Attempt 1 - FR Ultimate Ironmon
Our starter! Fun to have a fav on the table immediately. Mental herb is niche but won't be useless.
Stat spread is mostly even, which isn't a bad thing. Low SPDEF is scary, considering our 4x weakness to ice and 2x weakness to dragon -- both special types. Atta will get us through the early game ok, but we should unfortunately probably seek a replacement.
Compoundeyes is a decent ability. Generally defensive abilities are preferred, but this will open up our move pool, which is nice. It's a pretty big boost iirc, turns 70% accuracy into like 91%.
Moves aren't bad! STAB Earthquake and Drill Peck will carry us certainly through the early game, and we're pretty likely to keep both tbh. DynamicPunch is still only 65% accurate with Compoundeyes tho, so not gonna rely on it unless we have to. Mirror Coat is too dangerous to use, especially with our SPDEF.
Rival has a Chimecho, which almost two-shots us with Facade. Thankfully we live with 1HP!
Stat gains are good, still worried about that SPDEF. Even ATK / SPATK isn't ideal either, but again, keeps our movepool pretty open.
After delivering Oak's Parcel and scouting the pivots available (including Regirock on Route 2 and Raikou in Viridian Forest), this turns up as a 5% spawn in Viridian Forest! Kingdra is one of the best Pokémon to get, especially this early, so we'll catch her and check her stats.
...she's really good. Maybe a little slow. Hyper Cutter is a mediocre ability, but since we are a physical attacker, it's not useless.
I forgot to screenshot her moves but she has Stomp (good), Hi Jump Kick (very risky but ok), Iron Tail (inaccurate but coverage), and Taunt (maybe useful).
We gain some EXP from defeating one wild Pokémon on each route before heading to take on the Viridian Forest trainers. The Regirock alone nets us 2.5 levels. Look at those stat gains! She's great.
Cleo also learns Sludge after the first trainer battle! We learn it over Taunt.
Found a Brightpowder on the ground in the forest! A really, really great item.
We make it through the trainers in the forest without any scares, then head for Brock.
Somehow the screenshots aren't uploading, but despite how good Cleo looks, our lack of healing items proved to be our downfall at Brock. He had a Gengar as his first Pokémon, which was tanky and resisted or was immune to all our moves except Iron Tail... which has a 75% hit rate. We hit two, but missed the third for the kill three times in a row. We were just below half health going into Brock's second Pokémon, which was a Tentacruel... that also had sky-high defense. It outsped us, being three levels higher, so flinch strategies were off the table. Having used our only Potion on the Gengar, Cleo couldn't survive two Crush Claws. Thus ends the run :(
