Pokemon Moon Text LP: Part 22 (Patreon)

Well, it's certainly been a while. A few things can be blamed for that, partly the fact that I spent a few days busy with moving to a new apartment, but mostly because I've been putting off progress yet again. Because it's been so long since the last write-up and I only took notes for the first few things I did, a lot of this is going to be kind of vague and undetailed. Well, here goes.

After the events of the last segment (Nebby evolving into Lunala, going to Ultra Space, battling Lusamine, catching Lunala), the only thing left to do in the plot is to climb Mt. Lanakila and challenge the Pokemon League. But before I can do that, Gladion shows up for one last battle at the base of the mountain. I didn't write down any notes regarding how the battle went, but I remember it coming down to the wire. His team is fully evolved now, including Null, who is now a Silvally! This is (as I know from out-of-game knowledge) the "Type: Full" mentioned in the Aether Foundation's notes, and has the ability to become any type by holding different memory discs. His is holding the Fire one as a way to counter my chosen starter of this run. Between that and his Crobat, Weavile, and Lucario, it was a fairly challenging fight.

The climb up the mountain afterwards is actually fairly uneventful. Unlike most "Victory Road" type areas, there were no trainers here at all. Taking a page from Johto's design, I see. But yeah, mainly it was just a couple small outdoor areas and an icy cave that was vaguely maze-like but not actually difficult to get through. While exploring, I caught a Sneasel and Drampa, found the final Z-Crystal (Icium Z), and got the Ice Beam TM to teach to Ratzenberger. Drampa is specifically notable for being something that I originally wanted to use on my team, but because it's obtained in literally the final area before the Pokemon League, it wasn't really something I could consider without trading one in earlier. And I generally don't like to do that, so Drampa got a pass and was replaced by Komala. Overall it actually worked out pretty well, since Dreemurr turned out to be surprisingly strong.

Oh right, and SOS-specific encounters are still a thing. So I got to spend some fun time getting a Glalie to show up. After catching it, Malone happened to get enough experience for a levelup, and therefore an evolution! Crabrawler's another location-specific evolution, and much like Charjabug, it certainly took a long time to get to the point where it could happen. But unlike Charjabug, I'm actually going to be using this one, so Malone evolved into the part-Ice Crabominable and my team is pretty much complete! Oh, and after the evolution, he learned Ice Punch, which I replaced Dizzy Punch with.

Speaking of replacing moves, the Pokemon Center at the top of the mountain contains the Move Relearner, so I spent a decent amount of time going through everyone's possible new moves and deciding which ones were worth it. I'm not going to list all the changes here (no point in doing that, really), but I did make it a point to only teach things that wouldn't already be learned at Level 50 or lower unless they were the "move relearner exclusive" type of moves. Why Level 50? Because I figured I'd probably end up grinding a bit before the Pokemon League anyway, so there wasn't any reason to waste the Heart Scales.

At this point, the only thing between me and the League was a battle against Hau. I actually lost the battle on my first attempt, and ended up putting it off for a couple days before finally going for it and winning on the second try (without having to specifically level up beforehand). Unfortunately I didn't write down anything about this fight, which is a bit of a shame because it's the final one (at least before the postgame, there might be more later) and I do remember it being pretty close. All I can really say is that his team was Raichu, Flareon, Komala, and Primarina, all Level 53-54. My team was about 44-45 at the time. And I did indeed keep Nebby on the team for this (and the previous Gladion battle), so although I did have more Pokemon than him, it was only 5-4 instead of 6-4, so the level gap was a lot more noticeable.

Here begins the long, LONG period of me not really doing much of anything. By that, I mean I spent a few days basically not playing the game at all aside from checking Poke Pelago, and then I spent a few more doing nothing but catching extra Pokemon for the living dex. Basically if I only had one of something couldn't catch its evolution somewhere, I'd catch another of the first form, and so on. This includes Vanillish, a weather SOS encounter, and the last Pokemon that could be found somewhere in the wild that isn't either in the postgame or starts with the prefix "Poli". Yeah, Poliwrath and Politoed are still on hold, they're just too irritating to deal with.

