The Pokemon Thread

[Browning]

Finally we are six again, with this little gem joining up:



I'm at a loss as to what to do with Hawlucha. I deleted Roost when he wanted to learn High Jump Kick as I could just use an item instead of Roost. However that leaves us with High Jump Kick (Fighting), Power-Up Punch (Fighting), Flying Press (Fighting/Flying) and Bounce (Flying) which is just a mess.

I want to teach him Grass Knot and/Or Dig. Grass Knot is because I just came up against a Water/Ground type and couldn't touch the fucker (the fact I have 3 Steel types none of which levitate doesn't help) and Dig to use on Poison types if need be. I have Steelix for that so it's not essential. But that move set needs rounding out a lot I'm just not sure what I can do away with. Bounce seems the most forgettable as Flying Press will be used 9 times out of 10 when I need a Flying move, but then I'm still in a scenario where I have 3 fighting moves. At the moment my lean is to get rid of Bounce/High Jump Kick and learn both Dig and Grass Knot, and hopefully replace one with a Rock type move at some stage, but we'll see.

The fact High Jump Kick is basically going to kill him if it misses means it's gone. I'll roll with Grass Knot in it's place for now.

[Browning]

RIP Talonflame, my second Pokemon and the oldest survivor.

[Browning]

A Psychic gym was just what the Doctor ordered for my Steel heavy team. I wanted to let Doublade handle it, but ultimately I wasn't brave enough and resorted to Plan A... Steelix. I switched in Magnezone against the Slowking, but it was all routine. The loss of Talonflame still stings.

Team with 7 Badges:
Steelix- 56 (Stone Edge, Dig, Crunch, Iron Tail)
Hawlucha- 50 (Sky Attack, Grass Knot, Fly, Flying Press)
Doublade- 49 (Iron Head, Swords Dance, Night Slash, Shadow Claw)
Tentacruel- 49 (Hex, Surf, Poison Jab, Venoshock)
Magnezone- 49 (Thunderbolt, Flash Cannon, Metal Sound, Electro Ball)
Avalugg- 49 (Avalanche, Ice Fang, Bulldoze, Rock Tomb)

Some pointless moves in there that need improving, but I'm fairly happy with it on the whole.

[Browning]

Some cunt of a Malamar just swept half my team. I didn't even know what type it was. I kind of don't want to carry on after that.

[Dan]

Malamar is deadly if you don't know what's coming. Did is just SuperPower sweep you?

It's Psychic/Dark, just in case you haven't looked it up, so just smash it with a bug move (ideally a special one) before it can set up & pray it doesn't have rest.

[Browning]

Yep, exactly.

I looked it up when it became evident it wasn't Steel, but I had no Bug or Fairy moves to kill it with. I figured Doublade would be able to save me as Fighting can't hit it, but it used Payback and killed him too. Somehow Tentacruel took him down with Surf but not before I'd lost Doublade, Hawlucha (when I thought he was steel... I mean... just look at it) and Magnezone (I figured he could take a shot with Sturdy... but I didn't realise he was about 2HP down from an earlier fight.... fuck sake).

We soldier on battered but not beaten. Lysandre must have felt sorry for me because he didn't Mega Evolve so I just about got through that with no further deaths. I've just landed Yveltal and am weighing up using him or not. I've now allowed myself any guaranteed encounters so far, but in the circumstances (and given I've never got this far in Y so never had one) I'm considering it. Beyond that the only back up I have is an Amoongus.... ugh. Well, also a Sneasel but I can't evolve him. And some shit that's way too under levelled to could.

Edit- For some reason Yveltal was top of my party when Lysandre turned up for a 3rd time... taking the decision out of my hands (I had always intended to catch him as I need one on my main game). I wasn't going to give that prick a free turn by switching to someone else. Yveltal did the business and got us through again with no casualties. I guess now I need to consider if he stays or not.

[P_3]

So has his Malamar got Contrary? What a bitch.

Zigzagoon and Linoone have been fucking me right off. They appear on every single route in OR, meaning I haven't caught anything new for absolutely ages.

[Browning]

You should have used the duplicate rule, I guess. I didn't on this run but I've run into one duplicate that I remember.

