Xisode 7: I don't know if I'm going to make it.

Here's a quick recap of my current team.

Colby

Mega Smithers

Grumble

Betty

Scooter

Gullbee

 Last time, after earning his 7th badge, Habberdash was urgently summoned back to Lumoise city, the giant one with the 5th gym, in order to thwart the evil schemes of Lysandre and his Team Flare minions. Holy run-on sentence batman. The mysterious plan I have been inadvertently thwarting this whole time has been to use an ancient legendary pokemon that was turned into a tree and buried underground to power an ancient death star-like laser called "THE ULTIMATE WEAPON" he found to wipe out huge chunks of the earth's population so that the survivors can create a beautiful utopia because they don't need to compete for resources any more. Apparently this is the game's commentary on overpopulation.....
Habberdash arrives at the sprawling metropolis and uses his keenly honed detective skills to deduce that Lysandre's secret hideout is hidden under the "Lysandre Cafe." Upon finding the hidden entrance, I confirm that it has all the staples of a gang hideout: teleporters, elevators, keys, and spinny floor panel things. We immediately set off through the waves of grunts in search of our nemesis.
 Things go smoothly for a while, but eventually even grunts begin to wear down the team. We come up against a grunt with a single toxicroak. Betty is leading the charge but it seems like a prime time for gullbee to gain some catch up experience. Plus, Betty is 4x weak to fighting. For the record, I am still playing without exp share.I expect gullbee to fly the toad to death without too much trouble, but the knave predicts my moves perfectly somehow (hint, it was really really bad luck). By using sucker punch  and nasty plot perfectly in time with my fly so he doesnt waste any moves. Fly takes him down to very low health but he'll still get one more attack. I'm a little perplexed by the nasty plot, as I assumed he was a physical attacker, but I press on anyway, expecting to endure the next attack and finish him off. Instead, toxicroak surprises me with venoshock, boosted by nasty plot and Gullbee is slain. Frig frig frig. This puts me in a awkward spot. Smithers and scooter I realized are at very low health and can't take a boosted hit like that while grumble and colby are weak to poison. Rather than risk my core, I send out Betty. The three moves I know it has wont hurt her, and hopefully he doesn't know any fighting moves. If he did, at least theyd most likely be physical and not boosted by nasty plot. What the toxicroak DID  know was mudshot. 2x super effective+2x boosted special attack=1 dead betty. Just like that, my team is down two members.
Retreating temporarily to lick our wounds, we return to the hideout with a vengeance, now joined by Westley the Sneasel,  freshly ground up to near competitive levels. We cruise through the rest without incident to arrive only a moment to late to stop THE ULTIMATE WEAPON from being activated. Fortunately, there is still time to save Alderaan. The weapon is in yet another town, buried under pokemon Stonehenge, so I have to fly there and rescue the legendary pokemon Xerneas, who in ancient times turned into a tree and is now being used to fuel the cannon. yup. Cue another basement full of grunts and admins to wade through. When I finally reach the base of the weapon, Xerneas awakens and I catch him. He is immediately added to my party and while technically he is my first encounter here I decide not to use him after this climactic final battle.

Xerneas (I forgot to name him)

Next follows the final showdown with Lysandre. He uses a team of Mienshao, Honchcrow, Pyroar (fire type lion), and gyarados. Xerneas rolls through the first three due to legendary status, but needs a break before he sends out gyarados. Then the game totally blows my mind by having Lysandre Mega evolve his Gyarados, something I was lead to believe only I could do. Fortunately, It was nothing colby couldnt solve with leech seed and a good deal of tanking.

Seriously the scariest thing ever though.

 So when its all said and done, Lysandre is defeated, the legendary Xerneas freed, the world saved, and we all learned the valuable lesson that genocide is wrong no matter how good your motives are. Now back to the important stuff. After some more grinding, Westley is up to roughly the same level as the rest of the team, and for the first time in a long time, I have 5 pokemon at the same approximate level. Now I just to find that last team member and train him up and I'll be back in top shape. Not even all these deaths can keep me down. My first encounter is Sid the torkoal, who after just enough training to be disappointing is quickly and unceremoniously dispatched by a stunfisk's thunder. How embarrassing. Later on the same route, the feisty but unevolved Westley is slain by a dedenne's thunder. I really hate that move. There werent any extenuating circumstances, I just wasnt expecting the rat to hit so hard.

