I think I lucked out on 3/4 ability randomizer.

I've got 3 awesome metagross, but not sure which one to use. Please let me know your thoughts on which one seems strongest!

Grassy Glide for you, for me, for everyone 🫰🏼

100% acc hi jump kick gives free atk, then deletes everything with 100% acc triple axel/dive or priority jet punch

Project 0xA79 is, if you cannot tell already, inspired heavily by the running Project 1025 by u/mfc314 (refered to as the OG below). I'm impressed with his progress and want to try a similar thing to see if I could recreate what he achieved. I will also document my builds along the ways to help newer players.

0xA79 is the hexadecimal number corresponds to the decimal value 2681, which is the ID of Terrow, the last (not counting Slate) Pokémon on the online dex. All my builds along the way will be documented in this spreadsheet.

Disclaimers:

• All Pokémon are encountered in the wild via CodeBreaker 82039AE0 XXXX (XXXX is the hex ID of the Pokémon I want). To make this method more convenience, I will not group regional variants with the original Pokémon, due to their hex IDs are very far apart. However, I will count Mega evolutions with the base Pokémon.
• Permanent Mega mode is on, as well as Boss Rush mode.
• I fight gym trainers to reduce the boss difficulty if I find it necessary.
• My builds are far from optimal. If I pass a boss, I take the win and leave further optimizations for later boss.

---

The run:

The 3rd in the series. Again, here are the OG's runs featuring the same mons for comparison:

• 0027-0038A
• 0037-0047

Compare to the previous run with an increadibly cheesy Fearow, this run was much slower. This team is about strategic play, stall out dangerous threats before throwing in a heavy hitter to clean up.

Nidoran♂️/Nidorino/Nidoking

Much more offensive oriented than Nidoqueen, Nidoking excels in nuking opponents off the face of the planet. Sheer Force cancels out Life Orb recoil, and with Mighty Horn in the mix the multiplier is off the chart. If Steath Rock is in play and he gets off one DDance, it's game over. However, it's difficult to setup by himself due to the lack of Focus Sash, and his speed is not that good compare to the threats in late game. I found myself benching him quite a few times after unlocking Mega Crobat. His most valuable contribution was the Psychic gym fight, where he ran Quash to outspeed everything and scored 3-4 KOs.

Clefairy/Clefable

An excellent mons who can fill multiple roles according to the team's need. Wall, support, sweep, pivot, the cute doll can do it all. I built mine as a slow wall/attacker mix for the first half of the game, and switched to a Baton Pass build for the latter half. In the 8th gym 6vs12 battle, she ran Follow Me to completely wall Palkia and allowed Mega Crobat to score a clean 6 KOs.

Vulpix/Ninetales

Same with the OG, I didn't utilize Sun much other than to cancel out opposing weather. My fox functioned as a suicide pivot with a Scarf: get in, deal huge damage while cancelling weather, then die. Pyromaniac Fire Blast has 100% burn chance, a very nice bonus in case something survive the hit.

Jigglypuff/Wigglytuff

Before Mega, the round ball has Lullaby, making Sing 90% accurate. That's a nightmare for most teams. She also has Steath Rock, boosting move and Baton Pass to take advantage of the free turns. Unfortunately I don't have a good special attacker in the team to make use of Calm Mind passing, so I primarily used her to set Steath Rock then switch out, and later come back in as a sacrifice pivot. After Mega though, she has more tools to play with. Mega X is an incredible physical attacker, but I have enough on the team so I opted for Mega Y. Since she has low speed, sweeping is not really feasible. But she has one very niche trick: suicide bombing! Yawn, Protect, Steath Rock then Combustion Fire Gem boosted Outburst will take something out even without attack investment. Or I can simply switch her out to throw her at a more dangerous threat later, taking advantage of Aftermath (which also procs Fire Gem).

Zubat/Golbat/Crobat

The speed demon. Even in its base form, it contributed a lot in the form of revenge killing. But after it gets the Mega stone, it becomes a serial killer all by itself. While the OG ran a special-based attacker, mine went physical, taking advantage of Nosferatu and Spectral Shroud. Holding a Shell Bell, the demon can dish out stupid damage with Brave Bird/Double Edge, then heal himself to the max, reactivating the damage cutting effect. Most notably he tanked rain boosted attacks from Primal Kyogre and KO-ed back with ease, making the 2nd half of the 8th gym a breeze.

