[Meta thread] Iron's PokeRole Adventure: The Skull Ruins

[Dragonstrike]

Hey Dragonstrike, have a couple of ideas I want to shot at ya, so here they are!

- Given the wording of Princess's Orders, you could possibly spend XP on them to make them Spread (Or Make Heal Order both Self and Other Targeting).
- If Night Slash could conceivably be channeled as an energy attack (Ala Psycho Cut), it could be made into a Ranged Attack or even a Spread One with enough XP.

I'm also wondering if you had any ideas yourself with our battle strategy against Deoxys, and general suggestions really, or any future Mods you could suggest for Arete? Because Nathan is one of the people Terra's going to 'hire' to research/help him with Arete after the DEOXYS Disaster is done, alongside perhaps Ventus (Oh, the irony), some Scimitar lads (maybe), and probably some researchers from Dr. Mallorn , if at all possible.

Princess barely has any exp right now, lol.  She's been in exactly one battle besides the Tubareel one.  That's why I needed to spend money on learning the Orders instead.

I do need one piece of info from @Iron concerning the Orders, though.  When they're powered up by a large swarm of Combee, how do they change?

Night Slash is decidedly a Contact move, so I imagine you'd also need a Surprise that turns it inyo a ranged attack ala Psycho Cut as well to make something like that work.

It's kinda hard to develop an exact strategy for Deoxys since it's adaptable via changing formes mid battle.  We're going to have to be equally as flexible if we're going to beat it.  A rigid plan is bound to be doomed to fail.  Let's review what each forme's stats are like in the games, though.
Deoxys-N: pretty fast, pretty strong, pretty frail.  However, Iron could have made it more balanced or Insight focused than that.
Deoxys-A: super strong, pretty fast, super frail.  This is the epitome of a glass cannon with a focus on Strength.  It's a better version of Deoxys-N in the games, essentially.
Deoxys-D: almost matchless Defenses, average speed, and not much in the way of offense.  The bulkiest of the bunch, but also the slowest and least offensive.
Deoxys-S: peerless speed and Dexterity, but everything else is decidedly average without question.

Deoxys Prime will probably follow those trends to a degree, but they'll probably matter more against the Clones.  We know each Artifact is especially good against one form each.  The only question is which beats what.

I haven't given Genesect modification much thought, but as long as Arete is willing to be modified and the modifications are humane, Nathan might be able to be convinced to assist.  I wouldn't expect to be sble to get too many members of Almanac or the Scimitars in on it, though.  Dagny's essentially got a laser sight on them at this point.

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

Princess barely has any exp right now, lol.  She's been in exactly one battle besides the Tubareel one.  That's why I needed to spend money on learning the Orders instead.

I do need one piece of info from @Iron concerning the Orders, though.  When they're powered up by a large swarm of Combee, how do they change?

Night Slash is decidedly a Contact move, so I imagine you'd also need a Surprise that turns it inyo a ranged attack ala Psycho Cut as well to make something like that work.

It's kinda hard to develop an exact strategy for Deoxys since it's adaptable via changing formes mid battle.  We're going to have to be equally as flexible if we're going to beat it.  A rigid plan is bound to be doomed to fail.  Let's review what each forme's stats are like in the games, though.
Deoxys-N: pretty fast, pretty strong, pretty frail.  However, Iron could have made it more balanced or Insight focused than that.
Deoxys-A: super strong, pretty fast, super frail.  This is the epitome of a glass cannon with a focus on Strength.  It's a better version of Deoxys-N in the games, essentially.
Deoxys-D: almost matchless Defenses, average speed, and not much in the way of offense.  The bulkiest of the bunch, but also the slowest and least offensive.
Deoxys-S: peerless speed and Dexterity, but everything else is decidedly average without question.

Deoxys Prime will probably follow those trends to a degree, but they'll probably matter more against the Clones.  We know each Artifact is especially good against one form each.  The only question is which beats what.

I haven't given Genesect modification much thought, but as long as Arete is willing to be modified and the modifications are humane, Nathan might be able to be convinced to assist.  I wouldn't expect to be sble to get too many members of Almanac or the Scimitars in on it, though.  Dagny's essentially got a laser sight on them at this point.

Wow, yeah, that IS important to note. Nathan has 12 Will Power right now, so he should be able to easily fuel the cost of her 'second' Ability!

Yeap, but hey, it's still a good idea, seeing as Calam doesn't have much in the way of Ranged Attacks or Spread Moves (Razor Wind is there, but it's a Charge Move, so....). It's certainly something to look forward in the future, I think.

