scorptatious said:
Unless they've changed it (and I believe they hadn't back in Ruby/Sapphire), switching a Pokemon out of combat resets all of the stat gains/losses from things like Iron Defense or Sand-Attack.
Metagross was a pain, but I still think the only Elite Four worthy of their respective titles are the Red/Blue/Yellow/LeafGreen/FireRed ones. I remember the first time I ever reached them, my team was roughly something like this:
Haunter Lvl. 44
Gyarados Lvl. 45
Pidgeot Lvl. 43
Blastoise Lvl. 46
Articuno Lvl. 50
Dugtrio Lvl. 44
Sounds like I would be outmatched, surely? Getting past Lorelei was actually one of the biggest pains ever because no one on my team had an advantage against her and two of them could be one-shot by most of her team. Bruno was pathetically easy - Haunter or Pidgeot could easily one-hit his Fighting types and Blastoise took care of the Onixes. Agatha was touch-and-go. If Haunter got the first it, her Pokemon went down. If Gengar got the first hit... And Lance. We can never forget Lance, and his goddamn Thunder Wave-ing Dragonairs. Articuno could take care of most of his team, provided it wasn't Paralyzed.
The Champion. Now, for all of the people who either don't remember or just never played Pokemon, the Champion's team consists of six Pokemon who are
all above Lvl. 60, save for an Alakazam which is damn powerful anyway. I believe in my particular case his team was as follows:
Pidgeot Lvl. 61
Alakazam Lvl. 59
Rhydon Lvl. 61
Arcanine Lvl. 63
Gyarados Lvl. 61
Venusaur Lvl. 65
Pidgeot wasn't too bad. Articuno's Ice Beam handled it pretty nicely. Gyarados was a tad trickier, but my own Gyarados managed to overcome it and Rhydon. Then came Arcanine, which Dugtrio was lucky enough to finish. Then he used Alakazam. Now, Alakazam is a Pokemon with insanely high Speed and Special Attack stats, at the cost of having very low Defense and Physical Attack stats. Alakazam was also ten or more levels higher than the majority of my team. When I finally beat him I had a Pidgeot with less than half of its health left and Blastoise. Venusaur took care of Pidgeot because its high Defense was enough to off-set the bonus gained from Flying attacks, and Blastoise never stood a chance.
With that story being said...
Red/Yellow/Blue were horribly unbalanced. I don't believe I've ever managed to get to the Elite Four and have my entire team just happen to already all be over level 50. Grinding in Victory Road sucked because 75% of the time you're getting low level Zubats and Machops that give almost no experience anyway when you defeat them. So, even though I did actually manage to beat the Elite Four with teams of Pokemon in the mid-to-high 40's fairly often, expecting the Player to either be that good or to grind it out was just ridiculous. Of course, I'm also one of those people who elected to not bother using the Master Ball on Mewtwo and caught him with a Great Ball instead...
Also, take what RJ 17 says with a grain of salt. You certainly don't need to level your entire team that high if you build them properly and plan to have one or two who are powerful against Steel-types. A Salamence, for instance...level 50 is typically a good
bare minimum, level 60 is allowing yourself a large margin of error. Level 40-45 is for crazy people like me who enjoy smashing the Elite Four down with Pokemon that can die if they don't get the first hit.
EDIT: I actually purposely went back to catch and level a Bagon after the first time I lost to the Ruby/Sapphire Elite Four. Didn't stop until it was a Salamence, and man did that thing tear through them. Teach it Dragon Claw, Flamethrower, and Fly, and watch it crush the Elite Four.
Shanicus said:
I prefer my Greatest Victory in Pokemon though - beat down Red (level 85 Trainer) with my team of level 48s. The moral of this story? Don't have your powerhouse pokemon be a Pikachu - Golem is immune to all of your attacks. ALL OF THEM.
That's why my powerhouse Pikachu (in SoulSilver) has Iron Tail. Granted, I still wouldn't use him against a Golem if I could help it, but still.