Oddish/Gloom/Vileplume

The most unexpected hero of the team. I was never a fan of the line and I came into this run expecting nothing much from it. But man it really delivered. Being slow enough, Toxic Terrain immediately overrides other terrains. Poison Absorb heals himself on Toxic Terrain, and coupled with boosted SpDef, Black Sludge, Leech Seed and Regenerator, this thing just never dies. SubSeeder is my go-to set, outstalling almost everything not Grass type. He survived all league matches, MVP in 2 of them and contribute significantly in the others.

Dewgong Prismatic Fur + Mega Shedinja + Smeargle + Mightyena's evo Shadow Tag + Wobufet. So disgusting. I had to change my team to a specific comp to defeat him.

Project 1025 is my personal challenge to beat this game with every. Single. Pokémon. After all, the stat buffs, movepool additions, and especially abilities make all of them viable. I hope. And along the way, I'll share a bit about what I find interesting, unique, or strong about each one.

Disclaimers:

- I gen in the needed Pokémon for each run in a 2.65 debug savefile, then transfer the savefile up to the latest 2.65 patch and do the run there. It's quite a few hoops to jump through, but this challenge would not even be possible in the first place without debugging the mons in at the start.

- The particular patch of 2.65 I play on has a little toggle called Boss Rush, which does the same thing as turning off trainer sight. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be included, but it's technically a publicly available feature, so I will be using it to preserve my mental health. In the event that a future patch does not have this toggle, I will do the challenge in the latest version that does.

- I fight the gym leaders, the Pokémon League, the evil team leaders and admins, the rivals, the first Calvin fight, and every trainer in Victory Road.

- I play in Permanent Mega mode because I find it more fun.

- This is nowhere near a comprehensive guide to the Pokémon in this game, and in fact the vast majority will not be used optimally due to taking advantage of certain field conditions or synergies that the Pokémon surrounding them in the Pokédex can't provide.

- Redux forms and other fanmade mons (except evolutions of existing mons) will be done after all the official ones.

The Run

This was quite the fun team to use, especially since it carries a lot of interesting answers into different threats. Quite the impressive showing from what are normally a bunch of iconic but mediocre Hoenn mons.

Baltoy/Claydol

Claydol offers an effective combination of offense and defense, in multiple ways depending on the team. Its wide coverage, boosted by Mystic Power, can be put to good use with Twisted Dimensions, flipping the script against the many extremely fast lategame threats. In doubles this becomes even more effective, enabling strong but powerful allies. There's also the very funny tech of using STAB Outburst to wipe something off the face of the earth. What I find more interesting, though, is its other ability: Ancient Idol. This makes its attacks scale on its defensive stats instead, which makes for a phenomenal synergy with Cosmic Power. Against a suitable opponent, Claydol can begin ramping up its bulk on both sides, becoming unbreakable especially with healing from Recover. From there, the exceptional combo of Earth Power and Dazzling Gleam can tear through any team. You could also make use of Psycho Boost, whose SpA drop is irrelevant since it'll be coming off of the SpD stat instead.

Lileep/Cradily

One of the most reliable drain tanks in the game. While Grass and Rock individually suck as defensive types, together they're actually really good. This makes it pretty easy for it to live hits and answer back with a Giga Drain. It won't do much, but equipped with the Absorbant ability, it also applies a Leech Seed, allowing it to deal consistent damage to nearly anything while also staying healthy. Since all its offensive pressure comes from this, you're free to invest fully in its bulk, further enhanced by Battle Armor. Combined with Subtitute, Protect, and Recover, Cradily can stick around for a very long time, able to take out multiple enemy Pokémon with just this combo. You can also use that bulk to make it a reliable Stealth Rock setter, or accelerate your opponents' demise with Toxic.

Anorith/Armaldo

Armaldo was kinda underwhelming, probably because the rest of this team is way better than it. Really though, it's a perfectly serviceable offensive Pokémon. Keen Edge boosts powerful STAB moves like Mighty Cleave and Guillotine, and it has STAB priority as well in Accelerock and Aqua Jet. Trick Room is the best environment for it, but a bulky Choice Band set works fine too and Rock Polish with a Sash is surprisingly effective in the right environments. It just doesn't have much else outside of being a standard bulky attacker.

