Pokémon Gold/Silver thread

I haven't made a ton of progress lately; I've mostly just been training, but I still have some shit to talk about.

The original plan was to train at the Whirl Islands, but... oops. I forgot that I can't right now. Even though I have the HM for Whirlpool, I forgot that you need the Glacier Badge first in order to use it. Even though Lance was kind enough to remind me, it still went through one ear and out the other. That's okay, though—Pryce is exactly who I'm training for anyway, so it doesn't really matter where I train.

I think I discussed earlier how I wanted to give the best of my boxed Pokémon a "tryout" session. I'm woefully ill-prepared to fight Pryce with my current team. He runs an Ice-type gym, and his strongest Pokémon, Piloswine, is a level 31 Ice/Ground-type beast who probably knows some scary shit like Magnitude and Aurora Beam, which pretty much puts Sheila, Peckham, December, and Rocky totally out of commission.

As for Montague, he still needs to evolve, and though I thought Rosalie would be ready to fight by level 31, recent developments (which I'll go over later) have shown me that she unfortunately won't be battle-ready until she's level 41.

So, I looked over my box carefully, considering each of my options. I needed at least THREE usable Pokémon to feel safe.
- Alkali might actually have some use, since I recall seeing Jynx in that gym, and she doesn't get hit by anything too hard. That said, once the Jynx trainer is taken care of, she'll have limited use against Pryce himself.
- I love Tentacruel, but she'll probably get destroyed by Piloswine's Ground-type moves.
- Seaking is absolutely useless beyond its utility as an HM buddy.
- Shuckle is Shuckle.
- Madam Girafarig is interesting, and I might just use her later, but she won't help much for this gym.
- Verbette the Magikarp could evolve right away into Gyarados, who might actually be helpful. Trouble is, Gyarados is gonna be difficult to train without teaching it a bunch of shitty HMs like Strength and Surf, which I wanted to avoid.

Pretty much everyone else is too weak or won't help.

Well, except for one more option, and I can't believe I'm saying it:

Miltank.

Miltank with Rollout might just be exactly what the doctor has ordered for this gym. Not only is she extremely bulky, she's fast and hits relatively hard. She's packing Defense Curl to give Rollout that extra punch it needs, and since it's a Rock-type move, it hits Pyrce's Ice-types super-effectively. Knowing that, I can let her borrow Rocky's Hard Stone to boost that move's power even further. Barring that, she also has a decent STAB move in Stomp that can induce flinching. And perhaps best of all, she can use Milk Drink for a solid recovery option (once she learns the move).

However, because of my scorn towards her species, I never even bothered to give her a nickname. I'm not forgetting the Whitney massacre. BUT, if she actually performs well in this fight, you know what? I'll have no qualms whatsoever with giving her a name. But she'll have to prove herself.

Funnily enough, she's already looking quite promising. I brought her from level 13 to level 22 before I decided to take a break. At level 19, she learned Milk Drink, completing her solid moveset.

I learned something really cool about Milk Drink that day—I discovered that it can actually be used outside of battle to help heal your team to a minor extent. In all my years of playing this game, I never knew this. It doesn't even cost any PP. But Miltank can't use it to heal herself outside of battle; she only serves as a cleric for others, and when she heals someone, it take a cut from her own HP in exchange. I actually really like this mechanic from a nuzlocking perspective, and it'll be fun to see how I'll be able to apply it during the rest of this challenge.

So not only is Miltank fun and easy to train, she's even teaching me new and interesting things about my favorite game. What the fuck, I love Miltank now.

I almost lost her, though.

As I've talked about, one of my favorite methods of training is to rematch the ones I have in my phone book. The more you fight them, the stronger their team gets. This is great for training, but it can lead to some pretty scary situations if you're not prepared.

Hiker Anthony called me up, asking for a battle. The last time I fought him, he had a relatively weak Geodude and Machop. I wouldn't be surprised if the Machop is a Machoke now; either way, even though Miltank is weak against Fighting-types, I still figured she'd be strong enough to take Anthony on. He sounds out his Geodude, and I don't even care. Miltank's Rollout is able to take it out in three turns, and now that Machop/Machoke is gonna eat a level 4 Rollout.

But what he sends out is neither Machop nor Machoke. Instead, he sends out a level 18 Machamp.

First of all, that's cheating on a number of levels. Second, FUCK. Is Miltank gonna be able to handle the strongest Fighting-type in the game? The scary thing about Rollout is that, while it doubles in power every turn, it locks you in to the move, and you literally can't do anything else. Not even use items or run (not that I'd be able to run from a trainer battle anyway, but yeah). Once you use the move, you have to make sure it's the right one so you can commit up to 5 turns to it. Machamp also resists Rock-type moves, so this could very well have been a huge mistake.

But it wasn't. Miltank flattened it with one well-placed level 4 Rollout for a one-hit KO. I couldn't believe it, but it happened, and I'm so happy for it. Miltank is gonna DESTROY Pryce when she's strong enough.

But you know what else I can't believe?

How difficult it's gonna be for me to teach Smeargle Transform.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still gonna do it no matter what—because for whatever reason, I am DEAD SET on accomplishing this—but I've been reading about Sketch's mechanics, and it seems that there are several caveats that I had previously failed to account for that made me realize just how crazy this rabbit hole I leaped into was. You guys are gonna think I'm insane.

Basicaly, Sketching Transform is not as easy as it sounds. At least, not in this generation (and I'm gonna be saying that a lot, because it's a point that needs to be belabored). You may think that all you need to do is find a Ditto, let it Transform into your Smeargle, and then use Sketch, right? Nope. Not quite. That would be far too easy. Sketch will actually do nothing at all ("fail") if you try to do that.

Indeed, the only way for you to Sketch Transform is if Transform "fails." In this generation, there are precisely TWO situations in which Transform will fail—1.) when you attempt to Transform into an already-Transformed Pokémon, and 2.) when you attempt to Transform during the semi-invulnerable turn of the moves Dig or Fly.

Both of these scenarios will result in Transform failing. Immediately after it fails, you'll be able to use Sketch, provided nothing tragic happens to the Ditto (like knocking it out with the two aforementioned moves).

Trust me, I've wracked my brain over this. In this game, these are the only ways. There are no other ways to do it.

You might be thinking about Substitute. "Doesn't Substitute block Transform?" Well, yeah, it does—but only since Generation V. Prior to that, Transform will work almost no matter what, regardless of whether you're behind a Substitute. It even bypasses all accuracy and evasion checks. There's very little you can do to stop it.

What this means for me is the following: Rosalie, my Smeargle, is now gonna have to learn an extra move if I want her to be able to use Transform. At level 31, her moves are False Swipe and Sketch. Once I Sketch either Dig or Fly, I have to relearn Sketch to use Transform, so she'll have to wait until level 41. It's rough, but that's my only option. Had I caught her at level 20 (which is possible), she would've been able to do all of this 10 levels early, since she learns her second Sketch at level 21. But alas, I caught her at level 22.

Still determined, I now had to make the decision to use Dig or Fly. I cannot accidentally knock out the Ditto, so the answer may seem obvious: I should choose Dig over Fly, since it's the weaker of the two. But Ditto can only be found in two areas of the game, and at level 10. Smeargle may be weak, but a level 41 Smeargle is practically guaranteed to one-shot every wild Ditto it comes across. There's absolutely no chance. So is this a lost cause?

Not exactly, which is why I'm choosing Fly over Dig.

Even though, sure, it's technically a stronger move than Dig in terms of raw damage, which wouldn't help matters if I were worried about Ditto being able to tank the hit. But I'm not. Here's the thing: Fly does have a VERY small distinction that makes
 it more viable for this situation—it's not 100% accurate. It misses 5% of the time.

That means, 5% of the time, it doesn't matter if it's too strong of a move.

It will miss, the Ditto will survive, and then I'll be free to use Sketch right after.

But then, you might ask, how in the world am I going to Sketch Fly of all things? It's not a move that any Pokémon learns naturally (at least in this game), and no NPCs ever use the move in battle. So how do I plan on using it?

Well, it's actually pretty simple. All I have to do is take a weak Pokémon like River (my Pidgey) out from the box, teach him Fly, and then head back to the Ruins of Alph, where wild Smeargle can be found. I'll send River out, use Fly, and the wild Smeargle will Sketch the move. From there, I'll switch to Rosalie, who will then use re-Sketch the wild Smeargle's Fly that was sketched from River. This can be done with almost any other move, too, as long as someone on your team already knows it.

And yes, this does also mean I'll get to Fly around on a Smeargle. It even uses Smeargle's menu sprite (represented by a generic Rhydon-looking thing) instead of the generic bird.

River wound up being a little too weak, so I trained him up just a little bit so that he can outspeed those wild Smeargle. He wound up evolving into a Pidgeotto, and that was enough to do the trick. I now have a FLYING SMEARGLE. Fantastic. The way I picture it, she's using her tail as a propeller and carrying me with her feet or something.

With step 1 complete, step 2 is training her up to 41 so I can finally get this job done. Yes, at this point, there's absolutely no way a Ditto will survive a hit anymore. No getting around that. But the minor 5% chance of missing might actually be my ONE AND ONLY shot at getting to use a Transforming Smeargle in this nuzlocke run.

No—a Flying, Transforming Smeargle in a Generation II nuzlocke.

Truly a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

That said, the odds of me finding a Ditto and missing with Fly are 1 in 400, so this is gonna be something I'll be trying in the background. It may well never even happen, but I'm gonna try my best. It's for the memes.

Also, Miltank slaughtered Pryce. She landed all of her Rollouts, and Piloswine was smote with a critical hit when Rollout reached its fifth stage. She's earned her nickname: Prithvi (Hindu goddess of earth who takes the form of a cow).

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Verb. It's not too late to redeem yourself. You can still catch a Dratini at Dragon's Den. 40% chance of a Dratini / Dragonair when fishing with a super rod.

That's true, though the Super Rod is only available in Kanto. But that's around the corner at this point anyway.

I'm super excited about Kanto, since my memories of it are limited.

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Bad news re: the Transforming Smeargle thing. I don't think it's actually possible anymore.

I got Rosalie up to level 41 so that she can Sketch for the third time, and since she can Fly now, I thought if I just gave it a few more tests in the field, I'd be ready to go Ditto hunting. As it turns out, the results from this little test period aren't exactly favorable to my silly endeavor.