[Browning]

So we save for tonight with:
Steelix- 60
Tentacruel- 56
Avalugg- 53
Amoonguss- 45
Golem- 45
Possibly Yvetal- 50

Still torn on Yveltal which is why I've not used him other than the 1 battle that was forced on me. I'm not sure whether it diminishes the accomplishment somewhat if I keep him and actually do survive this run. I've just ground Amoonguss up 10 levels tonight and probably need to do 10 more tomorrow before I can continue. Golem was just caught on this new route (as a Graveler) but I probably won't keep him either way. He offers nothing that Steelix doesn't do better.

Who the fuck would have guessed Steelix would be this runs MVP.

[Pleb]

I'm tempted to headbutt a tree on my nuzlocke save and get a Heracross...yay or nay?

Is Yveltal a pure Fairy type or a dual physic/fairy? I would be tempted to use it.

[Browning]

Neither, he's Dark/Flying. He was very interesting in the one match I was forced to use him for, but I'm still undecided whether it's going to make it too easy to use a legendary. Grinding up that Grass dude is taking forever.... despite the fact he levels up relatively fast. No idea what to expect from the E4 so no idea if I'm truly fucked or not at this stage.

Edit- I've just read that you HAVE to catch Yveltal to progress with the game. Therefore as I didn't have 6 Pokemon when I got there, I had no choice but to use him against Lysandre, especially when they automatically chuck him to top of the team. So because of that I'm going to keep him. Fuck it. It's going to be boring as fuck otherwise.

[Pleb]

The Elite Four is Fire, Water, Steel and Dragon.

The Champion shouldn't be a problem with the levels that you have but if you don't deal with Gardevoir properly then you might have a slight problem.

[Browning]

I decided this morning against Yveltal and the game rewarded me with a Tyranitar. We are back in the game.

[Browning]

I very, very nearly lost Avalugg. Jesus did I over estimate his Special Defense, it's fucking shit. But he clung on.

I did briefly have an Ursaring, but I had to sacrifice him to get through a fucking hard Double Battle. Oh well.

[Browning]

Despite being grossly over levelled, that Avalugg gave my Steelix some serious problems. He got very fucking lucky with me being confused from the previous mon and hitting myself twice, and then Iron Tail missing twice... but it meant he has Cursed non-stop and was able to get maxed out attack and defense. I was dead in the water if I kept hitting him with, now, weak Iron Tails and doubling the power of Avalanche. In the end I used 3 X-Attacks and 3 X-Defends (all I had) and then an X Accuracy, and then twatted the cunt.

Team after 8 Gyms:
Steelix- 74
Tentacruel- 65
Amoonguss- 60
Tyranitar- 58 (With Tyranitarite)
Avalugg- 58

And currently my fodder mon is Ditto 49.

Steelix is very much the king of this game. We owe everything to him if we get to the end.

[Browning]

I'm actually quite amazed at how long this game is.

Since the above post I decided some grinding was needed ahead of Victory Cave, particularly for Tyranitar. I've pretty much written off Avalugg after his almost death, he just scares me too much. As a result I haven't grinded him at all, but we'll see if I go back to him. Currently rocking Steelix 77, Tentacruel 70, Tyranitar 66 and Amoonguss 65 as my main 4. However this cave fucking scares me. So many fighting types which Steelix and Tyranitar are weak to, meaning Tentacruel is my only hope. As a result I got him to Level 70 before continuing and then he was almost killed by a Level 60 Medicham using Zen Headbutt. It left him on yellow health but it was scary enough. Perhaps he needs to be even higher to get through this.

I never thought I would love Steelix and Tentacruel this much. As long as those 2 make it to the end I'm happy.

Nothing shows how over levelled I am quite like that rival battle. I wasn't expecting it but had Tyranitar up front (without his Mega stone as he was holding Lucky Egg) and she started with Meowstic.... no contest there as Crunch sends it packing after her fairy move did nothing. In comes Altaria who is Ice Beamed straight out of there. Greninja was obviously an issue so I switch to Tentacruel and she froze me solid with Ice Beam.... but I thawed out to his Dazzling Gleam and leave her on 1HP or so. Of course my sandstorm then decided to end.... letting her attack again and make me flinch with Dark Pulse. After a second flinch I did have to heal but then Greninja died and after that it was piss easy to take out Absol (Dazzling Gleam) and Flareon (Surf). Thank you Malamar for making me teach Dazzling Gleam... it's come in VERY useful.

