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 In December of 2000, Japan got to see their new mythical creatures fight on the big screen in 3D with the release of Pokemon Stadium: Gold and Silver. We would later receive this early 2001 released as Pokemon Stadium 2. If you're familiar with Pokemon Stadium (which Japan called Pokemon Stadium 2 as they had a...slightly more primitive prequel beforehand, though it did have some unique cups and fights exclusive to it!), this is essentially that but with Gen 2 mechanics, brutal difficulty and all. I'm FlamingRok, and we'll be completing at least Round 1 with only the rental Pokemon given by the game. I am considering Round 2, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Rental Pokemon? These are Pokemon given as options for those who don't have a cartridge to transfer Pokemon from, and are generally subpar (with exceptions we'll come across overtime) to just bad, whether it's stats, moves, or both. It's still possible to play the game with rentals, but it's very clear that you were encouraged to transfer your own team over. Alongside this, not all 251 Pokemon are offered, mainly the big boy legendary Pokemon are not available (Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-oh, and Celebi (this isn't entirely true, but it won't be relevant for a long time)). I also will be giving my thoughts on each of these rentals, and for Gen 1 Pokemon in specific, I'll talk about how they were back in Stadium 1 and say whether I think they're better, worse, different, and other general comments about them. Why are you qualified for this difficult game? I'm not. My competitive Pokemon experience is at a minimum. But I'm very stubborn and obsessive over stupid poo poo like this, so here we are. Audience Participation? At various points in the game (mostly early game, but there is later on where this once again will become viable), I will have polls up with teams I have ideas for that may make for fun updates. There will also be an additional option for any Pokemon you may want to see. Depending on the situation, I will likely be able to show off at least one Pokemon from that evolution line, if maybe not the exact Pokemon due to circumstances and how usable that rental is. If I am unable to use the exact Pokemon suggested but I am able to say something about a Pokemon in the same evolution line, I'll at least say why I don't think that specific Pokemon is viable. Spoiler Policies? Go nuts. This game is 20 years old, there's plenty of videos and information about the game available, whatever. Trying to constrain it all will just become awkward, so if you want to talk about something I haven't covered yet, sure thing. If something I plan on covering is mentioned in the thread, I'll still mention it in a update for a more cohesive playthrough. Format? Screenshot. It's Pokemon. If you really want to see the animations, as mentioned before there's plenty of videos online, I would not be adding anything by piling more onto the pool. Other Critiques are always welcome, both in terms of my gameplay, Gen 2, etc, but let's try and keep it a generally positive environment shall we? At the end of the day, this is a children's franchise that adults can also enjoy, we don't need to say how poo poo Pokemon is to other monster collecting games and whatnot. Going a little off the rails is fine, but let's keep it so we can still put the cart back on the track. FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 01:51
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| # ? May 17, 2024 11:37 |
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Reserved for later.
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Sep 30, 2021 01:51
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Update 1: It's getting primed for action! The first place we'll be going to will be the Gym Leader Castle, the "story mode" of Stadium 2, and the only other place we'll need to head to in order to complete the game is the very centre, which holds all the Stadium Cups. We'll cover which cups are in the stadium soon, but the other facilities are (in counter-clockwise order starting from the castle) the Pokemon Lab (used for storing Pokemon and items on Stadium 2), Home (to view your room from the cartridge games in 3D! Wow!), GB Tower (emulates the cartridge with unlockable speed options), Earl's Pokemon Academy (not only teaches battle mechanics via lessons, quizzes, and tests, but also gives you a full bulbapedia esque encyclopedia on Pokemon learnsets, move interactions, etc. We'll check this in a future bonus update!), Free Battle (lets you and your friends or a computer battle with chosen teams), and of course, the Minigames. So without further ado, let's go take on our first Gym Leader, shall we?  Little less sinister than what Stadium 1's Castle looked like, huh?  So because of the fact that there are now 251 Pokemon, they needed to add in easier ways to navigate to your favourite Pokemon you want to use, so now there's three sorting options; Alphabetical, Old Pokedex, and the Pokedex no one uses (New Pokedex)! It's a nice quality of life feature, as well as a C-Button scroll bar since there are quite a few more Pokemon than before.  Voltorb is interesting compared to Stadium 1 Rentals. It has the lower accuracy of Thunder, but in return gets Rain Dance to ensure those Thunders will hit, Self-Destruct which is actually stronger than Gen 1’s Explosion, and Mirror Coat, a move that lets it gimmick past special mons and then explode. I’d say Voltorb in Stadium 2 is better than in Stadium 1, but the lower accuracy of Thunder does hurt if it isn’t given the opportunity to set up Rain Dance.  Qwilfish gets two STAB moves! That’s better than most rentals, and to compensate for its lower Special Attack it knows Hydro Pump. Sludge Bomb off of 126 Attack is extremely strong, and if you’re relying on luck, Minimize is fine too! It’s odd to think that Qwilfish is one of the better rentals in the game, but here we are.  Jigglypuff technically has a better moveset in Stadium 1...but Psychic on a Pokemon with 53 Special isn’t going to accomplish a single thing. Of course, that’s not to say Defense Curl+Rollout is enough to make up for Jigglypuff’s awful damage output, because it really isn’t. The two are comparable to each other; pretty bad. At least Body Slam paralysis is good and it’s somewhat bulky!  Gastly is comparable to Stadium 1 as it is in Stadium 2: it hits harder with Psychic and technically has an option for Psychic types with Shadow Ball. It’s a shame Shadow Ball is Physical, and instead of Explosion, it gets Curse, which on something as frail as Gastly isn’t great as the opponent can just swap out. Still, the upsides are hard to ignore.  Forretress...man I wish I had more positive to say. Its defense is insane, it’s a very rare user of Spikes, and since Sandstorm deals 1/8th of max HP in Gen 2, it could be believed it’s useful as a staller. Against certain teams it might be enough with Rollout growing in power and Strength as an...okay neutral move? Unfortunately most Fire types to threaten with Rollout are faster and will OHKO, and Strength is fine but nothing exceptional.  Koffing loses coverage in exchange for Sludge Bomb, so it’s immediately more useful as it kept the move it cared about in Fire Blast. Toxic is good for Pokemon it knows it can’t take out quickly, and Explosion off of this beast will hurt. There’s just no contest: Koffing in Stadium 2 is much better than in Stadium 1, and that’s without factoring in the better stats between the latter to the former. And with that, Team Orb is ready to roll! In addition, we're allowed to equip items to Pokemon now since this is using Gen 2 mechanics. I'll be doing that next update, but for this update, itemless will be fine.   A cute little touch is that they give each trainer an opening quote. Matt's team isn't anything super impressive to write about, but it is our first battle, so it'll be expanded on a bit more. I decide on bringing Gastly, Qwilfish, and Koffing, if only because sweeping the first trainer with Voltorb wouldn't exactly be interesting. Just like in Stadium 1, despite bringing a full team of 6, you only choose 3 Pokemon to battle with.   Luckily for me, they decided to lead Natu. This would potentially be threatening...if it's only damaging move wasn't Peck.  Shadow Ball off of Gastly's pitiful Attack isn't great...  ...but it does more than enough to Natu, especially compared to Peck's damage.  Out comes Spearow next, which has a slightly better chance of being a threat at least. I attempt to confuse it to buy me some time.   It of course not only doesn't work out for me, it even potentially backfires on me! Wonderful.  I decide "gently caress this" and luckily break through confusion to Curse.  Good to see my Confuse Ray did absolutely nothing, and now Spearow's actually decently strong. +1 Attack could definitely put the hurt on my team!   It's a real shame between Curse and Psychic, Spearow can't really pull off anything, especially when its only other move that can try and hurt me is Fly.   