The way Fly works is this: Rosalie flies up in the air on turn 1, gaining momentary invulnerability as her foe's attack misses. She then swoops down on turn 2. At this point, this is where I assume Transform would be Sketchable, but I made a pretty embarrassing oversight. I failed to account for the fact that the Ditto can still attack after Rosalie swoops down. Otherwise, I'd be able to use Fly perpetually and never take any hits, as long as Rosalie is faster.

If she's slower, that's not gonna work either, because then the Ditto will just Transform right away.

Basically, there doesn't actually seem to be a way to have Transform fail and then immediately Sketch it on the next turn. It seems impossible. I scoured Google for an hour, sifting through old forum posts of people trying to do the same thing as me, and they all concluded it wasn't possible either. And these people are more creative than me, trying to utilize flinching and paralysis, but nothing seems to work.

As a last ditch thing, I went over to Route 44 to get my encounter, which has an 85% chance of being a Grass-type (or something that knows Sleep Powder). I caught a Weepinbell and named him Capulet (because I had a Weepinbell named Juliett in my Blue nuzlocke). Fucking thing ate six of my Great Balls at 1 HP, I might add.

In Generation III, it's possible to teach Smeargle Transform by putting a Ditto to sleep and then using Sketch on it, because of how the game's infrastructure works. While asleep, the Ditto still technically chooses Transform as its attack, so Smeargle can still Sketch it. I tried to see if this method worked in Gen II. Needless to say, it doesn't.

There is ONE MORE solution that I concocted that may or may not work, but it's so ridiculous that even I'm not autistic enough to try it. It basically involves speed ties. The idea is to somehow have a Smeargle with Fly (or Dig) that's just as fast as a wild Ditto, creating a speed tie. The way these games have handled speed ties has never changed, and it's always fairly simple: it's totally random.

So, in THEORY, I could have a Smeargle use Fly on turn 1 and win the first speed tie. Ditto's Transform will miss, and then on turn 2, Ditto will win the second speed tie. It uses Transform again, and it misses, because Smeargle is still up in the air (or undergroud). THEN, the Smeargle comes back and smacks the Ditto. Since Ditto already moved this turn, it can't use Transform a third time. Finally, on the third turn, Smeargle will use Sketch and learn Transform, provided it wins the third speed tie.

The odds of finding a Ditto out in the wild is (5%).
The speed of wild Ditto will vary slightly, so we'll assume that there are four different speeds. You need to find one. (25% * 5%).
Then you need to win and lose three speed ties in the following order: Win-lose-win, which is 1 in 8. (25% * 5% * 12.5%).
THEN, assuming I'm using Fly instead of Dig and I'm worried about one-shotting it, I need to shoot for Fly to MISS.

So, the odds of all that happening perfectly are:
(25% * 5% * 12.5% * 5%) = 0.000078125%, or 1 in 12,800

And that's with the assumption that there are only four varying types of Ditto speed out in the wild. Could be more, could be less.

So yeah, the dream is dead for now, but I'm actually not opposed to experimenting with that in the future.

I still want to make use of Rosalie, but since she's level 41, that actually puts her 1 level above my current level limit, so according to my rules, she must be boxed until that limit increases. That's fine, though, since it'll give me plenty of time to think of the next best moves to have her Sketch (Lock-on + Guillotine, anybody?) and it means I don't have to keep the Experience Share on her anymore.

Anyway, enough about that. I went ahead and beat Jasmine, and now I only need one more badge.

I had a pretty strong strategy going in. During my quest to visit all Surf locations, I actually forgot about one of them, and I'm happy someone reminded me. In Slowpoke Well, I can pick up a King's Rock, as well as the TM for Rain Dance.

If Quill were still alive, I could've just blasted Jasmine's Steelix with a Flamethrower at this point, but now that I can't, I had to train something else up. I caught a Krabby at the Whirl Islands (named it Eugene), which gave me the idea to just use a plain ol' Water-type for the gym. The trouble with that, however, is that Jasmine also uses a couple of Magnemite, and I can't use Eugene, because his Special Attack is so shitty.

Peckham is very strong and could take out those Magnemite with no issues, but her big boy Steelix is gonna be a bit of a problem. It probably knows some powerful Ground-type moves, I'd imagine, so that puts Peckham out of commission for that part of the fight.

Needing some other options, I settled with Verbette, a Magikarp-turned-Gyarados with Surf and Strength. The two moves I didn't want to saddle her with, but I feel like the game is kind of forcing my hand right now. She also knows Dragon Rage, and since she's part-Flying, she'll be able to fly over whatever Ground-type moves Jasmine will throw at her. That said, her low Special Attack is kind of worrisome. Steelix is one of the biggest tanks in the game, so I wanted to make sure that would not be an issue. I had her hold Mystical Water to boost her Surf up, and I taught Peckham how to Rain Dance, since they'll be working in tandem.

Rain Dance in general is a cool move. It boosts the power of all my team's Water-type moves for five turns, and makes it so Thunder hits for 100% accuracy. This move was practically made for Peckham, and Gyarados will highly appreciate being made a little bit stronger, too. It kinda takes me back to my competitive Drizzle team during Generation V.

In practice, however, shit got a little crazy. I led with Peckham and set up Rain Dance immediately against the Magnemite, since Peckham isn't afraid of them at all, one-shotting both of them. As soon as Steelix came out, though, I switched to Verbette and prepared for her to wreak havoc.

But then the Steelix used Sunny Day, which REALLY threw me off guard. Why the fuck does it know Sunny Day??? It powers up Fire-type moves, and Steelix is WEAK to those. Does that mean it knows Rain Dance, too? Does it use whatever move it needs to shut down both of its weaknesses, or something? I mean what the fuck?

Despite that weird shit, I was able to take her out with Dragon Rage anyway. That makes seven badges.

Also, Team Rocket invaded the Radio Tower and I stopped them; they're disbanded now. Hooray.

Next stop: Ice Path.

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My encounter in the Ice Path was a Delibird, but it ran away. It's one of the few Pokémon that actually runs from you. Whatever, I didn't really want one that much anyway.

I also went fishing in Blackthorn City, since I might as well have. The only things possible to get in the city are Magikarp and Poliwag, and I have both of them, so I may as well burn my encounter. I caught a level 5 female Magikarp and named her Puella. No points for catching the reference.

I have Shuckie on my team just for the fuck of it—part of his sidequest involves making him happy enough to where his original trainer will let you keep him, so I figure if I let him tag along and gain some levels, I'll be able to do that. Otherwise, his OT asks you to return him, and I dunno, I kinda like having a Shuckle.

At this point, I think I finally have a firm grip on my new team's "personalities" and their roles on the team.

After Gnash (Raticate) died, my team didn't exactly have a clear-cut "leader" anymore. But, several badges later, I honestly think it's Sheila (Scyther) now. She has the highest overall stats on the team, is incredibly reliable despite not having the best attacks, and despite what her Pink Bow would suggest, she's all business and no frills. Along with December (Fearow), she probably takes the whole nuzlocke thing more seriously than anybody else, which is great, because it means she always gets the KO when she needs to. I feel like if I can get her Swords Dance, she'll be nearly unbeatable.

December is the only one who could match Sheila in terms of raw efficiency. Whereas Sheila's efficiency comes from a sense of duty, December's comes from a place of mirth. He's a bit more show-offy and "stylish" than Sheila, and he's always surprising me.

Having been in my party ever since I beat Bugsy, December is just so fucking good. He might even be stronger than November was in his day. Since I boxed Rosalie (Smeargle), he's my primary Flyer, and recently, he gained access to one of my all-time favorite moves: Mirror Move, allowing me to send my opponent's attack right back at them. Always getting crits, always getting 5-hit Fury Attacks, and always mercilessly slaying everything he fights. The only reason I don't consider him the "leader" is because of his stats, which are admittedly quite a bit under the rest of my crew, but he really makes up for it in being an overall beast. He holds the King's Rock, so even on the rare occasion that he flubs and gets a 2-hit Fury Attack, there's still a chance that he'll cause his opponent to flinch.

While Sheila and December are the cold-blooded killers of the team, Peckham (Lanturn) is a lot different. He's cheerful, carefree, and doesn't really seem to understand the imminent danger that this challenge presents him—but he's also smart and incredibly strong, having the second best overall stats on the team. He's a bit of a strategist and likes synergy and working together with everyone else, which is why he knows Rain Dance. Because of his "happy" demeanor, he often has trouble seeing imminent threats, but it rarely matters when he has so much HP and is able to one-shot almost anything, due to the raw power of moves like Surf.

Other than December, Rocky (Onix) is technically the oldest living member of the team, if you count traded Pokémon. He has served me very well, being a sturdy defensive wall against scary things like Self-Destructing Koffing/Geodude, but lately, his usefulness has been tapering off. He doesn't hit nearly as hard as he needs to, even with a Hard Stone. As such, I consider him semi-retired. Because he's so big and bulky, I always kind of viewed him as half-oblivious to the shit that's going on. If he's withstanding an explosion, he takes the hit so well, he doesn't even understand what just happened. Fighting Pokémon is just like squashing bugs to him—but the bugs are starting to catch up with him, getting bigger and stronger by the day.

Alkali, who is also semi-retired, seems very resentful to me. Every time I think I'm about to face a tough Psychic-type, I take her out momentarily for the sole purpose of helping me fight it, and she always goes super overkill on it—landing several crits (often unnecessary ones), as if to say, "See? I can still be useful!" and she's very good at using one of her new moves, Rage. I feel bad for not using her, but honestly, I'm just not sure how much I need two Bug-types on my team anymore. Sheila outclasses her in every way except for the fact that Alkali's better at fighting the occasional Psychic-type. She's in such an awkward limbo position on the team right now, and I just don't know what to do with her.

Montague will be evolving very soon into an Umbreon, and I can tell he's been waiting a long time for it, especially since I never use him in battle except as a sponge for happiness. I think he's tired of being looked upon as the "team pet," and I can't blame him. It'll be cool when he finally does evolve.

