The first part of my trek through the cavernous "Victory Road" was fraught with failure--my severely underleveled pokemon were being picked-off by wild Haunters and Druddigons--to say nothing of the trainers I came across.
It seemed that every pokemon I fought was designed specifically to ruin my day. My Lucario knows Shadow Claw, but the wild Haunter has Sucker Punch and Lucario is KO-ed. My Venusaur has Petal Dance, but the wild Graveler has Earthquake and Venusaur is KO-ed.
I had to fight the same damn trainer with the same damn Hawlucha three times before I won, and every time my Psychic/Fairy type Gardevoir was put into an obvious mismatch against a Fighting type (whose attacks would do quarter damage, QUARTER DAMAGE against me) it would have Poison Jab as one of its moves. Since poison is super effective against fairy, I would have to define this as "godamn bullshit".
But, through this all, I used my revives and used my super potions and my pokemon got stronger. Soon I was only losing two pokemon to each wild haunter--and soon enough, I would start defeating them outright. Eventually, my pokemon became strong enough to take on the trainers' pokemon. There was still the huge level difference, but my pokemon, being better-trained specifically for certain roles, began to come together. By the time I made it out of the first cave into the sun, my pokemon were all sitting at a comfortable level 51--and starting to win rather than just
not lose so badly.
It was then that Serena, my rival, caught up to me and challenged me to a battle.
Current Squad:
GRENINJA/Froakles/lvl.52
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.51
FLAREON/Rox/lvl.50
LUCARIO/Knives/lvl.51
DRAGALGE/Toxie/lvl.49
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.49
On Rotation: Gardevoir, Pikachu, Hippowdon, Scrafty
