Arriving at the League HQ

At this point we have reached another major milestone in our Pokemon Adventure, having arrived at the League HQ where we will shortly embark upon the challenge of defeating the Elite Four, and following that series of challenges, the epic confrontation with the present Unova Regional Pokemon Champion in order to take our place as the new Regional Champion.

This is certainly an appropriate point at which we might pause and appreciate all that we have accomplished up to now, from the long journey during which we obtained the eight Unova Region Pokemon Badges and, by doing so, demonstrated that we have the right stuff to both challenge the Champ and take our rightful place as the Champion. Should we succeed, that is.

But in addition to that, we have also literally saved the world from a nefarious plan by Team Plasma to perpetrate what amounts to a coup during which, while it was never their stated aim, Team Plasma would have enslaved the entire populace!

So patting yourself on the back here would seem warranted.

Now that you have done that, it is time to make an attempt at looking forward to what still lies ahead of you, but before we do that we should examine the related strings that make up the web that is the world of Unova and Pokemon.

If you were paying attention to the Medal Rally, you may recall that there is an entire group of Medals from that side-quest and collection that relate to the manner in which you approach taking on the Elite Four and the Champion - but bear in mind that the first time that we do that our primary concerns should be success, and not scoring a few more Medals for our Medal Box... Just saying.

The Battles Ahead

As was demonstrated in this walkthrough it is certainly possible to work your way both through the challenges of the Pokemon League Gym Battles and the challenges that were presented by the story mode in the game to do so with a non-traditional team of Pokemon.

In fact it is fair to say that, as long as you properly trained (some might say over-trained) your team, their type was less important than the moves with which you equipped them and the manner in which you employed them!

Granted when your Pokemon is at a type-disadvantage no matter how buff they are, you are going to need to use moves that are not prevented from damaging the opponent based upon their type advantage.

Our answer to that particular challenge was to build teams that consisted entirely of Pokemon with more than one type, or multi-type Pokemon. Assuming that you did the same, that puts you in a position to deal damage to the enemy even when the Pokemon you choose to use is at a partial type disadvantage, and this should have been fully illustrated in your play through this walkthrough.

Despite the Pokemon type system, when you approach team management and development with an eye on flexibility, you always find that things tend to work better. Sure, a single-type Pokemon is going to be far more effective and do far better damage in that type move than a multi-type, but on the other hand where that single-type Pokemon is helpless, your multi-type choice is not.

Deciding on the Team you will Take Forward

That brings us to a very important decision - as depending upon the Pokemon that you selected for your team and those that you rotated in when you built your A-Team, you may not be in a good position to proceed from here rapidly. I know that I was not.

For the bulk of the second half of the game and its Adventure, I used the following A-Team:

Double-Z (Zweilous)

Dark/Dragon-type

Moves: Dragon Pulse, Work Up, Dragon Rush, and Body Slam.

Flit (Flygon)

Ground/Dragon-type

Moves: Rock Slide, Fly, Dragon Claw, and DragonBreath.

Silver (Roserade)

Grass/Poison-type

Moves: Magical Leaf, Poison Sting, Mega Drain, and Sweet Scent.

Sunny (Solrock)

Rock/Psychic-type

Moves: Rock Slide, Stone Edge, Psychic, and SolarBeam.

Vixen (Sawsbuck)

Normal/Grass-type

Moves: SolarBeam, Nature Power, Energy Ball, and Flash.

Willa (Durant)

Bug/Steel-type

Moves: Dig, Bug Bite, Cut, and Strength.

An alternate team member that was rotated in and out as needed whenever we were in areas with lots of water was:

Spike (Corsola)

Water/Rock-type

Moves: Surf, Earth Power, Power Gem, and Mirror Coat.

While that is a pretty good A-Team for the challenges that were faced both in battling the Gym Leaders to obtain the Badges and in dealing with Team Plasma for the story portion of the Adventure, now that we have reached the Pokemon League HQ and, aware of the challenges that are ahead of us, this team has a massive weakness that must be addressed.

While I still like Spike as my designated Water-type rotation Pokemon, for purposes of battling the Elite Four and the Regional Champion Spike does not bring enough to the table to warrant adding them in as a permanent member of the team for that stage due to the fact that while they make a great Water rotation they simply lack the spread of skills I am going to need.

