Nov 18, 2022 21:54:49 GMT @aaron said:

I just had a battle against a totally invisible Lechonk.

The battle after that started with the ground totally glitching away and turning into a solid block of blue.

It's a mess!

Round of applause Game Freak.

I put about 5 hours into Pokemon Scarlet, yeah the UI is ugly and the performance is noticeably bad but it's typical Pokemon so it's just fun.

I found an island not far off from the beginning that has Level 20+ Pokemon. I caught so many Pokemon, I have to go back in there to get some more! Couple of new Pokemon but also Riolu, Goomy(Dragon pokemon this early?!?!), Scyther, Dunspace, the baby form of Toxicrity etc. I have no idea if this was an intended spot or not but I spent a good hour until I ran out of Pokeballs. Still a lot of rock pokemon hanging around there I want to go after.

The only pokemon to overwhelm me there is the Female Salamence evolution.

I already evolved my boy Fuecoco but also evolved Pawmo from Pawmi, Tarotunla into Spidops and a Gen 2 OG, Hoppip into Skiploom . Also building up Fidough, Maschiff and Fittle, so trying to have these Gen IX guys and gals get some rub.

I wasn't able to play much last night, only just made it past the lighthouse or whatever (so the first Poke Center), right now I'm just exploring that area, catching what I can and of course levelling up. I am assuming you guys have used the Poke Portal already to claim the Pikachu (via the internet)?

My current team is...

Fuecoco (Lv. 12)
Lechonk (Lv. 9)
Fletchling (Lv. 10)
Pawmi (Lv. 8)
Psyduck (Lv. 9)
Pikachu (Lv. 5)

It's not a bad team to start with I suppose, no idea how many of them will actually stay on the team, as I get further into the game though.

I saw my first shiny last night and knocked it out because for some reason it didn't register in my mind that it was a shiny.

I just figured it was a gender difference like when I got excited about finding a "shiny" Hippowdon and it turned out the females are grey just because.

Oops.

Nov 19, 2022 13:13:01 GMT Lony said:

I wasn't able to play much last night, only just made it past the lighthouse or whatever (so the first Poke Center), right now I'm just exploring that area, catching what I can and of course levelling up. I am assuming you guys have used the Poke Portal already to claim the Pikachu (via the internet)?

My current team is...

Fuecoco (Lv. 12)
Lechonk (Lv. 9)
Fletchling (Lv. 10)
Pawmi (Lv. 8)
Psyduck (Lv. 9)
Pikachu (Lv. 5)

It's not a bad team to start with I suppose, no idea how many of them will actually stay on the team, as I get further into the game though.

wow I really thought you'd ride with Jon Quaxly. Fuecoco just has a certain appeal to him that you just can't describe. 

Nov 19, 2022 13:22:55 GMT @aaron said:

I saw my first shiny last night and knocked it out because for some reason it didn't register in my mind that it was a shiny.

I just figured it was a gender difference like when I got excited about finding a "shiny" Hippowdon and it turned out the females are grey just because.

Oops.

Obviously, you gotta step your game up, time to study every Pokemon's shiny form, so you don't make that mistake again.

Joking aside though, which Pokemon was it?

Also, I'm kinda digging the auto-battle feature, a quick way to gain some XP, without needing to deal with doing full-on battles for Pokemon already caught.

Edit: Of course the downside, is when it battles a Pokemon you've yet to catch.

Nov 19, 2022 12:53:02 GMT Blindy said:

I put about 5 hours into Pokemon Scarlet, yeah the UI is ugly and the performance is noticeably bad but it's typical Pokemon so it's just fun.

I found an island not far off from the beginning that has Level 20+ Pokemon. I caught so many Pokemon, I have to go back in there to get some more! Couple of new Pokemon but also Riolu, Goomy(Dragon pokemon this early?!?!), Scyther, Dunspace, the baby form of Toxicrity etc. I have no idea if this was an intended spot or not but I spent a good hour until I ran out of Pokeballs. Still a lot of rock pokemon hanging around there I want to go after.

The only pokemon to overwhelm me there is the Female Salamence evolution.

I already evolved my boy Fuecoco but also evolved Pawmo from Pawmi, Tarotunla into Spidops and a Gen 2 OG, Hoppip into Skiploom . Also building up Fidough, Maschiff and Fittle, so trying to have these Gen IX guys and gals get some rub.

