Banger video as always. Here's a tip: If you have both Sunny Day and Solarbeam, and the sun isn't up, there's little reason not to use Sunny Day rather than Solarbeam. It takes the same number of turns and sets you up for later into the fight. For example, on your first attempt against Steven, when you were facing Aggron (49:42), you would've oneshot the following Metagross with HP Fire if you used Sunny Day and then Solarbeam rather than using a 2-turn Solarbeam. Not only that, but Thunder has 50% accuracy in the sun, so Sunny Day into Solarbeam was the objectively better play.
In gen3, the game does a pre attack and roll to see what does the most damage (like you stated) but once it decides, which move to choose, it rerolls and checks if it hits and how much damage it does. It helps in some rare occasions like if it sees a kill with two moves, it’ll randomly choose one of those two, but if it chooses the weaker move and then rolls a lower damage, it might not actually KO
Or if it rolls the miss and then uses a better accuracy move or rolls a KO and then misses, like what happened here. Interesting interaction. I kinda like that. It's basically like a pro player going into a match with damage calcs done beforehand
Fun run to watch. If you're ever running solar beam/sunny day, there is almost no reason to ever charge. Since Tropius has chlorophyll, watching you choose to charge solar beam instead of setting up sunny day, and then losing a speed tie against the next Pokémon (or when you almost KO'ed the Metagross with hidden power after you chose to charge solar beam against Aggron instead of using sunny day) was definitely frustrating, but it was a joy to watch nonetheless. Great stuff Scott.
Tropius is such a cool pokemon as far as designs go, not to mention the only other pokemon thus far with its type combination, jumpluff, is just terrible. Oddly enough the major problem with Tropius lies in its typing, being weak to ice, rock, fire, poison and flying and only resistant to fighting, water and grass and its weaknesses cancel out 2 other resists in electric and bug leaving a total of only 4 resistances, counting immunity to ground, with 5 common weaknesses on a pokemon with defensive leaning stats that aren't even that good. He's just kind of a bad pokemon unfortunately. Doesn't stop me from using him tho
The tips you got for choosing May only apply for speedrunning, as the reason Brendan teams are worse is because he leads of with a different Pokémon. For example, in Route 110, he leads with Wingull and she starts with Slugma. The speedrun strategy features Marshtomp with X Attacks, so not getting burned while setting up is important. That and his dialogue (that actually matters here) are the two reasons to use May. Also she looks cooler
Scott, not sure if you'll read this, but I just wanted to say that your videos help calm me so much with my anxiety. Loving the new gen 3 content can't wait to see more
I’m glad the videos help you calm down. Anxiety can be real awful, makes me happy that I can help out. Thanks for letting me know the impact my work has. I really appreciate the comment.
While I get that you probably used Solarbeam by itself a lot for grinding as it helps with PP, using Solar-beam without the sun takes 2 turns, using Sunny Day+Solarbeam also takes 2 turns, plus it gives you the speed advantage thanks to Cholorphyll. If you need to manage PP, worried about getting hit with Encore or out sped and hit with Taunt, have your sun immediately overwritten by another weather, or don't want to get hit by a sun-boosted fire move before using your final solarbeam of the battle are all reasons to charge up for Solarbeam in a major battle but if you aren't afraid of a specific interaction with Sunny day from your opponent like those Sunny day will always be better than charging up. It even comes with the side-benefit of letting you change your mind like if you get hit by Destiny bond after using Sunny Day/charging up, you could choose to waste a turn with Growth while Solarbeam would force you to attack and potentially take yourself out too.
The reason they give you fly so late is because they wanted you to backtrack through areas you've already been to, access places you couldn't before with cut, rock smash, strength and surf, all while keeping up with your berries, and find secret base locations etc Obviously they ran into time trouble though and didn't get to fully flesh out their idea, but it's still mostly there
@@ultlifeform I still find it funny that the Speedrun for Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald gets purposefully poisoned by Flannery's Slugma since dying to poison post-fight and warping back to Petalburg is so much faster than walking.
My second time watching this run, and you know what? Tropius isn't really that bad, defeating Steven at the match level, well, I would say a pretty bad Pokemon would do the same at the nineties... Such as sableye or Delcatty. Taking this into regard I could say Tropius, in the end, did a good job! Great job, Scott!
26:08 - You have that empty space right under where you currently display the opponent's teams. If the opponents during a double battle have only three mons each you should have enough room in that empty space on the right side of the overlay to include both of the opponent's teams. If they have more than three just leave it out. Assuming you can write the code for all of that of course.
the torkoal overheat missing in flanery's gym (your 4th attempt), the AI checked the damage roll on both moves, overheat hit and did more damage than body slam on the check, so it then chooses this move. however the check hitting doesn't guarantee the actual move hitting, the damage check can miss or crit affecting which move the AI picks
This is what I was going to say. The AI checks the RNG for results on every move to see which it should pick, but whatever it picks still has to roll the RNG again to determine if it hits, how much damage it does, etc. Otherwise an enemy with four attacking moves would be critting like mad since they'd get 4 chances per turn to roll for it and be free to pick whichever move got the crit.
Tropius is incredibly based, tbh. In continuing with my love for grass types, I think it's the coolest one in gen 3. Not like, incredibly powerful, but it's moveset has so much synergy that I can't help but love it. Probably the single best sunnybeamsynthesis user, as the flying damage provides great coverage, tho it's a little '4 move slot syndrome' cuz you also want growth. Also one of the few mons I've personally done solo challenges in: here in emerald! Don't remember my results, but synthesis def played a big role. I think I also used a lot more growth spam in the midgame, esp against flannery. Also, at 13:35 you may or may not be repeating info that I've given you before about pokemon AI, and uh, I was totally completely wrong. I was kinda just giving my theories following having noted that Misty will use swift if you lower her accuracy. I've learned a ton about gen 3 AI since then, and uh, turns out AI don't check accuracy directly at all. The way that AI moves are selected for is a very complicated scoring system, whereby each move gets given points or has points taken away based on about a zillion factors, then the moves that have the highest score are selected. The base is that moves that kill you get +4, moves that deal the most damage but don't kill get +0, and moves that deal less damage get -1 (all done using phantom damage rolls as I've mentioned earlier, but no accuracy check). The misty case is driven by a check for if the opponent has set up accuracy differences enough, and buffs swift if it's accuracy is lowered by -3. Overheat has a small special check based on if you outspeed and if your health is below 80/60 to give -1, but more importantly it's a 'discouraged move' cuz of the stat drops. The really strong moves with 120+ bp but also big downsides would break the damage roll system otherwise, so they actually don't do the damage rolls at all, sitting on +0 all the time. Similarly, Magnitude is in a category called 'power 1 moves' that are basically the weird attacking moves with weird damage, like magnitude and sonic boom. As a consequence, the only damage move that actually rolls damage normally that the camerupt has is tackle: it's therefore ranked as +0 cuz it's it's highest damaging move. Magnitude gets -10 cuz you're immune, and even tho you're faster than the camperupt, cuz your health is above 80% overheat stays on +0, so the highest moves are tackle and overheat tied. Therefore camerupt will select which one to do randomly. One way that this info can be helpful is against Wattson's voltob, which we can discourage from exploding by keeping it's HP high. If voltorb has 80%+ HP or is faster 0-> 80% of -3, if voltorb has 50%+ HP-> 80% of -1, then some other randomness, and if voltorb has less than 30% HP -> 80% chance of +1. So the thresholds are 80%, 50% and 30%, tho it's never set in stone what it'll do. You may or may not recall, but I qualified my last AI comment with a bunch of statements with the effect of me being unsure, but this time, the bones of the system I'm 100% in. This work was all compiled by the emerald Kaizo community, and I found these docs in Pokemon Challenges' discord. The two most important are the following: A detailed english readable list of most of the moves in the game: docs.google.com/document/d/1CzTIoDbwdOX2cvQN9yldL7zLXfKQtBy_UWuxccpJnAM/ A computer code like series of if statements that more accurately represents everything in detail: docs.google.com/document/d/1_FP5FMyyZQkL93jEf6288WtMxOBLPd-Bsemg5HxMbR4/ They also have some docs in there for switching, but frankly it's not really anything you can ever take advantage of, cuz it's mostly based on the mon that you have out and stuff, which obviously you can't really use.
In game Bellosom is the best Sun abuser. Flying makes it weak to Tate and Liza, Vileplume is part poison so it doesn't resist Claydol, but Bellosom can also apply Sleep Powder, Sunny Day, Solar Beam, and Moonlight. Sleep is absolutely busted and takes any pokemon way over the top in game. Far better than Growth option because you incapacitate and setup. You're also more durable with less weaknesses in comparison.
