Hope you enjoy! There's a good chance another video will come out this Sunday morning, but next week there will probably only be one video. Lot going on recently.
Cacturne has one thing going for it: if you use fireblast on it, the gen 3 animation lines up with Cacturne's "stick man" form which is very satisfying.
These placements are pretty accurate from my experience in Emerald, one note I wanna make for Wattson for those who pick Treecko there's one guaranteed encounter that makes the fight a bit easier imo and that's Whismur since it evolves at level 20 and and can learn flamethrower from the game corner to take down Magneton which I feel is the biggest hurdle in the battle for Grovyle, I mean Manectric is still a problem but at least Grovyle can resist shock wave and can have a chance with Bullet Seed or if you wanna risk it Fury Cutter and hopefully your other encounters can help out as well
@@dlake1224 Sonicboom isn't blocked by Soundproof but Supersonic is which is another point for the Whismur line since you don't get Persim Berries that easily at that point in the game (I don't remember if the girl in the flower shop can give you one) and I'm sure we've had at least a couple of moments where Supersonic has cost us a Pokémon or even a battle
Back in my first Sapphire run, I remember Metagross being such a pain in the ass I had to build my entire team in consideration of it. And by then I didn't know Medicham can literally clean sweep Sidney, Phoebe and Glacia by using Brick Break and Shadow Ball. I honestly believe that Metagross is the biggest threat in the entire game for sure. Also I've seen Magneton surviving to a +1 boosted Earthquake from Winona's Altaria. If I recall correctly, that happened to Jaiden's Animation in her Ruby nuzlocke.
Bold of you to put the rival in easy after your last video 😏. I don't recall ever having a problem with gym 7, I do remember struggling with Glacia a bit back in the day but in recent playthroughs I dont recall any issues.
Ironically this video was actually made just before that walkthrough episode 😂 I definitely could have done better, but I honestly believe that Grovyle is just really bad in the middle part of the game. When your starter brings your whole team down, you're probably in trouble haha. Plus all the other rival fights are super easy.
@@grumpygengar22 Fair enough, I've only chosen the grass starter first once. Grass is just so common a type and an electric type can usually do that job, as my internet persona would imply.
I would rank Flannery a little higher. Almost all strategies I come up with in monolockes revolves around taking some overheats from torkoal to bring its sp atk down, to then do damage to it, because its very difficult to one shot it, or to defeat it with your first mon anyway. But the thing always crits and kills one of my mons at least, I did many grass runs before, but even if its not grass, it still taking down one of your mons. Hariyama with thick fat is a great counter, but you can't always get it.
Without monotype, you get a ton of great guaranteed encounters. Tentacool can sweep her first 3 mons, and then you have Gyarados, Marshtomp, and Wobbuffet can all help, not to mention getting lucky with Thick Fat Hariyama or Azumarill, or Pelipper in general.
My rankings: (warning, this comment is very long. you've been warned; proceed with caution.) Roxanne can either be a joke if you have the right encounters and/or the AI acts stupid, but if you don't have Mudkip for whatever reason it's pretty average to tough. Treecko does struggle with Nosepass and Torchic is basically unusable, but Lombre and Shroomish are pretty likely encounters so this fight probably averages out to be pretty easy. Brawly is kind of a joke. You most likely have a flying type at this point and/or a fully-evolved Bug-type; particularly Taillow and Dustox make the entire fight free if you're playing your cards right. If you got incredibly unlucky and somehow have neither, your guaranteed Tentacool acts as a decent wall against Makuhita. Machop is pretty average and Meditite is a free kill if you don't completely mess up. And that's not taking into account the fact that Sableye solos the entire team. All things considered, a pretty easy fight. The Route 110 rival is pretty nasty. All three of the starters are pretty tough to fight against, especially Combusken if it gets lucky with Focus Energy. Grovyle is the least threatening of the three but still has STAB Absorbs and can spam Fury Cutter to rack up massive damage. Marshtomp has Mud Shot at this point which is pretty terrifying. The other 'mons are pretty much a joke, though. No rival fights aside from this one are really anything special at all. Average. Wattson is a run killer if you don't have a Marshtomp for whatever reason. Manectric is scary to deal with due to Howl boosts and STAB Shock Waves and Magneton is incredibly bulky for this stage of the game, plus can do some real damage to your team. Don't even get me started on how annoying paralysis from either Static or Thunder Wave is, even with Cheri Berries. Grovyle will literally die to practically everything; if you picked it you're basically just praying for good RNG. Combusken is okay here but still has problems with aforementioned Manectric. Marshtomp needs no explaination. Breloom is a pretty good matchup against Magneton, so I reccomend using it if you have it. A pretty tough fight without Marshtomp, but free otherwise. Poor Maxie. Mightyena can be annoying to handle but the fact that he has a literal Zubat and a Camerupt is basically a free win. Easy. Flannery's first three are incredibly...well, free, but they'll set up Sunny Day so Torkoal can