Went back here and caught some other ones like Phanpy, the pre evo of Gogoat, 

Finding some Great and Ultra balls lying around, going to hang onto those for emergency. Highly recommend this place unless you don't want to break the game open. My entire party are in the low 20's and I have fought trainers along the way to where your suppose to be at that have Pokemon at like level  8, so I am one shotting em.

I need to go back and try to find this island you're talking about Blindy, given Riolu, Phanpy and Scyther are Pokemon I would use on my team.

Nov 19, 2022 14:15:14 GMT Lony said:

I need to go back and try to find this island you're talking about Blindy , given Riolu, Phanpy and Scyther are Pokemon I would use on my team.

I also found Boboach, Basculin(I rly want the white one, think it evolves into this thing I rode in Arceus), Rockruff who I adored few gens ago. Really wacky place, it's not far from where you're at but they are high level so be careful. 

EDIT: Found 3 exclusive Gen 9 pokemon up here too. Holy shit there's even more to this island, some fighting pokemon now :rofl: 

EDIT 2: Yessss the cave that you get blocked out of can be accessed now due to this, got a level 4 male Houndour :cry: My boy from Gen 2.

Sept 29, 2017 17:19:14 GMT Lony said:

Obviously, you gotta step your game up, time to study every Pokemon's shiny form, so you don't make that mistake again.

Joking aside though, which Pokemon was it?

It was Tarountula! The shiny one is bright red instead of white.

I've beaten two gyms so far, so that's nice!

Something I've liked so far is that the game hasn't been throwing huge and/or high-level monsters at me in the wild yet.

As soon as you hit the first Wild Area in SwSh, you were seeing level 50 Pangoro and Rhyperior and whatever else just strolling around. You absolutely couldn't beat them or catch them by then, so there wasn't really any point in being able to see them. They were just an inconvenience to run away from.

Work up to that stuff! Imagine if you were seeing Dragonite and Arcanine just casually strolling around as soon as you left Pallet Town. Give us the small/cute Pokemon first, then gradually build up to the badass ones - that's what this gen seems to be doing and I like it.

So far, the biggest Pokemon I've seen has been Tauros and that didn't happen until a decent while of only seeing very small Pokemon (so so so many bugs).

I'll be happy if I never see another Hoppip though!

Game Freak are absolutely hopeless. All they do is make Pokemon games and they can't even get that right! 😅

Blindy, I think I found what you were talking about, as I just came across a Riolu and a Toxel (the pre-evolution of Toxtricity), this is about to get good. I also bumped both Psyduck and Pikachu (temporarily) from my team, to make space for Magikarp (for Gyarados) and the before-mentioned Riolu.

Despite its apparent flaws and bugs, I am liking the game for what it is, so far.

Nov 19, 2022 22:47:06 GMT Lony said:

Blindy , I think I found what you were talking about, as I just came across a Riolu and a Toxel (the pre-evolution of Toxtricity), this is about to get good. I also bumped both Psyduck and Pikachu (temporarily) from my team, to make space for Magikarp (for Gyarados) and the before-mentioned Riolu.

Despite its apparent flaws and bugs, I am liking the game for what it is, so far.

Good shit, yeah you just need one of the pokemon to be close enough at the edge for you to engage a battle with them. You then teleport and bam you open up brand new pokemon over there. 

Nov 19, 2022 13:34:03 GMT Blindy said:

Nov 19, 2022 13:13:01 GMT Lony said:

I wasn't able to play much last night, only just made it past the lighthouse or whatever (so the first Poke Center), right now I'm just exploring that area, catching what I can and of course levelling up. I am assuming you guys have used the Poke Portal already to claim the Pikachu (via the internet)?

My current team is...

Fuecoco (Lv. 12)
Lechonk (Lv. 9)
Fletchling (Lv. 10)
Pawmi (Lv. 8)
Psyduck (Lv. 9)
Pikachu (Lv. 5)

It's not a bad team to start with I suppose, no idea how many of them will actually stay on the team, as I get further into the game though.

wow I really thought you'd ride with Jon Quaxly. Fuecoco just has a certain appeal to him that you just can't describe. 