Can't fly away from a curse.  Pidgey manages to tank a Psychic decently for being a Pidgey, before taking off into the skies.  Thanks to Gastly's paper thin Defense, it finally goes down.  Shame Pidgey can do nothing more but tickle Koffing.  It valiantly pulls off a Quick Attack before Sludge Bomb finishes it off.  For the record, Voltorb would've finished this in about four turns, but I wanted to have some fun before Falkner.  Yeah, "raised". Each trainer also has a post-battle quote, whether they won or lost, and a unique one if you decide to forfeit the match! There's technically quotes for a "draw" but there are no conditions that can actually trigger one, and even if that condition were to be met, it'd count as a loss for the player.    Falkner on the other hand has a much more formidable team of birds. Fearow is a powerhouse, Togetic has an impressive amount of coverage, and Noctowl is pretty bulky. Fortunately, Pidgeot is guaranteed to come to this fight, so I won't ever need to take on all three of these threats at once. I bring Voltorb, Forretress, and Jigglypuff. If Togetic doesn't come to party, Forretress can effectively wall out anything else Falkner has, and when else am I going to use Jigglypuff?   Ah, Fearow. Well to be honest, since we were leading Voltorb, it didn't matter what Falkner led with. And it's very important it was Voltorb who came along.  Why you may ask?   Oh, no reason. Other than Mud-Slap otherwise being very obnoxious to deal with. But remember when I said that Thunder in the rain ignores Thunder's accuracy?  That includes stat drops. It just becomes a never missing 120 power Electric move. Luckily for me, Fearow was taken out in one hit, which is actually a range!  Noctowl isn't exactly strong, but it's certainly bulky. Bulky enough that there's a chance to survive two Thunders and tell the tale in fact.  That won't be the case this time. Unfortunately, the paralysis didn't come into effect for me, so Noctowl gets to tack on another Mud-Slap.  One more is enough to seal the deal. All that's left is Pidgeot.  So how did I know Pidgeot would be last, or even coming to the fight at all? All Gym Leaders, E4 and Champion have a signature Pokemon that they're guaranteed to bring to the fight, and in Falkner's case, it's Pidgeot. Sometimes this changes between Round 1 and 2, but for now, Falkner will always bring Pidgeot, even if he doesn't lead with it. This is extremely good knowledge to have against future major fights for reasons you might be able to guess.  Anyways, one more Thunder drops down, but now unfortunately the rain has died down, so those Mud-Slaps will finally catch up to us. After taking a Mud-Slap and Quick Attack, I go for it...  ...and as expected, Voltorb can't quite complete the sweep. Turns out Thunder with -3 Accuracy on top of a base 70% accuracy are pretty bad odds!  Pidgeot ensures we won't get another chance with one more Quick Attack.  Well all Jigglypuff needs to do now is hit one Body Slam and we've won, so I feel confident in doing just that-   Rude.  Ruder.   Rudest.  Pidgeot flew up into the sky again so I decide I should at least set up a Defense Curl while I can't do anything  Third time's the charm, and Jigglypuff is able to seal the deal.  To be completely honest, we were never really in danger once Voltorb did most of the heavy lifting, as Forretress would've ensured Pidgeot lost with Sandstorm. There wasn't really any risk in sending in Jigglypuff either though, so why not let the puffball have some time in the spotlight?  And with that, there's our first badge! And with that, I've got a poll voting onto whether we should continue Gym Leader Castle or Visit the Stadium, alongside a number of teams I can bring to either option. In that poll also is a form in case you want to see a Pokemon represented! We're early game, we have flexibility at the moment. FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 01:55
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Oh poo poo, rental only in this one? You absolute madperson.
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Sep 30, 2021 02:07
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Could you make the screenshots a reasonable size instead of thumbnailing them? It's annoying to need to click every single one.
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Sep 30, 2021 02:12
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I was hoping to eliminate problems in sandcastle, thank you for pointing it out this early in the thread at the very least however! I'll get it updated within the next six hours-ish. EDIT: done and done, will make certain the images are scaled correctly for future updates! FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Sep 30, 2021 |
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Sep 30, 2021 02:16
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Oh man, rentals only is insane. Looking forward to seeing how you can possibly do this.
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Sep 30, 2021 02:22
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I tried literally this exact challenge as an LP in Stadium 1 and burnt out almost immediately, so I'm extremely interested in how 2's gonna be better or worse.  FlamingRok posted:I was hoping to eliminate problems in sandcastle, thank you for pointing it out this early in the thread at the very least however! I'll get it updated within the next six hours-ish.
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Sep 30, 2021 02:52
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I have many stupid ideas for this LP. They will work whether the game wants them to or not.girl dick energy posted:Yeah, we're here specifically for these images, you don't need to TIMG them. Perfect and thanks Cythereal and girl dick energy, better to nip these problems early rather than when we're at updates which will require more than 60 images!
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Sep 30, 2021 03:10
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You're completely and absolutely insane. I'm all in for this. Hope the RNG is on your side because the movesets sure won't be.
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Sep 30, 2021 04:11
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girl dick energy posted:I tried literally this exact challenge as an LP in Stadium 1 and burnt out almost immediately, so I'm extremely interested in how 2's gonna be better or worse. It's like that, but the rentals are worse. So, so much worse.
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Sep 30, 2021 04:38
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Good loving luck. Rentals in this game are somehow worse than In Stadium 1 and that's saying something. The father I've ever gotten with just rentals was Claire but I was 7 years old and the height of my strategy was type advantage good.
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Sep 30, 2021 05:23
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Is there going to be any multiplayer (vs) with rentals in this thread? I can remember that being some of the most fun I've had with an N64.
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Sep 30, 2021 15:31
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Currently not planned, I definitely want to finish a few of the cups and gym leaders before I think about the extra content (outside of the previously mentioned Earl's Pokemon Academy). I won't rule it out in the future though, as soon as I figure out how I'd do that in a screenshot LP, or just say screw it and do a video for it instead.
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Sep 30, 2021 16:09
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Update 2: Overconfidence here could be disastrous! It seems everyone wants to continue onwards in the Gym Leader Castle, and the majority want me to teach Bugsy how to use bugs properly!  So without further ado, let's get straight into it.  Ariados has a moveset that is potentially very infuriating, but its stats are usually a huge letdown. It’s one of the only Pokemon I can say where every single one of its four moves are good! Toxic+Protect I shouldn’t have to explain, Spider Web is great for sustaining the former, and Sludge Bomb is a good STAB move. If it had more bulk, speed, attack, something, this Pokemon would probably be a real threat. As it is right now, it’s one of the better stall Pokemon, but it’s still pretty mediocre.  Beedrill...well it has two usable STAB options! ...okay yeah I can’t pretend to play up Beedrill. It’s not great. STAB Sludge Bomb is always good of course, and Twinneedle is an okay move for dealing with Psychic types? Assuming they don’t outspeed, which most do, and you also live the hit, which you probably won’t. It uh, definitely improved since Stadium 1, but that’s not a high bar to clear.  