fucking nuke everything on your team. Marshtomp doesn't even match up that well against the thing because chances are it'll be male, and Torkoal will hax you to hell and back between Attract and paralysis. Grovyle is useless and Combusken can't really make a dent in the Torkoal. Tentacool is okay against it but takes quite a lot from Body Slam, Gyarados has no STAB yet, Azumarill is pretty pitiful despite its bulk and Pelipper can't do much with Water Gun. Plus, Sunny Day is reducing the power of all your Water-type moves. This fight probably requires a sacrifice or two to win, but it's not quite a run killer. Very tough. Norman isn't that difficult from my experience. Breloom and Combusken solo his first three Pokemon (as does Machoke in theory. I've never used one) and Slaking is pretty manageable. If you have anything with Protect or a Skarmory it's practically free. However, if you have none of the aforementioned 'mons, he's terrifying. Spinda is annoying as hell to deal with, Linoone will spam Slash after setting up Belly Drum. Vigoroth. And then Slaking has the stats of your average box-art legendary plus terrifying STAB Facades and Yawn to cripple your team if you don't switch out. I'd say he's pretty average; ironically. Winona's difficulty varies as well. None of the three starters match up particularly well against the team and that Altaria is a force to be reckoned with. Swablu prevents setup sweeping with Perish Song, plus Skarmory and Pelipper are incredibly difficult to deal with because of how damn bulky they are. Tropius, however, is Tropius. This fight isn't that difficult as long as you have an electric-type or a non-Combusken fire-type but Altaria is definitely terrifying if you can't kill it quickly. Low end of tough. Tate and Liza. If you don't have a good dark-type and no fast waters, this is not free. It's also not free if you *do* have those. They have way too many healing items, Xatu spams Calm Mind and then beats you to death with Psychic, and Claydol will spam Earthquake and annihilate essentially everything. Then, Solrock has Sunny Day-boosted Flamethrowers and Solar Beam while Lunatone once again threatens a Calm Mind sweep. Both Sceptile and Swampert are great for this fight. Blaziken is not for fairly obvious reasons. In the end, this is either a run killer or a tough fight. Every single team admin in the game sucks. They literally cannot do anything; not deserving of a boss or even a miniboss title. Maxie 2 is a little bit more difficult because he has a Crobat now, but he's still really nothing remarkable. Pretty average. Archie is a pushover; Sharpedo can be a bit challenging but this fight is generally really, really easy. Juan is incredibly fucking annoying. Kingdra spamming Double Team and using Resto-Chesto strategies as soon as it gets low makes the word 'annoying' seem like it's not enough. Plus it has Ice Beam. Just in case you thought your shiny new Flygon and Altaria were going to be able to make a dent in it. Plus Water Pulse's confusion chance; you'd better hope your Aerial Ace/Shock Wave user is still alive, or you're probably fucked. Depending on how lucky/unlucky you are, he ranges from a run killer to a stupidly tough fight. Sidney's only real threats are Shiftry and Absol. Shiftry has Double Team and Swagger if you hadn't had enough evasion and confusion hax, and then Absol will destroy everything with boosted Slashes if you get unlucky with crits. It's not a hard fight overall, but annoying to say the least. Phoebe is pretty difficult, in my opinion. Dusclops 1 has Curse if you wanted to setup (without Substitute) and is overall annoying. Banette 1 has stupidly good coverage and could even (totally not based on a real example) murder your Breloom because you forgot it had Psychic. Banette 2 is irritating with Grudge and forces you to use Leppas after the fight's over. Sableye is more Double Team bullshit. And finally, Dusclops 2 is incredibly formidable with Earthquake and Shadow Ball to do some nasty damage. A tough fight. Glacia can either be a pushover if you have any good electric-type or absolute hell if you get unlucky. Magneton obliterates the entire team, but if you don't have a fast Thunderbolt spammer the Walrein can devestate your team if it gets good Sheer Cold luck. Pretty average. Drake depends. If you have your Tentacruel or Walrein with you, it's basically guaranteed to outspeed/survive every hit and destroy everything with Ice Beam. If you have a slower Ice Beam user such as Gyarados, it'll be a little bit tough to navigate around but still be doable. If you have no Ice Beam user for some unknown reason, this fight can be nearly impossible. Altaria and Kingdra hit like trucks after Dragon Dance, Flygon can deal good damage, Shelgon can use Rock Tomb to cripple your 'mons and Salamence is a Salamence. This fight ranges from easy to a run killer depending on the circumstances. Wallace. Wailord will decimate practically everything with fully boosted Water Spouts in one hit if you're somehow slower or you miss something like Thunder with an electric-type. Whiscash is frustrating to deal with since Water-Ground is a good type combination, Exhibit A being Swampert. Ludicolo likes using Double Team and Leech Seed just in case evasion strategies haven't driven you insane yet and Tentacruel fires off Toxic, Hydro Pump and Ice Beam at rapidfire. Milotic is bulky enough to survive a Thunder from Magneton and its Surfs hit hard, plus it has Ice Beam for coverage and Recover and Toxic to stall you. Then there's Gyarados, the arguably scariest 'mon on the team. Ground immunity, grass neutrality, outspeeds Magneton. Manectric is easily your best check to this