Adding a Pokemon that has those skills means picking one of the main team to move into rotational status and replacing them with a Pokemon that has the missing skills and abilities that I need, and after reviewing my team above, the logical conclusion that the only one that was bringing less to the table than the others was Vixen, who while they are effective as a Normal/Grass-type offer skills and abilities that are largely a duplication of those provided partly by the rest of the team. So Vixen gets retired to the rotational pool for my A-Team.

The choice of a replacement Pokemon very likely means choosing one that is NOT at the current team level, which means that no matter which one you choose from your collection, it will mean leveling them up before you can continue from here.

Choosing an Ice-Type

After carefully examining the types and tactics that I will face in battle with the Elite Four and the Regional Champion, the only choice that made any sense was to add an Ice-type to my team, and considering that my team is weak in a second area, that choice is automatically narrowed further to being an Ice and Water mixed type!

So I accessed the PC Storage System to see what was in my collection that would nicely fit into my needs - and that happens to illustrate WHY the process of collecting all of the Pokemon that we did as we made our way through each area in the region made total sense beyond the obvious desire to complete (or at least to work on) the Pokedex for Unova!

I had a rather nice selection of candidates to choose from because of the serious approach that we took to collecting what Pokemon we could, and so deciding on which to use was an actual choice that I got to make rather than being forced to just use one. I ended up choosing my Walrein:

Rollin (Walrein)

Ice/Water-type

Moves: Aurora Beam, Water Gun, Surf, and Waterfall.

As you can see, because they are my Water Utility member they have the two HM's that only they can learn, Surf and Waterfall, both of which by the way are very good combat moves, so it is not like that was a compromise!

The moves I wanted them to have in addition to the two HM's, Aurora Beam, and Water Gun, are very strong moves for their type, with Aurora Beam being the Ice-type move that will no doubt serve as my metal fist when it comes to dealing with the Dragon-type Pokemon and others that I will be facing who are weak towards Ice-type attacks.

Shaping Up the Team

In addition to being well below the team's current level - which means I will need to level them up - Rollin also has the disadvantage of rather limited PP for the moves that it has that I consider to be its strengths, so like some of the other members of my team, I am going to have to fine-tune their individual moves. But fortunately for me, I have been busy collecting special items that can be applied to that process and also busy NOT using them!

You will find that in your Backpack you should have a selection of the following items which will come in handy for the process of fine-tuning your team, so AFTER you level up your replacement to get them to the team's level, carefully review their moves, paying close attention to the moves that you feel you will need most in the battles to come, and then adjust their capabilities using the resources that you have, which should include:

Calcium: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base Special Attack stat of a single Pokemon.

Carbos: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base Speed stat of a single Pokemon.

HP Up: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base HP of a single Pokemon.

Iron: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base Defense stat for a single Pokemon.

Protein: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base Attack stat of a single Pokemon.

PP Max: It maximally raises the top PP of a selected move that has been learned by the target Pokemon.

PP Up: It slightly raises the maximum PP of a selected move that has been learned by the target Pokemon.

Rare Candy: A candy that is packed with energy. It raises the level of a single Pokemon by one.

Zinc: A nutritious drink for Pokemon. It raises the base Special Defense stat for a single Pokemon.

In addition to the above special items, you will also have, by now, gathered an impressive collection of held items that you can give to each of your team members, from items that improve their stats or performance, or their type-abilities and attacks, to items that improve defense and other aspects of their stats.

There are also the berries you have collected to be taken into consideration, since having some of those held by your Pokemon can cause them to use them in a pinch, healing a bit on their own as needed.

The point to these Observations is that, once you have settled on the team you are going to do the challenges at the end with, and you have leveled them to the point you are comfortable going in with them to face the Elite Four and the Champion, using the special resources that you already have in addition to deploying your team with the best choice in held items you can make is really the bare minimum of planning and preparation you should be completing prior to this final push!

Choose your Poison

With respect to the PP raising items, you will only have one PP Max, and you need to decide where it makes sense to use that. It is a powerful tool, so you want to get the best effect from it that you can, which is why I recommend that prior to using it you save your game so that, if you decide that it did not give you the best results or, more likely, you realize that the move you used it on was already close enough to the max PP that using it on that move was a mistake, you can gracefully undo that choice.