Heracross is a gimmick, but one with a huge payout if you can play your cards right. It is close to useless until it reaches low HP, but once it does, Reversal is just that disgusting of a move where if Heracross is faster than the opposing Pokemon and they aren’t a Ghost or quad resisted, chances are you’ll deal heavy damage, possibly even OHKO. Admittedly in 3v3 fights as opposed to 6v6, it's not as gamebreaking, but it's still obscenely strong. It’s hard to enable Heracross, but if you can, you may just win the fight off of that alone.  Scyther has one move. It hits pretty hard with this one move mind you, but it has one move. Wing Attack off of 135 Attack is a hard hitting Wing Attack, but if it had any other usable moves, it’d be able to function much better. Swift is...okay? For evasion based teams? The whole 10(?) of them that exist in the game? If it wasn’t for being limited on options for a Bug based team, I’d probably pass up Scyther, but seeing how we’re in that scenario, it’ll see gametime here.  Shuckle's entire gameplan is to chip away slowly with Sandstorm and Sludge Bomb poison. Two problems arise from this however: Shuckle will always get hit first, and since rental Pokemon have worse stats overall, its massive base Defense and Special Defense are heavily underplayed, which is not a great pairing with its already pathetic HP. Shuckle isn't the worst rental just because it actually has a gameplan, which is more than some rentals can say, but I'd still advise against using it.  And I did say I'd equip items from here on out, so here we go. We have access to every basic berry...except PSNCureBerry, which cures poison. What a curious exclusion, I bet nothing in the game will abuse this fact! Most of the berries are obvious on what they do, but PRZCureBerry cures paralysis, Burnt Berry thaws freeze, Ice Berry cures burn, Bitter Berry snaps out of confusion, Mint Berry wakes up, and Berry cures 10HP.  Admittedly for this gym, most of these berries won't do anything, but I figured let's have them equipped anyways. These berries will matter eventually, just maybe not on this team.   I suppose I'll find out soon Chaz, huh? I decide to bring Scyther, Heracross, and Ariados, as Scyther can deal with almost anything on the team, and Heracross covers the things Scyther can't. Ariados is if things go horribly wrong somehow and I need to Toxic stall something out.   Probably one of the stronger Pokemon on his team, Rattata is packing Hyper Fang, which can dent us-  ...or not. He's most likely swapping to either Shuckle or Geodude to take this Wing Attack easier.   Yeah that's about right. Shuckle may be weak, but Rollout is still quad effective against Scyther.   And frankly I don't want to deal with that.  Heracross barely cares about Rollout, but surely Heracross can't do much back either, right?   Under normal circumstances, this is accurate, but thanks to Shuckle's pitiful HP, Counter ruins its day, while Heracross barely pays anything.   We don't have that much HP lost, but Reversal is able to do at least 10HP worth of damage.  Heracross can't do anything to Yanma, but at this point, we know their entire team.    And so Scyther cleans up the rest of the team.  Not the most riveting fight, but Shuckle did force us to switch from Scyther once, so credit where it's due I suppose?   Which is a lot more than can be said for Min and Lyn. We bring Beedrill, Forretress, and I legitimately forgot who I brought last. There's a reason I forgot, it's because this fight is very uninteresting.    Beedrill deals heavy damage to anything on their team, and has a 30% chance of poisoning for even more damage. Everything is physically frail, but they have a way to try and patch that up.  Their gimmick is Charm, which lowers Attack. There's a problem with this strategy, and it's that every Pokemon but one is slower than Beedrill, meaning they have to take a full power Sludge Bomb before weakening it later. And even if I don't use Beedrill, Forretress can build up Rollout faster than the Charm takes effect, or just Sandstorm and chip. Now the one standout Pokemon on their team is Pikachu. It's the only one with any Speed, carries Thunder Wave for paralysis, and is even holding a Light Ball! Sure it's only boosting Thundershock, but that's still a near Mewtwo strength Thundershock. It can certainly put a dent in our team!    They didn't bring Pikachu. The most damage I took was from hitting myself in confusion from Supersonic.    I'm not gonna lie, if Pupitar comes to the fight, it's an uphill battle the whole way through. The problem is that Heracross is the best answer, but if Pupitar doesn't come along, it's mostly dead weight, so I'd be going in 2v3, and all of Bugsy's Pokemon are dangerous to this team to an extent, with the exception probably being Weepinbell. I decide on Scyther, Forretress, and Shuckle. Scyther is effective against most of Bugsy's team, Forretress can effectively resist all of Bugsy's team, and Shuckle is there to maybe gimmick my way out of a bad situation. C'mon, no Pupitar!   poo poo, we've got a problem.  I absolutely need to swap to Forretress here, as its the only member of my team that can actually take hits from Pupitar well.  ...unless that happens. I have to roll with the punches though, and start up a Rollout. If it builds up long enough, it might just be enough to overpower Pupitar.   Oooooor Bugsy could just sacrifice Scyther. Okay, sure.   It chunks a bit of HP off of Forretress, before getting completely flattened.  That still leaves us with the real problem, and with less HP than I'd like to be at.   That rollout did a lot less than I was hoping, but that does prove if it wasn't for that crit, we'd be in a slightly better situation.   Forretress can't take another Rock Slide and goes down, so it's time for Shuckle. This'll require a bit of luck, but Shuckle can survive two Rock Slides. If I can get a Bide off, it can chunk Pupitar pretty well, and maybe give Scyther a chance to-    After another Rock Slide for Shuckle and one more for Scyther, there was only one way that this was going to end.  Piss off, the bugs were not why you won. Admittedly, maybe relying on Shuckle was too optimistic or just plain stupid. Alright, let's try another angle: being at a 2v3 disadvantage isn't good, but it's better than being stonewalled by one Pokemon. We're sidelining Shuckle in favor for Heracross, and we'll lead with it too. Attempt 2   So since Bugsy is guaranteed to bring Scyther, I try and get the read on Bugsy, who I believe is trying to bring Scyther for a OHKO on Heracross.     My gamble paid off. And Bugsy won't swap back to Pupitar, since he sees Scyther's Wing Attack still being effective against Forretress.   And we've seen how this matchup goes before.  One threat down, but it's not the big one.  I need a safe swap to Heracross, so I may as well leave Forretress in until it goes down. I prepare to eat a Rock Slide...  ...or that can happen. Building up more Rollout damage would be beneficial!  Alright, so dead turn. I think of what is the most useful thing Forretress can do now, since Rollout is now weak again.   If the last Pokemon in the back is anything but Butterfree, the chip damage from Spikes might just be enough to give us an edge.   As expected, Strength does nothing more but chip damage, and Forretress goes down. We bring Heracross and go for the Counter, in case Pupitar goes for-   poo poo. This is now a very awkward position to be in. Since I used Counter, I have no idea whether Butterfree will go for Gust or Psychic. If it goes for the latter, we have absolutely no way of taking out both Butterfree and Pupitar.   Not wanting to leave this to a 50/50 chance, I swap to Scyther to tank whatever Butterfree throws at us.  I guessed wrong, but that's okay. Well, kind of.    We force in Pupitar, and it takes Spikes damage, which was not the original plan, but I'm all for it. However, we absolutely cannot risk any damage onto Heracross.  In the end, I dent Pupitar just a little more, and have Rock Slide take-  Well alright, not going to complain about that!   The next one takes us out, but that additional chip might be handy. We bring back Heracross, and hope Pupitar still is deathly afraid of Heracross.   Perfect. We just went for Reversal so that I don't have to gamble on the AI recognizing Counter and playing around it.  We take heavy damage from Gust...   But if it's heavy damage for us, it's even worse for Butterfree.   At this point, I don't have to stress about the battle anymore. Pupitar takes even more damage from Spikes, and Heracross breaks it apart, being faster than the sentient rock.   gently caress that Pupitar.  Keeping this for later. There are other bugs I could've used over Shuckle or Ariados. I could've used Parasect and Venomoth, which both have more apparent traits to them. However, seeing that we are in Gen 2, I figured I should give them some representation. Hey, I never said good representation. No poll this time, we're sticking in Gym Leader Castle however. I think I have a fun team planned. And someone requested Bayleef to be used, so sure, I'll fit it in a future team. Next Time: Let's give Ariados another shot. FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 2, 2021 00:45
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Bugsy's losing headshot is amazing.