[Browning]

The Elite 4 was taken on, results below:

Toggle Spoiler

Elite 4:

I decided to take on Fire first as this should be the easiest with Tentacruel. Talonflame outsped him and got off a Brave Bird but every pokemon was a OHKO with Surf.We levelled up to 76 at the end.

I'd try Dragon next as again Tentacruel would be the lead here. I wasn't expecting Dragalge or whatever it was called to have Thunderbolt, which proved problematic, but it went down eventually after I used one Full Restore. Altaria was blown away with one Ice Beam. I healed up again against Noivern which let it get off 2 Dragon Pulses but they did next to nothing and he died to one Ice Beam too. Druddigon survived a critical Ice Beam and used Dragon Tail which bought out the mon I took as fodder.... Ditto. We both used healing items the next turn, then I used Transform and she used Revenge. I managed to get in a Super Effective Dragon Tail which left her in the red. She did the same and died to Rough Skin, but Ditto was dead. Wasn't expecting that fight to go that way.

The last 2 rooms were a lot scarier on paper. Water I chose to lead with Amoonguss even though I had my doubts he would survive it. He made short work of Clawitser with a couple of Giga Drains. Starmie then came in to Psychic him to death. Fuck. I called upon Tyranitar. He Mega Evolved and Starmie hit Surf but it didn't do much and Crunch killed him. Earthquake killed Barbaracle in one. Thunderbolt took out Gyarados. That could have been worse.

For the Steel chamber I decided to turn to the MVP... Steelix. At level 82 he was surely capable of beating some of his own kind. Klefki used Torment and Iron Tail almost killed. I couldn't use it again... so I used Crunch as I wanted to save my other moves and Klefki was all but dead, but he full restored it. It then used a pathetic Dazzling Gleam before dying to Iron Tail. Next up was Probopass who only survived Dig thanks to Sturdy and did a fair bit of damage with Earth Power. He too used a Full Restore to survive my Crunch. At least that took Sturdy out of the way for Dig to kill. Next up was Aegislash who wrecked my attack with King's Shield so I sent in Avalugg to die and healed up Steelix. The prick did the same thing again when Steelix came back so anticipating the fighting move I switch in Tentacruel. Tentacruel took him out with 3 Surfs, helped by him trying to use King's Shield twice in a row. Scizor wasn't at all scary and a couple of Surfs took care of him.

So we'd be taking on the champion with the big 3.... Steelix, Tentacruel and Tyranitar, each charged with taking out 2 opponents.

I started with Tentacruel as he'd been the most use so far. Her choosing Hawlucha was good as either of my other 2 were weak to it. Flying Press did nothing while my Dazzling Gleam left it in red. Predicting the Full Restore I went for it again and again it survived, but only long enough to hit another crap Flying Press. 1-0. In came Aurorus. Due to it's massive weakness I seapped to Steelix and she used Light Screen. That won't help against Steelix. Iron Tail wiped it off the face of the Earth. In came Goodra which could be a problem. Goodra went first and hit FOCUS BLAST which left me on 118/250HP while Iron Tail left her low as well. She was faster and would, just about, kill me. A switch to Tentacruel was needed. She used a Full Restore. Damn it. Tentacruel's Ice Beam did nothing as did her Dragon Pulse. I healed up Steelix while she kept using Dragon Pulse. The Light Screen wore off allowing Ice Beam to hurt more. 2 did the trick and it was 3-0 with Tentacruel having his 2 kills. Luckily I had one Ice Beam left for Tyrantrum, 4-0. I didn't have one left for Gourgeist so with one eye on the Gardevoir I'd been warned about I swapped to Steelix who then had Ghost type added to him. A couple of Crunches took him out but I was worried about the new Ghost typing leaving me weak to Shadow Ball. I made the switch to Tyranitar which enabled her to Mega Evolve and then go for the predictable Shadow Ball which did nothing. She hit Mega Tyranitar hard with Moon Blast but he survived it comfortably enough (117HP) and then hit back with Crunch for the kill.

