Character: Cassandra | fearinahandfulof Badge/Gym Leader: Soul/Janine Elite/Regular: Elite Team Team:Neideen the Crobat (with Lum Berry), Licht the Mimikyu (with Lum Berry), Teresa the Dusk Lycanroc (with Lum Berry), Isley the Corviknight (with Lum Berry - backup only), Scythe the Armaldo (with Lum Berry - backup) Battle Details: Cassandra probably bought up half the PokeCenter's stock of Full Restores and Antidotes for this one. She'll probably need them.
Crobat: Crobat's speed and ability to poison its targets make it a formidable threat, which is why Cassandra is starting with her own Crobat, who is also fast, can't be poisoned... and has Taunt. Janine's Crobat gets exactly one chance at a status move before Neideen cuts it off. If that move happens to be Confuse Ray, then Neideen's Lum Berry will cancel that out, enabling Neideen to use Taunt on the enemy Crobat and then immediately follow that up with... Confuse Ray! Two can play at that game. Both Crobats only take half damage from Poison and Bug, and quarter damage from Grass, but Neideen has one additional weapon at her disposal: Zen Headbutt, which will hit Janine's Crobat's Psychic weakness nicely. In addition, Neideen has Fly and Dark Pulse, which only do normal levels of damage but are stronger than anything Janine's Crobat has. Neideen will likely keep up this strategy - Taunt, Confuse Ray, Zen Headbutt/Fly/Dark Pulse, repeat - up until the battle ends, while Cassandra keeps her healthy with curatives and healing items, plus some Leppa Berries for good measure. Neideen may need those moves later, after all.
Weezing: Weezing isn't particularly speedy, and Licht has a decent speed advantage over it, so Licht should be able to get Taunt off first thing, which cuts Weezing off from Destiny Bond. So that's one problem solved. Two other problems, Self-Destruct and Explosion, are solved by Licht's partial Ghost typing; Self-Destruct and Explosion are after all Normal-type moves. Licht is at something of a disadvantage in that most of the moves it learns organically are of types Weezing is resistant to; however, Licht was an egg baby, and inherited a large number of egg moves - including Psychic, which Weezing is weak to. In addition, Cassandra taught it Thunderbolt a while back; while Weezing isn't weak to it, it'll still do some damage. Licht's one downside is that its not immune to Poison (though thankfully it's not actually weak to it like most Fairy types), so Cassandra will again be watching its health carefully, passing out healing and curative items as needed. Good thing she stocked up beforehand.
Toxicroak: Licht is also staying in for this one, being faster than Toxicroak. The Mimikyu will as usual open with Taunt - which has the added benefit of shutting down Toxicroak's own Taunt - and then tear into Toxicroak with Psychic (occasionally aided by Leppa Berries from Cassandra) to take advantage of its 4x weakness to Psychic attacks. While Toxicroak can actually hit Licht's weakness to Ghost attacks, it can only do it via Astonish, which is relatively weak; still, Cassandra's going to be watching Licht carefully again, keeping its health from dropping too much and dispelling the Poison status where she can. It helps that Toxicroak takes full damage from Fairy attacks, which means Licht can also top up its own health with Draining Kiss (STAB helps).
Drapion: Rock types have a lot of weaknesses. None of Drapion's attacks hit any of them. Right out of the gate, Teresa will fire off a Taunt - not that Drapion has a lot of status moves to work with, but still - and then immediately switch to Earth Power, which happens to hit Drapion's one weakness: Ground. Luckily, Cassandra has a supply of Leppa Berries at the ready if Teresa starts to run low on that particular move, although her various Rock attacks will at least do normal damage to Drapion. Further, Teresa's resistant to Poison and Fire (though not Bug or Dark, from which she takes normal damage), and she's faster than Drapion, so she's in remarkably good shape for this one. Cassandra will also do her best to keep Teresa poison (status)-free while she wears Drapion down.