monster, but if you don't one the combination of Dragon Dance, Earthquake and STAB Surf - plus Hyper Beam if it wants to completely overkill you - is next to impossible to handle without a good strategy and a few sacrifices. Easily a run killer. Steven in Emerald just isn't that tough since you can build an entire team to deal with him as opposed to fighting Wallace and the Elite Four in one go. If you have a fire or ground type (or both, if you use Camerupt for some reason) the fight's pretty free, since Earthquake destroys Metagross and Aggron, plus Skarmory is doable with the fire/electric you most likely have. Plus Swampert annihilates Armaldo and Aggron and Cradily is pretty manageable. Blaziken handles virtually the entire team and Sceptile is okay, all things considered. I'd rank him as a somewhat tough fight, maybe slightly higher than Norman. i spent about 40 minutes typing this entire comment out please send help i hope this was accurate
Dude these are top-tier takes, loved reading this and I pretty much agree with all of it (my opinions have changed a little bit since I released this video). The only comment I'll add is regarding Tate and Liza. Your analysis was perfect, although I would bump them down the list a little bit more considering that many of those water/dark encounters are basically guaranteed. Sharpedo is a good example of this. Crunch/Surf alongside any other guaranteed water type will decimate that team (Tentacruel comes to mind since it's guaranteed as well). Other than that, I love this! What are your opinions on Wally's battle in Victory Road?
@@grumpygengar22 Thanks! I do agree with the T&L comment, especially if you have a pairing like Sharpedo/Walrein out front in the beginning, although if you're doing something like a monotype run or a 'snaplocke' (see FlygonHG) they tend to be quite a bit harder. Another amendment: Gyarados 3HKOs the Torkoal with Dragon Rage, takes Body Slams and Overheats quite well and is guaranteed. That bumps Flannery down a bit. As for Wally, his Altaria is surprisingly formidable and both the Magneton and Gardevoir can be problematic, but as a whole not particularly difficult in my opinion, considering he has Roselia and Delcatty. Have a good day!
I've only recently started Nuzlocking and I'm still practicing to get myself to full hardcore rules (I obey level caps and play on set mode, but still working on not needing healing items any more), but wanted to share my thoughts. One challenge is that you could almost have a 'I picked Mudkip as my starter' tier list and a 'I did not pick Mudkip as my starter' tier list, as that line is the best possible pokemon for so many fights. But my biggest thoughts across 3.5 Emerald runs would be: 1) Maxie 1 is probably one of the bigger luck based fights in the game, because if that Camerupt uncorks a Magnitude 10 then a situation you thought was safe can suddenly be very not safe. Maxie 2 is annoying because of the double battle with Steven. I always hate it, even though I usually don't actually lose mons. 2) The thing about Wally is that under the most common level cap rules you're cap is 55 while his pokemon are 41-45. XP management at that point means you probably aren't actually walking in with many 55s, but if you get you've prepared for this fight it really shouldn't be above average IMO. 3) One thing that makes Norman a little easier to handle is that you're pretty likely to have a Machop from Jagged Pass that is great in this fight as Machoke but you really don't need again after, leading to the rare circumstance of having a sacrifice that you can get a lot of value out of first. Gyarados and Mightyena are both also highly likely to be in your box and can drop some intimidates where you need them. Which is all to say that I think there are too many options to have him verging on run killer status (although I'd still have him at the lower end of tough, as he usually seems to claim at least one kill from me). 4) I think Tate and Liza will punish your mistakes harder than any other fight in the game, and that is why people often struggle with them. Certainly they've killed more of my mons than any other fight across my runs. Earthquakes immediately threaten almost every dark or water type, ancient power can punish the fliers (or just a Xatu Psychic in the case of Crobat), and if you take too long the Xatu will start to set up Calm Minds. Plus your Surf power is broken up between Claydol and Xatu so you probably aren't OHKOing anything with it. You have to be very precise with your first two to three turns or your mons will start needing gravestones. I agree that the Solrock & Lunatone seem scarier than they are though. 5) I've never found Juan that threatening, although this is probably also the fight that is made easiest with healing items as despite how obnoxious it is the Kingdra just doesn't hit very hard. I've tried digging out a Bellossom from my box for this fight -- I would recommend it if the Whiscash scares you, but not otherwise. 6) I'd be willing to bet that Roxanne's Nosepass has claimed more pokemon and ended more runs than Sidney's team has. 7) One thing that helps with Glacia is that it is pretty easy to set up on her first Sealeo. It always likes to Hail first, and it doesn't hit very hard, and it's slow. My last run I used two Calm Minds from Alakazam, then pressed Psychic five times to sweep the fight. Apparently it knows encore, which could cause issues, but I don't know how likely that actually is. I've also been in the position of having to use Electrode for this fight and it was fine. Not great, but fine. If you have a Hariyama or a Machoke/Machamp kicking around they'll also be pretty good here.
