Armaldo Only - Pokemon Emerald

Rules:
1. Only my starter in battle
2. No items in battle, except held items
3. No glitches, exploits, save states, or RNG manipulation
4. No evasion moves before level 100*
Rule details:
-- *In gen1, evasion boosting is allowed if the Pokemon does it through means other than learning the move by level up or TM. For example, using Mimic or Mirror Move to boost evasion is allowed. (This exception is to keep ranking consistent with my legacy videos.)
-- I am allowed to manipulate my starter
-- I play the game at 4x game speed
-- For fair comparisons all my Pokemon have perfect (or near perfect) DVs / IVs
-- I am allowed to catch HM users - I can use all field moves
-- All in-battle glitches are allowed in generation 1
-- In generation 1, I'm allowed to skip Marowak with the Poke Doll
-- Surge's trash-can-puzzle is automatically solved
-- The bike is allowed in gen1, banned in gen2, and allowed for bypassing terrain in gen3
-- Saving between league members is allowed
-- If the solo Pokemon faints and I choose to blackout it counts towards my reset counter
-- I can pause the game and timer to take breaks
-- The footage is sped up / slowed down to match the pace of my narration
-- The ability Pickup can only be used if the starter has it
Patreon: / scottsthoughts
KZbin memberships:
/ @scottsthoughtspokemon
Twitter: / psychicflying
Twitch: / scottsthoughtspokemon
Illustrations by / sarinavail
Thumbnail art by / brianlsart
STAB: bulbapedia.bul...
DVs / IVs: bulbapedia.bul...
Damage Calculations: bulbapedia.bul...
Gen1 Stat Calculator: pycosites.com/...
Gen2 Stat Calculator: pycosites.com/...
Gen1 Crit Rates: www.smogon.com...
Learnsets: bulbapedia.bul...
Base Stats: bulbapedia.bul...)

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Any mistakes regarding the type chart and effectiveness are definitely intentional jokes about Armaldo's typing. I never make mistakes... right?

[@apollobro91]

You definitely would never be caught making any mistakes like equipping the wrong berries or going all the way around an un-cracked floor in Sky Tower! 🐸

[@Kanbei11]

Comments are good for the KZbin algorithm as they say. More seriously, it can't be easy juggling many runs at the same time with various things to remember between them

[@ryanmuller9497]

Definitely no mistakes like saying you've never done a Bug type run at the end of an Armaldo video... :P

[@GneissGuy1989]

And the fact you gave us Armaldo's "Gameitme" instead of gametime after beating the champion is also of course some kind of intentional joke I'm just not getting right? 🤣🤣

[@J3Puffin]

The Wattson fights man… Man.

[@snake_rattler4689]

A suggestion for slow, powerful Pokemon (like Armaldo): you might consider a Speed-boosting nature to outspeed key threats. It might sound silly, but slow wallbreakers in competitive metagames sometimes run the speed-boosting natures just to get the extra speed tier, which is more important than the extra damage. For example, Armaldo could have outsped the Magneton a few levels earlier if it had a Jolly Nature, potentially preventing a lot of grinding. Of course, that comes at the cost of the larger increase to Attack from an Adamant nature, and I’m not sure how critical this is when Armaldo is using weaker STAB attacks and only somewhat strong coverage attacks. All to say: if the problem with a slower Pokemon in its first playthrough is that you’re barely not outspeeding threats, maybe consider the speed-boosting nature for your second playthroughs!

[@Nikolaj11]

I think the speed + nature is at the very least sensible for Pokémon with good set-up moves. Any mon that can learn Bulk Up or Calm Mind for example will benefit much more from outspeeding opponents than having the extra unboosted power.

[@KainaX122]

@@Nikolaj11exactly. You get more of a benefit from the +1 than you do the 10% granted from a beneficial nature

[@Witzwo1]

Good take. In my opinion you should not think about which stat to boost. Thinking about which stat to lower ist much more important. Speed is by far the most important stat. When you can KO your opponent befor they move, that is a time save. For everything that is not really fast, it would be beneficial till you know the key threads you have to outspeed.

[@mauricioguerra1794]

Right from the start, speed tied with Roxanne's Geodude

[@Lucifers-Stepdad]

Excellent comment.

[@monkey7pyro]

Small mistake you made at 6:15. Brenden setting up focus energy would be good because you have battle armor. No crits. Love the videos just something I caught.

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

True

[@aljoschadenizjonsdotter]

@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon was my first thought watching that part of the video. Thought: Oh great something I can comment for the algorithm. Went down to the comments to check and someone beat me to it. Damn... if only there was something else I could comment.