Arbok: And this would be what Neideen needed the Leppa Berries for. As always, she starts in with Taunt, and then hits Arbok with Confuse Ray to see if she can get it to do some damage to itself, which she can in turn worsen with repeated usage of Zen Headbutt, plus occasional applications of Fly and/or Dark Pulse, along with the ever-present Taunt. It helps that Neideen is much faster than Arbok, so she can get that first Taunt out immediately and cut Arbok off from its status moves - especially Glare - and that she takes reduced damage from Poison and can't be poisoned herself. The only potential difficulty is Thunder Fang, which is why Cassandra will be watching Neideen's health carefully, never letting it drop very far. She'll also have Cheri Berries and Paralyze Heals at the ready, just in case. Luckily, Arbok doesn't get STAB from Thunder Fang, which can only help Neideen. If Neideen falters here, Scythe will spell her; he lacks Taunt, and he's not the speediest, but he can hit pretty hard, sporting both Dig and Earthquake to nail Arbok's Ground weakness.
Venomoth: As it happens, Teresa has the necessary tools for this fight, or most of them: she's a Rock type with Fire and Psychic attacks also at her disposal, and she has Taunt. The resistance to Poison also helps, although as she can still be poisoned, it's not foolproof. Unsurprisingly, Teresa's first Move is Taunt, which she'll then follow up with Psychic Fangs, Fire Fang, and her arsenal of Rock attacks (which also give her STAB). While Venomoth is fast, Teresa is faster, which means she'll be able to get Taunt off first - which is good, because Venomoth's status attacks would be a serious pain to deal with otherwise. Cassandra will of course be watching Teresa's health, as well as how many moves she has left, and will be applying healing, curative, and/or Leppa Berries as needed.
Torkoal: Ruby is... not a fast pokemon, to put it mildly. Fortunately for her, Torkoal is even slower, and Ruby's partial Water typing is enough to negate the Fire weakness that a Bug type would normally have. Ruby has some strong Water attacks as well as Rain Dance, which she'll use first-thing to potentially negate Torkoal's Drought (if it has it). Ruby's Water Bubble ability gives her another edge by halving Fire damage, doubling the power of her Water moves, and preventing her from being burned. She may opt to use Entrainment to make Torkoal's ability the same as hers, since its only Water move is Withdraw and Ruby has no Fire moves to hit it with even if she wanted to; otherwise, she'll just keep her HP topped up with Aqua Ring and concentrate on pummeling Torkoal with Surf and Liquidation.
Camerupt: Of Camerupt's potential abilities, Solid Rock is arguably the more annoying, as it reduces damage from supereffective moves by 25%. Fortunately, it also has a 4x weakness to Water, and it's slow. That said, the majority of Cassandra's Water-types are only partially so and have at least one weakness to another of Camerupt's move types, which means she's going to have to field a pokemon who doesn't have one of those weaknesses. As it happens, Priscilla fits the bill, having Surf along with Earth Power and Earthquake to hit Camerupt's other weakness. She's also more than twice as fast as Camerupt, which means she can easily slap a Taunt on it to keep it from using Yawn on her. She does lose out on STAB damage (unless she uses a Dark or Dragon attack, both of which hit Camerupt for normal damage), but her attack and special attack stats are decently high in their own right. Cassandra has also been putting her prize money to work and ordered Priscilla Rain Dance, which will give Surf an additional boost.
(If Camerupt has Magma Armor instead of Solid Rock, this all gets a bit easier, because supereffective moves will hit at full strength and Priscilla doesn't even have any Ice moves for Magma Armor to guard against.)
Magcargo: Priscilla is sticking around for this one, taking advantage of Magcargo's 4x weaknesses to Ground and Water to pelt it with Surf, Earthquake, and Earth Power. Fortunately, none of those three moves make contact, which will protect her from Flame Body (if Magcargo has that), if not its Burn-inducing moves. As Magcargo also has Yawn, Priscilla will be using Taunt to cut that particular ability off, and Rain Dance to up Surf's power and weaken Magcargo's Fire moves. Cassandra will naturally be watching Priscilla's health and using curatives and healing items as needed, possibly including Leppa Berries to top up Surf after the Camerupt battle.
Houndoom: Lily is... an atypical choice for a battle against fire pokemon. She's also slightly slower than Houndoom, which puts her at a slight disadvantage. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't have some advantages, too - the big ones being that she has Rain Dance and Surf, which means she can home right in one one of Houndoom's weaknesses, as well as Dig, which lets her hit another one and takes her out of harm's way for a turn while she's using it. Lily also has Static, which could result in Houndoom becoming paralyzed if it hits her directly, and its own potential abilities are a nonfactor - Lily isn't going to try to put it to sleep or set it on fire. The biggest issue is probably Embargo, which if used cuts off the possibility of Cassandra helping Lily out with healing items. Lily does have Draining Kiss to help her out there - Houndoom takes full damage from it - but if things get too bad, Priscilla's likely to come back in to spell her bestie, and maybe get some revenge on her behalf.
