#thispit's nuzlockes

[thispit-thelame]

Blind Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.3: Icing Burgh

Level Cap: 23

Previous Ep: 1.2 We start off this session with finally getting the dousing rod/itemfinder and immediately backtrack to all of the previous routes and towns to check for hidden items. Didn't find anything too amazing, but having a stockpile of various aid items is never a bad thing, and those that we cannot use, we can sell. In Pinwheel forest itself we catch a quirky sewaddle named Firenze (named for its wonderful textiles, of course lol) who I seem to have forgotten to take a photo of.

Besides catching our team member however, nothing much of consequence happens for a while though. We reach Castelia City, and after a quick trip to the PC, we head back for a little training and nudge Fugedda into evolving into a Trainquill. After that we trek north to see what we can find on route 4, the start of the desert north of Castelia. There we find a Careful Sandile named Vector. Vector has the amazing ability 'Moxie' which gives it a +1 to its attack everytime it KOs an opponent directly. Vector wont be too useful for the upcoming gym, but should become an invaluable member later, especially after they evolve and get some more useful stats.

After changing up the team a little to help stave off the level cap of which we are far too close for comfort, we resolve the Team Plasma portion without any issue whatsoever, and head back out to route 4 to do some training. What is an issue though are the handful of fishermen that I have since learned to give a wide berth. Basculin is the regional fish of Unova, and they are all 40lbs of pure hatred. Look at these stats; they're by no means a standout pokemon, but a single stage pokemon with a great typing this early in the game can do a whole lot to an unsuspecting team, and since I had no experience fighting them up until this point, man oh man do I have the fear of the sea in me now lol.

Thankfully no one dies and after a bit more training we blaze through the gym thanks to a combination of Fugedda and Broiler. Now though? Now its time for Burgh.

I know a little of what to expect since his Leavanny has gained a bit of infamy with the nuzlocking crowd, but beyond that. I really don't know what to expect. Going into this, I am fairly confident he'll have three pokemon, but besides the known Leavanny, and the expected veni/whirlipede I hadno idea what to expect. And oh dear reader, lol, lmao. How I wish I thought a little harder because I certainly would have put a little more thought into the plan that I had planned.

We lead once again with Broiler, who despite being a fantastic lead thanks to their speed and access to yawn, I'm definitely starting to notice that the rest of their starts are starting to fall behind those of our opponents. I had considered an early retirement for them in the box, but for this gym, flame burst and yawn were just too useful of moves to pass up.

Burgh leads Whirlipede though, and while I was expecting this, I was really hoping for a Venipede if I'm being honest. Thankfully we outspeed and hit it with a yawn while Burgh retaliates with a poison tail that dust about 25%. Now knowing this thing has poison tail, I don't feel safe swapping in Fugedda like I was planning to since a poison proc this early into the fight would be disastrous. I completely flounder here and decide that my best bet is to try and take it out with Broiler and start going for work up, thinking I might be able to sweep with them. Burgh retaliates with a screech as Whirlipede falls asleep while I get myself to +2 attack/SpA. I now realize my mistake with trying to set up with Broiler; they almost certainly don't out speed the Leavanny waiting in the back, so I need to get Fugedda in here somehow and set up a little with them.

From here we swap to Pickles, both to get an intimidation off, and to burn sleep turns so that we can try and set this all back up again for Fugedda. It turns out that swapping out was a fantastic idea because Burgh gets a lucky one turn wake up and lands a critical hit poison tail that does a little over 50% to Pickles, which thankfully doesn't poison. That crit would have easily killed Broiler though, and a back to back crit on a Broiler swap in, while unlikely, would probably spell doom for this attempt. Ultimately though, this is still a terrible position to be in because I was hoping to use Pickles as an intimidate support on Leavanny but now that they're so low health, that seems unwise.

On the brightside however, we are finally in a better position to set up a sweep with Fugedda. We swap back to Broiler, who takes a non crit poison tail, gets a yawn off, and takes another, finally putting us back at square one. I still can't swap to Fugedda safely until the Whirlipede falls asleep since a poison/crit would be catastrophic, so I decide to pivot through Cotton first.

Pivoting, for those who don't know, is simply swapping in another pokemon as an intermediate step between the pokemon you currently have in, and the one you intend to use. This is often used in nuzlocking to bait certain moves, or timing Damage-over-Time so that a certain team member is out as the opponent is KOd.