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Oct 2, 2021 03:15
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Update 3: That Pokemon Can't be Switched! Welcome back to Stadium 2. Last update, I said we'd give Ariados another chance, so let's get into that shall we? But before then, let's introduce the other members of the team.  Cleffa as you may expect, does not have the stats to really support itself. However, it does get access to one move that keeps it relevant for rentals; Encore. Encore locks an opponent into a specific move for anywhere between 2-5 turns. Cleffa doesn't have the speed necessary to fully take advantage of this, but it very barely has enough bulk to attempt it. The biggest problem Cleffa has is that it's completely outclassed by Clefable, as Clefable also gets Encore and has the bulk Cleffa wishes for, but in this team, Cleffa can bring much needed support.  Elekid gets to compete with Pikachu for a Thunderbolt user, also known as not needing to run Rain Dance or relying on a 70% accurate move! Luckily for Elekid, it will win this battle most times, thanks to its better Special Attack and moveset. It is technically slower...by one entire point in Speed. Of course, both Pikachu and Elekid faint at the slightest thought of a Ground move, but the thought of setting up a Light Screen before going down can be attractive. Similarly to Cleffa though not quite to the same degree, the problem is that Electabuzz is very much usable, is faster, and while it may be rocking a weaker Electric move, it has stats to back itself up, ThunderPunch isn't terrible, and it still keeps Light Screen.  Houndour has an incredible moveset and honestly a great Special Attack make Houndour actually worthwhile comparatively to most unevolved Pokemon! It’s still hyper frail, and it’s by no means an offensive juggernaut, but STAB Flamethrower and Crunch will do work, and if you are somehow in an advantageous enough position to set up the sun, Flamethrower does pretty disgusting damage. Of course later on it’d be outclassed pretty heavily, but right now it can put in work.  Pineco has some great physical bulk, I'll give it that. If you're using Pineco however, you probably noticed one move in particular; Explosion. It's not the strongest Explosion you're allowed in rentals, that honor belongs to Koffing, but Pineco has less common weaknesses in return, and can also in theory lay down Spikes if it can somehow survive two hits. You will very commonly use Pineco to Explode, but I suppose Giga Drain is still a good trait.  Diglett dies if you look at it wrong, but its Speed is great, and its Attack isn't abysmal. If Diglett had coverage, it'd probably even be good! As it is right now, it's okay but will likely only get one hit off, or if you want to gamble, can try and Fissure a grounded opponent before they get the jump on it. Or if you want a "safer swap", a free Sand-Attack can be nice. Diglett is okay, nothing more.  And these are the items I decided on, only the items on Ariados and Diglett I thought about to be honest. Paralysis ruins Ariados's gameplan, and Diglett has such pathetic HP that a Berry might actually matter.   Yeah Ariados is pretty cute. Speaking of, we lead Ariados, and bring Pineco and Elekid in the back. Let's start to show what Ariados can actually do, shall we?    Meowth does about nothing with Fury Swipes, but we on the other hand...   Decide to be extremely annoying. This was not the original gameplan, but I'll take it all the same.   We actually get a double Protect off, not allowing Meowth to play the game at all.  Phanpy is probably the most threatening Pokemon on her team. It's decently strong on the Physical side, and our team isn't really prepared to deal with it using raw power.  So of course we're not going to rely on raw power.  Earthquake does hurt quite bad, but at this point, the plan is already in motion.   We ensure our plan succeeds by keeping Phanpy in against Ariados.  But Phanpy proves my previous point on it being physically capable of ruining our team with Double-Edge.   We get one Protect off, and go for the double, but we can't quite get it off unfortunately.  Luckily, Pineco is here to save the day.  The first turn of Rollout does about nothing...  And Pineco's Giga Drain is able to take out Phanpy finally.  Out comes Snubbull, but seeing our 2v1 advantage...  There was only one way this was going to end.   If I want to finish this LP before 2023, I think I do in fact have to "be this mean".   So remember how Bugsy's Gym had a trainer who used Charm?   Well good news!  This is even worse with Attract being the move choice. A flat 60% chance of us just not being allowed to play the game.   I luckily got the Toxic off turn 1, and proceed to say "no thank you".  I bring Houndour, hoping it's faster than Ponyta.  It's not.  It luckily breaks through with a strong Crunch, which certainly makes my life easier.  I can't repeat it however with Ponyta using Stomp, leading to essentially a horn drill for me to act at all.   Knowing Ponyta's going for Stomp and that Ariados has enough Defense to tank it, I go for exactly that.   And a serious problem with my team starts to be revealed: every Pokemon is male. In Gen 2, gender is based off of the Attack stat, and since I'm using mostly unevolved Pokemon, their stats are better, therefore more likely to be male. Seeing as the Attract trainer brought exclusively female Pokemon thus far, we get the roll the dice constantly just to be able to play the game. Gender ratios are different from each Pokemon, but essentially this is how it works: if your Attack is low, it's female, if it's high, it's male. It's most noticeable on Pokemon with a 50/50 split on being male or female.  Aipom can do some damage to us...   But Sludge Bomb is a guaranteed 2HKO, so I don't have too much to worry about. Even if I got unlucky with attraction, Elekid outspeeds, so I wouldn't be in too much danger.   Which might be a spoiler for how the rest of this fight goes.   Thanks for playing Rita.    What a squad to go against! Clefable and Wigglytuff's coverage is insane, Dodrio is just a really hard hitter, and even Stantler can put some hurt on teams! Ironically, Miltank is one of the easier Pokemon to deal with, and luckily, Whitney will bring it. The question is will she lead with it?   poo poo. This is the worst case scenario, as I brought Ariados, Cleffa, and Houndour, having no safe swaps whatsoever.   I swap into Cleffa, hoping it can tank whatever Dodrio is throwing at it well enough.  It didn't.  My only hope is for Houndour to get a burn onto Dodrio and from there, our chances of winning are still slim, but just maybe we can-  Well okay (we got paralysed off of Tri Attack and we didn't get a burn. I didn't screenshot at the proper time). I'm not that smart, but I'm also not that stupid to see that we have a chance anymore.  I hope this'll be the only forfeit quote we see, but seeing how this is Stadium 2? I dunno about that. Anyways... Attempt 2 (actually this is a lie, this is actually attempt 4)   Good, a matchup I can work with.   Sure Miltank will just Rollout, which Ariados doesn't exactly appreciate...  But a) getting a Toxic off is extremely valuable.   And b) it has a way to mitigate Rollout.  Now I obviously can't continue to spam Protect, since the chances of it working decrease when using it constantly.  But luckily, one of my dead turns need to trap Miltank anyways.  And another one of them can Sludge Bomb, since 30 damage isn't really that threatening.   From there, another Protect is more than enough to take down the cow.  So this Clefable.   Let's just keep it simple and say it's capable of a lot.  Luckily this time around, Cleffa is able to do what it does best.  Sure, it takes a huge amount of damage from Fire Blast...  But it gets the Encore off.   This allows Houndour to swap in pretty freely. Well, I say freely, but Fire Blast still hits pretty hard, so Houndour isn't completely safe-  Or that can happen.  And that can happen too!! The additional chip damage is certainly appreciated!   What.   Finally Clefable hits a Fire Blast, but at this point it's too late.  And the Pokemon that is the least threatening shows up last.  Sure it lives a Flamethrower...  But it can't do anything in return.   No prizes on guessing what happens next.  This fight was mainly rough thanks to using underpowered Pokemon. If you really want to cheese this fight, Skarmory, Donphan and Starmie can do some incredible work. I did however want to show off Ariados's qualities, and Bugsy sure as hell was not the place to do so. That being said, we'll be taking a small break from the Gym Leader Castle to check out the Stadiums. That doesn't mean you don't have an input however, as this poll can let you directly influence how bad, how easy, how something, this detour will be! Blaze Dragon posted:Bugsy's losing headshot is amazing. "I was just unlucky." FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 21:41
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Oh wow, I didn't even know trainers in this game had quotes for you surrendering. I'm impressed at just how much effort went into it.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:00
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This image is png because it's a quick clip but I want to address it: I'll certainly try to use all the babies, but they're going to stop being viable very soon. Some in fact, are always unviable, even with their inherently lower stats. Some are niche but useful like Elekid, and some...  ...some are Tyrogue.
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Oct 5, 2021 05:52
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I briefly forgot that Abilities weren't a thing yet in Gen 2 and started laughing when you switched Houndour into the Fire Blast, then I remembered "oh wait, he doesn't get a powerup because Flash Fire doesn't exist yet" Still doesn't hurt, though.
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Oct 5, 2021 06:03
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FlamingRok posted:
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Oct 5, 2021 15:06
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girl dick energy posted:I think you mean 'get it in on something slow, then spam double team and pray.' Evasion-boosting is busted enough to make almost anything viable. So while that might true, every single other evasion booster is more useful than Tyrogue, as they can deal approximately double/triple the amount of damage as Tyrogue can overtime.   And these are just some of the examples that have Double Team. And most Pokemon will not be slower than Tyrogue, and even if they are, they have a usable STAB move. It may have Attract, but as the aforementioned Attack stat determines Gender and the AI has many male Pokemon thanks to having better stats, that point usually doesn't matter as much as it should. A side update is probably coming later today, I do want to talk about Earl's Pokemon Academy after all.
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Oct 5, 2021 19:47
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God, that poor fucker is outclassed by Delibird.
