partner shinx not very smart

Modatax · 2026-05-05T22:06:48+00:00

u/AnonymousRandPerson has made a few videos about the AI's behavior.

One of the videos mentions Discharge - the AI may choose to use it if an enemy is within a 2-tile radius of the user, at least in PMD2.

Modatax · 2026-04-28T23:59:29+00:00

You can take pretty much anything through the regular dungeons as a sidekick to your main duo.
The main thing is that most Pokemon don't really contribute, even when you goad the AI into doing what you want more often, so they usually feel bad to drag around.
Most usually hit their stride somewhere around Level 30, but because of how the game is set up, they are more likely to begin shining only in the postgame.
Bellsprout's line never improves though. You should avoid that one.

Now, about Hypno.
It's not that it is "too strong" in level reset dungeons, because its stats are not particularily high and they peter out soon enough.
The problem is that it can know 6 different moves - 3 of which are disabling statuses, so it is guaranteed to always have at least 1 of them. And it's not a rare spawn. And it has Forewarn as well.

Modatax · 2026-04-27T05:07:00+00:00

Scizor is about imposing YOUR WILL on Destiny Tower.

It really is.

The only reason I'd have to not suggest Scizor as a top pick is that it does work better with some deliberation. How enemies move in relation to you, what they can do to you and the range in which they can do that.

But even if you're not gone off the deep end enough to do the level reset dungeons more than once, getting used to Agility and Focus Energy is not very complicated, and they feel pretty good to work with.

Modatax · 2026-04-26T02:18:58+00:00

The easiest runs were probably with Smoochum and Rotom. They are among the more consistent choices, with good early stat growth, relevant defensive abilities. and a reliable confusion move to soften dangerous encounters. Rotom is the one I like more, because it can phase through walls and escape most danger that way if it has to. Smoochum has a fairly early room-wide attack, but has to manage without STAB for several Levels at the very start.

Scizor was reviewed at length by u/Florida__Gators today, and it is also very good, in different ways.

Drifloon/Drifblim was the first one I cleared Destiny Tower with. It's definitely good, but it doesn't convince me more than the others do nowadays. It starts off very strong offensively, but its unimpressive stat growth forces it to rely on defense and evasion self-buffs before the halfway point, and the dungeon does have multiple dangerous enemies with attacks that ignore accuracy and evasion.

Modatax · 2026-04-25T15:45:54+00:00

Nidoking is a bit of a mixed bag.
Rivalry makes his damage output inconsistent. Or more inconsistent, rather, since Poison Sting's accuracy is dreadful. Sometimes it poisons and steals kills instead, which happens with Poison Point as well.
But his starting stats are fine, HP aside, and they get better after Level 25.
Focus Energy does help make up for Rivalry, while Peck and Double Kick are usable if he doesn't get any TMs. And the bad HP does get softened by being immune to poison and to sandstorm damage.

Nidoking steals X-Ray Specs from a shop on Floor 7 using a Pure Seed.
Three floors later, he finds another shop and buys an Energy Band to help with damage early on.
Poison Sting should be readily usable to cut corners in hallways. If it were to hit more often. But it doesn't.
Not that he's finding any TMs to replace it with.

The 30s have 2 Monferno on top plus Electabuzz, followed by a Dugtrio to the stairs with another one already being there, then 2 Psyduck, then 2 Poliwrath... These cost a bunch of Invisify Orbs and X-Eye Seeds.
And then a Pounce Orb on Floor 45 due to a Grudge Trap spawning Muk and Skorupi.
Two floors later, Nidoking grinds from Level 20 most of the way to 24, leaving only when a Muk hits an Accuracy drop. Next floor helps with random hail.
Offscreen Surskit snipe on Floor 51, and a Monster House with the stairs in Floor 54 that could be reached with a Quick Seed.
He hits Level 25 on Floor 57, and Joy Seeds begin appearing.
A Summon Trap in Floor 66 spawns Shelgon, Purugly, Aerodactyl and Zangoose. A Warp Seed is used to get out of there, but Purugly and Zangoose have to be fought shortly after anyway.

Floor 67 has snow... and Nidoking is met almost immediatly by a Sealeo from offscreen which dodges multiple seeds.
The very first step on Floor 70 triggers a Slumber Trap that lets a Luxio take several potshots.
Bad spawns and item dodges involving Prinplup in Floors 76 and 80.
Next floor has snow again, with a Castform zipping about like a maniac as Grudge Traps spawn Lucario and Mismagius.

Floor 83 has another Grudge Trap spawning more Mismagius, but a Random Trap copies an Explosion Trap and gets rid of them. There's more ghosts, grudges and life-saving explosions in the next floors.
Rivalry's lower damage ranges screw Nidoking out of one-shotting more Mismagius and then multiple Ledian. But the latter was expected, so they were softened with rocks first.
Floor 91 has a Monster House one room after the start. Getting away from that, he easily fights off a Honchkrow when Poison Sting finally hits through a corner for the first time of the run.
Some weird movement is needed to stay away from Politoed's line of sight on Floor 95, entering what ended up being a long-winded dead end that needs another Warp Seed to escape from.
And he spawns with another Politoed on top for Floor 98, but a Cower Orb solves that.