Rosalie is quite unhappy with my false promises—I told her she could become anything (with Transform), but alas, due to the game's impossible mechanics, she'll only ever be a Smeargle. I also can't use her, since my level cap is currently only level 40, and she's level 41. That means I have to keep her in the box until I beat Clair, and she's none too impressed by that either. Her curiosity and optimism have been tainted by what she perceives to be my incompetence.

Prithvi (Miltank), now that I've accepted her as part of the squad, is as happy as could be, but she's a little bit over-eager and is waiting impatiently for me to use her again. I'm just not sure how much I need her at this current time, though. I have to fight a Dragon user next, so unless I can trust her to hit hard with an Ice Punch or something, it doesn't seem like I'll be using her again any time soon.

And then there's Capulet (Weepinbell), the newest member of the team. I've used a member of his family before (Patches), and I failed him, so understandably, Capulet is very apprehensively uncooperative right now. He misses with Sleep Powder... all the time. He also hates getting confused, and I've counted it—he has been confused for a total of nine turns, and he has hit himself SEVEN out of those nine times. When I caught him, he didn't even have Vine Whip as an attack. Just Wrap, which is extremely shitty in this generation. At least he eventually learned Acid, but he needs to get his act together very soon, because I think Clair uses a Kingdra, so I absolutely need him to learn Razor Leaf.

And since I won't be able to evolve Capulet until Kanto, so I only need him for this once purpose right now. If he doesn't learn anything useful before level 37 or 38, I'm gonna have to come up with something else.

I'm also struggling finding places to train. The north side of Dark Cave is accessible to me now, but since I already spent my Dark Cave encounter on Bram (Zubat, rest in peace), I don't get anything on the north side, even though there are different Pokémon available. Different people may treat that differently, but it's okay if you ask me. The only interesting thing I could've gotten was a Wobbuffet, and honestly, I have enough gimmicky Pokémon in my squad at this point.

But it was on Route 45 that I found the perfect Pokémon for my team: Skarmory.


This is hype as fuck for several reasons:
- It's one of my favorite Pokémon
- It's a 5% encounter on a route where I had an 85% chance of catching something from the Geodude line, making it my THIRD 5% encounter for this run (after Scyther and Miltank)
- It's a Steel-type, making it a solid choice against Clair (since Steel resists Dragon-type moves)

I guess the game is making up for all the Rattata it's been throwing at me.

I was listening the a song called Narayan by the Prodigy, so that's what I decided to name him. Narayana is the god of gods in Hinduism, so that's the second Hindu-based name that I've used so far.

Also, naturally, he's a fucking beast. I was taking him out for a test run on all the trainers on Route 45, most of whom were Hikers with Self-Destructing Graveler.

One of them even used a fucking Golem, and wouldn't you know it? At full health, Narayan was able to tank a CRITICAL HIT SELF-DESTRUCT from that Golem, with about 15% of his health left to spare. It makes sense, since Defense is Narayan's best stat, and Steel resists Normal-type moves, but still. STILL. That's fucking insanity. I never have to use Rocky again now (sorry, Rocky).

However, he seems a bit cocky. He gets unnecessary critical hits himself all the time, and he doesn't learn Iron Tail for some reason. That said, that Golem moment was so glorious, it pretty much instantly landed him a permanent spot on the team.

I'm gonna try to train everyone up to level 37 or 38, which may take awhile since there are no good training spots at this point in the game, but then I'm gonna fight Clair, and the Johto League will be completed.

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I have Shuckie on my team just for the fuck of it—part of his sidequest involves making him happy enough to where his original trainer will let you keep him, so I figure if I let him tag along and gain some levels, I'll be able to do that. Otherwise, his OT asks you to return him, and I dunno, I kinda like having a Shuckle.

i remember watching a video recently saying the trainer has a special dialogue if you met certain circumstances, but i cant remember what it was

was it just max friendship? idk but ik i was pretty surprised by it

I have Shuckie on my team just for the fuck of it—part of his sidequest involves making him happy enough to where his original trainer will let you keep him, so I figure if I let him tag along and gain some levels, I'll be able to do that. Otherwise, his OT asks you to return him, and I dunno, I kinda like having a Shuckle.

i remember watching a video recently saying the trainer has a special dialogue if you met certain circumstances, but i cant remember what it was

was it just max friendship? idk but ik i was pretty surprised by it

Yeah, I just invoked it—I tried to return him, but the dude said he was happier with me, so he's mine now.

Not max friendship, just "high" friendship.

That's cool, though—maybe I'll try to meme and use him during the Elite 4 or something.

So, after an extremely arduous training process, I went ahead and trained not just everyone on my team to level 38, but every Pokémon that I believe is worth using at all in my entire collection.

This includes Sheila, Peckham, December, Rocky, Montague, Narayan, Prithvi, Verbette, Alkali, Capulet, and even Shuckie, Madam, and—perhaps most surprisingly—Mr. Green, my Poliwag who is now a Poliwhirl. A lot of things happened during this long session, so I'll try to take note of all the biggest things.

The purpose of training all these Pokémon up was simple—I'm not sure what to do against Clair, so I wanted to explore all of my options. Not only does this give me a chance to use a bunch of Pokémon I've never cared to use before, it lets me know what'll actually help me during this gym fight, and if another big tragedy happens, I'll have a huge safety net, because now I have a box full of trained-up Pokémon ready to fight, right out of the box.

In terms of catching new Pokémon, I've burned pretty much all the areas in Johto at this point. Here are the remaining areas:
- Cherrygrove City, which I'm still saving until I get the Super Rod
- Tin Tower, which requires me to find a Rainbow Wing
- Mt. Mortar, which I'm still saving for Tyrogue, and requires me to beat Clair
- Dragon's Den, which I can't access until I beat Clair, and I'm also saving it for the Super Rod

Not a lot I can do. So, all I can really do is train the Pokémon that I do have.

A small tragedy did occur early on, however. While I was training Cthulha, my Tentacruel, I made a lapse of judgment that resulted in her death, and it's another embarrassing one.

That day, someone's car alarm was going off for hours on end. I was playing Pokémon to distract myself, getting myself into a rematch battle with Juggler Irwin (who only uses Voltorb and Electrode, so I didn't think there would be a problem). But because the noise was so incessant and loud, I had to stop playing for a moment and take the issue into my own hands. While I stopped playing, I was in the middle of an imminently dangerous situation that I wasn't fully cognizant of.

Irwin sent out his Electrode and used Rollout. I'm not scared at all—Electrode is no Miltank, so I'm not thinking it's gonna be doing too much damage. However, Electrode is also the fastest Pokémon in the game, and Cthulha's most powerful move—Surf—isn't doing enough damage to KO it in less than three hits. By the time the Electrode will be in KO range, Cthulha will already be getting smacked by a level 4 Rollout, and that's not something that she can take. If I try to heal, Cthulha will tank the move, but then she's just going to get outsped by the next Rollout, a level 5, which will certainly ensure her death.

I decided to heal, banking on the Electrode missing. It didn't. Cthulha is at 20% now, and now I have to think about whether to heal and bank on a miss yet again, or if I should just switch out. At this point, the car alarm that's going on outside is starting to drive me nutty, and in order to think this stressful situation through, I would've liked to have peace and quiet. So I put the game down, leaving it on the "select which Pokémon to heal" screen, and waited for the alarm to stop—but it continued for another two hours.

Fed up with waiting, I thought to myself "fuck it" and picked the game up again. Trying to recall exactly where I left off, I see a screen telling me to choose a Pokémon—ah, I must have been trying to switch out to a more physically defensive Pokémon, because I'm about to tank a full-power Rollout from an Electrode. But before I do that, I should compare Cthulha's Defense with that of the rest of her team.

I selected Cthlulha, but no option to check her stats appeared. Instead, she was healed up.

Of course, she was then one-shotted.

Salty beyond belief, and against my best judgment, I send out Capulet, my new Weepinbell and the weakest member of my team, against the Electrode. Rollout's counter is reset by now, I know that much, so there's not much it should be able to do now.

And then it self-destructed.

I watched Capulet's health bar drop all the way down...

...until he hung on with just 3 HP left.

With all the experience points Cthulha gained during that fight, they were all gone to waste, but at least Capulet—who has given me nothing but grief since I caught him—has shown me he's able to tank the second most dangerous move in the game.

The worst thing about losing Cthluha is that she was my Whirlpool user, so now I have to teach the worst HM move in the entire game to another Pokémon—because before I fight Clair, I want to take on Lugia within the Whirl Islands. If I manage to take it out, maybe I'll get Ho-Oh's Rainbow Wing, and I'll be able to enter the Tin Tower, where I can try to catch another Gastly. I went ahead and taught it to Verbette, replacing Splash.

After that drama, I removed Irwin from my contacts, because he's a piece of shit who killed my Pokémon, and I relegated myself to training exclusively inside the Ice Path, hunting Golbat and Delibird (which give tons of exp for little effort). I trained all the aforementioned Pokémon, and here were the standouts:

Verbette may have taken a million years for me to train, but she now has the highest stat average out of anyone in the whole collection. She's fierce and loyal, but thinks very highly of herself and very lowly of her teammates. Relies on Strength and Surf to get damage in, and still holds Mystic Water. Very bad at hitting with Whirlpool, though to be fair, it's only 70% accurate in this generation, because it's a terrible terrible move.

Montague has FINALLY evolved into an Umbreon—at the exact level I wanted him, too, meaning he learned both Bite and Confuse Ray at the same time. He also still holds the Quick Claw, because Umbreon is kind of on the slow side. Even though his stat average now exceeds Sheila's, he had a very rough start just after evolving. He's meant to be a defensive Pokémon who can tank a lot of hits, but one time, he took 80% damage from Delibird's Present. I mean, it was a critical hit, but goddamn, if he would've gotten killed by a Delibird, I probably would've ragequit the challenge, to be honest. He seems quiet in a resentful way, his hope and optimism as an Eevee gone.

Ever since Narayan's amazing performance against that Golem, he's been pretty lukewarm lately. He hasn't learned any cool moves whatsoever—not even Steel Wing, which was what I was hoping for. I'm still ecstatic to have him on the team, but training him up was actually kind of slow and boring. Even he seems bored, like he considers himself too good for me or something. I picked up the Sharp Beak from the final weekday sibling—I collected every type-enhancing item from them all now (the only types I'm missing are Bug, Psychic, Dragon, and Steel).

