.

In Lacunosa town, with my pokemon fading fast, Professor Juniper decided that it was time to advance the main plot--with LOADS of exposition! Pleasestoptalking pleasestoptalking pleasestoptalking ok we’re going outside oh wait shoot more talking AHHHH

So I finally got away from them, healed my mons, and added the new ally Justice to the team, temporarily subbing out Humility given that the next route is a straight shot. Just as I’m leaving, I see my rival, so I talk to him. He complains about team Plasma (part 2 electric boogaloo) and--speak of the devil, there comes a grunt and a sage now! The sage introduces himself as Zinzolin, which sounds like the name of a musical instrument, but whatever. Hi Noon and I face off against them in a double and utterly trounce them. After a coil boost, even his serperior started getting OHKOs. Zinzolin says something about being done playing with us and buggers off. Noon tears after him, leaving me all alone again. Ahhhh…

Not much happens on the road to opelucid, aside from an encounter with another Muskedeer, virizion. Not steel, don’t care, eat a fly--oh hey it ohko’d. Cool.

Opelucid Gym was surprisingly tough. Dragons have enough raw attack to still hurt through my resists, and a few carried coverage, including one Druddigon with flamethrower that made Retribution cry. Another trainer had swagger, substitute, and protect on all of her mons, so she managed to run Ret out of Gyro Ball PP, but I still had power whip and +6 attack, so she eventually also fell. Curse+Gyro Ball took care of the Rotation Battle veteran as well, harming my Retribution but not really accomplishing anything. Finally, both dragon statues were standing upright, and it was time for...HEADBUTT! I mean Gym Leader Drayden.

Leader Drayden would like to battle!

Drayden was honestly a little bit of a letdown. He led with a forgettable (as in I forgot who it was while writing this) druddigon. I had anticipated a team full of bulky grounded mons, so I sent out Freedom to set up 3x spikes. Druddigon fell to a few Steel Wings. His next mon was Flygon (dangit) so I sent out Retribution, counting on his high defense to...oh. He’s got earth power (special) instead. Whatever, it only does a third of my health anyways. I cursed, healed, and ohko’d with Gyro Ball. Haxorus forces Retribution out with Dragon Tail, but it brought in Resolve, who OHKO’d with Earthquake after the spikes damage.

So, that about concludes this chapter of the run.

The Team: (soon ™)

Next Time: Dusk finds Team Plasma’s reception somewhat...chilly.

Edited April 12, 2016 by doombotmecha

[Hank_Nghiem]

I briefly read the previous post, and just going to say go steel bro. Although my favorite pokemon are not steel my favorite type is steel due to custap berry and sturdy (commonly in steel type pokemon). Anyways nice run, and amazing nicknames for your Pokémon wish I was that creative. Alright I'll see if I can find some time to reead through everything instead of skimming.

[doombotmecha]

I briefly read the previous post, and just going to say go steel bro. Although my favorite pokemon are not steel my favorite type is steel due to custap berry and sturdy (commonly in steel type pokemon). Anyways nice run, and amazing nicknames for your Pokémon wish I was that creative. Alright I'll see if I can find some time to reead through everything instead of skimming.

hey, thanks! Shedinja is one of my favorite ghost types as well--I love how you have the potential to be completely invulnerable depending on type matchup.

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ok, so it looks like my computer doesn't want to let me edit my last post, so here's the (final?) form of the team:

Resolve, Lvl 45: (female, bashful, @soft sand)

Freedom, Lvl 46: (male, Hardy, @lucky egg, net ball)

Righteous, Lvl 46: (male, Naughty, @JUSTICE)

Steelheart, Lvl 47: (genderless, Hardy, @magnet)

Retributon, Lvl 48: (male, Mild (T.T), @power band)

Humility, Lvl 10: (male, Mild, @all my HMs)

Now, on to the main post:

Drayden told me to wait outside, and once I left, he headed for the center of town, advising me to follow. I didn't want a repeat of Lacunosa, so I dashed around behind him to get to the pokemon center and heal. Returning to him, I found that I was correct in my assumption--I followed him to this house to the north, where he explained to me about the DNA splicers. No reason to be seeing those anyti--BOOM. welp. We head outside to find Team Plasma's giant flying pirate ship bombarding Opelucid with icy blasts like something out of a movie we acted in.. After the 'scene ends, Zinzolin and a few grunts come over and taunt us. Drayden sternly admonishes them, and next thing you know, some poor guy gets dragon tail'd halfway across town. I search the frozen city for grunts Drayden hasn't crushed yet, and follow them like breadcrumbs back to the gym, where I find Zinzolin scouring it for splicers.