Aka; instead of A->B you go A->C->B. You can even chain pivots to reduce the damage your pivots are taking ie A->C->D->B or even longer, if that is what you need. This of course works best when you are swapping pokemon into resisted moves, and works even better if you have pokemon with certain abilities like 'regenerator.'

And once again its turns out to be a great idea to have swapped because Burgh yet again gets a crit, though I do remain very lucky that nobody has gotten poisoned yet. Now, finally, the Whirlipede falls alseep, and we swap to Fugedda to set up the sweep; something I should have done twenty turns ago.

We unfortunately only get one work up off before the Whirlipede wakes up, but it only goes for a screech which we are immune to thanks to 'Big Pecks' and fucking lol has that ability come in useful so far. Another work up and we're at +2 for offense, and Burgh hits a poison tail which again, thankfully doesn't poison. I feel like I am going to need +3 to OHKO Leavanny though since the Pidove line aren't exactly amazing special attackers. That being said, I reallllly don't want to keep dodging poison and decided that it would be best to just take out the Whirlipede now.

As I go to confirm the attack however, I finally remember that Dwebble exists. Dwebble is a Bug-Rock pokemon that I always forget is a gen 5 pokemon and not a gen 6 pokemon (same thing with Beartic tbh), and its almost certainly Burgh's mystery third pokemon. And unfortunately, since flying moves aren't super effective against it, I realize that I am going to need to get up to +4 now, which gives me just a horrible sinking feeling. We've been lucky avoiding poison so far, but this is a battle against time, and you just cannot win those.

The next turn Fugedda uses work up to get up to +3, and our luck finally runs out. Not only does Burgh finally get a poison proc after nearly ten attempts, but he gats ANOTHER crit. Fugedda thankfully had an oran berry, but now we need to roost, twice in fact, to get up as close as we can to full health to prepare for the other two pokes that Burgh yet has. So its a roost, take a poison tail, work up to put us at +4, take another poison tail, roosting again, take yet another poison tail, and then finally taking the KO with an air slash, all the while taking poison chip.

Dwebble does indeed come out next, which is now okay since we not only outspeed, but have all of our stat boosts. Roost, thankfully removes the flying type from a flying type pokemon that uses it for that turn, so now that we bait a smack down, its totally safe (barring any crits lol) to roost one more time, take a smack down, and take the KO the following turn with another air slash.

We are now sitting at about 60% as Burgh sends out his final pokemon Leavanny, which isn't a great spot to be in against such a threat. Leavanny isn't a bad pokemon by any stretch (see the following stat block). With a good base attack and speed, a good offensive move pool, and fairly well rounded stats overall, the only thing that really holds Leavanny back from being a top tier poke is that it has the terrible defensive typing of Bug-Grass, which leaves it weak to so many different threats. The worst part here however; Tranquil has a base speed of 65, which means that we aren't going to be outspeeding this Leavanny like I thought we would.

So with a third of Fugedda's health gone and both unable and unwilling to swap out into another team member, I find myself in a sort of "rock and a hard place" situation. Nobody resists any of Leavanny's moves besides Fugedda and Broiler, neither of whom are healthy enough to do the swapping in and out dance again, even if I wanted to. With such low health I dont't feel comfortable swapping in Pickles to get an intimidate off, and while I am certain that a +4 air slash will KO the Leavanny, I am not sure that we can survive an attack in return.

In the end I decide that I have to risk it with Fugedda and air cutter (which I hate because its not 100% accurate lol). If Fugedda somehow survives, but misses the attack, I'll unfortunately have to let them go down so that I can get a safe swap into someone else. I really don't want to happen though because I've honestly grown attached to the bastard lol. Regardless of my feelings though I select air slash and...

We outspeed?????? We outspeed the Leavanny, connect with the air slash, and do enough damage to probably KO the Leavanny twice over, winning us the gym battle deathless. Incredibly sloppy, but deathless nonetheless.

This means that Burgh's Leavanny HAD to have a -Spe nature, which thanks to Fugedda's +Spe nature, means we likely outsped by a single digit value and fucking lol was that a relief.

This means that nearly 1/3 of the way through the game, with three of the eight badges in our hands, the first attempt of this blind hardcore nuzlocke remains deathless, which I continue to be stunned by.

