- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sorry, to clarify, yes the effect of the move is automatic, I meant to imply that it might not go "I am burnt, switch to Facade now" and may just continue using other moves instead of Facade.
Last edited:
Trails of Tera Steel (Kiseki-inspired Pokemon Academy Quest)
- Thread starter ArvisPresley
- Start date
KnownParadox
Not a sphere
- Location
- Canada
Normally, I'd be all for partaking in the time-honoured tradition of cheesing the overleveled boss with healing and status effects, but the Facade worries are real. It could, however, be too busy using Shadow Moves, but I'm not sure if we want to risk that.
With some planning though, I think we can manage it just fine. My plan is simple. We-
Roland will DOT it to hell, give more Initiative to the entire Frontline, all while dodge-tanking so our entire side gets hit less, and also maybe learning two very neat moves. One proper STAB ranged move in Dragonbreath that paralyzes, and Curse, which is the strongest DOT he could have, I think. The Facade worries are real, but so is Renne, who's coming up next.
Renne will almost entirely negate Vigoroth's Effect and Initiative advantage by herself, heal herself, and most importantly, her double screens support will mean that even if Vigoroth crits a Facade we will have an absolute guarantee that they won't be hurt that bad, even if they're taken out of the fight. With Renne here, nobody on our side will be dying, over the course of the fight. Also, more Bond Points, which is nice.
Meanwhile, Ruby, our brave girl, will be on the Frontline with the other maniacs like Elise, since from what I can see the Frontline is a bit small at the moment. She'll be another tank to protect others, and further nerf the boss's Effect Rolls, and get a new idea for a custom move. There's also the tiny fact that picking Backline for her other pick means IT'S RAILGUN TIME, BABY, WOOO, THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. IT'S ABOUT THE RAILGUN! RAILGUNS RULE! GIGA DRILBUR BREAKER!
With some planning though, I think we can manage it just fine. My plan is simple. We-
Oh, uh. That. Exactly that, I guess.
Roland will DOT it to hell, give more Initiative to the entire Frontline, all while dodge-tanking so our entire side gets hit less, and also maybe learning two very neat moves. One proper STAB ranged move in Dragonbreath that paralyzes, and Curse, which is the strongest DOT he could have, I think. The Facade worries are real, but so is Renne, who's coming up next.
Renne will almost entirely negate Vigoroth's Effect and Initiative advantage by herself, heal herself, and most importantly, her double screens support will mean that even if Vigoroth crits a Facade we will have an absolute guarantee that they won't be hurt that bad, even if they're taken out of the fight. With Renne here, nobody on our side will be dying, over the course of the fight. Also, more Bond Points, which is nice.
Meanwhile, Ruby, our brave girl, will be on the Frontline with the other maniacs like Elise, since from what I can see the Frontline is a bit small at the moment. She'll be another tank to protect others, and further nerf the boss's Effect Rolls, and get a new idea for a custom move. There's also the tiny fact that picking Backline for her other pick means IT'S RAILGUN TIME, BABY, WOOO, THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. IT'S ABOUT THE RAILGUN! RAILGUNS RULE! GIGA DRILBUR BREAKER!
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/They
Roughly what I was thinking, but let's take a look:
Veil of Shadows (Front): speedy attacker, has flinch and dodge options. Dragon Tail is a useful control move
Death from Above (Back): faster than other backline options, DoTs and effect debuffs. Dragon Breath is a useful damage+status move
Speedy Support (Support): Team speed buff, All The DoTs, including Curse
Mind over Matter (Back): Pure damage. Effect roll bonus is a wash with Cat Got Your Tongue.
Cat Got Your Tongue (Support): Enemy roll debuff, still inflicts some damage and effects. Increases Bond
Feel No Evil (Support): Keeps people healthy. Damage basically nil. Increases Bond.
Ironheart (Front): Bulky, gets stronger in a pinch, can set up. Custom Move option.
Seismic Strike (Front): Pure Damage, Shadow Pokémon shouldn't be able to strategize around Dig, meaning she's absorbing less damage. Custom move option.
Terastal Railgun (Back): Even more pure damage, better chance of flinch/para. Custom move option.
I'm definitely feeling Double Support for Renne, since she'll either be increasing our survivability or doing somepretty impressive suppression to Vigoroth's rolls. Likewise, that means probably keeping Roland off Support, which...I think is fine. Facade discussion aside, Support mons aren't going to be able to spam DoTs as well as backliners, and while Curse+Burn is amazing, I expect the battle to be over in less than five turns since we've got (assuming an even line distribution) 6 mons using a move every turn and 3 mons using moves every other turn, at which point Roland would just be getting a third attack in.
