Thanks! I kinda assumed I was just dodging the constant light-screen, and that my low-level Marowak was just that powerful with thick club. I had no idea Blissey was so weak to bullying.
Man, if only that were represented in GO somehow. Fighting is already the best strategy, but they're still tanky as hell. Since there's no physical/special split there whatsoever.
I was vaguely aware that I'd made a team of spellcasters, but for some reason didn't consider that as a weakness. The main threats I noticed were... well literally dragonites and legendaries (used by trainers at high badge counts) which seem to have fairly balanced defense/spcDefense.
I guess the electric types I mainly faced (Raichu/Jolteon/Electabuzz) have relatively low physical defense, but Surge was pretty easy for a simple reason - I was feeding my spellcasters calcium, which at this point increases both special attack and special defense.
And Marowak did fine against Surge too because well, ground.
...Though in retrospect, ground and rock attacks were annoyingly rough on me.
Not fighting though, heh. Fighting types faced my flying/psychic Xatu, and my half-dark Houndour main was so overlevelled it could take a punch or two before switching out.
This was all an interesting change from my tanky Rock and Fighting focused OG Silver run. The infinite money through gym-grinding is certainly different, even with the lovely additional challenge the romhack adds. In Silver I was actually trading hits, here it was kinda "sweep or trade out to a better matchup". I also used a lot more items in this game, which I mostly avoided in Silver. Revival herbs... were a hard deal to resist. I, um, may have used them specifically when something BS happened like strings of misses, or paralyze/confusion fucking us up for multiple rounds against normal odds.
It's training, see. oh no I'm a baddie, my carry is literally a hellhound
Edit: Oh but yeah Akura you're probably right about the finite PP. I assumed it was infinite, and stopped testing it as I tried to think up a solution. Considering the Blissey's trainer, there's also a good chance it was 16 instead of 10 yeah.