#bugrun1

[jaybug-jabbers]

And so the all-bug run of gen 1 finally comes to an end!

Of the Elite Four, it was actually Lorelei that was toughest for my team to face. Especially Lorelei’s Lapras with Blizzard. Not sure why I kept putting my Flying and Grass types out against her Lapras. XD But yeah, her pokes have bulk, dude, and took a while to mow down. Pinsir’s fighting moves helped.

Bruno was of course the easiest, as he always is– besides, I have a team with strong Psychic moves and Parasect has Solar Beam.

Agatha wasn’t as annoying as she usually is. My two pokes with Psychic (Butterfree and Venomoth) took care of things easily enough. It helps that in Gen 1, Poison is weak to Bug type moves as well.

Lance was easy as well. As you may already know, the AI for some trainer classes (such as the Elite Four) is a bit stupid sometimes, and will spam “super-effective” moves even if they’re status moves. So if I have a Venomoth out against a Dragonite, it will spam Agility or Barrier because they’re classed as Psychic type moves, and Venomoth is part Poison type. Aerodactyl and  Gyarados were the trickiest, but I didn’t have too much difficulty with them. (Aerodactyl just spammed Bite and Supersonic, going for scummy tactics of flinch confusion, I guess, lol)

The Champion fight was admittedly tough! I let Tik Tok take out Pidgeot with a couple Double-Edges, but then unfortunately he was too weak to finish off Alakazam on his own. Fortunately, Hunter’s Slash critted and went through the Reflect that was up. Rhydon was easy prey to Parasect’s Solar Beam, but I had a little trouble with Gyarados’ Hyper Beam. Largely because when he KO’d a poke and I brought in somebody new, he didn’t have to recharge! I cursed Gen 1 for that little quirk. With Arcanine, I tried the old tox-stall with Janeway, who has Substitute (I paid a pretty penny to get it. that TM is a very expensive Game Corner prize in this gen), but I couldn’t stall quite long enough with Venomoth and Butterfree and had to finish it with Hunter. Finally, there was Venusaur vs. my Beedrill. Fortunately, despite Beedrill’s not super-great stats, this was a good matchup. I got up a Swords Dance (while Venusaur got up a Growth) and then took him out with the awesome Twineedle (the strongest bug-type move in gen 1, which helps make up for Beedrill’s low stats).

All in all, not bad for a team of gen1 bugs that are around ten levels lower than the teams being faced. Had a really fun time!

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Mar 1, 2017.

[jaybug-jabbers]

Gen 1 Bug Team Moveset/Stats

I wanted to post the movesets of my gen 1 bug team. Keep in mind this is gen 1, so there’s an extremely limited moveset available back then. It made for an interesting challenge.

Also keep in mind this was an in-game team, so I needed some HM slots. For some HM moves (Flash, Surf, Fly) I had to deposit one of my team, withdraw the HM slave, use it, and immediately re-deposit the HM slave. The HM slave was not used in battle at all, since the rules were this was a strictly all-bug team.

Pinsir: Double-Edge/Strength/Seismic Toss/Submission

Pinsir was my most physically defensive poke on the team, which was essential for my survival. He also had the highest physical Attack. As the physical tanker and attacker, I decided to also give him the high-basepower recoil moves, Double-Edge (BP 100 in gen 1) and Submission. Double-Edge was a TM in gen1 and nearly all pokes could learn it. And yep, Submission was a TM in gen 1 as well, and was very handy against Ice and Rock types. Seismic Toss has a unique feature in gen 1, in that it can hit ghost types. So that’s why I left that on there. Strength is not only useful for all those damn boulder puzzles, but it has a solid BP for Pinsir when I didn’t want any recoil.

Scyther: Quick Attack/Swift/Slash/Swords Dance

Scyther was the speediest on my team (although Venomoth was almost as fast), and carried the very useful priority Quick Attack for finishing off things just in case he still couldn’t outspeed (which did happen sometimes). I let him have Swift specifically in case I ran into a trainer that loved spamming Minimize or Double Team or somethin’. Not useful in any other situation, but I had an extra slot. Slash was his main move, and its high crit chance was very useful. Several other bug types can learn Slash (Parasect, Pinsir), but I decided to leave Slash up to the very slashiest-looking bug so I could have a little more variety on the team just for the fun of it. Scyther uses the move well, anyway, because he has great Attack. Swords Dance is nice on Scyther because he’s speedy enough to easily set up and sweep.

