Now that we reached the Beach of Slateport, I headed directly over to the Surf Shop. Inside is a set of five trainers that after being beaten, allows you to get a dozen free Soda Pops, as well as the chance to buy more. Since they heal much more than a Super Potion, and cost much less, this will be a place I might return to a few times if I start to get low on healing items. The trainers were all really easy to beat either being a one shot due to Super Effective, or I just blasted them out of the water with Mud Shot on Squirt.
Now, going to slateport, I heal up before I head over to the Shipyard. You learn that the guy you need to meet is at the Slateport museum, so now we head over there. Inside, we can talk to a Grunt who gives us the T M for Theif, which will be useful later on. And we now can go speak to the Foreman. However, we get stopped by two Magma Grunts. We have to face them in a row without being able to heal after the first one. So, since I know both of them will either have Nummle or Zubat, I lead with Squirt that way I get type advantage.
First fight, the Grunt has a nummel. Mud Shot takes it down in one hit. Second fight, He starts with a Zubat. Unfortunately, he used Supersonic. A move that causes confusion. After two rounds of hitting myself and my first Rock Tomb Missing, I was low enough health that if I hit myself again, and a Wing Attack crit would have killed Squirt. Switching out for Birb, He took two hits while dealing his own Damage with Wing Attack. But since the second hit was a Crit as well, he was super low health, however, Zubat was taken down. Next came out a Second Nummel. Since it was full health and my Birb was at low health, and I didn’t know if it had a move that could really hurt Squirt, I opted to use Percival. Two bites later, and I won the fight.
After giving the package to the Foreman, I can now make my way to Mauville City. The Third Gym. Before I can do that though, I remember that I have a Rival fight under the Cycling bridge. Since she has a Treeko, that will now be a Grovile, She will fill out her team to also have a Slugma, and a Wailmer. Slugma should be easy and Wailmer would be okay with Squirt. However, as soon as Grovile comes out, I plan on changing to either Birb, or Percival to take it out.
BUT! Before I can leave the city, I forgot that there is a cutscene where I have to interact with a girl who does the Beauty contests in the game. I won’t be playing them, but trust me, its a waste of five minutes of my time before I can get back on the road. While I could get a Pikachu here that has “outfits” that would give it special moves, It can’t evolve, and Pikachu is not a great pokemon. Plus, there is a chance to get other electric Type pokemon that are way better than it.
On the way there, I fight some trainers to evolve Percival into Mightyena. On that route, I also found an Electrike. Catching it and naming it Volt. Considering its an Electric Type, and Hoen region is known for its wealth of Water and Flying type pokemon, He is a good addition to the team. Sadly, She has the trait Static. So while physical hits can cause Paralysis, I was hoping to get Lightning Rod for Watson’s Gym.
Now, onto the rival battle. Finally. I had forgotten to start out with Squirt, and I realized this as soon as I started to talk to Brendan. So I had to start with Percival instead. Thinking it over, since Slugma was out first, I went ahead and howled twice to get an attack boost, and then took out Slugma with two bites while only being hit by Incinerate once. Grovile came out next. Hitting it with Fire Fang, It OH-KOed, (One hit Knockout) with a crit!. I thought the worst was over. So hitting the Wailmer with two bites ended the fight. Birb evolved into Swellow after the fight, and I got the dowsing machine, which allows me to find hidden stuff. Now, I can make my way to Mauville city.
Once there, I go to the mart to get Charge Beam. Its a Special move, meaning it does non-physical damage, and will likely be the better Special move for Volt since Spark is not great, and it's a physical type move. Secondly, I can’t get thunder or thunderbolt until much later in the game. Also, since Birb is super affected by all Electric Type moves, I go ahead and box her for now, and replace her with Shush the Whismur for now. Thinking that if I need to, I can use her as a pivot. (Pivot is where you put a pokemon in to take a hit so you can heal another pokemon, or to force a specific move to be used so that you can gain the advantage.