[@Emmelikescoffee]

I'm starting to think that Rock Tomb is bugged. The amount of times it misses consecutively is unreal For instance, missing 4 times in a row is a 1 in 625 chances, or 0.16%. And it happened both here and in the Cradilly video. I'm speechless

[@mewnani]

Rock Tomb just hates Scott.

[@johnlucas2838]

One could almost think that it actually has a hit chance of 20%

[@ryomaanime4563]

I'm pretty sure pokemon is lying about precision It's not a straight %, the calculation is more complicated because i could swear that rock slide does not hit 90% of the time. It can be seen basically systematically on 10PP moves always missing more that it should

[@TheBronf]

if a move isnt 100% its 50%. thats just a pokemon fact

[@vincentsterel6448]

I think someone else mentioned it, but HP Bug makes more sense for Tate and Liza as you get STAB, and also gives Armaldo its most powerful move with 105 power total. Ancientpower deals with Xatu, and HP Bug is super-efffective against the rest. It also makes the Sydney fight even easier.

[@shirounshiroun7555]

Yeah but then you have no HP Ghost for the Ghost E4 :/

[@JaCaBrA144]

Armaldo is probably my favorite fossil Pokémon. I can’t wait to see how the new venomoth performs

[@SinnerChrono]

Armaldo is clearly steel bug type. Very much like venomoth

[@patonosequecosa]

I thoug Venomoth was steel/dark type

[@andytaker3073]

You're only half right

[@andytaker3073]

​@@patonosequecosayou're 100% wrong

[@ultimapower6950]

@@andytaker3073 I’m pretty sure Venomoth is the Dream/Heart type

[@patonosequecosa]

@@ultimapower6950 thats right i forgot it was dream/hearth type

[@Zelgius1]

32:06: Ninjask runs into it's worst possible match up vs.Roxanne, but it will be fine afterwards. Beautifly however is the complete opposite to Ninjask in a way, that the early game is actually not too bad but the late game is so unkind to it, that i doubt it can even beat Steven. Shedinja will "just" require Lv.38 for Roxanne because it will learn Shadow Ball and it is the only reliable way to beat her. The only advice i can give you for a Shedinja solo run, is to max out it's Attack ev as soon as possible because it will either die or one hit every threat.

[@skeetermania3202]

A few interesting competitive notes for Gen 3’s Venomoth: In Gen 3, it has a niche as a Knock Off user on certain stall teams, even using Harden of all moves to beat Snorlax. In Gen 4, it even has a small niche as an anti-lead in Ubers for taking on the unequivocal best lead, Deoxys-Speed.

[@Hayateknight123]

I was impressed with the results but I have a bad feeling that it will be far worse in follow up playthroughs since to beat steven you needed 2 omni boosts which is about a 1 percent chance of happening. This also ignores that the Skarmory was doing enough damage with steel wing that if it had crit with it you would have lost. In addition it outspeeds you which is very bad. Without the omniboosts you would not have enough damage to kill the Claydoll with that current moveset and it is faster without the omniboosts which means it can reflect before you hit it.

[@perkypenguin1663]

With regards to Rare Candy usage, I often try to keep in mind how stuck a Pokémon is at a certain point. For example, Norman could be a good place to use them because beating Flannery doesn’t open up many trainers, whereas beating Norman does. So if a Pokémon struggles against him, then early Rare Candies can let you get by him and then open up all those trainers for even more experience later on. Also, for an Armaldo redo, I think keeping Mud Sport for Wattson would be a good idea. Weakening Electric moves might be enough to give you an edge against him a bit sooner or at least make him more consistent. Plus at that point, Armaldo doesn’t learn many useful moves and you can override it in favor of Secret Power or Dig.

[@dappersealion5]

Excellent input. 🤌

[@gamet2004]

I'm so happy that Armaldo did so well in this challenge. He is my favorite fossil after all. My only real problem with Army is its speed, 45 base speed is terrible

[@1stCallipostle]

If it's under base 70 it may as well be zero

[@dwanedibly8129]

Great to see Armaldo do so well! This guy's had a special place in my heart ever since my first Emerald Nuzlocke, where my Armaldo single-handedly carried me through the league with Ancientpower and Earthquake.

[@redwings13400]

That was such a lucky Steven fight, lol! I'm pretty sure the majority of the time with that strategy Claydol runs out of pp and has to resort to struggle strats like Cradily did. That could have easily been an extra several minutes on the time. Overall, pretty good. Special attackers seem to have a pretty huge advantage in this game with a much better matchup against Steven and not being annoyed by all the random intimidates, but it does seem like most physical attackers have ways to get around the roadblocks. Interesting run!