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Oct 5, 2021 21:23
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Side Update 1: They're Eyeing Each Other Warily Welcome to a shorter side update today. Today, we'll be checking part of Earl's Pokemon Academy.   There are two sides to this facility: one has lessons and practice exams...  And one is a mostly complete encyclopedia of what Pokemon can learn, what type they are, what Egg Groups they belong to, and all the items in both Gen 1 and Gen 2. It's essentially a younger Bulbapedia. This is where we'll be for this update, though we will check out the lessons in a future update.   We'll look at the information in the "Pokemon" section first. You can either look in alphabetical order...   ...or by typing. It doesn't matter which one you use, but I personally will be using alphabetical.  And we'll be looking at Gligar first. Maybe an odd choice, but I chose Gligar first for a reason.  It has a lot of resistances and some weaknesses, showing off a good number of emoticons signifying how Gligar handles certain types...  And maybe more curiously, there seems to be a lack of information, specifically regarding its debut generation. Well, sort of. The game is more than willing to tell you Wing Attack is an Egg Move, which you can only get through breeding, which can only be done in Gen 2. For a more meaningful example, we'll need to have completed all the lessons.   So one quick trip later, we're finally allowed to see Gold and Silver information! Now it's not very meaningful for Gligar...  But say for Hitmonlee, it wouldn't have told us what level Hitmonlee could learn Reversal at before, since it's a Gen 2 move.  And here are Hitmonlee's base stats for the curious. The colors might be a bit off to what you might be familiar with if you're into the competitive scene and use Smogon, but the bars essentially display the same information.  Not only that, we have a type chart too, which is always useful.  By hitting C-Left, we get all the moves responding to the row we're highlighting (highlighted red)...  And by hitting C-Up, we get all the Pokemon that are part of the highlighted type (highlighted blue)!  But that's not all! If the blue highlighter is covering a type which happens to have Pokemon with dual typing...  We even get access to the weaknesses and resistances that all those dual typed Pokemon may have!  And of course we're able to see which Pokemon actually are those types.   Let's also look at moves, which also give additional information if they have additional effects under certain conditions.  And finally, the game is even willing to spill the beans on Egg Groups, which let you get some good moves onto Pokemon who wouldn't learn them naturally! EDIT: HeyItsAyls posted:If you insert a copy of Crystal into the Transfer Pack it actually will unlock all the new additions made in Crystal! Next Time: Stadiums, but for real this time I swear girl dick energy posted:God, that poor fucker is outclassed by Delibird. They didn't really need to make Tyrogue this bad, but they did for some reason. Tyrogue was already awful (spoiler, I have this exact opinion about another Pokemon we'll see down the line). FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Oct 7, 2021 |
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Oct 6, 2021 00:53
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Earl's Pokemon Academy definitely was my first foray into more complicated Pokemon mechanics. It was an incredibly good way to learn for my younger self, both with the sheer amount of data here and with the simple to follow but quite interesting classes. It's definitely very well made, though I imagine it'd be a lot harder to use nowadays with how many more Pokemon and moves exist.
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Oct 6, 2021 01:01
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FlamingRok posted:Now sadly, what the academy lacks as you might've noticed is any information on Pokemon Crystal. There are some exclusive Egg Moves from there that are not documented here. If you insert a copy of Crystal into the Transfer Pack it actually will unlock all the new additions made in Crystal! I also believe Earl's Pokémon Academy is where the competitive scene discovered the whole 'In Gen 1, a Pokémon that shares a type with a move attacking them can't be inflicted by any secondary effects of that move' mechanic (the most famous being that Body Slam can't paralyse Normal Types). One of Earl's lectures just casually mentions it, someone posted a picture of it online going 'Wait, is this true!?' and several rounds of testing later turns out that it was.
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Oct 6, 2021 17:00
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Update 4: It Managed to Hang in There! With a title like that, we either won or lost through an incredible stroke of luck. This is appropriate, seeing as in fact our next team...  ...is a team with Pokemon that have inconsistent moves. If luck is on your side, this team can do great work. If it isn't, you won't be going anywhere with it.  But without getting too ahead of ourselves, let's cover the Stadium Cups proper.  So here, we have four cups, and the one we'll be taking on is the Poke Cup. The Poke Cup's ruleset doesn't allow the high level legendaries (Mewtwo, Mew, Lugia, Ho-oh, and Celebi), and allows a max combined level of 155 for Pokemon in each battle. Prime Cup is essentially the modern day "Anything Goes", and Challenge Cup is to an extent comparable to a "Random Battle", but there's various intricacies that set it apart. Little Cup is a ruleset many of you may have heard of: only Pokemon born from Eggs (or in future Gens where Pokemon hatch at Level 1, Level 5 only) are allowed in this tourney. It does not have many limitations outside of that, and trust me, we'll get to that. Boy oh howdy will we ever get to that  But for now, let's go to the Poke Cup, shall we? Prime and Little have only one difficulty to them, while Poke and Challenge have four. The latter is a bit of a misnomer however, as the "difficulty" really only translates to having stronger Pokemon. Oh and speaking of our wonderful "gambler team"...  Ampharos is the embodiment of unreliable, sporting both Zap Cannon and Dynamicpunch in its moveset! Oh, what’s that? You want a move that can actually hit? Enjoy Swift as your only other option then, with Ampharos’ mediocre Attack, or just Flash at the opponent, hoping they miss as much as you do. It’s just such a mess of a moveset, and I can’t recommend Ampharos unless you’re looking for a good goof.  Clefable is interesting in Stadium 2. It has both a worse Normal and Ice move, replacing Tri Attack and Ice Beam with Headbutt and Ice Punch, but in return it got Encore. Being able to lock the opponent into a favorable move for a few turns can be a huge help, and while Clefable isn’t fast enough to capitalize on it fully, it is bulky enough to still make some use of it. It’s certainly more reliable than a 55% accurate sleep move, that’s for certain.  Dugtrio’s whole shtick is to hit fast and hard...which is why its Ground move of choice is completely luck based in Magnitude, possibly completely negating Dugtrio’s one use. Well okay, it does have Slash, but it’s no longer an auto-crit like in Stadium 1, Curse is okay if you know you’ll still be faster afterwards, and Attract...if you like to try and win off of coin flips you sure can try! It’s rough having its STAB move be a roulette, but if you’re feeling lucky, maybe Dugtrio will work.  Kingler is rough in Stadium 2. Crabhammer no longer critting automatically means Kingler doesn’t have a good Water move, Vicegrip is awful in comparison to Strength, and uh, Bide and Guillotine are interchangeable in my mind. It is most certainly worse than it was before, but a physically defensive Water type is hard to come by, so I do still want it, even if it sucks a lot more than before.  Nidoking had STAB Earthquake in Stadium 1 and that was about it, but at least it’s something! Nidoking’s Ground move of choice this time is Mud-Slap, oh boy! It can attack on the Special side for decent damage in Thunder, and Horn Attack isn’t the worst move? Or you can truly hone into Nidoking’s specialty and just try to hit Horn Drill, since it is bulky enough to try and get one off, especially if the opponent keeps missing after Mud-Slap. If it's not obvious, I don't like Nidoking's moveset very much in Stadium 2.  Ditto likes items being in the game, since now it can have an extra 10HP to its meager HP pool. The AI can make infinitely more use of Ditto thanks to Metal Powder increasing both defenses by 50% in this generation, even through Transform, but that doesn't make it good, and we don't have access to that boost. I can’t say anything else; it’s Ditto.  This is the first time I seriously get to think about items. Dugtrio can't take hits super well, so a Bitter Berry to eat a confusion can be nice, and since Nidoking is somewhat bulky, being able to negate a burn is nice too. Ditto, well what other item is it going to have, and Ampharos/Clefable having more actions is always nice. From there, it's process of elimination for Kingler's item.   Just like in Stadium 1, our first opponent is a Bug Catcher. He's uh, not very threatening, but he can be annoying. We bring Kingler, and two others who don't matter in this fight.   So why do I say that?  Because while Yanma is annoying...  Once Kingler starts getting hits in, Yanma is a 3HKO, and Yanma's damage output is pathetic.  And once Kingler gets past Yanma...    It's a clean sweep.   So Stadiums operate slightly differently from the Gym Leader Castle: There's eight total battles in a row, but in exchange, if you manage to make it through a match without a single Pokemon fainting (known as a "Perfect"), you get a "Continue", which lets you retry from where you lost.   