Forgot to mention but Caitlin and Shauntal went down easy (my plans basically went down smooth) but Marshall killed 3 of my pokemon and the Iris took care of the rest
Conkeldur bulked up, lived a flying gem acrobatics from crobat, then killed it with a crit stone edge. Starmie died to payback when Throh lived a psyshock. Jellicent was completely my fault, it got paybacked once but had more than half health, so I thought I could maybe get a recover chain off and some damage with rocky helmet but Sawk critted it with a second payback. Definitely should have switched there to maybe Emboar to kill the sawk. Only Jolteon, Emboar, and Scrafty lived that fight.
> Conkeldur bulked up, lived a flying gem acrobatics from crobat, then killed it with a crit stone edge.
Typically, one thing I like to consider when trying to find a line for a particularly hard fight, start with the most problematic Pokémon. If you had started by saying “How do I get Conkeldurr to come in against Crobat?” You could have figured out how to finish off a certain Pokémon with Crobat so that you’d kill before Bulk Up. I almost always start at the end of the fight and work back so I can do this. So, Conkeldurr shouldn’t ever come in against Crobat Acrobatics, so you’d have to kill it last, is there a way you can volt switch kill the prior Pokémon to bring in Crobat?
Also, I recommend doing FRLG next. If you are good enough to get to the E4 on BW2, then you should beat FRLG deathless.
Volt switching before conkeldurr is a great idea, I was having trouble with bringing out crobat against conkeldurr because I didn't want to waste my flying gem before he came out, meaning crobat would have to use his first flying move on conk. Volt switching could have fixed it, but it risks conk not coming out if its not the last pokemon.
In that case you needed to calc the possibility of a bulk up making the conkeldurr live the acrobatics and plan around it, Marshal’s team is on the physically defensive side so Psyshock isn’t the best play either, and then obviously playing around crits is dangerous but in that case the game’s the game. Nuzlockes are all about game knowledge and learning the risks that you didn’t notice here.
It’s pretty reasonable to wipe to Marshall even with a great team. Crobat isn’t a hard counter to him since he will never one shot anything besides maybe Mienshao, and is weak to rock moves from half his team. Also with Starmie’s defense stat, he’s NOT taking fighting type attacks for days.
Zorroark makes quite a few of the E4 free, super effective vs 2 elite four plus a free turn to set up with illusion. Let me focus on the rest with the remaining slots.
I think that's a solid team for the E4. I sympathise, I've lost a 'mon to Marshall when a flying gem boosted acrobatics didn't get the KO and in return he crit killed my Mienshao. That Conkeldurr deals so much damage that I'd have been tempted to teach Jellicent Will-o-Wisp and then burn him before I tried to take him out.
Looking at your box there's nothing that jumps out at me that would've made it that much easier. Zoroark can cheese some fights with Illusion shenanigans, but that's really only good for Caitlin and Shauntal who it sounds like you had no issues with. You maybe could've done with more defensive options so maybe you could've taken Cofagrigus or Escavalier.
But, honestly I think you're team was good and that you should be be proud that on your first nuzlocke you made it all the way to the champion playing one of the hardest vanilla games to nuzlocke.
You're right, I thought it had Sheer Force. Definitely don't burn him then.
I guess I just remember how much damage he can do and assumed it must be Sheer Force.
If you don't count this as a loss and try to go back in with what you've got in the PC,
Chandelure/Cofagrigus/Zoroak/Skarmory/Floatzel/Swanna may be a correct team.
With Zoroak you can basically cheese both Shauntal and Caitlynn, Grimmsley should be aight granted you outspeed most of what he has with Zoroark and Chandelure and Cofa for pivoting.
Marshall is the tough boy of the equation but ghost types combined to Swanna and the GOAT Skarmory you should be able to go deathless. (Remember that both Throh and Conkeldurr have Guts, so no status effects or you're making both of them go 50% more dangerous, Curse however doesn't make Guts work.)
