Xisode 5: The gyms are happening faster now

Gym battles are picking up in frequency, so here's a special 2 for 1 episode of Joe's Xlocke!

Setting out from Grass-gym town, we quickly encounter a large desert. Excited for a new catch to fill my open one, I set out. Bunkle has been lagging in levels, so he's out in front. He does hardly any damage but he takes hits like a champ. So while he doesn't see a lot of action he's always good for a quick teammate saving switch in and helping keep them safe with reflect. Using my pokedex and the fact that tauros's entry comes immediately after Carbink's I deduced that Bunkle will not evolve. This would have bugged at one point but Bunkle's utility had already solidified his place on the team.
So with Bunkle in the lead, we set off into the desert looking for our first encounter. We quickly find a dugtrio, pretty solid choice. I'm making my plan of attack as I switch Bunkle out when I freeze up. This particular dugtrio has arena trap. Meaning my weak to ground, damageless, only 5 pp attack move Bunkle is stuck in there until one of the two of them faints. I'm about to resign Bunkle to his fate as mole food when desperation kicks in. Lets start with what we can do. Reflect goes up, I havent been earthquaked yet so thats good. I test out my one damaging attack, ancient power. It does maaaybe a fifth of the dugtrio's hp. I just have to get him low enough to catch. 3 rounds later, after a few very lucky low roll magnitudes, Bunkle sits at about 1/3 health and Heartattack the dugtrio is caught and sent to the box. Maybe I can get through this next gym with out a fatality after all.

I became a little less enamored with my catch when my next two encounters were with a gabite and a trapinch. Ugggg, a Garchomp or a flygon would have been sick to have in a nuzlocke... I quickly realize that half of the pokemon in this desert have arena trap, so Bunkle can't stay in the lead. He'll have to train somewhere else.  One other craaaaaaazy thing that happened in the desert is I contracted pokerus! I've only ever gotten it once before in an emulator in all my years playing pokemon. This is my first time in a real game. I just happened to be looking at my stats in the desert and me team had been infected. I made sure to infect some dudes in my box so I would always have someone contagious. Apparently there is a 3 in 65,536 chance of finding it. Craaaaaaazy.

Also in the desert occurs my second run in with gen 6's organized crime syndicate, Team Flare. The first one was to brief and inconsequential to even mention. Their Modus operandi seems to be look as stylish as possible, and plot to make the world perfect. In a nondescript, fiendish sort of way. I had to kick them out of a power plant they had taken over for mysterious reasons which I have yet to discover. At this point, Smithers and Colby are quite overleveled, so the team isnt in any real danger as we roll through them.

The next city, containing the 5th gym, is actually the huge city where I got Smithers, now slightly more accessible. Here's a map of my travels thus far if anyone is interested.

Wooooo paint!

The 5th gym is electric. I swap out Gullby for Heartattack and head in. Most gym trainers have pokemon in the 34-38 range. Carbunkle, Grumble and Grover were around 38, Smithers and Colby 43, and Heartattack was only 30. Even so, he was usually good for one or two knockouts per match. I kept him very safe and leveled as quickly as possible. The leader battle started With trusty Bunkle vs. Emolga. I was immediately reminded of the electric gym leader in black version who had near kicked my butt with a pair of emolga. Unperturbed, Bunkle started his routine by sending out stealth rock. Emolga predictably volt switched out for a magneton, doing measly damage to my rock/fairy/tank. Then... guys... I screwed up. 

I don't even know what the attack was. I was to engrossed in my own tactics to even read the text before Bunkle's health started plummeting. For whatever reason I had never even considered this possibility, but I knew Magneton was steel and I knew Bunkle had a 4x weakness to steel , so I have no excuse. Bunkle was taken to 0 from near full hp. The saddest part was that I didn't even need that set up to win the match. I just wanted him to feel like an important part of the team and I was so used to doing it. RIP Bunkle, the most pleasent surprise of the game thus far. (Upon review, the move that killed Bunkle was most likely mirror shot).

