#gymitems | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

raeynbowboi · 1 year

Text

Pokémon Gym Leader League Challenge: Fairy Type

I like Pokémon, and I’ve seen people create their own OC gym leaders. But, I wanted to take it a step further by creating the League Challenge. So, what is a Pokémon Gym Leader League Challenge? You still create an OC gym leader, but you show their progression through the entire League: starting off as the first gym leader, and progressing all the way up to Champion. I’m aware that Gym Leaders are starting to be put in an unstandardized order, so for this mock-up, I’m looking at the Pokémon model from the first 4 generations, where you had to fight the gym leaders in a given order as they got stronger, and the Elite Four was also set in a particular order as well. Since Fairy is my favorite Pokémon type, I figured I should give it the honor of going first.

STARTER POKEMON: RALTS

Gardevoir has been my favorite Pokémon since I saw Wally’s my first time playing Ruby, and was so jealous that I completely reset the game ON Victory Road so I could get a Gardevoir. Now, while Gardevoir will be the ace Pokémon by the late game, Ralts has rather poor stats, and isn’t suited to being the ace of an early gym. So, for the first couple of gyms, Ralts will be demoted to a lower station in the gym while another Pokémon serves as the Ace, at least until it evolves, and can actually be worthy of being the Ace of a gym.

THE GYM:

For the fairy type specialist, the gym would be modeled after a fairytale castle. Typically, gym puzzles get more complicated as you go up through the league, so I’ll just say that the gym’s puzzle would be somehow linked to fairytales. Swinging between platforms on braids of Rapunzel’s hair. A poisoned apple being shuffled among non-poisoned ones and having to pick the right one to avoid a trainer battle for Snow White. Or, Having until the clock strikes 12 to reach the gym leader or else you’ll be sent back to the start for Cinderella.

THE BADGE:

I’m honestly really disappointed with the fairy-type Gym Leaders we’ve had thus far. They seriously both named their badge the exact same thing, and it’s just the name of the type? Really? The Fairy Badge? So, for my gym, I thought about the vibe I’m giving off with my gym. The present theme of fairy tales and the castle aesthetic. I decided to go with The Enchanted Badge and model it after a crown.

THE LEADER:

Given the castle aesthetic and fairy tale themes of the gym, I’d model myself after a Prince Charming-like figure, with red and pink as signature colors. I suck at drawing, so Baron Alberto from Rise of Darkrai shall have to suffice as a face claim for this hypothetical alter ego. Since Gym Leaders are usually named something punny or referential, I’ll go with Gym Leader Oberon, after the King of the Faeries in English folklore.

1ST GYM

Items: Potion x2 TM: Draining Kiss

Typically in a first gym in the early generations, you’d see a team of about 2-3 Pokémon, with the weaker Pokémon being about level 12 or 13, and the Ace usually being capped at around level 15. Typically, the TM is one that deals around 60 base damage, so I chose Draining Kiss at 50 base power, which comes the closest, and has the added benefit of a self-healing factor.

2ND GYM

Items: Superpotion x2 TM: Draining Kiss

I considered initially swapping Marill and Sylveon at this stage so that Marill could evolve, but decided against it. Sylveon is already a pretty strong Pokémon, and adding an Azumarill for the second gym in a region seemed a bit unbalanced. Luckily, this is the last gym where the majority of the Pokémon are stuck in their first stages.

3RD GYM

Items: Super Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Now that we’ve reached the third level, most of our team has finally started to evolve. It’s usually around the 3rd gym that gym leaders start to really pose a challenge, even if they don’t have a type advantage. I decided to add Clefairy to the team because with Kirlia and Azumarill evolved now, we needed a new weak entry-level 1st stage pokemon, and Clefairy is a good choice, with decent bulk, but limited damage output. Now that the Gym has gotten stronger, I elected to increase the power of the main TM, and upgraded from Draining Kiss to Dazzling Gleam.

4TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potion x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

For the most part, this is where our team falls off for a while. Between the 3rd and 5th gyms, we don’t really add many new Pokémon, so it’s just leveling up the Pokémon we already have. Luckily, the next gym will offer a much-needed upgrade.

5th GYM

Items: Hyper Potion x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Well, it took 5 gyms, but our starter is finally strong enough to be our Ace Pokémon. Ironically, Sylveon actually has a higher Base Stat Total than Gardevoir, so it’s actually somewhat of a downgrade, but I don’t care. I love Gardevoir, and it was always my first choice for being my Ace. Now, it’s finally strong enough to warrant that position.

6TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

Finally at about the 6th gym is when Gym Leaders start to really augment their teams with TM moves and other moves that deviate from a Pokémon's level-up moveset outside of the gym’s signature TM move. So, I elected to teach Azumarill Ice Punch, Sylveon Shadow Ball, and cheated a bit to give Gardevoir Psychic to give it a better reason to be the Ace Pokémon. I could have just gone with a Togekiss, but I felt that Togetic was the better option at this point. It’s BST is higher than Clefairy, but lower than Azumarill, and it has a pretty good spread of type coverage.

7th GYM

Items: Hyper Potions x2 TM: Dazzling Gleam

So in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been basing my Pokemon count and levels by the gym leader teams in Pokemon Emerald, as I recall that game in particular being a good part more challenging than Ruby and Sapphire, and stands out in my mind as the perfect balance between difficult while remaining reasonable. However, Tate and Liza’s gym is a stark jump in level, likely due to the tag team nature of their gym. Since I already have more pokemon than them and I felt that level jump was a bit high, I redistributed the levels based on earlier gym leaders, namely Flannery and Norman’s gyms, using the level cap of their aces for Gardevoir and scaling down accordingly.

