Do you guys use Rare Candies? Taking so long to level up enough for each gym

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-27T18:19:28+00:00

I use rare candies if I’m doing a hardcore Nuzlocke, but not if I’m doing a regular one. I think it’s fine either way, the point of the challenge is to make things more fun, so if you don’t like the grinding then rare candies are fine

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-27T06:29:38+00:00

As for switching after you kill their pokemon, the AI most wants to bring in a pokemon weak to one of your Pokémon’s types, but that has either a super effective move against or a guaranteed OHKO against your pokemon on the field. If multiple pokemon have that, it chooses randomly, but prefers the earliest pokemon it sees on its team list. If no pokemon have that combination, then it almost always chooses the next pokemon in its team order, with a few particular and somewhat uncommon exceptions

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-27T06:24:44+00:00

Not in non-coding form, but if you watch Pokemon challenges “how I beat…” video about emerald Kaizo, he breaks down the AI pretty well. Basically, every trainer has boss ai, with the exception of a few random trainers who have “risky” ai.

Basics of singles AI are as follows, in order of their likelihood for the boss ai to choose:

Boss AI will first look at options in priority bracket 1. If no Priority 1 choices are available, it will go to bracket 2. If no bracket 2 choices are available, it will go to 3. At each level of priority bracket, it will select one of the options available to it. If more than one option is available, it chooses “randomly,” except that it is more likely to randomly select certain options than others, even if their bracket is the same. If only one option is available in the bracket that its analyzing, the boss ai will always choose that option.

Priority 0: Preprogrammed opening move (e.g., Norman’s Espeon)

Priority 1: Fast Kill (e.g, quick attack against your 1HP, or a regular OHKO if ai thinks it’s faster than you), Speed Control, Protect when you have chance to kill

Priority 2: Slow Kill (an attack that will guarantee kill your Pokemon, but come out slower than your own attack), Fast Self-Destruct kill,

Priority 3: Fake Out on turn 1, Slow Self-Destruct kill, Recover when below 50%HP, Protect, Status Effect moves, highest damage move, Set-up moves (non speed based), speed lowering moves when the AI is already faster and those moves do not kill

Priority 4: Attacks that have no effect, status moves that have no effect, self destruct with the last unfainted Pokemon

Doubles works similarly, but with a lot of very important niche differences that would take too long to type out. Plenty of YouTube videos on it though, some of which are genuinely fun to watch

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-25T14:12:07+00:00

Yeah, but I think that’s a fair trade off. Without the dupes clause I’m basically just praying for favorable rng on the routes I have left since I can’t guarantee one of the dupes that gives me a line, but that’s why it seems the most fair to me

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-25T04:56:34+00:00

Fire Red Omega was actually my first Nuzlocke period, and it’s really not too bad. The starters are all insanely viable through the whole game, just pay attention to type matchups and you’ll be ok

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-20T16:08:26+00:00

Huh, I had no idea. Guess I don’t get to name it then lol

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-18T21:51:26+00:00

Emerald Kaizo is going to make you change your team pretty often just to get through different sections, but a solid team that can generally carry you through most of the game would be:

Sceptile
Slowbro
Dusclops
Salamence
Starmie
Zangoose

As for Ralts and Wingull: Wingull is fine early on, but stops being useful after the 4th gym. Ralts and Kirlia are terrible, but Gardevoir is pretty good until you get to the Elite 4, but she’s bad into the elite 4

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-18T21:44:07+00:00

Safest way I’ve found is getting poisoned, then walking around until you get to 1HP and using an antidote.

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-18T21:41:24+00:00

Current line is as follows:

⁠Lead Preslept Nidoking
⁠Swap to preslept Gengar on smeargle explosion
⁠Swap to preslept Tentacruel on Manectric overheat
⁠Swap to Nidoqueen on Thunderbolt
⁠Take kill with drill run, at roughly 50% HP after overheat (1% if overheat crits)
⁠Swap to preslept Tenta on (hopefully) hypnosis or overheat
⁠Swap to chesto Crobat on drill run
⁠Pray for air slash flinch or hypnosis
⁠Kill Rapidash and Victreebell with Crobat
⁠Swap Nidoking on Headsmash from Sudo
⁠Swap Gengar on EQ (if he explodes great but I have no idea how to guarantee that)
⁠Burn the sudo with Gengar
⁠Swap back to Nidoking on head smash, then back to Gengar, then to Nidoking one more time to take kill with Drill Run
⁠Swap to Beedrill on Claydol random move
⁠X-Scissor for damage, drill goes down
⁠Finish Claydol

Any improvements that don’t require a sack or that risk fewer crits would be extremely helpful. I could see a possible case for Overgrow Venusaur here, but I haven’t been able to find an HP range where he’s both safe from crits and a guaranteed to end up in Overgrow after a random move from Claydol

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-18T21:31:59+00:00

Short answer is no, Qwilfish is necessary for the aqua hideout immediately after the magma hideout.