[@foggernaut8876]

This might be a moot point, but giving Brendon the torchic line 100% is letting yourself off easier than giving him mudkip. High base defenses, resists your main STAB option, and has super effective damage against you.

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Yeah, I think I messed that up now that I see the comments.

[@SmashMath151]

This Light/Bird type did a great job of overcoming it's low Speed! The earlier candy usage definitely helped Armaldo here, but it would hurt something that struggles more with Steven. Also, for what it's worth, standard speedruns backtrack and do Brawly 4th. No harm in trying the battle on other runs if you can manage it when you first get to Dewford, ideally well above Level 14!

[@Neville133]

That double omniboost on Steven was so clutch lmao

[@snake_rattler4689]

Another suggestion: the Substitute move tutor is available on the roof of the Lilycove Department store. Where I see this being useful is when you have access to a setup move - especially Bulk Up - because that means you can set up very safely against Phoebe’s first Dusclops, Drake’s Shelgon, and Steven’s Skarmory. Alongside making these fights easier, it should free up Pokémon from being required to run Hidden Power Ghost to muscle past Phoebe in favor for another Hidden Power type.

[@shadowtitanx3962]

Also, Sidney's Mightyena. It loves to use Sand Attack just like Karen's Umbreon.

[@almocorongo5459]

Armaldo starting with Walter Gun is something that I never forget because in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky there is a special episode where you play as the Guildmaster (when he was a baby, literaly Igglybuff) and his mentor Armaldo During a scene Iggly put a map on fire and Armaldo panics but get his act together and think "oh yeah, I can use Walter Gun!" then douses the fire Memory unlocked

[@pokepress]

I don’t have a lot of experience with Armaldo in the core games, but I did run an Armaldo/Milotic deck in the TCG at one point. It was very niche, but it was fun to see folks react to it.

[@woutoosterheert1508]

After this amazing run with the dark/steel type Armaldo, you state: "I haven't done any bug types yet". Butterfree is crying at the bottom of the Bruno tier.

[@Great_Olaf5]

I've always felt like _being_ fossil Pokémon replaces one of their natural types with rock type, something about the process of reviving them from fossils changes them. Like, back when they were naturally alive, kabuto might have geen bug water instead of rock water, or something like that.

[@ultlifeform]

Another explanation I've heard is that Rock type Pokemon simply fossilize better, and their DNA gets perfectly preserved, since it's already made of rock. In that case, it's not that all the ancient Pokemon are turning into Rock types from fossilizing, but instead that only the Rock types have intact DNA available, and everything else is just too degraded to revive. Of course, both explanations kinda fall short when looking at the Galar fossils, who are not Rock type... >_>

[@SombreroPharoah]

Like Lileep/Cradily I always assumed was Grass/Dark before it got fossilised for ex. Definitely agree

[@SombreroPharoah]

​@@ultlifeformoh actually this makes a Tom of sense too

[@ultlifeform]

@@SombreroPharoah And now that I think about it, the Galar fossils kinda support the idea of only Rock types being preserved well enough. Because even though none of the Galar fossils are Rock type, they're also all incomplete. There's four different fossils, but each is only capable of restoring half a Pokemon, and they need to be combined with another fossil to revive. The DNA is too degraded to revive on their own, possibly because they're not Rock type. All just theory and headcannon though.

[@tneon9132]

wobuffet fact: you dont have to optimize its Hidden Power type for a solo playthrough since it cant learn the move.

[@grinbrothers]

