Post-game fights are notorious for two things: Strong pokemon, and high levels. In the Emerald post-game, Steven is of course no exception, boasting a combination of Fossils and Steel-types averaging Level 80. These Pokemon all boast a strong mix of utility and sheer offense that would break any normal playthrough team. But what if all you needed was one over-prepared Smeargle?
This is the set:
Smeargle @ Starf Berry
Ability: Own Tempo
Level: 22
EVs: 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 HP
- Spore
- Wrap
- Endeavor
- Endure
PP Maxes are necessary for Endeavor. In terms of IVs, your only requirements are 31 Speed, and ideally 0 HP, but an equally abysmal number like 1 or 2 is passable. If you haven't pieced together the strategy quite yet, this is a prolonged FEAR strategy that abuses Steven's ONLY real weakness – a lack of speed control.
The sequence is only somewhat gated by RNG, by my napkin math, roughly a 16% success rate overall which is by my standards, pretty damn good for a solo cheese strat with a 55+ lvl difference.
Steven leads Skarmory, which always sees a KO and goes for damage, you get to Endure and roll the Starf Berry. You need to land on Speed, once your speed is doubled the FEAR really sets in. Each Pokemon will succumb to the following line: Spore -> Wrap -> Endeavor. You just barely outspeed Skarmory at 126 Speed and your level ups will carry you past any other benchmarks.
You might be asking – why Wrap? Yes, it's inaccurate, but it does two important things normal damaging moves don't: Dodges AI healing & Accounts for level-ups! If you set up Wrap, and then Endeavor, the opposing Pokemon will faint to the residual damage before the AI, or in this case Steven, can get a chance to heal. Also, as you know, when Pokemon faint you gain XP. Smeargle then Endeavors the enemy mons to an HP it can't kill at due to its poor offensive stats. The % damage from Wrap ignores that entirely!
The only hiccups are of course: Missing Wrap and Metagross. With missing a Wrap, worst case scenario is you go to re-apply it and camp Endure in fear of a wake up. Or just reset. Metagross, being the ace of a boss fight, has a Sitrus Berry. Therefore a second Endeavor is needed, but worst case scenario you have to re-sleep and re-Wrap it.
Spore, Wrap, Endeavor until Cradily drops and you've successfully cheesed Steven Stone 🙂
Here's a timestamped video example, but it's edited down as its well… repetitive. Thanks for reading!
by PaladinYT