8TH GYM

Items: Hyper Potions 2x TM: Moonblast

We finally made it to the final gym in the region, and I finally felt it was time to have Clefairy evolve. Up until now, I’ve been keeping it unevolved because most gyms have a “weak early entry” that’s usually unevolved, but I figured with it being the final badge in the region, the designated runt of the team still deserved to be fully evolved. I debated whether or not to evolve Togetic, as Togekiss is really really strong. Ultimately, I decided that two gyms with Togetic had been enough, and this is the final gym. Of course I’m going to evolve Togetic. With it being the final gym, I also decided now was the time to give my team the strongest fairy-type TM there has ever been: Moonblast. I’m aware that it’s not a TM anymore, but it used to be, so I’m going to count it. With the gym challenge over with, it’s on to the Elite Four.

ELITE #1

Items: Full Restore 2x

Now that we’ve stepped up from Gym Leader to Elite Four, it seemed important to show up with a more competitive team, thus including the nature and EV training of the team. However, this is not a BDSP situation. Their EVs and IVs are not perfect, just favoring these stats. But I also can’t show up looking like a pushover with easily knocked over teams either if I want my Elite Four team to be taken seriously. With the departure from Gym Leader status, I’ve taken to filling out their move pools with more type coverage moves. More importantly, I have to start thinking about type coverage, and fairy has two key weaknesses: Steel and Poison. The best defense would be to get Ground-type moves on as many of the Pokemon as possible, but that’s unfortunately tricky with fairy-types. I made sure Azumarill had Bulldoze, and gave Togekiss Aura Sphere for steel-types, and the other three have psychic-type moves to deal with Poison-types. Sylveon’s Hidden Power works differently than how I remember it working. Hidden Power now turns into whatever type the enemy is weakest to, which against a steel type, may just turn into the fire or ground type coverage that Sylveon needs, which is also why it doesn’t have Pixilate.

ELITE #2

Items: Full Restore 2x

And just like gyms 3-5, we’re back to the point where there isn’t much left to say. The team is pretty much set the way it’s going to be until I become Champion. So, I figure I’ll talk about the Hidden Abilities I allowed two of my Pokémon to have. I chose to allow Clefable to have Magic Guard as it’s a great stall Pokémon between Calm Mind and Moonlight. Making sure it’s immune to Toxic is a great way to ensure it remains a useful wall. But I still left an opening. I opted for Calm Mind over Cosmic Power, meaning it doesn’t raise its Physical Defense, leaving it vulnerable to moves like Poison Jab or Meteor Mash, thus keeping it from being a perfect stall wall.

ELITE #3

Items: Full Restore 2x

As for Togekiss, it mostly came down to its other two abilities not being that great. Serene Grace gets rid of Status Effects upon switch out, but as a Gym Leader, and later, an Elite Four member, they don’t tend to switch out Pokémon, or at least, not very often. Meanwhile, Hustle raises Togekiss’ Attack stat while lowering its Accuracy, and Togekiss is not a physical attacker. Its Attack Stat is a mere 50. Hustle would bring it up to 75. Meanwhile, its Special Attack is 120. It’s much more useful as a fast special sweeper. I could have simply stuck with the ability it’s never (or at least rarely) going to use and just gone with Serene Grace, but I felt that it was worth it to give it Super Luck.

ELITE #4

Items: Full Restore 2x

If this post does well, I’ll continue to do this as a series. You can probably expect me to do Water, Psychic, or Dragon next, since they’re some of my favorites. And if you like the concept, feel free to make your own. Don’t forget to tag me so that I can see all of your awesome league challenges. Without further ado, let’s get to the Champion.

CHAMPION

Items: Full Restore 4x

When it came to choosing the last member of my team, it all came down to type coverage. I focused on which Fairy-type Pokémon could learn Ground-type moves. My top contenders were Granbull, Dachsbun, and Galarian Rapidash. Dacshbun had the benefit of fire-type immunity and could learn Dig and Stomping Tantrum. Granbull had access to Earthquake, and Galarian Rapidash had access to High Horsepower. Although Rapidash has the highest Speed and BST, I felt that Galarian Rapidash comes with a specific drawback. If I use a Pokémon only found in Galar, then I would have to be a Galarian trainer, which would also mean I could only use fairy-types found in Galar, and Marill cannot be found in Pokémon Sword and Shield. Ultimately, I chose Granbull because it has the highest Attack stat, and gets access to the highest damaging ground-type move: Earthquake. Its additional type coverage moves like Fire Fang, Ice Fang, Thunder Fang, Crunch, Brick Break, Outrage, and Iron Tail were just icing on the cake. I made sure Granbull had Fire Fang to take care of Steel Types that might be immune to Ground either due to Levitate or a secondary Flying type. I also gave it Outage as it deals serious damage, but has the drawback of causing confusion, giving hopeful trainers an opportunity to counter Granbull, thus keeping it from being too strong. It is for the same reason that I’m not using Galarian Rapidash that I’m also not using Mega Gardevoir. It’s no longer an available Pokémon in new regions going forward. I would have to be part of the Kalos league in order to use Mega Gardevoir as the Fairy-type Champion.

18 notes · View notes