Pokemon BDSP Playthrough Discussion

[doipy hooves]

The Roseli Berry seems to have higher potential max yields than the other old type berries because I've been getting yields of 7 and 8.

The Jubilife TV daily sticker bonus is interesting. Sometimes I've gotten it consistently just skimming off the Bulbapedia Jubilife TV article of possible TV shows and noting that some are fake, so I don't think it's completely random or that a fake show can be the correct answer. If you decline or save you can reroll too and generate a completely different list. Maybe it's based on the category of show or something.

 

[BadGirlCoven]

Hi there, im new here and was told to post to this forum. I'm playing BDSP and joined a discord and wanted to challenge myself by building a ghost/ice gym team of 6 strong semi competitive pokemon. Any suggests are welcome, especially for who my tank could be! This is what I've got so far:

1- Gengar @ Quick Claw
AB: Cursed Body
Timid Nature
-Sludge Bomb
-Hex
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast

2- Froslass @ Focus Slash (my lead)
AB; Snow Cloak
Timid Nature
-Spikes
-Icy Wind
-Shadow Ball
-Destiny Bond

3- Dusknoir @ Leftover_s
AB: Pressure
Impish Nature
-Will-O-Wisp
-Pain Splint
-Earthqauke
-Ice Punch


Thanks for your help!

 

[BadGirlCoven]

Hi there, im new here and was told to post to this forum. I'm playing BDSP and joined a discord and wanted to challenge myself by building a ghost/ice gym team of 6 pokemon. Any suggests are welcome, especially for who my tank could be! This is what I've got so far:

1- Gengar @ Quick Claw
AB: Cursed Body
Timid Nature
-Sludge Bomb
-Hex
-Thunderbolt
-Focus Blast

2- Froslass @ Focus Slash (my lead)
AB; Snow Cloak
Timid Nature
-Spikes
-Icy Wind
-Shadow Ball
-Destiny Bond

3- Dusknoir @ Leftover_s
AB: Pressure
Impish Nature
-Will-O-Wisp
-Pain Splint
-Earthqauke
-Ice Punch


Thanks for your help!

 

[Ironmage]

First off, it's probably worth thinking about what EVs you are intending to use. If you're unfamiliar with them, here's a guide for how they work in gen 4 (there does not appear to be one for BDSP specifically at present). Gengar and Froslass probably want maximum speed and special attack, though it's a bit harder to tell for dusknoir how much you want to focus on attack vs defense. The recommended set for defensive ones appears to be max HP, nearly max defense, and a small amount of Attack, but you could probably run with just maxing HP and defense if that's easier for you.

Quick claw is an unreliable item in general, and doesn't help Gengar very much since Gengar is going to be fast anyway. If you're desperate for speed, you could use a choice scarf, but I would probably use an item that helps Gengar deal damage. Expert Belt would be your main option with no downsides at all, but both Life Orb and Choice Specs can be well worth it.

Finally for your existing mons, consider using an Ability Patch to give Froslass Cursed Body instead of Snow Cloak, since as a dedicated lead it is unlikely to actually be around during hail, if you even invest in using hail at all (my other suggestions don't).

An important part of a single battle team is going to be dealing with entry hazards. You have a hazard setter in Froslass, but you should also be expecting your opponents to have hazards of their own. This is particularly important for a team heavy on Ice-types, since they take extra damage from Stealth Rock. Hazards are usually removed with the moves defog (which clears hazards on both sides) and rapid spin (which only clears hazards on your side). Defog is not ideal since you aren't likely to be able to replace any of your hazards after a midgame removal. That leaves Rapid Spin, of which the best user you have available is going to be Cloyster. However, this is going to take a lot of effort. Shellder only learns Rapid Spin by breeding, and the only mon that can pass it to shellder (kabuto) also only learns it by breeding. So you would first need to pair kabuto with squirtle to get a kabuto with rapid spin, then pair that kabuto with a shellder. Once that's complete, I would probably go for a somewhat offensive version since you don't need another Spikes user or physical wall. Here's a version of what was used in gen 4, with some move adjustments:

Cloyster @ Life Orb
Ability: Skill Link
EVs: 160 HP / 252 Atk / 96 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Ice Shard
- Rock Blast
- Rapid Spin
- Razor Shell

While you already have Dusknoir as something of a physical tank, I think Spiritomb is one of your better options for dealing with special attackers. Rather than a purely defensive set, here's one that focuses on building up to being a damaging threat in and of itself to make up for not running a more offensive Cloyster with Shell Smash. At the moment, it has physical defense EVs and nature under the assumption that you will be able to boost Special defense manually.

Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Dark Pulse
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Finally, I think it would be useful to have a dedicated physical attacker. Mamoswine is quite good at this role.

Mamoswine @ Choice Band
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Icicle Crash
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard
- Superpower


I'm not actually that much of an expert though, I just like type-resticted teams. You might be able to finde someone else who's better at teambuilding than me..

 

[doipy hooves]

Server maintenance is happening right now. Interestingly I got a Switch UI notification for "Server maintenance starting" in the top left like a friends list notification while I was in the underground and I think I got converted to local mode during a 40 diglett run, or maintenance didn't start immediately and I had enough time to finish.

 

[doipy hooves]

I finally got around to beating the main campaign. In general the final battles surprised me, they did take longer than I expected with bad common matchups (too many ground weaknesses) and having to rotate Intimidate a few times. Even when I knew it would happen, it was weird to see the game visibly dropping all these held items compared to everything before. Cynthia was pretty intense as expected, there were lots of trades and in hopes of not losing, I ended up having to resort to scrounged up X items and a Dire Hit on Empoleon during Milotic and OHKO Garchomp with a guaranteed crit. Thank you affection.

The game was spent with a semi-rotating team, with Empoleon always in the party and everyone else in and out to aim for some balance. Empoleon ended up on par with Cynthia for what it's worth, showing the results of soaking up EXP through every fight in the game, though I never really had to grind on wild mons in general. The rest were kind of underleveled, though Victory Road trainers actually seem to give a lot of EXP that half my team took advantage of and the rest caught up mid-E4.

the squad analysis

(left: pre-E4, right: post-E4)

Empoleon Lv 66
Flash Cannon/Charm/Surf/Ice Beam
Solid starter and always there to carry me through a fight if needed, though mostly stayed back to soak up experience outside of major fights or when I wanted to finish something quickly. Mostly had Quick Claw because I like to see it proc.

Bibarel Lv 49
Strength/Surf/Yawn/Crunch
Surprisingly strong through the midgame with access to solid moves and one of my Amulet Coiners of choice. Note that it was actually on par with Staraptor and Luxray since I used them around the same parties, but they leveled ahead during the E4.

Staraptor Lv 54
Quick Attack/Close Combat/U-turn/Brave Bird
Had good stats but not great (STAB) moves for a while until picking up Brave Bird right at the penultimate rival battle.

Luxray Lv 55
Spark/Volt Switch/Thunder Wave/Bite
The most extreme example of a good stat, bad learnset mon that suffered. I still had Tackle until I replaced it with Thunder Wave near endgame. It still handled route trainers well enough though.

Kricketune Lv 48
Night Slash/Slash/X-Scissor/Fury Cutter
Pretty much a glass cannon but a good one. No one beats the bug.

Golem Lv 47
Earthquake/Explosion/Rollout/Rock Blast
Good bulky rock. I didn't use it that much but it thrives in its good matchups.

Machamp Lv 40
Low Kick/Low Sweep/Strength/Knock Off
The attack was high but there weren't much convenient matchups for it other than Byron and caves and it is slow and not really that defensive.

Pachirisu Lv 51
Thunderbolt/Nuzzle/Super Fang/Charm
Mainly there for Pickup utility but had surprisingly alright performance.

Jirachi Lv 54
Meteor Mash/Thunderbolt/Dazzling Gleam/Psychic
I mostly held it back with a natural learnset because its stats were high enough, then sent a couple Veilstone TMs around Surf, and it picked up Meteor Mash and Psychic naturally in the endgame. Solid all rounder though it had less to do in the E4 than I thought.