That just leaves how to divvy up Ruby. Personally, I think that putting the Railgun option in is good so she and Roland can trade off who's in front and who's artillery. The remaining question then is just whether we want her to absorb damage and hit back with Ironheart, or try to avoid it with Seismic. Since we're doing barriers with Renne...
[] Plan: Witch, Dragon, and Mole Knight
-[] Roland (Veil of Shadows)
-[] Roland (Death from Above)
-[] Renne (Cat Got Your Tongue)
-[] Renne (Feel No Evil)
-[] Ruby (Ironheart)
-[] Ruby (A Certain Terastal Railgun)
EDIT: I can't read.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh.
It's a shame our friendship actions are so short in supply, because Thea is a pretty cool gal in her own right.
Man, the hype is real. Also had to include this
That content warning forgot to include assault cause I think I just witnessed it here
That content warning forgot to include assault cause I think I just witnessed it here
SolarGemX
The Crystalized Sun
- Location
- Somewhere in the Cosmos
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly im also hoping they dont have the other thing that makes shadow pokemon terryfying. Shadow moves... supereffective moves against EVERYTHING. Is it bad that i hope vigoroth mentally affected enough to not have these?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ok, Mechanics time.
First - what are we optimising for? How do we Win?
So - no time limit. Just a damage race. Presumably, the fight will end narratively at the point where enough Pokemon have been knocked out by Vigoroth with something else intervening - our success is how much damage we can do first.
How much damage do we need to do?
So, we need to do at least 300 damage, and hopefully 600 damage, to a pokemon who takes 50% less damage to everything but Fairy type attacks (25% less to those). Meanwhile, our 400 HP 2nd-badge pokemon take 75% More damage from Attacks. There's 10 pokemon fighting for us in total, so that's 4000 HP in total on our side. Pretty good odds, even with the multipliers
Now we can start calculating how quickly our team can do 600 damage, but there's something we want to calculate first.
How Quickly will Vigoroth faint pokemon?
Vigoroth will attack twice per turn, both at the last pokemon to damage them. Frontline pokemon may be able to intercept them, if their initative beats vigoroths 1d20+5. For 4 pokemon with no initiative boosts this will happen 76% of rounds, for 5 83%, and for 6 88%. So it's pretty likely. All the potential frontliners have 400 HP and take 75% More damage, except for Ruby who takes 50% More if Frontlining
Vigoroth, as a 5th-badge pokemon, probably has Mastered some Complex moves (Given Renne has just started learning them at 3rd badge). That is 3d100+100 * 1.75 damage, or a mean of 437 damage, 87.5 standard deviation.
So Vigoroth will knock out ever pokemon in one or two hits. Ruby is more likely to get a 2HKO than 1HKO, but we can expect to Lose 1 to 2 pokemon every turn. Facade is not much of a worry, not because it won't be powerful but because Vigoroth is already able to 1HKO any pokemon even with a neutral Facade, so the boost is just overkill.
So we can see this is a damage race, and one that is likely to be over in 5 or 6 turns due to Vigoroth just knocking all the Pokemon out. To determine our strategy, first we must know
How much damage will our allies do?
Our allies have 7 Pokemon. Roles are flexible but lets say 5 are attacking each turn to start (Support pokemon don't attack every turn or at all) and this goes down 1 per turn due to KO's from Vigoroth. That is 5+4+3+2+1 = 15 attacks from our allies. Since we're dealing with so many attacks from so many pokemon, we can standardize them to a "Representative Attack"
We're going to assume every pokemon has a STAB Skilled Intermediate move it can use - base damage 1d75+75 *1.25. This is what Roland has. Average Effect of +5 better than Vigoroth for that x1.05. And half attack from the Frontline and half from the Backline, so Vigoroth's damage resistance is 40% on average. How much damage does that do?
[ 1d75+75 *1.25 *1.05] *0.6 = 73.45 * 15 = 1101 damage More than we need to end the encounter, even before Mariana's Pokemon get involved.
Now, this does make some assumptions about attack power and density from our team, but I think it does hold, even if attacks are 1d50+50 we'd do 600 damage in 15 attacks.
Our Allies have enough firepower to put this Vigoroth down already, but no without withstanding nasty casualties from doing so.