Always happy to see bugs get their moment to shine and Armaldo here is my favourite of the Hoenn Bugs. This video is only 32 minutes long so I hope to assume things go very well for Armaldo. 1:11 - Armaldo has good options to deal with the Rock and Steel types that are super effective against it. The major challenge it faces is Water types, which are rather common in Hoenn. 2:25 - That's new; I don't think I've seen Roxanne send out Nosepass early before. She saw your Pokémon was named Shrimp and suddenly feared for her Geodude. Given how easily it went down to negative Special Attack Water Gun, I can see why though. 3:26 - I do happen to love that book series and the movie is entertaining. Kind of surprised to see it pop up here but Armaldo's loss to Roxanne was definitely a series of unfortunate events. 6:19 - You see, this is the sort of play you should have done in your Cradily run. When your opponent is weak, just use the more accurate move like Scratch in this case (and Acid in Cradily's case). 11:58 - Misfortune, followed by fortune, followed by misfortune. Given your negative history with Rock Tomb, I'm surprised you chose to keep it over Metal Claw. I feel the 10% chance to raise your Attack, which will benefit you throughout a fight, and the higher accuracy would make it the better move to keep. 13:38 - I feel you could taken on Brawly earlier as well. Bug resists Fighting so he only does neutral damage and Armaldo has plenty of Defence. He could of at least been an additional spot of training to aid in besting Watson. 16:46 - It does enough... but you still went through two whole sets of Ancient Power and never got the stat buff. A good win that you accomplished despite the poor luck. 17:18 - Happy to hear Bug's resistance to Ground get a mention. The resistances that Bug has tend to get overlooked but they can be pretty handy. 21:32 - Also around this 8th Gym mark, you've got a fair key fights, which tend to have many Pokémon per team. Being able to secure one-shots whilst fighting against better EXP granting teams seems rather efficient. 23:36 - I think I'd have gone with Ancient Power at this point. Keep two or three of them for the Altaria and Salamence, but try to use this Shelgon as an opportunity to try and get that stat boost off. Oh, what do you know, at 24:11 you literally do my exact advice. 27:03 - Oh wow; a first time win against Wallace was unexpected given the disadvantage Armaldo has to Water types. I figured he'd be your biggest obstacle of all. 30:26 - Holy flip! I wanted Armaldo to do well and saw you making some wiser choices here learned from your Cradily run but having it as your new top of the list S-Ranker was quite a surprise. Fantastic job, Shrimp the Armaldo! Nice to have a Bug type do so splendidly.

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

I think taking on Brawley earlier would be a mistake. I'd just bleed time backtracking to him without any real upside. Might as well just make the trip later when it's for sure.

[@grinbrothers]

Thanks for replying to my suggestion. What about when you're first on Dewford though, or do you think his three Pokémon might be a much for Amarldo at that lower level? Not that Amarldo needs to worry about improving at the moment given how well they did.@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon

[@PieEyeToon]

I love Armaldo's silly eyes. What a fun followup to the more traditional crustacean eyestalks of Anorith. Interesting how its face design seems to be intentionally confusing, with red spots that look like eyes and eyestalks shaped like its neck fins.

[@llSuperSnivyll]

One could chalk it as some sort of adaptation, so that an Armaldo always looks like it has its eyes open.

[@silu785]

Next Challange: A team of 6 Pokemon that only can use Rocktomb :D.

[@Ryno12345able]

Should have just used metal claw in the Watson battle, it would have given you an attack buff

[@BenjaminJeziorowski]

i know for some pokemon it doesn't make that big of a difference, but what happened to not manipulating a pokemon's stats to get a specific hidden power on the first playthrough? It felt like a more genuine play through when all pokemon had an evened playing field of max IVs and hidden power wasn't a fix-a-bad-moveset catch all.

[@TJF588]

"I haven't done any Bug-Types yet." Literally this run! ...Wait, nevermind, forgot Armadillo is a Steel/Faery.

[@kirzuo1512]

I think giving the rival mudkip would have been harder for armaldo, supereffective moves and resist armaldos stab Giving it insect HP woulf have been great since it is stab and still effective against psychic Anyway great content as usual !

[@tsawy6]

I think rock tomb is a /lot/ more palatable when it's not your primary attack. All the times you missed 3 times in a row at less than 1% chances: highly unlikely if you use it against a dozen trainers, but quite likely if you use it against 100!

[@blueeyesepicdragon]

Armaldo may have originally been steel type. All the fossils have one of their types replaced with rock as a nod towards being revived from a "rock" fossil. So maybe you're right after all?

[@lmr4403]

Would hidden power bug not be a good choice? Stab and offensive it is quite decent.

[@excadream]

Info for the second eventual playthrough: you can learn Fury Cutter early by going to the tutor in Verdanturf! I've had easy sweeps against Wattson because of it

[@LetustheDragon]

It took me all the way to 3D sprites when I noticed that Armaldo's ears are actually its eyes...

[@denimvelvet4670]

Steven really isn't so much a steel type specialist as a mineral type specialist. He's a fake.

[@christopherballero866]

I would like to point out that not having Cradily know giga drain was an oversight which led to a lot of resets for it

[@pauldm5222]

Sad that Armaldo doesn't learn Rock Slide by level-up.