Dedenne, the raichu wannabe pokemon.

At this point, this route has yielded a net loss of team members, so I'm excited to see a cave attached to it. I eye my first encouter dubiously. Lorraine the Lairon is slow and has 4x weaknesses to fighting and ground type attacks, both of which I've found in abundance thus far. Nevertheless, she is added to the team and quickly impresses me with her grinding ability. In only two levels she evolves into Aggron and has an impressive array of moves to overcome most obstacles. 

Lorraine

 The cave proves to be less fortuitous when I enter into a double battle against a nidoking and nidoqueen. Crappily, my first two pokemon are Lorraine and Scooter, both of whom are weak to ground. With Smithers and Grumble not having magically lost their poison weakness, my only safe substitution is Smithers. I have to make a judgement call. Lorraine gets swapped out due to her 4x weakness and lower level. Scooter will just have to cope until Smithers can clean up next turn. The nidoking's attack is a predictable earth power that unpredictably targets scooter, rather than the space that used to be occupied by Lorraine. It takes Scooter down to just barely in the yellow. I hold my breath as I hope the nidoqueen's attack won't do the same.....

....but it is and it does. Scooter goes  down hard. I cradle his bloodied head in my hands, barely aware of the muted scene around me as Smithers power washes the Nidos' carapaces to dust. I never thought it would come to this. He was amongst the best of us. So strong, so fearless. Always willing to switch into an attack so someone else could get a break despite the fact that he was one of the least tanky members of my team. It was only two routes ago that I found him as a tiny little bug/poison scorpion, but he'd quickly grown into a central part on my team and it seemed as though he'd been there much longer then that. I thought for sure he could avoid this curse I had. This was the first death in a while that really hurt, if you can't tell. Scooter valiantly sacrificed himself to protect the weaker member of our team. With selflessness not expected from a dark/poison type, he gave Lorraine the chance to carry on. It was almost as if he was saying, "my time is over, now its your turn." Lorraine has some big shoes to fill. 

Shortly after this, Grumble was taken out by ANOTHER DAMN TOXICROAK after taking it down to about 5 health. I'm not going to cheapen Scooter's eulogy by writing another one right after it, but trust me that this loss hurt too. Grumble had been on my team longer than anyone other than Colby and Smithers. I never planned on training him when I caught him but He got me through 4 badges handily. I'd always written off Granbull as something I had no interest in keeping on my team, but I was very happy to be proven wrong by him. The previous losses had mostly been new catches and were in the process of being trained. Now for the first time I had lost some of my core team. Fully evolved and trained. With all the deaths surrounding me, my core had survived it all. It made me feel confident that no matter how bad things got, we'd still pull through. For the first time, with the final gym in sight, I feel vulnerable. I don't know that we're going to make it through, but we're not quitting yet.

At this point, I'm in worse shape then when I started this post, despite all the new captures. Fortunately, there are several more areas before the next gym. I catch Goomba the Sligoo (who looks dumb but is freaking awesome for a nuzlocke because he's basically gen 6 dragonair), Trevan the Trevanent (Trevan IRL, you're famous! and a ghost tree!), and Eddie the Noctowl. 

Goomba

Trevan

Eddie

Goomba is quickly added to the team, EV trained, affectionated, and evolved into Goodra. Boo yah. The final gym is ice, so he wont see much action, but I bring Garfunkle the klefki and Smithers the Sawk out of retirement for it to flesh out my team. 

The gym goes smoothly enough. We sweep through the trainers with ease and take stock before challenging the leader. My team is as follows.

Colby, Chestnaught, level 61

Smithers, Blastoise, level 60

Garfunkle, Klefki, level 48

Grover, Sawk, level 51

Lorraine, Aggron, level 60

Goomba, Goodra, level 61

Anyway, we kicked butt. Colby and Goomba didnt see any action, but thats probably for the best. The leader had an Avalugg who used curse 3 or 4 times that scared the hell out of me, but smithers put him down before he had a chance to do any damage at all. This did loads for my confidence. I still have some level discrepancies in my team, but theres still time to fix this.Thats all for now. Join us next time as we take on the victory road!

