Building my Battle Frontier Team (Aggron): Pokemon Emerald
Breeding and training Aggron in Pokemon Emerald/Fire Red!
The Adventure Begins
The time has finally come. I have begun my quest to take on the Pokemon Emerald Battle Frontier and acquire all of the Gold Medals. Just in case you are unaware, several sections of the Battle Frontier are quite challenging and require a well built team in order to succeed. The Pokemon selected for one’s team should be diverse in the typing as well as having a broad and potent move pool. Training these Pokemon are equally crucial. A determined trainer will need to be selective with which IVs to breed and which EVs to train. These are both time consuming processes however the end result yields one of the strongest forms a Pokemon can become.
The First Pokemon
The first Pokémon I decided to train to be on the team is Aggron. Aggron is one of my favorite Pokémon mostly due to how menacing the design is. Also, my favorite character in the game/anime is Steven, and he also uses Aggron.
Aggron does have benefits for being on a Battle Frontier team other than looking cool. Aggron is a steel type which means it cannot be poisoned. Toxic is an annoying and competitive move which I anticipate several Pokémon will have in the Battle Frontier. In the Gen 3 games, Aggron has the 4th/5th highest defense stat out of all the Pokemon. Being extra bulky will help it survive and take hits more easily than other Pokemon. Aggron base Attack stat is also high which makes for a good physical sweeper.
The role I want Aggron to fulfill on my team is a bulky physical sweeper. The stats I decided to focus on were HP and Attack with an Adamant nature (+10% attack, -10% Special Attack). Some physical sweepers will have a max attack/special attack stat followed by speed. Since Aggron is quite slow, I wanted to capitalize on Aggron’s high base defensive stats instead of focusing on speed. One tricky aspect regarding the Gen 3 games that one needs to remember is about the physical/special attacks. In these games, the type of move decides if a move special or physical. Aggron has a high attack stat which means moves that are Normal, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost, and Steel are all impacted positively from this stat. An ideal move set I am considering is Earthquake, Metal Claw, Brick Break, and Double Edge. These moves are powerful and versatile making for a good physical sweeper.
Training Aggron
Sooo I am sort of dumb and I ended up training two Aggrons instead of just one.
The first Aggron had perfect IVs in Defense and Speed with Adamant nature. The IV checker in the Battle Frontier only told me this Aron’s stats were perfect in Defense and Speed, however the Smogon table (for stats of Pokemon at level 5) showed that all this Aron’s stats were perfect. I decided to trust the Smogon table which ended up giving me an Aggron with an unperfect Attack stat. This Aggron also had the ability Rock Head which is not as competitive as Sturdy.
I realized after training the first Aggron that this Pokemon should have max stats in HP instead of Defense. Training in HP somewhat covers both Defense and Special Defense. The HP stat is more general which is better for a sweeper. Below is the result of the first Aggron at level 100.
The second Aron I trained came from the same batch of Arons I bred earlier in this adventure. This next Aron had perfect IVs in HP and Attack with the ability Sturdy. After spending time EV training this Aron and getting it to level 100, here are the end results!
The HP is absolutely perfect and the attack stat is 1 off. I was quite bummed about this because I thought I did everything right. I recently learned as to why this might have happened. I do not want to over explain it here however it has to do something with only 1 stat of a Pokémon can actually be PERFECT. Since I EV trained the HP stat first, the Attack has a possibility of not being perfect (a conversation for another day). Regardless, I am happy with the results!
With the Aggron being complete, I have already begun to work on my next Pokemon for the team. I am almost done training it to level 100. Once I am finished, I will share a video and a chill article for you all to read!
If you have not watched these videos yet, check em out!