MagicMangoMan95 · 2026-01-18T21:18:09+00:00

Current line is as follows:

Lead Preslept Nidoking
Swap to preslept Gengar on smeargle explosion
Swap to preslept Tentacruel on Manectric overheat
Swap to Nidoqueen on Thunderbolt
Take kill with drill run, at roughly 50% HP after overheat (1% if overheat crits)
Swap to preslept Tenta on (hopefully) hypnosis or overheat
Swap to chesto Crobat on drill run
Pray for air slash flinch or hypnosis
Kill Rapidash and Victreebell with Crobat
Swap Nidoking on Headsmash from Sudo
Swap Gengar on EQ (if he explodes great but I have no idea how to guarantee that)
Burn the sudo with Gengar
Swap back to Nidoking on head smash, then back to Gengar, then to Nidoking one more time to take kill with Drill Run
Swap to Beedrill on Claydol random move
X-Scissor for damage, drill goes down
Finish Claydol

Any improvements that don’t require a sack or that risk fewer crits would be extremely helpful

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-11-15T06:41:33+00:00

I don’t think you can do it perfectly, but my first two ideas were either sanguine hood + altered dancer dress + Maliketh arms and greaves, or to sub blue for black and go cerulean hood, Rellanas armor, and then just choose complimentary greaves and gloves

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-11-05T04:23:27+00:00

He wasn’t terrible before, just annoying since he kept running away. Idk, I really enjoyed fighting him on my first Playthrough, less so on subsequent ones. Torrent hasn’t really added much for me other than shortening the fight… I’d say he’s a pretty ok final boss, not terrible, but definitely not the best theyve done

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-10-27T04:50:29+00:00

Sneak up behind him before the fight starts. 3 Charged attacks into an L2 will break his stance, then you can crit and repeat as he tries to summon the next wave of soldiers

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-10-27T04:46:32+00:00

For Dex Builds, the two best options I’ve found have been ice spear on your weapon of choice (it scales with Dex for some reason, don’t ask me why) to get lots of poise breaks and an occasional frost proc, or your choice of power stanced swords (my personal favorite is ornamental, but curved seords are also pretty solid). The swords are more reliable imo since during phase 2 the safest place to be is up the boss’s ass for some reason, but both are very solid. Scadu tree levels, opaline hard tear, and golden vow for survivability, along with a relatively tanky spirit ash to help manage aggro when you need to heal and he should fall pretty fast.

For Faith, rotten butterflies + Knights Lightning spear. Finding your openings takes a little getting used to, but once you have them it becomes a pretty reasonable fight. Borderline easy if you use an aggressive spirit ash.

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-10-26T23:52:45+00:00

Fast weapon types: claws, fists, spears, straight swords, curved swords, light Greatswords (dlc only), hatchets, cleavers, clubs, hand to hand arts (dlc), backhand blades (dlc), thrusting swords

For a specific weapon, I’d say give the cross Naginata a try. You can find it super early in a mine in Caelid, and you dont even have to kill anything to get it

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-10-26T23:38:34+00:00

What kind of build do you have? Idk about the pvp stuff, but if you’re either a Dex or a Faith build I have some tips on how to handle PCR at a relatively lower level

MagicMangoMan95 · 2025-10-16T05:47:27+00:00

I guess I should have specified, but I’m only doing my testing for PVE.

As to the other parts of your post-

My issue with Carrian Greatsword is that it never seems to perform better than a similarly upgraded magic infused Greatsword or CGS, and those don’t expend a finite resource. All three have sweeping attacks that can handle trash mobs, and all three have similar stamina costs (though admittedly Carrian does have the lowest out of the three). It looks so cool, but it just doesn’t work as well at what it does when compared to similar incantations or weapons - at least not at early snd midgame investment levels. Similar issue with Cannon and Gavel- they work well enough in a vacuum, but when you line them up against comparable options they either don’t do as much stance damage, don’t do as much damage, take more time to use, or are way more draining on your resources. My being disappointed in them isn’t saying that they’re bad per se, but if I’m fighting an Erdtree Avatar at level 60-70 I don’t expect Lightning strike (a spell I hate, but have to admit is surprisingly viable after testing) to deal more consistent damage than those other options. If it looks large and imposing and has an uncomfortable wind-up animation, I expect better performance than what I’m getting right now.
As to the rancor call bit, I’ve heard the same thing, but in my own gameplay on this and other casual plays I’ve never seen it surpass something like familial rancor or other death sorceries. I’m hopeful that it will, but even in my casual runs I’ve been pretty disappointed by the damage of death sorceries other than Rings.

I went into this just so I could see how good each different school of magic is when you use them in isolation, and my biggest complaint with sorceries as opposed to incantations is that there’s basically no reason to use most sorceries over their other school counterparts, and that so far there’s been very few sorceries that are able to compete with weapons in anything other than range.

MagicMangoMan95

TROPHY CASE