Hm....so depending on what Form it's in at the start of battle, we'll have to change how we attack it accordingly.

D-D probably will have some form of resistant to The Sword's Attacks and could null even SE Damage, so indirect tactics/Moves would have to be used to either break past it or force it out of that form (Like Rage Powder or Taunt), while D-N will probably require heavy usage of The Shield's Anti-Brainwashing Effects + The Halbuk switch the protection around to avoid it 'turning' our allies on us. That, and in that form it could be able to use Items/Those psuedo Capture Devices, so Taunt, Magic Room, and/or Embargo (We have anyone that knows it, or can learn it?) might be necessary to counter that nasty trick of it's.

D-S will be focused on blitzkrieg assault and dodging our attacks, so we either need to find some way to use that against it, force it into Attacking one Target so that it can't immediately Evade, OR use Attacks that are really hard to dodge (Like AoE, Field Moves, Contest Moves, or Buff). D-A, meanwhile, should both be the easiest AND hardest to deal with, as it's likely not going to resort to any tricks to dodge/avoid us Damaging it, but the trade-off is that it will be trying its damndest to nuke us all into oblivion. Shield Damage Protection on priority targets would be crucial at that point, me thinks, or swarming it with so many Targets that is can't take care all of them before it gets wailed on.

There's also the assistance we'll be receiving from Mespirt and the League too, and perhaps other allies if we can manage to wrangle them into our group. No telling how their aid will influence the battle, really. Also, if DMG is any indication, any debuffs that manage to stick on it might fade away after a Round, and Field Buffs like Tailwind/Lucky Chant could be aborted at the end of a Round.

Finally (For now), we have to worry about it's Learnset. It has Recover in all forms, so it could just end up Recovering off any Damage we deal to it, and it has Snatch in all forms but Attack to steal away any buffs we have to benefit itself. We can mitigate this to a degree, but if it gets either off at the wrong time....game over! Deoxys Attack has access to Taunt itself and SUPERPOWER, so it could majorly disable some of our Support Mons/OHKO and/or Insta Kill our Dark types while it's blitzing us down. Defense Mode has Spikes and Counter Moves, the former of which could be empowered to do PD Damage and therefore make ANY of its attacks OHKO and/or Insta Death, and the Counter Moves used against a Sword Boosted Mon......welp, that's one way of dealing with a pest permanently. Then we have Psycho Boost, an Attack ALL modes of Deoxys has. Given it's a Signature Attack of its and Iron's propensity of giving Legends all SORTS of Plot Devices, it's highly like that particular Move is going to be SO much nastier than it is in game (If you can believe that). The Shield might not even be able to fully defend against it, so we have to think of something to counter it beyond fielding Dark Types or using Out of Bound Moves to dodge it (Or trying for a Crit Evasion, which only Nathan could really do, given his insane DEX and Evasion scores).

....If they are not, then Terra won't invite Nathan onto the project/fire him immediately. He's pragmatic enough to empower Arete even if they/she won't like the processes, but he knows Nathan's stance on Pokemon rights (Which he shares, for the most part) and wouldn't subject them to such a moral delimea (or invite their scathing criticism on himself) and take the full moral responsibility himself.

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Wow, yeah, that IS important to note. Nathan has 12 Will Power right now, so he should be able to easily fuel the cost of her 'second' Ability!

Yeap, but hey, it's still a good idea, seeing as Calam doesn't have much in the way of Ranged Attacks or Spread Moves (Razor Wind is there, but it's a Charge Move, so....). It's certainly something to look forward in the future, I think.

Hm....so depending on what Form it's in at the start of battle, we'll have to change how we attack it accordingly.

D-D probably will have some form of resistant to The Sword's Attacks and could null even SE Damage, so indirect tactics/Moves would have to be used to either break past it or force it out of that form (Like Rage Powder or Taunt), while D-N will probably require heavy usage of The Shield's Anti-Brainwashing Effects + The Halbuk switch the protection around to avoid it 'turning' our allies on us. That, and in that form it could be able to use Items/Those psuedo Capture Devices, so Taunt, Magic Room, and/or Embargo (We have anyone that knows it, or can learn it?) might be necessary to counter that nasty trick of it's.

D-S will be focused on blitzkrieg assault and dodging our attacks, so we either need to find some way to use that against it, force it into Attacking one Target so that it can't immediately Evade, OR use Attacks that are really hard to dodge (Like AoE, Field Moves, Contest Moves, or Buff). D-A, meanwhile, should both be the easiest AND hardest to deal with, as it's likely not going to resort to any tricks to dodge/avoid us Damaging it, but the trade-off is that it will be trying its damndest to nuke us all into oblivion. Shield Damage Protection on priority targets would be crucial at that point, me thinks, or swarming it with so many Targets that is can't take care all of them before it gets wailed on.

