How to Ruin Phoebe's Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire Battle 

Imagine being Pheobe, ready to fight this challenger, when they smirk and send out a shiny, drastically overleveled, paralyzed Slaking, and proceed to stall for a half hour and then lose.

I think it's not just possible, but reasonable to actually win this battle, if the player is up for the torture. If they leave the Leftovers on and optimally time Slack Off, Phoebe will eventually Struggle herself into a loss.

When you explained the reason the pokemon in this setup had long nicknames, I was kind of surprised. I thought you'd named them all "AAAAAAAA" as some kind of psychological warfare, creating a scenario where even the game itself is screaming.

7:00 wouldn’t it be better if sableye COULD use attract though? That just means you can’t use as many moves, making getting struggle even more impossible Besides, the game would need to display the “slaking is infatuated” message every single turn to waste time too

Bannette trying it's damnedest to use spite to help you out,but failing every time is a modern tragedy.

Challenger: "C'mon, I've been waiting here for twenty minutes! Why can't I move on yet?" Sidney: "Sorry, my man, but the last dude came in here with six paralyzed slakings. If anyone should be annoyed, it's Phoebe."

I love how the Ghost-Normal interaction is often what can be used to make battles feel much longer than they should be

I love how you’ve now added random tiny things to make them just that tiny bit more painful, like how the player is moved as far from the battle as possible and the fact that the Pokémon is shiny and has as long a name as possible

Notable thing to mention is that curse does 25% damage rounded down which means if slaking has an uneven hp stat it will take 5 turns for it to die. Likewise dusclops having an odd hp stat means it can also use curse 3 times rather than only twice

Next time, you should put each Slaking at level 99. That way, whenever one of Phoebe’s Pokémon faint, you’ll have to sit through their xp raising

While Pikasprey's around, being an Elite Four member is quite the dangerous position to be in.

You should have perfect IVs for every stat *except* attack, so confusion damage is minimized

maybe you could look into "funbro", a thing that happened in smogon and caused them to add an endless battle clause. its a slowbro with a Leppa berry recycle setup that can sustain its own and its opponents pp infinitely, creating an endless battle

I seriously hope you never stop making these videos. I find them endlessly entertaining

I have to say... I wonder if obtaining six shiny Slaking would honestly take longer than the battle itself. Edit: Apparently, it does.

Pikasprey seems so genuinely sad that this didn’t take longer lol

Imagine being Pheobe and watching this kid walk into your room, go into a corner, throw out everything in their bag, and then walk up to you and scream "Go! AAAAAAAAAA!" Before putting you through the most obnoxious battle you've ever had the displeasure of sitting through. I would quit. Thanks for another great video! I live this series

I had an interesting idea for one of those 'long traps', featuring the Pickup ability. Would it be possible to create a situation where you are left with only a single weak Pickup mon, and you have to get RNG pickup items to sell for cash to leave somewhere, but you are in an area where you cannot feasibly win battles (low level, no attacking moves, etc) and have to rely on run-away RNG because your pokemon is comparatively lower level. If you fail to run away, you're likely to white out and lose that hard-earned money. Most of your other long traps have a concrete escape condition (e.g. plucking the berry every week to earn the cash for a pokeball) but i think a situation where the player's escape is unreliable could be interesting

Here's a small suggestion in case you do a setup like this in gen 4. Give every Pokemon a ball capsule with as many stickers as possible. Surely all those ball capsule animations will cause somewhat of a delay. Another suggestion: Make sure to do it in Diamond/Pearl since they're significantly slower than Platinum. And perhaps you could make a setup using Blissey somehow since it's got the most amount of health.

"I want to see how long I can make a battle last in every generation." I can only imagine what kind of nightmare the next video will be.

Struggle is a typeless move after gen 1, it also hits rock and steel types for neutral damage

Wouldn't saving in the far corner of Sydney's room after beating him take just a few seconds longer?

I think what I like most about these kinds of videos is how well detailed you get with them. You don't just go "We got some strong pokemon, let's see how long it takes." You break down everything and explain how and why.

I could literally be in the middle of taking an exam, and pause it to watch these videos. They’re my lifeblood.

Wouldnt it be better for attract to be usable? It may not matter but it would effectively just stall more.

I love it when people talk about Slaking and its near-infinite PP.

5:34 Correction: while it is impossible for any of them to use the move struggle, they will indeed struggle in this battle

Can't wait until the next hidden gem collecting episode. There are some real good RPGmaker games to look forward to this year.

