Official TVTropes Nuzlocke Thread

^^^ Don't forget about the grumpy old man who hasn't had his coffee.

But really he's drunk.

Do pokemon just level up really quickly at low levels?

The curse of the water pokemon encounters seems to have finally ended at Petalburg Woods with the capture of a Taillow. She's staying in the PC, though, since we already have a Taillow.

We find our first actual Team Aqua encounter some ways deeper into the woods. Oddly enough, he's not using a water pokemon at all. You'd think these guys would stick to the theme.

Got the Cut HM when I explored Rustboro city, but nobody knows how to use Cut. Not even any of my PC reserves. Hopefully that won't be a problem. It hasn't so far, all I seem to be missing out on is a few trainers and a berry spot.

Roxanne was an easy win with Rico and Steven. Steve had evolved into Marshtomp while battling gym trainers, and now his Ground moves get even stronger with the STAB bonus. Nosepass fell down easily to Mud Shot. His stats make him better with Ground moves than Water moves, which is odd considering that he started out as a pure Water type.

A visit to Rustsurf Tunnel got us a new team member, Gregory the Whismur. He's a wide-eyed idealist, but don't let him get on his soapbox. He can be very vocal about things he cares about. He's also good with motivational speeches, though, so it balances out.

Had to fight another Team Aqua grunt, this time to save a Wingull held hostage, and also recover some stolen goods. The Devon Corp guy was so grateful for having his butt saved twice now, that he took us to see the president. Not everyday that you get to meet someone like that.

Since we seem to be reliable, he asked us if we could make a few deliveries for him. As payment in advance, he gave us the Pokenav. Using the Match Call feature, I'll hopefully be able to re-battle some of the trainers I'd already met. It's no VS Seeker, but you take what you can get.

Current Team:
Steven, lv16 MudkipMarshtomp, hasty
Lori, lv14 Wingull, brave
Rico, lv15 Lotad, sassy
Gregory, lv14 Whismur, naive

edited 20th Apr '14 8:32:01 AM by KylerThatch

Do pokemon just level up really quickly at low levels?

Yes. In most cases, XP needed is cubic in the level while XP gained is linear.

So a level 50 fighting a level 50 will level up half as fast as a level 25 fighting a level 25.

edited 20th Apr '14 9:10:39 AM by storyyeller

I would have expected quadratic, but cubic? Man...

Yeah, in Hoenn, you only really need Cut if you plan on beating the Trick House. Otherwise, it's not needed to get through the story.

So... guess who just got TPK'd?

Lori was going to be the star of the show at Dewford Gym. Trained her to level 20 at Granite Cave, then had her fight every trainer in the gym. Won every time with Wing Attack, and managed to gain an additional level. You'd think being two levels higher and having a type advantage would make it easy to beat a Makuhita.

Bulk Up says otherwise. Between a beefed-up defense and Super Potions, she just couldn't deal enough damage, and with the boosted attack, poor Lori couldn't handle the hits. And even a hit with Supersonic was just a waste of a turn, as the Makuhita kept managing to spam Vital Throw anyway. And after Lori went down, the rest followed soon after. Even Steven, our best defensive option, went down in one hit with a crit to the face.

BAD END

So yeah, everyone's dead. I don't know if I want to call it quits on this run. If I do continue, I'll be running with a Marill, a Taillow, and maybe a Poochyena, all of which would require severe amounts of grinding. That, or I could just start over again.

Or I could do that Charmander run in Fire Red.

edited 21st Apr '14 3:50:35 AM by KylerThatch

Charmander run in the original Red/Blue would be a lot easier, as discussed earlier.

Yeah, you'd have to grind like nuts (or be super lucky) to get past Brock with only a Charmander in Gen 3.

So as I said before I started, my FR monotype run isn't a nuzlocke, but it's in the same spirit of making the game more difficult for myself. So far I've beaten Brock with my Butterfree (who had the same Rock Tomb problems due to being a flying type, but was able to overcome it by stacking full Hardens on Geodude first), Misty was taken down relatively easily by Paras (after teaching him Bullet Seed. First time I've ever actually used that TM), and Lt. Surge was taken down by Parasect (having learned Dig). Besides the two of them, my team also consists of a Beedrill, and that's it until I can get down to Fuschia to catch a Venonat and Scyther, unless I'm willing to sink the slot time to buy the latter at the Game Corner.

Unfortunately, those are all the bugs I can actually get before beating the Elite Four, so if I want a full roster I'm gonna have to either catch a second of something, or trade with LG for a Pinsir. I'm leaning toward the trade.

I've beaten Brock with my Butterfree

Amusing. Yet another difference from gen 1 I guess.

In Yellow version, I always caught a Caterpie and trained it up to Butterfree to beat Brock. I never had any problems beating him with a level 10 Butterfree.

Again, the difference is Rock Tomb, which is just as super effective against Butterfree as a Flying type as it is against Charmander as a fire type. The first time I challenged him, he one-shot me with it. The second time I took the time to fully buff my defense with Harden while fighting Geodude, who doesn't have any rock attacks, which gave me enough durability to survive two Rock Tombs.

Isn't it doubly super-effective, because Bug/Flying?

Oh, yeah. I always forget bug's weak to ruok, because bug sucks so bad in the first few gens that I pretty much never use them, and I'm never short of options for taking them out as opponents, since I pretty much always have a fire or flying type, if not both.

Just beat Brock with a level 18 Charmeleon using Metal Claw spam. It can apparently survive two hits of Rock Tomb, maybe even three at full health.

Not going to bother trying the same stunt with Misty, though. That would just be a logistical nightmare.

edited 21st Apr '14 8:33:51 PM by KylerThatch

I beat Misty with a level 28 Charmeleon once. Of course, that was gen 1.

I've never done it with a Charmander, but I estimate that level 30 should be enough, since Slash is a huge boost in power. I did prove that you can't do it with a level 26 Charmander, no matter how many potions you bring.

edited 21st Apr '14 10:03:02 PM by storyyeller

Charmander doesn't learn Slash until 37 in Gen 3. :P

Progress is slow in my Platinum mono-locke because I'm working on other projects. It'll probably be a few weeks before I finish.

Does anyone know if gen 1 trainer pokemon have I Vs and if so, how to determine them?

I've seen a lot of places saying that later gen trainers do have I Vs, (for example Cynthia has all perfect I Vs), but I can't find anything talking about gen 1 or 2.

Not sure, especially since the games came out before everyone started taking I Vs seriously.

You'd think that gen 1 would be the most studied of all. People actually disassembled the game code to figure out the damage and stat formulas, and yet noone knows how I Vs work?

Every pokemon in every game has I Vs.

I've been doing some experimenting by hacking different speed values to see what it takes to go first.

Lorelei's

• Dewgong has a speed of 89, corresponding to IV = 8
• Cloyster has a speed of 86, corresponding to IV = 7
• Slowbro has a speed of 45, which isn't even possible (corresponds to IV = 7.5)

WTF is going on here? I so wish I could understand the games code.

At least I managed to confirm that badge boosts round down in the process.

edited 22nd Apr '14 4:04:13 PM by storyyeller

I don't even understand IVs in the first place, so /shrug.

I'm not sure about the Gen I mechanics, but did you check you're using the right calculation?

IVs are like a pokemon's genes. They're randomly determined (mostly) for each individual pokemon and cannot be altered after the pokemon is generated. The purpose they serve is to make individual pokemon different from each other, even in the same species. The only way the play can influence them in in breeding (the child will inherit I Vs from their parents rather than all of them being completely random) or through hacking.

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