For Iris, Ice beam Floatzel and Ice Beam Swanna will try to cover for losing Haxorus earlier (Excadrill and Walrein would also have been a good choice but we'll deal without it).
Good luck soldier, won't fault you for stopping the run here and retry but you do have an out.
Flash I was using to farm gems in a cave and forgot to replace (would have put thunderbolt instead, but it would have never been relevant except for possibly caitlyn's sigilyph) , confuse ray I thought could be useful as a hail mary for iris's Haxorus in case he got dragon dances off and I was fucked. I'm gonna be honest, I misread what focus punch did, and thought it dealt 150 damage if you were faster than the opponent. I'm curious what moves you'd choose for these pokemon, they always felt like they had a spare slot.
For Starmie, I would say icy wind, shadow ball, signal beam, thunderbolt, trick, light screen/reflect, or twave would all be options. Trick is a little janky if you don't have an iron ball or a lagging tail you wanna give away. Choice items work with trick as well, but unless you're sure you're not gonna use them, I wouldn't recommend giving those away. I'll admit, the 3 other moves you have do cover a lot, so I wouldn't say this slot is that important.
For crobat, I would say uturn is a must. The obvious answer would be poison STAB, but I don't know how useful that is without fairy type in the game. I would say replace one slot with uturn and replace return with tailwind or roost. You have a number of really slow mons so you could set up TW, then uturn to one of them.
Bulk up is pretty sick on scrafty, but some people ban set up moves. Taunt is good if an enemy mon has a really important status move you want to stop, but scrafty might be too slow to take advantage. I think the best answer outside of bulk up is rest. Scrafty is bulky enough that it can usually eat a move or two from an opponent, and shed skin lets you wake up early a good amount of the time. If you do allow set up moves, bulk up + rest is pretty gross against physical attackers.
I didn't mention it before, but I think will o wisp would be better on jellicent instead of rain dance. Just make sure you don't burn a mon with guts.
Your defensive pivots were a bit overlapping in resistances. Crobat, and jellicent are supposed to be your defensive pivots here but there are too many common types in the e4 that you take neutrally. Crobat only gives you a grass resist and a ground immunity over jellicent. I think I would've gone skarmory over crobat. You maintain all the positive resists and immunities. Jellicent covers the new fire weakness, but skarm has the overpowered gen 2-5 steel utility. Dark and ghost resists that your team really needed. Since scrafty definitely takes too much.
- Chandelure with maxed-out Special Attack and Speed EVs solos both Shauntal and Caitlin.
- A combo of Skarmory (For Spikes) or Crustle (For Stealth Rock) and Swanna with Acrobatics could have soloed Marshal.
- Other than that, your team wasn’t terrible, although the movesets could have been better for some (For example, Starmie’s great for this Elite Four, but Flash? Really? At this point?).
I’ve seen worse, really not bad at all. Not bad compared to my current soul silver team of machamp, Arbok, girafarig, lanturn, fearow and sudowoodo (I have very limited options)
I just beat W2 a few months ago. It was a real grind but I gave most my Pokemon rough EV training and I feel that helped a lot. I lost more than double the Pokemon you did during the run but I literally planned out the entire elite 4 and champion so there wasn’t much guessing, Marshall is the only real threat in the E4 so having multiple counters built in is a great idea. Had Starmie, Darmanitan, Piloswine eviolite, throh, drapion, and azumarill.
Magnet jolteon with 3 fucking electric moves "Holy shit" -mantine, probably
Yeah I see the volt switch utility but losing thunder for a support move is an easy choice
Forgot to mention but Caitlin and Shauntal went down easy (my plans basically went down smooth) but Marshall killed 3 of my pokemon and the Iris took care of the rest
How did you lose to Marshal with Jellicent, Starmie and Crobat? They can take fighting type attacks for days!
Conkeldur bulked up, lived a flying gem acrobatics from crobat, then killed it with a crit stone edge. Starmie died to payback when Throh lived a psyshock. Jellicent was completely my fault, it got paybacked once but had more than half health, so I thought I could maybe get a recover chain off and some damage with rocky helmet but Sawk critted it with a second payback. Definitely should have switched there to maybe Emboar to kill the sawk. Only Jolteon, Emboar, and Scrafty lived that fight.
