The Official Pokemon Challenge Thread

[lucktown]

not a pokemon compatible with an unevolved challenge lawl

Congrats on the Challenge completion regardless. We all make derps when we're tired, and I won't invalidate your challenge because'a that. Though I will hold ya morally accountable.

Oh... Well in the end it was useful in one fight and I probably could have handled it differently. Still sucks to do something like that wrong... [STRIKE]Currently I'm trying to rechallenge Sabrina on Sunday afternoon, but 8th August is Friday and the 9th August is a Monday... wtf Nintendo. I'll get back to it eventually[/STRIKE](English dating system confused me... monthe->day->year isn't the standard here...). Can't leave this now.

 

[bou0010]

(English dating system confused me... monthe->day->year isn't the standard here...)

That format confuses me too sometimes... us Aussies write it as date/month/year which, to be honest, makes more sense

 

[lucktown]

Yeah what were they thinking...


Pokemon Platinum no item challenge

Spoiler

After getting through all the grunts and top tier members of Galactic and making my way to Cyrus I lead with Infernape and took out the Houndoom with one Close Combat. The Gyrados he sends out next is my only problem in combination with the Honchkrow and already made me retry 2 times... a single revive could fix this, but yeah... In the end I used the same strategy that I used for the 5th gym. Send in Luxray and switch to Bibarel and then back to Luxray, which without Gyrados' intimidate can take it out with one hit and with 2 intimidates loses less than 50% (I'm really slow on coming up with these tactics lately... that's what school break does to you). Then after the Fake Out and taking one hit of Ice Puch Infernape took down Weavile with one Close Combat again. Sadly one Psychic by Gardevoir barely wasn't enough to 1hko Crobat, so he switched to Honchkrow. I took Gardevoir out and switched to Lopunny to take one hit and use one Return before going down. After that I switched to Luxray to finish it and then to Gardevoir and killed Crobat with 2 Psychics after he healed it. So after losing 2 times to him I did it and only lost 2 Pokemon... I don't understand me -.- I caught Giratina and probably will use it as a back up for the Elite 4.
Sooo the most interesting thing in the 8th gym was Lopunny using Charm to make Electrive useless... that's it. Only raw power other than that

Infernape lvl 46 with Gentle nature and Blaze
-Mach Punch
-Close Combat
-Flame Wheel
-Taunt

Roserade lvl 44 with Modest nature and Poison Point
-Toxic Spikes
-Giga Drain
-Leech Seed
-Pedal Dance

Luxray lvl 44 with Docile nature and Intimidate
-Crunch
-Leer
-Thunder Fang
-Spark

Gardevoir lvl 43 with Naive nature and Synchronize
-Psychic
-Double Team
-Calm Mind
-Magical Leaf

Lopunny lvl 44 with Lonely nature and Klutz
-Charm
-Dizzy Punch
-Jump Kick
-Return


And the unsung hero: Bibarel. May you have a happy life after I finished this challenge


For the last part of the challenge I caught a Rhydon as sixth team member and evolved it. I also trained everybody on level 50 to have a decent team and then walked through victory road. For my last rival battle I lead with Luxray again, but Staraptor just U-Turned out into the Snorlax against which Luxray couldn't do much. I decided to stay in and deal as much damage as possible rather than switching anything into an Earthquake and even got it down to orange health before Luxray fainted. Infernape took care of it with a Close Combat and when he sent the Staraptor back in I used Hammer Arm with Rhyperior, because he was probably about to U-Turn into Empoleon or something, which he didn't do. Fun fact: After that I retried the battle 2 times with Stone Edge and he U-Turned out. This guy is a mindreader. Anyways. He used Close Combat, so I took it out pretty quickly. For some reason he also tried Aerial Ace. Then I took out Empoleon with Close Combat before it could do anything. For the Heracross one Psychic with Gardevoir barely wasn't enough, so sadly it took some damage. Thanks to a crit the Psychic was strong enough for Roserade and then Rapidash took out Rhyperioir, because I hoped it would survive one attack. One Close Combat could defeat it though (the solution to everything). So my team just before starting the Elite 4 looks like this:

