#bugrun

[jaybug-jabbers]

Bug Run 9: Double the Fun

Just a quick update on the postgame. I did the DLCs with my bug team. Ogerpon was a fun challenge, but the Blueberry Elites (all double battles) were even more interesting to take on.

Amarys' gimmick is a Trick Room team, although she also has a very speedy Dugtrio with Focus Sash and Stone Edge. I focused on getting rid of the Dugtrio as soon as possible, while I let her Skarm set up rocks and then phase me around with Whirlwind. Lucky for me, the stuff I was phased into was always helpful, so it really wasn't so bad. I used Wo-Chien after changing its Tera type to Bug, with the rule that it had to be Terastallized immediately. It wasn't necessary to use Wo-Chien, I just wanted to for the fun of it. It's a snail, so it's already an honorary bug type, so I wanted to give it a try. Metagross wasn't difficult for Volcarona to take care of.

After Amarys, I stomped the fairy Elite, but I don't have many notes on her, it wasn't hard. Killing Primarina with Galvantula's Thunder + Volcarona's Power Herb Solar Beam was nice. Scizor was useful for fairies, so I added it to the team, and I taught my Rabsca Gunk Shot. Have I mentioned Rabsca has amazing coverage moves? It's really handy.

Crispin was definitely a challenge for an all-bug team. I decided to bring along extra help in the form of Araquanid and Kleavor. We focused on double-targeting the Talonflame because I did NOT want it to get Sunny Day up. Had to use Spike's First Impression to break the sash and Choice Scarf my Galvantula to get the job done. But it was worth it. We cleared out the Rotom in a few turns and then I had Volcarona set up Rain Dance and started hitting with Hurricanes. The Blaziken ace was pretty scary (and it 1HKO my Araquanid with Stone Edge, arghh), but Kleavor and Lokix managed to take it out.

I was scared of Drayton because in my main playthrough he kind of kicked my ass. His team is honestly really good, better than Kieran's, that's for sure. I tried to take out Dragonite on the first turn because I didn't want him setting up Tailwind, which would be a nightmare. I didn't manage to quite take it out on turn one but thankfully it didn't Tailwind anyway. Naturally I brought my Frosmoth to this fight. I had to Tailwind with my Volcarona to prep things, then I could send Frosmoth in and start blasting with Ice Beams. This tears through a good chunk of his team (Haxorous, Sceptile) while Volcarona takes care of Kingdra. The ace is Archaludon, which sucks to go up against. I attack with Rabsca's Psychic and get another Tailwind up with Frosmoth; he sets up an Electro shot on Rabsca and then kills Frosmoth with Flash Cannon the following turn, causing my heart to drop. I send out my Slither Wing and attack with Close Combat and another Psychic from Rabsca. He cleans out Rabsca, letting me use another Close Combat. Thankfully, it's enough to KO!

(Please ignore the fact Rabsca is holding a Soft Sand, I most definitely did Not forget that Drayton would Terastallize his ace into pure Dragon type and Earth Power would be pointless to use, ahem)

Kieran wasn't too bad, especially since his Dragonite doesn't even have Tailwind. I focused on removing Dnite first anyway with Galvantula and Frosmoth. Politoed wasn't that much of an issue so we just left it for a while. Which meant Kieran had a Drizzle Politoed and an Incineroar on the field. 🙄 I have a theory that Drayton let Kieran beat him, because there's no way this kid is better at battling than Drayton. Anyway, even in the rain a Flare Blitz is gonna toast a Frosmoth, but that was fine, she did her job already. I sent out and Sword Danced with Scizor because I was confidant Galvantula could clean out Incineroar, and he did. Galvantula goes down to a Weather Ball and I use Slither Wing and Scizor to eliminate the Porygon-Z and then the Grimmsnarl. Next we focus on removing Politoed so that it's safe for my Volcarona. It's soon down to my two butterflies, Volcarona and Vivillon, who are both packing Hurricane just for Kieran's Tera-Fighting ace.

Then the rain stops. Whoops.

It's not a problem though, I already had a Light Screen up and my Vivillon, Pixel, had Compound Eyes. Her Hurricanes land true and Volcarona just uses some Overheats.

When I took on Terapagos, I maintained the same rules as I have been for the entire Bug Run: bugs only, no items during battle other than hold items and no Terastallizing unless it's Tera Bug. Terapagos requires you to fight the first phase and then rolls into the second phase without healing your party. It packs Zen Headbutt, Water Pulse, Earth Power and Tera Starstorm. I used Volcarona to solo the first phase, holding a Sitrus Berry and getting a few Quiver Dances up before blowing it out with an Overheat.

The second phase is the hard part. This battle is modeled after Tera Raid battles, and if you've played the whole game without interacting with Tera Raids at all, it can be a little confusing. The "shields" that Terapagos put up make it so all your attacks do extremely little damage. You're supposed to attack a certain number of times before you have a chance to Terastallize your pokemon; moves that are powered up with Terastallization will punch through Terapagos' shields very easily, breaking the shields and doing a bunch of damage. It will proceed to break your Tera, then put up a new shield and the process will repeat.