Feebas/Milotic

Feebas is absolutely terrible, somehow worse than Magikarp, but Milotic more than makes up for it. It carries on its legacy of bulk from the base game, sporting abilities like Marvel Scale, Prism Scales, and Self Sufficient to help it stick around for a long time. With this longevity it can either support the team with moves like Hypnosis and Flip Turn or go on the attack with STAB Scald and Moonblast, boosted greatly by Adaptability. Base 100 SpA may not seem very high in Elite Redux, but when you can stick around for this long, it's hardly an issue. Even less so for its well-deserved Mega, turning it into a true behemoth of bulk and further enhancing its offensive capabilities. Pure Love and Tangling Hair heavily punish opponents who try to attack it on its weaker physical side, the former also being great for stopping scary multi-hit moves like Triple Kick and Whirling Strikes. Alternatively, Natural Recovery makes its pivot role even better, sustaining its HP throughout long fights and giving it more opportunities to reposition. This excellence in both offense and defense made Milotic an excellent choice for any situation, whether it be using Karma to set up in the Psychic gym, Brine to wear down the Water gym, or just sponging hits in general all throughout the run.

Castform

Castform is one of the most infamous cases in the vanilla competitive scene. A Pokémon that can effectively fight in any weather sounds like a fantastic concept, but it just doesn't have enough sauce to make it work. At the very least, it gave us Weather Ball, used to much greater effect by countless other Pokémon. Anyway, as for its incarnation in ER, that is a very different story. Castform is one of the best and most fun Pokémon to use in this game, at least in my opinion. Its stats are better, and it has forms for sand and fog now, the former of which it always should've had. Additionally, its signature ability Forecast has been buffed to not just change its form with the weather, but to also automatically cast Weather Ball after using a weather-setting move. This makes it amazing for countering opposing weather, since it can set a more favorable weather for you while also attacking so as not to leave itself vulnerable. It's also just good in general, as this grants it 100 power Adaptability-boosted STAB moves of five different types, some boosted by their respective weathers as well. Something that's really interesting to note as well about the buffed Forecast is that using a weather-setting move while that weather is already up can still trigger Weather Ball, meaning you can save a moveslot on Weather Ball itself and just have a moveset of four weather moves. But wait, there's more! Castform's choice abilities also change when it tranforms, so it's a good idea to pay attention to what base Castform has. Anticipation turns into each weather's offense-boosting ability, giving it a free Specs boost once transformed. Guilt Trip turns into a speed-boosting ability instead, very useful into opposing weather since you can use their weather to outspeed them and set your own. Pressure then turns into a specialized ability, mostly useful if you're working with another weather setter to allow Castform to focus on one weather only. Annoyingly, the above only apply to the rain, hail, sand, and fog forms, with the sun form getting its own unique arrangement. I know it's not a plant, but I feel like they could give the sun form Chlorophyll instead of Catastrophe to at least be consistent with the others. Anyway, with how many weather teams there are throughout the game, having a Pokémon like Castform that specializes in weather strategies is valuable for any team.

Kecleon

This run is two for two on terrible Hoenn Normal-types who have suddenly become cracked. Kecleon has absolutely terrible choice abilities, awful stats, and an exceedingly shallow movepool, but all of that is irrelevant in the face of one of the best abilities in the game: Color Change. I'm sure most of us are familiar with what this ability does; it's amazing what the ability to be resistant or immune to literally every attack that comes your way does to an otherwise terrible Pokémon like this. It has no recovery, limited coverage, literally zero setup moves, and only a handful of useful utility moves like Fake Out, Trick Room, Blood Shot, and Knock Off. Still, it's just enough that, combined with its incredible longevity, it can be a reliable disruptor into nearly everything. Honestly, it was a wise move to make every other aspect of it so terrible, since it would otherwise be utterly broken. Even then there's a case to be made that it's still broken; any Pokémon with Fighting coverage can't hit Kecleon at all so long as it turns into a Normal- or Dark-type with Protean at the end of each turn, and strong Electric, Dragon, or Ground attackers don't appreciate its presence either. Quite possibly the most reliable defensive piece any team could ask for, even with its limited presence once it actually hits the field.

In other news, I'm making progress on the spreadsheet. I don't have enough entries in it to be satisfied about releasing it, but it should be good to go in one or two runs.

