So, uh, I may have taken things a bit TOO much faster.
Don’t get me wrong, it felt great to finish in two settings instead of, like, five for Torterra, but I was overconfident in my endgame strategy and suffered some embarrassing losses along the way.
Infernape’s a fairly uncommon design in that it’s good with physical and special attacks alike. This presented an interesting question. Do I lean into immediate damage and its level-up movepool by getting it Swords Dance, or do I take a safer but TM-intensive approach with Calm Mind? I decided on the latter, as I figured it was my best bet for sweeping Cyrus 3, Bertha, Lucian, and Cynthia.
Hearthome City was the first major hiccup. I was skipping a lot of battles and overestimated Flame Wheel; it failed to OHKO a Gym Trainer’s Haunter, so confusion followed by their Misdreavus’s Psybeam did me in. I hadn’t saved in forever, so I had to black out. Lesson learned. Then the following rival fight’s Prinplup was able to just avoid a Grass Knot 3HKO and 2HKO back (my Infernape was -SpD, mind), so I had to grind from level 31 to 33 to make it a 2HKO and prevent Torrent.
I had planned to buy Swords Dance for Wake upon reaching Veilstone City, but I was nowhere near the 80,000 needed. Skipping Trainers bit me again. Turns out you can get the Amulet Coin from Amity Square. Lesson learned. I ended up fighting the next stretch of Trainers trying to work up enough cash, but the EXP was enough for level 45, so Grass Knot’s raw damage OHKOed Gyarados and Quagsire and had a roll to OHKO Floatzel. I had saved Mach Punch up to then fearing its Aqua Jet, but Infernape ended up out of KO range so it would just go for Brine.
The rest of midgame was smooth sailing. I taught the Brick Break TM from Oreburgh Gate and grabbed Flamethrower from Fuego Ironworks. Upon level 53, my set was (so I thought) complete: Flamethrower, Brick Break, Grass Knot, Calm Mind. The only spot of trouble was the Jupiter and Mars double battle, funnily enough. I was too arrogant to use Calm Mind for a few attempts, and Infernape kept falling to the onslaught of Bronzor’s Extrasensory and Golbat’s Air Cutter.
I had made a couple of oversights in my Elite Four plan. First, Flint. I had assumed that his lead being Houndoom would make for an easy Calm Mind sweep, but it knows Sludge Bomb, and getting poisoned kills the strategy. Without good odds of getting to +6, his Earthquake Infernape, Giga Impact Flareon, and Thunderbolt Magmortar could stand up to Brick Break and dish it back out. I took the hint and went back for Earthquake myself.
Secondly, Cynthia. While getting to +4 or +5 on Spiritomb is easy, it’s still not enough to OHKO Garchomp with Grass Knot or non-Blaze Flamethrower. Infernape couldn’t get too low on HP, either, since Extreme Speed Lucario is there in her last slot to snatch victory from you. I probably should have just bought Focus Blast over getting Earthquake and accepted the bit of inaccuracy. I still managed to squeak out a win, getting 5 boosts and Blaze, then taking Extreme Speed with 1 HP.
The run was rockier than expected, considering Infernape’s insane toolkit. I could have prepared better, but being around 10 levels higher than endgame seemed like just enough. I’m interested to see how other Fire-types without setup and Grass Knot perform, but that will have to wait, as Empoleon is up next.