9:24 My prediction is that this is going to take less because of curse taking out two Slakings and also because the gen 3 engine is just that much faster than most of the series

I had a feeling that when you tried extending a battle as long as possible for gen 3 you'd have some fun with Slaking

My guy you probably could survive any kind of government mind torture

After seeing the intro, my prediction is that for someone to escape, you need one slaking with leftovers still on, using the others to stall out Phoebe's PPs and their curses. After all curses are used (and since toxic and will o wisp aren't usable), you can waste all your pps on the slaking with lefties to get struggle. And even if it's struggle, those are lvl100 slakings, with an attack stat that not only rivals but beats most legendaries; scratch oneshotted the mightyena, with a base 40 power (+stab). Struggle is 50 base power (but typeless. It's not like gen1). So struggle is 50 base and scratch was 60. With such insane stats, you could struggle your way to the hall of fame. (160 base attack)

Before saving the game, you could teach tm roar over scratch. It's the "worst" move for this because it forces the opponent to play the switching animation. Plus, if you manage to wait for phoebe to struggle herself to a loss, you are screwed against everyone coming up without an actual move.

I have an idea on how to make this battle longer. First, make all the Slaking male instead, so that Attract CAN affect them and stall them for even longer (Plus, it would display the "Slaking (or I guess AAAAAAAAAA) is infatuated" message each turn). Second, here's all the IV and EV sets you want for each; 31 HP, Defense, and Special Defense IVs, and 0 on everything else. For EVs, 252 in HP and Special Defense and 0 in everything else (or 4 in Speed or Special Attack if you really wanna). You'll want a Calm Nature on each, which boosts Special Defense and lowers Attack. You'll want as high Special Defense as possible since all moves of Phoebe's Pokémon that can hit Slaking, aside from the second Dusclops' Earthquake, are special moves. You'll want as low Attack as possible to reduce confusion damage, since it uses your Pokémon's Attack and Defense stats to calculate damage. Actually, you can basically have your Special Attack and Speed be whatever; they do not matter. For the latter, it really doesn't matter if Slaking outspeeds Phoebe's Pokémon or not, if at all. The most Speed it could potentially have with this setup is 299, which of course is reduced to 74 because of the paralysis. Now, I don't know exactly what Phoebe's Pokémon's stats are, but the lowest Speed her Pokémon have would be the level 48 Dusclops if it has 0 Speed IVs, 0 Speed EVs, and a Speed-lowering Nature, which would give it 26 Speed... alright, I guess that wouldn't be actually faster than Slaking's max Speed (nor would it actually be faster than Slaking's MINIMUM Speed with this setup, 51), but all in all it really doesn't matter. As for Special Attack, that doesn't matter because Slaking cannot use it; it has no special moves. Now of course, it CAN actually use its physical Attack, namely for confusion damage or if it somehow gets to the point where it Struggles.

I think I've found a total softlock in BW simply by releasing and running out of money around the first gym with only a Lillipup with Vital Spirit since you need Cut to enter the Dreamyard

Bro I was just thinking AN HOUR AGO "Darn, I kinda wanna watch a new Pikasprey video right now" and....? This is awesome! Thank you so much!

You know, I don't think I've ever seen Banette use Will-o-wisp before. I had no idea that she even had it!

10:34 Wait, so you're telling me that all of these Pokémon were legitimately obtained? You caught 6 shiny Slaking and got them to lvl 100 for this video???

Pray for Phoebe. This is going to be gruesome.

This is the niche that I never knew I would become obsessed with. Pikasprey, yours is the best kind of mad genius.

Never stop making these vids Pika. This is one of my favorite video series on RU-vid period.

I love how this is the "short" project, when it's designed to be as long as possible. But I hope one of those longer projects is a Gem Collecting episode about Pokemon Snakewood!

I know it's just to stall the battle even more, but it seems oddly fitting thatnames of these Slaking are screams of agony

Funny how "Curse" is a blessing in this particular case

Actually, though not likely, I believe with a little luck it would actually be possible to make this last even longer. There is a low chance that Phoebe will use Curse twice in a row, offing that Dusclops without getting to finish off a Slaking. This isn't likely to happen, but it isn't impossible either. And for someone that wants to actually get out by winning for some strange reason, this can be guaranteed by swapping out the Slaking, as that removes the Curse effect as well, saving both Slaking and letting you slowly let Phoebe struggle herself into oblivion. Why you would want to do this is a mystery, though, since you'd need to then beat the rest of the E4 with those Slaking or lose later anyway and it would definitely take even longer than just losing to Phoebe. But could be funny to do if someone does this to you, just to say "screw you" as you hand the game back while the credits play.

You said that giving the Slaking perfect stats would delay the video for a long time- are these videos made with legitimate teams? I'd assumed that with going the extra mile for six shinies, they were spawned in in the first place. In any case, very interesting video as always!