Magmortar: Uranus is slightly slower than Magmortar, which would be a problem given that Magmortar has Confuse Ray, except for two things - Cassandra has a stock of Lum Berries, one of which Uranus is equipped with, and Uranus has Taunt, which she will use first thing to keep Magmortar from using Confuse Ray. Uranus also has Intimidate to lower Magmortar's attack, Rain Dance to boost her Water moves and weaken Magmortar's Fire moves, and most importantly she has Surf, which hits hard and won't set off Magmortar's Flame Body ability. Given that as well as the fact that Magmortar can't hit Uranus's weakness to Ground or Electricity, this is likely to be a pretty straightforward battle.
Rapidash: Rapidash is fast. Unfortunately, Dart happens to be faster, to a considerable degree, and can counter Rapidash's Agility skill by using his own to keep pace. Worse, Dart knows Surf and Scald (though Dart will likely favor Surf), neatly hitting Rapidash's Water weakness, albeit without STAB. Even without the Water attacks, Dart knows a variety of moves of other types that Rapidash doesn't have any resistances to, and some of those moves do get STAB. Rapidash also can't hit any of Dart's weaknesses, and Dart is outright immune to its Normal-type attacks, which only increases Dart's chances of coming out the victor, especially given Dart's naturally high attack and special attack stats. Cassandra will naturally be keeping watch over Dart's health, but overall Dart is in good shape for this one.
Cassandra will of course be ready with the healing and curative items, as well as PP-boosting Leppa Berries, as needed. But overall, her team's in decent shape for this one.
no subject
Badge/Gym Leader: Soul/Janine
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team: Neideen the Crobat (with Lum Berry), Licht the Mimikyu (with Lum Berry), Teresa the Dusk Lycanroc (with Lum Berry), Isley the Corviknight (with Lum Berry - backup only), Scythe the Armaldo (with Lum Berry - backup)
Battle Details: Cassandra probably bought up half the PokeCenter's stock of Full Restores and Antidotes for this one. She'll probably need them.
Crobat: Crobat's speed and ability to poison its targets make it a formidable threat, which is why Cassandra is starting with her own Crobat, who is also fast, can't be poisoned... and has Taunt. Janine's Crobat gets exactly one chance at a status move before Neideen cuts it off. If that move happens to be Confuse Ray, then Neideen's Lum Berry will cancel that out, enabling Neideen to use Taunt on the enemy Crobat and then immediately follow that up with... Confuse Ray! Two can play at that game. Both Crobats only take half damage from Poison and Bug, and quarter damage from Grass, but Neideen has one additional weapon at her disposal: Zen Headbutt, which will hit Janine's Crobat's Psychic weakness nicely. In addition, Neideen has Fly and Dark Pulse, which only do normal levels of damage but are stronger than anything Janine's Crobat has. Neideen will likely keep up this strategy - Taunt, Confuse Ray, Zen Headbutt/Fly/Dark Pulse, repeat - up until the battle ends, while Cassandra keeps her healthy with curatives and healing items, plus some Leppa Berries for good measure. Neideen may need those moves later, after all.
Weezing: Weezing isn't particularly speedy, and Licht has a decent speed advantage over it, so Licht should be able to get Taunt off first thing, which cuts Weezing off from Destiny Bond. So that's one problem solved. Two other problems, Self-Destruct and Explosion, are solved by Licht's partial Ghost typing; Self-Destruct and Explosion are after all Normal-type moves. Licht is at something of a disadvantage in that most of the moves it learns organically are of types Weezing is resistant to; however, Licht was an egg baby, and inherited a large number of egg moves - including Psychic, which Weezing is weak to. In addition, Cassandra taught it Thunderbolt a while back; while Weezing isn't weak to it, it'll still do some damage. Licht's one downside is that its not immune to Poison (though thankfully it's not actually weak to it like most Fairy types), so Cassandra will again be watching its health carefully, passing out healing and curative items as needed. Good thing she stocked up beforehand.