The rest of the battle was swift. Heartattack and Grumble fell on their opponents with righteous vengeance, and the 5th badge was mine. Hopefully I'll be able to get one of these eventually without paying such a price.

Here's the leader's other pokemon. The core of his team. Idk what it does really, Heartattack killed it too fast.

Heliolisk

Part 2

Too impatient to check out the rest of the ridiculously sized town, we set off to the next route, more in need of a new teammate than ever. This route had a creepy, haunted forest vibe to it. I was excited hopefully I could snag a cool gen 6 ghost type. Instead I found Leverne the Carnivine. A pretty cool guy, but I didnt really need another grass type. 

The next town arrived quickly with minimal shenanigans. I was blocked from the next route by team flare goons for no apparent reason, so no new catches for me. 

The gym's rooms are set up identically to sabrina's gym in red/blue. 3x3 block with teleporters connecting them. Except now, the rooms are vertical, like the luigi's mansion level in smash bros. brawl. Heartattack leads the way, still trailing the team by a significant number of levels, but gaining quickly. Oh yeah, its a fairy type gym. I have experience with fairy types, with the exception of Grumble and Bunkle, so I'm a little on edge. I don't know what to expect and I have no super effective moves. I cruise through the trainers easily enough, Heartattack just hitting his stride when disaster strikes again. With a plummet very reminiscent of the last gym, Heartattack succumbed to the enemy Aromatisse's super effective energy ball. I was NOT prepared for that. So my near perfect streak of a death every gym continues. 

Seriously, I have no idea what to expect when they're throwing around pokemon like this.

I clean up the rest of the gym trainers, head back to the pokemon center two heal up and switch out Heartattack for Leverne. (another life extinguished too soon. sigh.....). I havent fought the gym leader battle so I'll let you know how that goes in just a sec.....

ok, so.
First opponent: Mawile. Paralyzed by Grumble and battered to death by Grover.

Second oponent: mr. mime. Obnoxiiously hard to kill due to walls, eventually succumbed to being toxic poisoned and bitten to death by Smithers.

Final Oponent: Sylveon (new eeveelution). Poisoned and kicked around by Mega Smithers.

Not a very exciting gym all in all. Just a lot of suspicion for pokemon I havent seen before. To be honest though, I'm ok with a little mundane if it means I can keep my team alive.

Badges: 6
Deaths: 9

Current team

Smithers, Blastoise lvl 49
Toxic
Surf
Bite
Water Pulse

Colby, Chesnaught lvl 50
Body Slam
Leech seed
seed bomb
Spiky shield

Grumble, Granbull lvl 49
Charm
Play rough (physical fairy attack)
Thunder wave
Strength

Grover, Sawk lvl 46
Retaliate
Brick break
Rock smash
bulk up

Gullbee, Pelipper lvl 33
Fly
Water pulse
roost
protect

Leverne
Leaf tornado
sweet scent
ingrain
faint attack

Xisode 4: Just kidding, now its like digimon

More than happy to put this chapter of the run behind us, Habberdash and Co. set off. Before we can leave the city though, we are challenged by the gym leader again as part of some plot junk I didnt bother to mention earlier. This time though, she's going to tell us about the secret of "MEGA EVOLUTION" dun dun DUNN!!
The battle ends up being a 1v1 between her lucario (that she didnt use in the gym battle, thankfully) and another one that she GIVES me. Straight up gives me a Lucario! Welcome to the team, Woofy! (At this point, I cannot stress enough that Lizzy is helping me name my team). Any way, Mega evolution. Mega evolution is about the most digimon thing that the pokemon series has ever done. Its essentially a temporary evolution that lasts to the end of the battle. You activate it the same turn you attack and your pokemon changes. The pokemon's stats increase, sometimes their ability changes, and it looks really BA. In order to do it, you need a key item inventory (which was given to me by the gym leader) and the pokemon needs to be holding a species specific item. Fortunetely for me, Woofy was holding Lucarioite, which allowed him to do it.

