u/ResponsibleExit2790

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

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DISCLAIMER: I know that Suicune is a strong Pokémon, and it isn't remarkable that I soloed a run with it. I'm doing a series of posts to document my progress in trying to solo a classic run with every starter in order of Gen and Pokédex number. I posted this run because Suicune was the next one in line, not to brag about my skills.

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IN A NUTSHELL: A bulky mon made dominant through setup. My moveset was Freeze-Dry, Steam Eruption, Recover, and Nasty Plot. I didn't see much benefit from Inner Focus, so I left Suicune with Pressure instead. Its Passive, Beast Boost, normally boosts Suicune's Defence, which in my opinion isn't very useful, but through some Vitamins, you can make it boost more convenient stats, like Speed or SpA. The water leopard isn't as fast as the other Legendary 'Dogs', so I gave it a Timid Nature.

FULL POST:

While Raikou and Entei are strong attackers, Suicune makes bulk its strongest suit. But thanks to its easy access to setup moves—especially Calm Mind by leveling up, or Nasty Plot as an Egg Move—it's not hard to make it shine even on the offensive side. Even when your Rival has Grookey has her starter and the game casually throws you in the Grassy Field because you couldn't get a map!

My moveset was made up entirely of the water leopard's Egg Moves: Freeze-Dry, Steam Eruption, Recover, and Nasty Plot. It's very convenient, mainly because it's unresisted, thanks to Freeze-Dry's super effectiveness against Water-types, and it also suits Suicune very well. Freeze-Dry acted as coverage against Grass- and Water-types, and it was the move that I used the most, since I mostly roamed Water Hell in this run. Steam Eruption is a very strong STAB move. If it manages to hit its 30% chance of burning the target, the combination of a burn and Suicune's high Defence is able to nerf most physical attackers! Freeze-Dry was doing most of the work, so I never felt the need to replace Steam Eruption, despite its very low PP. For very bulky Pokémon like the water leopard, Recover is quite OP, because it frequently restores much more HP than the opponent is able to damage. It is very useful to gain momentum by healing the cumulative damage that Suicune can take in long fights. It didn't take long for Recover to become more and more redundant, but I couldn't find moves that could replace it. Probably Rain Dance was the best candidate for it, but in Water Hell, it would help most opponents as well, especially if they had Swift Swim as their Ability. Since the water leopard is already bulky, I think that Calm Mind is quite overkill as a setup move for it. Still, a strong case can be made for pairing it with Recover to set up almost freely in front of special attackers. Because Calm Mind progressively nerfs their damage output, Recover becomes incredibly potent at healing off the damage taken during the setup phase. I thought that, thanks to the water leopard's stats, I could afford to ditch this safer strategy in favor of Nasty Plot, mostly because it allowed me to boost Suicune's Special Attack more swiftly.

All three Legendary 'Dogs' share the same Abilities and Passive Ability. Inner Focus could have had its uses, since the water leopard isn't as fast as the other two 'Dogs', but I went for Pressure regardless.

Suicune's Passive Ability, Beast Boost, normally boosts its Defence. I guess that, in combination with Calm Mind and a sprinkle of Recover, it could make the water leopard progressively unkillable. But it was too boring for my taste! So in this run, I used what I learned in my previous run on the interaction between Vitamins and Beast Boost to steer the boost given by this Passive Ability. By initially refraining from giving Suicune Iron and Zinc, I was able to reach my goal of turning the water leopard into a speedboat through Carbos. The rationale was that it was already bulky thanks to its base stats, and Nasty Plot was taking care of Suicune's Special Attack very well, so a Beast Boost that kept raising its Speed would make it very well-rounded, and dominant through hyperoffense. All I can say is that this strategy worked VERY well and it was very fun to use! Fun fact: at the end of the run, my water leopard had the same amount of Calcium and Carbos, but Beast Boost was still boosting Speed as intended, because Suicune had a Speed-favorable Nature and three Soul Dews. The point is, the higher your target stat naturally is, the more of the other Vitamins you can afford to grab without messing up your Beast Boost.

Speaking of Nature, since Speed is the lowest base stat of the water leopard, I preferred to give it a Timid Nature, which improved its Speed at the expense of its Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Not recommended as a solo runner, given its 6 weaknesses and paper-thin Defence. My moveset was Freeze-Dry, Luster Purge, Aura Sphere, and Quiver Dance. Jynx's HA, Dry Skin, was too risky for my taste, so I opted for Oblivious instead. During my run, it has been swapped to Prankster by the 'Clowning around' Mystery Encounter. The ice lady's Passive, Psychic Surge, is very useful to unlock and it improves its survivability a lot. A Bold Nature is a must-have for Jynx. I soloed this run on my first try, but it wasn't easy at all to pull off.

FULL POST:

With 6 weaknesses and almost no base Defence (35), what could possibly go wrong? A lot of stuff! I was able to solo this run on my first try, but it wasn't easy to win a whole run with the ice lady. I have to give most of the credits to my success to a very early Multi Lens from the 'Fun & games' event—without it, Jynx would have likely died to the first Sturdy Rock-type it faced!

For my moveset, I stuck with Smoochum's four Egg Moves, because they're just perfect: Freeze-Dry, Luster Purge, Aura Sphere, and Quiver Dance. Freeze-Dry was favored over Ice Beam because it can hit Water-types super effectively, and I spent my whole run in Water Hell, since it was the lesser evil. Luster Purge has great power and a 50% chance of lowering the opponent's Special Defence. It has low PP, but that wasn't a problem for me because most of the time I was spamming Freeze-Dry, so I used Luster Purge as a sort of secret weapon when things were tough. Aura Sphere offers coverage against half of Jynx's weaknesses, which is a big deal! Quiver Dance is one of the best setup moves ever, but it doesn't do anything to improve Jynx's worst flaw: its paper-thin Defence. This means that against strong physical attackers, the ice lady has to outspeed and overkill them, or it's often game over (in a solo run). So every item that can improve Jynx's Defence or offenses is highly recommended, since they can greatly improve its survivability. I also think that a Bold Nature, which improves the ice lady's Defence at the expense of its Attack, is a must-have for this Pokémon, partly because it opens up a new way to improve Jynx's physical bulk by giving it Soul Dews.

As for the ice lady's Ability, its Hidden one, Dry Skin, was very appealing since I was planning to roam Water Hell. Water-type attacks are ineffective against Pokémon with that Ability; instead, they restore ¼ of their max HP, and the Pokémon also recovers ⅛ of its max HP during rain. But the 25% damage boost to Fire-type moves Jynx would receive, and the possibility of losing ⅛ of its max HP in harsh sunlight, made Dry Skin too risky for my taste. That's why I preferred Oblivious, which didn't give me massive benefits (it made the ice lady immune to infatuation, taunts, and Intimidate), but it also didn't have any strings attached. In the late game, Oblivious has been swapped to Prankster by the 'Clowning around' Mystery Encounter. Smoochum's and Jynx's Passive Ability, Psychic Surge, was very useful, mostly because the Psychic Terrain it creates made them immune to opponents' priority moves—yes, Sucker Punch, I'm looking mostly at you—and it also boosted the power of their Psychic-type moves by 50%.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run).

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: I chose Hitmonchan over the other hitmons mainly for STAB Iron Fist Drain Punch, and it was a very solid and fun carry. My moveset was Drain Punch, Meteor Mash, Darkest Lariat, and Victory Dance. Moxie is a phenomenal Passive! I gave it a Jolly Nature to improve its low Speed. This run was soloed on my first try with zero problems.

FULL POST:

How I love STAB Drain Punch boosted by Iron Fist! That was the main selling point for me to choose Hitmonchan over Hitmonlee and Hitmontop, and I loved every second of my time with it.

In general, the three hitmons are quite different, both in terms of stats and their Abilities, so each of them is to be played in its own way. In terms of stats, they all have the same base HP (50), Special Attack (35), and Special Defence (110), while the other stats differentiate them. From this point of view, Hitmonlee is the most extreme of the three, with the best Attack (120) and Speed (87), but the worst Defence (53). Hitmonchan lies in the middle (Attack 105, Defence 79, Speed 76), while Hitmontop has lower Attack (95) and Speed (70) compared to all of them, but also a higher Defence (95). As for Abilities, each of them has a distinct primary, secondary, hidden, and Passive Ability. To cut things short, I think that (coincidentally?) their secondary Ability is the best 'main' Ability they can have, at least in a solo run.

With Reckless and the Sheer Force Passive Ability, Hitmonlee embraces its glass cannon nature, and is made extra lethal, especially with Axe Kick, since it's a rare (and strong) move that is boosted by both its Abilities! Iron Fist Hitmonchan is less of a rollercoaster, and Drain Punch—which it learns upon evolution!—makes it rock solid in terms of tempo. With its Passive Ability active, which is the great Moxie, rather than exerting all its force right away like Hitmonlee does, it gradually builds it over time to insane heights. Hitmontop's Passive Ability, Speed Boost, makes it extremely balanced overall, like the top that it is, and the combination of Technician and Rolling Kick makes it very fun to use!

I already knew a lot about how the hitmons work thanks to the epic scouting job done by sabrinabewitched in the comments of my YouTube videos, since she did solo runs with all three of them. She enjoys all-out-attack more than I do, so she warmly recommended Hitmonlee to me, but you all probably know how much I love strong damaging moves that heal the user, so I went with her second option, Hitmonchan.

My moveset for this run wasn't very refined, and it consisted of three Egg Moves—Meteor Mash, Darkest Lariat, and Victory Dance—and Drain Punch. Another great point in favor of the boxer Pokémon is its versatility, since it can learn all the elemental punches by itself. But even with them available, I preferred to stick with Meteor Mash and Darkest Lariat as my secondary moves, since they provided coverage that better suited my needs. The only exception to that was the two fights against Guzma, the evil boss of my run, in which Fire Punch replaced Meteor Mash. That, along with a Fire Tera, provided a better answer to most of Team Skull's Boss Pokémon than all the other moves in my moveset.