Based upon the experiences you have already had in gaining your badges you should have a pretty good idea of what moves you used the most, and what ones you will likely use a lot in the battles to come, so those are the ones you should be focused upon.

Re-Supply for the Final Push

In addition to purchasing the items you will very likely need, which may see you flying all over the world to obtain things like Moomoo Milk and the like, there are going to be rarer items that you will also need to use conservatively during the battle with the Elite Four, since that is an all-or-nothing challenge that will not see you re-supplying between fights!

With the Elite Four you are going to have to rely on what you brought with you, and with any luck you have not been using the special and rarer resources that you really will need for this challenge, which include the following:

Elixir: Restores the PP of all the moves learned by the targeted Pokemon by 10 points.

Ether: Restores the PP of a Pokemon's selected move by a maximum of 10 points.

Max Elixir: Full restores the PP of all the moves learned by the targeted Pokemon.

Max Ether: Fully restores the PP of a single selected move that has been learned by the target Pokemon.

These are rare and special resources of which you will not have a large Number and which cannot be purchased at your local Pokemon Center. You should take stock of what you have, and if you feel it is adequate, well then good on ya!

If on the other hand you do not feel that it is adequate, be aware that you can purchase the following rare items using Battle Points (BP) from both The Pokemon World Tournament and Subway Battle System:

Calcium (Special Attack Stat)

Carbos (Speed Stat)

HP Up (HP)

Iron (Defense Stat)

Protein (Attack Stat)

Rare Candy (Raises 1 Level)

Zinc (Special Defense Stat)

The above items can be purchased at the Right-hand Exchange Counter in the PWT in Driftveil City, and from the person on the right at the Exchange Counter in the individual Subway Battle Platforms.

Using this source to purchase these items will require you to put in some serious time in battling either on the Subway Battle Network or the PWT (we are talking hours here), but on the plus side while your team gains absolutely zero XP for their battles (win or lose) you will pick up some shiny Medals for your Medal Rally Medal Box as a result!

Berry Nice to See You!

In previous games in the Pokemon series the lowly Berry was given a much larger presence and focus than it has in Generation V. In fact one might accurately say that berries in Gen V have been treated as largely meaningless and valueless, in spite of the fact that when you have a ready supply of them (as was the case in the titles in which you could grow them) they had very valuable, well, value...

When they were originally introduced the berry system was a lot of fun, as it was basically the “new collection focus” for those games. You can easily think of the Medal Rally as the equivalent of the Berry System in that way, though I personally believe that the berries were far more useful. Whatever.

In Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 berries cannot be grown, though they can be acquired as prizes in the mini-games found in the Entralink Universe. In particular the Collect Berries mini-game is a good source.

The Berries You May Have List

Aspear Berry: If held by a Pokemon it defrosts it (berry version of Ice Heal)

Cheri Berry: If held by a Pokemon it recovers from paralysis (berry version of Paralyze Heal)

Chesto Berry: If held by a Pokemon it recovers from sleep (berry version of Awakening)

Kelpsy Berry: Using it on a Pokemon makes it more friendly, but it also lowers its Attack stat.

Leppa Berry: If held by a Pokemon it restores a moves PP by 10 (berry version of Elixir)

Oran Berry: If held by a Pokemon it heals by 10 HP (berry version of half-a-Potion)

Pecha Berry: If held by a Pokemon it recovers from poison (berry version of Antidote)

Persim Berry: If held by a Pokemon it recovers from confusion

Rawst Berry: If held by a Pokemon it recovers from a burn (berry version of Burn Heal)

Sitrus Berry: If held by a Pokemon it heals the users HP by a little

Due to the descriptions of these berries it makes them sound like they are exclusively a held-item only item, but that is rather misleading in that it only really applies in battle, which is when the Pokemon is likely to use a berry it is holding should the circumstances warrant that.

In reality you can use berries on a Pokemon whenever you like and still get the effects that the berry is capable of producing, assuming that your Pokemon will benefit from them. That being the case, it makes a lot of sense for you to include specific berries listed above as part of your active kit for the Elite Four and Regional Champion battles you are about to face.

