Loving the new enrage mechanic on the latest Escalation. Apart from the massive time saver (50+ levels a day!), I just skipped right past level 100 .

Even funnier is that if you land *right on* the level. I beat 96, enraged, got a +3 boost to put me at Level '97+3'. I swore to myself thinking that put me *right on* 100 instead of skipping it. Boo.

But I figured, I'd give it a go anyway, maybe I was wrong about how this works and I'd be facing Level 97 and then would get the 3 skip to allow me to 'beat' 100 in the process. Worst case scenario, I'm down a heart.

I was both right and wrong. It didn't put me on 100. But it didn't put me on 97 either. It put me on something even easier, because I beat the thing with 12 turns still remaining.

Next thing I know, the stage has jumped to 101, and I'm looking at the easiest Mega Speedup earned in quite some time. Awesome.

Now If I can just sneak past the later boss levels too....

Yeah, I've really been enjoying that feature as well. I didn't get to skip level 50, but it ended up not being too difficult in the long run. And if I ever had a single life remaining, I would use that on the new Landorus stage rather than chance enraging Zygarde and missing my chance to take advantage of that. But now that I've caught Landorus, I may have to use that extra life for something else instead like Meowth grinding or something.

@V_s

Yeah I tried to skip Level 50, no dice. Got it on my third try itemless though, so not too bad. Best strategy for a skip I find is to ignore any enraging that might drop you 1 or 2 levels from a 'boss' stage. Rather 'sneak' up on it one level at a time from about 4 levels back. With any luck you can get an enrage to put you over.

I'm not worried about 'last hearts' in that scenario either, I've been stockpiling my reserves for an emergency. Currently on 80+ The 10 extra from level rewards so far have more than made up for that too.


Haven't caught Landorus yet, took two shots at him and got him down to 10-20%. You use any items? I'm thinking straight Attack Up.

I finally caught Landorus itemless after three or four tries.

Are you familiar with the ShuffleMove program? If not, it's a program someone made that can calculate the best move for the situation based on what you say is on the board. The very first time I played Landorus, I beat it itemless with 3 moves remaining. Then I tried the level again, this time using ShuffleMove and I beat it itemless with 5 moves remaining. (I think I ended up catching it with 5 or 6 moves remaining.)

This may be entirely coincidental, but I noticed that the one time I played the level on my own, the level's disruptions didn't get in the way at all. They pretty much took care of themselves. But every time I used ShuffleMove, the disruptions got worse than when I wasn't using it. I don't know if it was just chance, or if the level has a timer running in the background to increase the difficulty of the disruptions if you take too long to pick your move, or if the difficulty of the disruptions increase if you do more damage to Landorus at the beginning of the level, or what... Still, I never had a problem beating the stage itemless, but I only tried it once without Move helping me out.

@V_s

Oh I'm aware of it. I don't use it much though because it's time consuming, especially when I have to reset the whole board every other turn because everything has combo'd into unpredictable chaos. Generally only Weekend Meowth and non-timed Competitions. (Screw everyone those prizes are miiiiine.)


Speaking of Weekend Meowth, that '1 jewel for 3 extra plays' is a heck of a deal if you're running low on coins but sitting on a surplus of jewels.

I think exchanging in the store the best you can hope for is 1 Jewel= 4K coins (and that's the bulk deal of 12 for 48K). For Weekend Meowth, that single jewel can easily be turned into 15-20K coins. Much more efficient.

Probably try and keep my Jewel reserves at about 30 or so just in case, but I get enough odd Jewel rewards that I shouldn't have any issues keeping my coins topped up without the need for daily Meowth grinding.

The only thing I ever use Jewels for is to replenish my coins once I hit the 12 Jewel mark, and since the "1 jewel for 3 extra plays" is almost always better than the 12 Jewel deal, I've just been going for it every weekend. I don't much bother keeping up Jewel reserves any more. :P

@V_s

Well my hope was that we'd be able to trade Jewels for other things in the future, like Mega Speedups and whatnot.

You never know

I'm pretty efficient with my coins so stockpiling isn't a problem.

Failed to skip 180.

Given the horrible HP I think I might call it a day here.

Edit: Hmm. Perhaps not. If I use a Mega Start my non-candied Mega-Rayquaza becomes viable and I can use one of the high tier teams...some more research before a final decision.

Bit the bullet and pulled out Rayquaza (7) Xerneas (10) Diancie (7) and Zygarde 50% (5) Along with +5, DD MS & Attack Up (7300 coins).

Thanks to some Shuffle Move help, managed to beat it with 2 moves left. Yay!

Then I skipped 200. Score.

- Itemless 50
- Skipped 100
- 5300 coins on 150
- 7300 coins on 180
- Skipped 200

12,600 Total for all rewards up to 200. Not a bad return. Plus mitigated somewhat by about 5K coins from level rewards...

Lets see if I can get any further, maybe skip 250.

I think I managed to skip 180. I don't think I actually played it, but I'm definitely past it. I'm probably going to stop after 200. Not sure yet.