Our next trainer has a theme to him, but due to being in Poke Cup, he tends to not capitalize on it very effectively.   Here comes the coin flip machine Ampharos to hopefully deal with Poliwhirl!  We are somehow able to hit the Zap Cannon! We're at a point where luckily if we hit that 50% chance, none of his Water types will survive a hit, with maybe the exception of Seel.   Remoraid is able to put up quite a fight with our constant misses, and is able to score a crit on us!  But eventually our luck breaks through.  And Goldeen is an embarrassingly bad Pokemon, so hopefully we can just take it out instantly-  Don't you dare.  gently caress. Well, there goes our continue!  However, Goldeen is mostly a physical Water type, and Kingler is physically quite bulky.  Goldeen tries to set up the rain to hit us harder which is the swimmer's theme...  And for some reason keeps going for Horn Drill?   It proves to not work out in the end.  If that was you "goofin' around", I don't want to see you try your best.   Chester in the future will become somewhat threatening, but here he's not much to write home about.  This fight can be summed up in one phrase:   I bet you did.   Clifford has a team that can potentially be threatening, depending on how our luck is. I don't really look forward to Porygon or Electrode, but since they're both level 55 I only have to fear one of them. I decide Dugtrio can deal with this the most effectively, and bring Nidoking and Clefable in the back.   Good matchup, let's go for our first Magnitude roulette of the night!  Pretty good admittedly! Ekans can't hold a candle to that high of a magnitude.  Porygon is a different story. Sure it's not super bulky, but having five levels on us on top of our stats being worse certainly helps it.   It only takes around half HP damage from a power stronger than Earthquake for reference.  Porygon knows it can't beat us with direct strength so it goes for Swagger, but the AI doesn't recognize we equipped a Bitter Berry onto Dugtrio, which would only power it up thanks to curing confusion!  Of course, when I'd want the AI to get lucky it doesn't but it's not as if it's that harmful.    The very next turn, Porygon's Quick Claw activates, which I suppose gives me the result I was hoping for?  We end up getting a Magnitude just barely weak enough to not take out Porygon, but the Quick Claw doesn't activate allowing us an easy KO afterwards.  And seeing as Magnemite is quad weak against Ground and Dugtrio has doubled attack, the fight is pretty much finished.  Excuse you, you were going to try and confuse your way through this fight, I want to hear none of that.  So far, gathering continues has been going pretty well! We got screwed over in the second battle but besides that, we've been pretty good at gathering extra chances!   That's probably going to stop happening soon however.   This trainer has Attract as her theme, just like the beauty in Whitney's gym. Unlike in there however, she has fairly competent Pokemon who can do more than just that.  We get a rough roll on Magnitude, and Miltank lays on heavy damage with Body Slam. If we want to get through with Dugtrio, we need some better rolls than that!  That's certainly better! One more of those and we'll be able to possibly preserve a Continue!  Yeah alright, admittedly our luck was going to catch up with us eventually.  Kingler is our best option with its high defense to tank a Body Slam. It even has the PRZCureBerry to shrug off the paralysis chance, which is the other concern at a whopping 30% chance.  It doesn't manage to paralyse at all.  This is a little awkward, seeing as our Pokemon in the back is Clefable, and Corsola resists both of our consistent moves.  And so who thought to go for Guillotine against a higher levelled Pokemon like a dipshit?  After tanking a Psychic from a Quick Claw'd Psychic, I go for Crabhammer for maximum damage, hoping Clefable can take it out from whatever Crabhammer did, and presuming I can get another one off.  Corsola of course manages to get another Quick Claw off, leaving us in a very precarious position.  My thought process tells me "maybe I can get a beneficial Metronome out and take out Corsola", and so I go for it.   Completely forgetting there's a Pokemon in the back. I am glad it's Chansey however.  And our first Metronome is uh, kind of useful I guess? Ensures Corsola won't go for AncientPower, meaning a 10% chance of us losing the match won't show up.  Chansey is hyper allergic to physical moves, and luckily Clefable just happens to know Headbutt.  Chansey goes for its win condition in Sing...   But luckily for me, it misses, and Chansey doesn't stand a chance anymore.  That doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet however.  Well okay I mean that'll help.  That on the other hand will not. Corsola doesn't deal that much damage, but our move selection is seriously limited, and so if it gets enough hits off on us it'll be enough, no matter how bad the damage is.   Metronome rolls well next time however, and from here, Headbutt is enough to secure the victory.   I sure don't hope I see you again! There was some bad luck and a lot of good luck. Will the good luck continue? Tune in tomorrow to find out (EST), since this update is already pretty long, and I don't think I can condense all of it into one update. HeyItsAyls posted:If you insert a copy of Crystal into the Transfer Pack it actually will unlock all the new additions made in Crystal! Ah, I was unaware of this! I'll add this onto the side update. I'll also re-quote the rest when it become relevant (when I cover lessons). FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Oct 8, 2021 |
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Oct 7, 2021 01:47
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I voted for this team because I didn't know what to expect with that name. Now I know. This sure is a team I'd never want to use.
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Oct 7, 2021 03:59
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Update 5: And There Goes the Battle! Welcome back everyone. Yesterday, we lucked our way through five battles. The going is only to get tougher from here though, so that luck will have to continue if I want any hope of clearing the final three with this team!   Burglar here looks like he has a very formidable team, albeit one with a heavy Ground weakness. Still, the Fire types with a burn chance stop them from being a complete joke. I bring Dugtrio, Clefable, and Nidoking in case anything should happen to Dugtrio and I do need a bulky third.   In theory I need a bulky third.   However the Burglar has a very exploitable AI: if they aren't holding an item and they notice that you are (which can be noted on the team selection screen), and if they have no ways to oneshot you, they'll go for Thief. This allows for every one of our Pokemon to have at least one guaranteed turn.   Burglar decides to swap in Gligar on a predicted Magnitude,  that I safely predict (I didn't predict anything, Slash was probably going to the rest of the work on Persian) and get rewarded greatly with a crit in return.   Of course Dugtrio is still quite frail, and so I need something that can take Gligar out, and what better way than to abuse its 4x weakness!  It can't do anything to me with either Slash or Thief.  And Clefable decides to crit, probably for shits and giggles.  Out comes Electabuzz, but now we know their entire team.   Dugtrio gets in for free against Electabuzz and starts to clean.     This was the first fight out Magnitude luck was even wavering onto "bad", but no truly horrendous Magnitude 4s have come out yet, so I'm counting myself as willing to take it.   I think this is truly the last continue we'll get. I forget to capture the introduction quote and team reveal, and the former I'm not too hurt over. Trust me, we'll see these character classes again, so getting a quote shouldn't be too difficult. Anyways, I bring Ampharos as our only real way of dealing with Vaporeon, Kingler as a physical resist, and Clefable for being able to Encore and if times get desperate, try and Metronome our way out of it.   This is going to be a rough one.  This Vaporeon for some bizarre reason doesn't know any Water moves, and Bite is its strongest attack, so we're not at risking of going down anytime soon. The question is how soon will we hit our Zap Cannon?  Turns out, immediately!  And while Swift is a bad move, I know I can take out this Vaporeon soon, so I just stick with it.  poo poo. This is the one Pokemon I didn't want to show up. Kingler might be able to take it on head-on, but it's hard to say when it's limited to Vicegrip.  Tauros also hits very hard with Strength, so I switch over to Dynamicpunch to hopefully confuse the mighty bull.  Yeah okay y'know what, my luck was going to catch up with me eventually. Ampharos goes down next turn.  So I set up a Leer in case Kingler truly can't handle Tauros by itself, and let Clefable finish the-   Oh. Right. In my haste I completely forgot about Tauros knowing Thunder.  And still followed the original gameplan. This is now a problem.  Despite Tauros' Special Attack being much weaker, Kingler's Special Defense still isn't great, and Thunder is a 120 power move.  I think I can comfortably say without luck, we will not win this attempt, so let's roll the ol' Metronome dice.   What an attack to roll, what the hell?  And another crit from Headbutt takes it out, what the hell?  We're not through yet though. Delibird may be a bad Pokemon, but we don't really have the health to comfortably take on the bird brain.  Okay, this is getting ridiculous.  Thanks to that Rest, nothing Delibird can do to us is much of a threat anymore, and we can comfortably 2HKO it.   It missing 2/3 of its Fly doesn't hurt either.  