In particular you will find that Aspear, Cheri, Chesto, Pecha, Persim, and Rawst can be important parts of your Status Fixing Pack, while Kelpsy is probably best ignored or sold off since it has an undesirable impact upon your stats regardless of how much it might raise the happiness of any Pokemon you use it on!

Oran and Sitrus Berries should be classed the same as Potions and the like in your kit, while Leppa Berries are (as far as I am concerned) worth their weight in gold!

Common Resources

In addition to all of that there are common resources you will be using to help put your team back together following each Elite Four Battle, which may include the following:

Hyper Potion ($1200): A spray-type medicine for wounds. It restores the HP of one Pokemon by 200 points.

Max Potion ($2500): A spray-type medicine for wounds. It completely restores the HP of a single Pokemon.

Potion ($300): A spray-type medicine for wounds. It restores the HP of one Pokemon by 20 points.

Super Potion ($700): A spray-type medicine for wounds. It restores the HP of one Pokemon by 50 points.

Fresh Water: Restores the HP of a Pokemon by 50 points.

Lemonade: A very sweet drink. It restores the HP of one Pokemon by 80 points.

Soda Pop: Restores the HP of a Pokemon by 60 points.

Moomoo Milk: Milk with a very high nutrition content. It restores the HP of one Pokemon by 100 points.

Full Restore ($3000): A medicine that fully restores the HP and heals any status problems of a single Pokemon.

Revive ($1500): A medicine that revives a fainted Pokemon. It restores half the Pokemon's maximum HP.

Max Revive: A medicine that revives a fainted Pokemon. It fully restores the Pokemon's HP.

Antidote ($100): A spray-type medicine. It lifts the effects of poison from one Pokemon.

Awakening ($250): A spray-type medicine. It awakens a Pokemon from the clutches of sleep.

Burn Heal ($250): A spray-type medicine. It heals a single Pokemon that is suffering from a burn.

Ice Heal ($250): A spray-type medicine. It defrosts a Pokemon that has been frozen solid.

Paralyze Heal ($200): A spray-type medicine. It eliminates paralysis from a single Pokemon.

Full Heal ($600): A spray-type medicine. It heals all the status problems of a single Pokemon.

Casteliacones: Castelia City's specialty, soft-serve ice cream. It heals all the status problems of a single Pokemon.

Lava Cookie: Lavaridge Town's local specialty. It heals all the status problems of one Pokemon.

You can purchase most of these common items at the Pokemart Counter in your local Pokemon Center, and depending upon the level in rank that you have progressed your Join Avenue Mall too, there are any Number of useful items you can purchase there to help you prepare for this push.

Among those include the Water Sets, Milk Sets, and the like from the department store storefront.

You can purchase Fresh Water, Soda Pop, and Lemonade from the conveniently placed vending machines that can be found all over the Unova region, while Moomoo Milk can be had in quantity or in singles at the Driftveil Market where you will find a dairy counter.

You can also buy medicinal herbs at the Driftveil Market (but I don't recommend them since they impact the happiness levels of any Pokemon you use them on).

Remembering the “Freebies”

In the process of building upon your successes in battle and the advancement of the story it is both easy and understandable for you to forget some of the minor elements in the game, like the odd freebies and the combination of money and XP you can pick up for “repeat” battles with trainers who are willing to re-battle you pretty much whenever you like can be had.

On the Freebie front you should remember that any time you make and then watch a movie at the multi-plex cinema on the grounds of Pokestar Studios in Virbank, when you emerge from the theater there will be, scattered throughout the lobby, a collection of your fans, from whom you can obtain gifts, which depending upon the results of the movie may randomly include the following items:

Berry Juice (heals 20 HP)

Escape Rope (escape instantly from dungeon but you can sell it for $275)

Hyper Potions (heals 200 HP)

Lava Cookies (heals all status problems of one Pokemon)

Lemonades x5 (heals 60 HP)

Moomoo Milks x5 (heals 100 HP)

Old Gateaux x5 (heals all status problems of one Pokemon)

Repeat-battles can be a particularly effective choice to take if you also still need to level up any members of your team (and if you swapped one in to expand your capabilities like I did the Ice/Water type that I added this can really be an attractive choice)...

