Part 24: Battle CD Selection 1

Side Course 3: Battle CD Selection 1

Battle SIM



What up people looking at their screens? We've got our first chunk of Battle CDs to go over. Let's have a look.

Reward: Super Potion



We're starting off with a real exciting one here. Woooooo.



What's good to remember is your opponent will very often go down their list of moves one by one unless they have reasons for otherwise. This makes them very predictable and makes them a puzzle to taking them out or stopping them before they reach their more dangerous moves.



You can make a couple mistakes, but it's just Counter then Mirror Coat.



Riveting.



Reward: Great Ball




This one is simple enough, though you should note the Speed tiers as that might slip you up.



Not a lot to it, but now that Skarmory is out...



We switch to Ludicolo since it can then outspeed and dive before Sky Attack is used. It'll take too long for Quagsire to go down, so you need to switch immediately.



You can waste a couple turns to see how it's supposed to go, it's mainly waiting for your attacks to go off.



Reward: Antidote




Like before, pay attention to the Speed tiers. If you make a mistake, you will die.



Thankfully you don't need to use Thunder at all, a fair few moves you'll get are ones to throw you off, or to make you think about a certain strategy you won't need, like the Rain Dance Thunder combo. No need for it.



Though for Tropius a Helping Hand Thunderbolt isn't enough, but two attacks are. See how they can be tricky already?



Since we cleared all the Battle CDs we bought from the shop (2, 3 and 4), three more become available to buy. Of course we weren't gonna only do 5 in this chunk.



Reward: Great Ball



Alright, how can we take down this one?



You just Swords Dance twice (a move Machamp can't learn, but get used to that) while Aggron does its listed moves of Protect, then Counter.



And then you fucking murder it.



Reward: Full Heal





Alright now this is a bit of a puzzle. You can see what Kecleon is gonna do, it's strong enough to knock out one of your Pokemon per turn, so you need to use the faster Pokemon to change Kecleon's typing so the second Pokemon gets in a super effective hit. Can you see the path we need to take?



The first two moves are Mach Punch from Hitmonchan to change it to Fighting, to Wing Attack to change it to Flying.



Since Aerial Ace is first to be used, the AI chooses the Pokemon it would do the most damage to, be it super effective damage, or if it'll knock out a Pokemon regardless. So that'll be important in some CDs.



We'll send out Hariyama since Aerodactyl goes for Ancientpower to turn it Rock type, but I get pretty lucky here and crit, which will save a turn.



Meaning I can knock it out with Arm Thrust, instead of going for Vital Throw while Kecleon knocked out Aerodactyl so Girafarig could use Psychic. In this case, we didn't need to use Girafarig at all!



Reward: Ultra Ball



If you haven't used the Conversion moves before, you'll learn about them.



Regular Conversion turns the user into a type of one of its moves. Since the only non-Normal move we have is Aerial Ace, that's what we'll get.



Since we're not statused, Aerial Ace does more damage due to our new STAB, so we'll use that. And hey another bonus crit saves a turn, how considerate.



Reward: Energy Root



I think this one's a bit obvious.



Since we're barely faster than Shuckle, we can go for Super Fang before Bide starts, so that's half of its health gone already.



Since we have one turn to burn while we wait for Toxic damage to rack up, we can get a sub up and then Super Fang again, since Bide fizzled out to nothing. Remember that Bide is 2 turns no matter what, starting in this gen, so you're free to go for another Super Fang on turn 3 or 4.



With CDs 9, 13 and 17 complete, another 3 more appear in the shop!



Reward: Awakening




Hmm, what do we do about this? Salamence is really strong and fast, but has no attacking moves and is trapped by Shadow Tag (abilities and nature are the few things you need to find out for yourself). We don't have a lot of time to take everything down, so we've gotta think of something.



It doesn't matter what Salamence does, as long as it's not Protect. And since we have no items, a Knock Off from a Banette is gonna do absolutely nothing.