Post Script:

So first off; lol. Its been like 6mo since I updated and fucking lol has life been shit. Not saying I'm now living in a blooming meadow like a frolicking sheep or anything, but here we are, and actually willing and able to update lol. I've actually got notes and photos up to Elesa so in theory we'll be up to speed soon lol. Elesa herself will be interesting but I'm trusting in my team for now.

Anyways, as far as this update goes; In hindsight I got waaaaay too tunnel visioned on setting up. Especially with Fugedda having a +Spe nature and whatever Spe EVs we picked up, it actually wasn't so unlikely that we undersped the Leavanny, but that -Spe nature was insanely lucky tbh. We likely only needed +2 to sweep and KO the 4x weak Leavanny in the back, but some retroactive calcs tell me that we definitely needed +4 to OHKO the dwebble so lol I guess it all worked out in the end. Also, speaking of Fugedda; Fugedda with their +Spe nature is actually fairly quick, and when you also take into consideration that they know Roost, I think in that scenario, it was always a better choice to give Fugedda a pecha berry instead of an oran. Staving off a 10% poison chance is far more useful as an item slot than recovery would be because we can in most scenarios just out speed and heal 50% with roost. We've only encountered two Bug type pokes up until Burgh, and we knew one was a poison type who would likely have a poison procing move, so that was another misplay on my part, but thankfully we weren't punished for it.

I've got no idea what to expect next, but poking my head back onto route 4 I saw Cheren standing around so I'm expecting another rival battle. It'll be interesting to see how we tackle his solid team now that our own team is getting stronger, but hey, with a bird like Fugedda on the team, how could we possibly lose?

[thispit-thelame]

An update

Hey just so anyone is wondering where part 3 of my White nuzlocke is; Part 1.3 was about 90% of the way done when I accidentally did a Ctrl-Z out of habit trying to undo a copy-paste and accidentally deleted like 60% of the draft that I had because tumblr is a totally well designed website and not at all infuriating to navigate or compose posts for. Part 3 is still in development but man oh man does the deflation of morale and ADHD not help lol. I have good notes so nothing serious is truely lost, just my real life limited time. The playthrough is going fine though, and not to give anything away, but there have been quite a few misplays so far lol. Some are certainly my fault, and some are just due to the fact that this is a blind nuzlocke and by the nature of the challenge there's just some stuff I couldn't plan for/anticipate. Wouldn't be a Thispit nuzlocke without misplays though so lol.

In other news, twitter seems to have unfucked itself for me and I am actually able to see threads again! This means that I can transfer the two nuzlockes I've archived over there, to here. I haven't decided yet as to whether I will just fuse screenshots of the threads into multiple images for ease of view or if I will transcribe them, but I am definitely leaning towards the former. Much less work.

Anyways though TDLR: tumblr bad and ate my draft. Twitter working again and I can import my previously archived nuzlockes. Hope to update you all again soon, this time with an actual update lol.

[thispit-thelame]

Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.2: Crit City

Level Cap: 20

Previous Ep: 1.1

Last we left off we had just beat the first gym, narrowly escaping our first death thanks to Cilian getting an untimely crit. Here's to hoping that our next leg of our journey goes a bit better.

Almost immediately after leaving Striation City we are ambushed by Cheren. Despite us leading Pacifica and Cheren leading Snivy, we get through this fight with little issue.

After a quick trip back to the Pokemon center we find and catch a hasty Pidove named Fugedda (short for fugeddaboutit). The weaker defenses are unfortunate, but a plus speed nature on a pokemone that revolves around outspeeding your opponent is never a bad thing. Unfortunately Fugedda has big pecks instead of superluck as an ability, but also, lol, I may as well have it because Fugedda, along with a little help from the rest of the team, manage to land a critical hit in literally every battle from here to Nacrene. I have given route 3 the unofficial title of "Crit City" and man oh man did it earn it.

The team plasma bit where they steal Bianca's Pokemon was almost a disaster thanks to me constantly forgetting that patrats have bide. Fortunately Pacifica gets a well timed crit and is able to take it out in two turns. Pacifica again is our lead for the multi battle with Cheren against the two plasma grunts. We start the battle off with a strong water gun but have to swap out when it becomes clear that the AI is ganging up on us. We'd likely be safe to stay in for one more turn but a critical hit here would've been devastating so we swap to Broiler instead. A couple turns of incinerates later and we're right as rain.