Badges: 8
Deaths: 16
Cheats: 3 (I got nearly swept by a non official battle on one of the routes. I discounted the battle because it was a "inverse type advantage" battle where attacks that were super effective were not very effective and visa versa. In addition, the pokemon I was fighting were 10 levels higher that everything else on the route and I had the option of refusing the battle, ergo not an official battle).

Xisode 6: So I may be responsible for showdown becoming blocked at my work....

Our intrepid hero sets off from 6th gym town (I have no idea what any of the cities actual names are, I don't think I've retained a city name since gold/silver) and is immediately distracted from his quest by the dastardly  devices of PLOT DEVELOPMENT. The insidious Team Flare has captured the local pokeball factory, and are in the process of a massive ball heist!
Of course, Habberdash intervenes. Otherwise he won't be allowed to the next route where his next potential teammate is waiting. The team plowed through grunts steadily in your standard pokemon meets SWAT team hostage saving maneuver. The whole affair was longer than the rocket takeover of lavender tower, but shorter than silph co. So about as long as the game corner hideout. This was the first time Gullbee the Wingull had seen much action. He'd been hanging out on the team as a flyer for a while, but hadn't battled at all. with the core three of Colby the Chestnaught, Smithers the Blastoise and Grumble the Granbull being way ahead in levels, it was becoming more and more apparent that we needed some decently leveled support 'mons.
As we finally reach the executives in charge of the operation, I'm forced to team up with my rival. I still resent her deeply for when she ended the life of Trungle the Tyrunt when he was still so young. We found ourselves battling along side the very same meowstic that had slain Trungle, except this time her battling was completely ineffectual and I had to pull the team's weight myself in typical rival team-up fashion.

Meowstic

<--- Murderer












Nevertheless we send Team Flare packing and receive some hazy explanation of a plan involving recreating the world by hogging all the pokeballs to themselves.

We set out on the next route eager for a new teammate. We are somewhat perplexed to meet Garfunkle the Klefki. A steel-fairy type (fairies are everywhere in this version) with prankster and some interesting moves. I add it to the team with hopes of using it as a status inducer/special sweeper, filling the gap left by Bunkle the Carbink.

Garfunkle

At the next town I'm slightly relieved to find there is no gym. I need some time to get my teams levels evened out. I can't keep relying on on three dudes to get me through the game. In addition to the route leading onward from this town, there is also a route leading back to an old city that is now accessible, an abandoned pokemon infested hotel on said route, and an ice cave ,which means 4 new encounters before the next gym!
The next route yielded scooter the Skorupi. He had a ways to go until he evolved, but a Drapion kicked my butt in the black version elite 4, so I was excited to have him. The abandoned hotel first encounter was an electrode who promptly used self-destruct. I cleverly found a loophole that would allow me a new catch anyway by pretending it didnt happen (nuzlocke cheat: 1). The second encounter was another electrode who was also a part of the same creepy suicide pact. I elected to ignore that one as well. The third encounter however, was Betty the pawniard. I'd always kind of wanted to train a Bisharp, so I welcomed him despite having both of his types being covered by Scooter, who would evolve into a dark type and Garfunkle the steel type. About this time I turned off the exp share. I was never going to even out the levels with it on, so I sucked it up and went back to grinding the old fashioned way. With 3 new teammembers and two more on the way, I decided to box Grover. He'd overcome his muderous Sawk heritage to be a real contributor to the team. He could dish out a lot of hurt, but only really had fighting moves, and I needed some versatility. If I ever have another series of horrendous deaths, he'll be a great backup.