@@grumpygengar22 You're welcome! I would also add that I have had good results against Winona by heading South to routes 108 & 109 after beating Norman, and picking up a Wingull/Pelipper (if I don't already have one) and teaching it the Ice Beam TM from the Abandoned ship. Both times I tried it didn't quite one-shot Alteria (maybe with lucky nature and IVs or some EV training it could), but I got it into potion range and it was easy to finish off from there. Pelipper also more than bulky enough to eat a dragon breath/aerial ace or two if needed.
I think Wattson and Flannery should be on tough, if not run ending. If you don't have any thing to deal specifically with Wattson's Magnetton or basically all of Flannery team, your run just end. Which is the case for a lot of restricted runs and even a normal hardcore nuzlocke if you don't have the right team member available.
Yeah if you don't have the team members for sure. It's just, if you picked Mudkip, Watson is free, and if you picked Torchic, his Magneton is free at the very least. If you picked Treecko then you definitely have a ton of problems with both fights.
I have never struggled with wally at the end of the game. Most of the threats that he presents you have already had to find answers for in the past. And his gardevoir is walled out by any darktype so even the most desperate of players can usually force a sharpedo at pacificlog town. He is only dangerous because you can forget about him (which you can say the same for any of the rival fights) but I don't think it deserves run killer.
The only one I disagree with is Wally. You have so many answers at that point that prepping for the single fight is relatively easy, plus he's laughably far below the last level cap so you can just overlevel him easily
Yeah I think if I made an updated list in the future I would bump him down for that reason. I almost always go into his fight with pokemon around the same level so it's not something I had thought about.
You can skip Winona go to mt. Pyre finish the story there go to lillycove to the department store then head to shoal cave then come back to fight Winona with your new ice type
I found a way to defeat Winona pretty easily in my emerald run. I had a Manectric with Thunderbolt of course, but also Roar. He learns this move at lvl 31, just before the max level for Winona. Manectric took down Swablu in one attack. Then, Altaria comes in (because earthquake is strong against Manectric type i suppose). Altaria always does a dragon dance on its first turn, he is programmed that way. That is when Roar comes handy. Altaria uses dragon dance, then my Manectric uses Roar (this attack goes always second, but since Altaria never attack on first turn, it is safe.) Altaria is forced to switch, loosing its attack buff from dragon dance, and another of Winona's pokemon take its place. They are all pretty easy to handle with Manectric/thunderbolt. And you can do this roar strat each time Altaria comes out, so that only Altaria remains at the end. Then, i used an other pokemon perfect to deal with Altaria : Castform. You received it from someone of the meteo center just before the 6th gym, and in ice-form with Weather Ball, it can obliterates Altaria. With that strategy, Winoma was the easiest gym of my run.
That's really interesting, I never considered Castform for the Winona fight before. I usually make it a point to try and grab the ice beam TM before I get to her just to have something that can deal with her Altaria without an issue
Another strat I like for Norman is switching gyarados in and out into his slaking like 10-20 times to cut down its beastly attack. I’ll still never forgive that stupid gorilla for surviving a mud shot on 1 hp and killing my marshtomp 😭
If you have a plan winowna is littely Free. I know you like to shit talk about gyarados in this generation but dragon rage 3 shots all the Pokémon of winowna and with skarmory defense and altarias dragon dance a guaranteed 3 ko is good. Magikarp is also a guaranteed encounter so she is really eazy
Hope you enjoy! There's a good chance another video will come out this Sunday morning, but next week there will probably only be one video. Lot going on recently.
Cacturne has one thing going for it: if you use fireblast on it, the gen 3 animation lines up with Cacturne's "stick man" form which is very satisfying.
