Badge #5, Pt 3: The Wasteland

It's been a very long time since we had a gym battle, hasn't it? You've been stuck at level 45 for a while. Well, here's the next gym, and you'll probably be regretting wanting it after you wipe a few times.

Welcome to the Byxbysion Wasteland! This is another very wide open area that's annoying to navigate. Allegedly, you're here to stop a PULSE Pokémon... but it's an optional battle so I recommend waiting until you can get a level cap bump to do that.

PULSE Garbador puzzle summary

As you walk through the wasteland, you'll see four "reactor tubes"; similar to the ones found in Corey's old gym. If you turn them all to red, this door will open up.

Inside, you'll find a set of stairs; the path beyond here is entirely linear so just keep walking until you reach a room with two more tubes. These tunnels do have their own encounters, like Solosis, as well. Turn them both to red to open a door at the back into another room, which has three paths available.

The left-most room contains a structure with a hole for an Odd Keystone; if you have one, you can insert it to get a Spiritomb, and if you don't you can get one from mining rocks. The middle room contains TM66 Payback, and the right-most room contains PULSE Garbodor.

After beating it, you can pick up TM09 Venoshock.

Follow the red arrow to the right into the building (and then follow the red arrow out of it again) to a computer... blocked off by Ace! Who has returned after betraying you a few hours ago. The computer (in the middle of the wasteland) controls a door that you need to unlock to proceed, so I guess you should talk to them (and then fight them (and then win)). This is a moderately difficult fight, being a boss fight and all, so some tips:

• Meowscarada is fast and has Protean. Hopefully you have something that's strong against Flying types because it really likes Acrobatics.
• Their Bronzong summons stealth rocks, which will hurt you at the end of the turn.
• Really, just be smart with switching. Find a game plan and stick to it.

After beating them, you can go into the newly-unlocked second building, and then follow the only path up to the gym. Heal your Pokémon and save your game before going into the side room for the gym; you'll get another cutscene and a battle with Fern. If your team is set up to fight Ayaya you will probably get wiped, so switch to something with some Fighting and Flying types first to wipe him easily.

After beating him down, you can finally take your place and battle Ayaya.

Ayaya is the biggest wall you will face for a very long time, perhaps even worse than Shelly depending on how your team is set up. She has one of the biggest advantages in her gym by quite some margin to the next hardest fight, a very strong team that exploits these advantages, and an enemy Pokémon three levels above your level cap.

• Her field is the most blatantly advantageous field in the game, the Wasteland field. It swallows Bulldoze and Earthquake and causes spikes to do damage at the end of any turn they are set up.
• High Horsepower is not nerfed by the Wasteland field. Phanpy learns it as an egg move, for example. This completely eviscerates her team. Same with Earth Power, or Scorching Sands (learned by Nidoqueen at the Releaner), or Stomp Tantrum.
• Fake Out support is essential here, as it lets you gang up on a problematic Pokémon whilst the other one does ineffective attacks. I'm going to keep singing the praises of Purugly, which gets both Fake Out and U-Turn.
• Steel types are usually a good idea, except her Nidoqueen will kill it with ground moves. Or her Drapion with a fire move. The coverage here is really good.
• Offensive Toxapex is a sight to behold, with Toxic Spikes on the wasteland getting 1/8th chip damage and a guaranteed poison on you. It also has Icy Wind to both slow you down and kill your ground types. Kill it as soon as possible.
• You're really going to want to look outside the box for options here. Wyrdeer is a strong and bulky Psychic type, Marowak with Technician-boosted Bone Rush can do absurd amounts of damage.
• You should've found some attack gems on the floor by now. Some Ground and Psychic gems will turn two-hits into one-hit kills which will often save your hide.
• It only took me like eight runs through this game to realise her Dragalge was illegal, being at level 45 when it evolves at level 48. I was faced with a choice: do I nerf it back to a Skrelp, or do I bump the level up?
  
  Well, not only is it level 48 now, it's also Poison/Water so it's even better. You will need to be very careful with how you approach it, because it will murderise your ground types.
• This more than any other gym needs you to commit to a game plan and iterate on it until you win. Press F12 to soft reset and try again if it goes awry.

If you've made it this far, the game will finally let you have a breather for a few dozen hours. The stretch from Badge 3 to Badge 5 is probably the hardest part of the game because of the limited team options and how long it takes to get to get a level bump, but after this the game really starts to open up with teambuilding.

Before doing anything, we need to actually go and get the HMX for Strength. Trudge your way back through the wasteland... to find Cain edgeguarding the door. You have to beat him to get through, so... He's a few levels behind now, so this should be a nice and easy fight after that horrible one.

Leave the wasteland to find Cal, who will reveal he sabotaged the PULSE all along; and will then give you the TMX for Strength! We're not going to go and rescue the kids yet; instead, we're going back into the Wasteland for something.

You might have noticed this suspicious hole in the wall whilst exploring the wasteland. If not, you can get to it by jumping down off the ledge to the north left of the building that takes you higher up after you slide down (that's a mouthful). If you walk into the wall, there are two paths; the left side leads to a locked door, whilst the right side has a smashable rock and a strength boulder. Move the boulder all the way to the right to have it fall down a hole, and then fall down it yourself; this will destroy a rock that was blocking the route from the other hole in the wall. Move the rock all the way to the left to open a path to a small grotto.

Within this grotto is a single grave. Interact with it.. it's Kiki's grave? What could this mean? It means that you need to fight a level 65 Medicham. This isn't that hard of a fight, it's merely 15 levels above you, so you can beat it legitimately if you so desire. (Or you can Murkrow cheese it.) Either way, after beating it, the fake Kiki reveals herself to be a Misdreavus.

With that, you've seen everything there is to see in the Wasteland for... most of the game. There's a few starter quests available for you to do now, if you so wish.

If you travel to North Obsidia alleyway -- provided you've done all of the Gang Quests so far -- you will find a Houndour, which will fight you if you have a Pokésnax. There's sadly nothing there in the Lapis Ward alleyway.