#silph gets its own tier

[pokemontechsupport]

Tech company tierlist. It's not comprehensive, only from companies who's stuff I've used.

[nuzblog]

November 17th and 18th, 2017

Extra long update here, comin' in real hot!

After some research, I established my plan going forward. The first step of that plan is to retrieve Arctid, my Venonat from Route 15, from the PC, and start ascending Silph Co. Psychic coverage is going to be very useful, and since my Jynx Plan A is foiled, Venonat will have to do until I can get something better.

Of course, once I'm in Silph Co. it becomes clear that that's where I was supposed to go first - the trainers are nothing to my Pokemon. Which... confuses the heck out of me, given that Koga is definitely meant to be Gym 5. Like, do you want me to be in Fuschia City or not?

Of course, once Arctid hits a level where I'm like "okay maybe now I can actually use him to fight this thing he has the type advantage against", he dies up good. Siiigh. Well, at least it means I won't have a big hole of "unable to catch anything but still not technically FAILING a capture" on my big list of captures by location. I head back to Route 14, where I quickly replace Arctid with another Venonat, this one dubbed Sciari. Back to Silph Co. I go!

Heh. TM for Selfdestruct. Good joke, video game.

I made the smart decision to actually look up Blue's team before heading in to fight him and... yeah, he's a bit too tough. Grinding time!

Oh, while I'm out, I might as well fish on Route 19. Goldeen is a dupe, but Staryu sure ain't! Boy, if I hadn't already spent my one and only ever Psychic TM on Lola, Staryu would be SO useful. Or if it like... learned Psychic STAB moves. Seriously, what is with movesets this gen? Every single Pokemon is such trash. Sandslash literally doesn't even get any ground type moves outside of TM. It might as well have been straight up Normal.

Grinding literally takes the entire rest of the 17th. That and losing at Pokemon Cards, but hey, this isn't a "let's nuzlocke Pokemon TCG" blog, is it? (Also how would you even do that? Burn every card that dies in battle? Only buy one booster pack at any given store you visit? Lmao)

While grinding, Moschops tries to learn Focus Energy, which... is another hilarious joke. Both because it's at such a high level, and because it's supposed to quadruple the crit rate... but it actually QUARTERS it, making you almost never get a crit after using Focus Energy.

Sciari, on the other hand, learns Psybeam, which means I can finally stop mashing B every time it tries to level up, and turn it into the beautiful moth it was always meant to be.

Psybeam in hand, my first move when I started playing the next day was to fight my way through the Fighting Dojo. I actually did this so soon after waking up that, when claiming my Pokemon, my errant finger erroneously hit "start" instead of "select" when naming the Hitmonlee I claimed. Its name is "B", but uh. Please pretend that it's "Bruce." Not that I'm using it. I HAVE my Fighting type.

I then checked out Koga's gym trainers, since I was on such a roll, and, funny enough... literally only the one dude with a Level 38 Hypno was even close to a challengingly high level. Everything else was a piece of cake. Koga included.

Oh, except for that Level 42 Weezing. That's pretty nuts, right? Well, actually... Maybe not.

Gen 1's AI tech is so primitive that NPCs, even gym leaders, will make real boneheaded moves in the interest of type superiority. Famously, confronting Lance with a Poison type makes you nigh untouchable, since most of his Pokemon will use Agility since Psychic is super effective, without even checking to see if Agility does damage.

His Weezing knows 2 poison moves, Smokescreen... and Selfdestruct. All I need to beat him, besides Cingu and Sciari, is something that resists poison, and can either for sure tank a Selfdestruct OR... that I don't mind losing.

Remember vlad?

My team for Koga is Cingu, Sciari, Lanius (my highest leveled team member at the time) and Vlad. His other Pokemon are easy peasy.

And as expected, when he switches in Weezing, I switch in Vlad... and he blows himself up. That's Koga's gym badge! Which also mens I can Surf outside of battle! Whoo-hoo!

First destination (floating from Pallet on Bernie's tummy, repels on), for easy flying, is Cinnabar Island. Now, I've mentioned my mysterious plans here... I'll discuss those later. I have not yet put them into effect.

Instead, I think it's high time we take down Dingus. I box Bernie back up, and for once my actual team is the same number of Pokemon as his team.

The one concern I had was with Gyarados, but I got it sleeping and lemme tell ya... it never woke back up. B)

Now I have a Lapras! Her name is Nessie. Of course since nothing in this game can be easy, I get it at Level 15. Sooooo grinding time!

While grinding, I started clearing out trainers on the surfing routes, and grabbing Pokemon. Oh, but first... Penthes learned Razor Leaf! And you know what that means...

Leaf Stone!!! Finally, my lovely pitcher plant is all overgrown up! (Get it? Overgrown, like, plants do? Do you get it? Do you see the humor in my joke?)