So what does that mean about our options?
First Ruby should take both Frontline Options (Seismic Strike and Ironheart)
They reduce either Vigorth's Effect or Initiative Rolls, and mean there is another body able to roll to intercept Vigoroth's attempts to attack non-Frontline Targets. Reduced Effect means more damage by Every other pokemon, and reduced Initative means less chance to hit Backliners or Supports.
Second Roland should take the non-Support options (Death from Above and Veil of Shadows)
More damage is good. Burn only reduces physical attacks by 25% in the system, which does lower the average attack from Vigororth to a 2HKO from a 1HKO - if it doesn't have Facade or Guts, then we're back in 1HKO territory.
Thirdly Renne should take both support options
Renne's backline damage would be helpful here, but it's not required to win. We need to improve our bond with her and both the support options are powerful effects and good for our safety.
We should win this fight with a S-Rank, but expect one of if not both of Roland and Ruby to be wounded doing so
So, the plan.
[] Plan Mechanically Optimal
-[] Roland (Veil of Shadows)
-[] Roland (Death from Above)
-[] Renne (Cat Got Your Tongue)
-[] Renne (Feel No Evil)
-[] Ruby (Ironheart)
-[] Ruby (Seismic Strike)
Which in the end is only different from the others in a single Ruby option, but I hope the analysis is useful.
First - what are we optimising for? How do we Win?
So - no time limit. Just a damage race. Presumably, the fight will end narratively at the point where enough Pokemon have been knocked out by Vigoroth with something else intervening - our success is how much damage we can do first.
How much damage do we need to do?
So, we need to do at least 300 damage, and hopefully 600 damage, to a pokemon who takes 50% less damage to everything but Fairy type attacks (25% less to those). Meanwhile, our 400 HP 2nd-badge pokemon take 75% More damage from Attacks. There's 10 pokemon fighting for us in total, so that's 4000 HP in total on our side. Pretty good odds, even with the multipliers
Now we can start calculating how quickly our team can do 600 damage, but there's something we want to calculate first.
How Quickly will Vigoroth faint pokemon?
Vigoroth will attack twice per turn, both at the last pokemon to damage them. Frontline pokemon may be able to intercept them, if their initative beats vigoroths 1d20+5. For 4 pokemon with no initiative boosts this will happen 76% of rounds, for 5 83%, and for 6 88%. So it's pretty likely. All the potential frontliners have 400 HP and take 75% More damage, except for Ruby who takes 50% More if Frontlining
Vigoroth, as a 5th-badge pokemon, probably has Mastered some Complex moves (Given Renne has just started learning them at 3rd badge). That is 3d100+100 * 1.75 damage, or a mean of 437 damage, 87.5 standard deviation.
So Vigoroth will knock out ever pokemon in one or two hits. Ruby is more likely to get a 2HKO than 1HKO, but we can expect to Lose 1 to 2 pokemon every turn. Facade is not much of a worry, not because it won't be powerful but because Vigoroth is already able to 1HKO any pokemon even with a neutral Facade, so the boost is just overkill.
So we can see this is a damage race, and one that is likely to be over in 5 or 6 turns due to Vigoroth just knocking all the Pokemon out. To determine our strategy, first we must know
How much damage will our allies do?
Our allies have 7 Pokemon. Roles are flexible but lets say 5 are attacking each turn to start (Support pokemon don't attack every turn or at all) and this goes down 1 per turn due to KO's from Vigoroth. That is 5+4+3+2+1 = 15 attacks from our allies. Since we're dealing with so many attacks from so many pokemon, we can standardize them to a "Representative Attack"
We're going to assume every pokemon has a STAB Skilled Intermediate move it can use - base damage 1d75+75 *1.25. This is what Roland has. Average Effect of +5 better than Vigoroth for that x1.05. And half attack from the Frontline and half from the Backline, so Vigoroth's damage resistance is 40% on average. How much damage does that do?
[ 1d75+75 *1.25 *1.05] *0.6 = 73.45 * 15 = 1101 damage More than we need to end the encounter, even before Mariana's Pokemon get involved.
Now, this does make some assumptions about attack power and density from our team, but I think it does hold, even if attacks are 1d50+50 we'd do 600 damage in 15 attacks.
Our Allies have enough firepower to put this Vigoroth down already, but no without withstanding nasty casualties from doing so.
So what does that mean about our options?