There's also the assistance we'll be receiving from Mespirt and the League too, and perhaps other allies if we can manage to wrangle them into our group. No telling how their aid will influence the battle, really. Also, if DMG is any indication, any debuffs that manage to stick on it might fade away after a Round, and Field Buffs like Tailwind/Lucky Chant could be aborted at the end of a Round.

Finally (For now), we have to worry about it's Learnset. It has Recover in all forms, so it could just end up Recovering off any Damage we deal to it, and it has Snatch in all forms but Attack to steal away any buffs we have to benefit itself. We can mitigate this to a degree, but if it gets either off at the wrong time....game over! Deoxys Attack has access to Taunt itself and SUPERPOWER, so it could majorly disable some of our Support Mons/OHKO and/or Insta Kill our Dark types while it's blitzing us down. Defense Mode has Spikes and Counter Moves, the former of which could be empowered to do PD Damage and therefore make ANY of its attacks OHKO and/or Insta Death, and the Counter Moves used against a Sword Boosted Mon......welp, that's one way of dealing with a pest permanently. Then we have Psycho Boost, an Attack ALL modes of Deoxys has. Given it's a Signature Attack of its and Iron's propensity of giving Legends all SORTS of Plot Devices, it's highly like that particular Move is going to be SO much nastier than it is in game (If you can believe that). The Shield might not even be able to fully defend against it, so we have to think of something to counter it beyond fielding Dark Types or using Out of Bound Moves to dodge it (Or trying for a Crit Evasion, which only Nathan could really do, given his insane DEX and Evasion scores).

....If they are not, then Terra won't invite Nathan onto the project/fire him immediately. He's pragmatic enough to empower Arete even if they/she won't like the processes, but he knows Nathan's stance on Pokemon rights (Which he shares, for the most part) and wouldn't subject them to such a moral delimea (or invite their scathing criticism on himself) and take the full moral responsibility himself.

Let's consider some basic Attribute traits and matchups again.
Strength: how hard you hit
Vitality: Bulk
Dexterity: Speed
Insight: reading situations/resisting statuses

Raw Strength is usually countered in one of two ways:
- dodging attacks (high Dex)
- tanking attacks (high Defense)

Strong Defense is usually countered by:
- striking hard (high Strength)
- striking many times (high Dex)

High speed is countered by either:
- taking low power hits effortlessly (high Defense)
- landing a few strong blows that are harder to Evade instead of many weaker ones with low accuracy (high Strength)

Insight doesn't usually contribute much to battles, infortunately, but you could argue that higher Insight would better help with judging what the correct course of action may be, and might also encourage more complex strategies.

Those are all one to one Attribute comparisons, of course.  Combinations of high stats makes everything a bit more of a grey area.  Still, depending on what Insight counters, that may help determine the rest.

Another fact to consider is that at minimum, these Deoxys Clones will likely have 40+ HP. If they can take more hits than a Steelix, a pokemon that has 35-40 HP in the wild (30 base, 5-10 Vit), then we can reasonably expect those things to take just as much of a beating.

Note on Arete: humane practices are probably different as far as a Genesect is concerned, given the species's tendency to adapt and change due to natural means.

[Spiritmon]

Windos...you don't...don't tell me you are actually writing some sort of obituary or something. You're char will not die. None of us will. We will destroy Deoxys. We will stop his invasion without sacrifice anyone. This is something I promise. Terra promise too to train with Heart and have their battle...also I grow foundry to their interactions of friendship...

[Lord Windos]

Windos...you don't...don't tell me you are actually writing some sort of obituary or something. You're char will not die. None of us will. We will destroy Deoxys. We will stop his invasion without sacrifice anyone. This is something I promise. Terra promise too to train with Heart and have their battle...also I grow foundry to their interactions of friendship...

For one, I nor you can't know if Terra won't cark it or not on the battlefield. He's sorta a high priority target with Arete and his past 'interaction' with DEOXYS, so even if Nathan manages to draw enough aggro it's going to pay some dire attention to the sagely monk.

For another, Terra also is unsure if he'll survive or not, and he decided to prepare for the outcome of his death accordingly. He actually wrote that will after he nearly died to Giant Tentacruel, as he realized that due to his duties and propensity of getting into the thick of things he was highly likely to die at some point to the dangers that plague the group, and so wrote it up so that everyone knows what his last wishes are. He's fairly pragmatic and realistic like that.