One of my most treasured Pokemon memories is meeting this goofy dinosaur in the wild for the first time. It's never been the best pokemon competitively, but it's an amazing HM friend and always earns a team slot in my Hoenn playthroughs.
I always thought that Tropius was an odd Pokémon conceptually, but honestly, playthroughs like this are why I believe nearly any Pokémon can be viable on any team. Good job once again, Scott!
Tropius time! I used a Tropius in my Pokémon Emerald team so I've been looking forward to this one. It's such a distinctive Pokémon that I'm surprised doesn't get talked about more often. It's Stat spread is certainly strange, as you would think it would have more physical attack given it's size and appearance. Neither it's health nor defences are amazingly high on their own but they work nicely in tandem as all-round defence. 1:55 - The advantage of Pokémon breeding being introduced is that even these later game Pokémon have move-set taking into account if you hatched a level 5 Pokémon. No need to worry waiting 20+ levels for a new attack like earlier gens. 4:57 - I don't think Tropius' Slow Growth rate will be that much of an issue this early point. His Grass and Flying typing allows him to quickly one or two-shot the teams of both the first two gyms, which makes a much quicker early game grind. Water typing is also common in the region so Tropius might do more favourably than expected. 6:05 - Wait, I knew about the Brendan having less dialogue (this is also the same for Heart Gold/Soul Silver) but what's this about him having a weaker team. With potential exception to a gender difference to the Pokémon, I didn't think there was difference between rival Brendan and rival May's teams. 9:46 - How fortunate! I was expecting the Steel resistance to prove a real problem (until you gain Earthquake) so this easier victory over Watson's Magneton was a surprise. An wait, Gen 3 crits take into account Special Attack buffs? Is that the same for physical Attack as well? I had assumed it had worked the same as Gen 1 even to this day. 13:28 - I also did not know this. A bit cheap of the CPU to be able to almost guarantee a hit through such checks, but I suppose it now makes sense why some of these Gym Leader Pokémon still retain weak/less useful moves on their Pokémon. It's a balancing thing. 14:43 - An this is how Swellow became my Flannery destroyer; the only female team member I had in my first Pokémon Sapphire playthrough. I do wonder how much quicker this playthrough could have been if you went with a female Tropius. 21:07 - I was thinking of Hidden Power Fire purely as a means to combat Steel types (Steven waits for you at the end) but yeah, the whole Sunny Day synergy thing makes a lot of sense. After Maxie is dealt with, you don't really have to worry about Fire types so you don't have to worry about Sunny Day being turned against you. 25:11 - I'm now wondering whether you should have kept Razor Leaf for this double battle. Being able to eventually hit Solrock and Lunatone at the same time might have been quite handy (and crits seemed to have been happening fairly often with it). 26:00 - Never mind; Flannery aside, Tropius continues to do well. 28:17 - Unexpected joke but hilarious. Love the Emerald version designs of Brendan and May most of all. 34:28 - It was a gamble... that sadly did not pay off. I do look forward to when your Emerald experiences result in trainers getting the same recognition treatment like the Rapping Lass and Dennis. 38:24 - Planning around the inevitable Will-o-Wisp was certainly an interesting strategy to see unfold but it paid off. It's a good thing there is a favouritism towards Special Attack and Burn doesn't reduce it's damage output. 44:11 - This really feels like something you should have done sooner; the region is pretty much perfectly set-up for Tropius to grind up levels. I'm sure you could get a significantly faster time with the banana dinosaur by levelling up in the bountiful sea more often (if you were to ever do a 2nd playthrough). An yes, Water types are the most common type of Pokémon... really does give Maxie more of a point. 48:12 - Ironic that you finally encountered the Double Team scenario after you got rid of both your infinite accuracy moves. Lucky that Fly hit then. 50:27 - I had forgotten Steven's Skarmory had Toxic. It was quite lucky in that first round that it never used it. Rest seems like almost a necessity... but you need all four current attacks for your solar strategy... tough one. 51:52 - Oh gosh; the build up in this moment. Absolutely brilliant!
I'll be honest. Tropius performed better than I expected, it just feels like such a mediocre Pokemon but I think it'll end up being around like the halfway mark once things settle. Hasty? I think is the +Spe - Def nature? Might end up being a bit important if you were to do second playthroughs, and there's probably some space to explore Giga Drain as a potential option. Chlorophyll Solar Beam is just such a hard combination to pass up though, especially on a Pokemon with mediocre Spe. Another really fun video! Hope your appointment works out well for you.
I think that growth + giga drain is totally viable. Giga is good because while you might want to use solar beam and synthesis it kind of does both. Plus if you're in sun you probably are moving first anyway.
Tropius is one of my favorites in gen 3 (a gen that I never really cared for in terms of Pokemon designs) and one of my favorite grass-type Pokemon because of its design. It upsets me that it doesn't really have much of a niche compared to other grass-types. That said, loved the video and definitely going to check out the Chimecho video as it's another of one of my favorite derps.
Glad to hear you're feeling a little better, man. Weird how Tropius has backwards luck with some of these Hoenn fights. Completely breezes through Wattson and the twins, struggles to Maxie. Just another oddity to ol' Bananasaur
Tropius is based on a sauropod, basically a long necked dinosaur. Its also based on Mokele-mbembe a cryptid a congo river cryptid that pretty much a dinosaur. This is an interesting pokemon for sure and unlike sunflora can actually use chlorophyll well.(Plus it has a nice shiny) Fun fact it can learn dragon dance and dragon pulse in more modern games.
If you have sunny day and solar beam it is only worth not setting up sunny day when your opponent gets a boost from it, you want to hit after a heal, or it will run out at a bad time. Setting it up does not cost a turn as solar beam otherwise has to charge. If you have to use it more than once you gain turns. Also gives chlorophyll boost, boosts HP fire and reduces thunders accuracy.
2:37 that's actually a pretty fair reasoning for doing the Starters that way: I was always thinking "if the goal is to go through the game the fastest way possible (with certain rules), why give the Rivals Starters strong against your Pokémon? Especially if not doing it in Yellow (currently)?", but wanting to keep that aspect of the original game's experience is a neat enough reason; I guess, consequently, that means you're gonna always pick the Starter weakest against your solo mon when you get to Gen 6 onward games, since that's how later Rivals go about it.
Holy heck that insight into the how enemy trainers choose their moves makes so much sense when it comes to enemies using protect. The AI probably gets to choose another move if it rolls protect and it doesnt land; presumably they prioritise it too if it does Gosh its lovely seeing tropius, the Juan segment was painful though haha aww
Mimic is better against Agatha with Victreebel because it runs swords dance. Regarding back seating/pointing out inefficiencies: I think phrasing makes all the difference. For example: “why didn’t you use X move on Y pokemon?” When X on Y is clearly better than whatever I played. For me the only response I can say to this is, “I’m bad, I made a mistake.” Which doesn’t feel great. However, the question could be rephrased as a statement, “Using X against Y would be more optimal.” In this case I can agree and everyone feels great! I do want to state that I want everyone to throw their ideas in the comments. Even if they aren’t worded in a way that makes me feel good. I learn so much from people like you suggesting things like removing razor leaf with Victreebel. I think on my most recent Sudowoodo stream I commented a bit on backseating and I should retract those statements. I really want to encourage the free sharing of strategic ideas. I want to learn and improve. Sometimes to do that I need to humble myself, swallow the “I made a miss play” pill, and then improve my play in the future. Btw, I really want to stream a Victreebel playthrough where I remove razor leaf. I almost delayed the video to include another playthrough with it before release. But I couldn’t do that because of contractual requirements for the sponsorship. Hopefully in the future I can do it!
The AI uses a damage roll on each move to decide which move to use. Then, when the move actually happens, the damage is rolled again to determine how much damage is actually done. These are 2 different damage rolls.
69 speed, nice :) also... thank you Scott, thanks to your team as well for providing such high quality content. But there's something even more valuable. I'm honestly not in a good mental constitution rn. In fact it's pretty bad... but your videos are something I can look forward too. One more good thing in life that makes all those voice go silent for a bit. I can't express how grateful I am for those videos. So thank you. I mean it. You're doing something incredible for a lot of people. Please just keep being you.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write this comment. Sorry to hear about your mental health. I’m not always the best at knowing what to say but I just want to send extra good vibes your way. Glad I’m already doing that in the form of these Pokémon videos.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon also thank you for taking the time to reply, i know you can't reply to every comment. Also thank you for the words, I'm sure I'll push through somehow, have to :) i hope you have a nice day Scott
I really wanna see a solo Gardevoir playthrough. I'm curious how it would do considering what happened with Chimecho and Mewtwo. Also, I recommend that you use a female Gardevoir just in case an opponent uses attract.
very nicely played sir, that was tougher than I thought it would be, maybe a different nature could of helped, something that ups the Special Def so you can take a fire or ice hit better. I'm glad to see you're making use of HP fire now, it is so helpful for the Steel types especially that Skarmory.