The three of them are helping me a lot in Elite Redux Mono Electric Hell Mode

Found this during my nuzlocke randomizer run, still really fast despite what you may believe

Project 0xA79 is, if you cannot tell already, inspired heavily by the running Project 1025 by u/mfc314 (refered to as the OG below). I'm impressed with his progress and want to try a similar thing to see if I could recreate what he achieved. I will also document my builds along the ways to help newer players.

0xA79 is the hexadecimal number corresponds to the decimal value 2681, which is the ID of Terrow, the last (not counting Slate) Pokémon on the online dex. All my builds along the way will be documented in this spreadsheet.

Disclaimers:

• All Pokémon are encountered in the wild via CodeBreaker 82039AE0 XXXX (XXXX is the hex ID of the Pokémon I want). To make this method more convenience, I will not group regional variants with the original Pokémon, due to their hex IDs are very far apart. However, I will count Mega evolutions with the base Pokémon.
• Permanent Mega mode is on, as well as Boss Rush mode.
• I fight gym trainers to reduce the boss difficulty if I find it necessary.
• My builds are far from optimal. If I pass a boss, I take the win and leave further optimizations for later boss.

---

The run:

The second run, and the team is already different from the OG's. Here are the OG's runs with the same mons:

• 0019-0026
• 0027-0038A
• 0143 + rerun

Despite the lack of raw power compare to the previous run, this one was much smoother thank to 1 single mon: Fearow. The other members are also very nice to use and compliment the star nicely.

Rattata/Raticate/Ratiking

Before becoming the rat king, Raticate excels at one thing: statused snowballer. His abilities and moveset compliment each other so well the OG took him all the way to the Hall of Fame. In any normal run, I would have done the same, but the point of this series is to test every single mon, so I cannot leave out the fat rat evolution. In come Ratiking, whose playstyle is a complete 180 from its 2nd stage: stall wall. Percentage-based damage, speed control, defense boosting, recovery, the king has them all. In a perfect world, he traps something and sit back behind King's Shield/Substitute to watch them struggle to death. Unfortunately the dazing part of Tangling Tails seems bugged, sometimes allowing an opponent to move first, making life harder for the king. Still, he contributed a lot in chipping down bulky threats.

Spearow/Fearow

The star of the show despite having the lowest BST in the team. The OG used an Accelerate/Sky Attack/Skull Bash set, which is very powerful but has a problem with the lack of speed. My bread-and-butter is Gale Wings. Due to a different in programming, ER Gale Wings behaves differently from the main games: when used with a 2 turn-move (Fly, Sky Drop), it gives priority to only the 1st turn. This means if Fearow is slower than its opponent, 1st turn it goes first and hides in the sky, then 2nd turn it comes down with punishment after the opponent has moved. So as long as it has full HP, it's invincible. On top of that, Sky Drop completely disable one opposing mon in double, and it triggers entry hazards making resistance meaningless.

Ekans/Arbok

Thank to Sidewinder, it doesn't care about Speed, and the bulk it gets from the extra EV allows it to survive some crucial situations. The most important function of my snake is a backup attacker, in cases I have to pull Fearow out due to opponent having on-contact abilities or scary priority moves. It also spots the only Fighting move in the team (Jaw Lock), which covers Steel mons that Fearow has trouble with.

Pikachu/Raichu

Both of Raichu's Megas are covered in OG's post. For this run, Volt Swith bot Mega Y works wonder. His role is to remove the few threats that Fearow/Arbok cannot deal with. Most common usecase: Fearow switches out, Ratiking/Sandslash comes in and dies immediately, Raichu comes in and Fake Out/Volt Switch, either killing the threat outright or do heavy damage so that another round of the same meat shield + Volt Switch does the job. As for Mega X, I will give him a try when it's Pichu's turn.

Sandshrew/Sandslash

In its base form, it's an excellent wall/hazard setter. The OG brought it to the Hall of Fame for a reason. However, I have another hazard setter in my team, so I chose the Mega route. Mega Sandslash is very fast and strong, making it an excellent attacker. Unfortunately, it cannot compete with priority attacker Fearow and Mega Arbok so in this team it was mainly used to cancel weather and occasionally provide some damage via Earthquake. It shined the most during the Psychic gym, where it threw off 3 powerful Earthquakes to bring home the win. There is one downside though: the sand forces Fearow to run Safety Googles instead of Lagging Tail.