After resolving the team plasma issue, we take a little poke around Wellspring cave to see what we can find, and end up finding a new friend in a naughty Woobat named Cotton. Not a great pokemon all things considered, but its very quick and has access to some pretty nice moves that lets it be a consistant damage dealer early game, and if I so choose, a good debuffer/suicide lead later on. If nothing else, its pokemon, this is unlikely to be the only cave we'll be running through and getting the "zubat" out of the way early will help us find something more worthwhile down the line.

Despite this being a blind nuzlocke where it is always 100% safer, and 100% smarter to grind on wild pokemon, I have been battling the random trainers on the routes. This finally bites me in the ass when I start battling School Kid Al. Al only has one pokemon, but its a Blitzle, an electric type, which most of my team is weak to. Not only that but its lvl 13, and at this point in my grinding my pokemon are all ~lvl 14, so its not as if we have a huge advantage. Additionally blitzle has access to both charge, and shock wave. Shock wave alone would be bad enough. A 60bp stab move at this point in the game is very dangerous, and one that has been given the boost by charge is cataclysmic. Even worse is that I was leading with Pacifica so we needed to get out of there ASAP. I used a leer, knowing we could survive at least one hit, and blitzle ended up going for a charge. Expecting a shock wave I swapped to Pickles, who indeed does get hit hard by a shock wave but is able to take them out next turn thanks to a crit.

I am slowly realizing how much I hate patrats though. When every chipmunk you run across is a potential grenade, you eventually learn to despise each and every one.

A bit of good news though is the fact that it turns out I miss read pokemondb and Pickles does indeed get intimidate after they evolve. Its a huge help from here on out and Pickles will likely remain in my party until we either run into a fighting gym or I luck out and get 5 other top tier encounters. Intimidate is easily a top 10 ability for me in nuzlockes, especially here in the early game where there's not too much you can do to strategize, especially especially if you know nothing about the teams you will be facing, as I do not.

Well we make it to Nacrene eventually, but instead of tackling the gym yet I decide to head west to see what lies over yonder, and am hoping for another encounter before the gym. It turns out this is the infamous Pinwheel forest I've heard so much about from people trying to nuzlocke gen 5. I vaguely remembered something weird about it that a lot of different people decided to make an exemption for so I ended up looking up what it was. Turns out there's something called the "Pinwheel clause" for nuzlockes. TDLR is that a bunch of people decide to split Pinwheel forest into two different encounters; the outside, commonly referred to as 'Challenge Rock' and the inside of the forest, commonly referred to as 'Pinwheel Proper.' I decide that not only since this is my first romp through Unova that I'll allow myself the Pinwheel clause, but the encounters themselves have always been more fun for me than increasingly tightening my restrictions. This way, at the very least, I'll have two new Unova pokes that I've never used before and now have the chance to. That being said, it turns out the inside is blocked off for now by a wall of team plasma grunts, so no likely flying/grass/bug type poke for me for now.

Challenge rock is open to me for now though and after a quick battle with a nurse who looks to be on break, a Relaxed Tympole named Penzance joins the team, albiet they go to the box for now. I imagine they'll be a great addition to the team eventually with Seismitoad being reasonably bulky, and having a ground type in my 'noticeably weak to electric types' team will be a huge boon.

I do eventually run into a Timbur, and later a Throh here, which would've been really nice since the upcoming gym is normal typed, but I guess we will have to make do.

Thankfully, this time at least, I remembered there was an ambush battle with N before you can access the gym itself, so after grinding up my pokes to ~18, N is taken care of thanks to a combination of Pacifica, Pickles, and Cotton.

We get through the gym just fine and find ourselves face to face with Lenora (love her design btw). Here's the team I've put together for the fight:

Everyone has an Oran berry except for Chestnut who has a Persim berry which I got when I caught Penzance, lucky me!

Since I know nothing about her team, I've picked the pokes who I believe give me the most rounded team, and the most bulkiest one I could bring, which, as you can see, isn't much. The plan is to once again lead Broiler to hit a yawn, and then swap to Pickles who knows workup, and has our second strongest defense defense stat behind Chestnut (which surprises me tbh. I thought Watchog was pretty frail, but I guess this just means that their stats start falling off in comparison to others pretty quick). I don't know what Lenora has as far as team members go, but I suspect that it will be a team of three of Patrat, Herdier, Watchog. What makes anticipating her team harder is that I vaguely remember her blaze black team that has a Boufulant which would be insane to fight right now so I'm dearly hoping that that's not it lol.