Meteor Mash benefits from the boost provided by Iron Fist, and it was mainly meant as an answer to Fairy-types, since the Fighting- and Dark-type moves in my moveset didn't hit them effectively. I would have preferred to replace it with Poison Jab, but I wasn't able to find its TM in the shop. Meteor Mash has a 20% chance of boosting the user's Attack, which is always welcome, but also quite redundant because of Moxie and Victory Dance. Sadly, Darkest Lariat isn't boosted by Iron Fist, but I preferred to keep it regardless because of the lack of better alternatives that provided coverage against Ghost- and Psychic-types. Flying-types are left unattended by my moveset, but at least both Meteor Mash and Darkest Lariat hit them neutrally.

One could definitely replace Victory Dance with Ice Punch or Thunder Punch if Hitmonchan has Moxie unlocked, but I preferred not to. It wasn't because of the boost that this move provided to the boxer's Attack, but rather the ones that it gave to its Defence and Speed, since they were its two weak spots. One or two uses of Victory Dance made Hitmonchan much more balanced overall, and guaranteed a better chance of it outspeeding its opponents.

As for the boxer's Nature, I preferred to give it a Jolly one (+ Speed, - Special Attack), rather than an Impish one (+ Defence, - Special Attack). Because Hitmonchan could always recover the HP lost from physical attacks using Drain Punch, I thought that improvements to its Speed were more urgent than ones to its Defence.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Since Stantler and Wyrdeer are basically glass cannons, I preferred Stantler's better Speed and improved defences with an Eviolite over Wyrdeer's better HP and Attack. My moveset was Raging Bull, Psyshield Bash, Earthquake, and Swords Dance. Intimidate has limited utility in a solo run, so I preferred its HA, Sap Sipper, instead. Speed Boost is a huge Passive, and I highly recommend unlocking it, especially if you plan on evolving the strange deer. There wasn't much to balance, so I gave Stantler an Adamant Nature. I soloed this run on my first try with few problems.

FULL POST:

It's the second time in my challenge that I preferred to stick with Eviolite rather than evolve a Pokémon into an evolution introduced in Legends: Arceus. And I chose to do that because, just like with Ursaring, Stantler's next phase, Wyrdeer is a trade-off evolution, where you have to sacrifice some stats to boost others. And in my solo runs, I really don't like trading Speed for might and bulk! So Stantler with an Eviolite has indeed way lower base HP (73 vs. 103) and a little less base Attack (95 vs. 105), but it also has better base Defence (93 vs. 72), Special Defence (97.5 vs. 75), and Speed (85 vs. 65). Also, since the Hisuian deer is additionally a Psychic-type, it has one more weakness than Stantler.

But this time, the choice of not evolving the strange deer isn't as clear-cut as before because the Hisuian deer retains Stantler's Passive Ability, Speed Boost. If you have it unlocked, it's able to more than compensate for the loss in base Speed! As for me, since both Stantler and Wyrdeer have, in my opinion, a glass-cannon nature, retaining Stantler's Speed and armor with an Eviolite was preferable to me over Wyrdeer's better HP and Attack. But if you decide to evolve it instead, I won't judge you!

For this run, my moveset was Raging Bull, Psyshield Bash, Earthquake, and Swords Dance. Stantler is no bull, but it can definitely charge like one! Raging Bull was a great and solid STAB move, and it was the attack that I used most often during the run. It has nothing special to it, other than its power of 90 and its capability of breaking barriers. As happened during my Tauros run, I likely would have ditched Raging Bull for Body Slam, since I still think that losing 5 power for a 30% chance of paralyzing the opponent is a great bargain. Still, in this run, I wasn't able to find Body Slam's TM in the shop. I didn't use Wyrdeer, but that didn't prevent me from using its signature move. To be honest, my original plan was to stick with the Horn Leech Egg Move, because I'm a sucker for solid damaging moves that heal your Pokémon. But a near-death experience with a roaming Boss Virizion made me change my mind, and showed me how much Stantler was in need of a coverage move against Fighting-types, as well as the Defence boosts that Psyshield Bash provides! Earthquake was mostly meant to provide coverage against Rock- and Steel-types, but in a solo run, I also enjoy having at least one move that can hit all opponents in a double battle. Swords Dance is a well-beloved setup move, and I used it to bring Stantler's chances to one-shot its opponents through the roof.

Intimidate is a great Ability, but in solo runs, it has limited use. So for me, Stantler's Hidden Ability, Sap Sipper, was the better choice. It was also great fun in the grass routes that I followed for my whole run. (Another great point in favor of Stantler: it can enjoy the grass route more than Wyrdeer does, because the Hisuian deer can't stand the pesky Bug-types in it!)

As for Stantler's Nature, this time there wasn't much to balance, and Speed Boost was already bringing the strange deer's Speed to insane heights, so I simply chose to give it an Adamant Nature, which improves its Attack at the expense of its Special Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had few problems soloing this run on my first try.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

Here's the run history and a timeline of my new 20 failed Unown solo runs to keep you guys updated. As before, I've posted a recap video on my YouTube channel that features every Unown fatality in this series of runs.

I spent my first 10 runs testing out the 'M' form after learning from my comments section that someone on Discord actually pulled it off! But it was a dead end. From what I understood, the successful solo run with that form was only possible in previous versions of PokéRogue, because it relied on the Bug Superfan event, which now doesn't spawn in solo runs, and the Protect TM, which Unown can't learn anymore. Without those, Unown can't capitalize on Moody the way Smeargle did in my solo run with it, because it isn't able—and can't afford—to stall as much as the painter dog did. So, after 10 runs, I preferred to return to Unown's 'S' form, the one that I think has the most benefits. Its Passive Ability, Simple, has the quadruple advantage of doubling every rare 'Omniboost' from Ancient Power, the Special Attack boost granted by Mystical Power, the Defence and Special Defence boosts from Cosmic Power, and every boost granted by the consumption of berries. Also, I rarely had problems from the double debuffs caused by opponents, so Simple didn't have many downsides for me either.

But even with all those advantages, Unown is terrible for solo runs because 'Omniboosts' from Ancient Power are rare (they have a 10% chance of happening), and its terrible base stats make it vulnerable to a lot of strong Pokémon. It's also particularly vulnerable to critical hits and super-effective attacks. Another big problem with Unown is that it can only learn four Egg Moves and Hidden Power, so there's no chance to give it better moves, or cheese the game with moves like Double Team.

Speaking of moves, another change that I made after reading the comments on my previous Unown attempts was to ditch Dark-type Hidden Power for Nature Power. Hidden Power is too weak and the coverage it provides does so little for my liking. What I like more about Nature Power is that when Unown is fully boosted by Mystical Power, it often allows me to save the PP of that move by using Nature Power instead. Also, in the second biome of the game, the Plains, it becomes Silver Wind, which offers coverage against Dark-types and a cheaper way than Ancient Power (in terms of PP) to gain an 'Omniboost'. And in the other biomes, it can offer a great alternative to the other moves in Unown's moveset.

As in Ditto's case, I'm not done with my attempts to solo an Unown run. I'll keep alternating a run with a new starter and another Unown (and Ditto) run to keep the dream of soloing a classic run with every starter alive. I'll post a new recap after I fail an Unown solo run 20 more times—provided that I don't crack it first!

PREVIOUS POSTS:

• Unown Solo Run Fails 1-20

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A very lucky OP run. My moveset was Earthquake, Mountain Gale, Collision Course, and Bulk Up. Building around Sand Veil was a bit too complicated for my liking, so I stuck with Sturdy. Its Passive, Speed Boost, is a game changer, and I highly recommend unlocking it. I gave Donphan a Careful Nature to improve its lacking Special Defence. I soloed this run on my first try.

FULL POST:

When I saw that Donphan was up next, I was kinda worried, because although in the anime it can curl into a wheel and roll very fast, in games, the Armor Pokémon is quite slow, with its base Speed of 50! But when I discovered that it had none other than Speed Boost as its Passive Ability (which suits its anime version pretty well!), I realized that Donphan's run would be much more fun than I initially thought.

What I definitely couldn't anticipate was the shower of HP Ups that the game threw at me! In my solo runs, I'm no stranger to finding lots of vitamins, but they are usually much more diversified than the ones I found in this run, and I don't think it has ever happened to me to find more than 10 of the same vitamin in a classic run. With its disgusting amount of HP, Donphan became basically unkillable, while Speed Boost made it progressively unreachable by opponents. And with the Bulk Up and Earthquake combo, combined with two Multi Lenses, it was very rare that it couldn't OHKO even the tougher opponents. What a broken beast it was. Sorry for having doubts about you, Donphan!

For this run, my moveset was Earthquake, Mountain Gale, Collision Course, and Bulk Up. A little uninspired, because it's mostly made of Egg Moves and the super obvious STAB Earthquake, but why ruin perfection? I hope that Earthquake doesn't need an introduction, and in solo runs it's even more solid and convenient because you don't risk murdering your own Pokémon by using it in double battles. Mountain Gale or a Rock-type move is essential in dealing with a Ground-type's nemesis: Flying-types. Although just a Ground-type move and a Rock-type move make an unresisted moveset, and would free a slot for an additional utility move like the Shore Up Egg Move or Sandstorm, I think that the Mountain Gale Egg Move is an excellent reason for giving up on that plan. I'm saying that not only because it's a very strong move, with its power of 120, but also because it has a 30% chance of flinching the opponent. With Speed Boost unlocked, Donphan is definitely in the position of making the opponent flinch, and its two Multi Lenses also gave it three different chances of winning the lottery. Even the Collision Course Egg Move has great synergy with anime Donphan, thanks to its animation. I chose it not only because it's a strong move, but also because it provided coverage against Ice-types. With the exception of Curse, there aren't any setup moves that the rolling elephant can learn that improve its Attack, so the Bulk Up Egg Move is a great addition to its moveset!

There isn't much choice when it comes to Donphan's Ability, since it can only have either its main one, Sturdy, or its Hidden one, Sand Veil. Building around Sand Veil was a bit too complicated for my liking, so I stuck with Sturdy. In case you don't know, Phanpy starts with Sturdy as its Passive Ability and Pickup as its main Ability, and they respectively become Speed Boost and Sturdy upon evolution.

Since Bulk Up was taking care of Donphan's Attack and Defense, and Speed Boost of its Speed, I chose to use Nature to improve Donphan's low Special Defence by giving it a Careful Nature (+ Special Defence, - Special Attack).