He's honestly more annoying that threatening, what with the two Cryogonal with confuse ray. Fortunately, after I swapped out to Righteous, he fought through confusion to smash Zinzolin's full-ice team with Force Palm. Afterwards, Drayden comes back and checks his gym for the splicers, and entrusts them to--welp, doesn't matter, shadow triad. Those guys put in so much work in this game. Kinda weird that they don't just have them paralyze you all the time. I fight the one triad member that remains, but of course they aren't the one with the splicers. Drayden laments not being two people, so that he could chase plasma and defend Opelucid, and--by the magic of plot--Cheren strolls in. He agrees to help, and comments that the coldest temperatures were found near Himulau, so that's the next place we should check out. Seeing as I had fly, I just fast traveled straight past the icy mess of the last route, landing in Undella. I surf over to the cave to challenge Mr. Roggen--What's that, rival? There's a faster way? ok I'll check it out after I fight this guy.

So, it turns out, Roggenrola man (Black Belt Rocky) doesn't fight a triple battle. he doesn't even fight a double. just 5 sturdy roggenrola, one after the other. Worst miniboss ever. Ugh. So I leave the cave, heal Resolve's PP, and then head down the marine tube. It's actually really pretty inside. I enter Himulau (am I spelling this right?), talk to my rival, find the gym leader out swimming, and see about challenging the gym.

With Retributon and Steelheart, it turns out to be smooth sailing. The leader fight goes like this: Volt Switch pops sturdy on Carracosta while it uses shell smash. I'm fairly certain that that's the first 'mon since roxie to actually have a strategy other than "hit them very hard". unfortunately for him, his AI forces him to heal it the next turn, while Retributon 2ko's with Gyro Ball (I have only three power whips left). I curse on wailord while he paralyzes me with bounce, and my next power whips OHKO Wailord and Jellicent.

That's all for now! Next time: PLASMAAA!

Edited April 14, 2016 by doombotmecha

[doombotmecha]

This is it. The Penultimate update. Time to take on team plasma!

So, following my decisive victory over Marlon, I spoke to Hi Noon outside the gym, and startlingly, he didn’t challenge me to a battle. Rival Battles are really sparse in W2, no clue why. Anyway, he chastises Marlon for not doing enough, but Marlon, being the totally chill surfer dude that he is, cares not. From there we bravely ventured forth in search of team plasma.

I feel like I should mention that this is as far I’ve ever gotten in this game, so from here on out I’m more or less playing blind.

I spent a good chunk of time here just trying to figure out where to go next. I found seaside cave’s lower level (eventually) and used the Colress Machine on the Crustle. As I leave the cave, the camera pans over to the plasma frigate docked on the beach. “Whew,” I think, “that’s all for this cutscene.” Nope. Hi Noon arrives behind me, and says something about finding a way to get on. Just then, Unova’s Chillest Gym Leader pops up inside the frigate, popping down the gangplank and swimming off. Guess he decided to help after all, in his own way.

The grunts provided little to no challenge, barring the one in full “broken bridge” mode blocking off the stern of the ship. An old team plasma member was acting as a spy inside, but he didn’t prove that useful. Also, they let sleep in their beds. No clue why. Zinzolin and his grunt buddy weren’t much challenge this time either, seeing as Hi Noon’s Serperior OHKO’d both Cryogonal with Leaf Blade. Weavile managed to get Resolve into the red with priority Ice Shard, but nobody else did much. After Zinzolin, he once again calls on the OP shadow triad to kick us off the ship. They really should think of doing that first. After an incredibly cool cutscene where the plasma frigate takes off, I flew back to Himilau to set off for the Giant Chasm. After beating up a few backpackers and running across a few thin boards, I arrived in the cave outside the giant chasm. Dusk and Hi Noon arrived just as the Plasma Spy made the guard grunts leave so that we could pass. How nice of him. Arriving in the Chasm proper, the first thing I noticed was that everything was frozen. That’s a pretty solid sign of plasma right there. The next thing I noticed was Rood and his grunts trying to talk down some Plasma II grunts. It didn’t go as well as was hoped, so of course Dusk and Hi Noon double-battled some grunts and wrecked them. You multi-battle a ton in this game. Rood thanks us, and gives us THREE MAX REVIVES HOLY SHIT as a reward. His crew holds off the remaining plasma II grunts while HN and I pressed on to the frigate.