I am lowkey nervous for this fight since early normal type gyms are always a danger. Usually normal type pokemon evolve fairly early, and Game freak usually loves to give normal type gym leaders an illegal ace that is fully evolved despite not being at the right level for it. Additionally, usually they have a very strong stab move that you don't have access to yet, usually given to you as a TM after the battle

Here's Broiler and Pickles btw. They're the ones I'll be relying on the most here so I figured I'd give you all a better look at what's under the hood.

The fight starts with me leading Broiler and Lenora leading with her Herdier. I am relieved to see that she only has two pokemon, but that definitely signals to me that the one waiting in the back is either a powerful single-staged poke, or a fully evolved one. I'm still suspecting a Watchog though. Broiler hits a yawn and Lenora retaliates with a take down, which would've just one shot Broiler if it crit. After taking a quick look at the rest of my team, a crit would kill most of my team, so that's great.

My usual strategy for tough fights in nuzlockes is "slow and steady," so I usually waffle when thats not an option if I don't have a designated physical/special tank.

I swap to Pickles who gets an intimidate drop off before taking a take down that does a little over 15%. Herdier falls asleep and thanks to Pickles coming in before it started to sleep, we are easily able to get 2 turns of using work up with no punishment. I believe that in order to one shot whatever Lenora has in the back Pickles will need to be at least +4 attack, so I go for another. Herdier unfortunately wakes up, but Pickles is amazingly able to dodge a take down which means we've got a +3 Herdier with no retaliation whatsoever. Not wanting to push my luck, I have Pickles take it out next turn with a tackle.

Lenora confirms my suspicions and sends in a Watchog in next. It outspeeds and lands a hypnosis which is very annoying, and potentially apocalyptic. I don't really have any other option here since I know this watchog will hit like a tank, so I have Pickles stay in, and they get hit with a nasty Retaliation (there's that strong stab move I expected) which would've just straight up killed Pickles if Lenora used the move as it was intended to be used. Pickles falls from 42hp to 17, which we heal back 10 thanks to an oran berry. Pickles amazingly gets the one turn wake up and hits a tackle that leaves the opposing watchog with ~12% or so, just above the redline.

Pickles doesn't outspeed here, and I don't know when the AI will start to heal here. I decide that if we do indeed get through this gym Pickles will be too invaluable of a member to go down here, so I need to swap them out. Because this watchog hits so hard, I get the fatalistic idea in my head that we aren't getting through this one deathless, and perhaps because I hate facing them so much, and I know that they start to fall off soon, I send in my own Watchog, Chestnut, who I plan on taking the fall.

Lenora does indeed end up healing here, which is unfortunate, but it does mean that Chestnut is able to swap in for free. We outspeed because Chestnut is a speedy girl and hit a crunch that does ~25% while Lenora retaliates with a retaliate that takes about ~45% off of Chestnut.

Its not looking good.

Next turn a crunch does another 25%ish actually gets the defense drop which is huge because I was really debating on just spamming leer until she went down. Even better is that Lenora whiffs a hypnosis, which leaves Chestnut in a wonderful position and it seems like out fates have suddenly reversed. One final crunch and we take out Lenora's Watchog, winning us the 2nd gym deathless!

Post Script:

Again I have a few miscellaneous thoughts I'd like to go over here at the end of the "episode.'

I'd like to talk about the difficulty/perceived difficulty. Obviously things are a little difficult. Its the nature of a nuzlocke, even more so a blind nuzlocke, but that's not what I mean. The fact that we're at the second gym, level 20, and only one of my pokemon has fully evolved is pretty odd when you consider the other games in the franchise. I suppose you could chalk it up to the absence of any bug types up until now, but still. It meas we're lacking some reliable sluggers in terms of stats, and missing the ever useful status moves typical of early game pokemon. Its an odd thing to try and get used to tbh.

I need to clarify and once again state that I don't think that this is an inherently bad change/design decision. I actually think its really really cool how you are only able to use, even see, gen 5 pokemon until you beat the pokemon league. Its a really fun design decision that I wish they would've come back to because it forces you to use new pokes that you might have not even given the chance. Its part of the reason why I love nuzlockes so much. I never used to even consider using a Walrein, but after an Emerald nuzlocke where everything was going to shit, it pulled through for me and has easily become one of my top 10 pokemon.

