So I tried a run with my Water-type challenge vs. the E4/Cynthia. Surprisingly the biggest hurdles were Bertha's Golem (Sturdy), Flint's Drifblim BatonPassing a single Minimize to his Infernape (which led to 6 misses in a row) and Lucian's Mr.Mime setting up screens..
But I overcame them all in a 5v5, without in battle item usages.
Then came Cynthia. I lead with Bibarel, set up and she switched. It managed to take out her Lucario of all things. Then came Roserade and it murdered my team. Should've seen that coming and I need to find an answer. Maybe SS-Lumineon+RainDance to guarantee the speed match-up into an IceBeam and replace SS-Floatzel's Dig with IceFang...
Continuing on:
SwiftSwim didn't bring me anywhere near defeating Cynthia's Roserade. Yes, I outsped, but Icebeam from Lumineon didn't kill, nor did the IceFang from Floatzel. As I was actually underlevelled per my own rules, I allowed myself to grind two more levels to match Lucian's ace: so my team went from 61 to 63 (and yes, I edged them to almost 64).
I have however found the answer after a couple of tries - and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
First thing I noted is that I lacked either Speed or damage output. I couldn't manage to beat Roserade with a +4 Quick Attack, so I opted for the SS-Floatzel and looked for options like BulkUp, but found it inaccessible until Postgame.
But then I saw '
BatonPass' among it's EggMoves...
I immediately switched mindsets and movesets entirely. Floatzel went from offensive to almost entirely support. I caught a male Buneary, trained it up until it learned BatonPass. I caught myself a female Buizel. They went into the daycare and had a female Buizel offspring and trained that one until it evolved in a Floatzel. I deleted Waterfall off OG-Floatzel's moveset in CanalaveCity while enjoying some interesting books in the library regarding a large spikey Qwilfish..
Then both went into the Daycare and OG-Floatzel came out having learned BatonPass. I then went to PastoriaCity and made it relearn Agility. I then went to VeilstoneCity and bought a few DoubleTeam TM's..
I went through the E4 like a champ. I realized that Flint's stinking Drifblim can't do anything if you Taunt it. Which HELPED a lot since +2 Evasion Infernape is a trainwreck even if my entire squad consists of Water-types.
But alright. I ended up at Cynthia again.. I rearranged a couple of movesets:
- Bibarel lost it staple QuickAttack and Rollout in favor of Bulldoze and Thief.
- Floatzel now had BatonPass, Agility, DoubleTeam and IceFang.
- Mantyke was turned into a MiloticWall with AirSlash, Blizzard, AquaRing and DoubleTeam.
- I taught Empoleon and Gastrodon Blizzard and IceBeam respectively, removing FlashCannon and AncientPower from their movesets. Lumineon went unchanged.
Needles to say, this was it. I saved after Lucian and decided if it wasn't going to work I'd call up the back-up save data, but I wasn't going to go through the hassle of the E4 in case something went wrong each time.. and boy it did.
Turns out +2 Evasion means I can miss six attacks in a row, but Cynthia still manages to go about screwing my strat over.
The strategy being leading with Floatzel, starting off with a DoubleTeam, taking an attack (or not), regaining a bit of health with a SitrusBerry, going for the Agility and depending on how much HP it had left either BatonPass to Bibarel.. or get greedy for more Evasion boosts.. and have Bibarel set-up a Simple SwordsDance (+4), regaining health with its SitrusBerry, Plucking the SitrusBerry from Spiritomb to regain more health back and sweep from there.
However, the Spiritomb kept hitting me, though one time I managed to set it up, but Bibarel only had 4hp left once the Roserade came out.. It died instantly, but Poisoned Bibarel so the sweep was cut short. Still went on trying and Empoleon finished Gastrodon, I swapped to my Gastrodon when she sent in her Lucario, it took her Lucario down due to a lucky SpDef-drop on the EarthPower mooting Cynthia's full restore. Milotic came out and I sacked my Gastrodon (which was a mistake I later realized (considering its ability is StormDrain)) and sent in Floatzel to BatonPass an Agility to Mantyke, which together with Lumineon completely drained Milotic's PP. But then came Garchomp.. Now, I only had a mostly PP-drained Mantyke without any DoubleTeams set-up. A Floatzel in the red, a burnt Lumineon without RainDance up - and my starter pretty much at full.
Needles to say - none of my team outsped Garchomp at that point. Mantyke managed to miss a Blizzard and hit one after barely hanging on with some HP, but the Yache-berry nerfed it. I hoped to be able to set up one last RainDance, but that proved futile for a Floatzel IceFang or Lumineon IceBeam.. But they got wrecked. Empoleon died last..
But then I tried again, managed to get 5 DoubleTeams up and the required Agility, BatonPassed to Bibarel and made it go to +6 Attack. Spiritomb went down without Bibarel having taken any damage. Roserade got 1hko'd without poisoning Bibarel. Lucario got Bulldozed into oblivion. Gastrodon survived a hit, but couldn't live a second Bulldoze. Milotic took a while (literally until Cynthia was done pouring Full Restore's into it) - and did manage to hit a few Scald's (which did worry me a bit considering the burn odds) - in any case, Bibarel pulled through and out came Garchomp. As long as I managed a single Bulldoze the rest of my team would've been able to handle him due to the speed drop, but it set up SwordsDance and then got KO'd with Bulldoze.
Yay! I swept Cynthia with a Bibarel!
Now I'm going to have to make a choice.
- Going for my first visit of the CrownTundra.
- Doing some BD-postgame.
- Starting LegendsArceus.
Edit: went for some short term PostGame-things. I went and met with Mesprit and caught Uxie and Azelf, completing the Sinnoh Dex. I went to Ramanas Park but everything is empty. I went to the Underground since they said it was tied togethed, but found nothing after half an hour of grinding on bulging... walls..
Things I've got to do:
- Manaphy Egg
- Rematch Gymleaders
- Go and explore the the BattleZone
- BattleTower?
- Try RamanasPark again.
- Maybe a shiny hunt with PokeRadar?