/nuz/ - Nuzlocke and Challenge Run General

So meanwhile, as I'm training and getting stronger in the HeartGold nuzlocke for battling Chuck's Gym, let's take a peek at what's going on in Fire Red land--

Progress: Beat Lt. Surge, and traversing the Rock Tunnel. No Drowzee in route 11, and no findable beasts in routes 6, 9, and 10 (until I get at least the Good Rod).

Fate does not want me to have a Meowth or Mankey on hand, it seems (lost them both on the S.S. Anne).

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A buddy is staying with me for a while, and he has Sword... so I'm doing a (more or less) blind Nuzlocke of Sword. I'm not grabbing the first pokemon I see in a route, but am either getting one of the random grass encounters, or occasionally saying fuck it and getting one I can see that seems neat. Or fishing.
Set, no items for now, handling each area of the wild area as a route... no idea how I'm handling dens. Might just ignore them.

I just got my first badge, Carjabug soloed hard, didn't even need to Dynamax, I thought I was overlevelled like fuck at 22, but was on par-ish. Not bad.
No deaths so far, had a close call on a wild Machop that almost killed Scorbunny with a Revenge, got down to 2 HP, and the Cherubi, which was in Sun, so got scary after a few Growths.
I am... concerned, that wild pokemon have given me so much more concern than trainers.

Core team is Rabboot, Gyarados, Charjabug, and Machop. Gyarados is so fucking busted in this game, holy shit, WHY does it have Waterfall and Crunch by 25? Fucker killed a level 37 Bronzor in the Wild Area like it was nothing, and killed Bede so hard I think he retired early. In the future, Gyarados is hella banned in this game, goddamn, but I figure it's fine since it's blind, and it'll probably die to random electric coverage.
I also have a Stunky, Baltoy, Pumpkaboo, Cherubi, Barboach, and Chewtle all fairly decently levelled to rotate around those last two slots, and I just got an Espurr I'm excited for. Stunky is especially depressed, since its entire job, helping with gym 1, was upstaged by Charjabug just doing it by itself. Not sure if this game is easy as fuck, or if Gyarados and Charjabug are just carrying my ass
Dropped a disgusting amount of money on shades, my character looks like a douchebag and I love it.

Also holy fucking shit, what did they do to TMs in this game? Fucking Scary Face? Pin Missile? Nobody can even learn these moves if I wanted to teach them, who had a seizure at the data entry for TMs?

>beat Giovani
>downed my rival and got through victory road by the skin of my teeth
>always hated grinding so am severely underlevelled
I'm nervous for the elite 4 bros, never beaten a nuzlocke before...

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>Want to shit talk GF's reasoning for cutting things
>Don't want to derail the thread
You lucked out this time Masuda

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Cool team user, how good has the Kricketune been for you?

If you haven't already, put Shadow Ball on Flareon.

Flareon is unironically the best Eeveelution in FR/LG nuzlockes, and Shadow Ball is a big part of why.

It's up to you.

Typically, I go for max encounters in a game, because managing tons of pokemon makes me happy, so will consider things like gifts, static encounters, or grey areas like Grottos independant and fair game, and only start banning pokemon on their own merits or case-by-case (like, in gen 1 and FR/LG, I ban the Magikarp from before Mount Moon, because it makes the next chunk of the game too same-ey if it's always available.
I also have my own Safari Zone Bonanza rule, that basically just says you can catch as many pokemon as you want in one trip to the Safari Zone/equivalent, but can only keep one per area. Just because the Safari Zone in a Nuzlocke otherwise is depressing.
I also tend to have most legendaries as legal (basically, any legendary with a catch rate of 3) on the grounds that they're probably going to shred an entire team to get them, there's a solid chance they'll die leaving you nothing, and they tend to not even be that much better than average anyways.

But do what makes you happy. If you like holding event encounters as an alternative to normal encounters, do that. If you want 'em banned entirely, do that. If you want to ban a completely on par pokemon because it's on all of your teams and you want variety, do that. Hell, if you want deaths to not count until you break level 10, just because grinding level 3 shitmons that die in two hits when you have 3 potions to your name is miserable, go nuts.
If you want an almighty "this is my favorite pokemon, I can always try to catch the first one of it I see", go fukkin nuts, have fun.

I find that the best technical restrictions tend to be the ones you barely notice anyways, since even if they weren't there, you'd still end up following them out of personal preference. I also find that little things that give you a goody later on, like my Safari Zone rules, are a huge morale boost that can motivate you to get through slower parts of the game.

About as good as a Kricketune can be honestly. He hasn't gotten many moments to shine on his own, but he's there when it counts. He actually tankrd two Close Combat's from a Victory Road Staraptor ro protect Zyrdon, which left me impressed.

I really need to grind MT.Battle for some TMs, 2 Psychics, 2 Thunderbolts at least, maybe an Ice Beam for Quagsire to threaten fliers and dragons.

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About to get stuck on at Nessa's. Cherubi evolved into Cherrim and got Sunny Day literally a few seconds before I was about to walk in, so it might actually be a lot more useful than I anticipated.
Otherwise, the squad is Cherrim, Pumpkaboo, Charjabug, Gyarados, Machop, and Stunky. Stunky is pretty much fodder, I don't see it being useful anymore after this, maybe niche usage on Bede battles... but I don't know where or when those are, and Gyarados clowned on his pasty ass last time, so I'm not worried. I WAS going to bring Stufful for that purpose... but I sent it to do a job. It be like that sometimes. Stunky had better hope Cherrim carries this one as hard as Charjabug carried the last one, I guess.

Did a lap around the Wild Area, jesus fuck the grass badge didn't open a single fucking wild pokemon, what a useless thing to give you. Got a Leftovers from a berry tree though... so yey.

Holy shit Doomslayer the Cherrim lived up to its name. Stunky lives to retire.
Now I know this hasn't been me being carried by good pokemon, because Doomslayer is an abject piece of shit. It didn't even learn a usable Grass move by itself, I had to teach it Magical Leaf.

On the one hand, this is why I love Nuzlockes. Nobody, fucking nobody has probably seriously used a Cherrim, I don't hear people talking about how fucking cursed this thing's movepool is, and it just ran a train on this gym.

On the other hand... this piece of shit just ran a train on Nessa's whole career without even trying, I'm still basically on par with the level curve, +1ish, and was sitting on an entire team that was better.
I hadn't set out to do it, but this has turned into a no Dynamax run, I guess, fuck Dynamax, I don't need it.

I hope this game picks up in difficulty, I've yet to lose a pokemon, or even drop below half health since the early game, close calls with Machop, Doomslayer, and a Wobuffet aside.
The gym leader humiliation rave song is pretty cool, though, Sunny Cherrim dances almost perfectly to it.

Doomslayer the Cherrim, Master Chief the Stunky, and Freddy the Pumpkaboo are probably going on vacay for a while. Mr. Fish the Gyarados can probably sodomize the entire fire gym by itself, but Dagon the Barboach and Chad the Machop should hold it down either way.
Complacency may be the only way this game gets hard.

Also what the actual fuck is with the Whirlpool TM I just got for beating this gym, how come all of the bitching about this game I have heard, the TMs being the equivalent of willingly infecting your pokemon with dysentery has never come up?
Magical Leaf, Bulldoze, and Scary Face have been the only good ones; Magical Leaf purely because Cherrim is so fucking incompetent that it doesn't learn its own Grass moves, Bulldoze because Gyarados, and Scary Face because it's the only non damaging move I have that I can slap onto things when Wobuffet are around.