That being said, its a pretty alien situation I find myself in and struggling to get used to. It seems to me, that in place of having various "early game pokemon" who grow quick and evolve at low levels, but generally have low total stats, we instead have stage 1 or 2 pokemon that might not have the highest of stats, but access to some pretty strong moves, pretty damn early in the game. The easiest example of this is Blitzle who I talked about earlier. A practically guaranteed 90bp move at +1 SpA so close to the start of the game is insane. I get that Blitzle/Zebstrika aren't the most amazing SpA pokes, but those stats are certainly workable and you need to be wary around them. Giving Lenora both take down and retaliate is another great example in that sure herdier/watchog might not be the strongest of pokemon, but at this point in the game, with such strong STAB moves, they're certainly dangerous.

I'm Thinking of adding more photos to these posts yet as well. At minimum I think I'm going to take more detailed pics of the entire team before each gym/major boss fight, just so you all know what I'm bringing to the table. I'd also like to post a pic of what the team looks like immediately after the gym fight so you all can see how much damage we took, and also so you can see I'm not cheating lol. Its something I usually do and I just keep forgetting so lol gotta make sure I do it for the remainder of my playthrough.

As far as thoughts about the game itself go, I find myself a little disappointment in the sound and music design tbh despite me playing on a very real and legitimate DS, I can't help but feel like the sound and music would've hit better back in the day on an original. As it stands though a very 6/10 on the music so far. The main battle theme is a banger though.

And as a final note, a bit of good news! I've actually finished part 3, and I'm hoping to get it out before the end of the weekend, so no waiting another 2 weeks for the next installment as I try to wrangle my ADHD. Its all done and I've taken some meticulous notes to help me keep track of all that I've done.

[thispit-thelame]

Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.1: Third Time’s the Charm

Level Cap: 14

Well, lol. It has indeed been a little bit since my first post where I set the stage for this nuzlocke, and while I’d like to say that it was because I was making great progress with it and just haven’t found the time to post it all, it was not. I bought Elden Ring in the steam sale, and as I feared it would, it has ate my waking life whenever I’m not busy with work and such. Very very good game lol.

That being said I have finally completed my first leg of the nuzlocke and beat the first gym, though it wasn’t without a few false starts. Guess that this means this isn’t actually attempt one but eh, I’m the archivist here. First attempt was going fine enough but I accidentally killed my route 2 encounter, a Patrat, with a crit, and then my Lilipup I caught on route 1 died to me having to sacrifice them to a bide using Patrat in the first gym which I didn’t know they knew, and Lilipup hit a crit turn one. Already down two encounters I decided to just reset. Second attempt saw me losing to Cheren in the first room so that was another automatic reset. But the third attempt? Third time’s the charm baby.

I chose Oshowatt as my starter, if only because water is usually a safe option when it comes to starters. Waterfall/Surf (usually) being guaranteed via TM/HM means you’ll have at least one very strong STAB move to help carry you through the game, especially if you can get some set up going beforehand.

My Route 1 encounter was yet again a Lilipup, which I named Pickles. Thankfully, I know from other nuzlocke of other generations I have done, Pickles is a pretty decent catch. STAB return/double-edge, in additon to other strong physical moves, and the fact that Stoutland is surprisingly bulky means its a jack of all trades, of a sort. The fact that it can have the ability intimidate too makes it amazing for nuzlockes. Unfortunately, Pickles has Vital Spirit as an ability, which will turn into Sand Stream when they evolve. But hey, they’re still pretty good, and absolute miles above my next encounter.

Route 2 we get through just fine, but our encounter is a Patrat named Chestnut. There’s no nice way to put it; Patrat sucks. It sucks so much lol. The only thing it has going for it is STAB tackle and bide, which are pretty much useless after the first gym or so, and Patrat really doesn’t have the stats to use anything but bide for reliable damage, and that’s a horrendous idea for a nuzlocke.

Both Bianca and N fall easily to the mighty beast that is Pickles, as does Cheren soon after with the help of the gift Pansear named Broiler we were gifted in the Dreamyard. From there it was a straight shot to the gym leader Cilian. 