Off to the Gym now. I have to face Wally, our second rival for the first time here. All he has is the Ralts he captured much earlier and its a super easy fight. Ralts is extremely weak and is actually underleveled compared to many other pokemon in the area. NOW its the gym. It was easy to go through and clear out the Gym with Mud Bomb (Replaced Mud Shot since it did more damage). Healed up just to not have to use items to get some Power Points back, and went for it.
Leading with Squirt, since he is ground type, he is immune to Electric attacks. Even though he was water typing. The first pokemon was Mangemite. A Mud Bomb nearly killed it, but because of sturdy, it survived. So after being healed by a Super potion, I used Water Gun to break sturdy, and then killed it with a second Mud Bomb. Next was Magneton. Decided it was better to use Water gun first to break sturdy if it had it, and then Go for Mud Bomb. I got hit by supersonic which made Squirt confused, but each time I attacked with Mud Bomb he didn’t hit himself and killed Magneton, as well as the Voltorb right after. Winning the battle.
After getting the badge and the T M for Volt Switch. Likely one of the best moves for Nuzlockes. It attacks the opponent, but then allows you to switch to a new pokemon for free right after. I put it on Volt and now, head out to grind a little more for the next fights leading me on some new Story Beats. Going over to Route 117, The pokemon in the grass are not all that great. So I opt to use the Old Rod I got earlier to get a Water pokemon. Something maybe for coverage or just to have as a backup later on. Catching a Female Goldeen that later evolves into Seaking is okay. Not what I wanted though. Naming it “Queen” and throwing it into the box.
Going to Route 111, I stay away from all of the grass and avoid any kind of conflict. Reason being is that later on you can get Goggles that allow you to go into the Desert area that has a bunch of ground and rock type pokemon. It will be great to get one there for coverage and there are a couple pokemon there that might be useful.
On this route, there is the Winstrate Family house. A place where you face four trainers all in a row. While normally I would be perfectly fine facing them off, it's a little more difficult here. No chance to heal other than in battle. So since I know that two of them have grass type pokemon and the grandma has a Meditite, I lead with Birb since she will likely be able to take it on herself. I just need to be careful.
First fight is against dad. Taillow was done with one Aerial Ace, and Zigzagoon needed two because Birb got hit with Baby-Doll eyes. (Reduces Attack by two stages). Second fight is against mom who has Rosellia. A single Aerial Ace was all that was needed to defeat her. Third fight is the daughter. Goldeen required two Aerial Aces, but Birb hit herself when being confused by Supersonic. Shroomish was destroyed by another Aerial Ace. Nummel was hit once with Steel Wing, Breaking confusion, and then a second time with Aerial Ace again. Final fight? Grandma. She has a Meditite who is pretty powerful. However, it went down with one final Aerial Ace. A weight was lifted from my chest as I was worried that one or two of them may be faster or that Birb would hit herself in confusion too much and force me to switch. However that didn’t happen.
There were some other trainers on the way there, but nothing too eventful. However, I did get Ninja to Evolve. The cool thing about Nincada is that when it evolves, and you have an open spot on the team as well as an extra pokeball, you get not just Ninjask, but also Shedinja. Ninjask is great because its speedy and gets the trait Speed Boost. So every turn at the end of the turn, it gets faster. Later on you can use that with Baton pass to hand those stats off to a different pokemon for easier sweeps. However, Shedinja is a little different. It only has one HP point, but the ability Wonder Guard. The pokemon can only be hit with Super Effective moves. Meaning if you have the right set up, Shedinja could quite literally, not be hit by specific pokemon. Thus, it can only be hit by Status conditions, Terrain or weather conditions, or moves that align with Dark, Fire, Ghost, Rock and Flying type moves. All other moves cannot hit it.
For this playthrough, I am going to keep Shedinja and box Ninjask for now. Shedinja will be really great come Endgame where he can be used as a pivot so then I can heal pokemon in battle, or to prevent pokemon of mine from dying and just do Chip Damage on them.