This is the weather-learning playthrough. Remember, if the battle will take at least 2 more turns and you're using solarbeam, always choose sunny day for consistency. It lets you get your solarbeam one shot and gives you instant next turn attempts in the event of protect or an evasion boosted/accuracy lowered miss. Especially when you have higher sp atk than atk, even if just by a handful of points, that extra damage can go a long way. Some of the wall Pokemon like Torkoal also have huge def and mediocre sp def, so sometimes the not very effective attack might be best. Though, I haven't damage calced that for this specific matchup before. I just notice you use a lot of physical neutral moves against it a lot even when you have some sp atk options. Probably wouldn't have changed anything in this case though, unless you wanted to razor leaf crit proc him before you got magical leaf
On Flannery, wasn't Growth a possibility? Setting up on the Numel is relatively scary, but Camperupt doesn't resist Magical Leaf and Torkoal has way lower SpD than Def so maybe it can be one-shot with boosted SpA?
So excited for this!! Love this boy, his unique typing was immediately outclassed by Shaymin-Sky in the next ten, and being 4x weak to ice in a generation that you needed a dragon-slayer on your team for, it was never very viable. This should be cool!
in that first battle with Steven, if you had used sunny day instead of raw solar beaming, you'd still hit aggron in 2 hits AND your hidden power fire would have gotten sun-boosted taking out Metagross so I think your initial attempt at Steven was near-perfect outside of just that one play
13:22 I noticed that too during my personal Ledyba run in HGSS lol. Blue's Exeggutor rarely attacked when I used Substitute because I had overleveled so much for Lance that most special attacks did nothing to me. Almost every time Exeggutor attacked, it broke my sub (it had a pretty low chance, but it still could). That was also why Surge could do nothing but try status moves with his lead Raichu. I just buffed myself to +6 attack and +2 speed in front of it and used Aerial Ace so that no one could outspeed, use screens, evasion or paralysis before I could hit them, unlike with Dig lol.
The Brendan fight on the bridge was scary; the Combusken was also in Blaze range, so the crit and the power up from fire together with STAB made that move huge; it’s actually surprising he survived!
In regards to the fly rant: Fly isn't usable until fortree because you really don't need it. Hoenn is so well connected before you get surf that the longest journey would be like three minutes with repels. Rusturf tunnel makes things really east to get to from verdanturf and by extention mauville, lavaridge has ledges to get to route 112 which then connects to 111 and then 113 to fallarbor or mauville again, cycling road for an easy time to slateport, therefore to petalburg and dewfodf from mr briney. And eveb the worst area by connection in fallarbor has a quick trip to meteor falls and then rustboro by ledges, or travelling through 111 to immediately get to mauville again. Sorry for this being so long but the interconnectivity of the first part of hoenn + the fast bikes is one of my favourite parts of travelling almost anywhere in the franchise and i dont want it undermined
Oh my god. You first try’d the twins for the first time ever. Congrats! That said, I was gonna recommend that you keep Razor Leaf for that battle if you get it in future runs. It targets both opponents in Double Battles and the enhanced critical hit rate would compensate decently for how spread moves hit for diminishing power on multiple targets. Set up a Growth or two, and then Razor Leaf away. You’d be chipping away at Xatu despite the Calm Mind spam while the other three would go down just as easily as with Magical Leaf after Growth boosts and especially critical hits. Glad it didn’t come to that though.
I could even just heart scale it back right before that battle. That’s something to keep in mind for future runs where I have a move that hits multiple targets.
Tropius has been my favorite Pokemon since before I was able to read. Not even kidding. I’ve used one in every region is available in, even if it’s just alright, and I’m gonna be trying to make a sun team with it in Scarlet and Violet. I love this boy so so much, even if GameFreak doesn’t.
EG: you would have won against Steven on your first try if you used sunny day instead of a 2 turn solarbeam against the aggron, the sun boosted hidden power fire would have one shot the metagross
Seeing aggron in the Steven fight reminded me I used to always think aggron's little shoulder spike was a tiny little stubby arm, and he's just reaching out like he wants to be picked up
I wanted to use Tropius durning my playthrough of Emerald but couldn't make room for him cuz I choose Treeko. Happy to say he was a key member on my Paldean championship team!
New to the channel, but I have been binging a few of these runs and one thing I’ve noticed is that he will often make something harder on himself by stubbornly adhering to one move/plan of attack. The most recent example in this video is at the end with his Tropius vs Steven. Several times at the end there, he could have saved time (and a reset) had he set up the sun against the Aggron, thus powering up his hidden power fire. This would allow him to one shot the Metagross even at +2 instead of +3. And guaranteeing the knockout of the Aggron regardless of move attacking move choice. There were other things here and there that were much of the same in regards to that stubbornness, but he will often call himself out when it causes a roadblock for him instead of just the mild inconvenience that my example gave.
Remember Exeggcutor? That weird tropical tree Pokemon? Well, we took a tropical tree and made it a dragon - cool right? Slow growth rate, subpar attacking stats, low speed, and quadruple weak to Ice - because its a Flying type, not a dragon. ...What do you mean that sounds disappointing? Fine. We'll fix it in Generation 7. ...Huh? Mega evolution for Tropius in a Ruby/Sapphire remake? We mean't we are fixing the problem of Exeggcutor not being a Dragon type, Tropius is fine.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Don't be sad, after all there was a Grass Dragon in the Ruby/Sapphire remake that was a Mega Evolution. It was just Sceptile's and not Tropius. ;)
Nooooo don't do a bide only run! Lol. I've been working on one for a while. It's absolutely wild. I don't know now when I can release it. In all seriousness it will be a trip to see how different the runs will be. I have two horrifying words for you. Wrapping Lass....
Your graphics are really well made and super responsive! I agree with your take on double battles and move effective power, probably best to just leave it as is. One thing i did notice, your speed stat doesn't reflect the chlorophyll boost in the sun that tropius gets.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Yeah, i left this comment during the Juan fight, but then heard you say that during the E4 section. Big respect for the thought and planning that goes into these runs and your presentation of them
A pokemon I'm happy to see everyone loves. It's a fun pokemon, but I've only used it once, so I have no idea what this thing is capable of. It's got a nice typing
Also, in the Flannery battle, you get tackled because Overheat doesn't KO. It knows Overheat misses like you said, so it goes for Tackle. However, the Overheat that misses you was at least a range to KO you if it hit, and nothing else could do that, so the AI went for that move regardless. Not sure if it'd still go for Overheat if a crit on another move can kill and Overheat is determined to miss, though.
41:00 - Why not just Growth-Sunny Day-Growth against the first Sealeo? You only need three turns of sun to Solar Beam the Water-types into oblivion and slightly better damage output from Hidden Power to deal with the two Glalie, so giving up one turn of sunlight for much better damage ranges seems more productive than chasing a few level-ups. It helps that you’ve pointed out how you can handle an Ice Ball or two in the meantime (plus, it might miss since it’s a Rollout clone).
Suggestion for effective power in double battles - do the same as the modern games in the main series do, and display whichever one is higher - possibly with colour coding for if it's better against slot 1 or slot 2 if you feel that would be helpful.
18:25 Hoenn's map was built so that the player, at that point, would traverse the desert with the Goggles, go down Meteor Falls fully (which were previously only quickly accessed for the cutscene), loop back to Rustboro, go down to Petalburgh from the slopes in Petalburgh Woods, beat Norman and get Surf, go back up again, do the Rusturf Tunnel "quest" for Strength and boom, you're back to Mauville and ready to Surf to the East half of the Region. All of this not only makes the player explore new areas but also serves to justify the level gap between Flannery and Norman. Of course, don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to get Fly earlier, but then Norman's level gap would have been either harder to justify, if the player doesn't need to see any new content in-between the two Leaders, or removed outright, which would have felt anti-climactic, especially given it's the first father of the Pokémon games and he's even a Gym Leader! The remake does offer a free warp via the Rival, but I actually think the devs kind of made a mistake, there, arguably not understanding the originals' map and level design and level curve interaction. As a sidenote, after Flannery, you can also quickly go back up Mt. Chimney for another chance at seeing the Hiker, fight the new trainers on top of the volcano and also find the Lava Cookie Vendor. Sidenote n°2: I've always felt that Fly's "permit" is given a bit too early in the game, in Kanto: you can only get the actual Fly HM quite a bit later, and fast-travel feels like an option the player wouldn't unlock at least until halfway through the game, where enough locations have been visited, with a greater amount of distance between them would have to be covered, and where level design choices like not allowing the player to go back to Mt. Moon after the last ledge would hold less weight on the resource management aspect, given the state the player's team and resources would plausibly be at, by then.