Madam the Girafarig is a pretty cool Pokémon, but she doesn't seem particularly outstanding other than the fact that she learns Baton Pass naturally. With Agility, I'll be able to pass over some massive speed boosts to my slower Pokémon, which is kind of intriguing, but she won't much help against Clair.

Shuckie the Shuckle is technically not my Pokémon. He was lent to me by an NPC who intended for me to give him back later, because I'm only protecting him from my rival (who stole that same kid's Sneasel). If you give Shuckie back, he'll just take it and give you Berry Juice as thanks. But if you raise the Shuckle's happiness to about 200, he'll actually let you keep him, and that's just what I did. If you don't let him have it back, he'll just call you the thief that you are. But yeah, he's officially mine now, and that's kinda neat I guess. I was only using him as a temporary Strength/Rock Smash user, but maybe I'll find some meme-y purpose for him later on down the line.

Capulet FOREVER disappoints me. I know for a fact that Clair uses a Kingdra—a dangerous Water/Dragon type that is weak only to Dragon and Grass. Capulet happens to be a Grass-type, but since I caught him as a level 22 Weepinbell, he doesn't happen to know Vine Whip. It got replaced by Wrap. That's okay, though—I thought I could just train him up until he learns the next Grass-type move, which would normally be Razor Leaf.

Well, my level limit right now is 40, and as it turns out, Weepinbell doesn't learn Razor Leaf until level 42. Son of a goddamn bitch.

My only hope of hitting that Kingdra super effectively now is for it to use a Dragon-type move against December, who now knows Mirror Move. If that happens, Mirror Move will shoot the Dragon-type move right back at the Kingdra, who will take massive damage from its own redirected attack. That's providing that December will be able to take some degree of abuse, which I'm not so confident about. We'll have to see.

In terms of hitting any other Dragon-types super effectively, I have almost nothing else. I have an Icy Wind TM that I got from Pryce, but it's so low-power that I may as well just use my regular attacks. I also have Ice Punch, but out of my entire collection, there are only two things that can even learn it: Prithvi, and... Mr. Green, once he evolves into Poliwhirl.

Both of their special attack stats are woefully low, but once Mr. Green evolves, it'll be slightly higher. So, my hand has been forced—I'm yet again training a Pokémon I never thought I'd ever use in this challenge. He'll likely never become a Poliwrath, and he for sure won't become a Politoed, but for this one fight, I think he'll actually have some degree of use. Now, he also has Body Slam and Surf to help him out, and he's always had access to Hypnosis, which is kinda nice.

Once everyone was ready—and boy, that took a long-ass time—I flew over to Olivine City to take care of one more thing. I have this Krabby named Eugene that an NPC character wants to trade for a Voltorb. Originally, I wasn't going to do this, but 1.) I already have enough Water-types anyway, and 2.) it's not like I won't have hundreds of opportunities to catch Krabby in Kanto anyway. Trading for a Voltorb does two things—gives me a temporary Flash user (since I need to light up the Whirl Islands anyway, and I'm too annoyed at Capulet to use him), and also gives me a fourth ID number for the Lucky Number Show.

The Voltorb's name is Volty.

The Lucky Number for this week is 19666, by the way. I didn't win anything—I guess that means my Pokémon are pure.

Anyway, I made my way to Lugia's chamber in the Whirl Islands and took him on. The Pokémon I took along with me for this fight are Peckham, Rocky, Montague, Narayan, Verbette, and Volty—all of whom (except Verbette and Volty) have some kind of type advantage against Lugia, whether it be access to super effective moves or just being able to tank an Aeroblast.

I considered taking Mr. Green, but I decided against it. He's still a rookie, and his stats are a bit too low right now. He doesn't need to be fighitng against any Uber-tier legendaries just yet.

Still, I was kinda scared, to be honest—Lugia's stats are perhaps some of the best in the entire game, and it's level 40. I know that it knows the following attacks: Aeroblast, which is gonna be devastating, and Safeguard, which will prevent me from paralyzing it. If it knows Psychic, I'm probably gonna lose a Pokémon, but it'll be okay, because Montague (being a Dark-type now) is immune to Psychic-type attacks.

Speaking of that, I officially have both a Dark and Steel-type on my team. NOW I'm playing Generation II.

I decided to lead with Peckham, because he has Thunder Wave, and even though I just said that it has Safeguard, I'm banking on the idea that Peckham will be faster than it. He also resists Aeroblast and is rather bulky overall, so even if something goes wrong, he should be able to tank whatever Lugia throws at him.

Lugia wound up being faster—but instead of using Safeguard, it went straight for the Aeroblast.

It did 40%, which kinda scared me until the text said "critical hit." If that was a crit, this fight is gonna be a breeze.

I responded Thunder Wave followed by Spark, which did about 40% as well. Pretty decent, but the Lugia just shrugged it off by revealing its third move, Recover. This could take awhile, I thought to myself, but as long as it doesn't have anything nasty in its fourth moveslot, I should be okay.

Turns out, its fourth move is only Gust. Knowing this, I was able to go ham on the poor thing, switching between all of my teammates to give each of them a piece of the experience pie. Narayan lowered its accuracy with Sand Attack a few times, so even if it wasn't fully paralyzed, it was having some trouble landing any moves in the first place.

Montague landed the final blow with Bite, though in retrospect, it would've been cooler to use Shadow Ball. Ah well.

I didn't get anything out of the fight except for experience, not even the Rainbow Wing I was searching for. Kind of a bummer, but it's okay—I feel more than ready to take Clair on now.

Below is the team I plan on using against Clair, and I'll go over why in the next post once I beat her.

PARTY:


BOX:


TRADED AWAY:


RIP:

I defeated Clair—but not without another casualty.

Honestly, the fight was a bit of a slobberknocker, so I can't really give an exact play-by-play of what happened. I will say that training Mr. Green and taking Rocky along ended up being worth it. Rocky's immunity to Electric-type moves saved Mr. Green's life, and Mr. Green's Ice Punch did just the right amount of damage it needed to do.

Clair doesn't have the most interesting team in the world—three Dragonair and a Kingdra, but what makes her fight interesting is that each of her three Dragonair is equipped with a specific elemental move. One of them has Surf. One of them has Thunderbolt. One of them has Ice Beam. But since they're all the same Pokémon, there's no way to tell which one will have which move, making it this interesting and dangerous guessing game.

They're also all packing Thunder Wave, probably the best move in the game for its ability to shut anything down instantly in terms of speed, and Mr. Green was put out of commission pretty early by getting paralyzed by this move. Knowing that her Pokémon are all about raw power and damage, I couldn't afford to waste a turn to heal him up, or it would've been risky to do so, so after Green took out at least one Dragonair and hurt another, I focused on using other Pokémon.

Rocky got blasted by the Ice Beam-wielder, but props to him for living with 5 or 6 HP left.

No one actually died from the Dragonair. It was the Kingdra.

When Kingdra came out, I was using Montague at the time, who had about 65% of his health left. My plan was to use Confuse Ray to create a bit of a safety net for whoever I'd switch out to, but the Kingdra was faster, and it blasted Montague with a Hyper Beam.

Montague tanked it like a pro, only taking about 20%. Umbreon are super bulky, and it's really paying off right about now.

Knowing that Kingdra has to recharge now, it's still confused, and that Umbreon can easily take another Hyper Beam if he needs to, I decide to keep Umbreon in, slowly chipping away at the Kingdra's health with Bite (in retrospect, I should've used Shadow Ball more for that small chance to lower it's Special Defense).

Montague was in rare form—Bite after Bite, there was a flinch and there was a crit. Kingdra was down to 20%, and it was still confused after four turns and hitting itself once. The fight appeared to be mine for the taking.

And then Kingdra used Hyper Beam again. No problem, right? He can tank this.

Except it was a crit, of course. That's not something Montague could tank.

To avenge him, I tried to be stylish and use December's Mirror Move to fire a Hyper Beam right back at the fucking thing, but unfortunately, Mirror Move apparently doesn't work like that. Apparently December must have been hit by the move himself in order to parry it back, which makes sense, but it made for a less-than satisfying avenging process.

Not knowing what to expect, I switch to Narayan for some reason, and the Kingdra uses Surf—which is a Water-type move, and one of the few moves that Narayan cannot resist. He hung on with 5% health. Knowing that she'll definitely use Surf again, I switch to Verbette, who naturally resists it, and finished the Kingdra off with Dragon Rage.

Clair's a bit of a sore loser who doesn't give you the badge right away, instead sending you on a silly fetch quest to the Dragon's Den to pick up some useless item. This quest is made a lot more interesting in Crystal. Here, it's just kind of annoying, because it forces you to teach the move Whirlpool—fortunately, Verbette happens to already know the move, but still.

I can get Flee's Dratini here, too, but I'm more likely to catch one once I get the Super Rod, so I'm waiting until I get that first. Otherwise, I'm near-guaranteed to catch another Magikarp.

I picked up the Dragon Fang and Clair gave me the badge. That makes eight—and I'm officially done with the Johto League.

The Elite 4 is technically next, but I'm gonna have to do lots of training, and there's a couple things I still need to do here. In particular, I'm gonna visit Mt. Mortar, now that I can climb waterfalls.

PARTY:


BOX:


TRADED AWAY:


RIP:

level cap: 48


Remaining areas pre-E4:

Cherrygrove City (on hold until Super Rod)
Want: STARYU, Tentacool, Tentacruel
Can also get: Krabby, Kingler, Corsola, Magikarp

Tin Tower (inaccessible atm)
Want: Gastly
Can also get: Rattata, Ho-Oh

Mt. Mortar
Want: TYROGUE, Marill, Machop, Machoke
Can also get: Rattata, Raticate, Zubat, Golbat, Geodude, Graveler, Goldeen, Seaking, Magikarp

Dragon's Den (on hold until Super Rod)
Want: Dratini
Can also get: Magikarp

Route 26
Want: PINECO, ARBOK, Ponyta, Shellder, Tentacool, Tentacruel, Exeggcute
Can also get: Raticate, Doduo, Quagsire, Chinchou, Lanturn, Magikarp, Weedle, Kakuna, Beedrill

Victory Road
Want: DONPHAN, Rhyhorn
Can also get: Golbat, Graveler, Onix

Realistically, I'll only be able to catch three more Pokémon before the Elite 4. One of them will be Tyrogue.