So I ended up getting Quaxly earlier tonight via special trade... not gonna lie, I totally marked out over it. The Wife wasn't happy that I have two of the three starter Pokemon, oddly enough, she has the one I still need.

Anyways, I defeated the first two gyms, as well as the first Titan Pokemon so far.

Sept 29, 2017 17:19:14 GMT Lony said:

Anyways, I defeated the first two gyms, as well as the first Titan Pokemon so far.

That's as far as I am too!

I tried one of the base invasions or whatever they're called, but I lost right at the end 😭

I did two gyms but didn't do a Titan Pokemon yet but I did take down a Team Star base.

Been catching Pokemon like a mad lad, have to have over 120 caught and or evolved.

Nov 20, 2022 15:07:55 GMT Blindy said:

I did two gyms but didn't do a Titan Pokemon yet but I did take down a Team Star base.

Been catching Pokemon like a mad lad, have to have over 120 caught and or evolved.

I'm currently sitting at 139 caught and/or evolved Pokemon.

As for the three missions...

Victory Road: 2/8
Path of Legends: 2/5
Starfall Street: 2/5

I'm definitely spending more time exploring this game, I'm not sure if it's me taking my time or if there is just so much more to do in this game. @aaron mentioned Tauros and I love its Paldea forms, even more so than the Kanto form. Also, Nemona is way better than Hop, probably cause I've barely seen her so far.

Outside of the starter Pokemon, what's everyone's favourite gen nine Pokemon, that they've come across? I'm digging Tinkatink and its evolutionary line, also Espathra and its pre-evolution as well.

Also, I forgot to mention, there is a dolphin Pokemon in the game... it's so cute. Even if it's two generations late, really should have been the design for Alola's water starter Pokemon. Then again, Sword and Shield not giving Eevee either a dragon or steel type eeveelution was a wasted opportunity as well.

I am rolling with the Dolphin in my lineup trying to evolve it.

This Grass/Ghost pokemon has some upside too(Bramblin), have yet to use it but it might serve as the Pumpkaboo of this gen.

Current lineup:
Masbosstiff(I got a female version but this should totally be a male, look at his sadface.
Charcadet
Fittle
Finizen
Pawmo(I am trying so hard to get these 1000 steps)
Crocalor

I have also evolved:
Grafaiai
Spidops
Kilowattrel(I like this electric bird)
Dachsbun
Lokix

Caught:
Cyclizar
Tinkatuff(Did not catch the 1st form yet)
Bramblin
Gimmighoul(Seems pretty cool)
Rellor
Lechonk
Oinkologne
Tandemaus(Siamese twins?)
Klawf
Caspakid



I love that Girafarig gets some love in this game, felt like a lost pokemon in Gen 2.

Nov 21, 2022 0:20:20 GMT Blindy said:

Pawmo(I am trying so hard to get these 1000 steps)

Yea, especially since there isn't an indication, saying how many steps you've taken.

Put in a crap ton of work today, went from 0/5 of the Titan fights to now 4/5!

4/5 Titan fights
5/8 Gym fights(I just got to gym # 6 now)
2/5 Team Star fights

Most of my team is at late 30's or early 40's as far as level goes, I went for it underleveled by a bit for the Psychic gym leader but just gutted it out. I had a level 38 Magikarp that I caught along the way ages ago but I used a rare candy and had a Gyrados with bite and he contributed. Basically Crocalor evolving+Masbostiff made this work.

So I've been keeping a tight lip but once the data leaks came through, I was doing research to determine how I wanted to play the game. I knew heading in I'd be using a Quaquaval but I wanted to build a quality team around him. This is what I came up with.

But first, I chose Scarlet because a friend of mine was playing through Violet. They asked if I could get both starters for them, so my opening couple of hours of the game was getting them Sprigatito and Quaxly along with exploring the open world waiting for them to come online. Since I didn't want to over-level their Pokemon, I ended up using a Flamingo and found they were really good for the early game. I was hanging around Artazon when they came online and I could finally begin my journey.

I will say the opening impression of the game was not good. I knew the game had performance issues but didn't realise just how bad it would be with constant screen tearing, switching between medium quality and low quality models, the inability to turn off move animations etc. I was already functioning on little sleep and watching the game chug just gave me a headache.

