(note: next chunk pasted from the original "pokeplans" file on my work computer. Dates left as-is rather than attempting to create back-dated blog entries for each.)
(5/25/2010)
Whoah. Haven't updated this in a while.
Part of that is, I haven't been Entei-hunting in FR as much as I should. And another part is that I finally nabbed me some Munchlax, after saving up Watts for a whole week and then getting to a point where I could do enough walking to get the 8K steps. So until they distribute another route or I win the Indigo League, I've got everything the Pokewalker can get me. At the moment I'm on Night Sky's Edge again for the expensive goodies.
Though I haven't tried for Entei nearly enough times, I'm already heartily tired of looking. So I ended up booting up SS and playing for a bit. I got to Blackthorn, which has the Move Deleter and all the Move Tutors (the Relearner, Granny Wilma, and the ultimate starter move person) in the same little cabin. It also has a house with the gal who gives out Effort Ribbons, and only Chet has all his EVs (probably 'cause I'd slapped the Macho Brace on him).
Only, Heart Scales are horribly difficult to obtain, in HG/SS. You can pretty much get them only from the Pokethlon -- and then, only on Wednesday -- or from using Rock Smash. I may have to resort to trading them in from Pearl or Platinum.
Which brings me to several problems. One: To properly dupe Blue's Aquamarine, I need a Heart Scale to re-teach her Slam. And then I need to train her like crazy to get her up to where she'll learn Hyper Beam, if I can't buy the TM (or substitute Draco Meteor). Only, I can't train both her and Vermillion. Two: To properly dupe Silver's Vermillion, I need a second Heart Scale so he can have Thrash.
Three: I need an HM slave to dump Waterfall, Whirlpool, and Rock Smash upon (and possibly Flash) because I do NOT have room in the party for so many dang HM moves. Ideally a Jhoto water-type for this, but more likely candidates are Lapras or Golduck, or duping Silver's Wyrmling. Thing is, I'll have to cart that slave along, which means not training one of the core team. ARGH.
Since Aquamarine isn't meant to go to the E4, I put her away after learning Dragon Rush at lvl 35, and started training Vermillion instead. To help him catch up on EVs, I put the Macho Brace on him and fed him some vitamins. I did a whole level's worth of very low-level Poke-battles in the early routes, then moved up to Rt. 42's Mareep and Flaffy for some EVs in Sp. Atk. Somewhere in there, he found a Shiny Leaf, so I whipped out the book and found the other couple I can get before the E4. I also got a bunch of calls from trainers wanting rematches, which helped.
Aquamarine hadn't done well against the first trainer in the Blackthorn Gym, since dragon-types are weak to other dragons. Vermillion did much, much better, since he had Ice Fang and wasn't weak to dragon moves. He and Sheepish got me through the whole Gym until Clair. For her, I needed a lot more Hyper Potions than I liked to use, and it was Peya who finally knocked down her lvl 41 Kingdra. I was definitely underpowered for that Gym.
Worse, Clair wouldn't hand over the badge. Sore loser! So now I've got to go into the Dragon's Den and fight the Master there....which means, I need Whirlpool. And that means I've got to solve the HM slave problem before I can make any progress. ARGH again.
Crap, I forgot to call the Reed Group about that appointment. ARGH a third time!
(5/26/2010)
OK, so I didn't do any Entei-hunting, but did solve a couple of the above issues.
As I suspected, there were few Pokes who could have a moveset of Flash, Rock Smash, Waterfall, and Whirlpool, and one of the evo families that could was Psyduck/Golduck. But another was Wooper/Quagsire, and I'd wanted to use a Jhoto Pokemon for this purpose. So I fetched my random-caught Quagsire out of storage, named her Big Woop (like my other HM slave Big Mama) and taught her the necessary moves. For the moment she's taking Chet's slot in the party (since he's got all his EVs).
But I didn't make it into the Dragon's Den, between trying to train Big Woop up a little (she was caught at lvl 24), going through Dark Cave looking for smashable rocks, and doing a couple trainer rematches (I don't think I did the last two though, 'cause Deadliest Catch was on).