At some point in the middle of doing all this, I did another outfit change, going with my overall favorites in each category (instead of trying to try out different stuff for the sake of variety) while still making it look decent overall. I ended up with a green shirt and red plaid skirt with purple shoes and a blue bag... which incidentally happens to be almost exactly the same outfit as Donna, my character from Pokemon Y. The only real differences are the hair and hat, with slight color differences on the socks and bag. I did sort of intend for this to be the case when I started putting it together, but only specifically the shirt and skirt. The rest just kind of happened that way. As usual, you can see the final outfit in the trainer card at the end of this post, and here's a picture of Donna for comparison:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/BikdipOnABus/Donna_zps7e1e4cc3.png

Anyway, back to something that isn't playing dress-up, part of the reason I was doing this is because of my attempts to not specifically grind at any point of the playthrough. I'd rather catch stuff that I need and have my party level up in the process than specifically battle a bunch of wild Pokes. It's slower, yes, but it was just sort of the principle of the matter. But eventually I ran out of things to catch, and my team was still around the 46-47 range. So at this point I had three options: Try the Pokemon League anyway even though I'm probably pretty underleveled, start actually grinding, or move on to evolving things for the living dex and get experience that way. If you know me, you probably know what I ended up going with.

But first, an interruption. Remember my attempts to get a Snivy named Vine Snek to Vinesauce Vinny during one of his streams? Well, there was another attempt at that when I managed to catch his December 31st stream live. I got 8 trades in during that stream, and none of them were with Vinny himself, but I definitely got some good'ns this time. Here's the loadout:

- A Skarmory nicknamed "Skarmoney". OT is "Jack". It was caught at Level 28 in a Quick Ball, but leveled up to 40. I'm not sure if the nickname is supposed to be a pun on "money" for some reason, or if it's a reference to how Vinny pronounced it when he first saw it and didn't realize it was spelled with an R and not an N. I'd personally spell that as "Skarmony", so I'm not sure.

- A hatched-in-Dusk-Ball Wimpod with the OT "Aeraki". According to a youtube comment on part 11 of my Skyrim LP, this is from the friend of "birdinabag". I don't actually know who this is, but I find it cool when I know who I traded with, even vaguely.

- A hatched Mareanie with the OT "Dan". Doesn't seem special in any other way, but I believe it came from the stream chat member "Neoxe9". It was kind of unclear, there were two chat members with similar names that got "Vine Snek" when I asked about it, but apparently there was another person besides me sending them out with that same nickname, except theirs were in Beast Balls.

- A French Lillipup named "Ponchiot" with the OT "Thomas". It's caught in an Ultra Ball and seems completely ordinary otherwise. And apparently "Ponchiot" is just Lillipup's French name, so it's not actually nicknamed.

- A Psyduck named "Scoot" with the OT "Voltaire". It was caught in an Ultra Ball at Level 16 and then leveled up to 18. If you're unaware, Scoot is a duck from Animal Crossing that is one of the random villagers you can get. He's become somewhat of a Vinesauce meme, which is interesting because he was also my favorite villager from the original Gamecube game.

- A non-nicknamed Snivy hatched in a Beast Ball (not one of the Vine Sneks I mentioned earlier) that has Pokerus. The OT is "Chrissy", and it's Level 5.

- Another Psyduck, this one not nicknamed, caught in a Repeat Ball. OT is "Carol".

- A Japanese Gengar caught in a Dusk Ball. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing if it was caught as a Gengar or if it was evolved from a Haunter, since the fact that it has no experience gained from its "Level Met" is irrelevant for trade evolutions.

That's the haul. Oh, and one little thing I forgot to point out: SKARMONEY AND SCOOT ARE FREAKING SHINY. Yeah. People give away some crazy good stuff during these streams. Vinny got a shiny Mimikyu, Tsareena (though that one was almost certainly hacked, or at least cloned), and Honedge, and the fact that I got two myself here proves that there's certainly many more where those came from. It's kinda funny though, I always record these Wonder Trade sessions with my webcam just in case something cool happens, and I typically watch the recording window rather than the game itself. Skarmoney was the first trade of the night, and I didn't notice it was shiny when I first got it. Scoot was pretty clear though, and that one definitely caught my attention. With the name it was given, there's no doubt in my mind that it was intended for Vinny.

When I looked through the box later on to investigate what I got, that was when I discovered that Skarmoney was also shiny. I'm not 100% sure that it was meant for Vinny, but seeing as how it's a shiny distributed through Wonder Trade at the exact same time that he was streaming it, I'd say it's pretty likely. So yeah. I have no idea what I'm going to do with these, but they're definitely cool things to have. Scoot especially, because of the name, and the fact that Psyduck was my first ever shiny back in Sapphire. If I had received them earlier in the playthrough, I might have actually added them to my team, but it seems a bit pointless to do that now.