Infernape lvl 54 with Gentle nature and Blaze
-Mach Punch
-Close Combat
-Flame Wheel
-Taunt

Roserade lvl 50 with Modest nature and Poison Point
-Toxic Spikes
-Giga Drain
-Leech Seed
-Pedal Dance

Luxray lvl 51 with Docile nature and Intimidate
-Crunch
-Leer
-Thunder Fang
-Spark

Gardevoir lvl 50 with Naive nature and Synchronize
-Psychic
-Double Team
-Calm Mind
-Magical Leaf

Lopunny lvl 50 with Lonely nature and Klutz
-Charm
-Dizzy Punch
-Jump Kick
-Return

Rhyperior lvl 50 with Calm nature (kinda bad) and Lightningrod
-Stone Edge
-Earthquake
-Take Down
-Hammer Arm


Aaron: For Yanmega I started with Rhyperior and took it out with 2 Stone Edges, because Double Team is such an awesome attack. For Scizor I switched in Infernape and one hitted it with Flame Wheel and then switched back to Rhyperior for Drapion. It got a crit with Ice Fang and also survived an Earthquake and then got a flinch, so Rhyperior was at 1 HP after the fight and therefore mostly useless for the rest of the league. For Heracross I switched to Gardevoir and this time one Psychic was enough to take it out. For the Vespiquen Infernape needed 2 Flame Wheels, but it used Defense Order and still fainted, so I got Infernape out with no damage.

Rhyperior (1/181), Gardevoir (149/149), Roserade (140/140), Infernape (158/158), Lopunny (140/140), Luxray (156/156)

Bertha:

 

[n0on3]

So hello again everyone, has been a long time. How is everyone?

 

[bou0010]

So 417 days, 9 hours and 47 minutes [strike]yes I counted[/strike] after initially accepting this challenge, I finally completed my test run of the Harmonia challenge :lol:

FINAL SAPPHIRE HARMONIA CHALLENGE UPDATE​

Spoiler

Having beaten the eighth and final gym, I went to Victory Road in search of a new team of pokemon, opting to go for a full team of 6. I caught Hariyama, Loudred, Lairon, Medicham, Sableye and Barboach and trained them all up to level 45, Lairon, Barboach and Loudred evolving on the way into Aggron, Whiscash and Exploud respectively.

Getting through Victory Road was very easy for me even though I didn't use Flash at all (probably because of all my speed runs ) and the trainers weren't very difficult for my team. Wally was no problem at all either. Once I got out of VR, I healed up, taught TMs to my pokemon and then sold whatever items I didn't need so that I could have enough money to buy items I did need.

For whatever reason, I decided it would be a good idea to try to beat the Elite 4 and Steven with my team of level 45 pokemon. For those of you who don't remember, Sidney's lowest level is 46 and Steven's highest is level 58. I managed to beat Sidney but didn't stand a chance against Phoebe so I trained to level 50 and tried again.

SIDNEY

Spoiler

Sidney was by far the easiest to beat. I led with Medicham and just used Hi Jump Kick on everything. I outsped everything except Sharpedo, who did almost 50% with Surf which, when followed by a HJK miss, left Medicham at <10HP. I healed with a Hyper Potion and then just spammed HJK 'til I won.

