Pokémon Thread XXX: Hot Skitty on Wailord Action!

[danzibr]

I'm smack dab in the middle of an university town, I am WOEFULLY unprepared to defend a gym for my underdog team (Instinct....yay?) with my underpowered 'mons.

Plus I am pretty sure abandoning my old account and rebuilding a new one would vastly improve my abilities rather than rolling with my old account. Since new 'mons have become very varied, and I now know how to get a catching streak and XP with a new pokemon with a curve ball after a streak yields MASSIVE XP. I am not massively sad to loose my account of tenthousand pidgeys either.

Wait…
In PoGo there’s no reason to start a new account (unless you can’t access your old one/want 2 accounts).

Worst-case scenario you can transfer all your mons, delete all your items, then boom it’s like starting over but at a higher level and more storage space.

Unless you mean you don’t want to be instinct? There’s an item in the shop that lets you switch teams. 1000 coins, but you can get that before too long (hopefully).

[MCerberus]

team (Instinct....yay?) with my underpowered 'mons.

The power of evolution services the ice bird, as is the way of things.

I actually find the most fun part of go the "Serious" team rivalries. That and the normal weird fan theories you can come up with for pokemon candies.

[Spore]

I am stupid but I love Zapdos too much to even consider switching teams.

[danzibr]

I am stupid but I love Zapdos too much to even consider switching teams.

Then by all means, use your old account. I see no reason to restart.

[MCerberus]

Odd note about some merch: I bought my sister an eevee ugly Christmas sweater from the official source, and picked up a team mystic (for life) hoody for myself.


The sweater is fluffy and the hoody is thick and dense. I'm so used to getting totally ripped off buying outwear and branded stuff in particular that acceptable quality is kind of a shock.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I started a new challenge run in Platinum, and I've got my first dilemma. So first, here are my rules:

1 Set mode.
2 No trainer items in battle.
3 No overleveling the next gym leader's ace. For the E4/champ combo the fourth E4 member's ace is used as the measure upon entering the first battle.
4 No resetting, what happened happened. (Except maybe if I wipe against the champion and my Pokémon are now all overleveled or something. But not as a way to prevent losing money or to redo a capture.)
5 All catching is done "in triplo". You can use a pokémon if and only if you obtained exactly three members of that line. Ones you've done that you can pick the one you like best and use it. This applies to Pokémon you use for HM's as well as for Pokémon that do battle. (Edit: And no breeding, I suppose, or you could get away with catching a lot less pokémon.)
6 Only use premier balls. Those are those balls you get for free every time you buy ten regular pokéballs. They don't have an elevated catch rate or any other special power.
7 I must eventually use Rhydon and Quagsire because they're my favorites.

Now, rule 6 is the big one. I'm going to think about the mon I try to catch. The first two on my list are Bidoof, for HM use and to Rock Smash through the first (rock type) gym, and Kricketot, because it learns Sing and False Swipe for making the most of my premier balls and for taking down the grass type gym that comes second. I actually started the run thinking I'd use the starter Chimchar as well, but I actually think this should be doable without it. Or well, I hope it anyway.

My dilemma is this: I caught the 3 Bidoof's. Do I go with the ability Simple (doubles the effect of all stat changes) so that I can eventually get Amnesia on it and tank a bunch of damage (Swords Dance is not an option in this gen) or do I go for Unaware (ignore enemy stat changes), to counter opponents setting up? Unless I'm severely underestimating the amount of early game money or overestimating catch difficulty, i will be using this Bidoof for a while.

(For aditional information, the Unaware Bidoof has a neutral nature, the simple ones are +def -spdef and +spatk -spdef respectively, I prefer the +def one among those two, it also seems to have slightly better IV's from the limited information I can see at level 3.)

Anyone has a clear favorite?

Edit: i'm starting to feel more and more Unaware, it's too cool an ability to not use. And it's so funny to have when an opponent starts belly drumming.