Anyways I played through the opening for a third time, picked Quaxly, got reamed by Nemona due to my pitiful Sp. ATK before making my way to Cortondo. One thing I should point out in this playthrough is that I was really mindful about my EV spreads and didn't want battle too many trainers/wild Pokemon to avoid raising stats I didn't want to. I found out later that Let's Go mode only raises exp so this could have been easily avoided. Regardless, I went into the first gym under-prepared with Quaxly, Lechonk, Fletchling & Pawmi.

I actually lost my first attempt at the fight, which is the equivalent of dying to the first Goomba in Super Mario. As it turns out, I'd turn off the ability to learn new moves, so my Quaxly didn't have it's Super Effective Phys Flying Move Wing Attack or it's Phys STAB Water Attack Aqua Jet. Once I remedied that, I was able to get through the fight thanks in part to items.

With Katy defeated, I now had access to the Power EV raising items. It was at this point I decided to put my team together that I had in mind pre-game. Since Quaquaval is Water/Fighting, my first alt was a safe swap into a type that resists Psychic - Dark. I was scouting the new monsters when I fell in love with Mabosstiff. I had a dog who looked just like him and with high phys stats, he was an easy pick-up. Maschiff's were available right near the first gym, so it was an easy catch.

Since both Pokemon were weak to Fairy, I needed to consider a Steel type and looked no further than Tinkaton. Tinkaton has the same typing as Zacian (Fairy/Steel) making it one of the most effective most effective monsters in the game. It's stats aren't anything to write home about but it does have access to one of the most powerful steel attacks, Gigaton Hammer. 160 ATK, the only drawback is that it can't be used consecutively. Tinkatink popped up on the way to Zapipico making it a convenient capture.

I needed a monster that could cover electric, so I was after a decent Ground type when I came across Toedscruel. This is one of those monsters I wouldn't have considered without team-planning but I liked it's Ground/Grass typing and it's decent move-pool with access to poison and steel attacks. When I was exploring Artazon in my second playthrough I came across one, so I ventured over towards the wooded area. It's something of an uncommon spawn, but I was able to get one to eventually pop up.

I wanted a type that could cover Flying types and after going through them I couldn't pass up Kilowattrel. It's Electric/Flying grants it a ton of defensive resists and with High Sp. ATK and High Speed. It's move-pool was a little limited and it would require some set-up to really make the most of it's capabilities but it was too good a fit. I came across Kilowattrel during my trek to Zapipco, making that another convenient catch.

For the final monster, I wanted something that could cover Poison types more consistently than Toedscruel and went with the Fire/Psychic Armarouge. This was one of the most marketed monsters and it's clearly one of the stand-outs of the generation. Normally I want to be different, but it really rounded out the team nicely with an insane move-pool and strong stats. The only issue is that finding this monster proved difficult. I heard you could catch it around Los Platos but after 30 or so minutes I had no luck. I ended up looking around and heard it's likely to spawn near the east exit of Mesagoza. Sure enough there it was so I just had to figure out how to evolve it. It's actually simple enough, get 10 bronzor fragments and trade them with a man from, you guessed it, Zapipco. I collected the fragments, made the long journey bypassing all the creatures and evolved my Armarouge to end Day 1.

After assembling the team relatively easily it was time to start EV Training. I didn't go too crazy with spreads, I was simply going to maximise their speed, their attack or sp. attack. My team was relatively balanced with 3 Phys Attackers (Quaquaval, Tinkatuff and Mabosstiff) and Sp. Attackers (Kilowattrel, Toedscruel and Armarouge). I then proceeded to spend the next few hours grinding up those stats. I did muck this up by not buying a Power Anklet right away and making shorter work of the Speed EVs but I was light on cash and thought farming on materials would earn me some more money.

I largely farmed Maschiff's for ATK EVs, Fletchling's for Speed and Mareep's for Sp ATK. After 100s of random encounters, the team was ready for the rest of the game, albeit a little over-levelled. By the time I was ready to face the Crab Titan my team was between Levels 20-25. I made relatively short work of it, Brassius (the grass gym leader), the Open Sky Titan and Giacomo of Team Star.

