Battle Tower Frustration

[greentyphlosion]

So I've been repeatedly attempting the Battle Tower on Emerald for weeks now, and I still can't get to 70 wins. It's really frustrating me. I've created a seemingly perfect team, and still I can't get past 60~ wins. So I'm appealing for some help with my team and strategy. Any tips and criticism would be greatly appreciated.

My team and its basic strategy is as follows:

Slaking @ Choice Band (Adamant)
252 Attack/Speed, 6 HP
Double-Edge
Earthquake
Aerial Ace
Shadow Ball

The central player of the team, he really doesn't need much introduction. Nine times out of ten Slaking can OHKO the AI's first Pokemon, giving me an instant 3-2 lead. Moves are standard, and I initially ran Body Slam, then Return, before realising the increased power from Double-Edge helps to score KOs on bulky things like Kingdra and Venusaur.

Metagross @ Lum Berry (Adamant)
58 HP, 200 Attack, 252 Speed
Meteor Mash
Earthquake
Agility
Explosion

Boring, but handy. General idea is to come in after Slaking and KO as much as it can. Usually I just Explode on things, but occasionally it can set up on something that can't hurt it and try to sweep. I find Metagross to be the most expendable member of the team, and often it ends up being sacrificed to set up a switch. Lum Berry blocks random statuses which could shut it down.

Starmie @ Leftovers (Timid)
252 Special Attack/Speed, 6 HP
Surf
Thunderbolt
Ice Beam
Psychic

Again, boring, but Starmie is brilliant. The moves are standard, as is the nature. Leftovers gives it a bit of bulk. Starmie can kill whatever the other two have trouble with, and switches in easily on defensive stuff like Shuckle and Vaporeon.

So far, this team has only had real trouble with legends. I got beaten twice by Curse Regirock, and got outsped by Latios. Double Teamers are tricky too, but I haven't had as much trouble with them as I'd expected. Any general advice on this team? I can't find a fault with it and I'm tearing my hair out trying to get a Gold Symbol from Anabel!

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

There isn't really anything wrong with your team. Often you go through most battles with great ease and then find one that haxes you out. You might want to swap Lefties on Starmie with Shell Bell, Starmie hits hard and has enough super effective coverage and low enough HP that Shell Bell outclasses Lefties in the healing department. Personally I also use Modest on Starmie to hit harder, I don't think there is anything of note in the frontier in between Modest and Timid max speed for Starmie. Modest Jolteon still sits slightly above Timid Starmie for example.

Alternatively, you might want to swap Starmie for Latios. Starmie is immune to Attract and has Natural Cure, but Latios has a base 130 Sp.Atk (Starmie only 100) and much more bulk. Latios can run a similar set to Starmie, like:
Latios @ Soul Dew / Shell Bell
Timid / Modest nature
252 Speed, 252 Sp.Atk
-Psychic
-Dragon Claw
-Thunderbolt
-Surf
Psychic is your primary STAB move, Dragon Claw is a good STAB move that destroys opposing dragons and hits harder than Starmies Ice Beam against the Lati twins and still OHKO's Flygon and Salamence easily (it also OHKO's some variants of Dragonite as well, and all of them with Soul Dew). Thunderbolt destroys the water types that want to try Ice Beam, and Surf is a final coverage move that OHKO's pretty much everything that is hit super effective by it (except maybe Tyranitar and Entei, not sure about those). What makes Latios mainly better than Starmie is that it has the same wide super effective coverage, but with more bulk and better defensive typing. While Latios has 5 weaknesses, only Ice is relatively common coming from water pokémon, and Latios can generally beat them easily one on one with Thunderbolt unless they get a very lucky freeze, as Latios is not 2KO'd by Ice Beam unless it came with STAB. Starmie stays suffering from the fact that most neutrally hitting STAB moves hit it quite hard and that Starmie just doesn't hit as hard as it wants to. 100 Base Sp.Atk is good but not perfect. Oh, and Latios is immune to the infamously cheap Quick Claw + Fissure Wailord that pops up every now and then in the Frontier.

