Current Events > I'm doing a Kricketune solo in Pokemon BDSP because haha funny delelelewhoop bug

(+) Yeah! (+)

Today I beat Crasher Wake in Pastoria for my 4th badge, and I also got Defog and made it to Celestic Town. This run has gotten a lot easier since Kricketune learned Swords Dance, so now hopefully it learns Night Slash to complete its moveset before I have to face Fantina.

Wait whats this about a mandatory double battle? What happens if you show up with only DELELELELELELELE WOOOOP in your party?

DavidZ2844 posted...

Wait whats this about a mandatory double battle? What happens if you show up with only DELELELELELELELE WOOOOP in your party?

The first battle at the top of Spear Pillar is a mandatory double battle with you against two Galactic Grunts, and as far as I can tell, you can't talk to them separately to face them one at a time like you can in other situations where you'd face two trainers in a double battle. You absolutely must face them in a double battle, you absolutely must have a second non-fainted, non-egg Pokemon in your party to initiate this battle and progress the game, and you absolutely must send that second Pokemon out in that battle. So essentially, a true "solo" run where you only use one single Pokemon for the entire game is completely impossible in BD/SP because of this specific battle.

When Alpharad ran into the same problem during his Piplup solo run (hilarious video btw, Alpharad is awesome) he decided to trade for a second Piplup to keep it a "Piplup only" run. That's why I mentioned catching a second Kricketune earlier, which I already went and did to prepare to that.

I feel like a run like this would be all PP stalling and item abuse and wouldn't be much fun

WizardPowers posted...

I feel like a run like this would be all PP stalling and item abuse and wouldn't be much fun

It hasn't been like that so far. I haven't needed to PP stall anyone (Kricketune's defenses are too terrible to pull it off anyways) and the only battles that have made me use more than one potion were against Mars, Gardenia, and Jupiter.

I beat Fantina's gym, the most difficult one I've had to face yet. I had to beat all of the gym trainers without Night Slash (so only using not very effective X-Scissor boosted by Swords Dance) because Kricketune didn't reach level 42 to learn the move until the very last trainer before Fantina.

And then, even with Night Slash, Fantina herself was an absolute bitch to defeat. Will-O-Wisp burns, Confusion self-damage, testing whether Night Slash could OHKO her lead Drifblim without using Swords Dance first (it couldn't), testing whether Krikcetune could outspeed Gengar or Mismagius (it couldn't), a couple of random crits KOing Kricketune when it should have lived... it was a mess. In the attempt that finally won, I used Swords Dance twice while Driflblim used Fly and then OHKO'd it with Night Slash. Then I used a Moo Moo Milk to heal (because Gengar could outspeed Kricketune and finish it off with Shadow Ball) and Gengar used Confuse Ray. After that, Kricketune survived a Shadow Ball from Gengar and a Dazzling Gleam from Mismagius, attacked through confusion twice, and OHKO'd both of them. It took over a dozen resets to get the strategy and luck to go my way.

Next up is Canalave City and Byron's Steel-type gym. I have Brick Break for super effective damage, but those Pokemon are a lot bulkier than Fantina's ghosts and some of them have Rock-type coverage moves that can hit Kicketune for super effective damage too. The only bright side is that most of them will be slow enough for Kricketune to outspeed, which might hopefully make things easier if I can get enough Swords Dances active.

Thats incredibly stupid that the game actually turns you away if you only have a single Pokmon for that spear pillar double battle, wow

Also thanks for the Alpharad video recommendation, never heard of him before and I enjoyed that video a lot

I made my way to Canalave City and did some more training on Iron Island, including getting the Riolu Egg from Riley, but I didn't fight the gym yet. As I fought my way through the cave, I realized more and more how Kricketune's low base stats are really starting to become a problem at this point in the game. Wild Gravelers are surviving super effective Brick Breaks with HP to spare unless I use Swords Dance beforehand, and I also had a trainer's Pelipper survive a neutral Night Slash even after a Swords Dance, and this is with Kricketune being 10+ levels higher than them. There's also the speed issue, as I already experienced with Fantina's Gengar and Mismagius outspeeding my Kricketune despite my 6-8 level advantage at the time. And unlike the power issue, which can be solved by Swords Dance, the low base speed isn't something that I can counteract.