This is where I should come clean, I didn't understand the Terastal or Team Star fights. I didn't realise that when a Pokemon teralises, that it only inherits one typing - I thought all of it's previous weaknesses and resistances come into play. So I went up against Giacomo with my Toedscruel looking for that 4x weakness on Steel/Poison. I did some exploration around this time and unlocked the Flying Bus for Cascarrafa which I'd have to go to later. I caught a Stonejourner since it's an exclusive and from that Wattrell evolved into Kilowattrel. I then flew back to Levincia which I had unlocked when I went to (you guessed it) Zepipco.

I actually made another mistake here and used my Maschiff to try and take down Mismagius via it's Dark on Ghost advantage. I was still able to take it out with the rest of the team, but it was far from clean. Next up was Mela the Fire Member of Team Star that I had interacted with before.

OK, so I should walk this back a bit. I really enjoyed both side-quests - Team Star being a vigilante anti-bullying group and the Shadow of Mabosstiff were among my favourite in the series and had so much more personality than I'm used to in Pokemon. During this trek as well, I found some EV-resetting berries which I needed to help Quaquaval reach it's max speed by getting rid of unwanted EVs, so I picked those up here.

Back to it and I took down Mela...only to suffer my first crash. I'd turn off auto-saves but thankfully I'd thought to save 30 minutes previously after catching a Cyclizar. So I had repeat some grinding before going at it again. Before the fight Toedscool and Maschiff evolved and the team was in the early 30s. I followed that up with Armarouge taking down the Steel Titan before making my way to Cascarrafa to Kofu. Kofu was extremely easy, thanks to the Thunderbolt TM near Port Marinada. As far as I can tell, Marinada is the easiest way to buy bulk lots of berries, but it's one per day so you have to exploit the day skip feature.

Day 2 ended and the team looked like

Kilowattrel Lvl 34 (Wise Glasses)

Quaxwell Lvl 34

Mabosstiff Lvl 32

Toedscruel Lvl 34

Tinkatuff Lvl 32

Armarouge Lvl 32

And what a better place to start than Zepipco! First on the agenda was to take down the Poison Crew which I made short work of with Armarouge. Quaxwell evolved into Quaquaval and it was off to Medali to take on cult favourite Larry. However before I did that, I took on a few trainers around Medali to gain access to the Amulet Coin since I'd need some really deep pockets. Quaquaval did the majority of the heavy lifting before Kilowattrel finished things off with it's Thunderbolt.

I then made the long journey to Montenevera to take on Ryme's Ghosts. This was a long journey with Tinkatuff becoming Tinkaton and everyone around the low-mid 40s by the time I got up to Ryme. It was here I got the Lucky Egg and gained access to Mints. I took down Ryme, I bought Adamant and Modest Mints for every Pokemon other than Quaquaval who used the Adamant Mint near Cortondo and Mabosstiff already had that nature. $80,000 in the hole, but money well spent. Quaquaval made short work of the Earthing Quake Titan at Lvl 46 so it was off to Alfornada where Mabosstiff was up once again to take on the alluring Tulip and her Psychic Pokemon. On the way there I caught two exclusives in Stunky and Deino.

Anyways with some help from Armarouge who had Shadow Ball to take out the Psychic/Fairy Gardevoir, I had 6 badges. Also Mabosstiff was Level 50, so I could take advantage of Hyper Training in Montenevera. I boosted up all it's Stats other than Sp. ATK before going on to take on the Glasedo Gym.

Armarouge OHKO'd everything Grusha had with Lava Plume. With the team was all around Level 50, time to buy some bottle caps and vitamins. I used the EV-reducing berries to get Quaquaval it's speed up to max, and bought enough bottle caps to boost everyone's attack to max IVs and the majority also had their speed IVs. I was around $200,000 after already spending $100,000 on Mabosstiff. Ortega did trick me with it's Dachsbun after it absorbed one of Armarouge's fire attacks in-between Giganton Hammers but otherwise it was straight forward.

Ortega unlocked some helpful TMs, so I spent some time grinding up materials. I wanted to get Air Slash for Kilowattrel ahead of the battle against Eri's Fighting Crew. I was just taking down some Flamingos when I realised the TM was right in the middle of the pond...so that was my Wedding Singer moment of the day.

Went over towards Medali so I could take down the False Dragon Titan. This took longer than necessary since I thought you had to take down all the Tatsugiri only to find there was one right on the edge of the island. Made the mistake of leading with Tinkaton against the Water Dondozo but remedied that and just about OHKO'd the Titan.

