>>48803701Onto the Cerulean Cave segment. The two rocket grunt minibosses are easy, but the Archer/Ariana back-to-back is probably the hardest pre-E4 battle, I needed to prep. To do this, I had to go back and fight Bugsy and Jasmine - Bugsy was a joke with my current levels and team, but for the latter:
>JasmineHer team - Gliscor, Magnezone, Tapu Bulu, Genesect, Necrozma Dusk Mane, Mega Aggron - her team is immune to fire attacks and the Bulu sets permanent grassy terrain when it enters battle. Daunting, but not too bad.
Lead Lanturn to Ice Beam Gliscor as it sets rocks, swap to G-Weezing on Bulu to kill, send in Intimidate Spiritomb on Necromza to burn it and ensure it's not much of a threat, then Turtonator takes down Genesect and Ferrothorn kills Aggron with Body Presses, Magnezone is an afterthought I just Eerie Impulse down then kill with Ferro. She gives the Assault Vest on defeat.
>Archer/ArianaThis is 2 fights in a row with no healing. Archer's up first - Ninetales, Exeggutor, Sunflora, Landorus-T, Mega Houndoom. Lead Mega Lopunny. Fake Out, then Hi Jump Kick as he swaps to Exeggutor which I kill with Triple Axel, then kill Lando with Triple Axel. Ninetales gets killed by HJK, on Sunflora I U-Turn to break its Sash and head to Assault Vest Zapdos. She doesn't see a kill, so she goes for Growth, allowing me to swap back into Lopunny to kill and then HJK finishes off Mega Houndoom.
Ariana's second - Porygon2, Sawk, Hoopa-Unbound, Mega Mawile. Don't know if it really mattered, but I had Porygon2 Trace base Lopunny's Klutz to make it lose its Eviolite so HJK killed. U-Turn on Sawk to G-Weezing so Neutralizing Gas shuts down Contrary Superpower shenanigans and I can kill. For Hoopa I pivot to Bisharp to kill with X-Scissor, and Melmetal finishes off Mega Mawile.
Maybe sounded easy, but I had to rely on quite a few 70% and 90% accuracy attacks there. Not much else I could have done, though.