PHOEBE

Spoiler

For Phoebe, I led with Aggron who took out her first Dusclops with 2 Iron Tails. She then sent in her second Dusclops (which has Earthquake) so I switched to Sableye. It was going well 'til he got hit with Confuse Ray (turn 1 :lol. The RNG gods were not with me as Sableye never hit through confusion and ended up fainting due to it. So I sent out Aggron, knowing that he'd be able to survive 1 EQ. I used Rock Tomb so I didn't do enough damage to Dusclops for Phoebe to heal it. But Dusclops used Confuse Ray again. In the next turn, I made it passed the confusion only to miss with Iron Tail -_-. Dusclops used the dreaded Earthquake and almost KOed Aggron. I tried to use Iron Tail again but Aggron hit himself in confusion letting Dusclops take him out with another EQ. I sent out Whiscash and almost KOed with Surf. It took another 3 Surfs to get rid of it. Next was Banette, who was easily taken out with 2 Surfs. Her Sableye fell to an EQ crit and her final Banette survived an EQ only to fall to a second soon after.

GLACIA

Spoiler

For Glacia's first Glalie I led with Aggron and hoped that Iron Tail wouldn't miss. Glalie used Light Screen, which was completely pointless, and Aggron OHKOed it with Iron Tail. Sealeo was next so I switched to Medicham and Hi Jump Kicked it into oblivion. The second Glalie met the same fate as the first and the second Sealeo did too. Walrein was the only one who posed a slight problem by barely surviving a HJK which made me think Glacia would use a Full Restore, but the its Sitrus Berry activated, taking it out of range of being healed while still being in range for another HJK to take it out. So one HJK later, I had defeated three out of the four E4.

DRAKE

Spoiler

Even though I said Sidney was the easiest, Drake was still just as easy but I had to worry about Blizzard missing.
I swept Drake's team with Whiscash using Blizzard and hoping not to miss, not out of fear for Whiscash's survival, but simply because I didn't want to run out of PP for Blizzard (I had 7 PP due to 2 PP Ups).
Shelgon, Altaria and both Flygons weren't any problem as Whiscash outsped and OHKOed all of them. Salamence however, outsped and got Whiscash down to 7 HP with a Dragon Claw since I didn't heal Whiscash after he took damage from from Phoebe but it wasn't much of a problem as Blizzard hit with a crit for some unnecessary extra damage as revenge.

STEVEN

Spoiler

The battle with Steven was going well until Metagross came out and swept my team -_-

So I went back to training and got everyone in my team up to level 54 (Which was my initial plan before I decided to make it more challenging) and tried again.

The Elite 4 went pretty much the same way as it did last attempt. Steven however, was totally different.