Scooter

Betty

We enter the mysterious ice cave for our next catch. HOT DAMN, A HAUNTER. Welcome to the team, Felix! This is especially perfect as my team had recently started to look like a bunch of  murderous little beanie babies. At least now it would have a medium sized one as well. I also happened to have some gengarite he could mega evolve with burning a hole in my bag. We're going to do this right. I pull out all the stops. I super train and affection grind to max right away. I even find a stranger on Reddit to trade him with so I end up with a Gengar who is already better trained than anyone else on my team. Felix is going to be a hoss. At least he was supposed to be. Until a hariyama who knew payback dodged his hypnosis and laid him out in one attack.....
Ok, I'm calling a mulligan. I'm just starting to grind without exp share and I cannot lose someone I just spend an hour training just because he's underleveled. Plus, I really want to use mega gengar (nuzlocke cheat: 2) (this might have happened one more time...or two more). Yes, I'm awful. Sorry.
We break up another Team Flare party where they were harassing an Abomasnow to try and get it to give them its energy or something, idk, and head on to the next town. On the way we catch Westley the Sneasel. I think the game is disappointed in me about the cheating and is giving me pokemon to fit my criminal background. A dark/poison, a dark/steel, a ghost/poision, and a dark/ice. I could have the evilest looking team ever if I wanted right now.

The 7th gym is psychic type.  MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Team evil will have a blast with this. Scooter has evolved to Drapion, so we set off with him, Betty and Felix at the front. Westley Sneasel remains benched for now. Felix cruises through the gym trainers. He is able to one-shot every single thing in the gym (except a gardevoir, which took two). The trend of the gym seems to be that every trainer has a single fully evolved, high level psychic type, but they cant stand up to Felix. He's still a little behind in levels, but catching up quick with the help of a lucky egg. We breeze through everything until we come face to face with the leader. I don't even bother healing up, Felix spent a total of 7 pp moving through the gym and didnt lose any health.

Felix flattens the first of the leader's three pokemon, a sigilyph and moves on to the next, a Slowking. Welp, shadow ball has worked well so far, no reason to stop now. Felix's first attack leaves slowking clinging on with just a few pixels worth of health. It was still too much. His super effective psychic wastes Felix as fast as Felix had wasted every other pokemon in the gym. I'm sorry buddy, I can't save you this time. It must be karma for my past offenses to the Nuzlocke gods. I didn't even get to mega-evolve him, I was too fixated on leveling first. Scooter the drapion quickly wraps up the rest of the gym (her last pokemon was another damn meowstic, ugh) and we move on.

Immediately upon exiting the gym, we're called by the mysterious individual Lysandre who had shown up periodically on the quest and offered mysterious platitudes about beauty and a better world. What?? you mean the shady recurring NPC whose ideals strangely match up with those of the area's organized crime syndicate was their leader the whole time?? And now he's going to destroy the world?? Who would have guessed?

I suppose the way they dress could have been a hint

 

Team Flare Grunts                                                                  Lysandre

 What crazy adventure awaits Habberdash? Will the fashionable and power-hungry team Flare emerge victorious? Or will they prove to be simply style over substance? Find out next time, on Joe's Xlocke challenge!


Badges: 7
Deaths: 10
Cheats: 2


Current team

Smithers, Blastoise
Toxic
Surf
Bite
Water Pulse

Colby, Chesnaught
Body Slam
Leech seed
seed bomb
Spiky shield

Grumble, Granbull
Charm
Play rough
fire fang
Strength


Scooter, Drapion
Crunch
fell stinger
toxic spikes
cross poison

Gullbee, Pelipper
Fly
Water pulse
roost
stockpile

Betty, Pawniard
I dont even remember. Hasn't battled much yet. I'll have to check.
SPOILER: it doesnt matter any more :(

As a bonus, here's a map of the last episode. It had a lot of backtracking so the visual aid helps a lot.

 Double bonus, here is a site devoted to Espurr, the unevolved Meowstic, that is perfect for halloween.
http://espurr.net/

Will of Fire; Heart of Stone

In my last post my team was suffering from their first loss to a evil zubat--due to my cockiness, yes--but, we mourned Muhamedali and Naruto stepped in.  Naruto the Vulpix was placed at the front of my party in order to get those levels up.  I found an area of grass that had a lot of raticates in order to get his speed leveled up, too.  We were at the grind again, and it was going along nicely.  I was getting a little bored just fighting wild pokemon, so I decided to head on down to Cianwood City.  I had Naruto the Vulpix in the front, so I did a lot of switching out to Shocker the (now) Ampharos to take out the swimmer's pokemon quickly and safely.  We made it down to the lone city of Cianwood.  Here I wandered around and helped out a fellow trainer by taking his Shuckle for safe keeping.  (Because my darn rival, Dakota, stole his sneasal!)