Anyways, that aside, it's been about a week now since that stream and I don't have much to show for it in terms of actual progress, but I've worked on the Pokedex a fair bit, and my team has also reached Level 50. I also did some minor stuff like showing the Garfielf to Samson Oak and the Raichu to the person who wanted to see that. (Got a Love Ball and the Aloraichium Z, respectively, from doing that.) I was actually planning on completing as much of the Dex as possible before moving on (currently I'm up to Goodra as the next thing I need, going in Dex order), but since I just hit a nice round number, it's probably a good place to stop. I don't want to actually be overleveled for the League either, and from what I looked at (trying my best to not pay attention to who the trainers actually are, and not paying super close attention to the Pokemon either), they range from Level 54 to 58. I feel like I can pull that off if I'm smart about it. So I'm going to stop here and figure out what I want to do next.

For the Pokemon League, I can either do what I've been doing (just play through it myself, take notes, and then write about it afterwards), I can record it, or I can stream it. I'm not really sure which I should do, I'd be fine with any of them, though leaning towards the non-text options. Trying to make a Pokemon battle sound exciting in written format is kinda difficult, and the note-taking process is annoying. And regardless of how I approach it, there's a couple other things to address. First off is the matter of what team I'm using. Nebby's taking up a slot of her own (and will most likely not be used unless I get desperate), and the three starters should be an all-or-none sort of package deal. I think I do want to use all of them, so that leaves two other choices. Trying to avoid doubling up on types as much as possible, I think Malone and Lubba work out pretty nicely. I put them into a team weakness calculator and between the five I'm actually using, there's no types that more than two team members are weak to, and of those types, I've usually got a couple that resist it. My worst matchup is Rock, with two weak and no resists. So we'll see how that goes. Thinking towards the future a bit, I usually like to run through the League a second time with the B-team, but in this case, I'll still have a Pokemon that will be left out, since Nebby's hogging up a slot the first time. Eh, I'll deal with it when it comes.

Lastly, here's my full team movesets, for reference. I'm sure a few of them could be improved a bit, especially as far as held items go, but I've been pretty happy with most of this for a while now.

Fellana (Decidueye) @ Decidium Z

Serious, Overgrow

- Leaf Blade

- Spirit Shackle

- Brave Bird

- Synthesis

El Grapadura (Incineroar) @ Muscle Band

Timid, Blaze

- Flare Blitz

- Darkest Lariat

- Flamethrower

- Swords Dance

Lena (Primarina) @ Wide Lens

Relaxed, Torrent

- Moonblast

- Sparkling Aria

- Blizzard

- Aqua Jet

Crazy Bus (Charjabug) @ Eviolite

Lonely, Battery

- Wild Charge

- X-Scissor

- Dig

- Thunder Wave

Malone (Crabrawler) @ Leftovers

Jolly, Iron Fist

- Power-Up Punch

- Ice Punch

- Crabhammer

- Rock Slide

Laylee (Pa'u Style Oricorio) @ Leftovers

Lonely, Dancer

- Revelation Dance

- Hurricane

- Calm Mind

- Roost

Skeeter (Araquanid) @ Expert Belt

Rash, Water Bubble

- Leech Life

- Liquidation

- Poison Jab

- Crunch

Ratzenberger (Wishiwashi) @ Waterium Z

Calm, Schooling

- Scald

- Ice Beam

- Bulldoze

- Aqua Ring

Aleene (Palossand) @ Quick Claw

Lax, Water Compaction

- Earth Power

- Shadow Ball

- Giga Drain

- Hypnosis

Dreemurr (Komala) @ Normalium Z

Lonely, Comatose

- Return

- Wood Hammer

- Swords Dance

- Yawn

Lubba (Minior) @ Rockium Z

Timid, Shields Down

- Power Gem

- Psychic

- Shell Smash

- Stealth Rock

Napstablook (Mimikyu) @ Fairium Z

Adamant, Disguise

- Play Rough

- Shadow Claw

- Shadow Sneak

- Thunder Wave

All of the above are Level 50, have maxed out affection in Refresh, and have random EV spreads. And not sure if this one even really counts, but here's Nebby, who has not been used in a single battle. I've gotten her affection up to three hearts. In the case of desperation, I could probably replace a couple of the moves (and the held item) before starting, but I don't plan on doing so.

Nebby (Lunala) @ Soothe Bell

Naughty, Shadow Shield

- Moongeist Beam

- Cosmic Power

- Night Daze

- Shadow Ball

Other than listing off everything I still have to do for the Pokedex (which I did actually write down but see no reason to include it here), that's about all I can say. So yeah, guess we'll see what happens next. Probably a video or a stream, maybe not. And then there's postgame stuff, which I might write about at least a little. But I said before this game came out that I wouldn't start seriously working on my Pokemon tabletop RPG until I was done with Moon, and that was before I planned on doing a text LP. Now that I've been putting off finishing it for so long, I really should get it over with soon so I can start work on that.

Current status:

http://i.imgur.com/8oedmYb.png