That is true, and cannot be ignored
Truuuu Glalie too the fire blast gives it a perfectly fit hug of super effective death
These placements are pretty accurate from my experience in Emerald, one note I wanna make for Wattson for those who pick Treecko there's one guaranteed encounter that makes the fight a bit easier imo and that's Whismur since it evolves at level 20 and and can learn flamethrower from the game corner to take down Magneton which I feel is the biggest hurdle in the battle for Grovyle, I mean Manectric is still a problem but at least Grovyle can resist shock wave and can have a chance with Bullet Seed or if you wanna risk it Fury Cutter and hopefully your other encounters can help out as well
That's genius because Whismur also has soundproof so would block those annoying sonicbooms
@@dlake1224 Sonicboom isn't blocked by Soundproof but Supersonic is which is another point for the Whismur line since you don't get Persim Berries that easily at that point in the game (I don't remember if the girl in the flower shop can give you one) and I'm sure we've had at least a couple of moments where Supersonic has cost us a Pokémon or even a battle
Back in my first Sapphire run, I remember Metagross being such a pain in the ass I had to build my entire team in consideration of it. And by then I didn't know Medicham can literally clean sweep Sidney, Phoebe and Glacia by using Brick Break and Shadow Ball. I honestly believe that Metagross is the biggest threat in the entire game for sure.
Also I've seen Magneton surviving to a +1 boosted Earthquake from Winona's Altaria. If I recall correctly, that happened to Jaiden's Animation in her Ruby nuzlocke.
Yeah, she killed a bunch of Marill to level it up, which gave it a ton of extra HP from Marill’s EVs
Bold of you to put the rival in easy after your last video 😏. I don't recall ever having a problem with gym 7, I do remember struggling with Glacia a bit back in the day but in recent playthroughs I dont recall any issues.
Ironically this video was actually made just before that walkthrough episode 😂 I definitely could have done better, but I honestly believe that Grovyle is just really bad in the middle part of the game. When your starter brings your whole team down, you're probably in trouble haha. Plus all the other rival fights are super easy.
@@grumpygengar22 Fair enough, I've only chosen the grass starter first once. Grass is just so common a type and an electric type can usually do that job, as my internet persona would imply.
6:20 "If you don't plan for it, you probably just die"
Me, who didn't plan for it, and just died: 🙃
I would rank Flannery a little higher. Almost all strategies I come up with in monolockes revolves around taking some overheats from torkoal to bring its sp atk down, to then do damage to it, because its very difficult to one shot it, or to defeat it with your first mon anyway. But the thing always crits and kills one of my mons at least, I did many grass runs before, but even if its not grass, it still taking down one of your mons. Hariyama with thick fat is a great counter, but you can't always get it.
Without monotype, you get a ton of great guaranteed encounters. Tentacool can sweep her first 3 mons, and then you have Gyarados, Marshtomp, and Wobbuffet can all help, not to mention getting lucky with Thick Fat Hariyama or Azumarill, or Pelipper in general.
My rankings:
(warning, this comment is very long. you've been warned; proceed with caution.)
Roxanne can either be a joke if you have the right encounters and/or the AI acts stupid, but if you don't have Mudkip for whatever reason it's pretty average to tough. Treecko does struggle with Nosepass and Torchic is basically unusable, but Lombre and Shroomish are pretty likely encounters so this fight probably averages out to be pretty easy.
Brawly is kind of a joke. You most likely have a flying type at this point and/or a fully-evolved Bug-type; particularly Taillow and Dustox make the entire fight free if you're playing your cards right. If you got incredibly unlucky and somehow have neither, your guaranteed Tentacool acts as a decent wall against Makuhita. Machop is pretty average and Meditite is a free kill if you don't completely mess up. And that's not taking into account the fact that Sableye solos the entire team. All things considered, a pretty easy fight.
The Route 110 rival is pretty nasty. All three of the starters are pretty tough to fight against, especially Combusken if it gets lucky with Focus Energy. Grovyle is the least threatening of the three but still has STAB Absorbs and can spam Fury Cutter to rack up massive damage. Marshtomp has Mud Shot at this point which is pretty terrifying. The other 'mons are pretty much a joke, though. No rival fights aside from this one are really anything special at all. Average.
Wattson is a run killer if you don't have a Marshtomp for whatever reason. Manectric is scary to deal with due to Howl boosts and STAB Shock Waves and Magneton is incredibly bulky for this stage of the game, plus can do some real damage to your team. Don't even get me started on how annoying paralysis from either Static or Thunder Wave is, even with Cheri Berries. Grovyle will literally die to practically everything; if you picked it you're basically just praying for good RNG. Combusken is okay here but still has problems with aforementioned Manectric. Marshtomp needs no explaination. Breloom is a pretty good matchup against Magneton, so I reccomend using it if you have it. A pretty tough fight without Marshtomp, but free otherwise.
Poor Maxie. Mightyena can be annoying to handle but the fact that he has a literal Zubat and a Camerupt is basically a free win. Easy.
