Training Salamence for Pokemon Emerald Battle Frontier

Continuing the adventure from the previous post, I transferred Bagon from Emerald to Fire Red with an in game time shown above. To briefly summarize that post, after many hours of hatching eggs I ended up hatching a Bagon with very high overall IVs and perfect IVs in attack, defense, and speed. Pretty good and close to the ideal one I wanted! The nature wasn’t amazing however it was still fitting for the purpose Salamence is for the team composition.

After using vitamins to boost Bagon’s EVs in attack and speed, I headed to Mt. Moon to EV train Bagon in attack. Here we defeated the 76 Paras to gain 252 total EVs in attack. Then I went to Viridian Forest to get the 252 total EVs speed and the remaining EVs in Hp. Above are pictures of Bagon’s stats after the EV training was complete as well as the notes I was taking to help myself keep track of the progress. This entire process took a little over 2 hours which is actually not that bad!

At level 30, Bagon evolved into Shelgon. Here are its stats.

At level 50 Shelgon evolved into Salamence. Above are updates on its stats.

After many hours, I finally completed Salamence’s training. Here are the stats at level 100. This is exciting since Salamence can have a max attack state of 405, and I managed to achieve that. In previous posts where we EV trained Aggron, I somehow managed to not get the max attack.

The whole leveling process took about 9 hours which is actually pretty time consuming. As a note, this would have taken less time if I leveled more optimally however I wanted to get more encounters for Larvitar. I want that SHINY. So instead of speed running the leveling by only versing these trainers in the Sevault Canyon or the Elite Four, most of the EXP was gained from the wild grass in the Sevault Canyon.

After reaching level 100, I taught Salamence Earthquake and Aerial Ace since I had those TMs in Fire Red. I originally wanted Salamence to have the Flying Hidden Power, however after teaching it the TM I found out it was electric. I learned that this Hidden Power TM is based on the Pokemon’s IVs so it cannot be changed. That is why I ultimately gave Salamence Aerial Ace.  Then I transferred it over to Emerald and went to the Name Rater to give Salamence back its original name.

I wanted Salamence to have Rock Slide so I needed to transfer it back to Fire Red since there is a move tutor in Rock Tunnel. I did not look this up until after I transferred it to Emerald. After traveling to the Rock Tunnel I discovered that I already used the move tutor and was not allowed to teach another Pokemon that move. Luckily I also have Pokemon Leaf Green so I transferred Salamence to that game and went into Rock Tunnel to finally teach Salamence Rock Slide. I then transferred it back to Emerald. Yea, it was annoying haha. 

Note: You can get the TM Rock Slide in the Emerald Battle Frontier however you need 48 battle points. 

As for now Salamence’s moveset can be seen in the picture below. This move set is similar to Aggron’s move set however we will discuss this in the next post. It does feel somewhat criminal that Salamence does not have a dragon move however in this game dragon is considered a special attack. Also Dragon Dance was a move I considered including however I learned too late that this is only an egg move in Gen 3. We will see how Salamence does for now and if anything, we will train up another one with Dragon Dance. Since I already have perfect IVs on many Bagons, transferring those should not be too time consuming as it first was.

Stay tuned for the next post where we will be discussing into detail the 3 Pokemon on the team and my strategy going into the Battle Frontier. Then we will start to actually challenge some sections of the Battle Frontier.