First Ruby should take both Frontline Options (Seismic Strike and Ironheart)
They reduce either Vigorth's Effect or Initiative Rolls, and mean there is another body able to roll to intercept Vigoroth's attempts to attack non-Frontline Targets. Reduced Effect means more damage by Every other pokemon, and reduced Initative means less chance to hit Backliners or Supports.
Second Roland should take the non-Support options (Death from Above and Veil of Shadows)
More damage is good. Burn only reduces physical attacks by 25% in the system, which does lower the average attack from Vigororth to a 2HKO from a 1HKO - if it doesn't have Facade or Guts, then we're back in 1HKO territory.
Thirdly Renne should take both support options
Renne's backline damage would be helpful here, but it's not required to win. We need to improve our bond with her and both the support options are powerful effects and good for our safety.
We should win this fight with a S-Rank, but expect one of if not both of Roland and Ruby to be wounded doing so
So, the plan.
[] Plan Mechanically Optimal
-[] Roland (Veil of Shadows)
-[] Roland (Death from Above)
-[] Renne (Cat Got Your Tongue)
-[] Renne (Feel No Evil)
-[] Ruby (Ironheart)
-[] Ruby (Seismic Strike)
Which in the end is only different from the others in a single Ruby option, but I hope the analysis is useful.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- She/They
I have secret information that Arvis isn't worrying about these, at least for this fight. I'd anticipate a variety of direct damage Normal, Fighting, and Dark moves instead.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fun Fact! Vigoroth will probably 1HKO everything anyways, even without shadow Moves!
Just hope it doesn't have AOE attacks (it is only a Vigoroth at least)
- Location
- in between
.... Well. Shit.
Okay, so Bragg needs to die. Immediately. Kinda glad Lokix isn't here, but he probably will be soon... from our victory conditions I have a sinking feeling his survival is dependent on how much damage we can dish out before he arrives. I heavily recommend we put as many of our guys on damage dealing as we can.
On the other hand, we also get bonuses for each one we choose, except having Renne on DPS. On every other thing our cat does, we get extra Bond, but not if she's doing damage. In exchange, her support abilities are really powerful, both removing negative effects of failing and nerfing the evil sloth. We should probably have her doing both support actions.
Roland will learn moves depending on what we pick. If we go for support he's guaranteed to learn Curse, while both others have a chance of him learning a dragon type attack - which he notably doesn't have right now. Given his fighting style and the situation I advise putting him on Backline and Support - Ghost type Curse is massive for this type of situation, and Roland is best off as a ranged attacker. On the other hand I really don't want to get hit with Facade. It will hurt. A great deal. Especially if this thing has Guts.
Finally Ruby will come up with custom moves for herself, which I didn't expect this early. She's seemingly leaning heavily to being on the Front line, and I'm inclined to let her. On the other hand, railguns.
Okay, so Bragg needs to die. Immediately. Kinda glad Lokix isn't here, but he probably will be soon... from our victory conditions I have a sinking feeling his survival is dependent on how much damage we can dish out before he arrives. I heavily recommend we put as many of our guys on damage dealing as we can.
On the other hand, we also get bonuses for each one we choose, except having Renne on DPS. On every other thing our cat does, we get extra Bond, but not if she's doing damage. In exchange, her support abilities are really powerful, both removing negative effects of failing and nerfing the evil sloth. We should probably have her doing both support actions.
Roland will learn moves depending on what we pick. If we go for support he's guaranteed to learn Curse, while both others have a chance of him learning a dragon type attack - which he notably doesn't have right now. Given his fighting style and the situation I advise putting him on Backline and Support - Ghost type Curse is massive for this type of situation, and Roland is best off as a ranged attacker. On the other hand I really don't want to get hit with Facade. It will hurt. A great deal. Especially if this thing has Guts.
Finally Ruby will come up with custom moves for herself, which I didn't expect this early. She's seemingly leaning heavily to being on the Front line, and I'm inclined to let her. On the other hand, railguns.
SolarGemX
The Crystalized Sun
- Location
- Somewhere in the Cosmos
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well at least vigoroth only ability is Vital spirit. So no falling asleep. No guts (thank you game freak!)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Are you suggesting we do that? Or just... survive long enough for Lokix to kill him instead? Cus like... Mary just puked her guts out on seeing the Vigoroth kill some guys, I don't think more death is what we need in this situation.