Route 26 is the route just before the Pokémon League Reception Gate. I can headbutt trees here for a small chance at another Exeggcute, or maybe even Pineco (the dream), but I'm more likely than not just going to add another Weedle to my team if I do that. Alternatively, I can search in the grass for a small chance at an Arbok, which I wouldn't mind using, but that's very rare (5%) as well. I think I'm just gonna headbutt trees, honestly. There's an ever-so-slightly higher chance of getting something I want that way.

Victory Road doesn't give me a lot of options, unfortunately. The only thing I'd be really happy to catch is a Donphan, but it's more likely that I'll find a Graveler (which I can't evolve) or Golbat (which will be annoying to evolve).


Pokémon I'm definitely taking to the Elite 4:

Sheila (Scyther) - i basically have to at this point
Peckham (Lanturn) - same, except he's actually very very strong
Narayan (Skarmory) - catching this thing was a godsend tbh
Whatever my Tyrogue will evolve into - having a fighting-type would help loads
Forretress, if I catch a Pineco - i honestly feel like i deserve to use one of my favorites after all the shit i've been through
Rapidash, if I catch a Ponyta - would round out the team a bit, i miss having a fire-type (RIP Quill)
Rhydon, if I catch a Rhyhorn - would help, way stronger than onix
Donphan, if I catch one - would be cool, i think it learns earthquake early
Arbok, if I catch one - would be cool, it's very weak but i've never used an arbok before

Maybe-tier:

Rocky (Onix) - weak, not fully evolved, but still has his niche as a good defensive wall, oldest surviving Pokémon
Alkali (Beedrill) - very very weak, but might perform well against Will, second oldest surviving Pokémon
December (Fearow) - strong, reliable, third oldest, but honestly pretty bad stats, and I've already used a Fearow in Blue
Verbette (Gyarados) - very strong, probably doesn't make sense not to use one, but I've already used SO MANY before
Prithvi (Miltank) - she's impressed me in the past, but i just don't know if this is her league
Madam (Girafarig) - might help a little, but i worry about her stats
Shuckie (Shuckle) - memes

Definitely not:

Rosalie (Smeargle) - the Transform strat didn't pan out; i like her too much to risk her life for memes—her future is in Kanto
Capulet (Weepinbell) - WEAK WEAK WEAK, frustrating to use, not fully evolved, only good move is Sleep Powder
Everyone else in the box - weak and redundant

honestly kinda nervous

I've started playing again, decided to fuck the Nuzlocke, I'll do it again sometime. Just wanna enjoy this playthrough.

Why aren't you playing with das?

I got Tyrogue in Mt. Mortar. Name: Chinatown (Bruce Lee's birthplace; I want a Hitmonlee).

On Route 26, I went for a Pineco but got a Kakuna instead. Name: Chrys (for chrysalis).

I got a Donphan in Victory Road. Name: Garcia (I don't know, makes me think of Spanish bullfighters).

Tyrogue evolves at level 20, and what it evolves into is based on which stat between Attack and Defense is the highest. If Attack is higher than Defense, it evolves into a Hitmonlee, which is probably overall the strongest of the three things it can evolve into (probably the coolest, too).

So, after a bit of Experience Sharing, Chinatown eventually evolved into Hitmonlee. My excitement was dampened, however, when I discovered that Hitmonlee learns most of its good starting moves prior to level 20. This limits his moveset to Hi Jump Kick, which is EXTREMELY RISKY, and whatever TMs I can teach it. I taught him Strength and Dynamic Punch (which feels so wrong to use on a kicking-based Fighting-type, but whatever, I have few options). He also eventually learned Mind Reader, so maybe landing these low-accuracy moves won't be such an issue anymore.

I was excited, because for the first time ever, I actually have a relatively solid, formidable, and well-rounded team:

PARTY:


And then Chinatown died.

No rhyme, no reason, no poetic justice. Just another stupid meaningless training accident.

I decided to train on Route 26, because not only are the experience yields the highest available to me, Chinatown is able to one-shot almost everything on the route with High Jump Kick. It's a risky move, because on the 10% chance that the move misses, Chinatown will "keep going and crash," resulting in a massive chunk of health being lost (normally, 50%).

However, despite Chinatown's low Defense, the Raticate I was training against were pretty weak, too. Quick Attack was only able to do 10%, and that's a 60 power move after STAB. Hyper Fang, the much scarier attack, is a 120 power move after STAB. So, simple arithmetic would tell me that Hyper Fang is only gonna be able to do 40% maximum. So, if High Jump Kick misses, and the Raticate uses Hyper Fang, Chinatown will still be able to live, assuming he was at full health. And I always made sure he was at full health. If he even took a scratch of damage, I healed him up immediately. That's how protective and prepared and smart I was about this.

Besides, the chances of High Jump Kick missing are 1 in 10.
The chance of Raticate selecting Hyper Fang is 1 in 4, and the chance of it hitting is 9 in 10.

Overall, that's 1 in 45, worst case scenario. Sure, that's not the most unlikely thing EVER, but I wasn't afraid.

It eventually happened, though. The first time Chinatown ever missed with High Jump Kick, too, and the recoil damage did a whopping 60%. Never would I have imagined it would've done that much, but it did. No points for guessing what the Raticate did next.

So yeah, that really fucking sucks. This is honestly one of the shittiest nuzlockes I've ever done. Unlike my Blue nuzlocke, none of the deaths so far have felt "right." It's all just been random stupid garbage, and it's really starting to take a toll on the fun factor for me. I'm still not quitting, but at this point, I'm just kinda waiting for it to be over. The only reason I'm not just ragequitting right now is because this is my favorite game in the series, and I don't wanna dilute the experience by restarting. I've also made it this far, so I might as well just try to finish it.

PARTY:


BOX:


TRADED AWAY:


RIP:

Chinatown would've been a free ticket win against Karen. Dark's only other weakness is Bug.

Might have to take Alkali (Beedrill), then, and I might just end up taking Shuckle for the memes, replacing Gyarados.

If I can still get Heracross, Pineco, and Ledyba at some point in Kanto, I'll have a full Bug-type team.

Why aren't you playing with das?

I think I'm actually gonna do it.

Why aren't you playing with das?

I think I'm actually gonna do it.

He's a good boy

RIP Garcia, died to the rival. My sister came home and started making loud noises for ten straight minutes, making the dogs bark as loud as she could, and it started affecting my judgment. I used Rollout during and was locked into it, resulting in his death.

This run is an absolute joke.

RIP Garcia, died to the rival. My sister came home and started making loud noises for ten straight minutes, making the dogs bark as loud as she could, and it started affecting my judgment. I used Rollout during and was locked into it, resulting in his death.

This run is an absolute joke.

Smack her in the teeth

Fair play for sticking to this, god damn.

I couldn't go through the trouble of getting/training some of these pokemon and then boxing them if they KO. It's been a great read tho, so I hope you keep it up.

All right, I'm finally done training. Everyone's level 48. Here's what we're dealing with:



This is probably the saddest bunch of Pokémon I've ever took to the endgame, but this is pretty much it right here.

After the Great Whitney Massacre of September 26, I've meteorically risen from the ashes with a brand new team of weirdos and misfits: three Bug-types (including a motherfucking Shuckle), Cow & Chicken, and a derpy fish.

I technically have a couple better options in my PC box, like Verbette and December, but like I've already said—I've already took both a Gyarados and a Fearow to the Hall of Fame in my Blue nuzlocke, so I don't really wanna use them again. They've both been extremely useful during this challenge, though, and I'm not against using them again when I reach Kanto.

Speaking of Kanto, I came up with an interesting idea in the shower about how to deal with it. It involves the Time Capsule, but before I even talk too much about it here, I gotta make sure I take out the Elite 4 first. So, I'll go over everyone on the team one by one.

The Elite 4 consists of the following trainers:

Will (Psychic-types)
Bruno (Fighting-types)
Koga (Poison-types)
Karen (Dark-types)

...and then, of course, the champion Lance (Dragon-types). I'm fighting all of these guys entirely from memory, and I haven't looked up any of their teams—in fact, the only things I've ever looked up in this entire playthrough are 1.) Pokémon learnsets, 2.) what Pokémon can be found in each area, and 3.) the locations for some rare key items.

So it's gonna be tough, but I'll go over my strategy below before I take them on.




Every single time I ever thought to myself, "Oh, Alkali's too weak at this point. I'm gonna retire her," she has consistently proved to me that she still has a place on my team. Whether it be fighting or cutting down bushes, she's a real trooper, having been on the squad since I caught her in Azalea Town (as a Weedle), just barely after picking up my second badge. That was even before the Whitney massacre, so she's among the longest-lasting members of the team.

In fact, I previously thought that she WAS the oldest member—but I checked, and that distinction actually belongs to Balcome, my level 6 female Zubat who hasn't left the box since I caught her. Zubat's hard to train, and when Bram died, it felt distasteful to just replace him with another Zubat, so I just never bothered.

Anyway, back to Alkali. Impressively, her stats aren't actually that terrible. When the Special stat split happened between Gens I and II, Beedrill was given a minor boon in that its Special Attack remained very low, but its Special Defense stat was made quite high—and, as you can see, it's actually her most formidable stat, exceeding even her Attack. This is great, because tanking some specially-based moves will likely prove to be critical for her during this final challenge.

True to her name, I went ahead and taught her Sludge Bomb, the strongest Poison-type move in the game. That was a pretty hard decision, because I was thinking about saving that TM for Weepinbell once I was able to evolve him, but since Alkali's fighting power is just so low, I knew I needed to give her a strong move. She's tough, but she's still just a Beedrill, and needs all the power she can get. Sludge Bomb doesn't really hit anything super effectively, since Grass-types that aren't also Poison-types are kind of rare, but it still provides decent neutral coverage. And it hits hard.

I also went ahead and taught her Hidden Power, too, as a desperate hail mary thing. In Generation II, there's no way to know what type your Pokémon's Hidden Power will be, unless you test it in the field yourself. Its power also ranges from 40 to 70, rather than staying at a clean 60, like in later generations.

Can you tell what type Alkali's Hidden Power is just by looking at the coloration?

I'll tell you—apparently, within Alkali's soul lies the heart of a motherfucking DRAGON.