Flannery's first three are incredibly...well, free, but they'll set up Sunny Day so Torkoal can fucking nuke everything on your team. Marshtomp doesn't even match up that well against the thing because chances are it'll be male, and Torkoal will hax you to hell and back between Attract and paralysis. Grovyle is useless and Combusken can't really make a dent in the Torkoal. Tentacool is okay against it but takes quite a lot from Body Slam, Gyarados has no STAB yet, Azumarill is pretty pitiful despite its bulk and Pelipper can't do much with Water Gun. Plus, Sunny Day is reducing the power of all your Water-type moves. This fight probably requires a sacrifice or two to win, but it's not quite a run killer. Very tough.
Norman isn't that difficult from my experience. Breloom and Combusken solo his first three Pokemon (as does Machoke in theory. I've never used one) and Slaking is pretty manageable. If you have anything with Protect or a Skarmory it's practically free. However, if you have none of the aforementioned 'mons, he's terrifying. Spinda is annoying as hell to deal with, Linoone will spam Slash after setting up Belly Drum. Vigoroth. And then Slaking has the stats of your average box-art legendary plus terrifying STAB Facades and Yawn to cripple your team if you don't switch out. I'd say he's pretty average; ironically.
Winona's difficulty varies as well. None of the three starters match up particularly well against the team and that Altaria is a force to be reckoned with. Swablu prevents setup sweeping with Perish Song, plus Skarmory and Pelipper are incredibly difficult to deal with because of how damn bulky they are. Tropius, however, is Tropius. This fight isn't that difficult as long as you have an electric-type or a non-Combusken fire-type but Altaria is definitely terrifying if you can't kill it quickly. Low end of tough.
Tate and Liza. If you don't have a good dark-type and no fast waters, this is not free. It's also not free if you *do* have those. They have way too many healing items, Xatu spams Calm Mind and then beats you to death with Psychic, and Claydol will spam Earthquake and annihilate essentially everything. Then, Solrock has Sunny Day-boosted Flamethrowers and Solar Beam while Lunatone once again threatens a Calm Mind sweep. Both Sceptile and Swampert are great for this fight. Blaziken is not for fairly obvious reasons. In the end, this is either a run killer or a tough fight.
Every single team admin in the game sucks. They literally cannot do anything; not deserving of a boss or even a miniboss title.
Maxie 2 is a little bit more difficult because he has a Crobat now, but he's still really nothing remarkable. Pretty average.
Archie is a pushover; Sharpedo can be a bit challenging but this fight is generally really, really easy.
Juan is incredibly fucking annoying. Kingdra spamming Double Team and using Resto-Chesto strategies as soon as it gets low makes the word 'annoying' seem like it's not enough. Plus it has Ice Beam. Just in case you thought your shiny new Flygon and Altaria were going to be able to make a dent in it. Plus Water Pulse's confusion chance; you'd better hope your Aerial Ace/Shock Wave user is still alive, or you're probably fucked. Depending on how lucky/unlucky you are, he ranges from a run killer to a stupidly tough fight.
Sidney's only real threats are Shiftry and Absol. Shiftry has Double Team and Swagger if you hadn't had enough evasion and confusion hax, and then Absol will destroy everything with boosted Slashes if you get unlucky with crits. It's not a hard fight overall, but annoying to say the least.
Phoebe is pretty difficult, in my opinion. Dusclops 1 has Curse if you wanted to setup (without Substitute) and is overall annoying. Banette 1 has stupidly good coverage and could even (totally not based on a real example) murder your Breloom because you forgot it had Psychic. Banette 2 is irritating with Grudge and forces you to use Leppas after the fight's over. Sableye is more Double Team bullshit. And finally, Dusclops 2 is incredibly formidable with Earthquake and Shadow Ball to do some nasty damage. A tough fight.
Glacia can either be a pushover if you have any good electric-type or absolute hell if you get unlucky. Magneton obliterates the entire team, but if you don't have a fast Thunderbolt spammer the Walrein can devestate your team if it gets good Sheer Cold luck. Pretty average.
Drake depends. If you have your Tentacruel or Walrein with you, it's basically guaranteed to outspeed/survive every hit and destroy everything with Ice Beam. If you have a slower Ice Beam user such as Gyarados, it'll be a little bit tough to navigate around but still be doable. If you have no Ice Beam user for some unknown reason, this fight can be nearly impossible. Altaria and Kingdra hit like trucks after Dragon Dance, Flygon can deal good damage, Shelgon can use Rock Tomb to cripple your 'mons and Salamence is a Salamence. This fight ranges from easy to a run killer depending on the circumstances.