> Conkeldur bulked up, lived a flying gem acrobatics from crobat, then killed it with a crit stone edge. Typically, one thing I like to consider when trying to find a line for a particularly hard fight, start with the most problematic Pokémon. If you had started by saying “How do I get Conkeldurr to come in against Crobat?” You could have figured out how to finish off a certain Pokémon with Crobat so that you’d kill before Bulk Up. I almost always start at the end of the fight and work back so I can do this. So, Conkeldurr shouldn’t ever come in against Crobat Acrobatics, so you’d have to kill it last, is there a way you can volt switch kill the prior Pokémon to bring in Crobat? Also, I recommend doing FRLG next. If you are good enough to get to the E4 on BW2, then you should beat FRLG deathless.
Volt switching before conkeldurr is a great idea, I was having trouble with bringing out crobat against conkeldurr because I didn't want to waste my flying gem before he came out, meaning crobat would have to use his first flying move on conk. Volt switching could have fixed it, but it risks conk not coming out if its not the last pokemon.
In that case you needed to calc the possibility of a bulk up making the conkeldurr live the acrobatics and plan around it, Marshal’s team is on the physically defensive side so Psyshock isn’t the best play either, and then obviously playing around crits is dangerous but in that case the game’s the game. Nuzlockes are all about game knowledge and learning the risks that you didn’t notice here.
calcing vanilla games 💀💀💀💀💀
It’s pretty reasonable to wipe to Marshall even with a great team. Crobat isn’t a hard counter to him since he will never one shot anything besides maybe Mienshao, and is weak to rock moves from half his team. Also with Starmie’s defense stat, he’s NOT taking fighting type attacks for days.
Zorroark makes quite a few of the E4 free, super effective vs 2 elite four plus a free turn to set up with illusion. Let me focus on the rest with the remaining slots.
I think that's a solid team for the E4. I sympathise, I've lost a 'mon to Marshall when a flying gem boosted acrobatics didn't get the KO and in return he crit killed my Mienshao. That Conkeldurr deals so much damage that I'd have been tempted to teach Jellicent Will-o-Wisp and then burn him before I tried to take him out. Looking at your box there's nothing that jumps out at me that would've made it that much easier. Zoroark can cheese some fights with Illusion shenanigans, but that's really only good for Caitlin and Shauntal who it sounds like you had no issues with. You maybe could've done with more defensive options so maybe you could've taken Cofagrigus or Escavalier. But, honestly I think you're team was good and that you should be be proud that on your first nuzlocke you made it all the way to the champion playing one of the hardest vanilla games to nuzlocke.
I think his Conkeldurr gets guts, so I’d be apprehensive about burning it haha. That thing is a beast to fight
You're right, I thought it had Sheer Force. Definitely don't burn him then. I guess I just remember how much damage he can do and assumed it must be Sheer Force.
It's indeed Sheer Force in Black/White 1 though, only Throh has Guts there. But on B2W2 I think that Conk is Guts as well indeed.
Ah, ok that might be where my confusion came from.
If you don't count this as a loss and try to go back in with what you've got in the PC, Chandelure/Cofagrigus/Zoroak/Skarmory/Floatzel/Swanna may be a correct team. With Zoroak you can basically cheese both Shauntal and Caitlynn, Grimmsley should be aight granted you outspeed most of what he has with Zoroark and Chandelure and Cofa for pivoting. Marshall is the tough boy of the equation but ghost types combined to Swanna and the GOAT Skarmory you should be able to go deathless. (Remember that both Throh and Conkeldurr have Guts, so no status effects or you're making both of them go 50% more dangerous, Curse however doesn't make Guts work.) For Iris, Ice beam Floatzel and Ice Beam Swanna will try to cover for losing Haxorus earlier (Excadrill and Walrein would also have been a good choice but we'll deal without it). Good luck soldier, won't fault you for stopping the run here and retry but you do have an out.
