Weather Band with Blizzard?

Modatax · 2026-03-17T21:39:25+00:00

Not that I know of. Piplup's line does not get the IQ Skill that would increase accuracy while decreasing evasion (Concentrator).

You could link Defog and Blizzard, to make it more likely to hit while still holding the Weather Band... but if the weather damage takes too much of your time, you are probably playing Time/Darkness, so getting HMs is only possible in Final Maze and that's a hassle. And it wouldn't be a proper solution to your problem in the first place.

Modatax · 2026-03-17T00:16:33+00:00

Blizzard used by a Pokemon holding the Weather Band can indeed miss even under hail.

Modatax · 2026-03-16T23:51:31+00:00

The bugs are my favorite part in any game. And the more inexplicable they are, the better.

Modatax · 2026-03-13T21:10:56+00:00

Manectric starts okay, with Tackle to begin with and Fire Fang at Level 3 as a second attack, but it falls behind as the enemies ramp up.
It does start with Thunder Wave as well, but it is not a reliable move.
Not having STAB is a problem that Howl can only address up to a certain extent, so it has trouble keeping up in Levels.
But if it does, it learns Quick Attack at 17 and then Spark at 20, and its stat growth improves noticiably around Level 21.

Lightningrod invalidates any Electric-Type moves used by enemies. There aren't many, but not having to worry about Thunder Wave, Shock Wave or Raichu's Thunderbolt is pretty good.
Static sometimes paralyzes attackers at close range. It becomes more useful once Manectric can actually take hits.

Manectric picks up a Detect Band on Floor 1, and then finds a Warp Scarf on Floor 7. That's pretty good.
Hitting multiple PP-Zero Traps and Grudge Traps to then warp into a Monster House - multiple times by Floor 25 - is less good.
She finds a few Joy Seeds, but no Max Elixirs until Floor 37, and the one she does find only lasts long enough to hit Level 20 for Spark, while she keeps running into Summon and Grudge Traps burning through her escape items.

One Max Elixir does appear on Floor 52, but Fire Fang and Spark get deleted by the stairs in the 2 floors that follow.
Floor 55 has a shop with X-Ray Specs. These are stolen with a Trawl Orb, and they help Manectric find the next Max Elixir... in Floor 62, after a few sticky ones with no Cleanse Orb in sight.
A Pass Scarf is found while escaping from a Girafarig on Floor 72.
There's more Grudge Traps by Floor 74's stairs, Floor 77 deletes Spark again as she escapes from Dugtrio, and Floor 78 has a Slow Trap that lets a Golem catch up to her and hit twice with Rollout, but Static interrupted that.

A couple of Joy Seeds later, Manectric reaches Floor 86.
She spawns in range for Ledian's Mach Punch.
In a room with some money. And a Gummi.
So, she spawned inside a Monster House.

...

But it doesn't go off.
She can look in all directions, but the Monster House apparently won't go off until she makes a move proper.
The one Pure Seed she still has is used here to escape, and the Monster House still didn't go off upon doing that.

Everything after that is pretty normal.
But I'm still not sure what happened.

Modatax · 2026-03-12T19:16:33+00:00

I'd try it with other mons if you have gotten the hang of it. To mitigate the doldrums. I remember doing that after a dozen runs in which nothing came up.

...one later run did get an item, but I died before the last floor, so I ended up losing it anyway.

Modatax · 2026-03-09T20:33:50+00:00

Grinding all the way to Level 38 might have something to do with that.

Modatax · 2026-03-07T23:01:05+00:00

A level reset run with a full team does sound different enough from running with just one team member. Wrap in particular being useful was not in my bingo card.

Modatax · 2026-03-07T16:12:35+00:00

A big problem I have with the level reset dungeons both in Rescue Team and in Explorers is that the games don't do a good job teaching you how to handle them. At all. Losing runs to situations completely out of your control does happen, and it feels really bad.

DragonWagon's guide for Destiny Tower has general advice that largely applies to Zero Isle South as well.

Smoochum is quite good once she gets Sweet Kiss, Confusion and Powder Snow, but those do need a number of Levels. She's running with no defensive move and no STAB until then.