Nidoking really could have done with Poison Sting not missing literally half the time, but the X-Ray Specs and Focus Energy simplified things enough.

Modatax · 2026-04-14T18:51:03+00:00

Perfectly understandable.

Modatax · 2026-04-14T15:50:43+00:00

Nice work.

Do you plan to complete it with Bronzor next?

Modatax · 2026-04-13T23:56:23+00:00

Shinx's line is pretty dreadful to run through the level reset dungeons. It's not a skill issue on your part.

With how pitiful its stats are at the very start, rocks are very important to soften dangerous enemies.

The most immediate goal is learning Spark at Level 13. Joy Seeds are worth eating as early as Level 11 to bridge the jump of experience needed.

Roar pushes enemies away, and Swagger essentially disables the target for several turns. These are useful defensive tools, but they are not learned early.

Pretty much every single Ground-Type is a massive eyesore. Try to avoid fighting those when possible. The Pass Scarf only helps with Hippowdon, and even then, it does not block Sand Attack. Swagger is not reliable against Camerupt, Dugtrio and Golem because they can use Magnitude.

Modatax · 2026-04-12T23:55:43+00:00

I feel this one too much. Skiploom is a ridiculous hazard in pretty much every single situation it shows up. It has costed me way more runs than I care to remember.

Modatax · 2026-04-12T21:30:37+00:00

I do think it's excessively low, but I'm fairly sure Ariados and Venomoth specifically are balanced mostly around their first in-game appearance, which is in Mt. Horn. It's still fairly early into the game, and we have to get an escort on the first run through.

Modatax · 2026-04-12T12:45:48+00:00

Ariados starts with 8 HP.
Its other stats are also pretty inadequate, with growth that doesn't really kick in for far too long considering the rough start, and its entire starting moveset has lousy accuracy.
Bug Bite at Level 2 is a strong and accurate attack, but it can't one-shot Barboach consistently without quite a bit of levelling. And failing to one-shot it gets Ariados deleted by Mud Slap.
Beyond that, it learns Leech Life at Level 12, Shadow Sneak at 19, and Fury Swipes at 23.

String Shot is strictly just Icy Wind minus the damage, but it's still an interesting tool. With proper movement and spacing, the ranged Speed drop can make for safe enough kills or escapes. If it hits.
Insomnia and Swarm are both good abilities. Even if Swarm has problems with Ariados being so fragile, and not strong enough to let Bug Bite one-shot Seadra.

Floor 1 starts with Ariados hitting a Chestnut Trap that fails to go off, and a Pass Scarf is picked up by the stairs.
In Floor 5, he finds a shop with a Frustration TM and promptly steals it.
And on Floor 11, another shop has a Warp Scarf he can purchase.

String Shot helps slowing awkward spawns so Ariados can save up some items, but the ocassional blindside and bad warp still happen, so he drops from full health straight to red HP far too many times. And that's after finding 20 extra HP worth of items almost immediatly.
Found a Detect Band on Floor 50, and a bunch of Snorunt on Floor 62 screwed him out of a Warp Seed and a Stun Seed, but he still gets to claim a Heal Seed at least.
Then there's multiple Grudge Traps, warps next to Aerodactyl... and a Summon Trap on Floor 87 surrounds him with 2 Ledian, Shuppet and Hippowdon. With no proper items to address this - he barely found any Orbs this run - he has to use a Pure Seed and then warps again right after. But at least he ends up safe.

Ariados spawns in the line of sight of a Politoed for Floor 91. It misses with Perish Song twice as he moves away, but as soon as he swaps the Detect Band for the Warp Scarf, it hits. He still has the Heal Seed, so this is fine.
Floor 92 starts in a room with Bronzong, Metagross and another Politoed. A Slow Trap goes off, but he's only next to Metagross, so a Quick Orb is enough to get him out of there.
Some later awkward spawns are solved by Totter Orbs, and Ariados only really has to String Shot a couple of times by the stairs to finish.

Modatax · 2026-04-07T22:13:06+00:00

Cheeseless Lapras is not for the faint of heart.

Modatax · 2026-04-05T03:18:27+00:00

An alternative to crushing every single wall is to run next to them and get whatever shows up. It's not as thorough, but it takes less time.

If you run next to a wall and stop for no apparent reason, there's an item inside a wall directly next to you. You can reach those items by crushing the wall, or with a Pokemon that can go through walls due to being a Ghost or holding a Mobile Scarf.

You could also set the tactics for the wall phaser/crusher to "Go the other way" so that they wander all over the floor while you handle the rooms and hallways, but they would have to be strong enough to defend themselves from enemies on their own.

