Candice + Snowpoint Gym Puzzle (Pokémon Platinum)

The seventh Gym Leader in Pokémon Platinum is Snowpoint City’s Candice, a user of Ice-type Pokémon around level 40.

All of Candice’s Pokémon have a second type besides Ice, although type advantage is still the best way to win against her. Following a general rule of using Fire-, Fighting-, Rock-, and Steel-type Pokémon will allow you to take down her entire team fairly easily.

Candice will reward your victory with the Icicle Badge, which will allow you to use the Rock Climb HM outside of battle. And you’ll also get a copy of TM72 Avalanche.

Quick Strategy

There’s a lot of variety among Candice’s dual-typed Pokémon, leading to some rare blends of strengths and weaknesses. Your best chances of defeating her are to:

• Bring Fire- and Steel-type Pokémon. Ice-type Pokémon are weak to four types of moves: Fire, Steel, Rock, and Fighting. Of those types, Fire and Steel have a resistance to Ice moves, and since Ice types tend to be heavy-hitters, you’ll want that advantage.
• Bring a good Water type along. Candice’s Piloswine is weak to Water and has no super-effective moves to use against Water Pokémon.
• Bring a Pokémon with a weather-changing move. Candice’s Abomasnow has an irritating Ability (Snow Warning) that causes hail for the rest of the battle unless it’s overwritten by another weather move, like Sunny Day.
• Make sure your Pokémon are around level 40-45. Candice’s strongest Pokémon, Froslass, is level 44. Froslass can be a highly difficult Pokémon to knock out, and the last thing you need is an extreme level difference between you making things worse.
• Stock up on items. As usual, stock up on the best items your Badges will allow. Be fully prepared by bringing some Revives, Hyper Potions, and Full Heals (in the eventuality that you may become frozen) into battle with you.

Before Entering Snowpoint Gym

As usual, check your Bag and top off any of the standard items you’re running low on. Especially Revives, Hyper Potions, and Full Heals.

Even in this Ice-type Gym, freezing isn’t overly common. But you don’t want to be stuck that way if it happens.

Candice’s team is generally weak to Fighting, Fire, Steel, and Rock moves.

An excellent Pokémon to bring into this Gym is Lucario (if you received the Riolu Egg from Riley on Iron Island). As a Fighting-/Steel-type, a Lucario at around level 43 can take down at least half of Candice’s team without breaking a sweat.

Infernape is another great Pokémon to bring, since it also combines two of Ice’s biggest weaknesses—Fighting and Fire—into one devastating package.

A strong Water-type Pokémon with a move like Surf would also be a great asset for defeating Candice’s Piloswine with minimal trouble.

When you’re ready, heal up at the Snowpoint Pokémon Center and head to the Gym in the middle of town.

Snowpoint Gym Puzzle Guide

Snowpoint Gym is a single enormous room. The area is covered with ice and segmented into four tiers that get increasingly smaller as they descend into the middle of the floor.

Leader Candice is waiting on the opposite side from the entrance.

If you step onto the icy floor you’ll be sent gliding across it until something stops you, like a wall or a snow patch.

There are also giant snowballs all over the place. Some of these snowballs block the stairs you’ll need to climb to reach Candice.

Your objective is to clear specific snowballs by sliding into them from higher tiers so they break from your momentum. The snowballs don’t need to be cleared in any exact order.

Once the following 4 snowballs (marked with an X) are removed, a path leading to Candice will become available.

Below we’ll give you a step-by-step solution to get through the Snowpoint City Gym’s ice puzzle.

Puzzle Solution with No Trainer Battles (Step-by-Step)

From the Gym’s entrance, step onto the icy floor to the left and let it slide you into the wall.

When the wall stops your momentum, turn northward and slide in that direction.

You will stop on top of a small snow patch. From here, turn to the right and glide down the slope.

The drop will make you move quickly enough to destroy the long row of snowballs in your way.

You will come to a stop at the staircase to the right.

Turn to the left and slide back the way you came.

You won’t have enough momentum to propel up the slope, so you will stop in the upper-left corner of the second-highest floor tier.

From here, slide southward.

When you come to a stop on the lower-left corner tile, head up the staircase on your left and move all the way to the wall on your left.

Then from the wall, slide to the north.

You will stop at the same snow patch as before.

But this time you should slide further north so that you’re in the upper-left corner of the Gym, then just slide to the right to reach the next snow patch.

From here, slide southward to descend one floor tier and stop at another patch of snow.

Now slide to the right to descend another tier and destroy the snowball blocking the staircase.

You will come to a stop at the opposite staircase on the right-hand side.