Now that we have a full team and all set, for the time being, We are going to make our way to Mount Chimney since both our Rival Brendan, and some Team Magma grunts told us that Falabor town is where they were headed next.
So I will see you there next time as well!
Now, going to slateport, I heal up before I head over to the Shipyard. You learn that the guy you need to meet is at the Slateport museum, so now we head over there. Inside, we can talk to a Grunt who gives us the T M for Theif, which will be useful later on. And we now can go speak to the Foreman. However, we get stopped by two Magma Grunts. We have to face them in a row without being able to heal after the first one. So, since I know both of them will either have Nummle or Zubat, I lead with Squirt that way I get type advantage.
First fight, the Grunt has a nummel. Mud Shot takes it down in one hit. Second fight, He starts with a Zubat. Unfortunately, he used Supersonic. A move that causes confusion. After two rounds of hitting myself and my first Rock Tomb Missing, I was low enough health that if I hit myself again, and a Wing Attack crit would have killed Squirt. Switching out for Birb, He took two hits while dealing his own Damage with Wing Attack. But since the second hit was a Crit as well, he was super low health, however, Zubat was taken down. Next came out a Second Nummel. Since it was full health and my Birb was at low health, and I didn’t know if it had a move that could really hurt Squirt, I opted to use Percival. Two bites later, and I won the fight.
After giving the package to the Foreman, I can now make my way to Mauville City. The Third Gym. Before I can do that though, I remember that I have a Rival fight under the Cycling bridge. Since she has a Treeko, that will now be a Grovile, She will fill out her team to also have a Slugma, and a Wailmer. Slugma should be easy and Wailmer would be okay with Squirt. However, as soon as Grovile comes out, I plan on changing to either Birb, or Percival to take it out.
BUT! Before I can leave the city, I forgot that there is a cutscene where I have to interact with a girl who does the Beauty contests in the game. I won’t be playing them, but trust me, its a waste of five minutes of my time before I can get back on the road. While I could get a Pikachu here that has “outfits” that would give it special moves, It can’t evolve, and Pikachu is not a great pokemon. Plus, there is a chance to get other electric Type pokemon that are way better than it.
On the way there, I fight some trainers to evolve Percival into Mightyena. On that route, I also found an Electrike. Catching it and naming it Volt. Considering its an Electric Type, and Hoen region is known for its wealth of Water and Flying type pokemon, He is a good addition to the team. Sadly, She has the trait Static. So while physical hits can cause Paralysis, I was hoping to get Lightning Rod for Watson’s Gym.
Now, onto the rival battle. Finally. I had forgotten to start out with Squirt, and I realized this as soon as I started to talk to Brendan. So I had to start with Percival instead. Thinking it over, since Slugma was out first, I went ahead and howled twice to get an attack boost, and then took out Slugma with two bites while only being hit by Incinerate once. Grovile came out next. Hitting it with Fire Fang, It OH-KOed, (One hit Knockout) with a crit!. I thought the worst was over. So hitting the Wailmer with two bites ended the fight. Birb evolved into Swellow after the fight, and I got the dowsing machine, which allows me to find hidden stuff. Now, I can make my way to Mauville city.
Once there, I go to the mart to get Charge Beam. Its a Special move, meaning it does non-physical damage, and will likely be the better Special move for Volt since Spark is not great, and it's a physical type move. Secondly, I can’t get thunder or thunderbolt until much later in the game. Also, since Birb is super affected by all Electric Type moves, I go ahead and box her for now, and replace her with Shush the Whismur for now. Thinking that if I need to, I can use her as a pivot. (Pivot is where you put a pokemon in to take a hit so you can heal another pokemon, or to force a specific move to be used so that you can gain the advantage.
Off to the Gym now. I have to face Wally, our second rival for the first time here. All he has is the Ralts he captured much earlier and its a super easy fight. Ralts is extremely weak and is actually underleveled compared to many other pokemon in the area. NOW its the gym. It was easy to go through and clear out the Gym with Mud Bomb (Replaced Mud Shot since it did more damage). Healed up just to not have to use items to get some Power Points back, and went for it.