Survivors:
Steelix- 84
Tentacruel- 77
Tyranitar (Mega)- 71

[Pleb]

That team

Toggle Spoiler

Does all six pokemon heal fully when you face Az post game?

[Browning]

Yea, they do, but Tentacruel battered him on his own.

[P_3]

Nicely done Browning. What's next on the agenda for you?

[Browning]

I've started ORAS to give it another chance to prove it's not shit. It's been a rough start though....

Pokemon wise it was going well as the first few routes/forest yielded a mix.... Zigzagoon, Poochyena, Wurmple and Slakoth. I took on the Rock gym at around Level 13 all round (with Dustox) and Geodude fell after I used Zigzagoon to work down it's attack/accuracy but he boosted his defense too much for me to kill it so I sent in Dustox, used Harden to the max, and then confusioned it to death. In came Nosepass who could only do 5-6 damage even with Rock Tomb so while Confusion wasn't hurting him bad, I worked him down and would easily have won... only for the Critical Hit which ignores my defense boost to come the turn where Nosepass would have died. Dustox was down but he was so weak we could easily take him out after there. Fuck sake though. That 2nd gym is looking impossible now....

Zigzagoon- 13
Poochyena- 13
Slakoth- 11
Whismur- 9

Yey....

[P_3]

Really needed that Dustox to survive. You are going to get bashed around big time.

I now remember why I'm not a big fan of the latter part of Ruby. Too much water. The team has had Lanturn replace Linoone as we are about to go after Team Magma underwater.

[Browning]

I never thought I'd say this... but I'm praying for a fucking Zubat.

Dustox would have been lovely, but that team was so poorly designed for a Rock Gym. Oh well. This is why I don't use starters.

No luck on the Zubat front as Makuhita joins the team in Dewford Cave. There are 2 fishing spots I can use on this island (the island itself, and the route to the North) so I could have 2 chances to get a Tentacruel who would resist fighting but not sure I want one again so soon. Obviously there's a chance I get 2 Magikarp... and no way I'm getting that to Level 20 in time for the Gym. May just have to grind Makuhita and let him handle it.

[Browning]

I see they've made it so the 2nd Gym is no longer skippable. I wasn't planning on skipping it, but I would have liked to have explored the cave and got that done, and possibly even cleared out the beach for EXP and then come back. Oh well. Grinding in the cave it is....

I was able to get both Magikarp and Tentacool, but Magikarp is a much higher level. That coupled with him having a mega and me having just used Tentacruel makes it an easy choice. Gyarados.

[Browning]

Gym 2 was taken down in a solo effort by Makuhita, with Poocyena coming in to take out a couple of Meditites who I had to gamble wouldn't have fighting moves. The Gym fight itself was easy enough. Fake Out and Force Palm had Machop in the red while he only got in 1 Leer.... he was healed up with a Super Potion but 2 Force Palms killed him off with no damage done. His Makuhita came in and Force Palm put him in low yellow while he mysteriously used Knock Off which is A) Not Very effective and B) Learnt at level 19 where as he is 16. Oh well. He died next turn for an easy win.

Makuhita- 19
Zigzagoon- 15
Poochyena- 15
Slakoth- 15
Magikarp- 15
Tentacool- 5

I basically decided to grind until Magikarp got to level 15 so he could at least fight for himself if it came to it. That meant switching him to other mons of course, with Makuhita coming in for every Wild Makuhita/Geodude we encountered and a mixture of everyone else coming in for the Zubats. Tentacool just hangs around as a potential fodder kill if we ever need one. I obviously have a soft spot for him after Y... but not going to use him this time. Slakoth Vs Zigzagoon will be an interesting choice one day. Zigzagoon is obviously boring as fuck, but Slakoth is REALLY irritating with his ability. We'll see.

God do I know P_3s pain already.... 3rd time a route has yielded Zigzagoon.... I can only imagine there's many more to come.

[Pleb]

After taking a break from my SoulSilver nuzlocke, I went back to it only to be OHKO dramatically by Whitney's Miltank. Even a lv19 Geodude with Magnitude kept missing due to attract, even then a Magnitude 9 slashed it to half health

I'll restart SoulSilver in the near future. Probably start up a Sinnoh nuzlocke (Probably Platinum, Diamond is tempting me).