[@Michaelshmeck]

27:11 Scott's Thought's channel misspells Gametime: 6:07 for "Gameitme: 6:07" not a big deal but this is the first major misspell in his entire channel. I watch all of your videos religiously, so this was a big deal to me. I love you Scott, keep doing what you're doing. So after watching further, I noticed there is a 2nd typo in the same video! @ 30:24

[@martlinkdiamond5644]

Ninjask has both speed boost and swords dance so I think it'll be quite good actually. great video Scott!!!

[@lordgeovanni]

I sorta wish that you had a tracker for how many Misses and Dodges your challenger has in each battle, You know... to show off the 4 Rock Tome misses in a row.

[@Kanbei11]

6:13 it wouldn't crit because you're battle armour

[@Nixoth]

Armaldo isnt weak to fighting

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Good catch

[@NeroForce2362]

This is how Scott Celebrate the Entrence Of the New Mincraft Mob

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

Did I miss something?

[@NeroForce2362]

@@ScottsThoughtsPokemon In the Mincraft live Today The mob witch get the most vost is an armadillo

[@GamerKru1996]

Armaldo is my favorite Hoenn fossil pokemon

[@tsawy6]

Fun fact, the armaldo line is one of the very few that learns mud sport but is /not/ already a ground type immune to electric

[@tsawy6]

Hell... Watson strategy???

[@geenoix2357]

Armaldo, the Water and Dragon type

[@ChaosWindScar99]

Its cool to see Armaldo do well, it's pretty underrated and I actually prefer Cradily. With the fossils i always wonder, what type were they before they became fossils. Armaldo was a bug what maybe steel? I always feel like the rock typing is an ohmage to the fact that it came from a fossil. As for the rest of the bugs, Bug moves in gen 3 aren't too great so the other bugs could struggle a bit.

[@rafilosofo]

I love Armaldo beeing the Venomoth of this generation, since it is also originally a Bug/Psychic type

[@rafilosofo]

How the attack rolls works in pokemon? Rock Tomb shows 80% but it doesn't feel like a 1-100% roll. It feels like this 20% fail change get translated in a much greater fails chance.

[@quinn7427]

That's because of psychology lol. Your rock tomb fails right around 20% of the time, but you focus on and remember those times much more than when it succeeds. The move failing is paired with anger, frustration, and other negative emotions. The move succeeding is simply business as usual, things going as they should

[@rafilosofo]

@@quinn7427 confirmation bias is indeed a good explanation. But notice that in one fight Scott misses 3 times in a row. The odds of this happen with a real 20% chance is 0.8%. Not impossible, but unlikely. And since we know pokemon games are filled with bad programming, it seems to me likely that they would use some fail roll system or something else. But sure, I can be wrong and there is nothing to understand here.

[@shadowtitanx3962]

Focus Miss be like:

[@brandonburns18]

In the battle against Brendan there was no need to be worried about focus energy on Combusken due to Armaldo’s ability preventing critical hits. I wonder if that’s why it went for Ember?

[@āuroseGT]

Buddy, I don't comment often, but I do watch every video and live. Can say many things but i'll keep it short. Thanks for these videos and all the work. it is very entertaining! Looking forward to all that comes next. (Especially anything Goldeen related)

[@dii3218]

Armaldo is super weird, fake eyes fake type all balls 💯

[@ScottsThoughtsPokemon]

hahahahaha

[@charlessegale6493]

Loved the reference to "A Series of Unfortunate Events!" That series never gets enough love.

[@Potatoflesh]

Ninjask will take forever because of the Speed Boost text if nothing else.

[@yamiryushi]

Scott...for the love of all that is holy....STOP USING ROCK TOMB!...it's absolute TRASH, it is NOT worth the frustration. Poor fossils...so much pain over a crap move x.x

[@Surfer92]

**Edit: I saw your reply on the Darkrai video. Feel free to bypass this comment. Wasn’t sure which you’d see. ** I posted this on the Darkrai video, but it might be more likely to be seen here. Do you think you could find a way in Gens 2 and 3 to shift Dark type moves to be physical, and Ghost type moves to be special? I NEVER understood why they did this. Ghosts are literally supposed to be intangible and super natural, and I feel like Dark type moves would be violence based (crunch, bite, pursuit, etc.) and should just be physical. In gens 2 and 3, every ghost and dark type aside from Houndoom and Banette, have their more prominent attacking stats opposite of what attacking stat their STAB attack comes from. In gens 2 and 3, it’s like they MEANT to have these types be switched but an error happened or just poor judgment. Pokémon like Gengar, Sneasel, Absol, Crawdaunt, Sharpedo, shiftry, etc would be MUCH better if they had their stab attacks come from their prominent attacking stats. I have no idea why Gamefreak intentionally designed all these Dark Pokémon to have high ATTACK stats, and much lower special attack stats, when their STAB attacks aren’t coming off their best attacking stat. It would be interesting to see how Absol or Sneasel would do if they got Physical STAB off of their dark type moves. Or have Gengar have a usable STAB move in Shadow Ball. Maybe do a comparison between their official versions vs. these changed versions to show the difference of what their viability in earlier gens could have been. That would be super interesting to watch.

