I found Latias after about an hour of searching some bushes near one of the bike route buildings, and then got to work tracking her while figuring out how to keep her from running. My first encounter with Latias I used Wobbuffet (Psychic, Lv. 26), a defensive-type Pokemon, with the ability Shadow Tag to stop her from running. Wobbuffet has NO offensive capabilities in the normal sense; the two attacks it can perform require the enemy to attack first, either with a physical attack for the one or a special attack for the other.
For whatever reason, Latias refused to do any attacks, only using defensive moves, and because of that I couldn't counterattack. I was forced to grab Abel (Gardevoir, Psychic, Lv. 52), and managed to put Latias to sleep with Hypnosis before she somehow ran away. At this point I knew I needed to get a Pokemon that could stop others from running, keep her there to take some punishment and stick around for more than one Ultra Ball. I decided to go and grab a Golbat (Poison/Flying, Lv. 42) I caught in the caves of Victory Road and have it use Mean Look, a move that prevents escape.
I encountered Latias again, found it still sleeping from before, and happily realized that anything I do to it is persistent. I had Golbat use Mean Look, then went on the attack with Wing Attack and Air Cutter to push Latias' health into the yellow. Unfortunately, Golbat went ahead and got knocked out after a few unsuccessful tries with Ultra Balls, and I sent out Spike (Roselia, Grass/Poison, Lv. 46) to use Grass Whistle to put Latias to sleep before she ran.
I went ahead and decided that as low on health as Latias was, I should go ahead and try using Wobbuffet again to fight her if she was going to stay defensive with him. Unfortunately, she decided to attack him and put him down rather easily, even though I didn't want at all to do further damage as I got her health in the red. After a couple more encounters with her, having no luck with Ultra Balls, I decided to just go ahead and use my Master Ball to capture her.
Next up, and last on my list, was Rayquaza, the Pokemon I had hoped to use my Master Ball on, and part of the Weather trio of Legendary Pokemon. I had to get through the Sky Pillar, a tower with a few floors that need to be navigated via Mach Bike, to get to the top and fight Rayquaza. It took me a little bit to figure out the layout, and where/when to turn, but I got through it easily enough, easier than I thought I would especially with Max Repels.
I went through and fought against Rayquaza, knowing I was in for a tough fight, but I had supplies remaining from the Elite Four fight. I brought out Crimson (Blaziken, Fire/Fighting, Lv. 53) to fight it, and found that Fire and Fighting attacks didn't do much, but fortunately Slash did some decent damage. I was doing good on damage until Rayquaza went ahead and used Rest, which put it to sleep for a few turns but ALSO went ahead and healed it fully the first turn. Rayquaza woke up after a few turns and knocked out Red, and so the pattern of Rest, attack, switching went for a few Pokemon, and finally it got confused using Outrage while in the red and knocked itself out.
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Restarting from my saved point from before the battle, I pondered going ahead and leveling my Pokemon up, but I knew it'd take hours more gameplay to get them to even level 60. I decided to just try again, starting out with my Gyarados (Water/Flying, Lv.40) to cut Rayquaza's attack in half with her ability Intimidate, then I switched to Aeris (Pelipper, Flying/Water, Lv. 51) and had her use Ice Beam to do some serious damage to it. After a bit, I decided to pull out Bolt (Magneton, Electric/Steel, Lv. 52), and use it's Steel defense to stand against Rayquaza's attacks.
It dawned on me that Bolt has a couple attacks that could really help me catch Rayquaza, Flash to lower accuracy and Thunder Wave to cause paralysis. I had Bolt go ahead and use Flash a few times to lower Rayquaza's accuracy to the point where it could hardly land a hit, and then paralysis prevented even more attacks from going through. I was able to stop it from using Rest with the paralysis, and the attacks it used kept missing. I went ahead and used quite a few Ultra Balls, around 20, and probably 5 Timer Balls before the latter finally caught it.
I've got all the Legendary Pokemon in Sapphire now, and I'm going to have to go through and wipe the HMs off my team so I can transfer them all forward to Pearl, as well as set up a new team of evolved Pokemon with HMs so if I ever need to go back, I'll have a decent little group. I'll make a final post about my time and Pokedex counts before moving on to Pearl.
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