Hehe, I love that kind of stuff. You're going to have people running away from the Tower, longing for the single-player version...

...and I only wrote the Star of the Year and the honorable mentions, and the file size is already of 8.19 KB. This is going to be LONG.

Wouldn't be a Slowflake rant if it weren't! The losers portion has always been more interesting to read, particularly when it includes the stuff they obviously tried to buff and failed to give it what it needed.

The "funny" part about what I'm doing is that people utterly despise those PIs in the BT when their EV spreads and movesets are basically atrocious. I mean look at Abomasnow- Leech Seed, Giga Drain, Ingrain, Sheer Cold. What the hell is that supposed to accomplish? And yet it has the permaweather and OHKO, which is all it takes to infuriate people.

Whereas mine has that plus three other moves that tend to cause a lot of shit for two of the most common pokes used on wifi BT- Scizor and Garchomp.

Nothing amuses me more than Trickscarf leads, which are also very common. If you've read anything pertaining to the BT on Smogon, people going for streaks HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE OHKO leads for exactly that reason.

I have to say, due to the AI tendency to never switch, it's been undeservingly easy to conquer rooms when I'm trying to seed the Articuno teams. Way too many choiced Garchomps and bulky waters (that same team has a Nidoking, which of course manipulates them into quaking.)

The losers portion has always been more interesting to read, particularly when it includes the stuff they obviously tried to buff and failed to give it what it needed.

I don't think I need to tell you there's gonna be a LOT of these.

And the Pokéearth has finally been updated with trainer rosters! I checked a random Kanto route for kicks, and decided on route 3. Well, GSC had four trainers there, while HGSS has TEN! Route 8 went from 5 to 7, while the Silence Bridge area went from 18 to 35 (including a LEVEL 65 MAGIKARP!).

35? FUCKING SILENT BRIDGE

PUT A GODDAMN REST STOP SOMEWHERE GAMEFREAK, WE'RE NOT MADE OF PP

Hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! I just uploaded a replay of the team I'm currently seeding, the Pinsir one, embarassing the team of a trainer I've fought a lot while running the ranks. This is significant because this same guy uploaded a replay a couple days ago of his team having its way with my Gliscor one.

The only difference is, while my CPU-controlled bastards managed to get him down to his last poke before Lapras kicked the bucket, the AI didn't faint even one of mine. Flygon even managed to land its first Fissure on his Garchomp while it was locked into Stone Edge (I didn't use Outrage, a guaranteed OHKO, because his next poke was Ludicolo and I didn't want to give it a cheap shot. Chomp was scarfed, so Stone Edge was a 5HKO, plenty of time to successfully Fissure it.)

By my count, RBY had 33. So yep, it looks like HGSS Kanto is as populated as it was in RBY and FRLG, which is good in a way, because Kanto can pretend to be something more than a glorified Battle Zone.

Also, flying back to Lavender or Fuchsia isn't so bad, because you can go all the way between both cities without fighting a single random battle, which speeds getting back to where you were immensely. I'd say big dungeon crawls (like Mt. Coronet) are a lot more complicated to deal with.

When Serebii said Kanto trainers would use pokes outside 1st and 2nd gen, I kinda figured it would be "more than once every two dozen trainers" and that these appearances would include more than one poke per trainer.

Kanto is still seemingly 99% 1st-2nd gen, a fact I find mildly disappointing.

I'm really glad I don't have much headway done in the column, because the big news that fell today really changed what I was going to write in the Losers section.

I mean, PorygonZ and Cresselia out of OU, of course! What, did you think I was talking about the movie 13 merch? It's Lugia and Ho-Oh, for sure. There, problem solved.

....Cresselia?.. Well, as long as they aren't put in UU, I'm not all that surprised.

And I just found out that you don't have to actually be indicated as a leader of a particular room to be fought there. I checked the first 11 rooms plus some others that I had done, and returned to the three that didn't list me as a leader; lo and behold, the second person I face is me, using the Hippowdon team.

Guess this makes my mission a little less time consuming, I guess.