[@1stclasswarior]

Emerald videos mean comments from this guy! I think your mid and late game were much better than your early game. Later on, you played really well and made some smart choices. I agree with the new approach to Rare Candies. The results of that were very visible. Now, I'm always wanting to provide useful, constructive advice for you, so now I want to comment on your earlier battles. You could have avoided that one reset against Roxanne by using one Harden on the first Geodude. You know that Rock Tomb isn't going to be used once you're slower. You also know you can't be crit, ignoring your boosts. Harden will mean that the first Rock Tomb you take deals less damage, giving you more HP to play with for the rest of the battle. I think you would have won first try had you done that. Next up, and this is your biggest mistake - I think you made a huge moveset error against Wattson, and paid the price for it big time. Having seen the Cradily video, I was hoping you'd see the long-term value in Armaldo's rare move, but you did not. You deleted Mud Sport early, after saying Water Gun was no longer useful to you, and then went on to never use it. Armaldo has a fairly weak SPDEF stat and, unlike Cradily, is not of a typing that resists electric. With this information, you know that Shock Wave is a major damage threat, alongside Sonicboom. You can't do anything about Sonicboom, but Mud Sport reduces the base power of incoming electric moves by 50% and lasts until you switch out. By taking one turn to set up Mud Sport, you effectively gain a resistance to electric on a Pokemon that does not do this by typing. Considering you're going for the long game, you can expect to take multiple Shock Waves over the course of the battle, and so your one turn of setting up gives you roughly +3 or +4 turns of additional value in the form of HP. That's huge. In future runs, you can do the same with Water Sport. You can delete the move early, but then re-learn it with a Heart Scale collected from a lone rock on the beach, directly east of the bike shop. Bug types like the Surskit line or water types lacking STAB like the Goldeen line would greatly benefit from this approach to Flannery. Finally, I think Drake could have been made a little easier and less luck-reliant had you saved your White Herb for him. You know you have Aerial Ace for Sydney, and, even though you get Intimidated, your ability to ignore accuracy checks and most of his damage being normal type means you're almost guaranteed to win that fight. The White Herb can then be saved for Salamence, as the only things you need to dodge are Rock Tomb and Smokescreen. That's all the advice I have for you today. As time progresses, the comments I'm writing get smaller and smaller, so that's a sign of growth. Good job!

[@gravemanbob]

During the winona fight, 'I need items to make my small pp go the distance'.... PHRASING SCOTT!!!

[@mr.number9279]

Armaldo dominated. Wow. Always knew he was good but this was insane. Would love to see Armaldo in FRLG. Rock Slide from Rock Tunnel onward... oh boy.

[@mewnani]

ARMALDO! MY BOY! I rocked this thing in my mono-Bug run of Emerald along with a Ninjask, a Heracross, a Beautifly, and two carefully bred bugs: a Volbeat, son of the earlier mentioned Ninjask and an Illumise for special coverage, HP ice and Growth. This thing combined with Baton Pass strats absolutely destroyed; I remember it cleaned up half of Steven's team by itself. I actually did use Rock Blast over Ancientpower for the higher attack, and it worked surprisingly well. I also have a soft spot for it because of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon but the Bug-type run was the first time I had ever really used it, and I still love it to this day. I'm happy to see it here, and pleasantly surprised it took the top spot.

[@aggapuffin]

Very glad my favorite Pokemon is in the top spot. Armaldo my goat.

[@zaaya7719]

Ah yes, it is TIME..... My first playthrough of Ruby/Sapphire I used only Armaldo & Blaziken, I remember their stats at the very end being 76 & 72 (I think I had a low level 30 something wailord for my water HM bot at the end too?) I just thought Armaldo was the most bada$$ looking and sounding mf ever, the anime episode only solidified that belief. And ofc Blaziken needs no introduction, idk how lil me survived rocking that in the Water region LOOOL clearly only through overleveling, good times good times..