Edit the day after: Yup, Unaware. I found that there is actually a very nice Simple Bidoof moveset in Platinum, which is Amnesia, Charge Beam, Rest, Sleep Talk. It doesn't come online until after the 8th gym and it costs a bunch of coins at the game corner, but you'd have it for the E4 and the postgame. What the game doesn't have is a nice Simple Bidoof moveset that works combined with the HM's. So Unaware STAB HM's it is.




Speaking of favorites:

What do you think of Skuntank? It is my favorite Pokémon species so far.

Cool. I haven't used it much, but I like trainers that have their own style and kind of "less standard" favorites. Plus the poison type is pretty cool, and dark has some interesting moves

[enderlord99]

It took some digging, but I found confirmation that Mindy is still awful in BDSP.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

My planning ahead is already becoming the undoing of my run. i spend my money on catching Kricketune and Zubat, but nothing that's actually good against the rock type gym. I almost got the gym on attempt 4 or so, but I also overleveled Bidoof on that attempt. I can scrounge up enough money to train up another Pokémon, I might stand a chance if I catch a Budew and walk it for 50.000 steps to evolve it. to get some oomph behin it's 4x effective Mega Drain. Psyduck is also an option, or maybe even Onix. Despite me getting more catch chances than I had initially thought, this is turning out kind of hard.

Kind of grindy too. Maybe I should become a dirty casual and start liking the newer games better.

[Spore]

Only using Premier Balls is a pointless and boring rule to be perfectly honest.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Only using Premier Balls is a pointless and boring rule to be perfectly honest.

The point is to limit the money I can spend and to make me think better about which mons I try to catch (because of the financial limits) and how (because of the limited number of throws and the bad balls).

I'm not saying it's a good point, but that's what I've got.

[Lans]

I need to add friends, and I figured other people also might needed to do so.

My trainer code is 9724 5386 5444

[Rakaydos]

Try the "Gaming (Other)" section of the forum.

[Lans]

Thank you I did not think about that

[Lans]

Pokemon Go
I need to add friends, and I figured other people also might needed to do so.

My trainer code is 9724 5386 5444

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Threads merged.

[Lans]

Thank you to those that added me

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Okay, maybe only premier balls was a dumb challenge. I still have easily enough money even with the 15 times higher costs per Pokémon caught. And I'm hardly running this as a solo challenge either. I have a full team of six (including a Gible now, who's clearly a street shark because he's named Vin Diesel (fun fact, in Dutch the word fin is spelled with a v, so this video is even funnier for us)) and I haven't even encountered the two mandatory members yet.

It was pretty cool that I just beat the third gym first try with a total party HP left of 8. I'm not saying I play well, I don't. I'm also not saying the gym is hard, as I was pretty underleveled and don't play well. But I am saying that was a good guess of when I was ready to try that gym

So yeah, it's basically just an ordinary "don't use kiddie mode, no overleveling" fun run.

Anyone else have any non-news about your current playthroughs? Nobody running the new games?

[Peelee]

Anyone else have any non-news about your current playthroughs? Nobody running the new games?

It was a ridiculous choice to keep the Pokètch as a green LCD type screen with severely un-optimized UI and layout, exactly as it was when Diamond/Pearl first came out, considering everything else had been updated with the times.

Also, and I satythis as something who started out with Red version in the last millennium, I am unhappy they moved TMs back to the one-and-done category.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

It was a ridiculous choice to keep the Pokètch as a green LCD type screen with severely un-optimized UI and layout, exactly as it was when Diamond/Pearl first came out, considering everything else had been updated with the times.

Also, and I satythis as something who started out with Red version in the last millennium, I am unhappy they moved TMs back to the one-and-done category.

But they now hand you several at the same time right? As kind of a way in between? But I agree, particularly if you have any plans to really keep a save file around and maybe try online battles or shiny hunting or... it's all too tempting to just never touch your one use TM's, at least without a proper way to get more, even if that's only in the postgame.

[Binks]

I've been playing the new ones. Never played the originals (skipped everything between Gold/Silver and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire), so went into the remakes functionally "blind". And man, did this game make me appreciate Sword and Shield more than I did before lol. So many "gimmick" annoyances in the old games they've gotten rid of. Single-use TMs, ridiculous requirements for encountering some Pokemon (Feebas, Drifloon, Spiritomb, etc), and the old style caves/grass where you could leave a battle with a wild Pokemon and not even get a single step forward before hitting the next one.