Let's slow down a bit and say where we are.  I have 4 badges, and am supposed to get the Cianwood Gym badge now, but for some reason I decide I want to take on Olivine City's gym leader Jasmine, the steel type master.  I was thinking about it, and this is why I need Naruto the vulpix.  His fire attacks will be able to handle those steel pokemon well.  I didn't want to put DEVASTATOR the Feraligator in there because I assumed that many of her pokemon would be magnemites or magnetons with a good chance for a Steelix (I am liking that I have forgotten a lot of the game from when I played through it, so I don't remember all the gym leaders' crew).  So, here I am, making my way around.  Naruto the vulpix is getting to be in the upper 20s of level, DEVASTATOR the feraligator is in his 30s with a solid crew surrounding him.  But, for some reason, I decide to wait on going for the gyms yet.  I want to level up Naruto a little more because I realize that Mahogany Town's gym leader has Ice pokemon (perfect for Naruto to take them out, too).  BUT, I think that it is ripe time to venture back to the area where we lost Muhamedali the Beedrill.  SO, we venture up North of Mahogany Town towards the Lake of Rage.  I remember the Red Gyarados and this is enough to spark my interest.  We surf out to the water and to our luck we do not run into any wild pokemon until we face the red gyarados!  We are able to whittle him down as well as paralyze him, and a couple net balls later and voilà! we caught ourselves a red gyarados!  I sent Carnage to bill's pc and then this guy Lance (***Spoiler Alert*** he's the dragon master and pretty much my pokemon idol) shows up and thanks me for helping with the red gyarados but he needs my help again in the "Convenient Store" in Mahogany Town because he is suspicious of it.  Umm, yesss I will help you with whatever you want Lance.  JUST ACKNOWLEDGE ME!

TEAM ROCKET!?!  Yes.  Team Rocket is back, and they are here for, you guessed it, trouble (Make it double).  They are making the pokemon evolve!  So, I help Lance in the basement taking out hordes of Rocket grunts like they are the tops of dandelions and my pokemon are my shoe.  But, let me warn you:  Rocket Executives are not to be taken lightly.  The final boss had a zubat (patooy!), koffing, and a raticate.  I was leaving Naruto the vulpix in because by now he was level 31 and his flamethrower was not to be meddled with.  He took out zubat and koffing easily, but then raticate came in.  He hyper fangs me and takes me down to 2/3rds health.  No biggie.  Flamethrower takes him down into the red.  I decide to use quick attack just in case he crits me and finishes me off.  Naruto does quick attack and...it. does. not. kill. him.  wut.  Well, no biggie, hyper fang will only take out another 1/3rd of my...NOOOoooooo.  Hyper fang finishes off Naruto!  Gah.  DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!

So now I am down my one good fighting chance for taking on BOTH the ice gym and the steel gym.  Crap.  Mourning takes place, we have a moment of silence, but, like the good Naruto he is, we know that he would want us to keep fighting.  One does not take on the road to being Hokage without knowing that there will be sacrifices, and no one knows that better than Naruto himself.

I then looked at my crew and realized that Krunk the geodude, would be best for taking on the steel type.  So, I leveled him up fast, and headed to Olivine City to take on Jasmine with her steel type.  Krunk was ready.  His rock/ground was perfect for the magnemite that came out.  Magnitude destroyed them.  Then, she sent out Steelix.  I knew it.  Welp, Magnitude it is.  Magnitude 7!  Sweet.  It's super effective.  Not sweet, it only took out 15% of his health.  Uh oh.  Iron tail, one shot, buh-bye Krunk.  Crap.  Go DEVASTATOR!  Avenge him!  And he did.  I was able to use surf which was super effective and take him out.  Then her second magnemite was no match, either.

Now we were 3 down.

Muhamedali the Beedrill, Naruto the vulpix (Will of Fire), and Krunk the geodude (Heart of Stone)

Their sacrifices were not in vain because now we had 5 badges, and we were able to quickly take out Pryce and receive the glacier badge in Mahogany Town with Shocker the Ampharos being a boss.

