Just one more badge left, my next goal is the gym in Caspian City.
Before I leave Blackfist, I'm going to head to the Safari Zone here.
(Mostly because I can't leave Blackfist yet, I don't have Rock Smash)
"For just 500 Poke, you can cruise the wild rocky areas of the Vesryn region! Eh? Whaddya say?"This one is a cave. Same rules as last time, 600 steps and 30 balls.
Straightaway I find something of immense help.
I forgot how low the catch rate is in these Safari Zones.
Now just Wailord and I can do the Regi puzzle- oh wait, wrong game(I think).
Ugh, you wouldn't believe the savescums needed to catch this, especially since it was unique, meaning it was lost forever if it fled. And all for a 4x weakness to Ice.
I'm not sure electricity works like that.
That's all for that run, though I did miss out on a Lapras.
Now to deal with that boulder.
I swear, I should be making money clearing all these roads. I need it after shopping at the Department Store.
Route 316 is a watery cave much like the Safari Zone I just went through.
There aren't any wild encounters here, except when Surfing.
Ugh, took a crazy number of balls to catch.
There was pretty huge dive spot in one corner of the cave, and a section that appears to be linked to it, as well as one blocked by Rock Climb. While I do have a Gorebyss that can Dive, I'm pretty sure I'm "not supposed to" yet, so I'll leave it alone for now.
I also found a bug in the game. The last trainer I fought was an Engineer named Graham who, on his last Pokémon, said the same line that Gym Leader Graham said during that battle.
I come out on Route 317. Hopefully it's a short walk to Caspian City.
Immediately, I'm attacked by some gang-biker who sent out Pichu, Luvdisc, Cleffa, and Wigglytuff. Helioptile demolished all of them except Wigglytuff, whom I sent Lucario against. I guess even biker gangs like cute things.
So do I, which is why I caught this right afterwards.
Squee!
Just steps where I caught Gardevoir, I find the Rocket Boots.
Two things. 1) Who in their right minds would use these?! And 2) Squee! Rocket Boots!
I'll keep Fly on Staraptor, though, it hits for pretty decent damage.
This area seems to be a rocky highland, mazelike. I'm also assaulted by really scary cacti.
I don't think blood works like that.
The walk was shorter than I anticipated, though longer than I hoped.
Caspian City is apparently a city of water. I'm going to assume then that Miranda, the Gym Leader here, uses Electric-types because the game like to screw with me.
"stay here in the Pokémon Center unti I get my bearings and job back."Okay, so it's not the Venice of Vesryn, there was just a terrible flood that destroyed the place.
A few houses did survive.
He gives me HM 06 Dive. Well that was the easiest HM I've gotten.
This is the ID shop for the Simulation thingy in Fianga City.
A big shout-out to various people responsible for testing this game that I don't particularly care about.
"this! Get out before I call the police!"Technically, I am the police. And this is the first time anyone has actually told me to leave after barging in.
"Do you know what a Dream World ability is?"I don't.
"However, all Pokémon have a hidden, third ability called a Dream World ability. They unlock it when they venture into the Dream World. Unfortunately, that can be rather hard to do! Thankfully, I have neat ability that lets me utilize the powers of a Dream Stone to do it instantly!""ability?"Hmm, I think I'll look up some hidden abilities before I do that, it's not exactly cheap to change them(Ł10k each for Ability Capsules and Dream Stones).
Last stop before the gym is a lab for reviving fossils.
I don't feel like screenshotting the massive amount of fossils I have right now, so I leave it for later.
Now for the gym.
What the hell? A lava pit. Inside a building. Inside of a
flood zone. With perma-sunlight indoors. What in the actual hell?
Okay, right off I know I'm not going to succeed here, most of my team is weak to Fire.
Time to swap out and train up some Water-types.
Here's a list of possible candidates:
Quagsire, Relicanth, and Gible all have double resistance, but Relicanth and Gible have low levels(which may be good since I have more control over their movesets).