Off to the Fighting Crew via Glasedo. I caught another exclusive in Oranguru before taking on one of the most difficult fights I had. Despite having fighting types well scouted in Armarouge, Kilowattrel and Tinkaton - the game had other ideas when Eri's Annihilape froze both Armarouge and Kilowattre with Ice Punch. 10% chance and it hit it back to back. Forcing Quaquaval and Tinkaton to come in before Toedscruel finished things off. Defeating Ei gave me access to Sludge Bomb which gave me some handy coverage for Toedscruel so I went to the wetlands on the south east corner to farm some TM materials.

With all the gyms, titans and crews sorted it was time to make some final preparations. I spent around $300,000 to get everyone's stats up, spent a lot of the Exp candies I had and made sure everyone had their moves in the end the team looked like.

Toedscool - Level 60 (Leftovers) - Earth Power/Energy Ball/Sludge Bomb/Spore

Kilowattrel - Level 60 (Wise Glasses) - Thunderbolt/Air Slash/Hurricane/Uproar

Armarouge - Level 60 (Expert Belt) - Flamethrower (Armor Cannon at 62)/Psychic/Shadow Ball/Calm Mind

Tinkaton - Level 60 (Muscle Band) - Giganton Hammer/Play Rough/Fake Out/Skitter Smack

Mabosstiff - Level 60 (Black Glasses) - Crunch/Ice Fang/Fire Fang/Rain Dance

Quaquaval - Level 60 (Life Orb) - Aqua Step/Close Combat/Ice Spinner/Build Up

I took down Clavell with everyone playing their part before moving onto the Elite 4. The only Pokemon that fainted was Quaquaval against Poppy after it got a crit Earthquake and just lost too much HP to Sandstorm and the Orb. Had I switched Life Orb for Expert Belt it would have been an extremely smooth run.

For the champion battle, I wanted Mabosstiff to get the last laugh, so I used it to take down Nemona's Skeledirge in two Crunches despite being 3 levels lower. Everyone got a turn against Arven, meanwhile poor Toedscruel paid the price against Penny after I tried to use it to take out a Terrsatalised Sylveon instead of switching for the Giganton Hammer.

3 down, one more quest to go. It was time to go to Area Zero and take out the Paradox Pokemon team was around Level 65-67 and largely OHKO'd everything. Slither Wing went down to a Terrastlised Play Rough from Tinkaton and it all came down to the final battle where Koraidon finally stepped up after living off it's one win against Houndoom for 20+ hours. I also caught a Paradox Jigglypuff while I was down there.

At the end of day 3 and post-credits the team was.

Toedscool - Level 66 (Leftovers) - Earth Power/Energy Ball/Sludge Bomb/Spore - 202/99/111/189/183/199
Kilowattrel - Level 66 (Wise Glasses) - Thunderbolt/Air Slash/Hurricane/Uproar - 188/96/104/225/104/232
Armarouge - Level 66 (Life Orb) - Armor Cannon/Psychic/Shadow Ball/Calm Mind - 208/76/158/131/255/166
Tinkaton - Level 67 (Muscle Band) - Giganton Hammer/Play Rough/Fake Out/Skitter Smack - 211/184/128/92/166/193
Mabosstiff - Level 66 (Black Glasses) - Crunch/Ice Fang/Fire Fang/Rain Dance - 202/247/145/86/117/177
Quaquaval - Level 68 (Expert Belt) - Aqua Step/Close Combat/Ice Spinner/Build Up - 215/255/134/108/128/184

Awesome write-up Big Pete, great stuff.

My current team is...

Quaquaval
Skeledirge
Tinkaton (absolutely love this beast)
Mabosstiff
Pupitar (keeping it on my team after it becomes Tyranitar)
Larvesta (temporarily using the sixth slot to evolve Pokemon for dex entries)

Victory Road: 4/8 badges
Path of Legends: 3/5 badges
Starfall Street: 3/5 badges

I also just got the special trade of a lifetime, that being Roaring Moon (a paradox Pokemon), I wasn't expecting to encounter them until post-game. The wife got another Sprigatito from special trade, so now I have all three Paldea starter Pokemon now as well.

My team right now is:

Luxio
Floragato
Primeape
Gardevoir
Tsareena
Magnemite

I know it's not very mixed, but I'm getting ready to to the Water gym!