001 Baton Pass or Fail?

So this is my first video on YouTube, and my entrance into the foray began as a battle against myself.  While this does seem odd and rather one sided, I would try to defeat myself in the most realistic way possible given the movesets.  At the time, I recorded the audio as a direct feed separately, and would try to match it up with the video I recorded.  The reason why I recorded them at separate times is that the difficulty comes in trying to press the camera's button and the audio recorder's button at the same time, as I did not want to damage the camera by accidentally slamming it down onto the surface while I tried to press the button with one hand.  In retrospect, though, I could have placed it on a soft surface like a pillow face down and then just crop off the extra video and audio at the beginning.

I did not speed up this video because of the direct audio, and I didn't think anyone wanted to hear the Pokemon Platinum battle music and sounds sped up.  At the time, YouTube only allowed ten minutes maximum per video, so I had to overlay the simple outro a few seconds after the Kingdra fainted, instead of after the victory message.

I had seen a few Baton Pass teams attempt to use weaker Pokemon as the sweeper, such as Magikarp, Unown, and Happiny, so I decided to try one with Teddiursa.  Teddiursa's move list allows for decent coverage which would make it a bit easier to sweep with.

The Baton Pass team had a pretty basic structure to it.  Basically, lead off with someone defensive enough to take more than a few hits from most attacks, and Baton Pass any boosts to the next Pokemon who would have defensive capabilities to take the predicted attack, execute another boost, and so on.  Obviously this team would have issues against Taunters, Exploders, Sleepers, and Phazers.

I really didn't feel like using my usual team as the opponent, given that I didn't really want to reveal it to the next T-Flare battler, and also because they were also on the same Platinum cart.  I didn't want to trade them over to my Pearl version because the Gyarados would lose its happiness upon trading, making Return weaker.  I also didn't want to trade over my Baton Pass team to Pearl because it lacked a Battle Recorder, and I wanted to have the video from the Baton Pass team's point of view.  Therefore, my most efficient option was to use a team I already had on my Pearl version, which was a team I made to have a slight advantage over the Fire Gym on T-Flare at the time.

When the battle started, I was about ready to give up when Kingdra froze Zapdos on the first turn, but then the Lum Berry kicked in, which was actually pretty lucky.  I was thinking about using Leftovers.

My opposing Heatran did not have a Fire move because I had an inkling that the Fire gym leader would sport a Heatran of his own, and an accidental Flash Fire wouldn't have made things easier.  Granted, the gym leader would have had some non-Fire type Pokemon on the team, but at the time I was concerned about getting at least three Pokemon down, not all six.

I'm not sure why I didn't get Smeargle to Spore again after the opposing Zapdos woke up.  I guess I was just antsy about getting to Teddiursa before a critical hit ruined the plan.  I was extremely lucky that the opposing Zapdos decided to use Sleep Talk on the turn that it randomly woke up, as that made the last possible substitute from Smeargle intact for passing.  If I had passed to Vaporeon to make a substitute, it would not have been possible, even with a +1 special defense boost, given that the opposing Zapdos' Thunderbolt would have been super effective and would destroy the substitute before it could even be passed.

Teddiursa was only given +4 speed through the two Agilities from the team's Zapdos, and it wasn't enough to outspeed Jolteon, but it was enough to outspeed Dugtrio, so that gives a bit of an indication of where Teddiursa's speed lies.  I was glad that the Calm Mind passed from Mr. Mime gave it enough special defense to survive Jolteon's Thunderbolt.

When Teddiursa faced off against Celebi, I had a choice of using Ice Punch and Fire Punch, as their damage output would have been the same either way.  I wanted to use Fire Punch to show off the entire moveset, but I used Ice Punch instead.  I guess I was thinking that if I somehow didn't KO Celebi, I would have liked to have had that slim chance of a freeze hax rather than burn hax.

So, Teddiursa's moveset was Return, Brick Break, Ice Punch, and Fire Punch.  Why did I opt for Brick Break instead of Earthquake?  Maybe I was concerned about what would happen if the opponent had Light Screen or Reflect up.  Actually, does it still provide those defenses on the turn that the screens break, or does it get negated?  If it was the former, then Brick Break probably wouldn't have been all that beneficial if Teddiursa faints, as Scizor was unable to pass any defense boosts.

In the end, though, I was pleased with the battle, and even though Teddiursa did not get +6 in everything, it was a more realistic representation of what COULD have happened in a battle.

I think I've written enough for now, so until next time, extend our reach to the stars above.