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A very solid carry. My moveset was Flamethrower, Fiery Wrath, Earth Power, and Nasty Plot. I chose Unnerve for Houndour's and Houndoom's Ability because it's very convenient in PokéRogue, but Flash Fire is another great choice. Houndoom's and Mega Houndoom's Passive, Lightning Rod, is nice to have, but it isn't essential to unlock. I gave them a Bold Nature because Houndour and Houndoom have a weak Defence. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

What a great solo runner! Houndoom is weak on the defensive side, but apart from that, it has solid stats, a great set of level-up moves and Egg Moves, easy access to Nasty Plot, nice Abilities (except Early Bird), and a non-essential but fun Passive Ability. Mega Houndoom polishes that gem perfectly. By fixing the infernal dog's physical bulk and pairing it with excellent Speed and an overwhelming Special Attack, it becomes truly dominant.

For this run, my moveset was Flamethrower, Fiery Wrath, Earth Power, and Nasty Plot. Since Houndour has a nice set of Egg Moves, but none of them are Fire-type moves, I had to wait until Houndoom reached level 50 to make it learn Flamethrower. But that wait wasn't a problem, because the combination of Fiery Wrath, Earth Power, and Moonblast managed most of the situations that I faced. Fiery Wrath, one of Houndour's Egg Moves, is an incredible Dark-type move—especially in a solo run—with its power of 90, its capability of hitting all adjacent enemies, and its 20% flinch chance. For Houndoom's third attacking move, I had a great pool of moves to choose from, but I preferred to stick with the Earth Power Egg Move, since it provided coverage against Rock-types, and it had good synergy with the other two attacking moves. Nasty Plot was a bit redundant in the Mega Houndoom phase of the run, and I likely could have replaced it with a fourth attacking move. Still, in my solo runs, I always like to have the chance to set up, even with strong Pokémon, in case I have trouble taking down very bulky Pokémon or bosses with multiple HP bars.

As for the Ability, Mega Houndoom only has Solar Power, so you have to take it as it is. In solo runs, it can be uncomfortable under the sun, since it damages the holder for ⅛ of its max HP each turn to power up its Special Attack by 1.5x. Since I already had Leftovers when Houndoom Mega Evolved, I was able to manage that passive damage. In the Houndour and Houndoom phase of the run, I was torn between Flash Fire and Unnerve. I settled on the latter because in PokéRogue that Ability is particularly useful, but Flash Fire is still a great option if you prefer it. Houndour starts with Ball Fetch as its Passive Ability, but it becomes Lightning Rod upon evolution and Mega Evolution. It's not essential to unlock, but a new immunity—that can also boost the infernal dog's Special Attack—is always welcome!

As for the Nature, since both Houndour and Houndoom have a weak Defence stat, I gave them a Bold Nature, which improves their Defence at the expense of their Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A tricky first part of the run, because it took a while to get Swords Dance, which I relied upon to keep Weak Armor, vanilla Skarmory's HA, in check. On the other hand, Mega Skarmory is a beast! My moveset was Drill Peck, Behemoth Blade, Drill Run, and Swords Dance. Tough Claws is a no-brainer if you can unlock it. Since Swords Dance took care of the steel bird's Attack, and Weak Armor was balancing its Speed, I gave it a Nature that boosts its Special Defence. It was kinda redundant for Mega Skarmory, but I didn't care. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

Skarmory, AKA Flying Drill 2: Iron Boogaloo! Its new Mega is incredible, but it was a long road for me to reach it—and not only because of the time it took me to obtain the Mega Bracelet and a Skarmorite. Vanilla Skarmory is a solid Pokémon, with its good base Attack (80) and its incredible base Defence (140), but to make it an efficient solo runner, it urgently needs Swords Dance. With the exception of Curse, it's the only setup move that it can learn, and it can only do so through a TM. In this run, it took me much longer than I anticipated to find this random reward in the shop, and this complicated things for me in the first 110 waves of my playthrough. But my luck in the shop is usually quite high in this challenge, so I'm not going to complain when it isn't good—it's just karma, I guess! And it's also in the roguelike nature of PokéRogue to be a random game.

Finding Swords Dance late complicated my run because I wasn't relying on it just to boost Skarmory's Attack, but also to keep Weak Armor, its Hidden Ability, in check. As I wrote, the steel bird has loads of Defence and a mid base Speed (70), so I think it is one of the best candidates for that peculiar seesaw of an Ability, which lowers a Pokémon's Defence by one stage and raises its Speed by two every time that it's hit by a physical move. With its base Defence of 140, Skarmory could afford 3 or even 4 Weak Armor activations, but ideally, it would only need one. My evil plan was to use Weak Armor to take care of the steel bird's mid Speed, and Swords Dance to take care of its Attack. Then, for the most part, opponents could only manage to hit it once—even better if it happened in the setup phase—and then Skarmory would outspeed and OHKO everything the game threw at it. This strategy was meant just for while I waited for the steel bird to Mega Evolve, because then it would lose Weak Armor for Stalwart (an Ability that allows it to bypass Abilities and moves that would redirect its moves). At that stage, it wouldn't need the seesaw provided by the former anymore, because it would have obtained a solid base Speed of 110. Since it took me so long to grab Swords Dance, there were a lot of fights in which Skarmory couldn't one-shot strong opponents, especially when it was exposed to Intimidate once or twice. This resulted in many more Defence drops from Weak Armor than I was comfortable with. The prime example of this was an unlucky fight with TWO Boss Greedent at wave 70, who tried to mug and murder Skarmory with their Covet in an alley. The only way to survive this fight was, paradoxically, to let the steel bird die in the process of taking down one of the huge squirrels, so that a Reviver Seed would not only reanimate it but also cleanse its multiple Defence debuffs, buying Skarmory just enough time to take down the second Greedent. But all those struggles were forgotten the second I got my hands on a Skarmorite! The Mega steel bird is simply OP, and it cut (and drilled) through the rest of the run like a knife through butter.

My moveset for this run was surprisingly light on Egg Moves, and it consisted of Drill Peck, Behemoth Blade, Drill Run, and (obviously) Swords Dance. I'm not a huge fan of Beak Blast's reverse priority, so I swapped it as soon as I could for Drill Peck, because it's a solid and reliable Flying-type physical move with no strings attached. Since Behemoth Blade—the only Egg Move in my moveset—has only 5 PP, I was tempted to swap it for Iron Head if I crossed its TM in the shop, mostly for its flinching potential. In the end, since I was spamming Drill Peck most of the time anyway, I decided to keep this 100-power STAB move as a sort of secret weapon. I highly recommend replacing the Ceaseless Edge Egg Move with Drill Run like I did (if the steel bird starts its run with it). It's definitely interesting that the former can spread spikes on the battlefield, but being a low-powered non-STAB move, Skarmory can't do much damage without the help of Swords Dance. Drill Run is much better not just because it's more powerful, but also because it provides coverage against all of its weaknesses.

Skarmory and Mega Skarmory share Tough Claws as their Passive Ability, which is obviously a great unlock for the steel birds, since they have a great arsenal of powerful contact moves. The damage boost provided by that Ability is especially helpful in the vanilla Skarmory phase of your run!

Skarmory's Special Defence is half its Defence. For this reason, since Swords Dance would improve its Attack, and Weak Armor would take care of its Speed, I chose to give it a Nature that would improve its Special Defence: a Careful one (+SpD, -SpA). Mega Skarmory's bulk is surprisingly balanced, so it didn't need that extra Special Defence, and I probably would have changed its Nature to a decent Speed-favorable one if I had found its Mint in the shop.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I was able to solo this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Its Passive and Egg Moves make Delibird more viable, but just don't use it: it's too much of a glass cannon to be enjoyable to play. My moveset was Floaty Fall, Glacial Lance, Bonemerang, and Victory Dance. Its Passive, Huge Power, is a no-brainer if you want to use the Santa bird. It could have been interesting to give it Hustle as its Ability, but it was too chaotic and risky for my taste, so I chose a neutral one instead, Vital Spirit. Due to Delibird's terrible bulk, it was essential that it struck before its opponent, so I gave it a Jolly Nature. Thankfully, I was able to beat this rollercoaster of a run on my first try.

FULL POST:

I like when PokéRogue's Passive Abilities and Egg Moves are able to transform terrible Pokémon into viable ones, and that's definitely the case for Delibird! This Santa-resembling bird was meant as the Christmas edition of a meme Pokémon, with its terrible stats overall, zero evolutions, and a level-up moveset that, for most generations, consisted only of Present, its joke signature move that can either do damage with a random base power or heal the opponent for ¼ of its max HP. Delibird's Passive Ability, Huge Power, freely doubles its Attack, making its physical moves much more impactful. As for the Egg Moves, Floaty Fall and Glacial Lance give it two very solid STAB moves. Bonemerang is ESSENTIAL for its survivability. Not only does it provide coverage for all four of Delibird's weaknesses, but as a multi-hit move, it also breaks through the Sturdy ability of those pesky Rock-types! And this is very important for the Santa bird, since it has a 4x weakness to them. Victory Dance, Delibird's final Egg Move, is an excellent setup move, since it can raise its Attack, Defence, and Speed in one go.

Sadly, although Huge Power and all that glorious tech definitely make Delibird viable, it doesn't make it a good Pokémon, so please don't use it for your runs—unless it's Christmas, I guess! What all those goodies can't fix is the Santa bird's terrible, terrible bulk, since both its Defence and Special Defence have a value of 45. So it's great to have Victory Dance in your moveset, but it has no use if Delibird can't survive a hit on the turn it sets up. So this time, offense was the best defence, and especially in the first part of my run, my 'strategy' was using strong attacking moves and hoping that either the opponent would be OHKOed by them, or Floaty Fall would make it flinch. Later, when I was able to gather a good amount of HP Ups, Irons, Zincs, and healing items from the shop, the Santa bird was better equipped for my usual setup sweep strategy.