Turns out that not only was there a Heart Scale hidden on Rt 32, but going over to Cianwood and repeatedly attacking the rocks there netted me two more. I figure that if I keep bashing the rocks there, I can get all the scales I need -- one for Aquamarine to re-learn Slam, one for Vermillion to be taught Thrash (though I should look into replacing that with Outrage, maybe?) and then a few for Hootie, to get his attack set in order.
And speaking of Hootie, the Beautiful Beach course on the Pokewalker also has Heart Scales at a moderately rare find rate, so I'm on that course until I can build up Watts and steps to try finding some.
(6/1/2010)
Quite a bit of progress.
Between Beautiful Beach and lots of smashing rocks, I was able to get quite a few Heart Scales. I brought Hootie in long enough to have him relearn Confusion and teach him Fly; however, Noctowl can't learn Nightmare anymore, so I will need to think of something else. Vermillion relearned Thrash, and I'll mess with Aquamarine later.
Upon looking in the book and finding out the Dragon's Den involved a quiz rather than a battle, I went ahead and did that. Answering all the questions correctly netted me a Dratini with Extremespeed. This will be my new Wyrmling, though I think I'll tweak his moveset some, replacing Slam with Extremespeed and Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor instead of going for a straight dupe.
That got me the badge from Clair, which in turn got me the Master Ball from Prof. Elm, who told me to hop over to the Ecruteak Dance Theater. Fighting all five Kimono Girls got me the Tidal Bell, so it was off to the Whirl Islands to catch Lugia. After making my way through the caves, there was a really nice sequence with the Kimono Girls summoning Lugia with a dance, and Lugia making an impressive entrance. However, the damn thing took all but one of my Ultra Balls to catch. Don't have a name for it yet, either.
After that, I spent waaaay too much time chasing down rematches and collecting Apricorns before finally deciding to try for Victory Road. I put Peya away to make room for Big Woop, since you pretty much can't fly in Kanto 'till you make it to the League. Once I get through, I can bring Peya back out and go back into the caves to get everyone to lvl 50 (the Jhoto E4 are a bit lower in level than is usual).
And of course, I still haven't managed to find Entei in FR.
(6/2/2010)
Bored, and so thinking about SS movesets.
The thing about the nostalgia vs. utility debate is this: it occurs to me that it's reasonable to approach this as if I had been able to bring forward the originals, then update their movesets with all the fabulous new GIV options. Start with the original movesets as a basis, then tweak from there.
Cynder originally had Swift, Rollout, Flame Wheel, and Flamethrower; new target moveset is Swift, Rollout, Flamethrower, and Blast Burn, the ultimate Fire move. He'll need to learn Rollout at lvl 46 before I'll let him evolve to a Typhlosion so he can get Blast Burn, though.
Izzel originally had Cut, Swift, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes; new moveset is Cut, Headbutt, Quick Attack, and Fury Swipes. Reasoning here is that Swift isn't as kickass as it used to be, whereas Headbutt can now be used on any tree and therefore becomes a useful field move.
Sheepish originally had Strength, Flash, Thundershock, and Thunder; new target moveset is Strength, Thunder Wave, Thunder Punch, and Thunder. It makes more sense to have an HM slave for Flash, and with the new physical/special split, it's useful to have a typed attack of each kind.
Hootie originally had Hypnosis, Fly, Confusion, and Nightmare; new target moveset is Hypnosis, Fly, Extrasensory, and possibly Dream Eater or Roost. Extrasensory is an upgrade to Confusion. Nightmare was TM50 in Silver, but it's no longer a TM, and Noctowl can't learn it.
Vermillion originally had Surf, Thrash, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; might replace Hyper Beam with an Ice attack, because I'll need one against Lance and his dragons. [ Going with Ice Fang, and will likely up its PP as well. ]
Wyrmling originally had Waterfall, Outrage, Dragon Rage, and Hyper Beam; it seems perfectly natural to replace Outrage with Extremespeed, since I got the special Dratini with that from the Dragon Master, and to replace Hyper Beam with Draco Meteor.
Peya's target moveset is Fly, Miracle Eye, Psychic, and possibly Future Sight.
Chet's target moveset is Spider Web, Night Shade, Poison Jab, and possibly either Psychic, or relearn Bug Bite which would be good against Dark types.
