0:00 – BP Morty / SS Erika / Tech Munchlax
5:41 – EX Palentines Bea / Hala / Wulfric
10:41 – Acerola / EX Raihan / EX Dawn
I’m not even gonna attempt to force a gimmick for Moltres because the stage is hard enough as it is. Astonish is one of the best moves against it, and all of its users have good-to-great matchups against the fire birb – even the upcoming one with her heals and Sp Def buffs for Moltres’s AOE moves – so that’s our theme for today haha.
Here’s how each battle went, and the sync grids used:
Team 1: BP Morty / SS Erika / Tech Munchlax – https://pokemon-masters-stuff.github.io/#/team-builder/?id1=18000030601&e1=60&o1=0&g1=&s1=1&id2=10148000001&e2=0&o2=750&g2=AAECAwQFBggLDhMaHB4hJCUmJyot&s2=3&id3=10008100000&e3=0&o3=750&g3=AAECAwQFBgcKDRMUFxobHiEjJScq&s3=2
I have an entire video exploring the potential of flinch teams taking down Moltres without taking away its sun (https://youtu.be/xULIp5Snzhw), but I don’t think I made it apparent that all of these clears were quite tedious to get. While a 60% flinch rate is high, it’s nowhere near as reliable as Troublemaker 1 sleep chaining, and I’ve had many attempts where I would get perfect flinches until Bar 3, where Moltres takes out my team with a Heat Wave.
All that said, when it does work, it’s always satisfying. BP Morty’s joined here by the newest flincher in the block – Tech Munchlax, who also has the advantage of having regen to make the timing of the flinches easier to work with. SS Erika is the main damage-dealer to take advantage of Moltres’s sun, and her Solar Propulsion means that she gets to sync quite a lot. (If I had her at 3/5 this would’ve been much easier with Solar Shield and Inertia but alas.)
Team 2: EX Palentines Bea / Hala / Wulfric – https://pokemon-masters-stuff.github.io/#/team-builder/?id1=10022000000&e1=1&o1=738&g1=AAECAwQFBgcICg0OEBweJSgrLQ==&s1=5&id2=10250400000&e2=0&o2=750&g2=AAECAwQFBggLDRocHyIkJiwu&s2=3&id3=10161000000&e3=0&o3=750&g3=AAECAwQFERQVGBocHSAjJCUm&s3=3
When I saw that Moltres was gonna be part of the Gauntlet, I immediately candied and EXed PalBea, since I knew she was a great pick for this stage. She forms another double-flinch core here with Wulfric, who may have a lackluster grid compared to the other PoMa Day units but does have both flinches and hail tiles to pair well with PalBea. Hala also takes advantage of the hail here, but he’s more importantly the sync nuker thanks to Haymaker.
You’ll notice that I opted out of getting Snow Shelter from both Wulfric’s and Hala’s grids – that’s mainly because the damage from hail and the recovery from Healing Hail have pretty long animations that lets the gauge fill. Wulfric and especially Hala are very slow, so this was a worthwhile trade-off. That’s also why Hala’s grid is focused on Brick Break Twofer instead of Ice Hammer power-ups.
Team 3: Acerola / EX Raihan / EX Dawn – https://pokemon-masters-stuff.github.io/#/team-builder/?id1=10257000000&e1=1&o1=738&g1=AAECAwQFBhEUFRcYGRseISM=&s1=3&id2=10007000000&e2=0&o2=750&g2=AAECAwQFBggKDBMaGx4jJCUoKSo=&s2=2&id3=10116000000&e3=0&o3=750&g3=AAECAwQFBggLDRARExYXGSUo&s3=5
This is the one stage where Acerola can go toe-to-toe with Ingo in terms of utility. While Ingo has more reliable team-wide buffs, Acerola’s flinches are very important for this stage, and the fact that she compresses both the weather-setting and the flinches is invaluable. She supports Raihan here as Focus Group and Flag Bearer from her grid tops Raihan off very well. Raihan’s gridded to maximize Rock Slide damage as not only is it super-effective, but it also has a decent flinch chance to form yet another dual-flinch core. I follow the strat in the previous video where I don’t get Sand Shelter to help the gauge.
I originally had Jasmine as the tank here for her trainer move and the type skill, but the gauge was obnoxious. I thought I had to resort to Skyla, but Dawn turned out to be a reliable pick since she has both Sands of Time and Pump Up on her grid. Her Attack debuffs as well as her Defense debuffs from Defense Crush 2 were also very helpful, and she at least gets to use her stronger Defense here instead of Latias’s stage. Syncing with her also didn’t hurt DPS since her sync has innate Haymaker.
#PokemonMasters #PokemonMastersEX #LegendaryGauntlet