[@BloodfelX]

Gotta love 80% accuracy, ever since I was young I've had the mindset that moves with less than 100% base accuracy are useless because I have terrible luck. If a move has 95 accuracy it might as well be 0 accuracy, heck I even made a ROM hack where any move below 100 accuracy was changed to have 99 accuracy and I was still missing multiple moves in a row. Less than 100% accuracy moves? Not even once, in my books.

[@gameplays1993]

Crawdaunt is a bad Pokémon it’s a joke that it made it to the A tier… normally it’s B maybe even C and one of the worst fully evolved water types excluding first and second stage evolutions or some 1 stage Pokémon’s but it’s really not good and horrible for nuzlockes and if you ban boost moves like I will do (just allowed if not possible without) I don’t care about time I care about challenge. …. Armaldo did great but for nuzlockes I would prefer cradilly over it every day better typing and with stormdrain awesome Thankfully you are not using substitute strats :) I found a KZbinr who does this with every Pokémon it’s annoying pls don’t start with that too to get faster times :) it would destroy the fun

[@leviwatson1891]

Huh, it's funny how you almost certainly would've won against Roxanne if the Geodudes swapped places, if the first water gun didn't one shot, you would've been slowed down, so by the time you battled Nosepass, who wouldn't have used rock throw since one speed drop makes you slower, you would've taken MUCH less damage, allowing you to survive for the next Geodude, aside from shenanigans of course😅

[@26KIDa]

Heck yeah, a Bug-type takes the first place finish! I didn't discover Armaldo's usefulness until much later on in my playthroughs, but holy cow, what a beast it is.

[@Electroghoul]

19:17 Where are you finding mods without the mach bike puzzle on Sky Pillar? That's the main reason why I don't play Emerald. I hate that puzzle.

[@miqvPL]

While Armaldo struggles with it's typing not giving him much of an edge- it's pretty balanced defensively while packing a punch. Always loved a sword dance+aqua jet set, especially with swift swim and rain support. It was pretty unsuspecting but usually managed to not be a deadweight on the team

[@adnausaem9655]

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think you should have held onto Mud Sport for Watson. It cuts electric type moves in half and Armaldo got hit by electric moves many times in the fight, so it would have been worth the cost of getting hit an extra time by Voltorb. Metal Claw could have been dropped to make space for it, as it was never particularly useful.

[@tsawy6]

Also fun fact, its not precisely that combusken comes in because it has a type advantage. All of its attacks are neutral. /but/ there are rounding errors involved. Its something like a pseudo roll of 5 damage is tested, which gets doubled to 10 by fire vs bug and halved to 5 by fire vs rock. But the order the types are checked is just based on some internal list, so if its fighting vs bug and then fighting vs rock then /rounding/ kicks in, and its halved to 2.5->2 and doubled to 4. Note that the number ive picked and the exact type orders are just intended to illustrate and i dont remember the exact specifics of this situation off the dome This all only comes into play cuz none of their mons have a super effective move

[@bananaspice1967]

Hmm, wouldn't Hidden Power Bug have been better for Tate and Lisa? Since it is STAB after all. And the rock moves can handle most ghosts fine aswell.

[@gokufirespit8418]

Very late here, but I think instead of resetting on lost gym battles you should route to put your HM Pokémon in the box so you can blackout train in between attempts. You’d lose a little bit of time running back to the gym leader each attempt, but you might make it up if you end up needing to grind levels anyway. Obviously this would be a case-by-case sort of deal if you go into the battle with consumable held items or for runs like the Buneary line where the friendship stat matters, but I feel like in general it could end up saving a couple of minutes for certain runs and could help to conserve rare candies for the post-gym endgame against the elite trainers.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Is there any place that is kind to Grass types? Unless for some reason enough trainers forgo Ice, Poison, Bug, Flying, and Fire-typed moves for long enough that Grass types generally have a method of dealing with all of those, there is no region kind to Grass types. Kanto does not count because they might as well be Poison types, Tangela is still not good in Gen 1 in a playthrough, and Victreebel and Vileplume only did well because they had set up moves.

[@Sanisgillon]

I just got asked to review this video for KZbin. I rated it 5 stars and called it ‘life changing’ 😂. I never knew I cared so much about Armaldo.