Sorry, Salamence, you're in the way. It also doesn't matter what Wobbuffet does, as we'll soon see.




Did you remember? Mirror Coat does nothing against Dark types and Counter does nothing against Ghost types, so our Pokemon are completely safe. While we didn't knock out Wobbuffet, we're still on track.



Banette and Wynaut go down in one hit to Houndoom, so so long as Wobbuffet is weak enough that Dusclops can deal with it, we can finish by the end of the fourth turn!



Reward: White Herb




This is a tricky one mainly because there's little room for error and you need to be precise in what moves you use. The Vigoroth are basically identical, we've just gotta make sure Ursaring doesn't wreck us and Clefable doesn't annoy us too much.




We're not exactly aiming to knock out Clefable, but it's gotta be ready to go down when we want it, so since Ninjask is using Protect, we can focus on one thing at a time.



Ninjask gets +1 Speed every turn, but that won't matter unless it passes those boosts, so we need it stuck with Encore. There's some RNG is this, as while Taunt is always 2 turns no matter what, Encore is 2-6, so if Ninjask gets an early one, then we're screwed, since we need to damage Clefable a bit more.



Pound won't do much, so it's whatever.



But we need Clefable to use an attacking move, otherwise Encore will fail and we'll waste a turn that could've been a Facade. We don't want Clefable wrapping back round to using its status moves.



Now we can focus down the Ninjask and then whittle down the Ursaring.




Well that's unlucky, we just lost. We need to damage Clefable enough that it gets taken out by Earthquake, but it can get off three attacks while Encored. It's a 50/50 chance of which opponent gets targetted and unfortunately it was on the same Vigoroth each time, meaning it was unable to survive an Earthquake. We need to hit Ursaring with 3 Facades to take it out, so the second Vigoroth won't deal enough damage and will get knocked out by another Earthquake.



...but if we crit, it doesn't matter. Huh. Well that saved me repeating that CD.



Reward: Ultra Ball




Hmm, another tricky one. Since the opponent cycles through their attacks, if we don't do something, they'll always use Protect when Slaking needs to attack. The Choice Band also adds to the problem, so we need to be careful what attacks we lock ourselves into. We have two Double-Edge targets and one Shadow Ball target, so one is more worthwhile to be locked into than the other.




Since we only have 3 Pokemon, we can't double switch, so one Slaking has to attack, it doesn't matter what it uses or what it targets. The opponent will always Protect on odd numbered turns, so we need the Slaking to attack on even numbered turns to get around it.



The opponent's have rubbish moves, so we don't need to worry about them knocking us out. Let's get Dusclops out here. We don't need to be careful with Roar, since Protect will prevent us from desyncing the opponents even if we were able to switch them out on odd numbered turns.



There we go, we switch one Slaking for another and it's ready to attack on the fourth turn, after they've used Protect. Hehehe.



Now go for Double-Edge, since this Slaking will get another chance to attack and there's only one Ghost type. Exploud doesn't have anything to do this turn.




Now we swap out Exploud for our second Slaking while both opponents Protect. Now they're both ready for action.



And since our first Slaking is locked into Double-Edge, the other Slaking goes for Shadow Ball. As easy as that.



Reward: Ultra Ball




The Battle CDs like Shedinja, for obvious reasons, so we need to figure out how we're going to knock out both opponents. We don't have enough firepower on our side and not enough time to make that firepower more firey or whatever this metaphor needs. So what can we do?



Detect just adds to the problem, but we'll only have two turns to do something!



Oh would you look at that, something.



Now Raticate can do whatever the hell it likes while Shedinja reduces an opponent to 1HP.



Alright, that's both of them at 1HP, but we're on the last turn and they're about to use Detect, what can we do???



While weather effects occur at the end of the turn, they still happen before the turn rolls over, so it counts and we knock them both out through Detect!



Farewell my friend.



That's it for Battle CDs this time around, we've done 12 of the damn things. Next time, we'll do around half of the Battle BINGO.