Now, we are 6 badges in, and off to Cianwood City to get that seventh badge.

We are strong, united, and determined.  We mourn the loss of our comrades but will not let that slow us down because we know they'd want us to keep marching on.  That's what it takes if you want to be the very best.

Paul's Yellow Nuzlocke: Glory Days and a Bitter Twist

We did a lot, my team and I. After clearing out Silph Co. and the Fighting Dojo, we took on Sabrina's psychic gym. Little did I know that, apparently, you're supposed to beat Koga first and come back -- a fact that I realized when my Pokemon, all in the mid 30s levelwise, faced Sabrina's Abra, Kadabra, and Alakazam, all of whom were level 50. There was no backing out at this point, so I stuck to the plan. My Kadabra, Julio, essentially a weaker version of her two Pokemon that actually had attacking moves, had a secret weapon: Seismic Toss. The move does a constant damage regardless of stats and typing. Combined with Thunder Wave and Julio's resistance to their psychic attacks, we were able to take Sabrina down and claim our badge without losses, although Julio's health got below 10 after a nasty critical hit.

The other time I  took the Nuzlocke in Gen 1 (via Leaf Green) my party suffered some serious losses on their way to this badge, and Sabrina finished them off. Now I was venturing forth into new territory.

Koga was easy, but one of his stupid lackeys with a super overleveld Hypno killed my Elsie the Fearow. I don't want to talk about it.

 I trained up Damon the Lapras on the bike route and the land route to Fuschia city, taking tons of trainers down in the process. Acquiring Surf, we traveled through the Seafoam Islands to Cinnabar Island, taking a little detour to the power plant to train up Judson the Aerodacyl. Damon was key in taking out Zapdos and Articuno without losses -- each a close fight that I would have been wiser to avoid, but proving that this Lapras does indeed have what it takes to be a champion. So, after training up a little more in the abandoned whatever, my level-40 team was ready to fight Blaine.


A note on Yellow version: earlier, I mentioned that it seemed like an easier game to nuzlocke. You get free starters, man. What could be better than a guarantee of extremely solid fire, water, and grass types? Well, it comes at a cost. The gym leaders, especially from Lt. Surge onward, have only a few pokemon, but their levels are massive -- way, way ahead of the trainers leading up to them, always a nasty surprise.


Blaine's Ninetales was tricksy, but we took him down. Damon can take the fire attacks and has Surf (as well as Ice Beam and Body Slam). Honestly, I thought we had this match in the bag with a guy like that. The Rapidash went down just as predictably, but his last Pokemon, his Arcanine, was not so easy. Here's what happened. Damon, having his max HP of 168, surfs him, doing significant damage, but not yellow-territory. The Arcanine uses take down, bringing Damon's health to about 115. We repeat the process and Blaine scores a critical hit. I figured it would do about double damage, about 100, and we'd sneak by with a few HP, but, defying all of my previous understanding of critical hits, Damon went down. I panicked. None of my Pokemon would be able to deliver a solid knockout blow at this point, probably not even Julio with his speedy Psychic attack. I figured Buzz the Nidorino, at least, could take a take down... but he couldn't take a Fire Blast. He got the Arcanine into the red, but it was Buzz's last attack. Ever.


Julio swooped in with a speedy Seismic Toss for the guaranteed K.O. and we won, but it was a battle hard fought. Two team members lost, including my oldest buddy and my most versatile butt kicker. I did happen two have two boxed pokemon with good prospects to fill the gap. Everyone, meet Hella Jeff the Snorlax (currently lvl 34 with Body Slam, Amnesia, Counter and Surf) and Jiminy the Ivysaur (lvl 29, with Vine Whip, Poisonpowder, Leech Seed, and Cut). With a little training, I think we'll be just fine. It's hard losing the Ice Beamer I planned to rock Blaine with, and for the rest of my life I'll be asking myself what would have happened if I'd evolved Buzz before the fight, but dwelling on those things won't help me to be

the best

and i want

to be

the

very

best.

Badges: 7
Deaths: 7 (Barnaby, Petekachu, Wayne, Elsie, Pancho, Damon, Buzz)

BWAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN EDIT PAUL'S POSTS! I pick my butt, whoever I am!