After you have completed the challenge of defeating the Elite Four and the Champion there are key trainers who you can battle over (re-match battles) including Cheren any time you want on Victory Road, Bianca on Saturday and Sunday at the Professor's Lab, and Hugh pretty much any time you want in Driftveil City, but that hardly helps you now, does it?

Fortunately there are a Number of trainers and other characters you can re-match and battle now, and those include:

Pokemon Breeder Irene (on Route 4 near the Castelia City Gate) with Level 16 Pokemon / Pays $512.

Pokemon Breeder April (in the first Grass Patch on Route 6) with Level 27 Pokemon / Pays $864.

Pokemon Breeder Marcus (first raised path on Route 7) with Level 34 Pokemon / Pays $1088.

Depending upon the Season and whether you have battled them recently you may also find that a visit to Nimbasa City is in order...

The Basketball Players on the Small Court will present you with Pokemon that sometimes scale, from Level 45-48 and above, and pay you an average from $2000 to $5000 along with a nice chunk of XP, and even the odd double-battle or two based upon the NPC distribution, which makes this a desirable side-trip considering that it usually offers between 3 and 4 individual battles, or 3 individual battles and a double-battle.

The Big Stadium just down the road can offer you additional battles when the Soccer Team is using its pitch, as the battles there can scale, and start around Level 48 or so, offering very decent XP along with cash that ranges from $2100 to $4800 and averages 3 single battles and 1 double-battle.

Paying for your Kit

Should you find that you lack the funds to pay for the basic resources that you will need for the next phase of your Pokemon White 2 Adventure, you will want to find the money somewhere.

As mentioned above, if you also need to level up one (or more) new or substitute member of your team, at least some of the money and perhaps some of the items can be acquired in re-match battles and in making movies (items being obtained from your “fans” following your screening of the newest movie you have starred in), those are options.

But if you find that what you really want is money without the added fuss and muss of battles or other activities, the easiest and most consistent source for farming money in the game has to be farming Wings on the Driftveil Bridge.

As you run back and forth on one of the bridge segments you will spawn tiny shadow dots that theoretically represent a potential battle encounter with the sole Pokemon type for that area (Unova Dex No. 153 Ducklett, which evolves into No. 154 Swanna) but that more often contain one of the Number of different types of Wings - for example the Genius Wing, Clever Wing, Muscle Wing and the others.

These are all basically single-use meds that temporarily modify one of your Pokemon's stats, which is fine as far as that goes, but when you plop them down on the counter at your local Pokemart you will find that all of them (with the exception of the Pretty Wing, which is only worth $100) are worth a whopping $1500 each!

While the Pretty Wing is only worth $100 the way that it usually works out you don't end up finding a lot of those anyway, but even if you do, it is $100 you did not have before, right?

Thankfully the rapidity at which the shadow spots spawn is such that even with the odd Ducklett battle, the process of farming Wings is rapid and rewarding, and it would be a shocking surprise if you needed more than ten minutes to build enough to cover the funding you require.

Put another way, when I arrived at the bridge I set the stop watch app on my iPhone to count down ten minutes and then I began to run around on the bridge. During that ten minutes I had five Wild Duckie encounters in which I naturally one-hit-killed the little bugger so the battles really did not take any appreciable time and, when the timer dinged that ten minutes had passed, I had also acquired the following:

x5 Pretty Wings @ $100 per = $500

x4 Genius Wing @ $1500 per = $6000

x4 Clever Wings @ $1500 per = $6000

x3 Muscle Wings @ $1500 per = $4500

x5 Swift Wings @$1500 per = $7500

x2 Resist Wings @ $1500 per = $3000

x4 Health Wings @ $1500 per = $6000

For a grand total of $33,500 for ten short minutes worth of running around!

Not too bad, and if that first ten minutes was not enough, well then I can always run around for another ten minutes, right? By the way when you start to seriously work on the whole happiness evolution challenge for the Pokemon that only evolve when their happiness is above 220 building up a warchest of funds in this manner will make that process way easier since you can convert that cash into happiness via the various shops at your Join Avenue - just saying...