Still, I also hope he doesn't die in battle, but if he does.....well, he's made peace with it now.

[Spiritmon]

Sorry for my reaction...it's just...Argh, I get attached to everyone characters, and the possibility of any character...permanent death, is something who makes me worry. But if it is your wish, or the event happen outside of your control, I accept and respect your decision. You are my friend, so even if I disagree with a event, I must respect in the name of our friendship.

[Iron]

Hmm considerally the situation and stage of late game, Beldum would make be the best pick to get. And after the battle against Deoxys, I could make a request to Dagny in give Heart the last Beldum to make a almight Metagross. Problem is that he doesnt have Egg moves.

@Iron, it is possible to open a exception for Baby Beldum have some other moves since he doesnt learn any Egg moves? I remember a time ago Nintendo and GameFreak give players a pokemon gift with a shiny Beldum who had this order of moves: Hold Back, Iron Head, Zen Headbutt and Iron Defense. Could be possible if the breeders could make a Beldum with Headbutt, Iron Head, Zen Headbutt and Iron Defense as request of breeding? If there is any Pokedollar charge along with Conkelkurr, Heart will paid with no problems. Since the Ruin Conkelkurr is very rare, than nothing more than a Rare Beldum no? Doesnt need to be shiny (although the white Beldum is really beautiful).

Sure, they can breed you a Iron Head, Zen Headbutt, Iron Defense Beldum, which'll be passed along to its evolutions. That's within the original intent of the prize.

[Lord Windos]

Or ask them to breed/teach the Beldum Agility, Icy Wind, and Hammer Arm, if I were to make an alternative suggestion (and if it's actually possible). If the researchers can breed Tutor Moves onto the floating metal arms, you might as well take advantage of that and get a coverage move for Ground Types, and getting Agility and Hammer Arm via breeding means you won't have to pay 38 and 45 XP (respectively) to gain access to counter Dark and fellow Steel types AND gain a potent DEX buff (Which is better than straight Defense in most cases, since it plays a quadruple role in Accuracy, Initiative, Multiple Actions, and Critical Hits). You'd be without powerful dual STABs that could Flinch as a trade-off , but I'd say it's a worthwhile trade overall. That, and Stair City/Dagney probably has Iron Head TMs and/or a Steel Type Tutor that could beef up a Metagross pretty easily on one front, and Zen Headbutt is a learnable move for a fairly modest XP cost. Plus, Metagross starts off with Metal Claw and Confusion, so your living supercomputer won't be without servicable attack options, mate.

EDIT: Forget that DEX also plays a role in Evasion Rolls too, and generally makes travel faster on mount Pokemon that can't learn FLY. That too!

[Dragonstrike]

The thing about hatching pokemon is the evolution line's lowest stage of evolution has to be able to use the moves in question.  A Beldum can only have 5 possible moves in the games (not counting Struggle): Take Down, Headbutt, Iron Head, Iron Defense, and Zen Headbutt.  A typical Beldum's physiology really only allows it to literally ram things head on.  No mouth, no limbs...kinda hard to use a large variety of moves when you're just a floating torso with a head.

[Lord Windos]

The thing about hatching pokemon is the evolution line's lowest stage of evolution has to be able to use the moves in question.  A Beldum can only have 5 possible moves in the games (not counting Struggle): Take Down, Headbutt, Iron Head, Iron Defense, and Zen Headbutt.  A typical Beldum's physiology really only allows it to literally ram things head on.  No mouth, no limbs...kinda hard to use a large variety of moves when you're just a floating torso with a head.

I propose the counter-arguement that it could learn all the Moves I proposed through a combination of those breeders being that good, working with a good stock of Beldum, and some DM Fiat. Plus, I could see a Beldum learning the three Moves I proposed as follows:

Agility: From it's description, it's a semi-'magical' technique that just increases Speed/DEX. In Iron's/Pokerole Campaign, it could happen as the end result of Channeling Earthpower to execute it, something any Pokemon could do.
Icy Wind: Beldum's a Psychic type from a Pseudo Legend lineage that will be have a built in power boost in the form of a Surprise! Generating a chilly breeze shouldn't be too hard for it, really.
Hammer Arm: Beldum's design could also be equated to a head on a claw-arm, so it could use the move by swinging itself at a foe really hard.

In short, unless Iron says 'no' to the Fine Breed Beldum knowing those Moves, I'd say they're reasonable options for ? Moves.