No, I'm all luck today (or I guess technically yesterday? All the screenshots were in one batch).   This is technically less formidable than the last team we went against, but Raichu and Clefable are real threats, Smeargle is rocking both Aeroblast and Sacred Fire for some reason, even Natu is decently fast and strong. We bring Dugtrio, Clefable, and Nidoking.   Let's do this.   Not a great Magnitude roll, but we should be okay. Smeargle needs to get three hits off to take us out after all.  That's better. This was our second Magnitude roll, but Smeargle's holding a Quick Claw that triggered.  Now I'm glad I brought Nidoking in the back, as if Raichu comes along it'll be our only defense.   I get one last good Magnitude for the fight before being washed to sea.  Out comes Clefable, still being a very lucky girl.  Case in point. I just don't think about it too hard anymore.  And here comes Raichu. At this point I've probably won, but since Mud-Slap is so awful, Nidoking's going to need some help (also this wasn't a mistimed screenshot, for some reason this quote just doesn't have punctuation).   Raichu sees an exploitable weakness to Fighting, but all I see is an opportunity.  Welp! Ah well it was a cute effort, and it's not enough to take us out by itself.  At this point I screw around with Metronome a little just for fun.   Unfortunately Raichu's Encore wears off and is able to be a threat again, so I have to set up another one and watch Raichu take us out.  Once Nidoking comes out, the fight is over.  When I said Nidoking needed a little help, this is the help I was referring to: rendering Raichu completely and utterly hopeless until Encore wears off.  It takes a while with Mud-Slap's awful damage output, but as Raichu literally can't hurt us at all, I have no problems dealing this this.  It goes for one last attack on us as Encore wears off just in time...  But at this point, it wouldn't be enough, and its accuracy has dropped through the floor.  And with that, the first difficulty of Poke Cup has been cleared (missed the end quote for this fight, but again we'll be seeing these classes again eventually)!  Ampharos was our main line of defense against Water types, and it handled them surprisingly consistently despite Zap Cannon being awful.  Clefable's Encore was extremely valuable, and Metronome was stupid good for seemingly no reason. Lucky girl indeed!  Dugtrio may've low rolled Magnitude a few times, but it was still faster than everything that didn't have a Quick Claw.  Kingler failed its main goal in starving off Physical attackers, but was valuable early on as consistent enough.  Nidoking was the opposite of Kingler, where it was completely useless early on but managed to be invaluable for handling Raichu.  And Ditto was busy at the spectator's booth.  This is a team that becomes less and less viable as the teams get tougher, and under optimal conditions we'd all be equal level like in Gym Leader Castle, but it was workable here. Also, anytime we beat a cup a trophy will appear above it, signifying how many difficulties we've beaten. It's only going to get harder from here, but let's dip away from Poke Cup in favor for... Next Time: The one place you can't import to win.
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Oct 8, 2021 02:58
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Your Metronome luck was insane there. I guess Gambler was the right name for this team - and your gambles paid off.
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Oct 8, 2021 03:21
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lol that loving clutch aeroblast
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Oct 8, 2021 05:11
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So much for "The House always wins" when it comes to gambling.
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Oct 8, 2021 06:24
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Clefable believed in the heart of the cards.
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Oct 8, 2021 11:44
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this swimmer portrait is killing me Also it's so novel seeing CPUs with levels 51 or 52 or whatever. The days of Pokemon before flat leveling was a thing, and almost entirely on the back of Dragonite & Tyranitar. Why they didn't just force the level cap to 55 I'll never know.
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Oct 8, 2021 14:48
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rannum posted:Also it's so novel seeing CPUs with levels 51 or 52 or whatever. The days of Pokemon before flat leveling was a thing, and almost entirely on the back of Dragonite & Tyranitar. Why they didn't just force the level cap to 55 I'll never know. Not quite sure what you mean by this - the idea is that the total level of the three Pokemon you send into a battle cannot total more than 155. If you start with a baseline of all pokemon at level 50, that means you have a total of 5 levels to "distribute" among your three Pokemon. So you can either have a mix of 51s and 52s, or you can have a single pokemon at 55 and the other two be level 50.
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Oct 8, 2021 20:58
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They may mean that the ruleset is unique in Poke Cup compared to what we see nowadays, and there's no other cups in Stadium 2 that can have variable levels. I could be wrong, but I don't believe a format similar to Poke Cup exists in the modern games (do correct me if I'm wrong!). It's interesting because it limits Dragonite and Tyanitar exclusively to teams that need them, and at the rest of the team significantly weaker. Incidentally, that rule only exists to the Pokemon you're selecting for the current battle. You could make a team of six with levels 50-55, though this would be highly impractical as the level 55 would always be unusable as the minimum level of three selected Pokemon on that team would become 156. FlamingRok fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 8, 2021 |
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Oct 8, 2021 21:33
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I do have to say that it's quite fitting that the first foiling of a Perfect on the Gamble team was caused by an all-or-nothing Gamble move
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Oct 8, 2021 23:08
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Update in a few hours, apologizes for the longer than anticipated wait time in between. During that small break, I was seeing other people play Pokemon Stadium 1&2. https://clips.twitch.tv/EvilClumsyClipzNinjaGrumpy-iSi4OFLmqnHMHoCu (clip from iateyourpie) Seems that 100% accurate moves in Stadium 1 still have a chance to miss after all! According to Werster: Werster posted:NOTE: Although, as a result of an event that occurred in this run, we now believe there might be instead a 1/65536 chance to miss instead (which of course I managed to have happen to me.) Now whether it truly is 1/65536 chance or some other chance isn't known, but it was definitely wild to experience a 100% accurate move miss in Stadium 1 (no this Jynx does not know any evasion boosting moves, it knows Ice Beam, Lovely Kiss, Seismic Toss and Toxic).
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Oct 17, 2021 05:00
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Update 6: It’s Still Biding its Time! Strap on in, this one is going to be a long one.  Hello everyone. Last time, we took on the lowest tier of the Poke Cup with a team that could be classified as a gacha game.  Today, it's completely random on if we succeed, even before we see the first match, and can deceive us upwards to the last.   So we can see our Pokemon on this screen; I did not select them. How Challenge Cup works is it gives you a random selection of Pokemon with variable moves, and the overall strength of these Pokemon are based on which "difficulty" you're in. You must adapt to whatever you're given, or fail trying, and seeing this one...   Larvitar is very strong! Tyrogue uhhh, man you couldn't even get a good moveset in this huh?   We've seen the power of Voltorb+Rain Dance in the past, and Magnemite is offensively much more potent! Pidgey is surprisingly not terrible either!   Dratini has a Gold Berry making its bulk absurd, and Pineco can sure Explode!  Okay, I've decided my team! This can probably work!   Good start thus far!   I uh, don't know why Leer was the best move here? Earthquake takes it out instantly.  Ah. That was the purpose for Leer. Earthquake would be pretty devastating at this point.   I decide since Tyrogue does have the PolkaDot-Bow which boosts Normal moves, it might actually be able to do something!  I guess wrong on Earthquake, which means Larvitar would've done great, but this should be okay too?  Of course not.  I go for Attract, which might let Tyrogue attract flinch Sandshrew out. Of course it does take a turn to set up, but surely a 60% chance will work out for me?  Well, that sure sucks a lot. Attract by itself is annoying but I could do without the accuracy debuff!   This type of exchange is too common because I’m a stubborn idiot who wants to Attract Flinch instead of going for the guaranteed Swift.  Finally after 7 turns of staring at each other, we take out Sandshrew.  Their Larvitar comes out...   But for once, we have the better stats (at least in these early rounds), and it for some reason goes for Bite.   From there, our Larvitar can handle the rest.  So the fact that we struggled to get a continue on our first battle...that either means I'm playing like garbage, or our team is garbage.   Let's find out with Rocket Grunt here! You'll see the further we go on and the more we need to retry Challenge Cups, their teams are not completely randomized: they're randomized to a theme and tend to gravitate to certain types too. This Rocket Grunt has a Poison (status) theme, as well as just having a bunch of Poison types, but if they have a better option than to poison you, they probably won't.   