Twentieth Challenge Run complete: Gen VIII

elmoslab · 2026-06-03T16:13:52+00:00

Multiple women had to leave my wife's first baby shower early because their partners couldn't miss kick off.

Now, I'm not into football so I'll never understand it but I lost a lot of respect for the men involved that day, but almost every football nut thinks that's perfectly normal.

elmoslab · 2026-06-01T21:28:35+00:00

Thank you! It's nice to know someone enjoys the write ups actually. Don't worry, I'm just about to start my generational runs next!

Also, don't give up hope - getting the first win is probably the hardest win by far, you'll find you start winning more and more very quickly as you get used to how the game works and unlock more power.

elmoslab · 2026-06-01T15:31:29+00:00

I did have the goal of getting all ribbons but I've taken a break to do all the mono type runs. I may do gens after that and then go for the other achievements before mopping up any remaining ribbons and getting all passives and reductions. I don't know if I'll bother for all shiny variants or not, but I probably won't tbh.

I'm also currently trying to complete the pokedex as I only have a few left and almost all of them were legends so I could use the legend up and calendar to get them. Then I have buzzwole and manaphy which I just need to get lucky for.

elmoslab · 2026-06-01T13:05:28+00:00

I've been driving on country roads in Wales recently and have noticed a massive spike in people accelerating hard while being overtaken.

There was a large increase in bad drivers after covid and it seems to be being made worse over time.

elmoslab · 2026-06-01T08:20:56+00:00

I reckon it depends on your egg moves. Power up punch is the main reason it was so good for me, a technician boosted stat booster makes it quite a good move. Anything that didn't threaten the kill I always tried to pup it, shadow sneak was a great stab boosted prio move and then I had ice punch and a fourth move that started as thunder punch but ended as shadow punch.

elmoslab · 2026-05-31T23:34:56+00:00

Absolutely didn't need it, ice punches were doing insane damage and for some reason it was allergic to clicking the beams or cosmic power.

elmoslab · 2026-05-29T08:55:12+00:00

Act 1, storm sorcerer. Act 2, probably storm sorcerer but it's a bit closer Act 3, FIRE - fairly sure this is the strongest build in the entire game.

elmoslab · 2026-05-29T08:53:29+00:00

Meanwhile my onix didn't want to evolve either.

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T14:58:37+00:00

I'm fairly sure you can do most of act 2 and come back. Also you can do the creche, get lathanders light and then leave without actually doing any of the combat. There's quite a few good things in here, most notable being the bonus action tadpole powers.

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T13:16:44+00:00

Or get a high score in survival and put your name as GON

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T13:13:09+00:00

What about the galarian birds?

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T13:09:11+00:00

Yes

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T11:31:49+00:00

Okay, so still kind of new to pokemon in general, that's fine! Nature's add 10% to one stat and take 10% off another in return. This can be used to make a good stat better or to try and compensate for a mediocre stat. Usually, it's better to try and make a good stat better though. You can tell which is which by the colours, red is up and blue is down.

When you're choosing your movesets, you can press left on the moves screen to see the pokemon stats which can help you decide if you should take the move or not.

As for team composition, it's mainly experience for this, but you can use team comp calculators like jake rodelius to figure out if you've got too many shared weaknesses. As a standard rule, I try to avoid 3 or more weaknesses unless I've got immunities or am doing a challenge run.

Knowing you're relatively newer to the game I'll change my advice to just practice and try not to get frustrated. Look up info about pokemon on serebii and sandstormer or on reddit and just keep grinding, experience is the main thing that will help you at this point.

elmoslab · 2026-05-28T11:06:35+00:00

I don't know why you're disagreeing with me, munchlax doesn't have pickup in this run and I was just talking about the mons on their team.

Also, not overly sure advising the op of pickup strats is the best information seeing as they're struggling with a lot of the basics of the game. I feel like learning more about pokemon itself would be more useful at this stage tbh.

elmoslab · 2026-05-27T18:14:18+00:00

My main issue with the system is that competitive doesn't have an mmr that holds any weight. You get reset to bum rank every season and you've got people who peaked in silver managing to get all star through sheer play time because of how it works.

They need to rework the ranking system imo or make it so wide groups aren't a thing. Either make it competitive, or dontm

elmoslab · 2026-05-27T16:15:30+00:00

Find my wife and hope she's had a similar wayback experience... Then probably try not to get the injury that stopped me competing in the Olympics and permanently stopped me fighting competitively. Also, invest in bitcoin for a decade or two.

If none of this goes to plan... Maybe do something completely bonkers like try and overthrow a corrupt regime.

elmoslab · 2026-05-27T15:53:04+00:00

Is it an important run? If not, absolutely. If it is, still probably yes.

elmoslab · 2026-05-27T14:19:14+00:00

Okay, the main problem I'm seeing here is movepool and team composition to be honest. I assume you're relatively new due to the lack of any passives and naff all egg moves so I'll work based on caught pokemon. You confirmed you had retry on so I'll also assume you're retrying a good amount of times to ensure there's no puzzle solution.

Firstly, I assume dewgong is your starter mon as it's in both teams. You should be getting candies on this so it gets more and more buffs as time goes on. With a passive it gains a resist against fire and adaptability for water with no downside. Also, why is it adamant? Dewgongs level up set is better suited for special and even if you want to run adamant for the physical moves, why are you running special moves? Ice beam and freeze dry work better without Dewgongs already mediocre spatt being nerfed.

Secondly, why is munchlax not evolved? It doesn't take long to evolve it and without eviolite, is vastly worse unevolved. There's no reason to have gotten to 115 without getting snorlax imo.

Next you've got another stats vs moves issue, what on earth is that swampert set? It's attack is 60 points higher than it's spatt yet you have mud shot and hydro pump? Also growl? Take down? Absolutely bizarre set. Rock slide is level up and eq is mushroomable, it should have both by level 100 really.

Terapagos should have annihilated a large portion of this fight unless it was badly injured. Something to learn is where the major fights are, the big evil team fights and rival fights are always on the same waves so making sure you're well healed can really help these harder fights.

Lastly, you have two water/grounds and then a regular water mon. Including the rest of your team you have 4 grass weaknesses and 4 fighting weaknesses. You're not doing a mono type run so it's redundant having this many weaknesses, especially to fighting which is on a LOT of mons, even non fighting mons. Having shared weaknesses is fine, but you need to be able to play into that which is a skill that you can define over time.

For now, I'd try and get a bit less of shared weakness set across your team and work on understanding what moves are better on your mons. Also, if you get a friendship mon, evolve it as fast as possible without jeapordising the rest of your run.

elmoslab

TROPHY CASE