Upon arriving on the frigate, I observed HN holding off a crew of Plasma II grunts. He tells me to go on ahead, so I do, making a beeline for the rear doorway that was blocked earlier. I come in and see a tele-AMBUSH! Dangit. This is actually a challenging duo battle, mostly due to HJK spam from their scrafty (damn that thing’s tough).

After that debacle, I healed and ported into the next room, to find a maze of pipes and teleporters. I started by grabbing the Zinc at the top center of the maze, then cleared out the trainers around the upper rim, including a plasma doctor (thanks gamefreak). Clearing the maze was slow work, and I think I eventually had to fight every trainer, but that was alright--I was funneling every extra bit of XP I had onto Resolve, expecting a legendary fight later on. From what I knew then, Kyurem-White was a dragon-fire?/Ice? Type with dragon, fire, and Ice moves. The dragon move wouldn’t be a problem, but the fire move--especially if it was blue flare--was totally unresisted on my team. With my whole team so slow, I figured that I’d need to use steelheart’s sturdy to paralyze it, so that my MegaMole could take it out with earthquake. Upon disabling the barriers, I progressed to find--Zinzolin. UGHHHHHHHH. Since I was in a single battle this time, Zz was free to outspeed me with his cryogonals, set up screens and confuse ray, and generally ruin my day. I still managed to slough through the snow and OHKO his weavile for the finish. Startlingly, he Doesn’t call in the triad to port me off of the ship, saying something about his victory being inevitable. Villains keep saying that, but when Having done that, I had a choice of two--nope, scratch that, ONE teleporter. The grunt warns me that I’m gonna have a bad time. I assure him that no such thing would happen.

Boy, was I wrong. Colress III was the Ingo and the Emmet of the White 2 Bad Time Express

The first run went smoothly enough. Resolve broke Magneton’s Sturdy, broke it again, then killed it with strength. Magnezone, same deal, except no Full Restore. Both Mags used flash cannon, dealing about half of resolve’s HP betwen them. Then came the hard part. I didn’t have a SE move for Beeheeyem, so I swapped to Righteous, planning that I’d use Dark Pulse, with similar effectiveness to Righteous v. Elegyem at Driftveil. This plan did not come together, as Beeheeyem Calm-Minded on the switch, making dark pulse deal minimal damage and KO’ing back with psychic. I then sent in the only specially bulky ‘mon i had, Ferrothorn. Ferrothorn proceed to curse and then beat Beehee with Power Whip. I boosted up alongside his Shift Gear Klinklang (is that his ace?) until I could 2KO with Gyro Ball (the +6 speed may also have had something to do with it). His metang met much the same fate, just with no thunderbolt to get around curse’s defense boost. Defeated, Colress proclaimed that he didn’t honestly have an opinion either way; he just wanted to find out how to make pokemon as strong as possible. Thus, he allowed me to leave without triad-ing me.

This is where things went bad.

After porting back, healing, and scaring off the guard grunt, I ported into the security camera room to fight Ghetsis. Ghetsis gave me a short, incoherent speech about himself, kyurem, team plasma’s grand plans, and himself. Then a triad member appeared to inform him that kyurem had been transferred--straight to my hard drive, apparently, as my laptop promptly froze. About 10 minutes later, when I had reloaded my comp, I found that the last I had saved was immediately before colress. ARGHHH! I ended up having to do two runs thanks to a Beehee sp. Def drop and power whip dodge, but on TEH URN (as Lord Chespin calls it) I just had Resolve stay in on and KO Beehee, and then switched on Klinklang. His boosted Gear Grind dealt reasonable chip damage, but it procc’d Iron Barbs twice, so it hurt him almost as much as it hurt me. Also, It knew Giga Impact. I don’t know why. From there, the fight went back on the rails, and metang fainted to Gyro Ball.

With Colress redefeated, the team rehealed, the grunt reintimidated, and Ghetsis’s ramblings relistened to, it’s time for the final….battle against the shadow trio, I guess. I’m kind of surprised that they don’t challenge you to a triple battle. Anyway, they’re all pretty easy to beat with fighting and ground STAB. The triad finally returns HN’s Purrloin--now a Liepard--and vanishes once more, STILL not porting us off the ship. How polite. However, it seems like I need to leave the vessel anyhow, as Ghetsis is preparing his final attempt at world domination.