Seaking has high level(was present, but not used, during the fight against Zeus), as well as Water Veil which prevents burns.
Victreebel, while being obviously weak to Fire, has Chlorophyll and Solar Beam, which benefit from the constant Sunny Day. At the least, I can Spore them and switch to someone else.
Right, so I swap Helioptile, Excadrill, and Lucario out for Relicanth, Gible, and Seaking. That should be a decent setup. Now for the long and painstaking process of grinding two Lv.15 Pokémon to level ~70.
While training Relicanth, I catch Gallade.
I could make a Guyver reference, but I don't think anyone knows who Guyver is.
And here's Ferrothorn.
Annoying bastard keeps Selfdestructing. Also checking its stats, it has a stupidly low Speed.
When I struck upon the idea of giving an EXP Share to Gible, then fighting a team of six LV.60 Audinoes from the trainer in the Secret Base, Gible gained about 15 levels in one shot.
Honestly, I think he gained EXP faster than Relicanth, who is holding the Lucky Egg. As such, I just give both of them EXP Shares.
Further training back in Route 316 yielded new Water Pokémon.
Going back to the Secret Base, I brought Relicanth up to Lv.56 by handing her some Leftovers and sending her to tank against Lv.100 Audinoes. I feel a little ripped off, though. The Lv.100 battle against the trainer(cost Ł30k) only gives you three, and each gave Relicanth a little over 14k experience points apiece, while with the Lv.60 battle(cost Ł21k) you get six that give about 7500 apiece.
Gabite is a bit more difficult, since he drops like a sack on one or two hits against Audino. I suppose I could just keep the EXP Share on him and try to clear the gym.
The first battle went pretty well. The Hiker sent out Rapidash, Magcargo, Flareon, and Torkoal. It was only when Torkoal burned Relicanth that she started receiving any significant damage to outpace her healing from Leftovers. Spamming Yawn really helped.
This is different from what I'm used to, which is if both battlers are still standing after three turns, one of them is doing something wrong or something really right.
That egg-shaped thing there is a switch to drain the lava. The game refuses to let me proceed without pressing it.
The second battle threw me off a bit, when he used a few Fighting-types that Relicanth can't tank. Which is why I brought Staraptor along.
One more trainer, and I have the lava drained.
Oh boy, Charizard. $20 says it's a Mega-Charizard. Actually, Relicanth has a double advantage over it, so maybe I can take it.
Before I challenge her, though, I go for some more training.
During which, Gabite gains a few more levels.
That's more like it.
And for no particular reason, I was in Midnight Way, and caught Axew.
It took an incredibly long time, but I finally got everyone up to Lv.69-70, the range Miranda uses(I know this... ugh, from being on the receiving end, but I didn't take screenshots of those).
Anyways, now on to fighting Miranda!
I can't imagine a flooded city would be conductive to running a
lava-filled gym.
"Good luck!"I swear, if Jake had been the one to go down into that volcano, I don't think anyone would have stopped Zeus from blowing
his brains out.
"after this battle."Sorry kid, first come first ass kicked.
HOW?! How is it not fair?! I started training before you! I've put more effort into this than you! I've beaten you every time we've met! I've had to go on this trip to save the whole goddamn WORLD, possibly even the
timeline, while you go screwing around with all this swag bullcrap! And you want to complain to me that you have to wait one day?! WAIT. YOUR. FUCKING. TURN!
*sigh*
The only reason I'm agreeing to this is because I'm going to be throwing Surf around like crazy. And I'll probably make a few direct attacks on Jake for good measure.
Once? Didn't we team up against Artemis and Apollo? Plus, it's the LAST gym. This "honor" is only neccesary once.
I gotta say, she's kinda HOT. :p
Jake, you planned on taking this gym on with that much of a level deficiency?
An opening Fire Blast from Houndoom takes down Scrafty in one hit. I switched over to Staraptor because experience has shown that Camerupt is Relicanth's natural predator. I was right, as he used Earth Power.
Jake sent out Aggron to replace Scrafty. Not the best choice for this battle.