TL;DR: Things are going to get tougher. Canalave Gym next time.

DavidZ2844 posted...

Also thanks for the Alpharad video recommendation, never heard of him before and I enjoyed that video a lot

No problem. I first got into watching Alpharad primarily for his Smash content (the highlights IMO are his Hard DK amiibo videos and his Stage Builder Was A Mistake series) but he's been doing great stuff for other games like Pokemon too. He also has longer and less edited (AKA more random bullshit) commentaries on his second Alpharad Deluxe channel, where he's been doing a separate "normal" run of Pokemon BDSP too.

Byron wasn't as tough as I thought, but still annoying. All I needed to do was have Kricketune set up two Swords Dances while not hitting itself in confusion from Bronzor's Confuse Ray, make Byron waste his potions healing his Steelix from 1 HP back to full health (which also wasted turns on the Sandstorm and Trick Room that Bronzor set up, and then take down Bastiodon who couldn't really do much damage back unless it got a critical hit with Stone Edge. As long as I dodged self-damage from confusion and a Stone Edge crit, I win... but it took six tries for that to finally happen. On the bright side, I haven't had "the power of friendship" give me any wins that I really didn't deserve yet, so I at least feel proud of all my gym wins so far.

I also took care of Saturn at Lake Valor (his Toxicroak resists all of my moves but I brute-forced it with Swords Dance) and Mars at Lake Verity (she was much easier than the first time), and next I'm going to Snowpoint City and Lake Acuity. Kricketune is currently at level 50, if anyone's curious.

Anti-purge bump, Im interested in seeing how this ends

Sorry I haven't been able to play the past couple of days. Been dealing with other stuff. I'll try to play more tomorrow.

I managed to play a little before bed last night, making it through routes 216-217 to Snowpoint City. Then today, I defeated Candice's gym (she was easy), took care of Team Galactic at their Veilstone HQ (Cyrus was easy, Saturn was tougher because his Toxicroak resists all of my moves), and made the long trip up Mt. Coronet to the Spear Pillar. I'm saved right in front of the mandatory double battle I mentioned earlier that absolutely requires having two Pokemon, and I did catch a second Kricketune to use in this battle so I can keep this a "Kricketune only" run.

After this is another double battle with Mars and Jupiter (but my rival is tagging with me in the battle, so I only need one Pokemon and I can hopefully use him as a decoy), then another battle with Cyrus, then fighting Palkia. I'll try to do these tomorrow, though it may be on Sunday instead.

The mandatory double battle against the two grunts was easy. I had my second Kricketune sit there using nothing but Focus Energy, so my main Kricketune did all of the attacking. The next two battles were really annoying though, the most difficult and frustrating part of the run so far.

Because the tag battle with my rival against against Mars and Jupiter and the battle against Cyrus happen back-to-back without being able to save in the middle, if I lose to Cyrus, I have to fight Mars/Jupiter again too. To win the Mars/Jupiter battle, I needed some good luck with some of their attacks targeting my rival's Munchlax and good timing so that the Reflect that one of the Bronzors set up wore off right before Skuntank came out. Then with Cyrus, I had to Swords Dance once against his lead Honchkrow, survive a super effective Air Cutter (with a 100% chance to critical hit thanks to Super Luck and a Scope Lens) with barely any health and KO it back, heal up, Swords Dance again when Gyarados came out to counteract Intimidate, and then KO his other Pokemon. And I had to do this without Kricketune getting double-targeted in the tag battle, one of the Bronzors confusing Kricketune, Skuntank getting off a Flamethrower, one of the Golbats Hazing away my Swords Dance boosts, getting outsped and KO'd from low health by Crobat and Weavile, Gyarados getting a Waterfall flinch because it outsped Kricketune thanks to Crobat's Tailwind...

There were so many points of failure and so many ways for things to go wrong that it took me 47 total attempts to finally beat Mars/Jupiter and then Cyrus in a row. And after all of that, I took out my frustrations on Palkia and just knocked it the fuck out. Whatever. Sunyshore Gym is next, maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday. We'll see.