Here's a before and after of Woofy mega evolving.


Another Bonus, Smithers came with Blastoisenite when the Professor gave him to me.

Ohohohohoho. We're bringing the hurt now.

So we're feeling pretty good now and we set off down the next route. A quick check of the town map tells me that the next gym is in the very next town, only one route away with no caves or any nonsense in the way. This is a welcome change as all the gyms so far have been 2-3 towns apart. The downside is that I already facechecked this route before the last gym to catch Qwop :...( So no new catch for me.

The route went quickly enough without incident and before I knew it, I was at the next gym. I found out the 4th gym was Grass type. How pleasently gen 1. Once again, no type advantage, but Woofy and Grumble both resist grass attacks (the fairy typing is really growing on me). So, lots of slugfests abound.

The beginning actually went smoother than anticipated, Woofy had crazy high attack and a new move called power up punch that increased it further every time he used it. I was at the second to last gym trainer when disaster struck. Woofy was paralyzed but had 4 boosts in his attack and was happily mowing away at the competition. When the enemy exeggutor used confusion I wasn't phased at all. When Lucario became confused before he had a chance to attack I was mildly concerned. It wasn't until I realized his suped up attack would make his fist punch through his own torso like the chest-burster from Alien that I began literally yelling at my DS. Woofy wiped out more than half of his own health to KO himself and I sobbed uncontrollably. Woofy, we hardly new ye...

The rest of the gym was uneventful. The leader couldnt hurt Grumble or Colby, so there weren't any particularly exciting moments. We set off again, our temporary elation thuroughly squashed. This has been one of the heart wrenching nuzlockes I've done.

To wrap up, we added Gullby the underleveled wingull to the team. it will be nice to have a flyer on the team again.

Badges: 4

deaths: 7

Xisode 3: Screw this I'm using the exp share.

OK, remember what my party looked like last post? Just forget all of that. Things are finally starting to get interesting. So last time we left our intrepid hero he was setting out on route 10 after obtaining the 2nd badge. Things were pretty uneventful until we reached route 11, which I am officially dubbing "The Crematorium." We set of confidently despite the team's levels being noticeably low relative to our competition's since we turned off the exp share. This is also the part of the game where other trainers start using evolved pokemon and you're all "what the hell, when did machoke get so strong." Regardless, we set off, and things start smoothly, but my goodness can things fall apart quickly.

Admittedly, I hadn't been as meticulous at keeping my whole party as evenly trained in the past. Some of the team was falling behind, whether because their potential was stunted by their nature, or I was expecting to swap them out in the future, half the team was dragging a bit in levels. Another reason is I had three distinct showstealers. Colby the Quilladin, as my new starter got favored, Smithers the wartortle had the nostalgia of being my first starter ever, and Fetch the Fletchinder is a badass fire bird.

The hint that disaster was imminent was when we started a double battle against a Mr. mime and a machoke. Cornhole took the machoke down to about half with one take down (ha) and I thought a second would finish the job, but the machoke hung on with a single pixelwidth of hp. One super effective low sweep and Cornhole became my first casualty. Shaken but determined, the team pressed on. I'm sorry I said you looked like a digimon! I take it back!
death count: 0 1

After the rude awakening, I looked at the state of my team and took stock of the array of levels present. We'd need to do some serious grinding if we were going to make it. It was also time for my first route encounter. After adding Grover the Sawk to the team, we stuck Chalmers out in front and set to grinding. The very first encounter was another Sawk. A quick assessment of the situation lead me to conclude this was not a good fight for Chalmers. Sawk don't evolve so they are decently overpowered early game, and Chalmers was still weakened from catching Grover. Attempt to flee.
Can't escape.

Oh no.

low sweep.