I fucking love when this channel uploads… time to go binge all the other videos again lol keep it up asprey!

Yup, I remember how excited I was to get Sapphire Version & a GameBoy Advance. I had already spent hundreds of hours with my Gold Version & GameBoy Color. It was a whole new world!

Wouldn't having male Slaking and letting Attract work be helpful in making it longer? It makes Slaking even less likely to use up PP and the game has to play more text each turn (unless the player swaps, of course, but that takes time, too).

Wouldn't it make it take longer if all the Slaking were male so Attract COULD affect them, temporarily increasing the odds of them missing their actions? Also, though totally understand not doing this since you're using legitimate hardware, optimal stats for this would, I think, be for all Slaking have 0 Attack and 31 Defense, Special Defense, and HP IVs, be EV trained in those latter three stats as well (though I don't know how the math shakes out there for optimal match-lengthening), and either Bold or Calm natures depending on whether physical or special damage is going to be what accounts for more of the HP they need to lose to faint.

I wonder if it would be more optimal for increasing the time of the setup to make sure your Slaking all have an odd number of HP that is one more than being divisible by 4. That would give five turns of Curse damage rather than four.

At least if you're stuck for half an hour it's with good ass music! I also had no clue you could store HMs in Ruby and Sapphire

10:33 "why do all the slaking have different stats? because i wanted the video to come out this year." wait holy shit i thought you were using a gameshark or something to get the crazy-specific pokemon you need for these videos. you actually breed and train them yourself? YOU BRED SIX SHINY SLAKING AND LEVELED THEM TO 100 IN THE VANILLA GAME? jesus christ dude, you're a god among men

was wondering when you'd upload! Love your videos! Especially these kinds, they scratch a niche part of my brain.

Yellow channel video on the month of my birthday? A blessing from the lord!

"Why don't all the Slaking have perfect stats? Because I wanted the video to come out this year." YOU'RE TELLING ME YOU CAUGHT 6 SHINY SLAKOTH AND GRINDED ALL OF THEM TO LEVEL 100 *LEGIT?!*

Y'all if you enjoy this guy's content, check the description for his other channel. It gets a lot more uploads and he plays a lot of fun games and it's just an all around good time

I always get excited when a new pikasprey video drops. "Oooh, how's he gonna waste everyone's time this time?"

Locked in a room with Phoebe for hours on end? That sounds very nice

Wow this battle takes almost as long as the gen 4 tutorial battle!

Could have maxed out their HP and Defense IVs+EVs to make the opponent's struggles take even longer. (Also you could try minimizing their Attack IVs+EVs to make confusion self-hits deal less damage) Edit: never mind 10:33 addresses this.

IT'S A GOOD DAY WHEN PIKASPREY UPLOADS

Always nice to see a video from you tbh

Slaking didn't bring but those scratches for the enemy pokemon but for his ass.

9:09 I predict it's shorter than usual EDIT: Yep and it's even shorter than I thought it would be

Why not have only one of the Slaking have the damaging move Scratch for the first Elite Four, but then have the rest only have buffing/healing moves? I feel like the battle could be prolonged by a bit if you could force the player to have to use Slack Off. So instead buy a bunch of Protect and maybe even Double Team TMs for the Slakings to use instead of Scratch and Covet (using TMs you can get multiple copies of in game). As basically none of the Slaking are Struggling themselves to death yet, the best way to prolong the fight would be to shift the excess PP into better survivability. I’m not sure if Struggle is affected by evasion, but the Protect should at least help somewhat.

i think a trap with a pokemon with the ability regenerator would be interesting

You are like a pokémon version of Harry Houdini, Pikasprey. You trap yourself in these kind of situations and then find the way out. Marvelous!

MCR releases a new song after god knows how many years, and a Pikasprey Yellow upload? Truly, my night is blessed.

with crafting a set up like this, i wonder if you'd be able to get something working for Gen4. as far as i know the data processing for battles is the slowest in all the games, so with the right set up you can have the longest turn ever because of all the text and animation and damage calculation it has to go through. something like a crazy set-up where you somehow have it automated to have both you and the opponent get poisoned/burned, and weather is in effect, and you both constantly heal, etc. while also having the usual "you cant escape from here" scenario you usually do. not that i would know how one could pull this off without editing game data to make such an encounter work or happen.

The music track in the background is dope like some kinda cerulean cave mix. Thanks Pikasprey!

