Showing posts with label slowpoke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slowpoke. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Vs. Kahuna Hala

Prepared with the knowledge that I would be battling a Fighting Pokemon master, I assembled my most reliable squamates for the task.

Battle Team 2: The Fighting Frenzies
Vs. Kahuna Hala

...and apparently I also brought Slowpoke along for some reason.

I was unsure of whether or not the team I had selected would be over or under leveled.  I prefer to keep the game on the challenging side, so I didn’t want to take in, for example, my level 17 Oricorio with Air Cutter.  Or-chan is a little bit too strong for what I anticipated the Kahuna’s pokemon would be—somewhere in the 16-17 range.

I approached him back at Route 1 on the Melemele outskirts.  As a matter of fact, our battle arena was the very same stage where I had fought his grandson Hau and his Litten at the festival of our Lord and Savior the Kamen Rider Space blah blah Tapu Koko.  Indeed, it was the very stage where I had met and befriended Pako Pako.

With a weird sort of nostalgia coursing through my thoughts, I started the match.

Trumbeak vs. Mankey is the sort of battle that normally wouldn’t get even a footnote in any battling tactics analysis.  Even if Mankey is the same level as Trumbeak, level 14 in this case, it just plain can’t compete.  Trumbeak took one hard Karate Chop critical hit, but held on to defeat both Mankey and Hala’s second Pokemon Makuhita.

The Makuhita was able to weaken my lead, Pip Pip, to identically 1 HP, but Kahuna Hala now only had one pokemon left compared to my five remaining healthy switch-ins.  For the future, I need to remember to only bring in three pokemon per gym match to make it a fairer fight.

His third pokemon was a Crabrawler.  It knew the Fighting Z-Move “All Out Pummeling”.  Unfortunately for the Kahuna, Crabrawler wasted this move immediately against my 1 HP Trumbeak in the most spectacular sort of overkill that I have ever seen.  The animation for this move is insane and over the top and to see it strip off exactly one point of health made me make a ridiculous squeaking noise.

After I lost Trumbeak, I sent in Pokey for an admittedly boring exchange of Yawns and Confusions.  I won the match four turns later.


Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Paralyzed by Choice (and by Thundershock)

Room full of Delibirds...nothing suspicious here.
And now I have Growlithe and it's time to fix up my team.  My first instinct is to remove either Rattata or Yungoos because they each perform the same basic role: kinda quick normal-type attacker. Whenever I get close to deciding between one of them, I see how dang cute they both are and I can't help but second guess myself.

Let's see who I have right now.  Popplio, Pichu, Pikipek, Misdreavus--those have to stay because of how diverse they all are.  I also have Grimer, Slowpoke, Rattata, Yungoos, and Growlithe.  I need to get rid of one and I'm inclined to point to Rattata or Yungoos.  But then again, Slowpoke has never been anything but an annoyance for me.  The only thing that is stopping me from tossing the Dopey thing is that I fancy using a Slowking at some point...

Is it insane to use nine pokemon?  I may have to for the time being...
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Pichu has recently learned Sweet Kiss, and if it were not for the move's unreliable accuracy, I would be abusing it a lot more.  Sweet Kiss has an accuracy of 75% and causes confusion.  One of my favorite maneuvers these days is to proc paralysis and then confusion.  This is a strategy called "Parafusion" and it has been around for quite a few generations of the game.  Paralyzed pokemon fail to attack 1/3 of the time and confused pokemon fail to move 1/2 of the time.  As a result of both of these, a pokemon that is both confused and paralyzed will only successfully attack once out-of-three turns.  This plus Pichu's "Charm" move (which harshly lowers an opponent's attack) makes Rai Rai a worthy, if a little weak, pokemon.  Chicanery and misdirection are my favorite strategies (part of the reason I fancy myself a "poison-type trainer"), and Pichu fits in juuuuust fine.

I made my way through Route 2 via a pokemon graveyard (spooky) and across a berry field.  There, I met Team Skull again.  It seems as though I'm just taking the Team Skull Alola sightseeing tour.

Another battle against Team Skull, another easy victory.  I hope things start to get difficult again at some point...

Current Squad:
Popplio/Pako Pako/lvl 11
Yungoos/Chompy/lvl 11
Pikipek/Pip Pip/lvl 11
Pichu/Rai Rai/lvl 11
Misdreavus/Missy/lvl 11
Growlithe/Growlie/lvl 10

On Rotation:
Grimer/Sludj/lvl 11
Slowpoke/Pokey/lvl 11
Rattata/Snackers/lvl 11
Pokedex: 23 caught

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Bye Bye Butterfree!

The next step was to make my way across Route 2 to meet the professor at his lab.  Professor Kukui likes to study pokemon moves, specifically.  I do like how each professor has their own specialty.  As I recall, Professor Sycamore (Pokemon X, Y) studied Mega Evolution and Professor Rowan (Pokemon Diamond, Pearl, Platinum) studied Pokemon Evolution.

On my way there, I managed to snag Wingull, Slowpoke, and the Alola from of Rattata.  I named them Gulliver, Pokey, and Snackers, respectively and added the later two to my party.  I waved "Alola" to Felix, my Butterfree-in-training in order to do this.  I'm always sad to see Butterfree go, but I've used Butterfree so much in my pokemon career, I don't feel too too bad about opening up that team slot for something weird and new.

For example, this cool, Dark-type Alola Rattata.

As an aside, I checked the pokedex entries of these pokemon and they revealed some cool information about the region.  Apparently, Alola Rattata work as mafia droogs for their Raticate boss and Slowpoketail is a popular dish in the Alola region, especially when dried and served in a salty stew.  I can't quite believe that the pokedex entry for my most recent pokemon catch is telling me how I should be cooking it.  I'm glad my Slowpoke's ability is "Oblivious" because those hungry looks I've been giving it might otherwise make training and taming it difficult...


Current Squad:

Popplio/Pako Pako/lvl 7
Yungoos/Chompy/lvl 7
Pikipek/Pip Pip/lvl 8
Pichu/Rai Rai/lvl 8
Slowpoke/Pokey/lvl 7
Rattata/Snackers/lvl 7

Pokedex: 9 caught