0 hp.

death count: 1 2

And just like that, in the span of 3 battles, we were down two teammates. Continuing on was harder this time, but I took bitter solace in the fact that Chalmers hadnt been able to keep up with the rest of the team for a while now, and it was only  a matter of time. I know I'm terrible.
To fill the gaping holes in my roster I went to the box and brought out Grover the Sawk (who I still hold partially responsible for Chalmer's death) and Trundle the Tyrunt. Lets do this.

After a little more grinding on the crematorium, I stumbled across another new gen 6 feature, a sky battle trainer. They're essentially what they sound like; pokemon battles in the sky. Only flying types or pokemon with levitate can participate. I'd done a couple before this and theyd gone smoothly despite excluding most of my team. Magpie and Fetch were both solid and I figured they could handle themselves. Unfortunately, my oponent had 3 flyers and the first was the electric/flying emolga. One thundershock and I knew I was in trouble. I had to make the terrible choice of who to sacrifice of my two birds in order to make it through the battle. Magpie made the ultimate sacrifice in weakening the emolga enough for Fetch to finish off before succumbing to the BS game mechanic. At least I had managed to save my core three teammates...

death count: 1 2 3

Soon afterwards, I discovered a new pokemon called hawlucha.

At first I was all "what", then I figured it was a psychic type like xatu. its actually fighting/flying. because its a HAWK LUCADOR. anyway, still no big deal, Fetch the Fire/flying has type advantage. oh wait, except it knows rock tomb. 4x super effective.

death count: 1 2 3 4

Well, I made it more than 5 minutes without a death and even added a few new dudes. including Grumble the Snubble, Qwop the slowpoke, and... this thing?
Bunkle the Carbink. So mysterious I couldnt even find a decent picture of him on google. I had literally never seen this pokemon when I ran in to him in a cave. I dont even know if it evolves yet. He does know a couple neat moves like stealth rock and reflect, so thats cool. And I'm really starting to enjoy the fairy type's resistances. Welcome to the team, Bunkle.

So everything encompassed so far on this post has happened on a single route with a cave. Ughhh. I finally reach the next city and discover it has a fighting gym. This is disconcerting because I had recently lost both of my flyers (tear...) and didnt have any super effective moves. At this point, I threw away my pride and started using the exp share again. Grumble quickly evolved into Granbull (who is pure fairy type now, resistant to fighting, woo!) and I started leveling Qwop for his confusion. Before the gym however, I had a rival fight. Pretty unexciting, except Trungle the Tyrunt overcame his debilitating type advantage to kill himself in his confusion when he only needed a single bite more to win.

death count: 1 2 3 4 5

Now I have a team full of noobs and two significantly overleveled starters upon entering the gym both of whom evolved at the end of the rival fight. Hellooooo blastoise and Chesnaught. I've never been a fan of granbull, but Grumble impressed me by kicking serious butt despite not have any super effective moves. Qwop did really well against the first two pokemon of his first battle, before being promptly anihilated by a Hariyama that knew knock off (dark type move).

death count: 1 2 3 4 5 (its not even funny any more) 6

The 3rd gym battle was the most stressful I've had by far. Bunkle set up well with reflect and stealth rock, but lost too much health to switch back in, so he was effectively out. Essentially, he had to "get clear" because he "couldnt do any more good back there." The three match-ups of the battle consisted of meinfoo vs. chesnaught, hawlucha vs. Granbull, and machoke vs. blastoise. No super effective moves on either side meant every fight was a brutal slugfest between beefy 'mons (the only type I seem to be able to keep alive) that left everyone I used in the red or low yellow. Fortunately, every member of team Habberdash triumphed, and we were able to exit the gym with no more casualties. Pressing on, I have a formidable 5 man team, but no bench to speak of. We'll see who has what it takes to join this elite fighting force. Next update will be shorter I promise.

Habberdash's team:

Bunkle, Grumble, Grover (who is half a murderer and will never see a single battle if I have any say in it)


Smithers, Colby's full evolution. Guys, Chesnaught is so badass you have no idea.