Wallace. Wailord will decimate practically everything with fully boosted Water Spouts in one hit if you're somehow slower or you miss something like Thunder with an electric-type. Whiscash is frustrating to deal with since Water-Ground is a good type combination, Exhibit A being Swampert. Ludicolo likes using Double Team and Leech Seed just in case evasion strategies haven't driven you insane yet and Tentacruel fires off Toxic, Hydro Pump and Ice Beam at rapidfire. Milotic is bulky enough to survive a Thunder from Magneton and its Surfs hit hard, plus it has Ice Beam for coverage and Recover and Toxic to stall you. Then there's Gyarados, the arguably scariest 'mon on the team. Ground immunity, grass neutrality, outspeeds Magneton. Manectric is easily your best check to this monster, but if you don't one the combination of Dragon Dance, Earthquake and STAB Surf - plus Hyper Beam if it wants to completely overkill you - is next to impossible to handle without a good strategy and a few sacrifices. Easily a run killer.
Steven in Emerald just isn't that tough since you can build an entire team to deal with him as opposed to fighting Wallace and the Elite Four in one go. If you have a fire or ground type (or both, if you use Camerupt for some reason) the fight's pretty free, since Earthquake destroys Metagross and Aggron, plus Skarmory is doable with the fire/electric you most likely have. Plus Swampert annihilates Armaldo and Aggron and Cradily is pretty manageable. Blaziken handles virtually the entire team and Sceptile is okay, all things considered. I'd rank him as a somewhat tough fight, maybe slightly higher than Norman.
i spent about 40 minutes typing this entire comment out please send help
i hope this was accurate
Dude these are top-tier takes, loved reading this and I pretty much agree with all of it (my opinions have changed a little bit since I released this video).
The only comment I'll add is regarding Tate and Liza. Your analysis was perfect, although I would bump them down the list a little bit more considering that many of those water/dark encounters are basically guaranteed. Sharpedo is a good example of this. Crunch/Surf alongside any other guaranteed water type will decimate that team (Tentacruel comes to mind since it's guaranteed as well).
Other than that, I love this! What are your opinions on Wally's battle in Victory Road?
@@grumpygengar22 Thanks! I do agree with the T&L comment, especially if you have a pairing like Sharpedo/Walrein out front in the beginning, although if you're doing something like a monotype run or a 'snaplocke' (see FlygonHG) they tend to be quite a bit harder.
Another amendment: Gyarados 3HKOs the Torkoal with Dragon Rage, takes Body Slams and Overheats quite well and is guaranteed. That bumps Flannery down a bit.
As for Wally, his Altaria is surprisingly formidable and both the Magneton and Gardevoir can be problematic, but as a whole not particularly difficult in my opinion, considering he has Roselia and Delcatty.
Have a good day!
Great list!
I've only recently started Nuzlocking and I'm still practicing to get myself to full hardcore rules (I obey level caps and play on set mode, but still working on not needing healing items any more), but wanted to share my thoughts. One challenge is that you could almost have a 'I picked Mudkip as my starter' tier list and a 'I did not pick Mudkip as my starter' tier list, as that line is the best possible pokemon for so many fights. But my biggest thoughts across 3.5 Emerald runs would be:
1) Maxie 1 is probably one of the bigger luck based fights in the game, because if that Camerupt uncorks a Magnitude 10 then a situation you thought was safe can suddenly be very not safe. Maxie 2 is annoying because of the double battle with Steven. I always hate it, even though I usually don't actually lose mons.
2) The thing about Wally is that under the most common level cap rules you're cap is 55 while his pokemon are 41-45. XP management at that point means you probably aren't actually walking in with many 55s, but if you get you've prepared for this fight it really shouldn't be above average IMO.
3) One thing that makes Norman a little easier to handle is that you're pretty likely to have a Machop from Jagged Pass that is great in this fight as Machoke but you really don't need again after, leading to the rare circumstance of having a sacrifice that you can get a lot of value out of first. Gyarados and Mightyena are both also highly likely to be in your box and can drop some intimidates where you need them. Which is all to say that I think there are too many options to have him verging on run killer status (although I'd still have him at the lower end of tough, as he usually seems to claim at least one kill from me).
4) I think Tate and Liza will punish your mistakes harder than any other fight in the game, and that is why people often struggle with them. Certainly they've killed more of my mons than any other fight across my runs. Earthquakes immediately threaten almost every dark or water type, ancient power can punish the fliers (or just a Xatu Psychic in the case of Crobat), and if you take too long the Xatu will start to set up Calm Minds. Plus your Surf power is broken up between Claydol and Xatu so you probably aren't OHKOing anything with it. You have to be very precise with your first two to three turns or your mons will start needing gravestones. I agree that the Solrock & Lunatone seem scarier than they are though.
5) I've never found Juan that threatening, although this is probably also the fight that is made easiest with healing items as despite how obnoxious it is the Kingdra just doesn't hit very hard. I've tried digging out a Bellossom from my box for this fight -- I would recommend it if the Whiscash scares you, but not otherwise.
6) I'd be willing to bet that Roxanne's Nosepass has claimed more pokemon and ended more runs than Sidney's team has.