I'm enjoying the game, in spite of these flaws, but it really made me appreciate how much of the garbage "grind" aspects the newer games have removed with the overworld Pokemon and such. I know a lot of people miss that kind of fake difficulty, but I am not one of them. And THANK GOODNESS they didn't bring back needing HMs but used the Sun/Moon style for that.

That said, the remake improvements are great. Ramp-whatever park is a really cool idea (even if I wish it was a fly point, those are WAY too limited in this game IMHO Scratch that, turns out it is, but it wasn't showing as such the first time I looked at my map after leaving it for some reason. Likely because I'd just flown away from it) and the Grand Underground is amazing. I keep having to pull myself away from just spending hours banging away at walls and poking into dens to see what's there, even moreso now that I have the National Dex (hooray for not knowing you had to make a specific mistake or you're stuck waiting a week for that ) and tons of new Pokemon are spawning down there. Really looking forward to trying out some underground adventuring with friends just to see how it functions.

[Qwertystop]

I've been playing the new ones. Never played the originals (skipped everything between Gold/Silver and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire), so went into the remakes functionally "blind". And man, did this game make me appreciate Sword and Shield more than I did before lol. So many "gimmick" annoyances in the old games they've gotten rid of. Single-use TMs, ridiculous requirements for encountering some Pokemon (Feebas, Drifloon, Spiritomb, etc), and the old style caves/grass where you could leave a battle with a wild Pokemon and not even get a single step forward before hitting the next one.

I'm enjoying the game, in spite of these flaws, but it really made me appreciate how much of the garbage "grind" aspects the newer games have removed with the overworld Pokemon and such. I know a lot of people miss that kind of fake difficulty, but I am not one of them. And THANK GOODNESS they didn't bring back needing HMs but used the Sun/Moon style for that.

I like a lot of the weird ones, honestly. Feels more explore-y and less like a theme park. IMO, green 3 and 4 were the best for that - before, there were too many hardware limitations, and after, things got progressively more streamlined. You'd never get something like the Regi puzzles in newer games, and I don't think there's even been a roamer since gen 5 (even ORAS turned the Lati into a guarantee) until these remakes. Fewer and fewer little offshoot routes and caves and anything else you won't get a guided tour of in the story. There was a cave in the original DPPt that I didn't even find until a third play!

As for other things... Re-usable TMs are good for team-building in post-game, but making it into a Significant Decision for the story was interesting back when I was young and didn't know what was coming. Single-use with the ability to restock seems like a good balance, there. Not needing to devote a move slot to HMs is good, but calling mons that aren't even yours does make it feel less like an adventure with your team and more like a tour with on-call taxi service. I'd have liked if having the TM let any mon that could learn the move use it in the overworld, without needing to take a move slot. That gives a lot more flexibility (most of the moves *can* be learned by plenty of things, it's just really annoying to lock a move slot on something like Cut) while still making it be your team helping you through it. Random encounters... Eh. There's good and bad about it. I liked what ORAS did, to let you hunt down a specific mon more easily, but the interruptions aren't great, but being able to casually walk around all the encounters makes things feel a lot less wilderness unless there's a lot more of them and avoiding is actually difficult.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Anyone else have any non-news about your current playthroughs? Nobody running the new games?

I’m only playing POGO, but I will gripe about the lousy reception I’ve been getting. It’s bad enough I don’t get out much, but having the thing refuse to update my location when I do is just frustrating.

[LibraryOgre]

Pokemon Go
I need to add friends, and I figured other people also might needed to do so.

My trainer code is 9724 5386 5444

Don't NEED new friends, but I shot you one.

[MCerberus]

The Diamond/Pearl remakes have the same problem difficulty-wise as Sword and Shield:
Mandatory Exp Share + any time in the wilderness area (the underground) = the level curve being completely demolished.