That's really cool and all, but I honestly doubt I'll be able to take much advantage of it. Alkali's Special Attack is pretty dismal, and knowing my luck, the power of the move is probably on the lower end. I'm still keeping it on, though—who knows? It might actually just come in handy. It'll be sick to see her kill one of Lance's dragons with it.

Her held item is her trusty Poison Barb. This thing has traded hands with several Pokémon—it belonged to G once, the poor Nidoqueen who died at the hands of Chuck (and my stupidity). Then Capulet had it for awhile. Now it's Alkali's.

I honestly would rather her have Silver Powder, though. Poison Barb only powers up Sludge Bomb, which kinda hits hard enough as it is. Silver Powder would help strengthen her old bread-n-butter attack, Twineedle, which has kind of lost its appeal since I taught her Sludge Bomb. It's good at killing the random Psychic or Dark-type, sure, but even then, it doesn't always do the job as cleanly as it used to. Silver Powder boosts Bug-type moves, so that would help to fix that issue.

Trouble is, Silver Powder can only be found in these hyper-specific circumstances: Wild Butterfree have a 2% chance of carrying one, but in Pokémon Silver, Butterfree can only be found one single way—by entering the Bug-Catching Contest (which can only be entered once every Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday and lasts for 20 minutes) and hunting them there. But since I've already been fortunate enough to have captured Sheila there, I only have one option: teach the move Thief to one of my Pokémon and try to steal the Silver Powder from one of the Butterfree.

I'm kind of autistic when it comes to doing shit like that, but that's a little bit beyond me. I'm not that desperate to make Alkali more powerful.

Alkali learns nothing else at this point, and I don't have any other useful TMs, so this is about as good as she'll get for now. I might try to replace Focus Energy with something, though, like Endure. Just about anything would be marginally better, but I don't wanna make any decisions I'll regret later.

I expect her to perform well against Will, Bruno, Koga, Karen... Lance? Maybe. She's honestly pretty solid all-around.




If I had to pick a favorite across my entire collection, Sheila would probably be the one. I know that's dangerous to say, but honestly, it hasn't been that big of a secret. But it seems uncanny. Every single time I specify a particular Pokémon as a "favorite," they always seem to die shortly thereafter. But Sheila has always been my #1, and yet she's still alive after all this time—and I very much plan to keep it that way.

As I mentioned, she's been on the team since I caught her in the Bug-Catching Contest. She was one of the last Pokémon I was able to catch before the Whitney massacre, and she was the one who led the remnants of my team out of that terrible situation. She has the highest stat average out of anyone in the squad, and has always been extremely reliable (despite not being able to Fly).

Her main bread-n-butter moves are Wing Attack and Slash—maybe not the best moves in the game, but with her massive Attack stat, they still get the job done. She also learned Swords Dance so that she can hit even harder, though I had to choose that over both Agility and Double Team.

Detect is here to ensure that she survives. She can scout moves with it so that she doesn't get hit by any random Rock Slides or something crazy. She's honestly the last member of the team that I want to die, so I'm giving her extra special attention in that regard, and I think it compliments her fighting style well. Mindless offense isn't her style—Detect gives her a moment to breath and consider her situation. That said, I honestly probably should've taught this move to Alkali, but I just like Sheila too much.

She holds the Rattaboy's old Pink Bow to help power up Slash.

I expect her to perform very well against Bruno, but I really have to watch out for Rock-type moves.




Peckham has been on the team since I caught him as a Chinchou in the harbor of Olivine City, and objectively speaking, I think he's actually the most powerful Pokémon on my team, just in terms of raw strength.

Rain Dance was an amazing move to teach him, because it makes Surf hit harder than a mortar shell. There's very few things I haven't been able to one-shot with a Rain-powered Surf, and now that he's holding Verbette's Mystic Water (in lieu of the Magnet), I think he's a pretty unstoppable force.

I also replaced Spark with Thunder, because Thunder has 100% accuracy when it's raining, and that's way too fucking awesome for me to pass up. When I played Pokémon competitively, I used a Drizzle Politoed team, so this kinda takes me back to those days. This is also why I replaced the Magnet with Mystic Water—because Thunder is now hitting harder than Surf.

How was I able to get Thunder? Well, there's only one way to obtain it in this generation: Gambling.

You can either waste a lot of money on 5500 coins to purchase the TM, or you can nut up and try your luck at the slots—and try my luck at the slots I did. I think I must have found the rigged machine, or something, because I've never gotten so many jackpots before. I was able to accrue enough coins in less than two hours. I've never had that much luck as a kid while gambling, and since my favorite Pokémon is Porygon, I gambled a LOT.

Needless to say, Peckham definitely appreciates the move.

He also still has Thunder Wave, but honestly, he hits SO HARD that it's rarely ever necessary.

I expect him to fucking annihilate everybody, but especially Bruno (he'll take care of what Sheila cannot).




Oh, Miltank, I was so wrong about you. All of my 5% encounters have been so good to me.

I first caught her in Route 38, well after the Whitney massacre, but not before the scars healed. I was so resentful towards her species at the time, I didn't even give her a nickname—but then it occurred to me that she would actually help immensely for the fight against the Ice-type gym leader, Pryce. And help she did. She fucking annihilated him with Rollout, the same way Whitney did to me.

Using her that way feels like I'm engaging in the dark arts, but she's been such a great help that I don't even care. Her stats are pretty incredible for being a derpy cow, and she's actually pretty versatile, too. She's a hard-hitter, she's a cleric, and she's a relatively speedy tank. She even learns a fuckton of TMs, and I'm definitely gonna be taking advantage of that here.

Body Slam is temporary. I may replace it with Return, I'm not sure yet. Both are hard-hitting STAB moves on their own, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because I'm actually going to be replacing it with Defense Curl just before Lance.

Yes, Defense Curl is actually a TM in this game.

And yes, I'm actually going to be using it just before the final battle.

What the fuck is this nuzlocke.

The reason I'm doing that is because I'm going to be using Rollout against Lance, and Defense Curl doubles Rollout's power. Simple as that. It's a huge gamble, but Lance's Dragonite only have two weaknesses—Ice, which I have very limited access to, and Rock. Since Rock Slide is not a TM in this game, I can only rely on Rollout as my sole coverage.

So yeah, that's my ace-in-the-hole against Lance—a fucking rolling cow. It's actually pretty dicey, and perhaps not the best and most optimal thing for me to try, but just think about how satisfying it'll be for me if I actually manage to pull it off. Even if she misses or something, I still think she'll be tanky enough to withstand all of his Pokémon's attacks. She IS a Miltank, after all.

Hard Stone is there just to give Rollout more power, of course.

If there's ever a point she needs to heal, I'll use Milk Drink. Earthquake is there just for some extra coverage. Maybe she can kill some of Koga's Pokémon with it or something.

So yeah, I'm expecting some pretty big things from her. I really hope she doesn't disappoint—it's not like she has before.




Narayan is the newest member of the team—I caught him very recently on Route 45. He's another rare 5%er, so having him in general is really cool.

His exceedingly high Defense, coupled with his amazing defensive typing, are the best things about him for sure. But I'm not gonna lie—I'm honestly kinda disappointed with Narayan in terms of the moves he's learning (or not learning, in this case).

You may have noticed that his moves kind of suck. And you're right, they do. But that's seriously the best I can manage with him at this point in the game.

He learns Steel Wing at level 49, the very next level, so I'll be replacing Swift with that very soon. I can't do it right now, because my level cap is set to 48, meaning I'll only be able to try for it while I'm in the middle of fighting the Elite 4.

Swagger is there just for fun, honestly. Normally a high-risk, high-reward strategy (because it doubles your opponent's Attack before confusing them), it actually goes extremely well with not Fly, but also his high Defense. Even if I raise a wild Raticate's Attack up to +4, a Hyper Fang is only able to do ten fucking percent damage. And with Fly, he gains one turn of invulnerability anyway, while his opponent is stuck in a 50/50 chance of striking itself.

Agility is just kinda there, and he holds a Sharp Beak to power up Fly.

Now that I think about it, his moves aren't so bad after all. His natural moveset is definitely underwhelming, though. He doesn't even learn Spikes or Whirlwind until Generation III.

I don't expect him to do particularly well against anyone in particular—like Alkali, I think he serves as a good general purpose Pokémon who can help no matter the situation.




A very, very wise man once said, "I may have gone too far in a few places."

That's a pretty accurate description of how I feel right now.

Shuckle is Shuckle—and in Generation II, he is perhaps at his most Shuckliest.

The last move he EVER LEARNS is learned at level 37, and he never learns anything else.

This is the absolute best moveset that I can possibly give him, perhaps ever, with the exception of Toxic.

His only purpose, really, is to stall. Sandstorm is actually pretty brutal in this generation—we're all used to buffet damage being about one sixteenth of health. Barely a scratch. But in Gen II, the buffet damage is actually one eighth, and because of Shuckle's typing, he's actually immune to it. Whatever damage he ends up taking, I can easily just use Rest to clean it all up, and then wake up immediately with a Mint Berry.

I don't think I need to explain the potential memery that the move Encore can produce.

I don't know what I expect Shuckie to do, to be honest. I just feel like I HAVE to use him, for the memes. The run isn't complete without it. If you thought training him up was a bitch, you'd actually be wrong—I just used an Experience Share, and since he doesn't originally belong to me, he actually gains experience very fast.

The worst part of his training was the mere fact that I had to go Mint Berry picking, and I can only pick one Mint Berry per day. But I think I have a pretty decent stockpile of them now.


So yeah, I'll be challenging the Elite 4 very soon. I'll have a separate post for each battle.

Hopefully nothing totally disastrous happens. I'm not sure what I'll do if it does.

vs. Will

Despite the fact that the type preferences of each Elite 4 member have been firmly imprinted in my mind, I seem to recall some of them using Pokémon that don't belong to that preference—and since I'm going off my memory alone, I had to take this into account when recalling their teams.

I knew that Will used Xatu, Jynx, and Exeggutor. I thought he'd maybe have a Cloyster, which wouldn't make any sense, but it's one of those wild card options I was trying to think about. He has a Slowbro, which is part-Water, and a Jynx, which is part-Ice. Cloyster is Water AND Ice. Not to mention, his entire gym is covered in ice (maybe from when this used to be Lorelei's chamber or something).