You can now clear the last two snowballs by moving in the following zigzag pattern:

This pattern can be summarized by moving in the following directions, starting from the staircase:

1. Left
2. Down
3. Right
4. Right
5. Down
6. Left
7. Left
8. Down

Once you’ve cleared both snowballs you can make your way back to the big snow patch at the Gym’s entrance. The path leading to Candice will now be clear and you can walk straight forward.

All Gym Trainers

Just as the snowballs don’t have to be cleared out in a strict order, the Gym’s six trainers don’t have to be cleared in order either.

You actually don’t have to fight any of them to solve the gym puzzle (although you should still do it for money and EXP).

Below are the gym’s six trainers and their Pokémon teams. We’ve listed them going counter-clockwise starting from the bottom-left corner of the Gym.

Battling Leader Candice

Each of Candice’s Pokémon is an Ice dual-type, with no two Pokémon on her team having the same type matchup.

She will begin the fight by sending out her Sneasel, so you might want to lead in with a strong Fighting-type Pokémon.

Candice’s Sneasel

Sneasel is three things:

• A heavy-hitter
• A speed demon
• And extremely fragile

Sneasel has very weak defenses and a quadruple weakness to Fighting moves. And although Fighting Pokémon are weak to Sneasel’s Aerial Ace, the move shouldn’t overly harm a bulky Fighting type.

Lucario is one of the best Pokémon to use against Candice’s Sneasel, especially since its Fighting-/Steel-typing leaves Sneasel with no super-effective moves to use against it.

Candice’s Piloswine

Piloswine won’t give you much trouble either, but watch out for its Earthquake. Switch out any Fire- and Steel-types you used to beat Sneasel unless you’re sure they can bring Piloswine down in one hit.

Piloswine has a 2x weakness to the following types of moves:

• Fire
• Water
• Grass
• Fighting
• Steel

But Water may be the most effective due to Piloswine’s Ground typing and its lack of super-effective moves.

Candice’s Abomasnow

Abomasnow’s most irritating trait is its Snow Warning Ability. This automatically summons a hailstorm as soon as Abomasnow enters battle.

And this hailstorm lasts for the rest of the battle (instead of the usual 5 turns) unless it’s canceled by another weather-based move or Ability.

Hail hurt your non-Ice Pokémon for 1/16 of their maximum HP at the end of every turn, and it will activate Candice’s Froslass’s Snow Cloak Ability, which raises its evasion stat by 20%.

That said, Abomasnow has a quadruple weakness to Fire-type moves. So that’s an easy way to burn it down – just watch out for its Water Pulse attack.

Fighting- and Poison-type Pokémon are safer super-effective options against her Abomasnow.

Candice’s Froslass

Froslass’s stats seem suspiciously mediocre at first.

That’s before you realize she’s an Ice/Ghost dual-type—a rare typing that can be difficult to battle if you’re not prepared—with tricky moves and tons of agility.

This battle is going to be harder if you don’t have a way to get rid of Abomasnow’s Snow Warning hail effect, which will:

• Hit vulnerable Pokémon with damage every turn
• Raise Froslass’s evasion stat by 20%
• And boost her Blizzard’s accuracy to 100%

The evasion problem is compounded by Froslass’s likelihood of spamming Double Team as much as you’ll let her.

So don’t let her do that.

Come in strong with your best Fire-, Rock-, Steel-, or Dark-type moves (not Fighting though, because of her Ghost typing).

Otherwise you’ll soon be struggling against an irritating foe with a 60% or higher chance of dodging all your attacks.

If Froslass gets too many Double Teams in and you’re having a hard time hitting her, the move Haze can cancel all of her stat buffs. If none of your Pokémon knows Haze, your next best choice is to attack blindly and hope your moves connect.

Fire- and Steel-type Pokémon will excel in this fight.

Froslass’s strongest attack is Blizzard, which will do only half damage to Fire and Steel types. Pummel her with STAB-powered super-effective attacks and she should eventually go down, no matter how many Full Restores Candice might use.

The Aftermath

After you defeat her in battle, Candice will reward you with the Icicle Badge, which will let you use Rock Climb outside of battle. She will also give you the game’s only copy of TM72 Avalanche, her favorite move.

And now that you’re able to use Rock Climb, you have access to your next destination: Lake Acuity.

BACK TO THE MAIN GAME Pokémon Platinum Full Strategy Guide

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Chris Haygood

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Chris is an American freelance writer and lifelong gamer. RPGs have been his genre of choice ever since he got Pokémon Blue in 1867, but if he finds a good rhythm game, he will prioritize playing it over both eating and breathing.

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