Nidoran♀️/Nidorina/Nidoqueen

While a tried-and-true Sheer Force Life Orb Mystic Dance set is very viable as the OG mentioned, my queen chose a supporting role instead of standing in the spotlight. And her achievements cannot be overstated. Steath Rock and Spikes turn Fearow's Sky Drop into an unresisted menace, Toxic Spikes helps Arbok to crit every single time, Quash and Friendly Guard trivializes Psychic gym, Queenly Majesty blocks priority for Fearow, Blight Scale helps stall out Psychic Terrain from Mewtwo (together with Arbok). It's worth noting that no boss in Elite mode has Taunt, so a full support set it completely viable from start to finish.

Project 0xA79 is, if you cannot tell already, inspired heavily by the running Project 1025 by u/mfc314. I was impressed with his progress and wanted to try a similar thing to see if I could recreate what he achieved. I will also document my builds along the ways to help newer players. 0xA79 is the hexadecimal number corresponds to the decimal value 2681, which is the ID of Terrow, the last (not counting Slate) Pokémon on the online dex. All my builds along the way will be documented in this spreadsheet.

Disclaimers:

• All Pokémon are encountered in the wild via CodeBreaker 82039AE0 XXXX (XXXX is the hex ID of the Pokémon I want). To make this method more convenience, I will not group regional variants with the original Pokémon, due to their hex IDs are very far apart. However, I will count Mega evolutions with the base Pokémon.
• Permanent Mega mode is on, as well as Boss Rush mode.
• I fight gym trainers to reduce the boss difficulty if I find it necessary.
• My builds are far from optimal. If I pass a boss, I take the win and leave further optimizations for later boss.

---

The run:

The first team is identical to u/mfc314's, because none of the first 6 lines has any regional form. This will change very soon thank to Rattata and Pikachu. This is actually my first time attempting Elite difficulty, so I didn't know what to expect. Thankfully the team are very balance and all of them can Mega evolve, so I had little trouble aside from the 7th gym.
Due to the team being identical to u/mfc314's, I won't parrot what he already said about each team member, and instead I will link his post here. I will note down what I think I did differently though.

Bulbasaur/Ivysaur/Venusaur

While most of the time I went to the same Chloroplast Solar Beam build, during early to mid game (before Mega) I found myself using a tanky Sub-Seeder set. It works very well thank to Venusaur bulky stats and Thick Fat. I also needed to switch to Mega X form during the Psychic gym fight due to the fact that the opponents have much higher SpDef.

Charmander/Charmeleon/Charizard

Nothing much to say. Same with u/mfc314, I used him as a sun setter to activate Venusaur's Big Leaves. The only difference is that I primarily used Heat Rock instead of Focus Sash, cuz I don't like to have 2 mons with the same item.

Squirtle/Wartortle/Blastoise

Instead of a tank, my Blastoise saw his spotlight in being the main sweeper. Perfect accuracy Hydro Pump/Focus Blast coupled with boosted Ice Beam provide near perfect coverage through out the game. Notably I also use Mega Y during the Psychic gym fight instead of the slower Mega X.

Caterpie/Metapod/Butterfree

Compound Eyes-boosted Sleep Powder is so strong there is nothing else this thing needs to do. I found myself comfortable with a Quiver Dance Dream Eater set, complimented with Bug Buzz/Hurricane to deal with Dark type.

Weedle/Kakuna/Beedrill

Again completely agree with u/mfc314, nothing to say more. The most notable thing for Mega Beedrill is that he outspeeds and one-shot champion's lead Mewtwo.

Pidgey/Pidgeotto/Pidgeot

While u/mfc314 considered him a "potential mon", mine saw himself carrying some major fights. With a Choice Scarf, Pidgeot tears through teams with unmatched speed and power. Take Flight is also there to get out of bad matchups. And when the situation calls for it, he can switch to a supporting role with Tailwind, which is my solution to the 6vs12 battle in gym 8.

Anyone know what could cause this problem? Just patched the game and playing for the first time

This thing is nuts. Turn one PUP for +2 atk +1 speed then drain punch for any health lost and +1 speed. Been loving this Mon so much.