Toxicroak: Licht is also staying in for this one, being faster than Toxicroak. The Mimikyu will as usual open with Taunt - which has the added benefit of shutting down Toxicroak's own Taunt - and then tear into Toxicroak with Psychic (occasionally aided by Leppa Berries from Cassandra) to take advantage of its 4x weakness to Psychic attacks. While Toxicroak can actually hit Licht's weakness to Ghost attacks, it can only do it via Astonish, which is relatively weak; still, Cassandra's going to be watching Licht carefully again, keeping its health from dropping too much and dispelling the Poison status where she can. It helps that Toxicroak takes full damage from Fairy attacks, which means Licht can also top up its own health with Draining Kiss (STAB helps).
Drapion: Rock types have a lot of weaknesses. None of Drapion's attacks hit any of them. Right out of the gate, Teresa will fire off a Taunt - not that Drapion has a lot of status moves to work with, but still - and then immediately switch to Earth Power, which happens to hit Drapion's one weakness: Ground. Luckily, Cassandra has a supply of Leppa Berries at the ready if Teresa starts to run low on that particular move, although her various Rock attacks will at least do normal damage to Drapion. Further, Teresa's resistant to Poison and Fire (though not Bug or Dark, from which she takes normal damage), and she's faster than Drapion, so she's in remarkably good shape for this one. Cassandra will also do her best to keep Teresa poison (status)-free while she wears Drapion down.
Arbok: And this would be what Neideen needed the Leppa Berries for. As always, she starts in with Taunt, and then hits Arbok with Confuse Ray to see if she can get it to do some damage to itself, which she can in turn worsen with repeated usage of Zen Headbutt, plus occasional applications of Fly and/or Dark Pulse, along with the ever-present Taunt. It helps that Neideen is much faster than Arbok, so she can get that first Taunt out immediately and cut Arbok off from its status moves - especially Glare - and that she takes reduced damage from Poison and can't be poisoned herself. The only potential difficulty is Thunder Fang, which is why Cassandra will be watching Neideen's health carefully, never letting it drop very far. She'll also have Cheri Berries and Paralyze Heals at the ready, just in case. Luckily, Arbok doesn't get STAB from Thunder Fang, which can only help Neideen. If Neideen falters here, Scythe will spell her; he lacks Taunt, and he's not the speediest, but he can hit pretty hard, sporting both Dig and Earthquake to nail Arbok's Ground weakness.
Venomoth: As it happens, Teresa has the necessary tools for this fight, or most of them: she's a Rock type with Fire and Psychic attacks also at her disposal, and she has Taunt. The resistance to Poison also helps, although as she can still be poisoned, it's not foolproof. Unsurprisingly, Teresa's first Move is Taunt, which she'll then follow up with Psychic Fangs, Fire Fang, and her arsenal of Rock attacks (which also give her STAB). While Venomoth is fast, Teresa is faster, which means she'll be able to get Taunt off first - which is good, because Venomoth's status attacks would be a serious pain to deal with otherwise. Cassandra will of course be watching Teresa's health, as well as how many moves she has left, and will be applying healing, curative, and/or Leppa Berries as needed.
Isley is on backup duty.
Character: Cassandra |
Badge/Gym Leader: Volcano/Blaine
Elite/Regular: Elite Team
Team: Ruby the Araquanid (with Lum Berry), Priscilla the Hydreigon (with Lum Berry), Lily the Pikachu (with Lum Berry), Uranus the Gyarados (with Lum Berry), Dart the Dragapult (with Lum Berry)
Battle Details: For this battle, Cassandra's going to be stocking up on the Burn Heals, just in case.
Torkoal: Ruby is... not a fast pokemon, to put it mildly. Fortunately for her, Torkoal is even slower, and Ruby's partial Water typing is enough to negate the Fire weakness that a Bug type would normally have. Ruby has some strong Water attacks as well as Rain Dance, which she'll use first-thing to potentially negate Torkoal's Drought (if it has it). Ruby's Water Bubble ability gives her another edge by halving Fire damage, doubling the power of her Water moves, and preventing her from being burned. She may opt to use Entrainment to make Torkoal's ability the same as hers, since its only Water move is Withdraw and Ruby has no Fire moves to hit it with even if she wanted to; otherwise, she'll just keep her HP topped up with Aqua Ring and concentrate on pummeling Torkoal with Surf and Liquidation.