[@VegeMaticPragtarian]

I used manectric in my only emerald play through, and I think it’s because it’s the only new electric type besides plusle and minun close to the beginning of the game. I don’t love it, but it served me well. I have always been impressed with how difficult Wallace is for a monotype trainer. He really earned his champion title IMO

[@bateltheassistant]

As a kid I always thought that Armaldo was a steel rock type , at least by looking at it design,it is sure looking like one😂. Armaldo has carshed Cardily in every single aspect. Having a more attack,gave it the definitive edge over Cardily. Also Armaldo's level up moves and movepool are way better,and it's ability minimizes the inconsistent part of a solo run in general which is crits. Well, I guess that by changing your approach on the usage of rare candys and having all of the mentioned advantages ,Armaldo's results were surprisingly good. I wonder how it would do in yellow if it was back ported . Because after all both bug and rock types don't have a lot of stab options in this gen .🤔

[@shootingstardust97]

Great Armaldo run, now the S tier is filled with primary physical attackers. A pokemon candidate that u may want to put on your list for potential fast solorun will be zangoose, with early lv10 swords dance and a erratic lvling group, it may just have a decent chance of being the best pokemon in the S tier.

[@Smileyrat]

It seems unfair how much better armaldo is than cradily. Particularly when your a kid choosing your fossil blind. Also, check out the real Cambrian apex shrimp armaldo and anortith were based on, Anomalocaris.

[@Prestige_07]

Armaldo truly was a Venomoth to me when I was a kid. I always thought it was water/bug but also somehow steel? As a child I didn't have the patience during play throughs, when it comes late at level 20, to actually learn what it was but now it is definitely a top 3 fossil for me!

[@retroeyjoey1179]

I noticed on your learning fire red series you don't go through the 2nd round of the league. Why is that?

[@JacktheRah]

You know how sometimes you accidentally ruin a great battle with one wrong move selected? Player error being of course completely normal to happen. This Steven Stone fight was the opposite of that lol. This was really close and I'm glad you managed to get that final Ancient Power through and not have to rely on Struggle. While nothing big I think it shows how you have improved over time playing this game.

[@CelticGuardian7]

No wonder you hate Rock Tomb. That was absolutely absurd.

[@Soinetwa]

I understand why swampert is in F tier for you.. its becasue it as one of your first few runs but please u got to redo that with what u now know about emerald its just a crime as a matter of fact i know you want to go with fully evolved pokemon first but i wonder how marshtomp would do with your current knowledge id guess it might even outperform your previous swampert XDD thatd be an interesting video even tho it would go against what u originally had in mind with doing the whole collection of fully evolved :/ anyway keep it up ill watch it either way :D

[@eyemaknut]

At 6:14 you mentioned Brendan trying to get a crit with Double Kick. What was your ability, again? Great video, love your work!

[@movezig5]

Remember: If it's not 100% accurate, it's 0% accurate. Unless the opponent's using it.

[@Bulleta420]

Armaldo is my favorite fossil Pokemon, he was the first Pokemon I got to level 100 way back on Pokemon ruby when I was 4 or 5 years old, good times

[@TheMoogleKing93]

I can't believe how good Armaldo's Gameitime was! It's a shame it's movepool is kind of awful because it's such a neat pokemon.

[@jennyperpa5302]

When it comes to playing around the A.I with protect, you really can't. The computer cheats and picks moves after the player.

[@justinsims655]

The problem with the bug-type is that most bugs look like they can fly, sting, and resist hits with their exoskeleton. They look like they have 3-4 types, so remembering them is tricky.

[@shinigamimiroku3723]

Dood, 4 misses in a row from an 80% hit skill is insane! I think that's a 0.1% chance of occurring... x_x

[@tehy123]

Great to see Harden pop off in the final fight! If you ever go back to Crawdaunt, I think it could benefit from this tactic against Steven as well.

[@Zomonitan]

Obviously Armaldo is bug type instead of steel, because Shrimps is bugs

[@ChibiCosmos]

Since I skipped gen 3 typing really threw me off cuz I went based on looks. Armaldo I thought was bug water

[@breadpope0358]

Really excited for 2028 when you start doing solo runs with egg moves, this guy gets swords dance AND rock slide its gonna go so sillymode

[@keonhazel2799]

You could have taught Armaldo fury cutter from the move tutor in the verdanturf Pokémon center that could help get more consistent wins against Watson and Maxie

[@Drezha3]

9:52 I think using rock smash would’ve been fine due to you being paralyzed already

[@UnknownVir]

Gameitme at the end gave me a chuckle ^^ "Game, it me! Armaldo :)" Is it something you type every time for the ending?

[@Wow1w]

27:10 Oh man, Armaldo really did a first for the playthroughs by giving us an offical gameitme. XD

[@warlord070]

Scott! great vid as always. I wanted to let you know that there's a typo while showing the final game time after Steven... the t is misplaced. I don't know if there is a way to fix it without losing the vids views, I hope there is.