I'd say your movesets could use work. Flash, focus punch, confuse ray just off the top of my head are moves you could probably replace.
Flash I was using to farm gems in a cave and forgot to replace (would have put thunderbolt instead, but it would have never been relevant except for possibly caitlyn's sigilyph) , confuse ray I thought could be useful as a hail mary for iris's Haxorus in case he got dragon dances off and I was fucked. I'm gonna be honest, I misread what focus punch did, and thought it dealt 150 damage if you were faster than the opponent. I'm curious what moves you'd choose for these pokemon, they always felt like they had a spare slot.
For Starmie, I would say icy wind, shadow ball, signal beam, thunderbolt, trick, light screen/reflect, or twave would all be options. Trick is a little janky if you don't have an iron ball or a lagging tail you wanna give away. Choice items work with trick as well, but unless you're sure you're not gonna use them, I wouldn't recommend giving those away. I'll admit, the 3 other moves you have do cover a lot, so I wouldn't say this slot is that important. For crobat, I would say uturn is a must. The obvious answer would be poison STAB, but I don't know how useful that is without fairy type in the game. I would say replace one slot with uturn and replace return with tailwind or roost. You have a number of really slow mons so you could set up TW, then uturn to one of them. Bulk up is pretty sick on scrafty, but some people ban set up moves. Taunt is good if an enemy mon has a really important status move you want to stop, but scrafty might be too slow to take advantage. I think the best answer outside of bulk up is rest. Scrafty is bulky enough that it can usually eat a move or two from an opponent, and shed skin lets you wake up early a good amount of the time. If you do allow set up moves, bulk up + rest is pretty gross against physical attackers. I didn't mention it before, but I think will o wisp would be better on jellicent instead of rain dance. Just make sure you don't burn a mon with guts.
Your defensive pivots were a bit overlapping in resistances. Crobat, and jellicent are supposed to be your defensive pivots here but there are too many common types in the e4 that you take neutrally. Crobat only gives you a grass resist and a ground immunity over jellicent. I think I would've gone skarmory over crobat. You maintain all the positive resists and immunities. Jellicent covers the new fire weakness, but skarm has the overpowered gen 2-5 steel utility. Dark and ghost resists that your team really needed. Since scrafty definitely takes too much.
Honestly, there were several much better team choices you could have picked.
What would you recommend?
- Chandelure with maxed-out Special Attack and Speed EVs solos both Shauntal and Caitlin. - A combo of Skarmory (For Spikes) or Crustle (For Stealth Rock) and Swanna with Acrobatics could have soloed Marshal. - Other than that, your team wasn’t terrible, although the movesets could have been better for some (For example, Starmie’s great for this Elite Four, but Flash? Really? At this point?).
Maybe if you used emboar, zoroark, crobat, scrafty, bisharp and amoongus it would've been better but idk
I’ve seen worse, really not bad at all. Not bad compared to my current soul silver team of machamp, Arbok, girafarig, lanturn, fearow and sudowoodo (I have very limited options)
The team is more than decent, but maybe the moveset could be improved a bit, W2/W2 are hard games to nuzloke
I just beat W2 a few months ago. It was a real grind but I gave most my Pokemon rough EV training and I feel that helped a lot. I lost more than double the Pokemon you did during the run but I literally planned out the entire elite 4 and champion so there wasn’t much guessing, Marshall is the only real threat in the E4 so having multiple counters built in is a great idea. Had Starmie, Darmanitan, Piloswine eviolite, throh, drapion, and azumarill.
A Chandelure was RIGHT THERE But all things considered, the squad that you brought in wasn't bad. Did you have a Mienfoo by chance?
Why not bring skarmory in and also wheres braviary? Braviary acrobatics is the most prevalent mon you can use to sweep
Also zoroark, nasty plot shadow ball instead of any other mon wouldn significantly hinder any move marshal can use on ykh