He leads with Skarmory, so I sent out Exploud. Supersonic was the first thing I did in hopes that it could make Skarmory easier to deal with but looking back now, I should've just gone straight for the attack seeing as I was holding a Pecha Berry. Anyway, Skarm hit itself in confusion, kinda making the Supersonic worth it. I followed up with a Water Pulse so that when I used Overheat, it would definitely KO as the SpA drop could be very dangerous if I just missed the KO Speaking of Overheat, Exploud missed the first Overheat and got Toxic'd which was possibly the best thing to have happened considering Overheat missed since it was healed immediately. The second Overheat didn't miss though and Skarmory was taken out.
Next was Armaldo so I switched to Whiscash and took it out with a couple of Surfs.
For some reason Steven thought it would be a good idea to send out his Aggron next. So naturally, I stayed in and used Earthquake hoping to OHKO. Alas, Aggron survived it, at least he was just outside of healing range though. A Waterfall (to conserve EQ PP for Metagross) was all it took to reach the halfway mark in Steven's team.
I switched to Medicham to deal with the Cradily that was coming out. A single HJK wasn't enough to OHKO so Cradily used Sludge Bomb and got the poison with it, not that it mattered too much as I got lucky with the min/max damage roll after Cradily was healed back to full health and took all its HP with the second HJK.
Steven sent out his Claydol next, probably so he could finish with Metagross. I switched to Whiscash hoping to take it out with a Blizzard. But it missed. Now normally that wouldn't be a very big deal, but Claydol decided that it was a great time to use Reflect... so I had to stall the battle with Cradily so Reflect wouldn't be active when Metagross came out 'cause that would be bad. As Waterfall is the move that would do the least amount of damage, I used that hoping it would get Claydol into healing range and after 2 Waterfalls, I managed to do just that. I used this opportunity to switch to Sableye while he healed. Sableye got hit with an Earthquake and retaliated with Shadow Ball. Reflect wore off. I hoped that Claydol wouldn't use Reflect again as I went for another Shadow Ball but it seems that Lady Luck thought that would be too easy for me. So Reflect was up for another 5 turns . After the damage they took from another EQ and Shadow Ball, both Claydol and Sableye would be taken out after just one more hit. I knew that Steven would heal and knowing that Claydol had taken a few SpD drops from Shadow Ball, I switched Sableye from using Shadow Ball to Faint Attack which did slightly more than 50%. But as Claydol outsped Sableye, he couldn't get off the final blow to finally take that stupid Claydol out (which was probably a good thing as Whiscash wasn't at full health and Reflect was still up). I sent Aggron out and healed Whiscash back to full health so he could survive a hit from Metagross. In that turn Claydol used EQ as most people would expect. Reflect wore off. I prayed to whatever gods exist that Claydol would use EQ and take out Aggron (sorry Aggron) rather than set up another Reflect. The gods answered my prayer and Claydol used EQ again and KOed Aggron allowing me to bring in Whiscash and take out the Claydol without taking any damage, leaving him in perfect condition to fight Metagross, who was up next.
Whiscash used Earthquake and did slightly over half to Metagross, who retaliated with Psychic. Whiscash managed to tank the Psychic quite well and I thought the battle would be over after just one more turn. But Metagross then ate its Sitrus Berry and that gave it enough health to just barely survive another Earthquake from Whiscash. Not wanting to risk Steven healing Metagross out of fear of not having enough EQs to deal with it if he did, I used Surf instead to chip off enough health that an EQ would definitely KO, which meant that Whiscash needed to take another Psychic before being able to finish this long ass challenge with an Earthquake.

FEEDBACK​

Spoiler

In my experience, this challenge has had its ups and downs throughout it. The only negative I found with this challenge was the huge amounts of grinding needed due to the compulsory team sizes of 4 early on. However, this has been addressed with the team size rule being changed so I feel like that'll no longer be a problem. Sure there'll still have to be more grinding than a normal play, but nowhere near as excessive as it was before so :thumbsup:
Now to positives. The whole 'catching a new team after every badge' thing is a really interesting concept that forces you to use pokemon that you normally wouldn't even think about using, which is great since I've used some cool pokemon throughout the duration of this challenge. I think this rule is great.
While not necessary, thinking ahead and planning is encouraged as the challenge could prove to be quite difficult late game if you didn't plan ahead to ensure you're not stuck with crappy pokemon for the League.

Overall, I really like this challenge and think it'll make a great addition to this thread

 

[Splash_King]

Ya finally reached the finish line. Congratulations lol. Whenever the Harmonia ruleset is officially implemented, you'll have an instant Hall of Fame entry.

Grinding is indeed the main issue for this challenge... Perhaps players should be allowed to keep just one of their old team with them, as that would eliminate one extra Pokemon to level grind. I reckon if this rule were to be implemented, ya wouldn't be able to keep the same Pokemon multiple times in a row. Main reason I think of that condition is 'cause I wouldn't want to see people keepin' their starters forever, as most people tend to in regular ol' playthroughs. Also would want to prevent overleveling of a single 'mon, which would make the Challenge hilariously easier.

Thoughts on said possible rule?