Badges: 3
Deaths: ....6

Fly Like a Butterfree; Sting Like a Beedrill

This is my first post of any of my Nuzlocke challenges.  The main reason is because, well, I spend so much time grinding out my pokemon before I ever go into any situation that could be dangerous (gym leader, Dakota (Rival name) encounter, high level pokemon in the wild) so that my pokemon are so high of levels they can take attacks that are super effective against them and still survive.  That is...until today.  Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of close calls before.  Even a fair share of my team being left at 1HP before (such fighters.  Didn't even need endure).  BUT, the real reason I am posting this is because of the culprit, nay enemy, NAY DEMON who killed my first comrade.  Here is my story:

The other day I picked up my long Nuzlocke challenge that I started with SoulSilver about a year ago.  I opened it up to find old friends that I knew so well.  Oh, I'm sorry, let me introduce myself:  Hi.  My name is DRAGON (Yes, caps lock is necessary.  I always do that for my name.  Strikes fear into my enemies).  My starter is my trusty DEVASTATOR (Also the only other one with a caps lock name.  Also necessary) and he was a totodile, then turned croconaw, and now a ferocious Feraligator who wears his name proudly.  I opened up my game three badges in and chilling in Goldenrod City.
My party was:

• Devastator (Croconaw)
• Krunk (Geodude)
• Kenya (Spearow)

  

  DEVASTATOR

• Shocker (Flaaffy)
• Falcon (Pidgeotto)
• Hemlocke (Bellsprout)

I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I had defeated all of the trainers in the surrounding areas and felt that it was time to head into the National Park and participate in the Bug Catching Contest.  I knew that I would only be able to catch the first guy I saw so I crossed my fingers and went in.  Dododo-Dododo-DOdodo (Battle noise)...

BEEDRILL!  YES!  It is my lucky day.  I had set Shocker as my first pokemon in my party so that he would be the one that I brought into the park with me due to her thunder wave being able to paralyze fools.  I succeeded!  I caught myself a beedrill!  YEsss.  What shall I name him?  Muhamedali.  Yep.  Now that Muhamedali was added to my party I moved on.  I made my way around, fighting pokemon, grinding, leveling up, picking on Picnickers and Schoolboy's and Lasses.  I made my way around to getting the squirtlebottle and getting past the odd tree ***SPOILER ALERT*** which is really a Sudowoodo.  And was finally on route 37 up to Ecruteak City (Which I just now realized is spelled that way.  I have always thought it was Eucreteak pronounced You-cree-tee-ack...whoa).   Put out Muhamedali first to get his level 14 booty up to a more respectable level.

Dododo-DOdodo (Battle noise again)  who will be my first spotted pokemon on route 37...VULPIX!  WOW!  Caught myself a vulpix, and sent Naruto to box 1.  I made my way to the pokemon center in Ecruteak City, healed my guys up, saved the Dancers in the dance building and headed to the Burnt Tower. Ran into Dakota for the first time in a long time.  He was no match for my Devastator.  Ran into a rattata first...ughhhhh.  Killed him out of frustration.  Saw the three Legendary Dogs as the ran off.  It was a beautiful sight.  Finally could battle the Gym leader.  His name is Morty.  He is a psychic trainer.  I easily rolled through the trainers in his gym making my way through the pitch black room.  Morty was up and he sent out his Ghastly.  Welp, I had DEVASTATOR out first, ready to take em all down with his bite.  First Ghastly went down, then comes Haunter.  One shotted, too.  What's this?  DEVASTATOR wants to learn a new move?  He wants to learn Crunch!  As if bite wasn't deadly enough!  Wait.  What's this?! DEVASTATOR IS EVOLVING??!?!!!  YESsssssss.  So, now I definitely rolled through his second Haunter and his final Gengar even.  