Calwings posted...

routes 216-217

AKA best routes ever, cool.

Calwings posted...

47 total attempts to finally beat Mars/Jupiter and then Cyrus

Holy shit, that is some goddamned determination.

ApherosyLove posted...

Holy shit, that is some goddamned determination.

Most of those were just losing to Mars/Jupiter and resetting. I think out of those 47 attempts, I only beat them and made it to Cyrus on like 8 of them.

I love the imagery of this milennia-old, space-warping dragon god getting btfo by a bug with a moustache lmao

Kim_Seong-a posted...

btfo

Don't you mean getting whooped?

ApherosyLove posted...

Don't you mean getting whooped?

ayyyyy

Compared to the difficulties on Mt. Coronet, the Sunyshore Gym was a cakewalk. All I had to do was stock up on Cheri Berries and Paralyze Heals and set up two Swords Dance (the second coming after Luxray's Intimidate kicked in) and Kricketune swept through easily to get me the last gym badge.

We're nearing the end of the journey, with only Victory Road and the Pokemon League left to conquer.

Pretty much the entire game is a joke in difficulty, until you hit the Elite 4. I don't know what the devs were thinking but its frustrating to have to deal with max EV elite 4 and then Cynthia. It's like every attack against my pokemon is super effective.

Ivany2008 posted...

Pretty much the entire game is a joke in difficulty, until you hit the Elite 4.

Maybe for a normal playthrough. But that's why I do these challenge runs.

All I did today in terms of moving the game forward was go through route 223 and defeat all of the trainers on that route to get to the Pokemon Center right before Victory Road. I also did some exploring on the side get the TM's for Aerial Ace and X-Scissor. I think I'm going to need Aerial Ace to beat Aaron because his Heracross resists all of my Kricketune's current moveset, but I'm definitely going to need to re-teach it X-Scissor for the rest of the Elite Four and I can't delete any of its other moves for various reasons.

I fought my way through Victory Road and made it to the Pokemon League... and accidentally triggered the rival battle in the League building that I totally forgot about... without healing... or saving... needless to say, it didn't go well. Since I didn't want to go through Victory Road again, I just took the loss instead of resetting. I'm at the League now, Kricketune is level 66 and fully healed up again, and now I need to beat my rival, then the Elite Four, then the Champion to finally complete the run. Will this be more difficult than the Mars/Jupiter and Cyrus sequence earlier? Place your bets now.

Considering that the devs decided to give perfect EVs to the Elite 4 and Cynthia, again, the rest of the game doesn't compare in difficulty.

Forget the Elite Four, I can't even get past the Rival's first two Pokemon. His lead Staraptor weakens Kricketune with Intimidate, outspeeds Kricketune, cleanly 2-hit KO's Kricketune with Pluck (and Pluck means I can't even use a healing berry to make the 2-hit KO a 3-hit KO), and doesn't die to a Night Slash or Brick Break even with a critical hit or a Swords Dance boost. 15 attempts in, and the only times I've made it past Staraptor are when the AI randomly decides to use other moves instead of Pluck. Then, in the couple times I've managed to make it past Staraptor, the rival's Heracross comes in, outspeeds Kricketune as well, and immediately annihilates it with Rock Slide. Time to regroup.

With the Mars/Jupiter and Cyrus battles earlier, I was able to beat those battles with a good strategy and some good RNG without resorting to spamming X-Items. I haven't needed to resort to X-Items yet during this run, but I think I'm going to need them just to make this battle (and probably the Elite Four and Champion too) possible at all without a ton of grinding or some astronomically unlikely RNG help.

Have you EV farmed yet? That helped me a ton.

Ivany2008 posted...

Have you EV farmed yet? That helped me a ton.

No, I didn't do any specific EV training during my playthrough, but I'm sure my Kricketune has the maximum of 510 EV's at this point. I might try to get more of the berry that removes SpAtk EV's (since that's a useless stat for Kricketune) and relocate those EV's to another stat like Speed.

What level is buggy at right now?