For Agility Metagross, try not to explode immediately. Metagross can be used as a brutal physical wall that just eats up physical attacks (even Earthquakes and Explosions) and punches back hard with Meteor Mash. Explode when it is about to go down, but often Agility-gross can bring down teams on its own, even in later rounds. Also, slightly less speed EV's and ALWAYS Max attack. 405 Attack makes it hit brutally hard and allows it to 2KO opposing Metagrosses with EQ. Go for 180 Speed stat, outrunning modest Jolteon after an Agility, leaving only Timid Jolteon and Ninjask (Lol) to outrun you after Agility.

Slaking I've never used in the frontier, but I guess CB Slaking works really well. You might even want to consider running Hyper Beam as the AI is too stupid to take advantage of you not switching anyways and CB STAB Hyper Beam OHKO's pretty much anything that doesn't resist it.

 

[greentyphlosion]

There isn't really anything wrong with your team. Often you go through most battles with great ease and then find one that haxes you out. You might want to swap Lefties on Starmie with Shell Bell, Starmie hits hard and has enough super effective coverage and low enough HP that Shell Bell outclasses Lefties in the healing department. Personally I also use Modest on Starmie to hit harder, I don't think there is anything of note in the frontier in between Modest and Timid max speed for Starmie. Modest Jolteon still sits slightly above Timid Starmie for example.

Alternatively, you might want to swap Starmie for Latios. Starmie is immune to Attract and has Natural Cure, but Latios has a base 130 Sp.Atk (Starmie only 100) and much more bulk. Latios can run a similar set to Starmie, like:
Latios @ Soul Dew / Shell Bell
Timid / Modest nature
252 Speed, 252 Sp.Atk
-Psychic
-Dragon Claw
-Thunderbolt
-Surf
Psychic is your primary STAB move, Dragon Claw is a good STAB move that destroys opposing dragons and hits harder than Starmies Ice Beam against the Lati twins and still OHKO's Flygon and Salamence easily (it also OHKO's some variants of Dragonite as well, and all of them with Soul Dew). Thunderbolt destroys the water types that want to try Ice Beam, and Surf is a final coverage move that OHKO's pretty much everything that is hit super effective by it (except maybe Tyranitar and Entei, not sure about those). What makes Latios mainly better than Starmie is that it has the same wide super effective coverage, but with more bulk and better defensive typing. While Latios has 5 weaknesses, only Ice is relatively common coming from water pokémon, and Latios can generally beat them easily one on one with Thunderbolt unless they get a very lucky freeze, as Latios is not 2KO'd by Ice Beam unless it came with STAB. Starmie stays suffering from the fact that most neutrally hitting STAB moves hit it quite hard and that Starmie just doesn't hit as hard as it wants to. 100 Base Sp.Atk is good but not perfect. Oh, and Latios is immune to the infamously cheap Quick Claw + Fissure Wailord that pops up every now and then in the Frontier.

You're the second person today to suggest using Latios Annoyingly though, I chose Latias on my Emerald file (don't ask me why). Unless someone wants to trade me a Latios (haha) I'm stuck with Starmie, or Alakazam I suppose, but Starmie is very slightly bulkier.

For Agility Metagross, try not to explode immediately. Metagross can be used as a brutal physical wall that just eats up physical attacks (even Earthquakes and Explosions) and punches back hard with Meteor Mash. Explode when it is about to go down, but often Agility-gross can bring down teams on its own, even in later rounds. Also, slightly less speed EV's and ALWAYS Max attack. 405 Attack makes it hit brutally hard and allows it to 2KO opposing Metagrosses with EQ. Go for 180 Speed stat, outrunning modest Jolteon after an Agility, leaving only Timid Jolteon and Ninjask (Lol) to outrun you after Agility.