 

[bou0010]

Hmm... that's an interesting possible rule. It would definitely cut down on the grinding while not making it too easy by overleveling a sing 'mon, like you said. Maybe instead of choosing yourself, get an RNG to pick which you could keep? Not sure how good that idea is, it just came to mind.
I'm thinking I'd like to do another Harmonia run on X once I finish with the current challenge there, I could probably test that rule then

 

[n0on3]

Just had to familiarize myself with the challenge, and yes that rule is perfectly fine with me. If I remember it correctly it was once called the N challenge when Black and White was released

 

[bou0010]

I'm going to start playing my X single, scramble, unevolved, moveset again now that my Harmonia challenge is done.
For those that don't remember where I left off, [strike]mainly me[/strike], I have 2 badges and am currently in Geosenge Town. Also, my pokemon is:

Anorith Lv. 31
Battle Armour
Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
- Scratch
- Metal Claw
- Knock Off
- Hone Claws

 

[lucktown]

Congrats you finally got through the most grindy challenge (I kinda like grinding though) The rule that allows you to keep one Pokemon would be really nice though

So I can't play platinum while my friend has the card where the game is on, so I'll do a monotype bug challenge on Y to pass the time.

Can anybody trade me a Scyther and/or Larvestar egg and later on trade with me to evolve Scyther? Sadly you can't put eggs on Pokemon Bank and sending over one of those to breed them myself is against the rules...
Oh wait online an such... does it matter if I go online in some town while not doing anything?

 

[bou0010]

PM 'Karp about it. He'll probably do it

X MOVESET / UNEVOLVED / SINGLE / SCRAMBLE (MUSS) UPDATE

Spoiler

I went to leave Geosenge Town and right as I was about to leave, I was surprised by Korrina and somehow I managed to beat her 2 Lucarios with only not-very-effective moves. Getting through Reflection Cave was mostly very easy, except for that Hedvig girl with the Throh and Hawlucha, who I didn't manage to beat first time around. It was at this point that I remembered that I could now use TMs seeing as I dropped the No Item part of this challenge. So I taught Anorith Return over Scratch (and everyone else Frustration to do as little damage possible in double battles) and wrecked Hedvig. Once I was out of the cave, I travelled around Shalour City for a bit, going to all the different houses talking to people and got myself an Eviolite in the process which I got Anorith to hold to help boost his meager defences (base stats of 45/50/50) since I wouldn't be evolving him any time soon. With the Eviolite equipped, I went to the Tower of Mastery to meet with the Mega Evolution Guru where I had to battle with Serena, who I beat without much trouble after using Hone Claws once.
Next stop was the gym. I was a bit worried about this gym as most of my moves were resisted by fighting types, but then I remembered that Anorith had Return. The 4 trainers were easy enough even if they managed to make me go back to the Pokemon Centre before I battled Korrina.
For the battle with Korrina I started off with 2 Hone Claws and just swept with Return from there, wondering why it was so easy. As soon as the battle finished I realised that Anorith was almost 10 levels above Korrina's Hawlucha...oops :lol:. For whatever reason, she told me to go to the top of the Tower of Mastery and then requested I battle with her again, this time both as users of mega pokemon, and gave me one of her Lucarios to use. I ended up losing the battle as her Lucario got a crit on Power-Up Punch -_-. Oh well, nothing I could do about that.
Since Anorith was so overlevelled, I decided to just rush to Coumarine City avoiding as many trainers as possible, so all of them (I love how riding the Skiddo gets you out of having battles). Pretty much as soon as I got to Coumarine, I got a call from Serena telling me that she wanted to have another battle in front of the gym. So I went there and totally destroyed her by using only Fury Cutter which Anorith learnt somewhere between my last battle with her and this one. Anorith managed to do that all without taking any damage at all, so I went straight in to take on the gym, again battling only the compulsory trainers, not wanting to be at TOO high of a level. When I got to Ramos I initiated the battle right away and, like with Serena, absolutely destroyed him with Fury Cutter.

Anorith Lv. 42 @Eviolite
Battle Armour
Adamant
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/31
- Return
- Fury Cutter
- Knock Off
- Hone Claws

 

[lucktown]

I'll think about doing that, but it's not really urgent and I'll get around without any of that.

