#so im thinking less abt specific mons and more style. how would they approach a battle situation

[braintapes]

been playing a metric shitload of pokemon these past few weeks and its got me cooking in my mind. the kinds of battlers i think the hotel podcast characters would be:

First, overall, I think the Staff would all have weak teams at first in different ways, but then later on you battle them a second time (maybe after fighting the New Crew) and they've got beefed up 'Mons that you have to actually work to beat.

The Lobby Boy's first team is frail. I'm talking like, Wimpod, Magikarp, Slakoth, stuff like that. Litwick. First stage evos or Pokemon that kinda hinder themselves more than they're useful. Golett with Klutz or smth. The first battle's a cake walk. But these are Pokemon with pretty powerful evolved forms once you get there - Slaking, Gyarados, Golisopod...you get the idea. You fight him the second time and he hits you like a truck with highly powerful mons.

The Manager's team is designed around entry hazards. The Manager manages, she adapts. She knows she's going to take a hit, but she's going to make absolutely sure you get punished for landing it. Bulky, defensive mons that can take a beating long enough to set up spikes, stealth rocks, etc. Maybe also a Sharpedo for Rough Skin and to tie into her fish/ocean creature theming. Middle evos for the first battle maybe, full evos and more type coverage the second time? Also a focus on status setting, just to be extra painful while you slowly lose

The Owner's team has plenty of decently powerful Pokemon...but they are horribly set up. Bad abilities, poorly applied movesets, the works. Mons with Intimidation but which don't take advantage of it, ones that get Heavy Slam but aren't, uh, heavy enough to make good use of it. A team that would be kinda scary to go up against if he knew what he was doing. Which he does figure out by his second battle. Maybe he gets to use one of the cool gimmick features like Mega Evolution or Gigantamaxing or something. Idk about specific Pokemon, but I do know for sure he should have a Dusknoir. It's just right to me.

The New Crew, overall, take advantage of different battle formats. So while you don't rematch them, they come out of the box with strong teams focused on good synergy. If you could rematch them, they'd probably do some of the fun stuff the battle facilities in the games do, imposing restrictions and interesting limits.

The Bellhop and Concierge are fought as a unit in a double battle. The Concierge plays defensive and support, with bulky/hard-to-hit mons that set up screens, boost ally stats, and weaken enemy stats. He probably also enjoys taking advantage of things like confusion and infatuation/immobilization. I like the idea of him using normal types and 'regular' seeming Pokemon, perhaps.

The Bellhop has the strike team. She hits hard and fast with strong physical and special attackers. Favors moves that hit multiple times or have additional effects, although with all the stat boosts the Concierge is stacking her with it's really just overkill at this point. Pokemon with abilities that boost their stats maybe, or with abilities that nullify moves of certain types? Need to think on that more.

The Auditor's team is designed for support, but...a little too much. You fight her in a rotation battle, which (iirc) play like single battles but with some advantages. Still, I don't think she'd be a complete wash and she can keep her own Pokemon healed up throughout the fight and stall you out (again i dont remember rotation battles as much as double battles so i could be wrong on this. will have to research). Bug and ghost type user I imagine. I think she should get to have Aegislash, I know it's a sword and not a knife, but it's still a wicked blade. Also she gets a Banette bc I thought it'd be fitting for either her or the Manager.

Madam Hotel's first fight is a wash. Full of seemingly random and seemingly useless gimmick Pokemon. Chimecho absolutely has to be on her team because I need it to be on someone's team. Mimikyu, Eiscue, Zorua, a focus on disguises and damage absorption, but fairly easy to deal with once you've figured the gimmick out. Until you get to the very end of your team and thBLAM. BLACEPHALON BLAST!!!!!!!!!

The Hotel Herself does not fight fair. She rotates constantly between Ultra Beasts, Legends, Pokemon from the Staff and New Crew teams, thematically appropriate mons, she'll switch out a Pokemon from the box mid-battle because she can. She's gamebreaking and she knows it, and she's really just toying with you and having her own fun.

Her strategy is high risk, high reward. Fun, explosive plays in a literal sense - self-destructing moves, extremely powerful but low accuracy moves, anything relying on luck to hurt you. All of her team has accuracy and critical hit boosting items and she spams healing, revives, pp, constantly. It's an endurance game, like the most unbalanced and poorly designed of romhack battles cranked up to 100.

If you can outlast her somehow and win, she just kills you out of battle anyway

thank you for coming to my ted talk . smile :]