And I am rather surprised to see the effectiveness of Counter Gliscor in action. I guess the ingame BT pokes aren't all bad. After having enough HP to OHKO both a Tyranitar and Metagross with Counter, I landed a Guillotine on the following Gliscor, but it was sashed and finished me off. So much for a clean sweep.

Don't think I'm gonna play Rumble much anymore.. so here's one for the road.

Actually, they're both heading straight to UU, but expect them to be at the center of all the debates until the next round of voting.

I can see P-Z being to UU what Scizor is to OU, especially considering base 90 speed doesn't suck nearly as much in that tier.

It's gotten to the point I face myself at least once if not twice when playing a room... that's enough for now. I wish people would upload their fights since based on those that do, they're fighting me a lot. Surely one of em has to be entertaining.

Updated the topic title. Of course it doesn't mean it'll start tomorrow... maybe this week, but more likely next weekend.

So I got everyone up to level 37 with Shield Dragons, and reached the Bal Castle, complete with what I'm told is the best source of ABP until the tail end of the game. I'm unsure of what to do now... the prospect of mastering a few classes is tempting, but even with those statues it'd take quite a while. Besides, right now I've gotten just about all the worthwhile skills of the classes I'm actually using (which would be Knight, Monk, Ninja, Samurai and Mystic Knight for melee, and White, Blue and Time mages, in addition to Summoner, for casting). Everyone also has Mix and Gaia... but the problem is that if I don't do the grinding now, I believe I can't get back in the castle for a while. What to do...

Edit: I forgot to mention, obviously I don't have either Dualcast, Rapid Fire or Dual Wield. But even so, grinding here to get them would take a while. All my characters have a few levels in Ninja, so it'd take about 600 ABP to get Dual Wield, as much for Rapid Fire, and double that for Dualcast.

Any intent on doing the Gil Turtle passage before leaving the second continent?

Definitely, if only because there's a bestiary entry to be had. Oh, and money. Lots of money.

Be prepared to do a lot of soft resetting.

While you probably don't need to be told, my strategy was to float and (defend/vanish, forget which) the entire party and then dualcast ice spells on it until it died. Much much much easier said than done of course, the bastard hits like a frigging train, and Turtle has the nice bonus of poisoning and confusing you. Plus he uses it twice in a row! Yay!

I heard Golem could be effective, too. Personally, I'd do it like this: have Float up, have someone spam Golem, set up with Hastega, Protect and Slow, then have one or two Mystic Knights with Spellblade, Two-Handed and Blizzaga.

As for possible ABP grinding, I decided to pursue the cheaper abilities I don't have yet (up to 50 ABP), from classes I didn't raise. At least it'll help ease the guilt, and I might find something useful there.

Edit: You know those rumors about there possibly being five new Pokémon revealed soon? NicoCW of the TSG forums had a hilarious take on it possibly being just another bait-and-switch.

Knowing some of the cruel gimmicks lately, I predict that those 5 Pokemon spoken of earlier will be:
The Blue Pichu that knows Detect.
The Two-headed Pichu that knows Hail.
The Pichu with Armpit Hair that knows Snore.
The Pichu with 6 Butt Cheeks that knows Rapid Spin.
and The Pichu with a Boot Stuck on its Head that knows Selfdestruct.
........and none of them will be able to evolve.

Quote of the year right there.

Heh. And yeah, I would have done spellblade and not casting directly, as those would tend to miss.

Ugh. A brief story of fail on my part:

I'm trying to hack something with HP Fire.

Attempt 1: I don't change the IVs.
Attempt 2: I change the wrong IVs, making 30 SDef instead of 30 Def.
Attempt 3: I don't delete the old codelist before uploading, so all it does is create the same from #2.
Attempt 4: FINALLY. I'm so bent on getting it right this time that I go on a wild killing spree to make sure it has all the characteristics of Fire typing.

Each "attempt" meant loading Pokesav, inputting the crap, loading the AR, putting the crap on it, and starting the game.

IT BEGINS!

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hd3UnFYqR0&fmt=18
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkWe2ax61QQ&fmt=18

Apparently BT Wifi is lax enough that you can successfully upload pokes with technically illegally obtained movesets. Weather Ball on a Platinum-"bred" poke is still okay if the thing can have Weather Ball at all.