Good day, everyone! Mr.Bojingles here bringing you the seventh installment of Gym Leaders: Untamed. I hope you all have had a wonderful week. I’m fairly excited with all of the wonderful recent news regarding Black and White 2 and the special appearance of old faces. I hope more news will come this weekend!
I also downloaded Diablo 3 today and I must say I’m quite impressed. It doesn’t trump the release of Diablo 2, but it’s still pretty darn good. I started up my Witchdoctor and made it to level 11 in about two hours before started dinner/writing. Today is also Teacher’s Day, which is a huge day in Korea in celebration of. . .well. . .teachers! My kids’ parents all pooled in money and got myself and my co-teacher a giant gift card to a local department store. Time to get me some slick new kicks this weekend. Woot!
Erm. . .anyway, we’re winding down with the final gym leaders of the Unova region! Last week we spoke a bit about Skyla and her flying type Pokemon. Next up is Brycen of Icirrus City who uses ice types! Ice types hold a special place in my heart. For whatever reason I was always attracted to ice-type magic in RPGs. Ice 3 was my favorite spell in FF7 and Shiva is my favorite summon. I’m fond of quite a few ice Pokemon such as Glalie, Glaceon, Lapras, Froslass and Cloyster. Ice Beam is one of my favorite moves, especially since I always seem to get lucky and freeze my opponent when battling competitively. A rage quit usually follows, as the freeze status basically guarantees a death. While I do enjoy ice types, they aren’t overly useful. They come with far too many common weaknesses i.e fire, fighting, rock, and steel. They also only come with one measly resistance. Thankfully, they deal super effective damage to flying, grass, ground and dragon types. They also get bonuses in hail such as a 100% blizzard hit rate and an evasion boost. I’ve toyed around with some hail stall teams competitively and they’re quite fun to play, but overall it serves as a niche team at best.
[spoiler]Anywho, enough of my ice type rant. Brycen is the seventh gym leader, so by this point in the game you should have quite the arsenal of pokes at your disposal. I don’t see how you could go through the game this long and not have something either in your team or in your box that will contend well against Brycen. Darumakka, Excadrill, Scrafty, Gigalith and Conkeldurr are my personal favorites to use for this battle, each sporting moves that can take out Brycen’s team in a single hit. You also have the opportunity to access Cobalion, a steel/fighting type in Mistralton Cave. Catching this Pokemon will just about guarantee you a win against Brycen, as it not only comes with high stats but also two powerful moves (Iron Head and Sacred Sword) that will wipe the battle floor.
There’s quite a bit you can explore now at this point, so I won’t go into tremendous amounts of detail explaining possible preparation methods for the fight. However, Icirrus City does provide a few helpful tools that you can use at your disposal. Speak with the lady in the Pokecenter to obtain TM31 Brick Break; a fighting type move that breaks through barriers like Light Screen and Reflect. Also, the PokeMart sells three of the most powerful TMs: TM14 Blizzard, TM25 Thunder and TM38 Fire Blast (Really? Fire Blast? They might as well just give you the badge). Snag whatever you can afford, buy some more Lemonades and you’ll be set to go.
Now, on to the actual fight. Brycen will start out with a level 37 Vanillish. This suckers signature move is “Frost Breath”, which happens to be the reward for beating the gym. This is a low power special ice attack, but it will land a critical hit 100% of the time. As interesting as this move is, it really only fills a niche role. Critical hits ignore defense boosts, so it’ll bypass any buffed special defense. Moves such as Ice Beam, Blizzard and Icicle Crash are far more useful. The prior two have a chance to freeze while the ladder can flinch, so it’s not too big of a threat. Strike with a swift super effective move to take it out quickly before he pumps up his defense with Acid Armor! Moving on, we have a level 39 Beartic. This polar bear is a much higher threat than the previous contender. He’s one of only a handful of physical based ice type Pokemon, which is a refreshing addition to B/W. He comes with the move Icicle Crash, which should be considered quite the threat. Not only does it compliment his high attack stat and comes with a STAB, but it also has a 30% chance of flinching opponents. This can be a game changer if Beartic happens to be faster than your active party member. Beartic also comes with the irritating Swagger and the less-threatening Brine; a water type attack that does double damage the opponent’s HP is below half. Attack with your most powerful fighting or steel type Pokemon (Brine can be a threat against any fire or rock types). Lastly, he’ll send out a level 37 Cryogonal. I think it’s safe to say that this particular teammate is probably less of a threat than the previous two. Not only does its list of attacks stink, but it’s also quite frail on the physical side. Frost Breath is its strongest attack with the weak Aurora Beam coming in second. He can build up some defense with Reflect, but it won’t be helpful with its base 30 defense. Any (and I mean any) physical attack will more than likely KO it in at the very max two hits.[/spoiler]
Well, there you have it, folks! Gym number seven down, only one more to go. I hope you enjoyed this installment of Gym Leaders: Untamed! Your support and comments are always welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Deckard Cain is calling me for a quest. :3
~MrBojingles
P.S Another random fact about myself is that I’m in the National Guard. I’ve been in for three years now, but took a leave of absence so I can teach in Korea. I went through boot camp and all of that stuff. Who would have thought, right?!