My moveset was composed of all its Egg Moves—for me, they were perfect as they were. As for the Ability, a case can definitely be made for supercharging Delibird's Attack even more by giving it Hustle, and replacing the 90% accurate Floaty Fall with the guaranteed hits provided by Aerial Ace. Although it's a great idea, I didn't feel comfortable with this solution. Hustle is a double-edged sword that boosts a Pokémon's Attack by 50%, but at the same time lowers the accuracy of its physical moves by 20%. It would have definitely made the Santa bird's attacks devastating, but the possibility that it could have missed about 20% of them was too risky for my liking when its paper-thin bulk was added to the equation. Additional risks would have been provided by the fact that I would likely have started the run with Floaty Fall, which, as I already wrote, has 90% accuracy on its own—so even more chances of missing due to Hustle's precision debuff—and I would have had to wait until Delibird reached level 18 to teach it Aerial Ace! So I chose the safe route of giving the Santa bird Vital Spirit as its Ability, which had almost no use, but it also came with no strings attached, since there was no way in hell that I would teach Rest to Delibird.

As for the Nature, since 'be quick or be dead' was the soundtrack of this run, I gave the Santa bird a Jolly Nature, which improves its Speed at the expense of its Special Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Thankfully, I was able to beat this rollercoaster of a run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Surprisingly easy, thanks to my cheesy evasion-maxing "strategy." My moveset was Bouncy Bubble, Sludge Wave, Double Team, and Take Heart. Unlocking its Passive, Simple, is highly recommended! Moody can be quite fun in combination with it. I preferred the less chaotic Sniper Ability for my Octillery, but I rarely benefited from it. It was replaced by Prankster through the 'Clowning Around' Mystery Encounter. Since Speed is the anime octopus's weak spot, I gave it a Timid Nature. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

I'll be honest: when I saw that Octillery was up next, I thought that I was in for a very hard time. My 'fail chart' is full of slow Pokémon, and the anime octopus has a terrible base Speed (45), coupled with mid bulk. One possible fix to the cumulative damage and all the unlucky secondary effects caused by moving last is evasion maxing. It's not so much of a problem to move after your opponent if they can hardly hit your Pokémon! And Octillery is a great candidate for this 'strategy' thanks to its Passive Ability, Simple. It has the effect of doubling all the Pokémon's stat changes. This Passive Ability basically transformed the Double Team that I was able to teach the anime octopus through a TM into Minimize. That made it very easy to make its evasion boosts spiral out of control into a territory where opponents had a very hard time touching Octillery.

But battles aren't won just through evasion! What made the evasion-maxing 'strategy' lethal in this specific case were two of Remoraid's Egg Moves: Take Heart and Bouncy Bubble. You can think of Take Heart as a Calm Mind that can also cure any non-volatile status conditions of the user. I used this setup move after I maxed Octillery's evasion. Thanks to Simple and its good base Special Attack, most of the time, using it only once was more than enough. Then my main attacking move was Bouncy Bubble, one of the many broken Let's Go, Eevee! moves that not only has decent power (60), but also heals the user for 100% of the damage dealt to the target! It allowed the anime octopus to heal all the damage it had to endure during the setup phase, or whenever the opponent got lucky with an accuracy check. Plus, it reliably KO'd most of its targets in the process. The last move in my Octillery's moveset was Sludge Wave, which replaced Shell Side Arm not only because it's slightly more powerful, but also because it can hit both opponents in a double battle. A Poison-type move was fundamental to have, not only because it made my moveset unresisted, but also because it offered Octillery vital coverage against the pesky Grass-types.

As for the anime octopus's Ability, a case can definitely be made in favor of its Hidden Ability, Moody. In combination with Simple, it would have randomly raised one of its stats by FOUR stages and decreased another stat by TWO stages. At first, it would have been pure chaos, but in the long run, Octillery would have benefited massively from those lopsided ebbs and flows, especially with a stall-ish build like the one I employed in my run. But since Double Team is a random reward in PokéRogue, I felt that this approach would have been too chaotic and risky for my liking, so I preferred to be more cautious—at least on my very first try—and give the anime octopus Sniper as its Ability. At first, I was aiming to take advantage of it by replacing the starting Water Shuriken Egg Move with Focus Energy, when Remoraid learned it at level 20, but ironically I found Double Team in the shop before that, so Focus Energy never made it into this run's moveset!

But Lone Absol, why does your screenshot say that Octillery had PRANKSTER as its Ability? Well, late in the run, I had to face the clown of the 'Clowning Around' Mystery Encounter, and he changed the anime octopus's Ability as a reward for defeating him. Honestly, I don't think that I ever benefited from Prankster once, because by the time Octillery acquired that Ability, it had been made quite fast by a Speed-favorable Nature (Timid: +Speed, -Attack), 4 Soul Dews, and 3 Carbos. But since I was hardly using Sniper in the first place, Prankster was nice to have regardless, and that Ability suited my cheesy evasion-maxing build!

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I surprisingly had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A disgustingly lucky run, thanks to the sheer number of rare items that I was able to hoard. My moveset was Precipice Blades, Mountain Gale, Stone Axe, and Protect. I chose its HA, Thick Fat, to mitigate the damage from Fire- and Ice-type moves. Mamoswine's Passive, Slush Rush, is nice to have, but not essential. I gave it a Careful Nature to improve its Special Defence. With a setup and item stash like that, I was able to easily solo this run on my first try.

FULL POST:

In the comments to my posts, users often ask me if I skip runs in which my rival has a super-effective starter. Let's examine Swinub's case. My rival has a Grass-type starter? Swinub has a weakness to it, so no thanks! What about a Water-type one? The hairy piglet is weak to it as well, so nope! Then a Fire-type starter would crack it? Hard no! It would melt my Swinub. If that's the case, I would have to skip runs until either Pikachu and Eevee are added as starters for the rival, or a new gen breaks the Grass-Water-Fire pattern for its starters. Not skipping runs where the rival has a super-effective starter trains me for moments like these! For this run, out of the starter pool, my rival chose Charmander, which was GREAT news for me. Not only did Charizard have a 4x weakness to Stone Axe (when un-Terastallized) or a 2x weakness to STAB Precipice Blades... but my mammoth's Thick Fat Passive also basically halved its powerful Fire-type attacks! And that was the least lucky part of my run, because this time I was able to gather a disgusting amount of rare items from the shop, which made a solo run with a Pokémon with as many weaknesses as Mamoswine trivial. A Special-Defence-favorable Nature, 3 Soul Dews, 3 Zincs, 1 Iron, and 6 HP Ups made my mammoth VERY bulky; 2 Healing Charms, 2 Leftovers, and 4 Shell Bells made it almost unkillable; and a Multi Lens, 2 damage-boosting items for each of my Mamoswine's attacking moves, plus 4 Proteins were essential in boosting its damage output, since it didn't have setup moves in its moveset. I like to think of this booty as reparations for all the curveballs that Johto has thrown at me, but feel free to be disgusted by the excessive luck that I had in this run!

Sinnoh balanced the Swinub evolutionary line by giving it a final form with impressive base stats that make up for its five weaknesses. Mamoswine's weak spot is its mid Special Defence of 60, and that's why I gave it a Careful Nature, which improved this stat at the expense of its Special Attack.

My moveset was Precipice Blades, Mountain Gale, Stone Axe, and Protect. In the early part of the run, it was quite frustrating because none of its attacking moves—which are all Egg Moves—had 100% accuracy. I was tempted to replace Precipice Blades with Earthquake, sacrificing 20 power in exchange for a reliable move. Luckily, shortly before the mammoth could learn it by itself at level 46, I was able to find a Wide Lens in the shop, which improved Mamoswine's eyesight just enough to stick with Precipice Blades for the rest of the run. That move was very helpful in my solo run, since it can hit all adjacent opponents, but Earthquake would have filled that role as well since my mammoth didn't have any teammates.

Mountain Gale is kinda broken with one or two Multi Lenses! Not only does it now have an impressive power of 120 (thanks, Pokémon Champions!), but it also has a generous 30% chance of making the opponents flinch, and every additional hit of that move has another chance of pulling the winning lottery ticket. To be precise, with two hits, it has a 51% chance of flinching the opponent, while with three hits that chance jumps to 65.7%! So, provided that Mamoswine is faster than its opponent, and Mountain Gale is boosted by at least one Multi Lens, that move can help the mammoth find a way out of a lot of nasty situations. Stone Axe not only offers niche coverage against flying Fire-types and Ice-types, but it also helps Mamoswine with its inability to set up with any move other than Curse. Every time this move hits, it leaves Stealth Rock on the opponent's side of the field, doing a variable amount of damage upon entry to their Pokémon. I started the run with the Slack Off Egg Move as Swinub's fourth move. The recovery that it provided was very helpful in the first part of my run, but the more healing items and Vitamins I amassed on Mamoswine, the more redundant Slack Off became. That's why I chose to replace it with a different kind of utility move. I chose Protect because, if you don't mind reloading your matches, it has a very cheesy synergy with Multi Lens Mountain Gale. If an opponent is about to use a nasty super-effective move, land a crit, nail a secondary effect, or inflict a status on the mammoth, and Mamoswine can't KO it in that turn, provided that the mammoth can outspeed its opponent, you have the chance to weaken it with Mountain Gale and hopefully make it flinch so that it can't do its thing to Mamoswine. If the opponent doesn't flinch, you can reload the match, use Protect to prevent the nasty hit, and attempt the flinching lottery again by using Mountain Gale on the following turn, which will have a different RNG seed—and therefore, different chances of succeed in flinching the opponent!

As for Mamoswine's Ability, I chose its Hidden one, Thick Fat, to mitigate the damage that it would have received from Fire-type moves (to which the mammoth is weak) and Ice-type ones (which damages it neutrally), but Snow Cloak is a good call too, because it has great synergy with its Passive Ability, Slush Rush. This Ability has the effect of doubling the Pokémon’s Speed in snow or hail (and makes non-Ice-types immune to hail damage), which likely makes Mamoswine the fastest Pokémon on the field during those weather conditions. My mammoth never had Snowscape or Hail in its moveset, but I stuck with the route that passes through Ice Cave and Snowy Forest for most of my run (Forest → Meadow → Fairy Cave → Ice Cave → Snowy Forest → Forest → ...). Keep in mind that Swinub and Piloswine have Unaware as their Passive Ability, and it becomes Slush Rush when Piloswine evolves into Mamoswine.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Surprisingly, I was able to solo this run on my first try.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

Here's the run history and a timeline of my new 20 failed Ditto solo runs to keep you guys updated. As before, I've posted a recap video on my YouTube channel that features every Ditto fatality in this series of runs.