Pokemon Y monotype bug update

Spoiler

I started the game with Chespin to give my rival the fire starter and maybe make it a little bit more challenging. First I caught a Scatterbug, which will be my only Pokemon for a while, since I don't really want Butterfree (basically a weaker Vivillon) or Beedrill. For the first gym I evolved it to get a Vivillon and then had a fun battle with her Vivillon. She started with Investation and I paralyzed her for that, so it was a pretty even playing field, but I ended up having to use 2 potions, because she didn't feel like getting paralyzed. I continued and left the exp. share on for now until all of my Pokemon are on a somewhat even level, but eventually I'll turn it off. As my next team member I caught a Nincada south of the palace to get a Shedinja and after beating up Team Flare I went to the beach to catch a Dwebble as my third Pokemon. I'll get a Heracross and probably Larvesta and a Scisor. For now I'll need to find something for the second gym though...

Vivillon lvl 25 with quirky nature and Compound Eyes holding Silver Powder

-Draining Kiss
-Psybeam
-Stun Spore
-Struggle Bug

Nincada lvl 17 with hardy nature and Compound Eyes

-Scratch
-Harden
-Leech Life
-Sand Attack

Dwebble lvl 13 with relaxed nature and Shell Armor

-Rock Blast
-Withdraw
-Sand Attack
-Faint Attack

I got a Shedinja and trained it to level 25 before the second gym and also got Dwebble on level 24. Vivillon reached lvl 29 because of the exp share and I started the fight with that. I thought he starts with Tyrunt, so I put in Vivillon first, but he actually used Amaura, so I had to sacrifice my Ninjask before switching to Dwebble, which then knocked it out with 4 hits of Rock Blast. For Tyrunt I switched to Vivillon and took it out with 2 Struggle Bugs. I got to attack first and for some reason he didn't do anything at all. It couldn't have been a speed tie and he did something while I wasn't paying attention, so that's really weird...

Vivillon lvl 29 with quirky nature and Compound Eyes holding Silver Powder

-Draining Kiss
-Psybeam
-Stun Spore
-Struggle Bug

Shedinja lvl 25 with hardy nature and Wonder Guard

-Scratch
-Harden
-Shadow Claw
-Sand Attack

Dwebble lvl 25 with relaxed nature and Shell Armor

-Rock Blast
-Bug Bite
-Stealth Rock
-Faint Attack

 

[Splash_King]

If I remember it correctly it was once called the N challenge when Black and White was released

Yep, that's what it was initially called... "N Challenge" ain't the best of names though, so I went with somethin' that bore a few more syllables.

So I can't play platinum while my friend has the card where the game is on, so I'll do a monotype bug challenge on Y to pass the time.

Challenge accepted.

Can anybody trade me a Scyther and/or Larvestar egg and later on trade with me to evolve Scyther?

If I ain't too late, I'll help ya with whatever eggs ya need.

I taught everyone else Frustration to do as little damage possible in double battles.

Ahh, touché...

I ended up losing the battle as her Lucario got a crit on Power-Up Punch -_-.

i lol'd

For Tyrunt I switched to Vivillon and took it out with 2 Struggle Bugs. I got to attack first and for some reason he didn't do anything at all. It couldn't have been a speed tie and he did something while I wasn't paying attention, so that's really weird...

May of missed Rock Tomb. dat hax

 

[lucktown]

If I ain't too late, I'll help ya with whatever eggs ya need.

Would be great. I'm only at the third gym so there's still plenty of time left.

May of missed Rock Tomb. dat hax

Maybe, but I looked at the screen after my attack and it did nothing, but I'm probably blind

 

[n0on3]

Well I am thinking of doing a challenge, what is the most difficult challenge? I was thinking along the lines of single, no item, unevolved, and said pokemon will be the first pokemon I am able to capture, with a rule that states I am not allowed to be 5 levels higher than the gym leaders / elite 4. Perhaps with a random move pool as well.