- Location
- Montréal
With all this talk about Façade, we should keep in mind that even if we don't go for status, the others might. Notably, Braixen and Charcadet could very well go for burns independently, so I don't think we should act as though we control the proccing of moves like Façade.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I think a very important factor here is going to be Support Renne keeping a Barrier/Reflect up. She can only do it every other round, but it does make the two attacks in that round (or the intervening one) deal half damage, which should stop the OHKO machine and oh my god she really is Tio.
- Location
- in between
The latter, which I didn't think needed to be said out loud but apparently does.
- Pronouns
- She/They
I think we want to have Bragg not die, personally - the train cops made it very clear that they need him for questioning, and I sincerely doubt they're going to get useful testimony out of any of the surviving grunts. Surge is off the table entirely, that's like an act 4 or 5 boss there, and he's definitely got a Teleport escape route via his pancake mouse. If we want to follow the existing thread deeper into this conspiracy, we unfortunately need the bastard alive and able to speak.
StattStatt
Supplier of suspenders for your disbelief
- Location
- On one of your shoulders
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's here, and the hype is so fucking real.
I will give the slightest bit of respect to anyone willing to run with Plusle and Minum on their team though. Thinking about it in a non-game setting though, with the Plus and Minus abilities they're probably incredible bastards to fight.
Got to have some light-hearted stuff before the grim reality sets in. Lovely to see Ostia have a friend that's his own and age and that isn't a surrogate mother.
Theodora rightfully telling Cassandra to reign in her simping and desire to make someone that isn't even here proud of her so the person who should be in charge can actually take charge. Thank Arceus for this lass.
Ah fuck. Doesn't take a genius to figure out the history there. Why do I suddenly get the feeling Theodore doesn't like her family very much, or am I getting ahead of myself.
This mother fucker. The bastard with a literal trash gym, in all his war-crime reverse-glory.
I will give the slightest bit of respect to anyone willing to run with Plusle and Minum on their team though. Thinking about it in a non-game setting though, with the Plus and Minus abilities they're probably incredible bastards to fight.
Oh, so Leaf's hate towards Surge has that kind of history behind it. So not only a former protag herself, but probably a former #child soldier, as well.
I'm suddenly reminded of the "Dark Ball" that the antagonist of the Celebi movie used. Coincidence or intentional, it's probably not a good sign either way.
More trauma to Mary's presumed pile of repressed/supressed memories. The entire class better get sent to a therapist after this (assuming they're not as rare as legendary pokemon that is).
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Honestly I think Lokix might accept that if we have Vigoroth. They're old pals after all, and Lokix might help them through being a Shadow Pokémon.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Therapy isn't in the school budget sorry. Just ignore the horrifying scene of a Vigoroth tearing people to shreds as blood hits your face until you feel better!
Bloody*Vermilion
The newbie of newbies on this site
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His/Etc
Ohhhh, so that's how our big guns aren't available.
And also damn, you really aren't unselling the difficulty of the boss battle.
- Location
- United Kingdom
I think I'd actually be willing to trade increased risk of injury for a better chance at getting the A/S rank. I agree it probably will have an effect on whether Lokix makes it out, though I don't know if we should he worrying about any of our groups Mon dying if we roll badly enough?
Either way I'd rather have one of Renne's focuses being on the frontline.
Either way I'd rather have one of Renne's focuses being on the frontline.
- Location
- England
Poppy knows what to do about the dozens of heartbroken women following in Rika's wake. There there, Cassandra. It's okay. You're not alone. These things happen. There's nothing to be ashamed of.
Bit weird that this is stepping away from the Shadow Pokémon rules from XD where they only learn non-Shadow moves as their Heart begins to open up. Which... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Bragg hasn't been doing.
Though maybe GO did it differently?
- Pronouns
- She/They
The thing about that is, the longer our pokemon stay up, the more damage they can do. As far as we are aware, we have an HP limit, not a time limit. Barrier/Reflect turns OHKOs into 2HKOs, and the nature of Shadow Pokémon targeting means that's probably two Pokémon at the end of the round still up instead of unconscious. I'd say that's definitely worth trading even Renne's superior damage for.
Now if you wanted to drop Cat Got Your Tongue instead, that'd be more understandable, but dropping initiative is also important to make sure that we can tactically redirect (i.e. spread out) Vigoroth's damage.
Listen, I'm going to level with you, I am a turbo casual who knows nothing about Gale of Darkness or Shadow Pokémon. I could have misunderstood here and Arvis is just dropping Shadow type's offensive supereffectiveness.