Some notes, though: Carmine and then Kieran will help you during this battle but their attacks do not count towards the meter that will allow you to Terastallize again. Also, if you fail to break the shields once you Tera, you'll need to cycle through two more attacks before getting another chance to Terastallize. Finally, Terapagos will go through a few type changes during this battle. It starts off as Normal type, then becomes Psychic type, then finally Water type.

Here's the problem I had: my rule of "no Tera unless it's Tera Bug." Specifically the problem was, very few of my team actually HAD Tera Bug type. Most of them had the Tera of their secondary type. It made things very difficult. What's more, my team was pretty much hyper-offense, so it had difficulty standing up to Tera Starstorm for very long. The phase when Terapagos was Psychic type was nice and easy for my bug team, of course, but the other two phases were taking too long. The photo on the left-hand side shows how close I got to beating it anyway, but I still died because once Terapagos' HP hit zero IT STILL ATTACKED ONE MORE TIME, killing my Slither Wing and whiting me out. I was confused and angry but I believe the reason this happened is because Terapagos' battle is based on the Tera Raid battles, and this can happen during Tera Raids-- bosses can get a final attack off even after their HP has been depleted. (I'm not sure why)

Eventually I gathered enough Bug tera shards to turn my Slither Wing's Tera type into Bug, because I needed more pokemon on my team who could Terastallize and break the shields. This made it much easier. (Also, specially defensive Araquanid so my entire team wasn't just sweepers certainly helped too, lol) We were able to finish the final boss of the DLCs.

^ Some clubhouse hijinks. Katy is somehow unaware I have been playing the whole game with only bug types. Also, I gave Rika one of my beloved team members, because frankly Rika deserves the world.

And that'll be it for Pokemon Scarlet's bug run! I'll close out with a shot of my battle with Nemona.

[birken44]

Friday evening on BugRun #39, Mantorp Park, Sweden.

[righttool4thejob]

[vdubbinr32]

US 131 Motorsports Park in tiny planet form 🌎

[rubykadobie]

My platinum bugrun oc, the creepiest crawler

[searchergurl]

Breakfast #KotsengKubaKlub #meycauayantanaybugrun #bugrun (at Martessem)

[oneeyedmorse-blog]

(via VW Beetle | Bugrun 2015 - Mantorp, Sweden | Knase | Flickr)

[vw64]

Bug Run Classic #6 2016: back at home after 700km trip "Look mom, i went to Sweden and all i got was this lousy T-shirt"

[trcjackmac]

#type2thursday? This was one of many immaculate busses at #bugrun #vw #type2

[mikkla]

Bugrun, Sweden 2015

[jaybug-jabbers]

Bug Run 9: Fruitful Battles

Hello, all! I’m back again with a bug run for Scarlet/Violet. Gosh. We’ve reached Generation 9 already. Sure makes you feel old, doesn’t it? That’s a lot of pokemon generations.

Because this gen is all about the open world and freedom of choice, the game opens up quite a bit in terms of the ways we can go about playing it. But because this is a challenge run, I’m going to stick with the same rules I’ve always had for these runs:

1.) The team must be bug types only. (Any bugs new to this gen must be included on the team.)

2.) No using items during battle. (Hold items such as berries are allowed)

3.) No over-levelling. (This rule is a bit harder to follow in this gen but I am going to do my absolute best to challenge gyms and bosses when my levels are around the same levels as theirs)

I am also going to add a fourth rule for this particular generation:

4.) No terastallizing unless it’s Terastallize Bug Type!

That may seem a bit harsh, but this run is all about proving that bug types can beat the game. If we terastallize to remove our Bug type at any point, we’re not really winning on the merits of bugs, are we? 

Anyway, it’s time to dive in and see how the early game treats us in the wide world of Paldea!

In this gen, as with all pokemon games, we are forced to have our first battle with our starters. But after that, we are free to ditch the starter and catch our first wild-caught beauties, who we shall treat as our true starters for this game. Our rival Nemona leads us to Baby’s First Pokemon Route and we are set free to catch stuff.

Fortunately for us, Nemona gave us a lot of balls, because I'm gonna be picky. I wanted to choose pokemon with good natures. I also wanted the proper Abilities. I spent around half an hour or so hunting and catching things until I found the lucky chosen ones: an Adamant Tarountula (Increase Attack, Decrease Sp Attack) which I named Lollipop and a Timid Scatterbug (Increase Speed, Decrease Attack) with Compound Eyes, which I named Pixel. Nemona was perhaps getting bored waiting for me, but we finally moved on with our tour of Paldea; we had a lot of sight-seeing to do. Which included a random angsty teen giving me a gigantic dragon motorbike. Look, I know this run is about the bugs, but I need to show you a photo of my son anyway. I love him more than anything and will protect him with my life.

Now, the first hour of this game is sort of a giant tutorial + cutscenes/story, so there are not a lot of challenges early on, other than the occasional Youngster with a Houndour. However, there is one tricky battle we must pass before moving the rest of the game forward, and it comes when you’re about to enter the gates to Paldea’s largest city-- Nemona steps in and wants a quick second battle. And she has a few surprises to throw your way; a second member to her team already, and a surprise Terastallization to boot. 