In the Steven Fight. Setting up the sun is the same as 2 hitting or 2 turn solar beam and Thunder's accuracy lowers in the sun. Love the banana beard dinosaur lol
So regarding Flannery's gym. I never really thought about it before, but I believe that the up and down mechanisms are water geysers and slides( well probably just holes to fall down through) respectively. and the floors are probably made of that rubber stuff the put around playgrounds. of course we don't see any of those mechanisms because kids wouldn't really think of those things so why bother animating them, but thats my guess. as to how they do it without injuring people, it's probably pokemon magic.
AYO My favorite grass type from gen 3. This is awesome! Not sure how it'll perform but I am looking forward to it. Growth coming in clutch though I'm surprised by some of the bad plays. I hope you are well.
15:20: regarding the overheat miss. You even mentioned it yourself a minute before. The ai does a testroll to see the damage of it's moves. But this testroll is just an internal thing and has nothing to do with the actual attack. The testroll hit and did huge damage or most likely killed you. But the actual attack was a miss afterwards.
Apparently this huge dinosaur stomping on you will hurt less than a baby antlion nibbling you Either Trapinch has godly levels of strength, or 2003 Game Freak was just weird
Oh man, we didn't get to see Matt's awesome vest this time! I'm hoping his art is in Sol's queue, he could use some flair for his vest. Maybe an "I ❤ water" button or something funny 😁
Tropius really got the short end of the stick. It's a cool Pokemon and idea, but it has so many weaknesses and a double weakness to ice, and just passable stats. Giving it the slow growth rate was just doing it dirty. Also I feel like you probably would have won against Steven Stone the first time if you had set up Sunny Day and then used Solarbeam. The Sun would have boosted Hidden Power Fire and likely let you one-shot Metagross.
It's too bad this isn't Gen 5+ Growth, which raises your special attack and physical attack by one each, and DOUBLES that in the sun. That's a Swords Dance and a Nasty Plot in one turn, in sunny weather!
Looks like a great vid, always loved Tropius as a pokemon, but he is so gimped in some gens. HeartGold and SoulSilver come to mind especially. So many trainers have super effective moves and almost every pokemon on Red's team has an ice move, which screwed me hard when I tried it could not beat it. Emerald I beat but it was a slog for me at times and a breeze at others, interested to see what you can do here.
Scott your great....but watching razor leaf vs Brawly is painful...you have stab super effective gust effective base 120 and ignores light screen 😅🤣😭 just poking at ya tho love your content
26:40 Since double battles still have a maximum of 6 pokemon, perhaps have a second header after the 3rd with the second trainers name. As for the type effectiveness, maybe have the number update when targeting a new pokemon? I imagine that is a lot more programming though and probably not easily implemented into the current code you have.
Small thing about setup moves, if you outspeed and you know the opponent is gonna heal, that is the time to set up. When Steven is gonna use full restores on red hp aggron, sunny day then so you have a free turn and easy one shot.
Hey it's my favorite HM mule, the 'Nanaplane. I might've tried para-flinch hax on Torkoal (paralyze with Secret Power, then Stomp for potentially double the chances of turn loss), but that's so luck-based. Also I feel like Overheat gets an inordinate amount of crits, is it just me? Persim Berries would really help those confusion hax from pokemon like Maxie's Crobat. I think there's some on the route before Meteor Falls, by Lanette's house. Or those might be useless Wepear Berries, I can't remember. I don't know how much money gen 3 runs usually need (the change to EVs seems to make buying vitamins less important), but the Rich Boy on the route with Mr. Briney's house and the Lady on the route after Petalburg Forest give their pokemon Nuggets to hold for some reason (at least in Ruby and Sapphire). Probably not many of these challenge runs have a pokemon that can learn Thief or Covet though.
Loved the video. Though vs Maxies Crobat, I am pretty sure Magical Leaf does more damage if ur still -1 atk. Stab + not being -1 should outweigh resistance, esp with Miracle seed. Though IDK what your friendship was at this point so I may be wrong
Scott my friend! Today is the day when we finally find out if Professor AJ's favorite Pokémon has what it takes to win over the hearts of milions as it demolishes Emerald version.
You talked about how Fly is only available way late in the game. There's a setting in Emerald Speedchoice for early Fly, and I think you get it at Wattson. Doubt you'll want to do it for this series since you're several Pokemon in and you're playing legit, but just an fyi for any casual runs ❤️
I have a tattoo of a Tropius, good ol' #357 has always been my favourite, and the perfect answer to the question "If you had to survive on a deserted island and could only bring one pokemon, which would you bring?". I think you maybe could have done better with Harvest: Creative use of berries has always led to interesting Tropius solo runs for me, in both Emerald and OR/AS!
Great video Scott! One question though, if you pick the rival starter that is hardest to defeat, why do you also pick the female trainer when the male team is easier to fight against? Wouldn’t that go against the idea of fighting the strongest rival? Though honestly I forgive it because the idea of being a girl is really nice haha
The spirit of the game is that the rival takes the starter strongest against you, player gender is a choice. So I set the game up so that they take the strongest option (which is not a player controlled factor when playing the vanilla game) and then I make the choice that is always given to the player that gives my Pokémon the easiest time.
Ideas for double battle stuff: For the trainer's Pokemon, don't both trainers fit on the side? As for type effectiveness/power display: Show the most effective matchup of the two.
I too made my hidden base by that pond every playthrough. Not because I thought it was hidden, just because I felt it was the most beautiful location for a base.
I had no idea about the movepool tropius gets in this gen and so my guess of stall shenanigans was entirely off... I do love me a good stall tropius thought, especially with terra type changing nowadays.
The reason Fly isn’t given after Flannery is that they want you to backtrack with your newly acquired Go-Goggles and explore the desert
A design choice I always enjoyed. Backtracking and re-exploring with each new HM.
With a couple repels the back track is like only 2 to 3 minutes max anyway.
Banger video as always. Here's a tip: If you have both Sunny Day and Solarbeam, and the sun isn't up, there's little reason not to use Sunny Day rather than Solarbeam. It takes the same number of turns and sets you up for later into the fight. For example, on your first attempt against Steven, when you were facing Aggron (49:42), you would've oneshot the following Metagross with HP Fire if you used Sunny Day and then Solarbeam rather than using a 2-turn Solarbeam. Not only that, but Thunder has 50% accuracy in the sun, so Sunny Day into Solarbeam was the objectively better play.
And also
Important
Chlorophyll
Sunny day means you also outspeed if you were slower
While solarbeam in that scenario would have you move second twice
Someone’s gotta misuse objectively like always.
@@WillowEpp Do you know what that word means?
@@skeetermania3202 You first: what part of OP's assessment of Sunny Day+Solarbeam is subjective?
@@WillowEpp The conclusion is.
In gen3, the game does a pre attack and roll to see what does the most damage (like you stated) but once it decides, which move to choose, it rerolls and checks if it hits and how much damage it does. It helps in some rare occasions like if it sees a kill with two moves, it’ll randomly choose one of those two, but if it chooses the weaker move and then rolls a lower damage, it might not actually KO
Or if it rolls the miss and then uses a better accuracy move or rolls a KO and then misses, like what happened here. Interesting interaction. I kinda like that. It's basically like a pro player going into a match with damage calcs done beforehand
Great insight
Yup should work a bit different but hey still better then gen 1 so is what it is.
Fun run to watch. If you're ever running solar beam/sunny day, there is almost no reason to ever charge. Since Tropius has chlorophyll, watching you choose to charge solar beam instead of setting up sunny day, and then losing a speed tie against the next Pokémon (or when you almost KO'ed the Metagross with hidden power after you chose to charge solar beam against Aggron instead of using sunny day) was definitely frustrating, but it was a joy to watch nonetheless. Great stuff Scott.
Sunny Day also would lower Thunder accuracy to 50% from 70% which might have also been the difference on taking damage.
@@dragonexpert8323 And blizzard too?
This!
As a fellow sunny day player I agree
Blizzard isn’t affected by Sunny Day. No power or accuracy reduction.
Hoenn's loamiest approaches, prepare the tropium
I just took the nastiest dump. It reeks like molten sulfur and rotten meat.
Imported Cheese fanboy ? :P
Fellow Cheese Enjoyer I see
I saw Tropium and almost read that as Trivium. Now THAT'S a crossover with Imported Cheese I wasn't expecting. XD
@@svansiian2050 colab when?
Tropius always looked like an interesting pokemon to use.
Already wanting to see how this one unfolds!