The name "AAAAAAAAAA" also helps signify the emotion the player is feeling in this battle

Trying something like this in the Gen 4 remakes might be plausible. HMs aren’t a permanent part of the inventory (and are instead used via the Pokétch), so it could be possible to get softlocked somewhere, or at least trapped for a good while. Maybe a team of Rotom at Bertha’s battle…? A moveset of Double Team, Charge, Thunder Wave and Flash could be extra annoying-

You can optimize this by giving the Slackings mail to carry instead of leftovers. The person who gets the save file will maybe check out what it says and waste even more time.

I love how one of the first things this opens with is a lvl 100 scizor named AAAAAAAAAAAA- with hardly any context did a big cackle

First, Bismuth uploads part five of the ABC documentary, and the very next day we get a new Soft Lock Picking? I am truly spoiled for content.

Phoebe literally looks like she would be a water pokemon user...but no! She uses ghost pokemon! That always baffled me as a kid.

Is something similar with Regigigas or one of the Chansey line in gen 4 with Fantinas battle? Or perhaps you can do something with only a double team and mudslap/sand attack moveset in the foggy area

when i was a kid, i was wandering around cerulean cave with a wobbuffet in the lead position. i encountered a wobbuffet and we were both stuck struggling ourselves to death after using up all of our PP. it took a long time

From what I've seen in the other comments (and my own ideas), these would make the setup even longer: -Make all the Slakings hittable by Attract. It's more dialog boxes, so more time wasted -Make all the Slakings level 99, just about to hit 100. This makes sure you get the HP from level 100 but also adds some time for the level up -Make all the Slakings have an odd number of MaxHP at level 99/100. This makes Curse take 5 turns instead of 4 due to how it rounds down -Make all the Slakings have the highest possible HP and Defense EV/IVs. More health = more hits = longer time, and higher Defense means less damage from Struggle/Confusion. Throw in some Special Defense as well just in case. -Give the Slakings Attract/Rest/Protect/Roar. Attract and Roar makes the enemy have to wait longer to struggle, while Rest and Protect makes your Slakings live longer (all four of the moves giving more text boxes so a longer time). I'm unsure what combination of Attract/Rest/Protect/Roar/Slack Off would be best, but you don't have to worry about having damaging moves because you can just keep a tm and PP ups until you get past the first elite four and then remove the damaging move using that tm and PP ups -Give Slaking a Bold nature, so they do less damage to themself when confused and also take less from struggle And Voila! It suddenly takes a lot longer!

How close were you to ever actually running out of pp? Could you replace scratch with bulk up and still be safe from reaching struggle yourself? Bulk up would raise slaking's defense, which should lower the damage done by opposing struggles. I saw banette using it against you, and figured maybe you could die slower.

9:24 probably just a bit faster than the previous generations because of the faster game engine and Curse, but not by very much. (After) Curse really did made this faster as well as other move coverage.

Let's goo, new Pikasprey Pokémon video!!!

It's always nice to see a new video, glad you are still active.

Wait "this year instead of next year"? Do...DO YOU NOT GEN THESE YOU ABSOLUTE MADMAN?! Did you actually catch 6 shiny slaking or other members of its line to set this up the old fashioned way?! I...I respect that if so but...WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU NOT GENNING THESE?

I will be sure to remember this the next time I try the Hoenn league with 6 paralyzed level 100 Slaking, thanks

this should be a torture for prisoners, their sentences reduced by 1 day for every slaking fainted and each prisoner given an amount of copy according to their offense

I still appreciate pikasprey's commitment to doing things that make pokemon unplayable.

Phoebe to Lorelei: *Throws Pikaspray at Lorelei.* "I believe this belongs to you."

Trying to make a battle as long and drawn out as possible. Shuckle: am I a joke to you?

A video about RSE softlocks? Nice.

"Get out of this room as fast as possible." "Okay. *Starts a new save.*"

Also I love how all the slaking animations are in sync with each other

if pikasprey ever offers you a pokemon game, run. the more shinies he says are on the file, the faster you run.

The whole team being named AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA sums up perfectly this kind of situation.

In just under 30 minute, someone can take that save-file and escape with 6 Shiny Slacking! Even if their nicknames can't be changed, that's still a very good deal.

Ruby was my very first Pokemon game so I'm always excited to see Gen 3 content! Slaking is a Pokemon I never has the patience to use, I've used Vigoroth a few times but just didn't evolve it.

Yoo more pikasprey hell yeah welcome back bro

I imagine your friend would en up in Drake's room, hand you back the cartridge, and tell you it's beaten. Using Amnesia and hoping for Spite could be part of a strategy. Combined with leftovers and slack off, maybe you could even take Drake afterwards. I wonder how you'd react to seeing your friend in the Hall of Fame with that run.

Pikasprey is the definition of quality over quantity