[Browning]

I did look at your team and think Miltank would feast on it but I assumed you knew about it.

If you're lucky enough to get Drowzee trading it for Machop is almost a must.

[Pleb]

I didn't get a Drowzee, was hoping for a Heracross in the trees instead I got a Ledyba instead

[Browning]

I think in the remakes Drowzee is available both below and above Goldenrod (not sure if that was always the case) but obviously even then you don't always get him. Heracross would have been interesting, not sure if he has many good fighting moves though.

[Pleb]

Brick Break at lv19 which would of helped but meh. Aerial Ace would of been nice.

[Browning]

Aerial Ace wouldn't have done much to Miltank but would have helped later on.

You almost can't help but turn Linoone into an HM whore. I was happy that Mauville had 3 new routes to explore but 2 had no grass and 1 gave me Volbeat....

[Browning]

My God Makuhita is a piece of shit stats wise. He's been donning it for me so far but looking at his stats at level 23 they are, in order, 74 (HP), 38, 22, 19, 18, 19. Yep.... 4 of his 6 stats (including HP) are LOWER THAN HIS LEVEL. Not a single other Pokemon in my team including the fodder level 5 Tentacool has a single stat lower than their level. Fuck.

It was because of this that I used Vigoroth for the Electric gym having taught him, Makuhita and Gyarados Bulldoze after spending all my money on the TM for it. He blitzed through the entire gym without issue. To compare him to Makuhita his stats are 73, 51, 46, 31, 33 and 54. I know Makuhita hasn't evolved yet... but that's a no contest.

Vigoroth- 23
Makuhita- 23
Gyarados- 23
Mightyena- 22
Linoone- 21
Tentacool- 5

I'm hoping to catch something soon to come into the team proper and push Linoone into a Fodder/HM whore role.

[Sam]

My 3ds and Omega Ruby arrived. Wanted to try something different so research a few playstyles and settled on the idea of a Wonderlocke, quite enjoy the thought of some random traded from across the world. Made it past the first gym and up to the cave to rescue Peeko before calling it for the night.

Team consists of:

Phanpy - Level 14
Froakie - Level 13
Panpour - Level 13
Zigzagoon - Level 13
Poochyena - Level 12
Ralts - Level 1

Reserves - Whismer (Level 14) and Treavant (Level 39).

Ralts is the new addition after trading in the cave, will spend some time over lunch levelling him out ready to take the world on. Quite a mixed bunch currently but Phanpy/Donphan was one of my favourite lines back in Crystal so I'm happy to have him around. Treavant was a cool trade, Japanese as well, but way to high of a level to consider for now. The Froakie has an ability where it changes type depending on what attack I use, pretty damn switch to ghost-type for Lick for example.

Oh and the Zigzagoon got traded with Pokerus (is this still a thing?!) so all my pokemon are affected. Bonus.

[Browning]

Even with Wonderlocke, you can't avoid Zigzagoon.

[Dan]

Wonderlocke could be really fun. If you get a Volcanion

[Pleb]

A Sinnoh Nuzlocke is in the works. I've thought about a Chesslocke but I'm probably thinking "Fuck that noise."

[Dan]

What the fuck is a Chesslocke?!

[Pleb]

http://nuzlocke.wikia.com/wiki/Chesslocke

[Dan]

That sounds pretty tricky. I dread to investigate the other ludicrous play styles that have been invented.

[Browning]

I discovered "Wedlocke" the other day which sounds mental, but had no idea there were so many others.

[Browning]

For the record, while I'm enjoying my ORAS Nuzlocke, I'm even more of the opinion it's piss easy than I was previously. Why has it been dumbed down so fucking much? Just about every trainer is willing to battle you every 5 minutes, essentially giving you access to way too much EXP (and don't get me started on the shit EXP share again....), you have that stupid Nav Dex thing, which I'm refusing to use, which can let you manipulate what you encounter.... just.... really? These games weren't all that challenging to begin with, stop giving us so many fucking crutches.

[Sam]

I agree with the large amount of exp, even with the exp off I have found myself over levelled. Good fun though.

[Pleb]

I completely forgot how much of a twat Barry is in Platinum.

