[Guide] Best Ways To Stat-hunt Legendaries (No Master Ball)

[TheTainted_Wisdom]

I've been soft resetting for many, many times for legendaries and I thought I'd share my methods.

The first thing you're going to need to do is to figure out what kind of ball you want to use to catch a given legendary. If you're stubborn about using one with a low catch chance, you'll need all the resources you can get. But if you're using something like Heavy Balls and Ultra Balls, you likely won't need even half of these preparations.

The next thing you'll want to get your hands on is a Jackdeary or Cottonee, TM 99 (Endeavor) from Victory Road, and a Focus Sash or two from Tsukinami Village.

Jackdeary can work if you go after either Actan OR Lanthan, but it's best used against Actan. Why? Because Jackdeary and Winotinger are the only Pokemon in the entire game that have Inner Focus as an ability to prevent Actan from flinching it with Iron Head AND can learn Endeavor. These qualities are great on their own, but it has another great advantage going for it: learning Baby-Doll Eyes at a really low level (4), therefore, you can use Endeavor to drop Actan's health into the red on the first turn, then use Baby-Doll Eyes to lower its ATK before being KO'd because it's a priority move. Thus making it less dangerous to mons sent out later (which we'll get to in a second.)

Jackdeary also has the potential to work against Aotius and Baitato in the future, as both are Fire-Type Legendaries, and if Jackdeary is burned from a Fire attack, it can ignore damage from it via its other ability Magic Guard (Though sadly it would not stop the damage from something like Ocean's Wrath, and most of them are likely going to be Sp ATKers anyway)

So why use Cottonee against Lanthan if it has the same moveset as Actan? Because Lanthan's Sheer Force ability makes it impossible for Iron Head to Flinch, and Cottonee can use Charm via Prankster to lower Lanthan's ATK by TWO stages instead of just one.

Ideally, you would breed Jackdeary and Cottonee with Baby-Doll Eyes/Charm so that even if Actan/Lanthan use Metal Cruncher on the first turn and miss, you'll get them deep in the red and be able to just use the stat-lowering move against them. Speaking of which, why reduce ATK instead of Accuracy you might ask? Well that's more for longevity; the lower their accuracy gets, the more PP they'll waste on your lead and will be more likely to Struggle later in the fight. If you have weaker mons and better balls, then by all means, go ahead and lower accuracy, but if you want to use something like a Luxury Ball, Pokeball, etc. You'll need them to have all the PP they can get. (Sturdy Comite + Endeavor + Shell Bell + Flash is a good alternative)

The next thing you'll want is a high-level Raffiti, and four moves: Radioacid (to KO outside threats with ease), Sweet Scent (to lower the legendary's evasion), Sleep Powder, and Hypnosis (To incapacitate the legendary without having to resort to the RNG of Paralysis). To Sketch these moves reliably, simply visit the Move Deleter and Reminder in Venesi City so that a given mon has the precise move you want and have it hold a Smoke Ball (Bealbeach Casino), go to the Labyrinth and use the Smoke Ball to escape Shadow Tag Linkites until you run into a Duplicat. Stall by just playing the Yellow Flute (Bealbeach Casino again) over and over again until it uses Transform, switch to Raffiti, and Sketch the move. Go back to the move deleter and reminder, get Sketch again, repeat. Once in battle, you only need to use Sweet Scent a single time for Hypnosis and Sleep Powder to work 100% of the time for the rest of the battle!

Then you'll need a Female Eevee and Field Egg Group Pokemon/Duplicats with a desired Nature(s) so that you can breed one at the Daycare Center with the Everstone (Refer to Aiden's Breeding guide if necessary https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LY94iRj...Sozpk/view ) Then evolve it (just force-feed it a ton of berries from the shop in Kevlar Town to speed that up) into an Espeon/Umbreon with the Synchronize ability to maximize the odds that the Legendary will have the desired Nature. Let it faint, and put it in the front of the party.

The last thing you'll need are a couple of S51-As. The Steel-Typing is good against Elite Trainer Adam's Nucleon defensively and can be taught Psychic and Dark Pulse which are solid against the aforementioned Nucleon as well as his Gengar. Speaking of which, you should travel with a team dedicated to beating Adam and the other trainers on the way through Lanthanite cave, then KO Lantan afterward. This will send you back to before you entered the cave, but you'll have the TMs and the trainers won't bother you. It will make things easier when going through with only a party of 5, which is what will be ideal since it will let you check Lanthan's stats and nature immediately afterward. Just do NOT use an Escape Rope. Otherwise, you will be teleported out like you caught Lanthan, it will disappear, and you'll NEVER be able to catch it again. If you need to adjust your strategy, just KO Lanthan instead.

Anyway, as I was saying. S51-A is great because it's immune to both Ground attacks, resistant to both Steel attacks, can learn Hypnosis to put the legendaries to sleep, Flash for more accuracy drops, Simple Beam for faster stat drops (though keep in mind that Lanthan will be able to reduce DEF with Metal Cruncher), Recover for free healing, and on top of all that, can learn Trick. This is important because if the legendaries get low on PP, the ONLY way to restore points is to trick a Leppa Berry on them so that they eat it as even if Endeavor didn't put them in red health, Fling doesn't work with the Leppa Berry the way it's supposed to.

So, lead with your fainted Synchronizer, followed by your Endeavor user. Use that, followed by the stat-lowering move of your choice. Next, send out Raffiti with Leftovers. Use Sweet Scent, then Hypnosis/Sleep Powder and chuck balls at the Legendary while it snoozes. Use Hyper Potions if it gets too many crits, and switch outright if Actan gets too many DEF drops from Metal Cruncher. Otherwise, keep using the Sleep moves until there's only one left, use it, and then switch to one of the 2 S51-As. Put it to sleep again if it wakes up, and then immediately use Trick to give it the Leppa Berry. Use Hypnosis 10 more times, then switch to the other S51-A, use Trick while it's asleep, and use as many Hypnosis moves as you can.

With this method, you should get well over a hundred opportunities to catch Actan and Lanthan if need be. Though again, Heavy and Ultra Balls will simplify the process and likely outright ELIMINATE the need for even a single S51-A depending on the Raffiti's level.

Future legendaries will likely be best dealt with via an Endeavor Swabone (so that the scrappy ability can bypass Mutios' Ghost typing) + a Focus Sash/Choice Scarf Memento Linkite/Chainite to quickly cut SP ATK. And with all the unreleased legendaries besides Zephy having the Pressure ability, there's likely going to be more of an issue with the Player running out of PP more than the legendary...