This is the series with the current best record (ever?) for a Ditto solo run: wave 112! It was possible thanks to a combination of Revelation Dance, from the Oricorio event—powered by Ditto's Passive, Adaptability—and the setup move Work Up. I was defeated by the second gauntlet of fights against a Team Rocket Grunt. He started the match with Annihilape, which is the perfect counter for Ditto, and there was no way in hell that I could beat the dead monkey with Ditto's moveset before it could murder the pink blob with its super-effective Fighting-type moves! I honestly never thought that it was possible for a Ditto solo run to make it past wave 100, but that's exactly why I'm stubbornly retrying it again and again!

The main challenges in a Ditto solo run are the absence of reliable offensive moves (my starting moveset is Metronome, Mimic, Sketch, and Transform), its heavily RNG-dependent nature, and its terrible base stats. Also, in a solo run, Ditto's iconic move, Transform, is nothing more than a party trick. When transformed, the pink blob's moves will only have 5 PP, which cannot be recharged with any item except Leppa Berries. If you don't have a reliable way of returning Ditto to its original state by switching it out like you would in a normal run, Transform will likely force the pink blob to use Struggle and faint. In a Ditto solo run, you have to hope to conjure decent offensive moves through Metronome, and get good moves from opponents—provisionally with Mimic, and permanently with Sketch. After you sketch a move, you can teach Sketch to Ditto again using a Memory Mushroom (if/when the RNG allows it), and then resume the hunt for good moves from your opponents.

It seems wise to sketch the first STAB move that you can find—likely Tackle—so that it can carry you through the very early part of the run while you wait for Memory Mushrooms in the shop and new interesting moves to sketch. However, that's a short-sighted strategy that I've already tried in my previous 20 failed runs, and it just leads to an early defeat because you'll most likely end up missing out on sketching powerful early moves, most notably Echoed Voice from the frequent wild Lechonks in the Plains. So, at the cost of losing some runs at the first rival match due to frequent bad Metronome rolls, I'm trying to save Sketch for the Plains biome and beat the fights in Town with the best moves I can mimic there.

As I wrote in the previous post on my Ditto runs, I'm not done with my attempts to solo a Ditto run. I'll keep alternating a solo run try with a new starter and another Ditto run to keep my challenge going, and I'll post a new recap video after I fail a Ditto solo run 20 more times—provided that I don't crack it first!

PREVIOUS POSTS:

• Ditto solo run fails 1-20
• Ditto solo run fails 21-40
• Ditto solo run fails 41-60

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: It has lots of interesting tech—most notably Shell Smash—so it's not as powerless as other slow mons with a great deal of weaknesses, but please don't use Magcargo in your solo runs. My moveset consisted of Heat Wave, Power Gem, Solar Beam, and Shell Smash. As for the Ability, Magma Armor is pointless if Magcargo has its Passive, and Weak Armor is suicidal, so Flame Body it is. Its Passive, Desolate Land, is fundamental to improve its survivability. Since Magcargo's base Speed is so slow, a Timid Nature isn't overkill in combination with Shell Smash. This run was surprisingly beaten on my first try, but it was far from straightforward, and on two occasions I avoided losing by a hair's breadth against Team Magma.

FULL POST:

When I say that my fail chart isn't a tier list, I mean it! My run with Magcargo was beaten on my very first try, but that doesn't mean that the lava snail is a solid solo runner. On the contrary! If you attempt a run with just one Pokémon on your team, I HIGHLY recommend that you avoid using Slugma and Magcargo.

Magcargo's two main problems are its very slow base Speed (30) and its set of weaknesses: it has a 2x weakness to Fighting and Rock, and a 4x weakness to both Ground and Water. Shell Smash, a move that Magcargo learns upon evolution, can be a great fix for its slow Speed. Gaining a +2 stat boost in Attack, Special Attack, and Speed at the cost of a single drop in Defence and Special Defence is such a great bargain, especially for a bulky Pokémon like Magcargo (120 base Defence, 80 base Special Defence). With a base Special Attack of 90, the magma snail can easily be lethal with the boosts provided by Shell Smash and strong Fire- and Rock-type moves.

In PokéRogue, a good answer to Magcargo's crippling weaknesses is provided by the combination of its Passive Ability and Solar Beam, one of its Egg Moves. Slugma can start the run with Drought as its Passive, but upon evolution, that Ability evolves as well, becoming Desolate Land. As long as the lava snail is on the field, it casts constant, extremely harsh sunlight on the field. This has all the features of harsh sunlight—most notably, it boosts Fire-type moves by 50% and allows Solar Beam to be used instantly—but it also causes Water-type damaging moves, plus weather-altering moves and Abilities, to fail. This means that as long as Magcargo is on the field, Desolate Land isn't replaced by Primordial Sea or Delta Stream, and Pokémon with Water-type moves don't bypass that ability with Cloud Nine, you can happily forget its 4x weakness to Water! Solar Beam is widely given to Fire-types in difficulty ROM hacks because it's a highly damaging move that offers coverage against all their weaknesses, and its synergy with harsh sunlight compounds very well with their STAB moves. In Magcargo's case, Solar Beam covers 3 weaknesses out of 4, leaving out the one to Fighting-types.

But even with Shell Smash, Desolate Land, and Solar Beam, the lava snail is still highly vulnerable to Ground, and it's very tricky to deal with that type. The best answer is using Shell Smash to outspeed and OHKO every Ground-type that you see, but it's not always possible, because some of them take neutral damage from Grass-type moves (for example, Flygon), and some of them have multiple HP bars (like Maxie's Camerupt, the bane of my run). And Shell Smash, the move that you cling to in the hope that it saves your run, can end up being Magcargo's death sentence, by making it even less able to withstand the obscene damage it receives from Ground-type moves.

Other than Shell Smash and Solar Beam, my moveset consisted of Heat Wave and Power Gem. The best Fire-type move that Magcargo can have is Magma Storm, which is its rarest Egg Move. It has a base power of 100, and it traps the opponent inside a maelstrom of fire that inflicts a passive damage of ⅛ of its max HP for 4-5 turns. But it has an accuracy of 75%, so it was too unreliable for my liking with the single Wide Lens that I found in the shop. That's why I chose to give it up for Heat Wave as soon as I found its TM in the shop. It has a similar power of 95, but it's quite useful in solo runs since it can hit all opponents in a double battle. As for Power Gem, it's the best Special Rock-type move that the lava snail can learn, and it can only be obtained as an Egg Move.

I've already written about Slugma's and Magcargo's Passive Ability, but when it's time to assign one of its regular Abilities, I don't think there's a choice. If the lava snail has its Passive unlocked, then Magma Armor is pointless: it just prevents the Pokémon that has it from being frozen, an effect that is already provided by the harsh or extremely harsh sunlight cast by Drought and Desolate Land. Slugma's and Magcargo's Hidden Ability, Weak Armor, can act as 'Shell Smash at home' during the Slugma phase of the run: it lowers Defence by one stage and raises Speed by one stage when the Pokémon that has it is hit by a Physical move. But when the lava slug evolves into the lava snail, the Defence drops caused by Weak Armor compound with the ones from Shell Smash, crippling Magcargo's bulk to a bothersome degree. What I'm saying is that, in my opinion, Weak Armor creates more problems for the fire snail than it solves.

As for the Nature, since Magcargo's base Speed is so slow, I don't think that a Speed-favorable Nature is overkill in combination with Shell Smash, so I chose a Timid Nature for it, which improves its Speed at the expense of its Attack.

Even though I had a common shiny Magcargo, I had insane luck in the shop, but even with all that booty, things weren't easy for me. In that regard, a huge shoutout to my Multi Lens; without it, my run would have likely been lost against a Sturdy Ground-type, or Team Magma in general. Speaking of them—man oh man! I think I had two of the hardest gauntlets against an evil team in this long challenge of mine, and it's not a coincidence that they're the ones that end with a fight against Maxie. They are both featured in the highlights video of this run, so you are free to skip the rest of my post and just watch what I'm about to describe.

What these gauntlets have in common is that they feature multiple trainers with a lot of strong Ground-types, and I could only use Terastallization once to neutralize Magcargo's weaknesses. In the first gauntlet, there was no way in hell that I could beat the Magma Grunt at wave 112 without the fire snail's Fairy Tera. That forced me to find a way to somehow survive Admin Courtney and Maxie with a 4x weakness to Ground. The Courtney fight went by like a breeze because she switched out her first Pokémon, allowing me a free Shell Smash. It was all that Magcargo needed to sweep her team. I burst into cheers when Maxie made the same mistake as his Admin by switching out his Torkoal... but I celebrated too soon! Thanks to its Multi Lens, my lava snail could easily take out the newly arrived Donphan in one turn, but it wasn't able to do the same thing with Maxie's 2-HP-bar Camerupt by a tiny margin—even with an X Sp. Atk. The most obvious solution was performing a double Shell Smash before the volcanic camel came onto the field. But there was no way that Magcargo could withstand the Bulldoze from Donphan, especially after a Shell Smash.

The actual and insane strategy that solved this deadlock was to dismiss Solar Beam with dishonor—and replace it with Amnesia through a Memory Mushroom. Using Amnesia in front of Camerupt instead of attacking it allowed Magcargo to survive Camerupt's Earth Power by the skin of its teeth, boost basically all its stats and heal itself by consuming the berries it was holding, and obtain though that the power it needed to murder the volcanic camel. (By the way, many thanks to the balance team for downgrading Maxie's Mega Camerupt to vanilla Camerupt in this fight; it literally saved my run!)

The dilemma of when to use Tera was even worse in the next gauntlet against Team Magma. Admin Tabitha immediately switched out his Cacturne for Flygon, a Pokémon that Magcargo couldn't one-shot. So the solution was Tera, right? It definitely was a solution against Tabitha, but a nearsighted one, that would have left the lava snail as easy prey for Maxie's Mega Camerupt! Without Tera, Maxie would have started the match with Solrock, switched it out anyway for Great Tusk... and you know how the story ends when Mega Camerupt comes to avenge the elephant. This time, I foolishly forgot to save enough money to buy a Memory Mushroom, but the shop offered me a different, unorthodox solution, this time to the Admin fight. It allowed me to save Magcargo's Tera, and OVERKILL Maxie's team after 3x Shell Smashes assisted by the Tera. The solution was the Endure TM! Endure replaced Solar Beam just like Amnesia did, and much like that status move, allowed Magcargo to stand in front of its opponent—this time, Flygon—for just one more turn, bringing its HP low enough to activate the consumption of its berries. They were essential in providing the magma snail with the juice it needed to one-shot Flygon. What a rollercoaster!