I've started off with Piplup for this hopefully I get a lot further than last time

[Sam]

Righto, made it to Fortree Town with the following;

Greninja - Level 37
Grumpig - Level 37
Donphan - Level 37
Panpour - Level 37
Dratini - Level 21

Dratini was the most recent trade, at level 1, hopefully keep it going along and have a Dragonite, which would be bloody amazing.

Deaths so far are Amaura (level 16), Ledyba (level 8) and Helioptile (level 32). Was gutted to lose the latter as he was shaping up to be something pretty cool, alas, it was not meant to be, taken out way to easily.

Fun so far that being said.

[Browning]

I've just lost a Numel I was enjoying using through pure stupidity. Was trying to train a new Grimer and accidentally walked into a double battle. Had to switch Grimer so switched to Numel thinking Gyarados would OHKO their Azumarill before it could hit Numel. Alas I forgot Dragon doesn't hit fairy. Fuck sake.

[Browning]

Wow the AI for my fight with Norman was useless...

I kicked off with Fake Out on Slaking, stealing an extra turn as he would Truant. I use that for Power Up Punch. When he finally had the chance to hit me he used Yawn.... dying to Power Up Punch. In came Vigoroth as I fell asleep so I healed that up and he used Encore. No problem as Power Up Punch killed him. Finally Slaking comes in and uses Swagger. I can't remember if I hit myself or him that turn but I just healed the confusion and then he finally went for Retaliate but didn't do much and died to Force Palm with my insane Attack stat. Piece of piss.

Hariyama- 33 (Bulldoze, Fake Out, Power-Up Punch, Force Palm)- I should probably replace Bulldoze with Dig if nothing else... but haven't bothered, I rarely ever use it.
Mightyena- 30 (Incinerate, Dig, Assurance, Howl)- Incinerate doesn't help much thanks to his poor Special (which is the best in my team ) but since Numel's death is offers some nice coverage.
Gyarados- 30 (Bulldoze, Twister, Bite, Dragon Rage)- Needs a water move badly.
Vigoroth- 30 (Power-Up Punch, Slash, Rock Tomb, Feint Attack)- Pretty decent all round so far.
Sandslash- 30 (Rock Tomb, Magnitude, Slash, Dig)
Grimer- 30 (Sludge Bomb, Rock Tomb, Dig, Power-Up Punch).

My Kingdom for any kind of special attacker....

[Dan]

You really need more moves than PUP, Dig/Bulldoze & Rock Tomb

[Browning]

Indeed, it's annoying as hell. I have a few back up Mons but none that offer any new types etc.

I think Flying is the next gym so I'll need Gyarados to learn Ice Fang by then, which I believe is soon enough. Just got Surf as well but what with his shit special that won't help so I'll probably stick it on Linoone who lost his spot but comes out when I need HMs.

If and when I catch a mon who is worth adding I have no idea who he'll replace though. Guess it depends what it is.

Edit- Or,,,, you know.... Rock Tomb.

I forgot to mention there was one moment where I was sure I was going to lose Vigoroth.

I got into a battle with a trainer's Level 26 Sandslash when he was roughly the same level. It was in a Sandstorm which didn't help. He used poison sting and of course it poisoned me. The poison also seemed to do a ridiculous amount of damage for some reason. He then used Sand Tomb which of course trapped me. Sand Tomb did little damage but that plus the additional damage at the end of the turn plus the Sandstorm plus the poison was doing basically 60% of my health or whatever. I was able to Super Potion back to full but the same thing kept happening. I then ran out of Super Potions meaning I'd be left in a scenario of OHKO the fucker or probably die. Fortunately I was then released from Sand Tomb so I swapped out of there ASAP only for Gyarados to miss the fucker twice and be put in the same position after getting poisoned (only without the Sand Tomb as that doesn't effect him). Gyarados powered through though and killed it. Thank fuck.

[Pleb]

So after catching Starly and Bidoof respectively I've only gone and caught a fucking Shinx

[Browning]

Shinx is a fucking stud.

It really annoyed me that there's a route in ORAS that has Plusle (who sucks but I have a soft spot for him as he was in my first ever Sapphire team), Minun, Elektrike and Voltorb.... yet I got Zigzagoon again.