On the plus side I realized that 4-5mon core teams do really well. You use the last two slots for dex evolutions/eggs/evolving your magikarps, babies, and pseudos

[danzibr]

[PoGo]

Anecdote: got my wisdom teeth out, on some funny medicine, was instructed to not make financial decisions.

Spent 2.4 million stardust (of my total 2.8) powering up some mons. Unsure whether that counts as disobeying medical advice.

[Spore]

The Diamond/Pearl remakes have the same problem difficulty-wise as Sword and Shield:
Mandatory Exp Share + any time in the wilderness area (the underground) = the level curve being completely demolished.

On the plus side I realized that 4-5mon core teams do really well. You use the last two slots for dex evolutions/eggs/evolving your magikarps, babies, and pseudos

Anyone got experience if a 9-12 pokemon team fares "better" xp-wise? I love the region, but I absolutely HATE friendship mechanics and overlevelling.

[Fredaintdead]

By any chance would anyone be able to help me fill out the last few spots in my Sword Pokedex please?

Direct Trades Needed:
Kabuto, Gible (Im willing to provide Bagon and Omanyte if you'd prefer specifics)

Touchtrades Needed:
Glastrier, Regileki

Please PM me if youre able and willing to help. Thank you.

[Bartmanhomer]

Happiny, Chansey, and Blissey look like fairies to me. They should make their type Normal/Fairy or just Fairy.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Happiny, Chansey, and Blissey look like fairies to me. They should make their type Normal/Fairy or just Fairy.

This is similar to why Gyarados was made water/flying, while learning no flying type moves, instead of water/dragon. there is a lorewise justification for it, being that he's based on the legend of a carp who became a flying dragon and was then punished with the loss of his flight. So that's a cool backgroundy way to look at it. But in truth the reason it was done was probably thet water/dragon would have been pretty broken in generation 1. It's only weakness would have been to dragon type moves, which almost no Pokémon got. And the dragon type pokémon that did get those moves where carefully kept limited as to not waste their special feel with overexposure.

Chansey an Blissey are already almost stupidly broken in some ways, and just plain annoying to deal with in others. Sure, as normal/fairy types they would become weak to poison and steel type moves, but they'd lose their weakness to the much more common and often harder hitting fighting type moves in addition to gaining several resistances and an extra immunity, ánd STAB on a bunch of great new moves. They were definitely part of the group of fluffy pink ball shaped pokémon the fairy type was designed around, but it would have been too much of a power boost to a family that's already pretty centralizing, both in the meta and ingame.

(Fun fact: balance issues were apparently also one of the reasons why the originally planned evolution of Raichu (<-artist's impression, not official imagery) was scrapped way back in gen 1, before the concept of baby pokémon existed and before Pikachu had been chosen as the franchise's mascot.)

[Bartmanhomer]

This is similar to why Gyarados was made water/flying, while learning no flying type moves, instead of water/dragon. there is a lorewise justification for it, being that he's based on the legend of a carp who became a flying dragon and was then punished with the loss of his flight. So that's a cool backgroundy way to look at it. But in truth the reason it was done was probably thet water/dragon would have been pretty broken in generation 1. It's only weakness would have been to dragon type moves, which almost no Pokémon got. And the dragon type pokémon that did get those moves where carefully kept limited as to not waste their special feel with overexposure.

Chansey an Blissey are already almost stupidly broken in some ways, and just plain annoying to deal with in others. Sure, as normal/fairy types they would become weak to poison and steel type moves, but they'd lose their weakness to the much more common and often harder hitting fighting type moves in addition to gaining several resistances and an extra immunity, ánd STAB on a bunch of great new moves. They were definitely part of the group of fluffy pink ball shaped pokémon the fairy type was designed around, but it would have been too much of a power boost to a family that's already pretty centralizing, both in the meta and ingame.

(Fun fact: balance issues were apparently also one of the reasons why the originally planned evolution of Raichu (<-artist's impression, not official imagery) was scrapped way back in gen 1, before the concept of baby pokémon existed and before Pikachu had been chosen as the franchise's mascot.)

Yes, I agree with you. It would be considered a possibility of an Anything Goes tier with the additional power boost.