Wrapping this Up

Basically you should have a very small set of easy to follow goals at this point, which should consist of the following tick list:

Step 1: Level any Pokemon you needed to swap into your A-Team for the Elite 4 / Champion Battle.

That can best be accomplished in the following order:

(A) combining re-match trainer battles in order to obtain precisely what you need (fundage AND the XP) until you reach the point where you are sure you have all the money and/or Kit Items and then;

(B) switch to pure XP acquisition by farming Audino in the Tall Grass on the ledges leading up to the Pokemon League HQ on your way up (or heading back down as the case may be) until you have the levels you need.

A Note on Rare Candy: while it may be tempting to just burn up the Rare Candy that you have to obtain these levels, in my experience those are far more useful to be held back and used when you are evolving Pokemon to complete your Dex...

Step 2: Obtain all of the kit items you think you will need for the upcoming challenge.

Step 3: Determine which Pokemon/Moves to apply the meds/items that permanently increase HP, PP, and the other stats that you can permanently increase with items until you use up all of the appropriate items you have for that purpose!

Step 4: Return to The Pokemon League HQ at the top of Victory Road, save your game, and play!

Step 5: BEFORE you begin the battle road take a few minutes to review the section that follows this one and that provides you with the details of the different Pokemon Teams you are about to face with the idea being to be well prepared for these battles.

Get a sense of what types you are going to face and which of your A-Tam members that will be best used against them, and make lists of how you should have your team set up PRIOR to entering the battlefield.

Step 6: Prepare your Final Kit and Supplies for the Battles

While your mileage may vary when it comes to what kit you think you will need for the process of beating the Elite 4 and the Regional Champ, this is what I went in with (and what I felt I needed) - including the rare and special items that were picked up from the start of the game and intentionally held back rather than used.

Common Kit Resources

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

x05 Berry Juice (Restores 20 HP)

x25 Lemonade (Restores 80 HP)

x90 Moomoo Milk (Restores 100 HP)*

x20 Hyper Potions (Restores 200 HP)

x20 Max Potions (Completely restores HP)

x20 Full Restore (Completely restores HP and heals all Status Ailments)

x20 Revive (Revives a KO'd Pokemon with Half-HP)

x05 Max Revive (Revives a KO'd Pokemon with Full-HP)

x10 Antidote (Heals Poisoned State)

x10 Awakening (Wakes a Sleeping Pokemon)

x10 Burn Heal (Heals Burn State)

x10 Ice Heal (Heals Frozen State)

x10 Paralyze Heal (Heals Paralysis State)

x20 Full Heal (Heals all Stat problems for a single Pokemon)

x15 Old Gateau (Heals all Stat problems for a single Pokemon)**

x06 Lava Cookies (Heals all Stat problems for a single Pokemon)**

x12 Casteliacones (Heals all Stat problems for a single Pokemon)***

Rare or Uncommon Kit Resources

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

x03 Ether (Restores x10 PP to a single selected move)

x03 Max Ether (Fully restores PP to a single move)

x04 Elixir (Restores x10 PP to all the moves of a single Pokemon)

x03 Max Elixir (Fully restores PP to all moves of a single Pokemon)

* Almost all of the Moomoo Milk were obtained via Pokestar Studio fans, as the result of the strange endings I was making for the movies while doing the Medal Rally Medals for that action so basically they were free... YMMV, but if you are paying for them I should think that between x24 and x36 would be more than sufficient.

** Again these were acquired from Pokestar Studio Fans in the lobby of the cineplex...

*** The dozen Casteliacones are basically the even dozen that I bought when I arrived in Castelia City for the first time and was exploring, and I bought these thinking that they were more economical than paying $600 each for Full Heals, but that was basically before I realized that there would be a more than adequate amount of other resources that provide the same results that I would get for free...

Now I am prepared to admit that the x20 Revives was probably a bit on the excessive side, but then you know, you never need a Revive until you NEED a Revive, just saying... Since I could afford to buy them, why not buy them?

With all of that Completed

It is time to return to the tiny stone shack that is the Pokemon Center at the Pokemon League HQ, do a final check to be sure that you have everything that you need, apply any last second upgrades, and be happy with the decisions that you have made because it is now time to engage the Elite 4 and demonstrate for them what you are made of!