As a bonus, here are some screen shots of them evolving.
So anyway, as I was saying before, I am now ready to take on the Elite Four!
Here is a look at my team. Their levels are a good deal higher than the Elite Four's Pokémon, but I needed to prepare them for the big level spike that happens right after.
I decided to take on Shauntal first.
Shortcake could handle most of her lineup. I got her to use up her Full Restores on her first Pokémon, Cofagrigus.
For Golurk and Chandelure, I decided to go for the second-type advantage and use Scampi. He had no trouble at all.
And so I defeated Shauntal with very little trouble. One down, three to go!
Next up was Grimsley, the Dark type user.
Grimsley led with Scrafty. I had to think about who I would send out against it because I didn't have any Pokémon with a direct advantage. Although Shortcake would have an offensive advantage, she would be at a defensive disadvantage, so it would be a risky move. I decided to go with my best defense against Scrafty, Gummi. It was a good choice. You're awesome, Gummi!
For Liepard and Bisharp I knew Shortcake would be the perfect choice. Liepard was a minor annoyance with Fake Out, but other than that Shortcake was unstoppable.
Finally, for Krookodile I went with trusty Scampi. One Surf was enough to end the match.
Two down! That wasn't too bad.
Next up is Caitlin, the Psychic type trainer. At first glance this would seem like another easy sweep for Shortcake, but her Reuniclus knows Focus Blast, and her Sigilyph can type trump with Flying type moves. I had to think a little about who to start with.
It was a risk, but I led with Bacon against Reuniclus. I crossed my fingers and had him use X-Scissor. The Expert Belt increased the damage, but not quite by enough to take it out. Fortunately he survived he turn and, after sitting through a few turns of the healing game as Caitlin used her Full Restores, Bacon was finally able to take it out.
For Sigilyph I went with trusty Gingersnap. Two hits with Crunch and that was that.
From this point on I knew Shortcake could handle it. It took a couple turns to beat Gothitelle but she held up pretty well.
I actually almost had a close call against Musharna, but in the end Shortcake was just too awesome to be defeated.
That one was a bit more challenging, but not too bad. Three down, and just one more to go.
Last but not least it's Marshal, user of Fighting types. I knew in advance that this would probably be the most challenging of the Elite Four for me since I don't have anything that can type trump his Pokémon. Even when I had Honeydew she would have struggled because all of his Pokémon know Rock type moves. The main reason I added Gummi to the team was to have a defensive wall against Fighting type attacks in this battle, but I knew she couldn't do it alone.
Upon analyzing my team's stats, I realized that Bacon actually has the second highest physical Defense stat (second only to my best wall Shortcake, and not by much). So I decided to lead with Bacon against Throh. I knew Throh had Payback, so I took precautions. I had the Dragon Fang equipped to Bacon, then with two Swords Dances and a Dragon Claw, Throh was soundly defeated.
Here's where things start getting tricky. All of Marshal's Pokémon, besides Throh, know Retaliate. Ordinarily, with Bacon's already amazing Attack boosted four stages, I could just take out the rest of his team before they had a chance to use it. But he went with Sawk next, and Sawk has Sturdy, preventing me from taking him out in one hit. Even though it was risky, I decided to go in with Shortcake, figuring she could wall Retaliate. Also, Marshal's Sawk's only Fighting type move is Karate Chop, so I figured she could survive that too. Sawk did use Karate Chop instead of Retaliate.
Even though Karate Chop took less than half of Shortcake's HP, I knew that there was a good chance for a critical hit, so I decided that, now that Retaliate wasn't a threat, I would switch for Gummi. Not only did Karate Chop do negligible damage, but Gummi's Effect Spore ability paralyzed Sawk on contact. Nice! Time for Giga Drain!
Next up was Conkeldurr. I wanted to just stay with Gummi, but I wasn't confident she could take a Retaliate. I decided to try a bait-and-switch. I sent out Shortcake hoping that would get him to use Hammer Arm, which would be not very effective when I switched back to Gummi.
When I switched out to Gummi, Conkeldurr used not Retaliate, not Hammer Arm, but Stone Edge... and missed. Fin by me.
So over the course of this battle I made the following observation: All but one of Marshal's Pokémon know Retaliate, but none of them use it. I kept Gummi out against Mienshao and took a turn to heal her with a Hyper Potion.
This time, Mienshao did use Retaliate, but it didn't do a lot. And, to top it off, Gummi poisoned it with Effect Spore. You're awesome, Gummi! *thumbs up*
And that's the final member of the Elite Four defeated! Yay for no casualties!
Time to head for the Champion.
What timing, I got there just as N had defeated Alder. Looks like there's a new Champion to beat now.
After some monologuing from N there was an epic cutscene of Team Plasma's castle rising and enveloping the Pokémon League. I couldn't really capture the epicness on camera, but I tried.
So now I have to defeat N! But before I do that, I need to climb to the top of that ridiculously huge castle and hope that Zekrom will appear. Sounds like a lot of work, so I'll save that for the next update, the grand finale! See you soon!
(credit for party sidebar format goes to Marriland)
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