Tropius is such a cool pokemon as far as designs go, not to mention the only other pokemon thus far with its type combination, jumpluff, is just terrible. Oddly enough the major problem with Tropius lies in its typing, being weak to ice, rock, fire, poison and flying and only resistant to fighting, water and grass and its weaknesses cancel out 2 other resists in electric and bug leaving a total of only 4 resistances, counting immunity to ground, with 5 common weaknesses on a pokemon with defensive leaning stats that aren't even that good. He's just kind of a bad pokemon unfortunately. Doesn't stop me from using him tho
The tips you got for choosing May only apply for speedrunning, as the reason Brendan teams are worse is because he leads of with a different Pokémon. For example, in Route 110, he leads with Wingull and she starts with Slugma. The speedrun strategy features Marshtomp with X Attacks, so not getting burned while setting up is important. That and his dialogue (that actually matters here) are the two reasons to use May.
Also she looks cooler
You should eventually do a video showing the different evolutions of your overlays.
Also, landing a Fly on a +3 evasion Ludicolo was insane luck.
Wow, even one and I can't hit a normal move, nevertheless +3. I must have the worst luck
He didn't even need to. Just Solarbeam it. If you oneshot Tentacruel it oneshots Ludicolo.
That’d be fun. Maybe I’ll do that for new years or something.
Scott, not sure if you'll read this, but I just wanted to say that your videos help calm me so much with my anxiety. Loving the new gen 3 content can't wait to see more
I’m glad the videos help you calm down. Anxiety can be real awful, makes me happy that I can help out. Thanks for letting me know the impact my work has. I really appreciate the comment.
I love the juxtaposition between the omniscient AI that knows damage beforehand and the crappy movesets it's forced to work with lol.
While I get that you probably used Solarbeam by itself a lot for grinding as it helps with PP, using Solar-beam without the sun takes 2 turns, using Sunny Day+Solarbeam also takes 2 turns, plus it gives you the speed advantage thanks to Cholorphyll. If you need to manage PP, worried about getting hit with Encore or out sped and hit with Taunt, have your sun immediately overwritten by another weather, or don't want to get hit by a sun-boosted fire move before using your final solarbeam of the battle are all reasons to charge up for Solarbeam in a major battle but if you aren't afraid of a specific interaction with Sunny day from your opponent like those Sunny day will always be better than charging up. It even comes with the side-benefit of letting you change your mind like if you get hit by Destiny bond after using Sunny Day/charging up, you could choose to waste a turn with Growth while Solarbeam would force you to attack and potentially take yourself out too.
The reason they give you fly so late is because they wanted you to backtrack through areas you've already been to, access places you couldn't before with cut, rock smash, strength and surf, all while keeping up with your berries, and find secret base locations etc
Obviously they ran into time trouble though and didn't get to fully flesh out their idea, but it's still mostly there
Probably why ORAS gives you the option to just teleport directly Norman's gym after beating Flannery. lol
@@ultlifeform I still find it funny that the Speedrun for Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald gets purposefully poisoned by Flannery's Slugma since dying to poison post-fight and warping back to Petalburg is so much faster than walking.
My second time watching this run, and you know what? Tropius isn't really that bad, defeating Steven at the match level, well, I would say a pretty bad Pokemon would do the same at the nineties... Such as sableye or Delcatty. Taking this into regard I could say Tropius, in the end, did a good job! Great job, Scott!
26:08 - You have that empty space right under where you currently display the opponent's teams. If the opponents during a double battle have only three mons each you should have enough room in that empty space on the right side of the overlay to include both of the opponent's teams. If they have more than three just leave it out. Assuming you can write the code for all of that of course.
He could also have the lil windows with opponents pokemon minimize when they faint
the torkoal overheat missing in flanery's gym (your 4th attempt), the AI checked the damage roll on both moves, overheat hit and did more damage than body slam on the check, so it then chooses this move. however the check hitting doesn't guarantee the actual move hitting, the damage check can miss or crit affecting which move the AI picks
This is what I was going to say. The AI checks the RNG for results on every move to see which it should pick, but whatever it picks still has to roll the RNG again to determine if it hits, how much damage it does, etc. Otherwise an enemy with four attacking moves would be critting like mad since they'd get 4 chances per turn to roll for it and be free to pick whichever move got the crit.
Tropius is incredibly based, tbh. In continuing with my love for grass types, I think it's the coolest one in gen 3. Not like, incredibly powerful, but it's moveset has so much synergy that I can't help but love it. Probably the single best sunnybeamsynthesis user, as the flying damage provides great coverage, tho it's a little '4 move slot syndrome' cuz you also want growth. Also one of the few mons I've personally done solo challenges in: here in emerald! Don't remember my results, but synthesis def played a big role. I think I also used a lot more growth spam in the midgame, esp against flannery.
Also, at 13:35 you may or may not be repeating info that I've given you before about pokemon AI, and uh, I was totally completely wrong. I was kinda just giving my theories following having noted that Misty will use swift if you lower her accuracy. I've learned a ton about gen 3 AI since then, and uh, turns out AI don't check accuracy directly at all.
The way that AI moves are selected for is a very complicated scoring system, whereby each move gets given points or has points taken away based on about a zillion factors, then the moves that have the highest score are selected. The base is that moves that kill you get +4, moves that deal the most damage but don't kill get +0, and moves that deal less damage get -1 (all done using phantom damage rolls as I've mentioned earlier, but no accuracy check).
The misty case is driven by a check for if the opponent has set up accuracy differences enough, and buffs swift if it's accuracy is lowered by -3.
Overheat has a small special check based on if you outspeed and if your health is below 80/60 to give -1, but more importantly it's a 'discouraged move' cuz of the stat drops. The really strong moves with 120+ bp but also big downsides would break the damage roll system otherwise, so they actually don't do the damage rolls at all, sitting on +0 all the time. Similarly, Magnitude is in a category called 'power 1 moves' that are basically the weird attacking moves with weird damage, like magnitude and sonic boom. As a consequence, the only damage move that actually rolls damage normally that the camerupt has is tackle: it's therefore ranked as +0 cuz it's it's highest damaging move. Magnitude gets -10 cuz you're immune, and even tho you're faster than the camperupt, cuz your health is above 80% overheat stays on +0, so the highest moves are tackle and overheat tied. Therefore camerupt will select which one to do randomly.
One way that this info can be helpful is against Wattson's voltob, which we can discourage from exploding by keeping it's HP high. If voltorb has 80%+ HP or is faster 0-> 80% of -3, if voltorb has 50%+ HP-> 80% of -1, then some other randomness, and if voltorb has less than 30% HP -> 80% chance of +1. So the thresholds are 80%, 50% and 30%, tho it's never set in stone what it'll do.
You may or may not recall, but I qualified my last AI comment with a bunch of statements with the effect of me being unsure, but this time, the bones of the system I'm 100% in. This work was all compiled by the emerald Kaizo community, and I found these docs in Pokemon Challenges' discord. The two most important are the following:
A detailed english readable list of most of the moves in the game: docs.google.com/document/d/1CzTIoDbwdOX2cvQN9yldL7zLXfKQtBy_UWuxccpJnAM/
A computer code like series of if statements that more accurately represents everything in detail: docs.google.com/document/d/1_FP5FMyyZQkL93jEf6288WtMxOBLPd-Bsemg5HxMbR4/
They also have some docs in there for switching, but frankly it's not really anything you can ever take advantage of, cuz it's mostly based on the mon that you have out and stuff, which obviously you can't really use.
In game Bellosom is the best Sun abuser. Flying makes it weak to Tate and Liza, Vileplume is part poison so it doesn't resist Claydol, but Bellosom can also apply Sleep Powder, Sunny Day, Solar Beam, and Moonlight. Sleep is absolutely busted and takes any pokemon way over the top in game. Far better than Growth option because you incapacitate and setup. You're also more durable with less weaknesses in comparison.
Send me and email. Would love to have a discord chat sometime. scottsthoughtspokemon@gmail.com
One of my most treasured Pokemon memories is meeting this goofy dinosaur in the wild for the first time. It's never been the best pokemon competitively, but it's an amazing HM friend and always earns a team slot in my Hoenn playthroughs.
I always thought that Tropius was an odd Pokémon conceptually, but honestly, playthroughs like this are why I believe nearly any Pokémon can be viable on any team. Good job once again, Scott!
Thanks!
Tropius time! I used a Tropius in my Pokémon Emerald team so I've been looking forward to this one. It's such a distinctive Pokémon that I'm surprised doesn't get talked about more often. It's Stat spread is certainly strange, as you would think it would have more physical attack given it's size and appearance. Neither it's health nor defences are amazingly high on their own but they work nicely in tandem as all-round defence.
1:55 - The advantage of Pokémon breeding being introduced is that even these later game Pokémon have move-set taking into account if you hatched a level 5 Pokémon. No need to worry waiting 20+ levels for a new attack like earlier gens.