Needless to say, I wound up being wrong, but it didn't matter a whole lot anyway. I kinda curbstomped this guy.

He led with his lower-leveled Xatu. I lead with Shuckie and set up Safeguard, to prevent him from confusing or putting anything to sleep, as well as a Sandstorm. This would be dangerous, but the next Pokémon I'm gonna be switching to is Narayan, who, as a part-Steel type, doesn't take any damage from Sandstorm at all.

Between these two moves, Shuckie did tank a Psychic—it did 30%, which is a pretty decent chunk, but as soon as I switched to Narayan, he was naturally able to shrug off those hits much better. The Sandstorm put that Xatu in the perfect range to be smacked with Fly, and I did just that.

Next, he sent out his Slowbro—a perfect switch, because it managed to scare Narayan away. It could have some nasty Water-type moves, and Water is one of the few types that Narayan can't resist. I looked it up later, though, and it turns out that Will's Slowbro doesn't know any Water-type moves at all. It was a bluff.

I switched to Peckham, though, expecting to tank a Surf or Hydro Pump or something—but instead, it began to set up Curse. Not a problem; that move only boosts physical Attack & Defense. I chose to set up Rain Dance—which was a little bold, because it also would've powered up any of Slowbro's Water-type moves, assuming it had any—but if it's gonna start boosting its Defense, then I need to start hitting it hard with some specially-based moves like Thunder.

Then it used Amnesia—now it's Special Defense is boosted, too. Still, I have to use Thunder—it's my best option.

As Peckham used it, it resulted in a critical hit, one-shotting the poor thing.

Next, Will bluffed once again. He scared Peckham away with Exeggutor, a Grass-type that didn't actually happen to have any Grass-type moves (other than Leech Seed); I just didn't realize it at the time. Nonetheless, I switched back to Narayan, and it smartly set up Reflect to halve the damage it's about to take from Fly. Unfortunately for it, though, the Exeggutor only delayed its inevitable demise by a single turn.

At this point, I can't actually remember if he sent out Jynx or his second Xatu first.

When the second Xatu came out, I thought Narayan would be able to handle it, even though it's a little bit stronger than the last. But it used Confuse Ray, and I wasn't really in the mood to gamble, so I switched back to Peckham to shoot it out of the sky with Thunder.

I think I used Peckham for Jynx, too. I knew it had Ice Punch, and I didn't really wanna deal with that, so I just sent out someone who would resist it. But instead, it insisted in using Double Slap instead. All righty, then. Probably the easiest Pokémon to deal with on his team.

That's one down, no casualties.

vs. Koga

Koga threw me off guard—I was expecting to fight Bruno first.

Not a big deal, though. Spoiler alert: I soloed his entire team with Prithvi.

He leads with Ariados, but I was able to Body Slam it to death before it could do anything too nasty. Venomoth wasn't a big problem, either—I think I actually managed to one-shot it with another Body Slam.

Forretress is pretty scary, though, for one reason: Explosion.

Self-destruct is normally a death sentence for anything that doesn't resist it or have a fuckton of Defense, and Explosion is the same move, but much, much stronger. If I had a Fire-type, I'd be able to snuff this thing out in one hit, but I have to make do with what I have. Thankfully, I taught Earthquake to Prithvi, which does neutral damage to Forretress vs. Body Slam, which is resisted.

It never actually ended up exploding, though. It threw a layer of Spikes, trolled me a little bit with Protect, and used Swift a bunch of times before Prithvi snuffed it out with three or four Earthquakes.

Muk was a joke—all it did was use Minimize twice, but Prithvi didn't give a shit. Two Body Slams was enough to take it out. I didn't use Earthquake, because I seem to recall this very obscure mechanic involving Minimize. Basically, if you use the move Stomp (which my Miltank used to know), it supposedly bypasses the evasion boost and does double the damage it normally does. Which makes sense, and is hilarious, but I also thought the rule applied to Body Slam, too. It doesn't, but it was still worth a shot, and Prithvi didn't miss a single time anyway.

His final Pokémon, Crobat, was an even bigger joke. It did one move, Double Team, before becoming incapacitated under Prithvi's weight.

One Pokémon—that's all I needed. Miltank has really proven herself to me.

vs. Bruno

It was Sheila's time to shine. Her Bug/Flying typing makes her perfect for tanking Fighting-type attacks, and Detect allows her to scout out any dangerous moves like Rock Slide or elemental punches. If he still has Counter, that's going to be very scary, but I trust her ability to one-shot anything that isn't Machamp or Onix.

He lead with Hitmontop, and thankfully, all it really did was use Quick Attack. Easy to take care of with one Wing Attack.

Naturally, though, the next thing he sends out is Onix. Since I already know Sheila can't do a thing against it, I was planning to one-shot it with Peckham's Surf anyway. It's not even necessary for me to set up Rain Dance.

Once Hitmonlee came out, I switched again, this time to Narayan. It's probably going to spam High Jump Kick, so I thought it would be cool if I just used Fly and cause it to kill itself with crash damage, or something—but unfortunately, it used Swagger instead. Narayan hit himself while in midair, and now I'm in a pretty bad position. I switched to Sheila again, who brushed off the HJK like it was nothing, and took it down effortlessly.

Next came Hitmonchan. This is the Pokémon I expect to have Counter the most, and if Sheila fails to one-shot it with Wing Attack, that's going to spell trouble if it doesn't use an elemental punch, on top of the fact that Hitmonchan is supposed to be more defensive than Hitmonlee. I take the risk—I used Wing Attack, and Sheila was able to one-shot it.

I later looked it up—none of his Pokémon actually have Counter. That's Gen 1 only, I guess.

He saved his strongest Pokémon for last: Machamp. Even though it's tempting to just Wing Attack right away, I instead used this opportunity to use Detect, just to confirm whether it has Rock Slide—and it does. Sheila would've been dead. I really have my doubts that she'd have one-shotted a level 46 Machamp.

I switched to Narayan, who took the next Rock Slide like a pro. Given how weak the move was, I decided that it might be a good idea to try using Swagger. The animation for the move is too good—Narayan huffs condescendingly at the Machamp, pissing it off, causing it to become confused while doubling its attack. Then I used Fly, leaving the Machamp only with a 50-50 chance to either do nothing or hit itself. And he DID hit himself—for 40% damage, before Narayan swooped down and finished him off.

Three down, still no casualties.

I'm delighted in that every single Pokémon on my team—even Shuckle—has had their own cool little moment during this Elite 4. The only one who hasn't seen any action yet is Alkali, and that's going to change in the next gym.

vs. Karen

I just noticed something—every Elite 4 member so far uses at least one Pokémon that I used to have on my team, but they ended up dying before I could see their full potential. Earlier, we had Exeggutor, Crobat, Hitmonlee, and now we have Umbreon and Gengar. RIP to Aubergine, Bram, Chinatown, Montague, and of course, Blair, who was the first Pokémon of mine to actually die during the run. RIP to everyone else, too. Hopefully these last couple of fights will see to it that everyone is avenged.

Karen is probably my second favorite Elite 4 member (first being Koga). Dark-types are pretty awesome, and as weird as it is, I like how she mixes it up a little with Pokémon like Gengar and Vileplume.

She leads with her Umbreon, while I led with my Beedrill. This will be the Alkali's chance to prove herself.

I decide to set up with Focus Energy, which is normally a bad move, but in Gen II, each hit of multi-striking moves like Fury Attack and Twineedle has an individual chance of getting a crit, so increasing my crit ratio is actually not the worst idea. Especially against an Umbreon, who is VERY bulky.

This wound up being a good decision, because Twineedle wound up critting on the second hit, dealing about 70% total. That's huge. She got hit by Confuse Ray immediately after, but since she's such a good Pokémon, she didn't succumb to it.

Houndoom was the next Pokémon to come out, naturally, so I Surfed it with Peckham.

Then the Vileplume came out. Since I didn't want Peckham to eat a Giga Drain, I switched for Narayan, but Karen's AI was a little bit too smart for me, and it used Stun Spore instead, as though she knew I was gonna switch. I tried using Fly anyway, but he kept getting paralyzed in midair. This wasn't that big of an issue, though, since there's very little Vileplume can do to actually hurt Narayan. It was currently caught in Petal Dance, too, so it was a simple matter of waiting for Narayan to stop getting paralyzed.

I've been trying to curb my item usage, too, but I eventually had to use a Full Restore.

Gengar wasn't a problem at all. I have Prithvi to take care of it, and there's not a damn thing that a Gengar can do to hurt a Normal-type. However, I waited for it to use Curse on Narayan. That way, Gengar's HP is cut in half, and I can freely switch to Miltank and destroy it with Earthquake. Worked like a charm.

Her final Pokémon, Murkrow, was... a Murkrow. It's a very, very weak Pokémon. I think I only needed to Body Slam it once.

Kind of anti-climactic, but whatever—that's it, I beat the Elite 4. There's nothing else to do now, right?

Oh wait...

I still have to fight Lance.

So I assume I can't put a Pokemon in Bank from Yellow and use them in Gold? I'm thinking about picking Gold up as much as I want to wait for Crystal and would want to use some Pokemon I never used in a Johto playthrough before

So I assume I can't put a Pokemon in Bank from Yellow and use them in Gold? I'm thinking about picking Gold up as much as I want to wait for Crystal and would want to use some Pokemon I never used in a Johto playthrough before

Any Pokémon sent to the Bank from Yellow cannot be sent back, no.

You can use the Time Capsule to send your Gen I Pokémon to Gen II, though, provided you have a second 3DS.

It's cool that they retained that feature and all, but it's kinda stupid how you need a second 3DS with a separately bought copy of the game for that (when they advertised otherwise).

Verbymon

vs. Lance

As I made my way to the champion's room, I took a moment to reflect on my Elite 4 experience thus far.

Everyone had their moment:
Sheila destroyed Bruno.
Alkali smacked Karen.
Prithvi single-handedly dismantled Koga.
Narayan and Peckham has been useful in general.
Even Shuckie helped against Will.

Zero casualties. Not a single item used during battle.

Even if Lance ends up destroying me, I'll be okay with the result. I've assembled a great, if extremely unorthodox, team—but will it be enough to take on three Dragonite? Only one way to answer that.