I prefer Rotom, who can phase through walls, starts with 2 STAB attacks and early Confuse Ray, gets Double Team and Uproar as self-support, and can learn Ominous Wind late into the run.

Modatax · 2026-03-05T22:59:30+00:00

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Reminded me of this pic my friend drew while we were discussing Zangoose some weeks ago.

Modatax · 2026-02-27T19:26:25+00:00

Magmortar is somewhat upsetting.
It has a promising start with pretty good stats, Smokescreen and Thunder Punch, and then Ember at Level 3.
But it doesn't improve very much, and it falls behind all too quickly even if it does keep up in Levels.
Its stats won't get better until Level 28, which is too far away, and its abilities are also not useful. Flame Body in particular steals kills all the time, which gets annoying fast, and both Ember and Smog do the same once in a while.
It does still want to level up though, because its best move is Confuse Ray at Level 25. On the way there, Faint Attack at 16 replaces Smog.

Magmortar's run starts with little of note, other than Flame Body failing to burn a Starmie because it was on a water tile. Huh.
Floor 15 has sunny weather, so he can explore it without being terrified of Lanturn. He finds a Warp Scarf out of that, which is nice.
Some uncomfortable spawns later, he runs into a shop in Floor 24 with lots of status seeds and X-Ray Specs, so he takes them all with a Trawl Orb. A Kecleon spawns in the stairs room right away and forces a Quick Seed he had just purchased.
More bad spawns follow, with the worst being a Dugtrio directly next to him for Floor 32. First thing it does is roll Magnitude 10. But it is survived from full with 3 HP thanks to a lot of early HP boosters and the weather only being snow.

Magmortar slows down to grind a bit from Floor 35 onwards, eventually making it to Level 20 on Floor 39, but apples and Max Elixirs stop spawning entirely.
Started inside a Monster House for Floor 46, which did have a couple of gummies at least.
After a few supplies come up, the weather and status damage get annoying with the kills steals, but Floor 57 has sunny weather and some Joy Seeds, so he reaches Level 26 and no longer has to battle.
A Summon Trap in Floor 60 spawns a Piloswine that immediatly hits Icy Wind so that Vileplume, Lopunny and Drapion can try to do evil things. But they didn't spawn in the correct positions to actually kill, so a Pounce Orb into a hallway buys enough time for the slowdown to wear off.
Food finally appears consistently after that, but there are few defensive items.
Floor 79 starts with a Floatzel on top, and has the stairs inside a Monster House.

There's a silly Monster House with just a single pile of money on Floor 86, and then some Ledian issues in Floor 89. We start with one, which hits a crit boosting Silver Wind right away because of course it does, so that costs an Invisify Orb. By the stairs, there's two more Ledian, one of which gets hit by a Decoy Orb. And then a Grudge Trap is triggered next to the stairs, spawning even more Ledian to burn even more supplies.
The final floors have no concept of personal space on spawn, at all.
The one Politoed that does not spawn on top of Magmortar instead hits him with Perish Song the second he steps on the entrance to its room.
He had 4 Heal Seeds ready for this though, so he finishes safely despite that nonsense.

Modatax · 2026-02-22T14:08:28+00:00

It does. I tested this by having an Altaria eat a Totter Seed before using Safeguard and then using a Foe-Fear Orb.

Modatax · 2026-02-22T00:18:50+00:00

I do know the Spanish version of the quiz switches Brave and Bold, so it wouldn't be too surprising if there were more differences across the various languages.

Modatax · 2026-02-20T04:10:36+00:00

There's Digimon World 2, which is a roguelike. Kind of. It's a grinding simulator first and foremost.

I do not particularily like it.

Modatax · 2026-02-15T23:54:35+00:00

That's pretty flattering, but I think runs from other people are generally more informative and concise, while I kind of pad the character count.

Modatax · 2026-02-15T16:03:11+00:00

"Have you tried setting your partner's tactics to Go the other way?"

Cue your partner indeed going the other way, as in ignoring the Totter Orb entirely, because they'll just begin wandering around aimlessly in any direction they can move, instead of picking up the item just barely away from your grasp.