4:57 - I don't think Tropius' Slow Growth rate will be that much of an issue this early point. His Grass and Flying typing allows him to quickly one or two-shot the teams of both the first two gyms, which makes a much quicker early game grind. Water typing is also common in the region so Tropius might do more favourably than expected.
6:05 - Wait, I knew about the Brendan having less dialogue (this is also the same for Heart Gold/Soul Silver) but what's this about him having a weaker team. With potential exception to a gender difference to the Pokémon, I didn't think there was difference between rival Brendan and rival May's teams.
9:46 - How fortunate! I was expecting the Steel resistance to prove a real problem (until you gain Earthquake) so this easier victory over Watson's Magneton was a surprise. An wait, Gen 3 crits take into account Special Attack buffs? Is that the same for physical Attack as well? I had assumed it had worked the same as Gen 1 even to this day.
13:28 - I also did not know this. A bit cheap of the CPU to be able to almost guarantee a hit through such checks, but I suppose it now makes sense why some of these Gym Leader Pokémon still retain weak/less useful moves on their Pokémon. It's a balancing thing.
14:43 - An this is how Swellow became my Flannery destroyer; the only female team member I had in my first Pokémon Sapphire playthrough. I do wonder how much quicker this playthrough could have been if you went with a female Tropius.
21:07 - I was thinking of Hidden Power Fire purely as a means to combat Steel types (Steven waits for you at the end) but yeah, the whole Sunny Day synergy thing makes a lot of sense. After Maxie is dealt with, you don't really have to worry about Fire types so you don't have to worry about Sunny Day being turned against you.
25:11 - I'm now wondering whether you should have kept Razor Leaf for this double battle. Being able to eventually hit Solrock and Lunatone at the same time might have been quite handy (and crits seemed to have been happening fairly often with it). 26:00 - Never mind; Flannery aside, Tropius continues to do well.
28:17 - Unexpected joke but hilarious. Love the Emerald version designs of Brendan and May most of all.
34:28 - It was a gamble... that sadly did not pay off. I do look forward to when your Emerald experiences result in trainers getting the same recognition treatment like the Rapping Lass and Dennis.
38:24 - Planning around the inevitable Will-o-Wisp was certainly an interesting strategy to see unfold but it paid off. It's a good thing there is a favouritism towards Special Attack and Burn doesn't reduce it's damage output.
44:11 - This really feels like something you should have done sooner; the region is pretty much perfectly set-up for Tropius to grind up levels. I'm sure you could get a significantly faster time with the banana dinosaur by levelling up in the bountiful sea more often (if you were to ever do a 2nd playthrough). An yes, Water types are the most common type of Pokémon... really does give Maxie more of a point.
48:12 - Ironic that you finally encountered the Double Team scenario after you got rid of both your infinite accuracy moves. Lucky that Fly hit then.
50:27 - I had forgotten Steven's Skarmory had Toxic. It was quite lucky in that first round that it never used it. Rest seems like almost a necessity... but you need all four current attacks for your solar strategy... tough one.
51:52 - Oh gosh; the build up in this moment. Absolutely brilliant!
Glad to see your voice is doing well since this upload wasn't delayed. Don't push yourself too much ❤
I'll be honest. Tropius performed better than I expected, it just feels like such a mediocre Pokemon but I think it'll end up being around like the halfway mark once things settle.
Hasty? I think is the +Spe - Def nature? Might end up being a bit important if you were to do second playthroughs, and there's probably some space to explore Giga Drain as a potential option. Chlorophyll Solar Beam is just such a hard combination to pass up though, especially on a Pokemon with mediocre Spe.
Another really fun video! Hope your appointment works out well for you.
With chlorophyll I think that Hasty is a mistake.
I think that growth + giga drain is totally viable. Giga is good because while you might want to use solar beam and synthesis it kind of does both. Plus if you're in sun you probably are moving first anyway.
Tropius is one of my favorites in gen 3 (a gen that I never really cared for in terms of Pokemon designs) and one of my favorite grass-type Pokemon because of its design. It upsets me that it doesn't really have much of a niche compared to other grass-types.
That said, loved the video and definitely going to check out the Chimecho video as it's another of one of my favorite derps.
Such a big fan of Emerald runs, Scott! OST and environments are timeless, with considerable challenge.
Perfect Saturday as all Saturdays!! Keep going Scott! :D Love the videos
I loved that you used Tropius, it's always been one of my favorites. I hope you do a future optimized play for this mon in the future.
Glad to hear you're feeling a little better, man.
Weird how Tropius has backwards luck with some of these Hoenn fights. Completely breezes through Wattson and the twins, struggles to Maxie. Just another oddity to ol' Bananasaur
Tropius is based on a sauropod, basically a long necked dinosaur. Its also based on Mokele-mbembe a cryptid a congo river cryptid that pretty much a dinosaur. This is an interesting pokemon for sure and unlike sunflora can actually use chlorophyll well.(Plus it has a nice shiny) Fun fact it can learn dragon dance and dragon pulse in more modern games.
Fricking congratulations, Tropius! Tate and Liza 1st try is awesome, not seen that before. Great job!
If you have sunny day and solar beam it is only worth not setting up sunny day when your opponent gets a boost from it, you want to hit after a heal, or it will run out at a bad time.
Setting it up does not cost a turn as solar beam otherwise has to charge. If you have to use it more than once you gain turns.
Also gives chlorophyll boost, boosts HP fire and reduces thunders accuracy.
2:37 that's actually a pretty fair reasoning for doing the Starters that way: I was always thinking "if the goal is to go through the game the fastest way possible (with certain rules), why give the Rivals Starters strong against your Pokémon? Especially if not doing it in Yellow (currently)?", but wanting to keep that aspect of the original game's experience is a neat enough reason; I guess, consequently, that means you're gonna always pick the Starter weakest against your solo mon when you get to Gen 6 onward games, since that's how later Rivals go about it.
Yup. That’s correct. In gen6 they will get the starter weak to mine.
Holy heck that insight into the how enemy trainers choose their moves makes so much sense when it comes to enemies using protect. The AI probably gets to choose another move if it rolls protect and it doesnt land; presumably they prioritise it too if it does
Gosh its lovely seeing tropius, the Juan segment was painful though haha aww
Why did you recommend getting rid of Razor Leaf?
Mimic is better against Agatha with Victreebel because it runs swords dance.
Regarding back seating/pointing out inefficiencies:
I think phrasing makes all the difference. For example: “why didn’t you use X move on Y pokemon?” When X on Y is clearly better than whatever I played. For me the only response I can say to this is, “I’m bad, I made a mistake.” Which doesn’t feel great. However, the question could be rephrased as a statement, “Using X against Y would be more optimal.” In this case I can agree and everyone feels great!
I do want to state that I want everyone to throw their ideas in the comments. Even if they aren’t worded in a way that makes me feel good. I learn so much from people like you suggesting things like removing razor leaf with Victreebel. I think on my most recent Sudowoodo stream I commented a bit on backseating and I should retract those statements. I really want to encourage the free sharing of strategic ideas. I want to learn and improve. Sometimes to do that I need to humble myself, swallow the “I made a miss play” pill, and then improve my play in the future.
Btw, I really want to stream a Victreebel playthrough where I remove razor leaf. I almost delayed the video to include another playthrough with it before release. But I couldn’t do that because of contractual requirements for the sponsorship. Hopefully in the future I can do it!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Thank you for clearing that up for me!
The AI uses a damage roll on each move to decide which move to use. Then, when the move actually happens, the damage is rolled again to determine how much damage is actually done. These are 2 different damage rolls.
69 speed, nice :)
also... thank you Scott, thanks to your team as well for providing such high quality content. But there's something even more valuable.
I'm honestly not in a good mental constitution rn. In fact it's pretty bad... but your videos are something I can look forward too. One more good thing in life that makes all those voice go silent for a bit. I can't express how grateful I am for those videos. So thank you. I mean it. You're doing something incredible for a lot of people. Please just keep being you.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write this comment. Sorry to hear about your mental health. I’m not always the best at knowing what to say but I just want to send extra good vibes your way. Glad I’m already doing that in the form of these Pokémon videos.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon also thank you for taking the time to reply, i know you can't reply to every comment. Also thank you for the words, I'm sure I'll push through somehow, have to :) i hope you have a nice day Scott
I really wanna see a solo Gardevoir playthrough. I'm curious how it would do considering what happened with Chimecho and Mewtwo. Also, I recommend that you use a female Gardevoir just in case an opponent uses attract.
very nicely played sir, that was tougher than I thought it would be, maybe a different nature could of helped, something that ups the Special Def so you can take a fire or ice hit better. I'm glad to see you're making use of HP fire now, it is so helpful for the Steel types especially that Skarmory.