This was a mildly scary fight as Cilian was able to set up a couple workups, but we get through this deathless, but not without a close call. Cilian leads lilipup as we lead Chestnut. We get off three leers while Cilian thankfully only gets a tackle, and then two work ups off. From there it was a swap to Pickles who took their mirror out just fine. Pansage comes out next and since I don’t believe that Pickles will be able to take them out before it gets a bunch of scary stat boosts, I stay in for a turn to hit a tail whip to lower its defenses while Pansage goes for the expected work up. I decide to stay in for one more turn and hit a tackle since Pickles can take a hit, and Pansage retaliates with a critical hit vine whip which we barely survive. I need to swap here so its off to Broiler who I realize made the tail whip pointless thanks to incinerate being a special move, but like 4 incinerates later due to Cilian healing, Broiler who resists vine whip takes out the grass monkey no problem, winning us the badge.

This is the team so far. I’m proud of how they performed in the gym but I’m hoping we can get some other options quickly because lol Chestnut, sorry bud, you’re certainly not a powerhouse.

Post Script:

If this was twitter I would’ve interspersed the thread with a few thoughts/explanations on the game/story so far and what strategies I was going for or what I was planning. I figure if i just leave a little space for me at the end of each section to go over a couple things that should be just fine.

I’m still trying to figure out how I want to format this. I’d like to experiment more with adding more screenshots but I also don’t want this to become unwieldly long. I’ll probably just take screenshots if I get a good/cool encounter or if I end up in a bad spot in a battle. I usually also like to take a pic of the team before and after a gym leader fight but I forgot to this time.

Also the grinding. Gods the grinding lol. I am hoping beyond hope that the grinding gets better as the game progresses because having to grind on lvl 4-7 wild pokemon to get to level 14 was such a pain that I just stopped because I thought 13 was good enough. I do find it really cool how Black/White limit your encounters to purely gen 5 pokemon until the postgame, but man. Only 3 (4 if you count the gift monkey) unique pokemon encounter options before the first gym? That’s rough. iirc this is the most limited your options have been before the first gym in the entire series. Even romhacks are more generous than this. Again, since this is a blind nuzlocke I dont know anything about the encounter tables but I’m hoping it improves a bit as we progress through the game.

Broiler seems to be a good option for an encounter for the dreamyard. Even if I would have liked to hold off until after we got cut and were able to see what was in the grass patch just out of reach, Broiler seems to be a fairly strong and speedy mixed attacker, which will be nice to use. Also fire types are generally rare in most generations, so getting an early one is always a boon.

So far, so good, but I’m def looking forward to the new encounters lol, if only to fill out the party, and replace a few lackluster team members (looking at you chestnut)

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My lovely formatting?????????? atomized????????? NOOOOOOOOO Where did you go???? I NEED to fix this my fucking gods lmao

[thispit-thelame]

Pokemon White Nuzlocke: The First of Many Attempts

Episode 1: Housekeeping Welcome folks to my first journey through Unova. I’ve been a huge fan of pokemon ever since I was given a copy of Sapphire as a birthday gift at the tender age of 4. Despite that however, I’ve never actually played a generation 5 game. A bunch of different things are at fault for that but they’re certainly not relevant to this playthrough. All you need to know is that this is indeed a BLIND Nuzlocke and as such the methodology of attempting a nuzlocke is very different than normal. In addition since I do all of my nuzlockes as a “hardcore” run (level caps, set mode, no items in battle) I am anticipating far more than just 1 (one) attempt. Its going to be both incredibly fun and incredibly hellish I imagine, and I hope you all stick around to see me wade through a bog of my own design With all that out of the way lets go over the rules for this run

Only one encounter per route/area

If a pokemon faints its permaboxed

No items in battle (held items are okay)

Set mode only

Level caps are active (no leveling past the next gym leader’s ace)

Species Clause is active (reroll encounters until a non-currently-owned pokemon is found)

Pokemondb is the only resource allowed

Rule 7 technically makes this “not blind” but the series has always had a few pokes that have byzantine ways to evolve and I’d rather not have to choose between two stage 1 pokemon in my party where one is close to evolving and the other needs to have a certain item (i.e sneasel/any stone evolution) or a certain move (i.e pangoro/mamoswine). That being said pokemondb is a great resource for blind playthroughs since it doesn’t really have any information on any part of a game besides the things that pertain to the pokemon themselves. 