It seems Camerupt will feed on Aggrons as well. Jake's replacement...
WHAT. Where the hell did that come from? ...Still a terrible choice for this battle, especially with Houndoom on the field.
Camerupt dealt with. Jirachi almost bit it before Fly could hit.
Heh, a Fighting-type against a bird. Jirachi attempted a Healing Wish, but it failed. I confused it with Wish for a second and wondered why it failed.
There goes Jirachi. Jake does not send out a replacement, meaning he only brought three Pokémon with him, two of whom were weak to Fire. That means I'm left against a 2-on-1 situation.
Fly took out Emboar, but now Staraptor is left defenseless against multiple opponents.
The random number god, praise and curse its name for it shows favoritism towards machines, decided to let Staraptor live as Houndoom missed with Fire Blast. Now I can take to the skies again against Chandelure.
Another Fly, then Chandelure hits Staraptor with Moonblast, which is Fairy-type if I recall.
I send out the land shark, who takes a Fire Blast switching in. Even double resistance didn't stop that from hurting.
Garchomp was too slow to get underground, and brought down by Moonblast, which is indeed Fairy-type.
I sent out Zoroark(disguised as Jirachi) to deal with the Ghost, though I'm not sure if he's fast enough. Zoroark's Speed stat is between Garchomp and Staraptor. Staraptor was fast enough, Garchomp wasn't.
Not faster than Chandelure, but Chandelure was fooled by Illusion and used Energy Blast rather than Moonblast.
That burn came from Chandelure. Miranda doesn't have anything that Zoroark is good against. Volcarona was the last one I didn't know about, as the other Pokémon she had in reserve was that Charizard standing next to her.
So I used Zoroark's last action to Max Revive Staraptor to deal with the bug. I also learned that Dark-types were weak to Bug-type attacks.
The bug is down, and Houndoom is half-hurt and is out of at least Fire Blast. All that's left is...
Charizard. And I was wrong about Houndoom being out of Fire Blasts.
One would question why I'm sending Victreebel out, but he has Chlorophyll and Solar Beam. The latter is admittedly less useful, but the Speed is nice.
I hate Megas, I really do. That's why I Spored him. The same turn, Miranda used a Full Restore on Houndoom. Honestly I thought she was out of those. I use the extra time to heal Garchomp. But eventually Charizard wakes up and takes down Victreebel.
I try to Rain Dance, but Charizard fried Seaking with Solar Beam, the very reason I was trying to Rain Dance. I send Garchomp out and use Dig.
It works, Houndoom is finally out. I've also got enough Max Revives to outlast Charizard's Solar Beams. Yes, I know, that's a cheap strategy, only those Max Revives aren't cheap. Actually, I don't know if you can buy them, I always mine them.
Charizard hit Garchomp with one, but it didn't take him out. That's good.
The next one got him, though, leaving only...
Relicanth has a double weakness to Solar Beam, so I revive Garchomp. I use the three turns Garchomp gave me to revive Victreebel, Seaking, and Staraptor.
Just as I thought Charizard was going finish off Garchomp, he uses Roost, which means I can use Dig against him... or so I thought. I think I confused it with Ingrain.
Anyway, I manage to get Stun Spore on Charizard, hopefully dropping the bastard's Speed enough to get Rain Dance used.
It works. Even better, Charizard was paralyzed for the same turn.
A single Rain-boosted Waterfall for the win.
"together."Lady, you're cute, but if it wasn't for the dragon standing next to you I'd hit you for that.
"Just give us the badge!"Jake, on the other hand, does not have a dragon.
She gives us Inferno Badges, which lets me use Dive outside of battles. Now I can go hunting for legendaries at the Safari Zones. She also hands out TM50 Overheat.
"later tonight..."How old is Wilson to be going out with this girl?
Hey wait, why is Jake getting a badge, anyway? He lost within three rounds.
There you have it. All eight badges required to challenge the Quasar League. Just goes to show how much grinding rematches and throwing Max Revives around works.