Happy May, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great month of April. As mentioned before, I did in fact see Gaga last weekend. I do have to say that the concert was absolutely amazing. She’ll be putting on over 100 different shows, so go check her out if you get the chance! I was in the very back row (cheapest seats available, of course) and I was still able to see everything. She eventually rode a human horse out around the audience. Just saying.
Gaga aside, I’m here to bring you the next installment of Gym Leaders: Untamed. Before we visited the sleek and sexy electric type user Elesa. Now we’re focusing on the leader of the Driftveil City Gym, Clay! For some reason or another, I’m a fan of his art design. He comes off as a “business cowboy/Las Vegas casino owner” to me. I like his character as well; he’s just a nice tell-you-how-it-is type of guy. I also like the fact that the gym is set up like an underground mining facility of sorts. Not only that, but ground types hold a special place in my heart for their overall usefulness (Earthquake is one of my favorite moves).
[spoiler]Coolness aside, you don’t need to prepare much for this fight. His lineup is a level 29 Krokorok, a level 31 Excadrill and a level 29 Palpitoad. You’ll probably have a relatively easy time regardless of whichever starter you choose. Snivy will probably 1HKO his Krokorok and will absolutely decimate the Palpitoad with even the weakest grass move (given its leveled up). Oshawott will prove effective against Krokorok and Excadrill specifically as they have a weakness to water, and will fare just fine against the Palpitoad. You should have access to Scald by now as well, which will wipe the floor in one or two hits. Heck, you should even have an easy time with Tepig if you play your cards right. A solid fighting move should be enough to take out Krokorok and Excadrill since it’s their secondary weakness. Palpitoad is a different story, but you will probably have plenty of Pokes to deal with him. I’ve found this to be one of the easier fights in Black and White.
However, just because his team comes with common weaknesses doesn’t mean you should disregard their overall strength. Krokorok will probably try to stick a Swagger on your teammate (a move that raises your attack by two points and confuses you). Now this might raise your attack greatly, but confusion will also deal more damage to you. I would suggest using a quick Pokemon like a Basculine to take him out quickly. I leveled my Tepig to about 34 before taking him on and he was even quicker than his Krokorok, so you shouldn’t have a problem out-speeding him with a teammate. Once he’s done for, he’ll send out Palpitoad. This odd looking toad is probably the least of your worries and more of an annoyance than anything else. He’ll use Muddy Water, a strong water attack that will lower your accuracy. However, Palpitoad is rather slow, so strike fast with a grass attack to take him out in a single hit. Lastly, he’ll send out Excadrill. This is where you should be a bit careful (especially if you don’t have anything strong against his attacks). Excadrill is has incredible speed and strength, which proves to be a deadly combo. He’ll probably use Rock Slide; a low accuracy high power rock attack that can cause you to flinch. This can do some decent damage even to neutral opponents, so be wary. Thankfully all three of your starters will take neutral damage to this (as Tepig’s evolved forms and its secondary fighting type negate the weakness to rock). Wreck Excadrill with a water type attack like Scald or a fire/fighting move like Heat Crash/Hi Jump Kick (Scraggy learns this at level 31) and he’ll be toast.
All you need to really do to prep for this fight is stock up on the usual healing items (lemonade and revive) and get TM55 (Scald), which can be obtained in the Cold Storage. Other than that, there isn’t much left to do! Happy battling, trainers![/spoiler]
Thanks for your support, everyone! What does everyone think of this gym? Did you use a different method than me? I’m eager to read any other tactics.
Also, do you have suggestions for this article? Comments? Hit me up via pokejungle.net under mrbojingles. 안녕(an-yang, or a friendly “goodbye” in Korean ^_^ )!
pokejungle’s PS: Finally making Justin post his own articles :B STAY TUNED FOR POKEMON SMASH COVERAGE! Starts in less than 8 hours! (But please don’t get your hopes up, we don’t expect any new information!)