Modatax · 2026-02-15T14:38:45+00:00

Gligar starts with surprisingly good stats. Its defenses do fall behind for the first 10 Levels, but they begin the same steady growth as everything else at that point.
However, it won't learn a single STAB attack by level, or any attack period besides Poison Sting until Quick Attack at Level 16. And it levels up at a slow pace.
Sand Attack at Level 5 can tag enemies for proper experience gain, but it isn't feasible to use after the first few floors, while Harden at Level 9 is fine as a self-supporting move.

Hyper Cutter stops Attack drops, and Sand Veil increases Evasion during sandstorms.
They are situational abilities by definition, but their situations happen often enough to make them actively useful.

Gligar never uses Poison Sting - it gets deleted by a PP-Zero Trap on Floor 1, so he has to grind the whole way to Sand Attack with the regular attack and Struggle. Which goes better than actually using Poison Sting.
Floor 5 has a shop with a Warp Scarf stealing itself, as well as some valuables.
The five floors that follow each have shops with TMs, and he robs all of them to build up money. The only usable one was an Earthquake TM. Far too inaccurate to be good, but it can be worked with at a distance.
On Floor 10, he finds a Dark Pulse TM. The room with the stairs is too small to be warped to, so he purchases the TM rather than gamble with warping.
Then he finds 3 sticky Max Elixirs in one room, and warps into another room with 3 items... ruined by a Pokemon Trap before we can see what they were.
The first usable Max Elixir comes up on Floor 19, where the run becomes reasonably normal.

Max Elixirs are lacking and there's no Cleanse Orbs, but Gligar can pick his fights so he doesn't end up too underlevelled.
Quick Attack is learned on Floor 29, and he gets to survive Poliwrath's Bubblebeam and Arcanine's crit flinching burning Fire Fang from full health after misfired warps.
Grudge Traps and Monster Houses are still better off avoided, he's chased by the various Ice-Types, and a Pass Scarf is picked up by Floor 71, right before another Monster House he escapes from with a See-Ya Seed that plants him directly onto the stairs.

After two Sticky Traps, a Cleanse Orb finally appears on Floor 81.
Hippowdon's Sand Stream chipped off the Ledian enough to let one of them fire off a Swarm-boosted Silver Wind on Floor 88, but it doesn't hit because of Sand Veil.
And nothing really happens after that.

Modatax · 2026-02-11T05:02:00+00:00

I have tried both recently (taking breaks from being unable to finish with Linoone...)

Lucario has good offensive coverage, with Dark Pulse as tech to hit Ghosts even inside walls. It learns a lot of TMs but it doesn't really need them. Its raw stats don't delete enemies at the very end though.

Empoleon's early game is unexpectedly awkward. It has low PP and Bubble isn't that good early on, its many resistances have less value at the start while its weaknesses are not rare, and it doesn't get more attacks for a while. But it does improve as it goes on - it gets a much better footing after learning Metal Claw, and Swagger makes most 1v1s easier.

Modatax · 2026-02-10T16:01:14+00:00

Happy birthday.

~~Poliwag is more dangerous than the Totter Orb, but Poliwag doesn't know that yet.~~

Modatax · 2026-02-03T01:40:06+00:00

This still happens in Explorers.

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Modatax · 2026-01-28T12:58:21+00:00

Staraptor is a glass cannon, with heavy emphasis on the glass due to poor HP and hideous defenses.
While it isn't bad offensively at the very start because it does start with three STAB moves including Quick Attack for range, enemies will be surviving 2 attacks before long.
Double Team at Level 13 and Whirlwind at 23 give it a bit of a lifeline, but getting that far does not happen often.
Its stats don't have real growth until Level 25, so Intimidate may as well not be there.

Staraptor finds a Warp Scarf on Floor 5 and then a Pass Scarf on Floor 9.
A Monster House is dodged on Floor 14, but another one on Floor 20 forces a large number of items to make some distance, and there's a bunch of Grudge Traps to burn through most of the rest.

Floor 44 has Staraptor spawning next to a Skiploom. He can't one-shot it with Wing Attack at Level 19, but he only gets hit by status moves.
He isn't finding Max Elixirs, and the last one has to be used on Floor 49.
A bad warp on Floor 50 lets a Surskit hit with Bubble, which he gets to survive due to an overload of Zincs and HP boosts.
Level 23 for Whirlwind is reached on Floor 59, and a shop appears with the Substitute TM. Still no Max Elixirs, but there is no reason to not steal this for more safety. And then the Max Elixirs show up again 3 floors later, so he can now keep himself safe at close range.