I had to retry some hard fights an insane amount of times and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Somehow, I was still able to solo this run on my first try, but it wasn't nice.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A Flame Orb, Quick Feet, Facade, and an Eviolite make Ursaring well-rounded and dominant. Ursaring's offence, with its excellent base Attack and STAB Facade, is OK right out of the box, so I preferred to use its Ability to improve its slow Speed. My moveset was Facade, Precipice Blades, Play Rough, and Swords Dance. It's better to have Thick Fat than not, I guess, but for Ursaring, it isn't as important as it is for Ursaluna. Quick Feet makes the fierce bear's Speed medium and not high, so in my opinion, a Speed-enhancing Nature is still necessary. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

Guts or Quick Feet, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler for the bear to suffer the slings and arrows of its outrageous Speed (to gain superior offensive power), or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them (through superior Speed). But for me, there's no dilemma and no dramatic scene with a skull in one hand: Quick Feet all the way! Ursaring already has a bonkers base Attack of 130, and Facade has a power of 140 + STAB when the fierce bear is affected by a status condition, so Guts (which increases the Attack by 50% during a status condition) is a little overkill for my taste! And it also leaves Ursaring with its low base Speed of 55, and thus vulnerable to lots and lots of 'slings and arrows' from faster opponents.

But don't get me wrong, overkill is GREAT, especially when one plays with a full team—so in the vast majority of cases—because you can keep Ursaring or Ursaluna focused on doing a stupid amount of damage, and use the support of its teammates to improve its Speed through Baton Pass, Tailwind, Trick Room... But during this challenge, I only play with one Pokémon on my team, so it's in my interest to make it as balanced as possible, so that it can cope with a wide variety of situations.

Since I think that Ursaring's offence, with its excellent base Attack and STAB Facade activated by a status condition, is OK right out of the box, I preferred to use its Ability to take care of its slow Speed. Quick Feet raises the Speed of a Pokémon with a status condition by 50% and cancels out the penalty in Speed caused by paralysis. But keep three things in mind if you follow in my footsteps. First, the fierce bear is slow, and a +50% makes its Speed average, not high—so don't expect miracles from Quick Feet. That's the reason why I gave Teddiursa a Speed-favorable Nature. Second, Guts removes the pesky debuff to physical moves caused by burns, but with Quick Feet, you are stuck with it—except when using Facade, because it ignores it anyway. In PokéRogue, the most reliable way to inflict a status condition is through a Flame Orb or a Toxic Orb. During my solo runs, I avoid Toxic Orbs like the plague because they badly poison the holder, and the exponential passive damage makes it statistically unlikely that a solo Pokémon can survive against a full team or a long gauntlet of wild Pokémon. This means that with a Quick Feet Pokémon, I get stuck with the Flame Orb, which can be a problem when Facade is ineffective or not very effective. Luckily, Ursaring has access to Swords Dance, which can counter that debuff.

The last, but not least, important thing to notice when giving Quick Feet to Teddiursa and Ursaring is that you have to forget about time traveling and getting yourself an Ursaluna! Unlike Guts, Quick Feet is lost during the evolution of the fierce bear, which gains Bulletproof in its place. And not evolving Ursaring is a problem, right? ... Right? (cue the Anakin and Padmé meme). Not at all! In my opinion, failing to evolve improves the fierce bear rather than harming it, provided that it holds an Eviolite. If we compare the base stats of Ursaluna and Eviolite Ursaring, we see that they're quite even: Ursaluna only has much better HP (130 vs. 90) and slightly better Attack (140 vs. 130), while Eviolite Ursaring has slightly better Defense (112.5 vs. 105) and Speed (55 vs 50), but also much better Special Defense (112.5 vs. 80). What sets Eviolite Ursaring apart is the fact that it only has a single weakness (Fighting), while Ursaluna has 4 of them (Fighting, Grass, Ice, and Water). And yes, its new Ground type also gives it a new set of powerful STAB moves, but they are better enjoyed by Guts Ursaring/Ursaluna. During my run, I could have tried to take advantage of a very late Peat Block to murder Eternatus with Precipice Blades powered up by STAB, but I thought that it would be confusing for you to see Ursaluna in the Hall of Fame and read a post that is all about Ursaring. So I preferred to end this the way in which I spent most of my run: using Facade boosted by Ursaring's burn.

As for my moveset, it consisted of Facade, Precipice Blades, Play Rough, and Swords Dance. I already wrote about Facade, which Ursaring can learn as an Egg Move or through a TM. After I acquired the Flame Orb, I tried to spam it as much as humanly possible, and it was simply devastating. The Precipice Blades Egg Move was kept despite not being a STAB move because of its stupid power (120), its capability of striking all opponents in a double battle, and because it provided coverage against two types that resist Facade: Rock and Steel. Its low precision of 85% can be easily fixed with a couple of Wide Lenses. Play Rough—learned by leveling up the fierce bear or through a TM—was meant as coverage against Fairy-types, but one could replace it with Crunch's TM, if they prefer to better deal with Ghost-types instead. I highly recommend Swords Dance for a Quick Feet Ursaring with a Flame Orb like mine. It's a great counter to the debuff to physical moves caused by burns, and it allows the fierce bear to one-shot even the toughest opponents. It can only be learned by Teddiursa and Ursaring through a TM, and it took me quite a while to find it, but in the meantime, Bulk Up—another TM move—was a nice replacement.

Teddiursa starts with Run Away as its Passive Ability, but for Ursaring and Ursaluna, it becomes Thick Fat. It has the effect of basically halving the damage that a Pokémon receives from Fire- and Ice-types. For my fierce bear, it was nice to have, but it wasn't essential. On the contrary, it's quite important for Ursaluna to have, since it halves the damage from one of its weaknesses.

It seems counterintuitive, but even with Quick Feet active, Ursaring's Speed is still average, so I think that a Speed-enhancing Nature is necessary anyway. That's why my fierce bear was Jolly (+ Speed, - Special Attack) and not Adamant (+ Attack, - Special Attack).

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

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100 solo runs! What an adventure! So why not lengthen it? With the addition of White Basculin and Battle Bond Greninja as individual starters in version 1.12, the total number of runs required to complete this challenge increases from 570 to 572. But don't worry, there's no chance in the world that I'm going to complete it before the release of the Gen 10 games, so the total number of runs is bound to increase even more. Have you heard of a guy named Sisyphus?

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IN A NUTSHELL: A very lucky and broken run. My moveset was Darkest Lariat, Triple Axel, Dire Claw, and Power-Up Punch. I thought that Pickpocket, Sneasel's and Weavile's HA, was a slightly better choice for a solo run. Its Passive, Tough Claws, is highly recommended! Both Sneasel and Weavile have surprisingly worse Defense than Special Defense, so I gave them an Impish Nature. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

During these posts, I usually evaluate the viability and strength of the starter that I used based on my experience of soloing a run with it. This time, I have a very hard time doing that. Because I've broken Weavile! At the start of the run, I was worried about its 4x weakness to Fighting, and its five 2x weaknesses. They are counterbalanced by the murderous weasel's dominant base Speed (125) and a very solid Attack (120). Still, its mid base Defence of 65 could mean that if Weavile can't OHKO an opponent with super-effective physical moves, or gets stuck in tricky double battles, it could end up in serious trouble. But not in my run, it seems! A lucky type swap provided by the 'Clowning Around' mystery encounter replaced the murderous weasel's bothersome Ice secondary type with Fighting, which removed half of its weaknesses. It still had a 4x weakness, this time against Fairy-types, but at least Dire Claw provided excellent coverage against them. A disgusting amount of vitamins and items made it faster, stronger, and bulkier, making it almost impossible to kill. Its aggressive and flexible moveset, which consisted of four different offensive moves that could easily make its damage output spiral out of control, was just the icing on an OP cake.

Speaking of my moveset, it was eventually made up of Darkest Lariat, Triple Axel, Dire Claw, and Power-Up Punch. The Darkest Lariat Egg Move, with its power of 85 and STAB, was the reliable move that I used the most. Not everybody knows that it has the feature of ignoring any changes to the target's Defense and evasion stats when it inflicts damage, which can be very helpful. Triple Axel is another Egg Move, and was kept even when it stopped being a STAB move because of its high damage output. It can potentially hit three times, and its power increases by 20 with each successive hit (20, 40, then 60). Every hit has its own 90% accuracy check, but throwing a single Wide Lens on Weavile makes it hit reliably 3 times in a row. In PokéRogue, this move is extremely proficient at grinding down multiple HP bars, especially when super-effective. It also provided useful coverage against Flying-types.

With vanilla Weavile, I used Darkest Lariat and Triple Axel in combination with Close Combat and Swords Dance. The Close Combat Egg Move (or another Fighting-type move) was meant as a coverage move against two of its weaknesses: Rock and Steel. Swords Dance was overkill most of the time, but it was my insurance policy that the murderous weasel could destroy everything it touched before they could counterattack.

After Weavile acquired the Fighting secondary type, Rock- and Steel-types were no longer a priority to deal with, and Fairy-types became much more of a threat, so I immediately swapped Close Combat for Dire Claw. It's a very solid move with its power of 80, and even if it was nerfed a little by Pokémon Champions, it still has a 30% chance of inflicting either poison, paralysis, or sleep on the target, which isn't bad (before Champions, it was 50%). I was looking for Power-Up Punch's TM for a long time, and when I finally found it in the shop, it was a no-brainer to have it replace Swords Dance. Back then, Weavile already had a Multi Lens, so every time it used that move, it had the chance to hit the target twice and boost its Attack by two stages, just like Swords Dance would have done. But unlike that status move, Power-Up Punch can also damage the opponent, and its meager power of 40 grows exponentially every time it boosts the Attack of its user! Add to that the fact that Macro Cosmos had the misfortune of being chosen as the evil team of my run, and a Fighting-type move was very useful in taking apart their numerous Steel-types.