This is the weather-learning playthrough. Remember, if the battle will take at least 2 more turns and you're using solarbeam, always choose sunny day for consistency. It lets you get your solarbeam one shot and gives you instant next turn attempts in the event of protect or an evasion boosted/accuracy lowered miss. Especially when you have higher sp atk than atk, even if just by a handful of points, that extra damage can go a long way. Some of the wall Pokemon like Torkoal also have huge def and mediocre sp def, so sometimes the not very effective attack might be best. Though, I haven't damage calced that for this specific matchup before. I just notice you use a lot of physical neutral moves against it a lot even when you have some sp atk options. Probably wouldn't have changed anything in this case though, unless you wanted to razor leaf crit proc him before you got magical leaf
Tropius is so delightfully strange, just like it’s stats! I love this thing. Always made sure to pick one up lol
On Flannery, wasn't Growth a possibility? Setting up on the Numel is relatively scary, but Camperupt doesn't resist Magical Leaf and Torkoal has way lower SpD than Def so maybe it can be one-shot with boosted SpA?
I was just too scared to setup against her Pokémon when they can activate the sun or hit with Overheat.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Very understandable!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Justifiable fear, but I don’t think it would hurt to try.
So excited for this!! Love this boy, his unique typing was immediately outclassed by Shaymin-Sky in the next ten, and being 4x weak to ice in a generation that you needed a dragon-slayer on your team for, it was never very viable. This should be cool!
I think you’re forgetting Jumpluff. I know why you forget it though…
in that first battle with Steven, if you had used sunny day instead of raw solar beaming, you'd still hit aggron in 2 hits AND your hidden power fire would have gotten sun-boosted taking out Metagross so I think your initial attempt at Steven was near-perfect outside of just that one play
I've been waiting for this banana boy since you started gen 3! :D
13:22 I noticed that too during my personal Ledyba run in HGSS lol. Blue's Exeggutor rarely attacked when I used Substitute because I had overleveled so much for Lance that most special attacks did nothing to me. Almost every time Exeggutor attacked, it broke my sub (it had a pretty low chance, but it still could).
That was also why Surge could do nothing but try status moves with his lead Raichu. I just buffed myself to +6 attack and +2 speed in front of it and used Aerial Ace so that no one could outspeed, use screens, evasion or paralysis before I could hit them, unlike with Dig lol.
The Brendan fight on the bridge was scary; the Combusken was also in Blaze range, so the crit and the power up from fire together with STAB made that move huge; it’s actually surprising he survived!
it always rains on thst bridge
@@yooziinsertname5667 i meant the first one; before Watson, where it never rains
28:51
Oh, you actually read my comment, that's pretty cool, I'm flattered :D
I love how I accidentaly may have started a meme
In regards to the fly rant: Fly isn't usable until fortree because you really don't need it. Hoenn is so well connected before you get surf that the longest journey would be like three minutes with repels. Rusturf tunnel makes things really east to get to from verdanturf and by extention mauville, lavaridge has ledges to get to route 112 which then connects to 111 and then 113 to fallarbor or mauville again, cycling road for an easy time to slateport, therefore to petalburg and dewfodf from mr briney. And eveb the worst area by connection in fallarbor has a quick trip to meteor falls and then rustboro by ledges, or travelling through 111 to immediately get to mauville again.
Sorry for this being so long but the interconnectivity of the first part of hoenn + the fast bikes is one of my favourite parts of travelling almost anywhere in the franchise and i dont want it undermined
Oh my god. You first try’d the twins for the first time ever. Congrats!
That said, I was gonna recommend that you keep Razor Leaf for that battle if you get it in future runs. It targets both opponents in Double Battles and the enhanced critical hit rate would compensate decently for how spread moves hit for diminishing power on multiple targets. Set up a Growth or two, and then Razor Leaf away. You’d be chipping away at Xatu despite the Calm Mind spam while the other three would go down just as easily as with Magical Leaf after Growth boosts and especially critical hits. Glad it didn’t come to that though.
I could even just heart scale it back right before that battle. That’s something to keep in mind for future runs where I have a move that hits multiple targets.
Tropius has been my favorite Pokemon since before I was able to read. Not even kidding.
I’ve used one in every region is available in, even if it’s just alright, and I’m gonna be trying to make a sun team with it in Scarlet and Violet. I love this boy so so much, even if GameFreak doesn’t.
Found your channel a little while ago, and thought I'd do a search today to see if my favorite Pokémon had made it into one of your runs.
One tip: if you are going to use Solarbeam and Sunny Day doesnt boost your enemies anything, using Sunny Day first is ALWAYS the right choice.
EG: you would have won against Steven on your first try if you used sunny day instead of a 2 turn solarbeam against the aggron, the sun boosted hidden power fire would have one shot the metagross
Yup. I know that now!
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon also, great video as always
Tropius was my Gen3 first playthrough; recently built a team around a leftovers flyquake Tropius for PU.
Seeing aggron in the Steven fight reminded me I used to always think aggron's little shoulder spike was a tiny little stubby arm, and he's just reaching out like he wants to be picked up
I wanted to use Tropius durning my playthrough of Emerald but couldn't make room for him cuz I choose Treeko.
Happy to say he was a key member on my Paldean championship team!
New to the channel, but I have been binging a few of these runs and one thing I’ve noticed is that he will often make something harder on himself by stubbornly adhering to one move/plan of attack. The most recent example in this video is at the end with his Tropius vs Steven. Several times at the end there, he could have saved time (and a reset) had he set up the sun against the Aggron, thus powering up his hidden power fire. This would allow him to one shot the Metagross even at +2 instead of +3. And guaranteeing the knockout of the Aggron regardless of move attacking move choice. There were other things here and there that were much of the same in regards to that stubbornness, but he will often call himself out when it causes a roadblock for him instead of just the mild inconvenience that my example gave.
Also, the Tropius video is relatively early on in my Emerald series so my play is just sub-standard because my game-knowledge isn’t well developed.
22:02 - Beautiful childhood memories shared by Scott.
Glad to hear you’re feeling better!
Remember Exeggcutor? That weird tropical tree Pokemon? Well, we took a tropical tree and made it a dragon - cool right?
Slow growth rate, subpar attacking stats, low speed, and quadruple weak to Ice - because its a Flying type, not a dragon.
...What do you mean that sounds disappointing? Fine. We'll fix it in Generation 7.
...Huh? Mega evolution for Tropius in a Ruby/Sapphire remake?
We mean't we are fixing the problem of Exeggcutor not being a Dragon type, Tropius is fine.
Now I’m sad
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Don't be sad, after all there was a Grass Dragon in the Ruby/Sapphire remake that was a Mega Evolution. It was just Sceptile's and not Tropius. ;)
I love Armaldo's little jiggle during Steven's intro
Nooooo don't do a bide only run! Lol.
I've been working on one for a while. It's absolutely wild. I don't know now when I can release it. In all seriousness it will be a trip to see how different the runs will be.
I have two horrifying words for you.
Wrapping Lass....
Your graphics are really well made and super responsive! I agree with your take on double battles and move effective power, probably best to just leave it as is. One thing i did notice, your speed stat doesn't reflect the chlorophyll boost in the sun that tropius gets.
I’ve added ability stat changes in a newer version of the software. Wasn’t ready when I filmed this one though.
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon Yeah, i left this comment during the Juan fight, but then heard you say that during the E4 section. Big respect for the thought and planning that goes into these runs and your presentation of them
Beating Flannery with return using the power of friendship? Now that's what I would call an anime trope-ious!
Nice to see all the routing improvements
YES more gen 3 content from my guy Scott
A pokemon I'm happy to see everyone loves. It's a fun pokemon, but I've only used it once, so I have no idea what this thing is capable of. It's got a nice typing
Yeah I’m glad everyone loves Tropius. It deserves a stat boost though.
Also, in the Flannery battle, you get tackled because Overheat doesn't KO. It knows Overheat misses like you said, so it goes for Tackle. However, the Overheat that misses you was at least a range to KO you if it hit, and nothing else could do that, so the AI went for that move regardless. Not sure if it'd still go for Overheat if a crit on another move can kill and Overheat is determined to miss, though.
I believe you actually saw some benefit from Xatu using Sunny Day because Tropius has Chlorophyll and went first for the rest of that battle
41:00 - Why not just Growth-Sunny Day-Growth against the first Sealeo? You only need three turns of sun to Solar Beam the Water-types into oblivion and slightly better damage output from Hidden Power to deal with the two Glalie, so giving up one turn of sunlight for much better damage ranges seems more productive than chasing a few level-ups. It helps that you’ve pointed out how you can handle an Ice Ball or two in the meantime (plus, it might miss since it’s a Rollout clone).