Okay so. Route 20, I fished! Horsea appears! Aaaand I killed it accidentally, cause Sing and Surf start with the same letter. Been a while since that's happened, huh? Feels like old times.

Seafoam Islands! I didn't actually go through here yet, although I plan on doing so - my intent is to battle all of the legendaries I can, treating them as additional boss fights. Still though, I stepped inside to catch a dude! After 5 consecutive Staryus, I finally found a Seel. Staryu isn't even that common I thought? Ah well. Seel's name is Harp.

Route 21, where I could catch a Tangela if I really wanted but look I have Penthes, I need no more grassy boys! After fishing up yet another Staryu, I caught a Shellder! Its name is Okeefe.

Since I still have grinding to do, I stepped into the Pokemon Mansion, hoping not to be completely owned, and... It's okay actually! I caught a Grimer, named it Ooze. I fought my way through, and Nessie actually started doing most of the work way earlier than I'd thought. Surf owns bones. Ice Beam is pretty solid too. I finished the mansion, grabbing the Secret Key, and... set out for the unfinished business in Saffron.

First, Giovanni. Nessie, Cingu, Penthes and Moschops join me for this fight, and, quite frankly... he's a little bitch and I could have made short work of him before doing the Pokemansion.

Next is Sabrina. She and her gym trainers are a touch tougher, but I manage fine with Lanius, Cingu, Nessie and Penthes.

Also now Nessie is finally at around the same level as the rest of my team! Hooray!

Now, here I am. Plotting and planning. Blaine shouldn't be too hard at all. Giovanni is just as much of a puss as always. I have three more dungeons to tackle - the Power Plant, Seafoam Islands, and Victory Road. The resting places of the three Legendary Birds. But most importantly...

The Elite 4.

Now, I'm planning here still. I know what I want to do, but I'm interested in getting any feedback there could be. Especially since the ask box which I didn't realize was closed this whole time, is now open! (That's "Option" on the menu!)

The first point: An Electric type would be super effective against almost all of Lorelei's Pokemon, against both Lance and Dingus' Gyarados, and against Agatha's Golbat and Lance's Aerodactyl. That's really really good. The Power Plant has electric types. In fact, it has options: Voltorb and Electrode would be duplicates, but that still leaves random encounter chances for Magnemite/Magneton, and Pikachu. Now, obviously one of those is way way better to have than the other. But is that a chance I'm willing to take, when the other option is repelling my way through until Zapdos, and hoping to high heck I capture it (or chucking my Master Ball at it, maybe?) Zapdos does have legendary tier stats, but it also is part flying type, which removes its ground weakness... but makes it weak to Ice, meaning its usefulness against Lorelei will be limited to its ability to OUTSPEED Lorelei. Zapdos is fast, but is it fast enough to body an elite four member without getting hit?

The second point: I really really need Psychic STAB. I love my big mothy boy, but he's just not cutting it. Now, stop me if you've heard this one: Cinnabar Island's coast acts very strangely. Since it doesn't expect to have an encounter rate but it can be GIVEN an encounter rate, basically any Pokemon can show up there as long as it can show up somewhere else. The question is one of gambling. You see, I could play it safe and get a Drowzee by going to Route 11 where I've already caught Sandshrew and Spearow and flying to Cinnabar... or take a bit more of a risk with a higher payout stats-wise by using Route 24 and trying to catch an Abra? Not only is there the slimmest margin of possibility for it to flee an Ultra Ball, it might also not show up, since that route also has Caterpies and Metapods that I don't yet have. I suppose doing the more traditional Safari Zone glitch is also possible, to try for an Exeggcute, but A: that'd supplant (ha!) my boy Penthes, and B: even less of a guarantee, and jeezy kableezy do I NOT want a dang Nidoran as my booby prize. So, what should I do? Play it safe or get dangerous?

The third point: If I'm adding these guys to my team, then it's going to exceed 6, and someone's gonna get boxed. Nessie is INTEGRAL to the Elite 4 gameplan, and also just kinda rules overall. Lanius is my flyer... but if I get a Zapdos, that replacement feels like a no-brainer. Sciari is right out as soon as I've got an actual real Psychic type, so really it's just a matter of who's losing out to my Electric type. Cingu's Slash will be incredibly helpful, and Dig should double down on effectiveness for the Onixes, Agatha's poison types, Rhydon and Arcanine. Moschops will make Lorelei that much easier. That really seems to leave it to Lanius, who feels more expendable but will probably be most useful in the Elite 4 fight (especially vs. Venusaur) and is also my flyer... and Penthes, who I've become so emotionally attached to as the first Victreebel I've used and a fantastic assripper who came from such a humble start (especially losing Vine Whip, lmao), who has, in lieu of my lost Minos, become practically like my starter. Can I really afford to leave one of them behind? Should I nix someone else instead?

Please, leave your thoughts.