Leading with Squirt, since he is ground type, he is immune to Electric attacks. Even though he was water typing. The first pokemon was Mangemite. A Mud Bomb nearly killed it, but because of sturdy, it survived. So after being healed by a Super potion, I used Water Gun to break sturdy, and then killed it with a second Mud Bomb. Next was Magneton. Decided it was better to use Water gun first to break sturdy if it had it, and then Go for Mud Bomb. I got hit by supersonic which made Squirt confused, but each time I attacked with Mud Bomb he didn’t hit himself and killed Magneton, as well as the Voltorb right after. Winning the battle.
After getting the badge and the T M for Volt Switch. Likely one of the best moves for Nuzlockes. It attacks the opponent, but then allows you to switch to a new pokemon for free right after. I put it on Volt and now, head out to grind a little more for the next fights leading me on some new Story Beats. Going over to Route 117, The pokemon in the grass are not all that great. So I opt to use the Old Rod I got earlier to get a Water pokemon. Something maybe for coverage or just to have as a backup later on. Catching a Female Goldeen that later evolves into Seaking is okay. Not what I wanted though. Naming it “Queen” and throwing it into the box.
Going to Route 111, I stay away from all of the grass and avoid any kind of conflict. Reason being is that later on you can get Goggles that allow you to go into the Desert area that has a bunch of ground and rock type pokemon. It will be great to get one there for coverage and there are a couple pokemon there that might be useful.
On this route, there is the Winstrate Family house. A place where you face four trainers all in a row. While normally I would be perfectly fine facing them off, it's a little more difficult here. No chance to heal other than in battle. So since I know that two of them have grass type pokemon and the grandma has a Meditite, I lead with Birb since she will likely be able to take it on herself. I just need to be careful.
First fight is against dad. Taillow was done with one Aerial Ace, and Zigzagoon needed two because Birb got hit with Baby-Doll eyes. (Reduces Attack by two stages). Second fight is against mom who has Rosellia. A single Aerial Ace was all that was needed to defeat her. Third fight is the daughter. Goldeen required two Aerial Aces, but Birb hit herself when being confused by Supersonic. Shroomish was destroyed by another Aerial Ace. Nummel was hit once with Steel Wing, Breaking confusion, and then a second time with Aerial Ace again. Final fight? Grandma. She has a Meditite who is pretty powerful. However, it went down with one final Aerial Ace. A weight was lifted from my chest as I was worried that one or two of them may be faster or that Birb would hit herself in confusion too much and force me to switch. However that didn’t happen.
There were some other trainers on the way there, but nothing too eventful. However, I did get Ninja to Evolve. The cool thing about Nincada is that when it evolves, and you have an open spot on the team as well as an extra pokeball, you get not just Ninjask, but also Shedinja. Ninjask is great because its speedy and gets the trait Speed Boost. So every turn at the end of the turn, it gets faster. Later on you can use that with Baton pass to hand those stats off to a different pokemon for easier sweeps. However, Shedinja is a little different. It only has one HP point, but the ability Wonder Guard. The pokemon can only be hit with Super Effective moves. Meaning if you have the right set up, Shedinja could quite literally, not be hit by specific pokemon. Thus, it can only be hit by Status conditions, Terrain or weather conditions, or moves that align with Dark, Fire, Ghost, Rock and Flying type moves. All other moves cannot hit it.
For this playthrough, I am going to keep Shedinja and box Ninjask for now. Shedinja will be really great come Endgame where he can be used as a pivot so then I can heal pokemon in battle, or to prevent pokemon of mine from dying and just do Chip Damage on them.
Now that we have a full team and all set, for the time being, We are going to make our way to Mount Chimney since both our Rival Brendan, and some Team Magma grunts told us that Falabor town is where they were headed next.
So I will see you there next time as well!