7) One thing that helps with Glacia is that it is pretty easy to set up on her first Sealeo. It always likes to Hail first, and it doesn't hit very hard, and it's slow. My last run I used two Calm Minds from Alakazam, then pressed Psychic five times to sweep the fight. Apparently it knows encore, which could cause issues, but I don't know how likely that actually is. I've also been in the position of having to use Electrode for this fight and it was fine. Not great, but fine. If you have a Hariyama or a Machoke/Machamp kicking around they'll also be pretty good here.
Thanks for the analysis, I enjoyed reading through it!
@@grumpygengar22 You're welcome!
I would also add that I have had good results against Winona by heading South to routes 108 & 109 after beating Norman, and picking up a Wingull/Pelipper (if I don't already have one) and teaching it the Ice Beam TM from the Abandoned ship. Both times I tried it didn't quite one-shot Alteria (maybe with lucky nature and IVs or some EV training it could), but I got it into potion range and it was easy to finish off from there. Pelipper also more than bulky enough to eat a dragon breath/aerial ace or two if needed.
I think Wattson and Flannery should be on tough, if not run ending. If you don't have any thing to deal specifically with Wattson's Magnetton or basically all of Flannery team, your run just end. Which is the case for a lot of restricted runs and even a normal hardcore nuzlocke if you don't have the right team member available.
Yeah if you don't have the team members for sure. It's just, if you picked Mudkip, Watson is free, and if you picked Torchic, his Magneton is free at the very least. If you picked Treecko then you definitely have a ton of problems with both fights.
I have never struggled with wally at the end of the game. Most of the threats that he presents you have already had to find answers for in the past. And his gardevoir is walled out by any darktype so even the most desperate of players can usually force a sharpedo at pacificlog town. He is only dangerous because you can forget about him (which you can say the same for any of the rival fights) but I don't think it deserves run killer.
That's fair
3:07 Even so, Gyarados can deal about half damage to Torkoal with Dragon Rage.
Torkoal has 88 hp, so you probably want to chip it before using the 2 dragon rages to avoid extra turns.
The only one I disagree with is Wally. You have so many answers at that point that prepping for the single fight is relatively easy, plus he's laughably far below the last level cap so you can just overlevel him easily
Yeah I think if I made an updated list in the future I would bump him down for that reason. I almost always go into his fight with pokemon around the same level so it's not something I had thought about.
You can skip Winona go to mt. Pyre finish the story there go to lillycove to the department store then head to shoal cave then come back to fight Winona with your new ice type
I love how matt is lower than courtney, a character who never appears in emerald
He's just that bad
I found a way to defeat Winona pretty easily in my emerald run.
I had a Manectric with Thunderbolt of course, but also Roar. He learns this move at lvl 31, just before the max level for Winona.
Manectric took down Swablu in one attack. Then, Altaria comes in (because earthquake is strong against Manectric type i suppose). Altaria always does a dragon dance on its first turn, he is programmed that way. That is when Roar comes handy.
Altaria uses dragon dance, then my Manectric uses Roar (this attack goes always second, but since Altaria never attack on first turn, it is safe.) Altaria is forced to switch, loosing its attack buff from dragon dance, and another of Winona's pokemon take its place. They are all pretty easy to handle with Manectric/thunderbolt. And you can do this roar strat each time Altaria comes out, so that only Altaria remains at the end.
Then, i used an other pokemon perfect to deal with Altaria : Castform. You received it from someone of the meteo center just before the 6th gym, and in ice-form with Weather Ball, it can obliterates Altaria.
With that strategy, Winoma was the easiest gym of my run.
The castform strat is very interesting!
That's really interesting, I never considered Castform for the Winona fight before. I usually make it a point to try and grab the ice beam TM before I get to her just to have something that can deal with her Altaria without an issue
I think Altaria isn't guaranteed to dragon dance turn 1 if it sees a kill.
Another strat I like for Norman is switching gyarados in and out into his slaking like 10-20 times to cut down its beastly attack.
I’ll still never forgive that stupid gorilla for surviving a mud shot on 1 hp and killing my marshtomp 😭
That was an interesting tier list for sure.
...sorry, it's almost 10 PM for me, it's not a good time for elaborate comments. :/
12:10 toxic spikes?
What I should have said was toxic AND spikes. My bad there
If you have a plan winowna is littely Free. I know you like to shit talk about gyarados in this generation but dragon rage 3 shots all the Pokémon of winowna and with skarmory defense and altarias dragon dance a guaranteed 3 ko is good. Magikarp is also a guaranteed encounter so she is really eazy
Gyarados is really really good on that fight I'll admit. You can even teach him Ice Beam at that point for 4x damage.
May 2 should be separate from the other rival fights.
You're right. And it would be Tough for sure