Decided to make my way west after receiving my Fog badge and clearly a ton of respect from my pokemon because now all pokemon up to level 50 will obey me.  Made it west towards Olivine City.  Caught myself a Miltank, defeated a few trainers, and had a good day.  Instead of making my way down to Olivine, I decide to be adventurous and surf east.  I had just recently received the HM for surf and taught it to DEVASTATOR so I was eager to see what I could find.  Made it to Mahogany Town without running into any wild pokemon (Safe for when I go back to try and catch my first one.  I scouted out all that was interesting, couldn't battle the gym yet and just thought I'd check the route up to the Lake of Rage, just for kicks and giggles.  Oh, looky looky, a little Camper trainer.  Hahahaha.  I'll just show him how amazing my pokemon are, level up my Muhamedali again, and then get out of there off to Olivine City.

Worst.  Mistake.  Ever.  

Dododo-DOdodo...Camper Spencer wants to battle.  Camper Spencer sent out Sandshrew.  Go Muhamedali!  Kick his BUTT!  Sandshrew put up a good fight, but Muhamedali was able to wittle him down.  And is now SO close to leveling up.  Camper Spencer sent out...THE DEVIL!  aka, zubat (Not worthy of ANY capital letters).  

Muhamedali does Fury Attack.  Takes down 1/3 of the enemies health.  

And this is where it happened.  

To a zubat

owned by a dumb camper named Spencer.  

zubat does wing attack (WING ATTACK?!?!?!!!  He already knows that?!)  It's super effective.  

Muhamedali...NOOOooooooooo.  One hit K-O.  **tear**

GO DEVASTATOR!  SHOW HIM NO MERCY!  DEVASTATOR rolls all the pokemon.  DEVASTATOR dances on top of zubat's grave.  

Ughhhh.  I cannot believe that this is how my first warrior went down.  I am sorry, Muhamedali.  It wasn't even to a glorious Suicune, or Charizard.  AT LEAST a Seaking or something.  

We all paid our respects.  Had a funeral and burial session for our comrade, ally, and friend Muhamedali.  Now, it's back to the grind again.  Naruto has filled in, but he is badly underleveled.  Luckily, he has inherited the spirit of the man he is named after and I know he will put in a lot of hard work to not be a weak link.  

Naruto

RIP: Muhamedali

My party now consists of:

• Krunk (Geodude)
• Headbutt
• Magnitude
• Rock Polish
• Rock Smash
• Rocky (Onix)
• Harden
• Strength
• Screech
• Rock Throw
• Kenya (Fearow)
• Aerial Ace
• Mirror Move
• Pursuit
• Leer
• DEVASTATOR (Feraligator)  
• Ice Fang
• Agility
• Surf
• Crunch
• Shocker
• Thundershock
• Cotton Spore
• Tackle
• Thunder Wave
• Naruto (Vulpix)
• Tail Whip
• Roar
• Quick Attack
• Will-O-Wisp

With Bloomburg (togepi), Calvin (Dunsparce), Shroombuh (Paras), Draco (Ditto), Falcon, Utters (Miltank), and Paul (Ditto) in reserve in my PC.  

Bring it on, Johto.  DRAGON is back.  Off to Olivine City!  

Xisode 2: Wow theres a lot of stuff

So the intrepid Habberdash and company continues on to Lumiose city, the 4th and biggest city in the game. seriously massive. Half of it isnt accessible until later and it still took me the better part of an hour to search the whole thing. The only real thing of note here is I finally met this gen's professor and he offered me a kanto starter (sick). So with the team newly bolstered by Smithers the Squirtle, we continued on. (I should also note that Lizzy has been helping me name my team).
 The game has been progressing smoothly with a host of new catches. The is such a big variety in what can be caught in this game that I havent even needed to use my re-encounter rule yet. Notable new catches include Chalmers the Pancham (fighting) and the fossilized Trungle the Tyrunt (dragon/rock).
  Chalmers, despite being totally awesome, has fallen behind a bit due to an unfavorable nature and having not evolved yet. He has agreed to become the teams designated "move technician," bravely biting the bullet and learning rock smash, cut, false swipe and strength so the rest of the team doesnt have to. HM slave isn't a very politically correct term and I would never degrade a member of my team by using them as such.
Speaking of evolutions, we had a slew of them. The very first of which was my starter Colby evolving into the lovable dweeb Quilladin. Followed by Magpie into Pidgeotto, Fetch into Fletchinder (fire/flying woooo!), Smithers into Wartortle, and Cornroll into a digimon.