Inside of the cave, it’s completely silent...but that might be because I had the sound off. There also weren’t any wild pokemon. In the second room, I find Ghetsis and Kyurem. Alright, boss fight ti--OH GOD HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME. N flies in and saves the day with Reshiram, but Ghetsis was planning on this. In fact, this was all a ruse to get Reshiram in DNA splicing range. Following a cutscene worthy of the anime, Kyurem absorbs Reshi’s power and becomes Kyurem-White.

Before I can even act, I realize that I Have Messed Up. A pop-up message tells me that K-White has Turboblaze, meaning that It Cares Not how Sturdy I am, I Will Fall in One Hit, Dammit. Thankfully, I am spared by the RNG Gods, and Kyurem decides to use a 2-turn move that I don’t recognize. I paralyze KW, and next turn Steelheart gets off a Flash Cannon before falling to a single critical hit Ice Burn. The next turn, Digging God Resolve got the KO with Earthquake.

All right, let’s burn a revive and get ready for--dangit Ghetsis, stop interrupting me! He challenges me immediately after I defeat KW, but through the magic of N’s passionate declarations that this isn’t fair, my team is fully healed. Leading with Steelheart, I volt switch out of Cofagrigus and bring in Righteous, who defeats the ghost but gets hit into the red. For Seismetoad, I swap out to Retributon as the obvious solution. Power Whip does exactly what I needed it to, but Elektross takes me by suprise with FLAMETHROWER OH GOD, KO’ing Ret and panicking me. Since Resolve is by then level 54 and my best bet for hitting a levitating electric type, I send her in. Two Rock Slides beat one flamethrower and Elek goes down, at the cost of half of my mole’s HP. EQ takes out Drapion and Toxicroak in one hit each, but his Ace Hydreigon manages to pose a threat.

First it whiffs a dragon rush and gets Rock Slid, next turn I flinch him, but the 3rd turn he doesn’t get flinched and doesn’t miss, so down Resolve goes. Now, here is where his item ends up hurting him. For 10 percent of his health per turn, in fact. See, Hydreigon is equipped with a Life Orb, and since he’s already eaten 3 rock slides and 3 turns of recoil, he’s now in range to die to LO without me doing anything. I briefly consider handing the XP to Freedom, who rarely fights offensively, but I instead send in Steelheart to KO with Flash Cannon to make up for saccing him to K-White.

That’s that. Ghetsis is ENRAGED that he got beaten by a 10-year-old for the second time in 3 years. Pfft. Of course you lost, you didn’t use any steel types! Anyway, a triad member appears and teleports us out of the chasm Ghetsis away. N thanks us, then leaves on Reshiram. Dusk attempts the same feat, but smacks into the ceiling of the cave. Report N for wallhacking. Outside, we try again and fly to Himilau.

Afterwards, I head back to route 9 to catch a ‘mon I missed, pawniard. It takes a minute, but it’s not really rare or anything, so I find one eventually.

Ambition is a pretty sweet ‘mon. He’s an alright level 44, with only 8 levels until evolution, some nice moves, Naughty Nature, and the amazing Defiant ability. He may replace Humility in my final lineup.

Actually, hold that thought. I’m looking through bulbapedia (trying to remember the whole run of the Ghetsis fight and apparently the grass inside the Giant Chasm has wild metang. Wild Freaking Metang! So of course I’m essentially already there, I head straight for the doubles grass and spend a good ten min looking for one before I find my WFM in a double battle alongside a Piloswine. The Piloswine eats a force palm+flash cannon and faints, incidentally levelling Righteous, who proceeds to learn Aura Sphere (finally!). After a thunder wave, a flash cannon, 3 steel wings, and 10 luxury balls (because I liked it) an ultra ball finally does the job. And here I thought I’d go the whole run without one working.

It’s everything I’d hoped for. Level 52 (no level grinding), Neutral nature (good enough for me), Psychic and Meteor Mash for Stab, and “Perfection” hits the character limit exactly. Screw Ambition, all I need is Perfection! (that’s kinda hypocritical isn’t it)

So ends the Penultimate Update! NEXT TIME: Victory Road! The Elite 4! Marshall kicks my ass!

P.S. wow i did not expect this to be this long

Edited April 15, 2016 by doombotmecha

[doombotmecha]

well, I'm sad to say, this run is dead as a doorknob. while I didn't have time to play during the weeks of the IB tests, the real problem comes from my computer slowly shuddering itself apart--it'll work for 30 minutes the first time I use it after a while, then 15, then 10....

as I can't find my save file (and I'm not honestly sure I trust my roms anymore) I won't be able to continue this run after I restore the computer to factory defaults.

My humblest apologies.