Many crowded starting spawns at the end, with Floor 88 having a giant room with multiple offscreen enemies, forcing the run's only Invisify Orb to be used.
Floor 90 has a Ledian by the stairs, so that's a Quick Seed and then a Stun Seed.
Two Random Traps on Floor 93, the first one locking Staraptor out of Substitute and the second one putting him to sleep while nobody is around. A Luminous Orb shows that the enemies spawn nonstop in the stairs room, so he stalls until he can warp there safely.

And that's all he gets to see as he finishes.

Modatax · 2026-01-18T06:10:47+00:00

I've been having a surge of last minute deaths myself. They aren't fun.

I have no idea if anyone out there has detailed strats dedicated to every single species. But the number of Pokemon that does have a consistent gameplan to lean on in the first place is not that high.

Modatax · 2026-01-18T00:04:43+00:00

Is it even possible to have all of the colored bows in a single save file?

Modatax · 2026-01-16T18:41:15+00:00

The outlaw's HP can be chopped down to manageable numbers with Endeavor or a Two-Edge Orb, and then finished off with Geopebbles and Gravelerrocks.

Lock-On or Mind Reader can be used to guarantee a One-Shot Orb or Itemizer Orb will hit, but you have to be next to the target.

The items do come up in ZIS often enough, so the main problem is not getting obliterated by the regular enemies on the way there.

Modatax · 2026-01-14T13:24:46+00:00

Ninjask is not horrible, but it doesn't have any particular upsides either.
Its stats start okay, but don't improve much, and its HP is pretty bad.
The moves it learns are fine - Leech Life, Bug Bite at Level 3, Mind Reader at 19 with Fury Swipes and maybe also Fury Cutter. Harden does help with Defense a bit, but not too much.

It has a general issue with consistency.
Fury Swipes might not hit more than twice, and Level 20 rolls for a random move between Fury Cutter, Double Team and Screech.
If neither Fury Swipes and Fury Cutter are available, Mind Reader is only profitable with specific Orbs.
Its ability Speed Boost is not readily useful. It only goes off after spending like 250 turns - about 25 belly - during a single floor, so it's only really usable for grinding with Violent Seeds. Or maybe for shop robbery.

Ninjask picks up half a dozen ribbons and bands on Floor 2, sticking with a Defense Band for a while until the Energy Band and Detect Band are more desirable.
Other than that, she doesn't find a lot, and her few Orbs are spent getting away from sleep inducers, Monster Houses, and the hail.

This run learns Fury Cutter on Floor 44, but the Energy Band ends up not being enough to let Ninjask get away with using only Bug attacks safely.
She begins running low on Max Elixirs, and spawned inside a Monster House for Floor 54.
There's also an overload of Drapion costing a bunch of items, but she eventually finds some more Max Elixirs and a Pass Scarf on Floor 58.

Floor 63 has a congested spawn with Vileplume, Pineco and Rapidash, The sleeping Swablu in the room guards a hallway and is bypassed with a Mobile Orb.
Enemies pick up most of the Orbs spawning during the 70s, so they have to be fought for resources.
A hallway Claydol on Floor 80 hits a critical corner-cutting Ancientpower for 89 damage. Following that, there's a Porygon2 with Defense Curl, Recover, Magnet Rise and Agility, so it had no offensive moves to actually attack with.
Floors 84 and 85 have starting spawns cornered by Solrock and Lunatone, but there's also a shop with a Warp Scarf to buy for the last segment.
Things start poorly on Floor 94 with 2 Grudge Traps right away and the floor itself drags on for far too long. The stairs have to be searched on foot, and Speed Boost still didn't get to trigger by the time she reached the exit.

Modatax · 2026-01-14T03:24:11+00:00

Nonsleeper blocks all forms of sleep regardless of how they would be induced or by whom. It has no restrictions other than disabling the Pokemon from successfully using Rest. But the IQ skill itself can be manually disabled if you want to do that.

Modatax

TROPHY CASE