Butterfree: Psychic/Double Team/Supersonic/Reflect

Butterfree doesn’t learn Psychic naturally, unlike Venomoth, so I taught it to her via TM. Reflect was also a very useful TM for her. As you can see, Butterfree’s Defense is not exactly super great (though Beedrill’s is even worse). Reflect works differently in gen 1. It doesn’t have a 5-turn duration and instead lasts until you switch out. It will only apply to the pokemon that used it, not the entire team. Anyway, it let Butterfree survive hits she normally wouldn’t. Supersonic has pretty shit accuracy, but it’s a real nice backup strat in case shit is hitting the fan and the battle isn’t going well. Double Team is just filler, to be honest, as it’s not a move I usually bother with.

Venomoth: Psychic/Mega Drain/Toxic/Substitute

So this was a fun set to use. The idea is toxic stall, as you might have guessed, setting up subs, getting a toxic off and then Mega Draining some HP back. Mega Drain was also nice coverage to hit the Ground/Rock types in the game. Substitute is a very difficult TM to obtain in gen 1, but I really wanted to try it out. Janeway didn’t always even need sub to stall a pokemon out, as she was my strongest pokemon in Special, and could tank special hits and hit pretty darn hard with Psychic. That said, when facing down a Charizard or some shit, it’s nice to have a bug with Substitute.

Beedrill: Cut/Twineedle/Skull Bash/Swords Dance

This fellow clearly doesn’t have the best stats, but considering Butterfree and Beedrill are super early-game pokemon, that makes sense. As I noted in another post, Beedrill’s signature move in gen 1, Twineedle, was the strongest bug-type move of that generation (BP of 25 but always hits twice, for a total of 50.) This helps make up for Beedrill’s not-stellar stats (Parasect also has a signature move that does this), and as my best bug STAB user, he actually did a lot of work, surprisingly. Swords Dance (needs to be taught via TM) also helps make up for Beedrill’s lower stats. Beedrill also was my designated cutter and I decided to give him Skull Bash mainly for the lolz. Gen 1 has some bizarre TM compatibilities, and the idea of a Skull Bash Beedrill just amuses me to no end. (I mean, bees don’t even have skulls. they have exoskeletons XD) That said, Skull Bash is BP 100 so it also helped Beedrill to do some actual damage on those that resisted bug type moves.

Parasect: Dig/Spore/Solarbeam/Body Slam

Finally, last but not least, we have Parasect. This fellah’s stats sit somewhere between the two early-game bugs and the two Safari Zone bugs. His speed is absolutely apalling, so don’t expect this guy to outspeed anything anytime soon. That said, the other stats are decent compared to his fellow bug types of this gen, and while his Attack is higher than his Special, he can still make use of Solar Beam and impart that grass STAB. Obviously I also had Spore on his moveset. This is Parasect’s signature move of gen 1, and incredibly powerful compared to the other sleep-inducing moves. Frustratingly, sleep can last as short as a single turn in gen 1, and it felt like that always happened to me, so I admit I didn’t bother with it usually. I opted for Body Slam on Parasect instead of the usual Slash, just for some added variety and the para-chance. (although oddly, for some reason, Body Slam cannot paralyze Normal types in gen 1)

I also had Dig, which was not only very useful for exiting dungeons speedily, but was really nice coverage on a team that really could not learn much in the way of coverage moves. Keep in mind Dig was a BP of 100 in gen 1, so it’s as strong as Earthquake. It’s also pretty neat to have a move that’s super-effective on Fire types, although on a Parasect? I didn’t exactly have a lot of opportunities to actually use Dig on fire types. With that speed and 4x weak to fire, yep, he’s mostly gonna get KO’d before he can get a hit off, but sometimes he did do important damage to a fire poke. Parasect’s best work was probably vs. the Gyaradoses and tanking Hydro Pumps, though.

And that does it! I plan to do an all-bug run of gen 2 next, so stay tuned for that. :)

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Mar 2, 2017.

[jaybug-jabbers]

Noodling around with my all-bug run of Pokemon Red. Just beat Blaine, the Fire gym. Lvl 47 Arcanine with Fire Blast is not exactly fun for a full bug team, but we made it by! Just barely.

Janeway was essential with her Toxic, because a lot of the pokes used Fire Spin and took poison damage each turn of Fire Spin. Racks up fast. Poor Sopea (my Parasect) was KO’d because of a critical hit, probably could have taken care of Arcanine with its Dig if it wasn’t critted first turn.

Now to, um, go to Team Rocket headquarters and then Sabrina because I ALWAYS forget to do that before Blaine’s gym >____<

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Feb 26, 2017.