We lead Magnemite as it's immune to being poisoned.  And believing he has nothing effective against us, I start the downpour.  Of course, Grimer knows Mud-Slap, and despite Mud-Slap being awful, a 4x weakness is still a 4x weakness.   So we bring in Pidgey, negating Mud-Slap, and taking advantage of Grimer's lesser Defense.  And of course it also has Thunder. At this point I realize that if I'm struggling with the second battle, it’s probably a good idea to get a new team.   So let's try that again.  [ I can't see myself using Cleffa. Zubat on the other hand has a good Speed, a decent Attack, and a King's Rock to possibly buy itself extra turns!   Paras with a Miracle Seed and Giga Drain gives me hope, and oh my goodness this Remoraid’s moveset is ridiculous.   This Sandshrew isn't much better than our previous Larvitar, except for the fact that it holds Soft Sand for Earthquake to be even more bonkers! Oh and uh, this Magnemite is the same but it has Bright Powder instead, so probably still useful.   With this new team...    Nothing stood a chance. I took damage because I used Toxic by accident on one of those turns.  As for Rocket Grunt over here?    They didn't bring Zubat to immunize against Earthquake.  Now I don't think Zubat would've done much to stop it, but it would've been better.   Melissa is the first trainer with some level of type resistance. She may have a Flying type preference, but she does have some answers for Pokemon that'd do good against them.   A good matchup, surely one she'd swap out of?  Apparently not? Maybe she truly has nothing better to swap to?  No okay, that would've wrecked me.  Sandshrew is here, which completely resists Magnemite. Maybe they were afraid of too much damage off of Bubblebeam? In that case, surely they'll swap from this to Hoppip if they brought it.  Okay, well perhaps they didn't bring Hoppip?  ...I don't get it.   Zubat cares not for whatever Hoppip can do.  And in return ruins any plans Hoppip possibly has in mind.   And this is partially what differs Challenge Cup from the other Cups with Rentals; it gives you tools to succeed. Now they can be unwieldy tools sure, but they can be used to work all the same. There's reasons why there are entire speedruns dedicated to specifically Challenge Cup.   Anyways, Daren I believe should be relying on paralysis to try and always have the speed advantage and then overwhelm you through power and some luck.  [ So I lead Paras, and get greeted with Chikorita, thinking this wouldn't really be an easy battle persay, but a workable one.   That's until I realize "if I'm not slower than Chikorita, there's no reason for it to run anything but Headbutt".  From there, we swap to Zubat who is most assuredly faster.  That proves to be correct, so if Chikorita has a way of lowering Speed or paralysing me, surely it'll do it?  ...okay apparently not. I guess this is the first difficulty after all, it's possible not all the team themes are fully realized yet.   Zubat unsurprisingly takes out Chikorita the very next turn, and out comes Mareep.  I have no reason to sacrifice a continue this early, so Sandshrew comes out and negates the Thunder.   Rocker decides to be a little more intelligent than the Picnicker by swapping to Hoppip, and I get a little concerned, since this is a good pair of resistances they have here. If Sandshrew wants to take out Hoppip, it needs to start a Rollout, but I don't know if Sandshrew can live a Grass move.   So we swap to Zubat, hoping to tank the Grass move Hoppip is going for.  This is excellent news! Zubat no matter what can get a hit in, and Hoppip will likely do pittance for damage.   Both of these turn out to be true. And just in case the Guitarist believes that Mareep can be resistant to Wing Attack...  I use Swift, since it was already going to be enough and I was faster than Hoppip no matter what. The AI probably knew it too, but it was a safe gamble.   You know what happens next.   Personally I’m more of a swimmer when it comes to aquatic activities, but good on you fisherman.   Speaking of, this fisherman has fished up decent Pokemon, but hasn't done anything further than that. He technically has a rain team however!  Which means despite some obstacles in the way of Paras' Giga Drain...     His team can't do enough to Paras to stop it.   So Peggy's gimmick is very clear. It's so clear, I don't need to reveal it beforehand because it’s going to come up very soon. So let's get to it shall we? She prefers Psychic Pokemon, but uses other types too.   We bring in Remoraid and see the one Pokemon we can't handle too comfortably. That's okay, we have Toxic for those situations!  Wonderful.  And here's the fun gimmick of Peggy.   I'm well aware that Paras can't 1HKO Slowpoke, thanks to the previous round...  But it seems Slowpoke can't do much in return.   We decide to take the confusion in exchange for a Giga Drain taking half of its HP, and decide to go for breaking through confusion.  Well admittedly, after the luck we had before in Poke Cup, I should be getting a little unlucky now (if the text box doesn’t appear while the question marks are present, you hit yourself).  We are thankfully able to break through our next turn.   Out comes Vulpix, which doesn't take a genius to think "man, this 4x weak Pokemon who is also slow as molasses won't do well here", so out comes Remoraid.  Who predictably takes the hit much better than Paras ever would've.   Unfortunately even a Mystic Water boosted Bubblebeam isn't quite enough for Vulpix, giving it a chance to annoy us and mess up our day.   So I decide that if Remoraid is faster, surely Zubat is too right?  Zubat doesn't appreciate a STAB Fire Blast...  But Wing Attack is enough to take out Vulpix.   Last up is Hoothoot, and seeing how well confusion has been working for the opponent, I decide to go for it myself!  It went about as well as you'd expect.   Luckily a crit from Remoraid gave us the edge we needed.  So far so good, but everything could go wrong at the very end as stated at the beginning.   Here comes our semi-finalist...sporting only Normal Pokemon. In the future we'll see a bit more type diversity, and her gimmick is a team focused entirely on flinching.   Magnemite was the obvious starter here with its resistance and power.     And it proves to be right, as nothing could do anything in return after I set up Rain Dance when Jigglypuff's best response was Strength.   Here's the strongest team thus far. It's balanced, and has decent Pokemon on it too! There is no gimmick, there's no preferred type, it's just a good team.   Sandshrew comes out first, against their Mareep.   I unfortunately waffled on using Rollout instead of Earthquake, since Mareep wasn't able to do much of anything anyways.   And so while we are still able to deal good damage...  So is Ledyba. Ledyba's offensive prowess may not be impressive, but Solarbeam is still a strong move, and Sandshrew isn't that prepared to deal with that!  Another one is able to take it out.  So good news: we know the entire team! Bad news: our answers to handle both aren't the best!   We’re forced to have Sandshrew bite the bullet after carrying much of the team, and bring in Zubat.  Because I apparently do not learn my lessons, instead of going for a safe Wing Attack, I go for Swagger, which boosts Bulbasaur if it knows any physical attacks.   It luckily works for us on the first turn and we're able to weaken it quite a bit.  And surprisingly, it doesn't take us out on the second hit, letting us take it out after one more Wing Attack.  So Paras makes Mareep much more consistent, but what if we could win with Zubat?  Maybe I throw the match here, or maybe I win through some more dumb odds. Either way, I have many continues, so I'm willing to experiment.   Good start.   And an even better finish.  I think I would've won no matter what once we got to Mareep with Paras in the back, but I am happy with Zubat managing to carry out the win.  ...what Voltorb? (missed screencap but it's Cleffa which I never used so uhhhh) Cleffa went to concessions for popcorn.  Zubat was unexpectedly useful with its Speed, despite not having King's Rock trigger once.  Paras wasn't consistent throughout the whole cup, but the few spots it was helpful for, it was extremely helpful.  The same can be said for Magnemite. I didn't use it for much, but when I did use it, it was very useful.  Sandshrew was easily the best Pokemon on the team. Soft Sand Earthquake is disgusting amounts of power.  And of course the Special Attack of Remoraid is great, and combining Bubblebeam with Mystic Water made it extremely useful.  Challenge Cup even tracks how many teams you went through before you won for your most recent victory. Maybe we'll see a lower number, maybe we'll see a higher number, who knows!  And as discussed before, by winning that tier, we have a trophy officially. I think I've covered the stadiums well enough at a base level at least for now however, so let's return to the Gym Leaders. Next Up is Morty, and there have been some votes on what Pokemon we should try and use, so let’s try and fulfill some of those shall we? Next Time: A smaller update hopefully.
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Oct 17, 2021 18:26
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Challenge Cup is fun. It gives you better Pokemon and can make for some unique teams, plus you don't need to think about what you'll use which is nice for the horrendously indecisive like me. That Juggler's suicidal ideation is a bit extreme though. Good thing he lacks the Pokemon he wants to use to take his own life.
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Oct 18, 2021 04:42
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