That being said lets talk about what I do know. Since gen 5 was such a phenomenon in the pokemon community I know a bits and bobs via cultural osmosis, but nothing that will give me a forewarning until it is already upon me. I know a bit of the overarching story, and I know of a few pokemon certain bosses have like the Excadrill that Clay has, and N’s Zoroark and legendary, but my knowledge of everyone’s teams is still pretty much zilch, and I am certain to get ambushed by a rival/story beat more than once. The only thing I did look up on purpose beforehand were level caps, but I did it in such a way that I don’t remember anything about the bosses’ teams at all so lol.

Finally lets talk about how I’m going to record these; I’m not going to lie. I haven’t used tumblr in a long long time, and I’m used to twitter where it was easy to essentially post a real time update as to how things were going. With the different formatting and my unwillingness to clog the Nuzlocke tag with constant updates, I think I am going to separate posts by gyms. Therefore my entire playthrough will be covered by roughly 10 posts, one for each leg of gym to gym, the E4, and the final confrontation with N/Ghetsis. I may make an extra post or two if we are subjected to some pretty unfortunate events or if there’s an extended story segment a la Lysander or Emerald’s final confrontations with Aqua, but who knows? We’ll play it by ear. 

And with the housekeeping out of the way, let the Nuzlocke begin!

[thispit-thelame]

Well this was my team going into the final champion

A very tough fight for two main reasons; 5v6 meant that we were already at a disadvantage, and this fight has a permanent sandstorm so we were really on a timer.

Swapped Lee's leftovers for a wide lens because I'd really really really rattler not miss a 90% accurate HJK and recoil myself to death. Also swapped Shallot's petal dance for earthquake because that would be far more useful here

Actually lead Lee, which worked out wonderfully because I was able to very quickly turn the tides from a 5v6 to a 5v3 with the help of bulk up, recover, and fire punch. Steven then sent in a stall focused lugia which was annoying but not really a threat thanks to Heatsink. I unfortunately had to let Lee go down when Steven then sent out a celebii of all things but Perun was able to get the revenge kill easily.

Last, and certainly a pain in the ass, was registeel, but that really wasn't too big of a deal. I did lose Perun and Sheila to it because I was rising to get this fight done with. Also I've been up for like 36hrs so lol. Shallots finished it off with a final earthquake and we actually beat emerald rogue lol

I'd definitely recommend this romhack tbh, just so many options to tailor your run, and as a roguelike, the hack really helps to keep the pokemon formula interesting. It's also great practice for your own nuzlockes, or even competitive by making you think and act on your toes. Great hack and tbh I'll probs be playing this one for years

I'm currently playing through Pokémon emerald rogue; a romhack for emerald which changes the game into a modern roguelike with all the expected bells and whistles. It's got a hub/home zone where you earn money by attempting runs, and places to spend it. The game settings are surprisingly robust allowing you to fully customize how easy/hard your game is, with the only constant being permadeath for your pokes

I, however, seem to be somewhat of a masochist and am attempting this as a hardcore nuzlocke (only one encounter per area, no items in battle) and while this attempt has been fairly shoddy it's my furthest attempt yet

This is my team so far, and while I've lost a few key team members, so far everyone has come in clutch when I needed them the most

Really cannot understate how good huge power Medicham is, especially with bulk up, recover, high jump kick, and an elemental punch lol

Shallots has also been wonderful with sleep powder, growth, leech seed and Petal Dance

Clefable (forgot time nickname them lol) is a phenomenal tank/cleric with access to wish and/or moonlight and stealth rocks

Crapshot was my last encounter before the first E4 member and I really didn't expect them to be all that useful. The latter half of the game's bosses have great held items and great coverage but they put in work whenever we find a choice item user

Edison I just caught and was at first disappointed in, but they should be really good for Wallace, if I don't just use them as a sacrifice for a safe swap in with one of the aforementioned pary members

Just 3 E4 members left, and both Hoenn champions and then I can say I've beat this bastard of a game lol

[thispit-thelame]

In other news though I’m going to be starting a blind Pokemon White nuzlocke which is going to be both interesting and fun because I’ve actually never played generation 5 before lol. I know a little thanks to cultural osmosis but this will be by and large my first jaunt through Unova Only “research” I’ve done is looking up level caps, but I’ve done it in such a way that I remember nothing about the gym leaders’ teams. I remember certain random details like some pokes on certain teams but I know nothing about their learnsets or stats so lol

I want to move my nuzlockes I have detailed on twitter to here for archival purposes but since twitter shit the bed I can't view threads and that's a huge problem when you're trying to copy it all lol