I've been learning slowly how good Metagross is; particularly against the Regis and general Electric types. I'll redo it's EVs then; I did them ages ago and assumed that was a pretty decent spread.

Slaking I've never used in the frontier, but I guess CB Slaking works really well. You might even want to consider running Hyper Beam as the AI is too stupid to take advantage of you not switching anyways and CB STAB Hyper Beam OHKO's pretty much anything that doesn't resist it.

Slaking is brilliant. I did used to run HB, but it sucked if the AI switched in something like Machamp, or a Double Teamer as I'd have to wait a turn, switch out, and switch in again. Obviously, it goes without saying it's best not to let the AI have 3 free turns.

Thanks for your tips!

 

[Sceptile Leaf Blade]

Latias also works, although she is more defensive than Latios. Latias has the disadvantage of not being able to 2KO certain bulky waters like Slowking, but she can utilise Calm Mind Recover in a way no other pokémon really can. She can use pretty much any special attacker in the frontier not called Latios as setup bait, easily eating up Ice Beams while Calm Minding. The downside of Calm Mind Recover is that you sacrifice super effective coverage for it, but Dragon Claw + Thunderbolt still has wide neutral coverage. Only Steelix, Shedinja, and Magneton resist that combo in 3rd gen if I'm not mistaken.
Latias @ Leftovers / Soul Dew
-Thunderbolt
-Dragon Claw
-Calm Mind
-Recover

 

[LimeSoda]

Soul dew is banned inside the frontier isnt it?

 

[-GameMaster-]

Soul dew is banned inside the frontier isnt it?

It's not banned, it just doesn't have any affect.

 

[Darth Sabreus]

*Wakes up from coffin*

I really like Agiligross. It is literally a fast tank: power, speed and stamina. I recently raised one and its pure awesomeness. It's only fainted once when the game haxxed and let the opponent Bulk Up twice and Earthquake me, and that's only because Meteor Mash missed. Otherwise he rips apart anything, and leaves a lasting impression on anything fortunate enough to resist it.

My Agiligross @ Lum Berry
Adamant
252 Atk, 176 Spd, 160 HP and 20 SpD
-Meteor Mash
-Earthquake
-Agility
-Light Screen

You may have noticed something odd right away. First the EV spread is my own, Beldum take 5000 steps to hatch with Magma Armor, and if I'm honest I settled for this one based on what the IV man told me. It turns out he has 28 Attack and Defence and sadly Special Attack, 19 Speed and <10 in the other two. That's why I added 20 SpD, but as Sceptile said always run max attack.

Now I chose 176 Speed because, at Level 65, the open level I play the BF at, I reach 131 Speed meaning that I just outpace the whole game at that level provided you've used Agilty.

And why Light Screen? Given his IVs I was keen for a Special Defence buoost, and what it does is make it one of the most offensive rand defensive Pokémon out there. I'm not kidding, his HP, Attack, Defence, Special Defence and Speed are phenomenal after you set up. And even at 131 Speed, you'll be going faster than most of the Battle Frontier already, I've found, allowing him to become a wall from the get go. Light Screen is also beneficial if you're about to faint anyway, it definitely helps out the team and allows you at a push to forgo some Special Defenxe in your other team-mates if you're confident you can win within 5 turns if using it. But like you've gotten already, Explosion is definitely an option, it's just that I use LS for team support and to cover itself as well.

And lastly Lum Berry. Such a great item, especially against Swagger users. Agility, recover from confusion and destroy. It also prevents crippling Metagross from Burn, Paralysis and Sleep, and don't forget the all too prevalent Freeze status as well. Good luck.

EDIT: Have a look here. It contains EVERY possible Pokémon you could encounter in the BF, excluding Wild Pokemon and Frontier Brain's Pokémon, including moves and EVs. http://www.upokecenter.com/games/emerald/guides/bfpokemon.php