Just as I planned, I replaced Body Slam with Defense Curl on Prithvi's moves.

For a moment, I considered replacing Earthquake with Return, but in the end, I decided against it. In fact, the very last thing I did before taking on the Elite 4 was check everyone's happiness levels. Return is a move that gets more powerful the more your Pokémon trusts you, and there's a lady in Goldenrod City who helps you evaluate that.

Max happiness, signified by the phrase, "It looks really happy! It must love you a lot," represents a happiness value between 250 and 255. At this stage, Return's power is about 95+, with 102 being as strong as it can be.

5 out of my 6 party members were at max happiness—Prithvi wasn't. For her, the lady said, "I get the feeling that it really trusts you," so her happiness could've been anywhere from 200 to 249. Grinding happiness in Gen II takes much longer than people are used to today, and I just wanted to fight the Elite 4 after the hours I spent training, so I just didn't bother with Return.

That's fine, though. The original plan was to lead with Prithvi for her Defense Curl + Rollout combo. Since Lance's entire team is weak to Rock-type moves, and—as has been thoroughly demonstrated throughout this run—Rollout gets progressively stronger each turn, it seemed like a pretty solid idea on paper, especially considering how bulky Miltank is.

However, pretty much nothing went how I expected—I wound up having to use every single Pokémon on the team.

Lance lead with his Gyarados. Of course—it was the ONE Pokémon that I forgot to account for on his team. Despite not being a Dragon-type, it's still basically a dragon, so I'm not sure what else I was expecting. But I tried not to led it bother me. Sticking with the plan, I had Prithvi use Defense Curl right away, but the Gyarados outsped her and proceeded to use Rain Dance.

That instant, I could no longer commit to using Rollout. Simply put, Rain Dance powers up Water-type moves, and Water-type moves are all specially-based in this game. While Miltank's Special Defense isn't terrible, but my plan thus far has only accounted for physical attacks. If that Gyarados happens to be packing Hydro Pump, that could spell certain death for Prithvi.

So, out of fear, I switched to Peckham. The fortunate thing about Rain Dance is that it's a field effect—that is, both players receive all benefits from the rain; something Lance apparently failed to account for. Now, I can just use Thunder to take out his Gyarados in one clean shot. From there, I basically have to just improvise. The Rollout strat was honestly my only real "plan" for this fight—so now, I actually have to figure out how to dance around his dragons.

His first Dragonite wasn't so bad, but I made it more difficult than it needed to be. I paralyzed it with Thunder Wave and basically tried to Thunder it to death—though, Peckham did wind up getting paralyzed himself, on top of getting smacked by a Hyper Beam. Thankfully, he took the hit like a pro, only receiving about 30-40%.

Still, being paralyzed is bad news. I could've just used a Full Restore, but the idea of beating the entire Elite 4 + the champion without using a single healing item during battle was starting to tempt me into making some suboptimal decisions.

So, I switched to Narayan to finish it off instead. I figured, since he resists both Hyper Beam and Twister anyway, it wouldn't matter too much. And then the Dragonite used Blizzard.

So, he uses a stronger version of Clair's gimmick. One Dragonite has Blizzard. That means the other two will have Thunder and Fire Blast. Good to know—I wasn't sure if they all had the same moves or not.

Ice is one of the few types that Narayan doesn't resist—it's not super effective or anything, but it was still a nasty move for him to get hit by. He hung on by the red of his health, and then proceeded to get frozen. Great.

At this point, though, even if I do heal Narayan, he's just gonna get blasted by another Blizzard anyway, and I'm not about to healscum my way out of the final battle.

I switched back to Prithvi to commence the Rollout strat once more. With the Defense Curl boost and her Hard Stone, she was able to take the first Dragonite down. That was a lot more painful than it should've been, but it worked out. Now, Prithvi either has to keep hitting with Rollout, or miss before she gets herself into some deep shit.

He brings out his second Dragonite—it uses Thunder Wave, and Prithvi gets parahaxed instantly. This is actually not the worst thing that could've happened, but I do need to use Milk Drink before her HP gets too low. When it comes to tanking Hyper Beams, I have full confidence in Prithvi, but I still can't trust a move that powerful.

After healing, Dragonite #2 used Thunder—so, that'll leave the Fire Blast Dragonite for later.

Thunder only did about 20%, which is fantastic—given that her Defense stat is even higher, I presumed that a Hyper Beam would only be able to do about 35% maximum, assuming there's no critical hit. If I want to stick with this Rollout strategy, though, I have to get rid of this paralysis.

For the first time, I used an item during battle—just a Full Heal, but only for Dragonite to re-paralyze her with Thunder.

Non-plussed, I used another Full Heal. The same exact thing happened.

I used another Full Heal, realizing I might just have to break my soft item limit. Thunder misses.

Since the Dragonite just seemed so fixated on using Thunder, though, so I took a moment to use a Full Restore on Narayan, since he's not doing me any good in his frozen red-health state. Sure enough, the Dragonite used Thunder again—but thankfully, it didn't paralyze me this time. Now, Prithvi is at 40% health.

Foolishly, I was banking on it missing or failing to paralyze me at LEAST once more. Even so, it wasn't even doing that much damage, and Prithvi still had a decent chunk of HP left. So, I thought to myself, I guess I could just sit here and take one or two more Thunders before I just get frustrated and try something else.

And then, for no reason, it decided to use Hyper Beam.

My previous calculations were off—Prithvi wasn't able to tank the hit at all. Lights out.

That really sucks.

Without thinking, I sent out Sheila to avenge her during its recharging turn. Like a badass, she scored a critical hit with Wing Attack, taking it out. She must've been pissed about what just happened, too.

That's two dragons down, but Prithvi's sudden death has me pretty shook.

To deal with my bug, Lance sends out his Aerodactyl—a cursory glance at his remaining Pokémon makes my heart sink a little bit. On top of this silly Aerodactyl, I still have to face his strongest Dragonite and his Charizard.

It only made sense to use Peckham to Surf this Aerodactyl into oblivion, and I did just that—it's definitely one of the easier things to deal with, but I made the mistake of not setting up Rain Dance first.

Next up was the big boy level 50 Dragonite—not only does this one have Fire Blast, it also has Outrage. In this generation, however, Outrage is slightly less scary, given that it's specially-based. It's still quite threatening, though, so I had to be very careful.

First thing's first—I had Peckham use Thunder Wave to paralyze it, severely crippling its speed. Since Peckham wound up being faster than it anyway, that also shuts down one of its utility moves. Immediately after paralyzing it, it tried to use Safeguard. Had Peckham been slower, that would've blocked Thunder Wave. Too late for that now.

For whatever reason, I decided I wanted to fucking torment this Dragonite, so I switched for Narayan for some fun. I had him use Swagger for some parafusion, with the added risk of doubling its already gargantuan Attack stat—but knowing that it has to get through both paralysis AND confusion now in order to land a single hit is extremely comforting.

And then it backfired.

To my dismay, the Dragonite did break through the parafusion—and retaliated with Fire Blast, one of Narayan's few true weaknesses.

He survived, but just barely.

Suddenly, my desire to gamble with parafusion completely vanished. I switched back to Peckham, the only member of the team who actually resists Fire-type attacks, and took a minute to think about what to do next. It's gonna use Outrage next—and once it does, it'll be locked into that move. It's also still parafused. But Peckham's moves aren't gonna be strong enough to safely knock it out in time. Sheila smashed the last Dragonite, sure, but she got lucky with a critical hit. I can't rely on that.

Then I remembered Alkali—I haven't used her yet. She has Hidden Power Dragon, and with her Special Defense, she'll be able to tank Outrage easily. Fire Blast will destroy her, sure, but Dragonite has no reason to use Fire Blast against a Lanturn, and Pokémon AI aren't exactly known for being able to predict switches. And since it's still paralyzed, I'm basically guaranteed to outspeed it no matter what.

So, in the ultimate "fuck it" moment, I decided to go for Alkali. Maybe, just maybe, the Dragonite will hit itself on the switch.

AND IT DID. Oh my god, that damage. Thanks to the Swagger boost, it did about 35%, which is just what I needed to see. That's so huge.

I used Hidden Power and prayed for big damage—and... she only did about 25% with it. I can't say I expected more, but now I'm beginning to see just how dicey of a situation I put myself in. The Dragonite has to hit itself again in order for me to win this matchup cleanly.

AND IT DOES. It only has 5% left.

I can't believe it—I'm seriously about to finish off a level 50 Dragonite with a fucking Beedri—

"Lance used a Full Restore!"

...Oh. Yeah. They can do that. I totally completely forgot. None of the other Elite 4 members used any items whatsoever during my battles against them, which lulled me into a false sense of security.

So, back to square one. Alkali was totally robbed of her moment there, but it's okay—I had another idea.

I sent out Shuckie.

Yeah, that's right—against this last Dragonite, I decided that using a Shuckle would be the best course of action.

His only means of attack is to kick up a Sandstorm, so I went ahead and did that first and foremost. Shuckle's high Defenses are proving to be rather helpful—Outrage hits neutrally, yet it's only hitting for about 33%. Whatever damage Shuckie takes, I can simply use Rest to wash it all away, and then he'll immediately wake himself up with that Mint Berry I gave him.

Three or four turns later, the sandstorm has whittled Dragonite's health down to about half, and Shuckie's still quite healthy. Feeling cheeky, I decide to use Encore—a move that forces the opponent to keep using the last move chosen for a randomly-selected amount of turns. In a stupid stroke of luck, I somehow managed to get an Encore on Safeguard, of all things. This move does no damage, and Dragonite is stuck using it indefinitely.

Rendered absolutely helpless, the poor thing eventually succumbed to the Sandstorm after another four or five turns of jank. How do you like that?

His last Pokémon, Charizard, was easy pickin's. I allowed Peckham to have the final blow—one Rain Dance-boosted Surf should be sufficient to take this thing out, and it was.

And there we have it—I'm the Pokémon League Champion, but sadly, it wasn't quite the flawless victory I wanted.

HALL OF FAME:


RIP:


Before I prepared for the post-game, I had to check just one more thing before permaboxing the Miltank—I had to check back with the happiness lady again to see if Prithvi's trust levels had changed at all. Sure enough, at the time of her death, her happiness was at maximum.

gawd Karen is so fucking hot

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