Because I chose Fuecoco as my starter, Nemona’s starter was Sprigatito, and that one wasn’t really a problem. The trouble was her Pawmi, which only knew Thunder Shock and was boosted with sparkle power. After levelling my team up to 9 and equipping them with Oran berries, it still was not quite enough to survive. I wasn’t sure what to do, because I scoured the area and picked up all the TMs I could, but my team could use none of them. I didn’t have a lot of options so early on. However, I finally discovered a solution while fooling around. I could make a TM that was actually relevent to my team: Struggle Bug. My Tarountula already knew the move, but my Spewpa normally would need to wait for level 12 and its final evolution to acquire it naturally. By teaching it early, it was the bit of edge that I needed. With a string shot and a bunch of Struggle Bugs, which thankfully decreased Pawmi’s special attack, my team managed to squeak by.

After that, there’s our first run-in with Team Star, but that was not anything noteworthy. And then we complete Act One. Before Act Two, which is the game proper, I buy some cute clothes and pick up a Silver Powder for Lollipop, and then they let me lose on the world.

I choose to start West. Immediately I run into more bugs and add them to my team, a Kricketot and a female Combee. I name them Vyn and Ruby. My Spewpa evolved into Vivillon as well. Our first gym, the bug gym, is destroyed without breaking a sweat. It was actually pretty pitiful. It makes me sad when these games make the bug gyms so easy, because I know bugs can put up a proper fight when you do things right. Alas, Katy is added to the list of weak bug users. Still, I admit seeing all the people in that town enjoying the company of bug pokemon is absolutely adorable. Also, Katy’s character design’s pretty cute too.

The next gym is a grass gym, so to no one’s surprise, this one’s not exactly difficult for us either. Kricketune’s powered-up Fury Cutter mowed his team down with ease.

After the first two gyms being such a cakewalk, I hold out hope that the first Titan, a Rock type, will present a challenge. Alas . . . Klawf falls to Vivillon’s Struggle Bugs anyway. Did he even have a rock move? A single rock would have obliterated my Vivillon, but it never came. 

In Cortondo, the bug town, there’s a child who wants me to trade a Flabébé for his Snom. I thought I was being all smart by taking note of this and deciding to hunt down a Flabébé right away. This was a very time-consuming and difficult quest for me, because it was hard to read the Pokedex map indicating where they spawned, and then traveling to that location and searching the area. Nothing was showing up so I looked up where I could buy a meal that would give me a boosted Fairy Encounter power, then tracked all the way back to search some more, and still couldn’t find it. I was about to give up when finally I see a little Floette in the corner of my eye. So I capture it and then I need to breed it, so I go catch another fairy to breed it and then have a picnic and wait for the egg, and then hatch the egg, and then go trade it . . .

Then I decide I don’t like the Snom’s nickname so I need to breed the Snom I received, and that takes MORE work, because they won’t breed and I need to find a meal with Egg Power 2, which is in a town very far away, but finally I succeed and I am happy with my little Snom. “Good thing I noticed this trade! It must be the only way to get Snom in this game,” I think to myself.

. . . we’re not gonna talk about it ok, just pretend I was right

ANYWAY, during all that madness I also caught a Nymble for our team (named Hunter) and did a little work fighting some trainers. Then I decided to head for the first of the Team Star bosses-- Giacomo. Since he was a Dark type user, once again I did not expect much of a challenge here. However, it actually took some work. My team at the moment was still mostly unevolved, except for Vivillon, Spidops and Kricketune. Spidops takes time to truly hit his stride, though, so in the early game, Vivillon and Kricketune really were the MVPs. Pixel took care of the Pawniard (the Defiant boosts were annoying, but we coped) and then Vyn was bulky enough to have plenty of time to power his Fury Cutter up. (Oddly, the Revavroom is unaffected by Sing for some reason) This is how the team fared after the fight:

(please ignore the fact that my character looks like she just stepped in dog doo)

That was enough adventuring for one day! Tune in for the next chapter soon.

[birken44]

BugRun 2009, Mantorp Park, Sweden.

[righttool4thejob]

[batwingcyclessocal]

Come Join Batwing Cycles on 22 August 2015 at 7 pm for our Bug Run. Should be a great time with AWESOME Raffle prizes as you can see in the pictures. Show your support for this Veteran Owned Small Business. In addition, we will be at the Grandfathers birthday bash this Saturday in Lake Elsinore from 12 pm to 2 pm. Stop by and get your raffle tickets and pick up some sweet Batwing Cycles Swag. We look forward to seeing you there. TICKETS ON SALE TOMORROW at Batwing Cycles. Check out our website and sign up for a DIY space at www.batwingcycles.com. 

[oneeyedmorse-blog]

(via VW Beetle | Bugrun 2015 - Mantorp, Sweden | Knase | Flickr)

[vw64]

Bug Run Classic #6 2016: mean split This thing had a nasty typ4 engine in it along with some pretty nice details and a really tough guy appearance..