Moving on to Abilities, both Sneasel's main and secondary Abilities (Inner Focus and Keen Eye) become Pressure when it evolves, while its Hidden one (Pickpocket) remains unchanged. For my solo run, I thought Pickpocket was the better choice, but I was rarely able to benefit from it. This Ability steals an item that the opponent is holding if it hits Sneasel or Weavile with a contact move, but due to their trademark Speed, it doesn't happen very often. The Passive Ability of both murderous weasels is Tough Claws, which boosts the power not only of moves that involve claws but ALL contact moves by approximately 30%, which is very nice to have when you have a moveset composed mostly or entirely of contact moves!

Since both Sneasel and Weavile have surprisingly worse Defense than Special Defense, I preferred to attempt to balance them by giving them an Impish Nature, which improves their Defence at the expense of their Special Attack. The game agreed with me and ended up offering me so many Irons and Soul Dews that, by the end of the run, the murderous weasel ended up having much more Defence than Special Defense. Be careful what you wish for, I guess!

I had to retry some fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Corsola is a terrible choice for a solo run, with its 4x weakness to Grass, its low Speed, and its disappointing SpA and HP. My moveset consisted of Scald, Freeze-Dry, Calm Mind, and Strength Sap. In a solo run, every Ability that Corsola can have is trash—just don't give it Hustle because it actively damages your run. On the contrary, Storm Drain, its Passive, is incredibly helpful and useful. I gave it a Timid Nature to improve its low, low Speed. I beat this run on my 5th try.

FULL POST:

FIRST TRY, BABY!!! ... On version 1.12, with 4 failed runs on the previous version of the game. I hope it doesn't come as a surprise that, with its 4x weakness to Grass, its low base Speed, and its disappointing base Special Attack and base HP, Corsola isn't a great choice for a solo run. I had two quick fails due to my Rival choosing a Grass starter, and two other fails because of an unlucky trip to the Power Plant and a random Leafeon that did way too much damage for Corsola to handle. Thankfully, the game had mercy on me and gifted me a run in which my Rival had a Water-type as a starter (Sobble), the evil team was Team Aqua, and I was finally able to get the 'Clowning Around' mystery encounter, which basically transformed my Corsola into a sad excuse for a Lapras by swapping its Rock secondary type with an Ice one. It was also a very lucky run in relation to the rewards that I found in the shop. The Leftovers and the great amount of Vitamins, in particular, were instrumental to the success of this run.

Speaking of version 1.12, with the gen and dex number order that I use for my challenge, Sneasel was up next. But just like what happened with Smeargle, I decided to bring forward Corsola's run because it has Salt Cure as an Egg Move, which has been nerfed by PokéRogue's newest version, just like in Pokémon Champions. I definitely failed in that regard, but don't worry about that. Version 1.12 arrived midway through my successful run, and by then Salt Cure was already out of Corsola's moveset, because that move isn't as game-changing for the cute coral as it was for Smeargle.

As for the moveset that I used for Corsola, it consisted of Scald, Freeze-Dry, Calm Mind, and Strength Sap. With its 30% chance of burning the opponent and its good power, Scald is a great Water-type move. The shop offered me the Surf TM at least once, but although that move has superior power and can hit both opponents in a double battle (which is priceless in a solo run), I preferred to stick with Scald. With its decent chance of inflicting a burn, it was very important for me to have a move that could cripple physical attackers (especially if they had super effective moves) and inflict passive burn damage to them. The addition of Freeze-Dry makes Corsola's moveset unresisted, since that Ice-type move is super effective against Water-types. It was the move that I used the most, because water hell was the safest route for Corsola, and even more so when that move acquired STAB thanks to the type swap provided by the clown. Another characteristic that makes Freeze-Dry special (in more than one sense) is its 10% chance of freezing the opponent, and Corsola can benefit massively from the stalling provided by that status condition.

Early into my successful run, I gave up Salt Cure for Double Team. Even OG Salt Cure wasn't that useful, (a) because Corsola is better suited as a special attacker, and (b) because the cute coral isn't as proficient as Smeargle at stalling, especially when facing special attackers. Double Team saved my run more than once, but this time I thought that offence was the best defence, so at the first chance, I swapped the evasion-boosting move for Calm Mind. It's a great status move on its own, but I think it works particularly well for Corsola in combination with Strength Sap. Calm Mind is used to boost the cute coral's Special Attack, but also to reduce the damage it suffers from special moves by improving its Special Defence. Strength Sap, on the other hand, can heal the damage that Corsola endured in the setup phase, or because of its slow Speed, and at the same time reduce the damage from physical moves by reducing the opponent's Attack. Add to that the fact that the cute coral has a base Defense and Special Defense of 95, and you'll understand why the damage reduction provided by the combination of those two status moves works so well. On paper, my strategy transforms Corsola into an OP Pokémon, but this is far from the truth: its very low Speed makes it take too many risks for its own good, and vanilla Corsola's 4x weakness to Grass is extremely hard to manage with Calm Mind and Strength Sap.

As for the Ability, in a solo run, every one that it can have is worthless (at least from what I can tell). Just don't give it Hustle because not only do you not get any benefit from improving Corsola's Attack, but you're also actively damaging your run by making the cute coral less precise. On the contrary, Storm Drain is a beast of a Passive Ability. Vanilla Corsola takes effective damage from Water moves, and Storm Drain not only negates all that damage but also boosts the cute coral's Special Attack!

Since Corsola is already balanced defensively and has the chance to reliably improve its Special Attack by finding Calm Mind's TM in the shop, when it was time to assign its Nature, I preferred to give it a Timid one, which improves its terrible Speed at the expense of its Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run).

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A strong carry, but its 4x weakness to Flying-types can be nasty. My moveset consisted of Pin Missile, Storm Throw, Rock Blast, and Swords Dance. My vanilla Heracross had the Moxie HA, which I highly recommend if you have it unlocked. Each of the stag beetle's Abilities becomes Skill Link when it Mega Evolves, which works very well in combination with its Passive, Technician. I gave Heracross a Jolly Nature because it loses 10 base Speed upon Mega Evolution. This run was soloed on my first try.

FULL POST:

When I commented on RazTheGiant's Heracross solo run post on this subreddit, I wrote 'With Skill Link and Technician, what could possibly go wrong?' ... Well, the answer is definitely 'Flying-types'! I almost lost my run at wave 120 because Korrina started the match with a Flamigo, and Mega Heracross fainted twice during the run: against Sinnoh's E4 Aaron and his Yanmega, and against my Rival's Mega Rayquaza (thank goodness that Reviver Seeds exist!). Vanilla Heracross is especially vulnerable to Flying-types because its 4x weakness to Flying is combined with a mid base Defense (75). But strong Flying-types can be a problem even for Mega Heracross, despite its solid and well-rounded bulk!

But except for their fear of Flying, Heracross and Mega Heracross are both incredible.

I gave vanilla Heracross its Hidden Ability, Moxie, which is basically OP on a Pokémon that never gets switched out, and even more so with Heracross's great base stats. Technician, the stag beetle's Passive Ability, works incredibly well in tandem with Mega Heracross's Skill Link, but it's incredibly helpful even for base Heracross. It can learn a great deal of sub-60-power moves that can receive the 50% boost from that Ability. I obviously recommend Pin Missile, because it's bound to become Mega Heracross's strongest move, but Bug Bite and Pounce can also work well on the vanilla stag beetle. Also, 3 out of 4 of Heracross's Egg Moves are boosted by Technician. Storm Throw is just busted with the mix of its base power of 60, Technician, STAB, and its guaranteed crit. Rock Blast is a great antidote to Flying-types (but watch out for Flying-types that aren't weak to it, like Pokémon with both the Flying and Fighting types). Scale Shot is obviously meant as a counter to Rayquaza and Eternatus, but the fact that it allows Heracross to trade Defense for Speed could allow the stag beetle to outspeed Pokémon that would otherwise OHKO it. The only Egg Move that doesn't benefit from Technician is Iron Head, which is meant as coverage against Fairy-types.

For most of my run, both with Heracross and Mega Heracross, my moveset consisted of Pin Missile, Storm Throw, Rock Blast, and Swords Dance. The latter is quite overkill on Mega Heracross, with its bonkers base Attack of 185, so I probably could have replaced it with Iron Head or Scale Shot without consequences, but in my solo runs I usually prefer to always have the chance to maximize my Pokémon's damage output. In the vanilla stag beetle part of my run, I wouldn't have survived the Korrina fight at wave 120 if I hadn't replaced Swords Dance with Bulk Up. I found its TM in the shop before Heracross could learn Swords Dance by itself, and the Defense boost it provided was necessary to survive an attack from Flamigo. Heracross was able to outspeed the feisty flamingo, but sadly it couldn't take it down in one turn because it wasn't doing enough damage to it with Rock Blast, and its other moves weren't very effective.

As for Mega Heracross, it's basically a machine gun. Every Ability that Heracross has becomes Skill Link when it Mega Evolves, and every shot of its multi-hit moves is boosted by Technician. If I remember correctly, only Eternatus was able to withstand a burst of 5 hits from Mega Heracross without fainting!

As for Heracross's Nature, if it couldn't Mega Evolve, I probably would have given it an Impish one, so that its Defense was improved at the expense of its Special Attack, allowing it to better endure physical hits. But Mega Heracross's defense is quite balanced, and it has slightly more Defense than Special Defense (115 vs. 105). So, with Heracross's Nature, I decided to play the long game and give it a Jolly one instead. It raises its Speed and lowers its Special Attack, which is important for Mega Heracross, because it loses 10 points of base Speed upon Mega Evolution.

I had to retry some hard fights that involved strong Flying-types and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I was able to solo this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: Shuckle's Egg Moves make it a God-tier Pokémon. My moveset was Body Press, Salt Cure, Shell Smash, and Heal Order. My strategy was based on Contrary Shell Smash, so that I didn't have to rely on berries to set up with Stuff Cheeks. Harvest is a very useful Passive, because it allows you to recover a lot of berries. I gave Shuckle a Careful Nature to make it more resistant to super effective special moves. This run was beaten easily on my first try.

