Local Trainers Pokémon¶

When you arrive, first scream in joy for there are no arrow puzzles in this gym!

Go north and onto the dotted line in front of you and battle the Trainer on the platform beyond. Examine the pedestal here, then go south from the platform to the start and now ride north from it again.

Beat the Psychic there and examine the pedestal. Now ride south to the start, then go north again to battle a Hex Maniac. Go from there east to the platform with the Psychic you battle and ride east from his platform now.

Here, you’ll battle - surprise! - another Psychic dude. Examine the pedestal now and ride west from it. (There are two lights glowing to mark entrance points so use the more south of the two.)

Battle the Hex Maniac and then examine the pedestal nearby. Go southeast to another person to fight, and then west to another platform, though you’ve already been to this one. Go south and to the start, then north to the Gym Leaders!

BOSS: Gym Leaders Liza & Tate¶

Rewards : $10,800

Take note that, because there are two Leaders, this is a Double Battle!

Together, both of these Pokémon are pretty similar, particularly in their use of Psychic. Lunatone mostly plays support with Light Screen and Hypnosis as a crippler.

Solrock prefers the offensive, loving to initially use Sunny Day before spamming Solar Beam (due to its power), Rock Slide (multitarget), or Psychic (STAB). In other words, the two are easily predictable.

In general, an opening turn Surf or double-Surf will easily win out the battle; for example, your Latios/Latias can use Surf alongside your HM slaving Surf-user, should you have both.

This is mostly viable on Turn 1, though, since Sunny Day will weaken it and, if Light Screen gets up, you’re talking half-damage despite the weakness. If you get the Surf(s) in on Turn 1 unblocked, but you don’t score a KO, simply repeat on the second turn regardless of anything.

Other tactics include various abuse of multi-target moves other than Surf, though they’re less available. In other words, Earthquake or Bulldoze are great here if you have Gravity or Mold Breaker. Those instances are unlikely, however, so we won’t discuss them much at length.

So, other than this? Generic weakness-targeting will more than suffice for this fight. Dark is by far the preferable type, so feel free to spam Absol/Mega Absol all you want. Banette is also viable, being a Ghost; it can even Sucker Punch Solrock (who will focus on the offense).

Grass Pokémon can work, though Breloom is worth avoiding unless he’s higher-leveled than the two since a Psychic may One-Hit KO him. Bugs are OK too, but, in such instances, be sure to take out Solrock first by focusing all your attacks on Solrock so that his Rock Slide won’t hinder you.

All in all, a simple fight.

After the battle, you’ll be given the Mind Badge. This Badge will make all traded Pokémon up to Level 80 obey you, and you will also be able to use the HM move Dive out of battles.

You also receive TM04 (Calm Mind). Calm Mind is a move which boosts the user’s Sp. Atk. and Sp. Def. by one stage each. It’s not very useful for the main game, but against other human players it can be useful for set-up sweeping.

As soon as you’re ready, step on the luminous platform next to the Leaders and exit the Gym.