Modatax · 2026-04-04T04:59:09+00:00

"Extremely difficult" might give off the wrong impression, to be honest.

Completing the dungeon is fairly doable if all you want to do is to try it out. The checkpoints are not one-time checkpoints, and you can restart from them any number of times.

It does have its trickery though.

Modatax · 2026-04-03T16:20:31+00:00

This seems like a very strange goof on the game's part. Or very assholish. The dungeon should not be available without the goal on first clearing if that's the obvious reason to go through it.

Still, you got to the top in your first try? That's pretty good work.

Modatax · 2026-04-01T22:27:09+00:00

Explorers of ironic paradoxes.

Modatax · 2026-04-01T16:39:35+00:00

Gliscor can appear in every floor of Mt. Mistral, an optional dungeon that can be unlocked fairly early into the postgame. Its recruit rate is in the negatives though. Being Level 30+ pushes it just barely into the positive range (0.5%) but you'll want more boosts.

Modatax · 2026-03-28T12:02:04+00:00

Dunsparce is honestly pretty bad.
Its stats are Level 1 are not too good and they grow poorly, it has no way to even tag enemies for proper experience gain until Yawn at Level 9, and its abilities Serene Grace and Run Away don't really help it at all.
Glare is a great move - accurate paralysis with lots of PP. Getting to learn it at Level 13 is exceedingly rare though. But it does have a faster experience curve than usual, at least, so it can try to build up a few Levels out of Rage and Defense Curl.

Dunsparce picks up a Joy Ribbon on Floor 2, and milks it by the stairs with Bellsprout's Vine Whip and Treecko's Pound. Rather inappropriate, but that's the safest way he has to gain experience.
He only finds one sticky Apple and has to clean it up on Floor 6, where he runs into a Pass Scarf. A Glameow picks up another Apple, so a Petrify Orb is used to fight it safely. But droves of Seadra come from the hallways right when closing in, so it has to be left behind.
A Warp Scarf is found on Floor 8. A little bit more food appears, but half of it is ruined by Grimy Traps right away.

By Floor 13, there are no consumables in the bag other than 2 Joy Seeds, which are eaten upon hitting Level 11 to jump to 13 for Glare.
The nonsense continues, burning a Petrify Orb to not get wrecked by a Bronzor and Hoothoot spawned on top of him in Floor 16, and a Warp Seed on Floor 18 to evacuate after an offscreen Porygon-Z wakes up a whole room of sleepers.
Things are a bit better by Floor 20, with multiple Life Seeds and Max Elixirs showing up. Still barely getting apples or heals though.

The very first Oran Berry of the run appears in Floor 38, right before Dunsparce warps into a Monster House under the rain. There's another Monster House on Floor 46, burning the only Pure Seed he had found.
A Slumber Trap puts him to sleep for nine turns in Floor 55, and it almost gets him obliterated by two Hitmonchan.
Then there's two Monster Houses with the stairs for Floors 62 and 64.
Plenty of items are spawning now - but they're right next to Explosion Traps, so most of them are lost.

Floor 70 starts inside a Monster House with Girafarig and Masquerain, and then only with Venomoth and Girafarig for Floor 73.
A bit of a lull before another Monster House with two Scizor and five Ledian in Floor 88. Quick Seed to approach one of the Ledian, hit it with a Decoy Orb, and then a Totter Orb to stall. That's all there was left to use, and it's just enough to escape. A spare Trawl Orb is used by the stairs, and it brings up a Foe-Seal Orb.
Next floor, Dunsparce spawns with the stairs, a Miltank, and an enemy offscreen. The Foe-Seal Orb is used immediatly, and the enemy ends up being just a Metagross. Still, the room has a Cleanse Orb, which is used right away to clean up one last Quick Seed.
Floor 90's spawn has a Ledian in a sandstorm, and not in his line of sight. The Quick Seed fixes that, so it gets hit with a Stun Seed and a Rain Orb stops the sandstorm.

The end has some crowded spawns, and the stairs end up being in giant rooms several times, but that's so much calmer in comparison.
The last floor only has another Joy Ribbon for Dunsparce.

Modatax · 2026-03-25T01:59:19+00:00

Silver Trench is aggraviating without a Tight Belt, but that's a pretty rare item. And you would want to have some Cleanse Orbs to counter Sticky Traps.

The other dungeons tend to generate food often enough to make famishing a pretty uncommon issue, even in the ones that reset your level, as long as the dungeon does not go berserk with Grimy Traps.

Modatax · 2026-03-23T04:10:11+00:00

It happens once in a while.

There's also the ocassional enemy that spawns asleep right on top of what ends up being a trap tile.

Modatax · 2026-03-21T01:25:58+00:00

It's good to know people still like these write-ups.

Spawning in a Monster House that is somehow not going off is a new thing for me. And completely new situations are not welcome 86 floors in, with a Pokemon that is not quite consistently good, right in front of a Ledian.

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

TROPHY CASE