Along the road after Lumiose we ran into a castle. This didn't affect the story much but the people there knighted me! So now I demand to be referred to as Sir Baron Habberdash. BWAHAHAHA.

Three cities later we finally reach the 2nd gym. This game is freaking huge. We approached it with some trepidation after the close encounter with the first. After loading up on potions and entering cautiously, I found my fears were unfounded. Not only was I able to leave at will (not sure why they made only the very first gym inescapable), but it was rock type. At this point I had an evolved gent 6 grass starter, an evolved gen 1 water starter, a fighting type panda, and a ground type digibunny, I was pretty confident. The battle itself was not as lopsided as I hoped. The leader only had two pokemon, another tyrunt and the other fossil pokemon whose name I cant remember. The dragon typing negating Chalmer's type advantage dragged the battle out a lot longer, but leech seed won the day.
And that brings us up to present! I'm already 16 hours in and I only have 2 badges. Still no deaths yet though, BUT FOR HOW LONG.
Habbderdash's team:

 ^see? total dweeb

^definitely a digimon

 I dont know why the blog screwed the formatting up so much. I cant wait for them to just come out with gen 6 trainer cards....

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS NON-STORY RELATED MUSINGS ABOUT NEW GAME FEATURES AND HOW  THEY AFFECT THE NUZLOCKE CHALLENGE. MORE BORING THAN THE REST OF THIS POST.
More so than any previous generations, this game presents a lot of nuzlocke moral dilemmas. Shortly after the first gym, I was given the EXP share. Rather than giving to one pokemon, they reverted back to the gen 1 method of evenly distributing experience throughout your entire party. however, rather than splitting it 6 ways, everyone gets 1/2 the experience the pokemon fighting got. Essentially, every battle yields 3x the experience it would otherwise, spread amongst your team. The obvious result of this is that my team was quickly 8-10 levels higher than everything I fought. I turned it off before the second gym, and I'm going to try to keep it off the rest of the challenge, but dang, all the enemies caught up in levels as soon I stopped using it. I'm hoping the game stays balanced even if i don't use it.
Another addition is super training. Super training is a mini game available at the beginning of the game that lets you maximize your team's EV's without battling. For the slightly less nerdy, Effort Values are invisible points your 'mons gain for defeating enemies that increase their stats slightly over time. They're the reason a pokemon leveled only with rare candies isnt as strong. Defeating fast pokemon makes your speed better, bulky pokemon increases your health, etc. Competitive players train their team in such a way that they only fight pokemon that give them desirable EV's (for example if you have a scyther you want it only to fight pokemon that give it attack and speed points). With the new minigame, anyone can max these desirable EV's pretty quickly, making your team stronger. I did it for smithers the squirtle, but the rest of my team I think I'll let gain Ev's naturally/randomly as I play through.
Another new thing is "o-powers," essentially abilities the trainer can use that give you little perks and recharge over time. These range from giving your pokemon a stat boost in the next battle, to a slightly easier time catching wild ones, to boosting winnings from trainer battles. The one I use the most heals the lead pokemon in your party slightly. You unlock more as you progress through the game they arent totally spamable. I dont feel too bad about these so I'll continue using them. 
Last thing I promise. They have a similar minigame for raising affection. This is a bigger deal because pokemon with max affection gain ridiculous benefits like 10% evasion, more crits, boosted exp, healing of status problems, and the ability to survive an attack with 1 hp. Obviously a HUGE benefit for nuzlockers. I did it for Colby, but I'm thinking I'll stop there. It's going to be hard to balance the challenge with these features. If you care I'll keep you updated on my thoughts as I continue.