Suggestion for effective power in double battles - do the same as the modern games in the main series do, and display whichever one is higher - possibly with colour coding for if it's better against slot 1 or slot 2 if you feel that would be helpful.
18:25 Hoenn's map was built so that the player, at that point, would traverse the desert with the Goggles, go down Meteor Falls fully (which were previously only quickly accessed for the cutscene), loop back to Rustboro, go down to Petalburgh from the slopes in Petalburgh Woods, beat Norman and get Surf, go back up again, do the Rusturf Tunnel "quest" for Strength and boom, you're back to Mauville and ready to Surf to the East half of the Region. All of this not only makes the player explore new areas but also serves to justify the level gap between Flannery and Norman.
Of course, don't get me wrong, I understand wanting to get Fly earlier, but then Norman's level gap would have been either harder to justify, if the player doesn't need to see any new content in-between the two Leaders, or removed outright, which would have felt anti-climactic, especially given it's the first father of the Pokémon games and he's even a Gym Leader!
The remake does offer a free warp via the Rival, but I actually think the devs kind of made a mistake, there, arguably not understanding the originals' map and level design and level curve interaction.
As a sidenote, after Flannery, you can also quickly go back up Mt. Chimney for another chance at seeing the Hiker, fight the new trainers on top of the volcano and also find the Lava Cookie Vendor.
Sidenote n°2: I've always felt that Fly's "permit" is given a bit too early in the game, in Kanto: you can only get the actual Fly HM quite a bit later, and fast-travel feels like an option the player wouldn't unlock at least until halfway through the game, where enough locations have been visited, with a greater amount of distance between them would have to be covered, and where level design choices like not allowing the player to go back to Mt. Moon after the last ledge would hold less weight on the resource management aspect, given the state the player's team and resources would plausibly be at, by then.
In the Steven Fight. Setting up the sun is the same as 2 hitting or 2 turn solar beam and Thunder's accuracy lowers in the sun. Love the banana beard dinosaur lol
So regarding Flannery's gym. I never really thought about it before, but I believe that the up and down mechanisms are water geysers and slides( well probably just holes to fall down through) respectively. and the floors are probably made of that rubber stuff the put around playgrounds. of course we don't see any of those mechanisms because kids wouldn't really think of those things so why bother animating them, but thats my guess. as to how they do it without injuring people, it's probably pokemon magic.
AYO My favorite grass type from gen 3. This is awesome! Not sure how it'll perform but I am looking forward to it. Growth coming in clutch though I'm surprised by some of the bad plays. I hope you are well.
15:20: regarding the overheat miss. You even mentioned it yourself a minute before. The ai does a testroll to see the damage of it's moves. But this testroll is just an internal thing and has nothing to do with the actual attack.
The testroll hit and did huge damage or most likely killed you. But the actual attack was a miss afterwards.
FINALLY YOU LISTENED!
it's still not perfect, but at leadt you're trying to pronounce Juan correctly, and it already sounds way better 😂
Apparently this huge dinosaur stomping on you will hurt less than a baby antlion nibbling you
Either Trapinch has godly levels of strength, or 2003 Game Freak was just weird
Oh man, we didn't get to see Matt's awesome vest this time! I'm hoping his art is in Sol's queue, he could use some flair for his vest. Maybe an "I ❤ water" button or something funny 😁
I dunno if he is on the queue. Gotta add him!
Did I miss something? Why didn’t you use gust against brawly?
I should have
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon oh okay I was like Scott having to use all these razor leafs and I was like knock their asses out with that 120 power gust lol
Tropius stats seem to be a mixed bag, but it can still accomplish a lot with sunny day and solar beam, I think
Tropius really got the short end of the stick. It's a cool Pokemon and idea, but it has so many weaknesses and a double weakness to ice, and just passable stats. Giving it the slow growth rate was just doing it dirty.
Also I feel like you probably would have won against Steven Stone the first time if you had set up Sunny Day and then used Solarbeam. The Sun would have boosted Hidden Power Fire and likely let you one-shot Metagross.
It's too bad this isn't Gen 5+ Growth, which raises your special attack and physical attack by one each, and DOUBLES that in the sun. That's a Swords Dance and a Nasty Plot in one turn, in sunny weather!
Yeah growth during the sun seems so busted in gen5
Looks like a great vid, always loved Tropius as a pokemon, but he is so gimped in some gens. HeartGold and SoulSilver come to mind especially. So many trainers have super effective moves and almost every pokemon on Red's team has an ice move, which screwed me hard when I tried it could not beat it. Emerald I beat but it was a slog for me at times and a breeze at others, interested to see what you can do here.
Scott your great....but watching razor leaf vs Brawly is painful...you have stab super effective gust effective base 120 and ignores light screen 😅🤣😭 just poking at ya tho love your content
It was painful. I streamed this run and immediately after beating him I said “should have used gust.”
I see Scott's playing with his banana this week, his fiance must be out of town.
26:40 Since double battles still have a maximum of 6 pokemon, perhaps have a second header after the 3rd with the second trainers name. As for the type effectiveness, maybe have the number update when targeting a new pokemon? I imagine that is a lot more programming though and probably not easily implemented into the current code you have.
Yeah, it’s low priority too since I show so few double battles
"Remember Sullivan, I promised to kill you last? [...] I lied!" -John Matrix, Commando
@15:34 the rolls for highest damage to pick an attack are not the same rolls the game does when actually attacking.
I wish the best for you and your health Scott.
Low key Scott, Tropius was one of my favorites in the 3rd gen, he isnt the best but i always thought he was pretty cool lookin
Small thing about setup moves, if you outspeed and you know the opponent is gonna heal, that is the time to set up. When Steven is gonna use full restores on red hp aggron, sunny day then so you have a free turn and easy one shot.
Good tip
Hey it's my favorite HM mule, the 'Nanaplane.
I might've tried para-flinch hax on Torkoal (paralyze with Secret Power, then Stomp for potentially double the chances of turn loss), but that's so luck-based. Also I feel like Overheat gets an inordinate amount of crits, is it just me?
Persim Berries would really help those confusion hax from pokemon like Maxie's Crobat. I think there's some on the route before Meteor Falls, by Lanette's house. Or those might be useless Wepear Berries, I can't remember.
I don't know how much money gen 3 runs usually need (the change to EVs seems to make buying vitamins less important), but the Rich Boy on the route with Mr. Briney's house and the Lady on the route after Petalburg Forest give their pokemon Nuggets to hold for some reason (at least in Ruby and Sapphire). Probably not many of these challenge runs have a pokemon that can learn Thief or Covet though.
Loved the video. Though vs Maxies Crobat, I am pretty sure Magical Leaf does more damage if ur still -1 atk. Stab + not being -1 should outweigh resistance, esp with Miracle seed. Though IDK what your friendship was at this point so I may be wrong
Scott my friend! Today is the day when we finally find out if Professor AJ's favorite Pokémon has what it takes to win over the hearts of milions as it demolishes Emerald version.
ITS THE FLYING BANANA TREE FRIEND!!
To answer your question, Scott, yes, Water Pokémon are the most abundant typing in the series. I looked at this personally a while back
You talked about how Fly is only available way late in the game. There's a setting in Emerald Speedchoice for early Fly, and I think you get it at Wattson. Doubt you'll want to do it for this series since you're several Pokemon in and you're playing legit, but just an fyi for any casual runs ❤️
I hope things go well with the doctor, Scott! I hope you recover soon!
I have a tattoo of a Tropius, good ol' #357 has always been my favourite, and the perfect answer to the question "If you had to survive on a deserted island and could only bring one pokemon, which would you bring?". I think you maybe could have done better with Harvest: Creative use of berries has always led to interesting Tropius solo runs for me, in both Emerald and OR/AS!
I assume you can’t use Abra to teleport off the deserted island?
@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon I suppose you could, but you get in-Fly snacks with Tropius!
Great video Scott! One question though, if you pick the rival starter that is hardest to defeat, why do you also pick the female trainer when the male team is easier to fight against? Wouldn’t that go against the idea of fighting the strongest rival? Though honestly I forgive it because the idea of being a girl is really nice haha
The spirit of the game is that the rival takes the starter strongest against you, player gender is a choice. So I set the game up so that they take the strongest option (which is not a player controlled factor when playing the vanilla game) and then I make the choice that is always given to the player that gives my Pokémon the easiest time.
Ideas for double battle stuff:
For the trainer's Pokemon, don't both trainers fit on the side?
As for type effectiveness/power display: Show the most effective matchup of the two.
I too made my hidden base by that pond every playthrough. Not because I thought it was hidden, just because I felt it was the most beautiful location for a base.
It really is
I had no idea about the movepool tropius gets in this gen and so my guess of stall shenanigans was entirely off... I do love me a good stall tropius thought, especially with terra type changing nowadays.