FULL POST:

It's been a while since I had so much fun in a solo run! I could probably have concluded it in a day, if I had had enough time. Shuckle, what a legend! I already know how well it works with a full team, but I was worried that with its ridiculous base Speed of 5 and the difficulty of relying on Stuff Cheeks for setup, it wouldn't be as reliable in a solo run. How wrong I was!

If you use Shuckle on a full team, I recommend that you give it the Gluttony Ability, the Harvest Passive Ability, and add one or two Pickup mons that can feed it a steady supply of berries. This way, you can use Stuff Cheeks—an Egg Move—to eat berries to boost its already OP Defense, and also earn the benefit of eating a certain kind of Berry. Harvest is very important to unlock because it gives the bulky Chad a 50% chance each turn to restore a Berry that it has eaten, until it's switched out, guaranteeing that Berries stick around way longer than they normally would.

In my solo run, I preferred to use another strategy, so that I didn't need to constantly give Shuckle Berries from the shop and could focus on other rewards. My moveset was Body Press, Salt Cure, Shell Smash, and Heal Order. My strategy was based on the bulky Chad's Hidden Ability, Contrary, and one of its level-up moves, Shell Smash. Normally, this setup move offers a two-stage boost in Attack, Special Attack, and Speed in exchange for a single drop in Defence and Special Defence. Contrary flips this great deal on its head, so now Shell Smash cripples Shuckle's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed just to grant it a small boost in Defence and Special Defence. Is it a problem for Shuckle? Not at all, if it has the Body Press Egg Move, because that physical move uses the user's Defense rather than its Attack to calculate damage. Shuckle has the second-best Defense in the game (230), on par with Mega Aggron and Mega Steelix—above them, there's only E-Max Eternatus! So it already does a huge quantity of damage on its own using Body Press, but using Contrary Shell Smash, or Stuff Cheeks, you can go above and beyond that, into the realm of the absurd. In the case of the bulky Chad, Defence is definitely the best offence. But raising Shuckle's Defence and Special Defence also makes it more unkillable than it already is, which makes Contrary Shell Smash a win-win on both the offensive and defensive sides. And what it actually loses (Attack, Special Attack, and Speed) are base stats that are already ridiculous for Shuckle, since it has a base Attack and Special Attack of 10, and a base Speed of 5.

The real downside of my strategy is that with -6 Attack and Special Attack, the bulky Chad basically can't do direct damage with any move other than Body Press. When Shuckle's Defence is boosted, it isn't a problem when that move isn't very effective, but Ghost-types are immune to it. The best solution to this problem is a move that does passive damage to the target. Until it gets nerfed by the Champions patch, your best option for this is another of Shuckle's Egg Moves, Salt Cure. When applied, it doesn't expire on its own like other moves of that kind, and it also does more passive damage to Steel- and Water-types, two types the bulky Chad is weak to. It's a long process to take down an opponent just through passive damage, but with its legendary bulk, Shuckle can more than afford it. It's even better if you have Heal Order, another Egg Move, so that the bulky Chad can heal the damage the opponent is doing to it in the long run. Keep in mind that Shuckle learns Shell Smash at level 65, so it takes a while to make Contrary Shell Smash work, but even waiting for it was less of a problem than I anticipated.

As for the Nature, I preferred to give it one favorable to its Special Defence, Careful (+SpD, -SpA), rather than one favorable to Defence, to make it more resistant to super effective special moves. In the end, it was the right call for this run, because I was able to find a good deal of Irons (5) in the shop, which more or less balanced things out with the 2 Zincs that I got and the 3 Soul Dews that I found in the late game.

In general, it was honestly a very lucky run in terms of rewards. The most valuable one was a very early Shell Bell that allowed me to go on the offensive most of the time with Body Press. That item would allow me to recover most, if not all, the damage that Shuckle had to endure from moving last. That's why my run took me much less time than I normally would to complete!

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem whatsoever soloing this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

IN A NUTSHELL: A challenging run due to Qwilfish not scaling up with the rest of the game, and due to frequent Psychic- and Ground-types. My moveset mostly consisted of Barb Barrage, Fishious Rend, Minimize, and Swords Dance. Sometimes it had a Dark-type move to provide coverage against Psychic-types, but I recommend Minimize instead. Poison Point and Toxic Debris offered me the best chances to poison opponents. I gave it a Careful Nature to improve its low Special Defence. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

Like a lot of non-Legendary and non-Mythical Pokémon that don't evolve, Qwilfish works quite well in the first part of the game on its own, but it has a hard time in the second half of the run because it doesn't scale as much as the Pokémon around it. This time, it didn't help that I had the Aether Foundation as the evil team, with Faba and his team of mainly Psychic-types, and my Rival had Treecko as her starter. Although weak to Qwilfish's poison, Grovyle and Sceptile are fast and strong, and they hit Qwilfish effectively with their Grass moves. Also, my luck with items was lower than usual... until I found the Mini Black Hole at wave 181, which definitely evened things out and made my time with the puffer fish much more enjoyable!

The main strategy with Qwilfish is to poison the opponent in one way or another, because the damage of Barb Barrage—one of its Egg Moves—is doubled if the target is already poisoned. The puffer fish can poison its opponent with Barb Barrage itself, which has a 50% chance of poisoning the target; Poison Point, one of its Abilities; Toxic Debris, its Passive Ability; Baneful Bunker, another of its Egg Moves; and other moves that it can learn through leveling up or TMs, like Toxic. Another great move in Qwilfish's arsenal is Fishious Rend, which it can learn as an Egg Move. It has a respectable power of 80, which can be doubled if the user attacks before the target, or if the target switches in. But even without that boost, it can do a surprising amount of damage, even to Water-types, when used by the puffer fish! Swords Dance, which Qwilfish learns through a TM, is highly recommended, because with a single use of it, the puffer fish can one-shot a great deal of opponents!

Other than Barb Barrage, Fishious Rend, and Swords Dance, I initially started giving Qwilfish Dark-type moves like Crunch to provide it coverage against Psychic-types. But in the second and third matches against Faba, they weren't enough, so I made the puffer fish re-learn Minimize through a Memory Mushroom. In the second match against the Aether Foundation Admin, it wasn't exactly game-changing since his Pokémon were surprisingly accurate, though it still helped me avoid enough attacks to only faint once (thank God for Reviver Seeds!). But by the third match? It worked so well it almost felt illegal. I decided to stick with Minimize for the rest of the run, and I have zero regrets!

Since Qwilfish's Special Defence is very lacking, I gave it a Careful Nature, which improves its Special Defence at the expense of its Special Attack.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Somehow, I was able to solo this run on my first try.

Highlights video of this run here.

Full run video here.

Hi, I'm Lone Absol, the second person attempting to solo a classic run with every starter in PokéRogue.

It feels like it's been an eternity since I got to Johto, but with Snubbull's run done, I'm only at 50% of all the Pokémon of this arduous region. The 'Johto Syndrome' is real! Let's hope that the second half will take me less time than the first.

IN A NUTSHELL: Dominant with the combination of its high base Attack, Pixilate Facade, Quick Feet, and Swords Dance. My moveset was Facade, Extreme Speed, Earthquake, and Swords Dance. Keep in mind that if you give a Flame Orb to Granbull like I did, the burn it causes halves the pink dog's Attack (except when it uses Facade). I gave it a Jolly Nature to improve its low Speed. This run was beaten on my first try.

FULL POST:

Granbull. What a good doggo! Especially with the great synergy between Quick Feet, Facade, and Pixilate! Quick Feet is one of its Abilities, and for your pink dog to have it, it must evolve from a Run Away Snubbull. It increases the Speed of a Pokémon with a status condition by 50%, which is great news for Granbull and its disappointing 45 base Speed. And if the pink dog is poisoned, paralyzed, or burned, the power of its Egg Move, Facade, gets doubled, from 70 to a mighty 140! Usually, this is a Normal-type move, but thanks to Snubbull's and Granbull's Passive Ability, Pixilate, it is turned into a Fairy-type move, like any other Normal-type move in the pink dog's moveset, and enjoys the x1.5 damage boost provided by STAB. And if you wanted to go above and beyond, you could give Granbull Swords Dance, which is another of Snubbull's Egg Moves. What a menace!

The most reliable way to inflict a status condition on the pink dog is either through a Flame Orb or a Toxic Orb. In a solo run, the 'bad poison' from a Toxic Orb is usually a death sentence. Because the damage scales exponentially, it will quickly outpace what a solo Pokémon can sustain during full-team battles or long gauntlets. For that reason, unless the damage from a Toxic Orb is purged by an Ability like Poison Heal, I always give the Flame Orb to my Pokémon. In Granbull's case, it's a mixed bag, because the burn it causes halves the pink dog's Attack, except when it uses Facade, nerfing every other offensive move in its moveset. With a base Attack of 120 and Swords Dance in its moveset, Granbull can deal with that loss, but it's something important to take into consideration if you follow in my footsteps.

Other than Facade and Swords Dance, my moveset included Extreme Speed and Earthquake. The former was more useful in the first part of the run, when Snubbull/Granbull didn't have its Flame Orb yet, and it wasn't as insanely fast as it became at the end of the run, thanks to its 5 Carbos, a Speed-boosting Nature (Jolly, which improves Speed at the expense of Special Attack), and 3 Soul Dews. That dominant Speed made Extreme Speed redundant. Still, I preferred not to replace it with other moves: most of the time, I was spamming Facade anyway, and I liked to always have the chance to move first no matter what at my disposal. Earthquake was obviously meant to provide coverage against Steel- and Poison-types, but sometimes, after a Swords Dance, it was sometimes able to KO both opposing Pokémon in double battles.

It's been a while since I let the clown from the 'Clowning Around' Mystery Encounter alter the types of my Pokémon! Actually, Granbull was able to defeat his Blacephalon and Mr. Mime, but it would have cost me a great deal of berries. And since the type change added the Normal-type to the pink dog, I thought that losing a resistance (to Fighting) to gain an immunity (to Ghost) was a good deal after all.

I had to retry some hard fights and reload the game a lot to get better rewards in the shop (reloading the game doesn't change the rewards in the shop, but it gives me a better awareness of the shop content in each wave and better rewards in the long run). Still, I had no problem soloing this run on my first try.