Emerald II - An eternity of EVs, and much HM hate

Well, it took six slices of forever, but EV training is complete.  Effort Ribbons and evolutions all around.

Jamie and Drama's EVs were fairly spread out, with a slight concentration in Atk/Sp Atk for Jamie, in Def/Sp Def for Drama, and some extra Speed for both.  For Joelle I divided her points between Atk, Sp Atk, and Speed. 

Once everyone earned their Effort Ribbons, I held off evolution for Jamie until he'd learned Blizzard (I had him forget Surf to learn it) and for Drama until she'd learned Hyper Voice (it was hilarious watching her take down two opponents at once in a team battle, with nothing but sheer noise!).  Joelle was evo'd directly at lvl 37 to get Shadow Punch, then levelled up to match everyone else (the team is all around lvl 45).

Since Match Call is a pain in the ass, I had to hit the various sea and underwater routes to get them all levelled up that far.  This gave me access to Sootopolis and Pacifidlog.  As to whether you can get into the Sootopolis Gym before the whole mess with the legendaries is cleared up -- no.  The Gym's door is closed, as is the door to Sky Pillar, and that old man is blocking access to the Cave of Origin.   You can swim around all you want, but nothing's going to open up until Team Aqua's been dealt with and Kyogre's loose.

Final movesets for my three new team members are looking like:

Jamie:  Aurora Beam - Ice Ball - Body Slam - Blizzard
Drama:  Stomp - Uproar - Supersonic - Hyper Voice
Joelle:  Shadow Punch - Confuse Ray - Night Shade - something else, not sure yet

So now I've got three more of the Pokemon I need for Hoenn's 'Dex. YAY.  I'll need to trade them back and forth before raising Jamie any more, so I can get 'Dex credit for a Sealeo.

However, this also leaves me with an unforeseen problem:  too many Pokemon, and not enough slots on the team.  Why?   In a word -- HMs.

Technically I think the team at this point would be Tabasco, Samson, Sybil, Jamie, Drama, and Joelle.  Usually, though, I spread out a few of the more useful HM moves throughout the party -- Surf, Fly, and Strength, at the least.  This leaves me with fewer HMs that have to be dumped on a slave, usually Cut and Rock Smash, and that slave generally has enough room for other moves to still be effective as a team member and go to the E4 along with everyone else.

This time, though, since the focus is hand-raising Pokemon for the 'Dex, I've been exceedingly reluctant to just waste their movesets on HMs.  Sure, I've got enough Heart Scales that I can always adjust their movesets later, but somehow I can't bring myself to foist these useless moves off on them.

Instead, I've been using true HM slaves -- Pokemon I don't really need to raise, whose moveset is wasted on HM moves, and who aren't meant to go to the E4.  Problem is, there's so damn MANY HM moves in Emerald that this pretty much uses up two slots on the team, because there's nothing in the Hoenn 'Dex that can learn both Fly and Surf (both of which are indispensable just for getting around).  Worse yet, the HMs that you could do without most of the time in other games (like Cut and Rock Smash) are actually needed fairly often in Hoenn.

Thing is, having to give up two team slots to HM slaves really slows down training ... a LOT.  Unless you don't train the HM slaves up to match the team, in which case you are effectively going around with a party of four.  If your heavy hitters go down, those neglected HM slaves don't have a chance.

The ideal would be to have a single HM slave that had all the moves you need most of the time, and one that had the ones you don't need so often.  In Hoenn, though, you need too many of the moves on a regular basis.  So I guess the best I'm going to be able to do is to divide the moves between two slaves, and just drag them along everywhere.   Yuck.  What a waste of perfectly good Pokemon.

With that said, the division should probably be one for Fly, Cut, Strength, and Rock Smash; and another for Surf, Dive, Waterfall, and Flash.  Too bad that doesn't leave room for any non-HM field moves, like Dig.

I miss my original Emerald team;  especially Meadow and Gossamer, who between them had most of the necessary and useful stuff;  Jubal took care of Surf, and then I only needed one slave for Dive, Waterfall, and Flash.

Or....hmmmm.  I see on the internet that Rayquaza can learn Fly, Surf, Strength, and Rock Smash (plus Flash, Dive, and Waterfall).  Oh ho.  Maybe once I catch this game's Rayquaza, I can make it do HM duty  (one really only needs Cut now and then in certain places) and all I'd need then would be a Water slave for Dive, Waterfall, and Flash.  I could raise my female Chinchou Aurore for that;  I need a Lanturn anyway.   Maybe a Nincada or Anorith for Dig, Cut, Secret Power, and False Swipe.

That way, three Pokemon would get me everything I need;  one for basic getting around, one for the water stuff and Victory Road, and another for the other field stuff.  Ah HAH.

Now I just need to thrash Team Aqua and catch Rayqyaza...ho boy.