Camerupt: Of Camerupt's potential abilities, Solid Rock is arguably the more annoying, as it reduces damage from supereffective moves by 25%. Fortunately, it also has a 4x weakness to Water, and it's slow. That said, the majority of Cassandra's Water-types are only partially so and have at least one weakness to another of Camerupt's move types, which means she's going to have to field a pokemon who doesn't have one of those weaknesses. As it happens, Priscilla fits the bill, having Surf along with Earth Power and Earthquake to hit Camerupt's other weakness. She's also more than twice as fast as Camerupt, which means she can easily slap a Taunt on it to keep it from using Yawn on her. She does lose out on STAB damage (unless she uses a Dark or Dragon attack, both of which hit Camerupt for normal damage), but her attack and special attack stats are decently high in their own right. Cassandra has also been putting her prize money to work and ordered Priscilla Rain Dance, which will give Surf an additional boost.
(If Camerupt has Magma Armor instead of Solid Rock, this all gets a bit easier, because supereffective moves will hit at full strength and Priscilla doesn't even have any Ice moves for Magma Armor to guard against.)
Magcargo: Priscilla is sticking around for this one, taking advantage of Magcargo's 4x weaknesses to Ground and Water to pelt it with Surf, Earthquake, and Earth Power. Fortunately, none of those three moves make contact, which will protect her from Flame Body (if Magcargo has that), if not its Burn-inducing moves. As Magcargo also has Yawn, Priscilla will be using Taunt to cut that particular ability off, and Rain Dance to up Surf's power and weaken Magcargo's Fire moves. Cassandra will naturally be watching Priscilla's health and using curatives and healing items as needed, possibly including Leppa Berries to top up Surf after the Camerupt battle.
Houndoom: Lily is... an atypical choice for a battle against fire pokemon. She's also slightly slower than Houndoom, which puts her at a slight disadvantage. However, that doesn't mean she doesn't have some advantages, too - the big ones being that she has Rain Dance and Surf, which means she can home right in one one of Houndoom's weaknesses, as well as Dig, which lets her hit another one and takes her out of harm's way for a turn while she's using it. Lily also has Static, which could result in Houndoom becoming paralyzed if it hits her directly, and its own potential abilities are a nonfactor - Lily isn't going to try to put it to sleep or set it on fire. The biggest issue is probably Embargo, which if used cuts off the possibility of Cassandra helping Lily out with healing items. Lily does have Draining Kiss to help her out there - Houndoom takes full damage from it - but if things get too bad, Priscilla's likely to come back in to spell her bestie, and maybe get some revenge on her behalf.
Magmortar: Uranus is slightly slower than Magmortar, which would be a problem given that Magmortar has Confuse Ray, except for two things - Cassandra has a stock of Lum Berries, one of which Uranus is equipped with, and Uranus has Taunt, which she will use first thing to keep Magmortar from using Confuse Ray. Uranus also has Intimidate to lower Magmortar's attack, Rain Dance to boost her Water moves and weaken Magmortar's Fire moves, and most importantly she has Surf, which hits hard and won't set off Magmortar's Flame Body ability. Given that as well as the fact that Magmortar can't hit Uranus's weakness to Ground or Electricity, this is likely to be a pretty straightforward battle.
Rapidash: Rapidash is fast. Unfortunately, Dart happens to be faster, to a considerable degree, and can counter Rapidash's Agility skill by using his own to keep pace. Worse, Dart knows Surf and Scald (though Dart will likely favor Surf), neatly hitting Rapidash's Water weakness, albeit without STAB. Even without the Water attacks, Dart knows a variety of moves of other types that Rapidash doesn't have any resistances to, and some of those moves do get STAB. Rapidash also can't hit any of Dart's weaknesses, and Dart is outright immune to its Normal-type attacks, which only increases Dart's chances of coming out the victor, especially given Dart's naturally high attack and special attack stats. Cassandra will naturally be keeping watch over Dart's health, but overall Dart is in good shape for this one.
Cassandra will of course be ready with the healing and curative items, as well as PP-boosting Leppa Berries, as needed. But overall, her team's in decent shape for this one.