Beautifly Lv 39
Stun Spore/Giga Drain/Bug Buzz/Air Cutter
Picked it up in Eterna Forest as a Level 12 Beautifly, which serebii was the only site I found to have its accurate learnset for. The patch change giving it Wurmple's Bug Bite at base was pretty nice. I mainly used it as an attempt to counterteam Gardenia and used it on and off, but stopped around Galactic HQ where it was just not having good matchups with all the poison. Apparently I was one level off Quiver Dance though so I might bring it back for the postgame.

Dustox Lv 38
Light Screen/Toxic/Venoshock/Bug Buzz
Basically used it as with Beautifly but it did not really last either and had less useful opportunities.

Rapidash Lv 59 (shiny)
Flame Wheel/Smart Strike/Flamethrower/High Horsepower
Very cool and strong. I wanted a fire type and got this as my first Ponyta encounter so it also got some usage favoritism as my second highest mon. Flamethrower is actually pretty good since my offenses (150/127) are close together. I got an underground Ponyta later on to transfer High Horsepower onto.

Chatot Lv 43
Chatter/Roost/Hyper Voice/Taunt
I like Chatot so I picked up the ingame trade. Solid fighter for the midgame.

Togekiss Lv 51
Extrasensory/Air Slash/Dazzling Gleam/Yawn
Picked up from the Underground pretty early and pickupped a Shiny Stone at some point. Despite Hustle, it was good because of big stats and good moves.

Azumarill Lv 59
Double-Edge/Aqua Tail/Play Rough/Superpower
One of my favourite pokemon. Hits hard, bulky, and has the good STAB at base. Wide Lens patches accuracy up pretty well too. It also levels in the fast group too so it can catch up pretty nicely.

Cherrim Lv 47
Magical Leaf/Sunny Day/Weather Ball/Leech Seed
I grinded for a Weather Ball one in the underground before Wake. It was alright and did well against the waters even with one main move.

Lucario Lv 47
Aura Sphere/Bone Rush/Counter/Metal Claw
I didn't really use this frequently but it managed to get away with being underleveled at Snowpoint and caught up somewhat.

-----

Kazza Lv 26
My Flash user.

Combee Lv 27
My Sweet Scent user.

Ponyta Lv 1
I inherited High Horsepower and ended up breeding it down.

Dialga Lv 50
It trounced some stuff in the Sunyshore routes and electric gym but I decided to hold back for the sake of the game, though I probably could've replaced Jirachi.

 

[Fluke]

So still no GWS and still no Colosseum? At this point I think they're not even going to bother anymore.

 

[doipy hooves]

While forming up a max happiness team to create optimal Amity Square poffins, I noticed that the bag does not calculate the effect of Soothe Bell and/or Luxury Ball on friendship berries efficently when used in mass quantities.

At first with a base Luxury Ball Clefairy I was only able to use 12 Qualot Berries maximum. I assume this is because Clefairy starts at 140 base and would gain +5*12 = 60 to get to 200 exactly, where the new berry threshold would take effect. Afterwards, Clefairy would take a maximum of 50 Qualot Berries to max happiness, which I'm not sure why because these should give +2 apparently. It showed the same with and without Soothe Bell, so I assume the bag doesn't take that into account either. In the end I decided to split the load on my EV berries up, but when I mashed through 9 berries fed one at a time, afterwards Clefairy only required 18 berries to max happiness, and the number kept going down steeply.

tl;dr It seems like it is optimal to feed EV/happiness berries one at a time rather than all at once to apply the relevant boosts.

I was also surprised that a Clefairy Metronomed Dragon Hammer on me. Apparently it only exists in this game because of Tropius.

EDIT:

I fed my Empoleon all the optimal poffins (source I used) and finished off all the Master rank contests. It was rough but satisfying. For the most part I got through with Charm's 15 second perfects, but for the brilliant contests I realized I had to learn the whole pattern and just went with Surf as my next best thing. Apparently the optimal visual strategy for the Brilliant contest is to use 20 Champion stickers from beating the final Cynthia rematch 20 times, which I did not end up doing tonight. Also I tried an online contest and the perfect text said SHINING so I guess that's based on the host. Overall it's been a nice journey and there's still a lot that I can do but I might take a break for a while.

I do agree with the above post's concerns that there seems to be a lot of communication features still left to be put in the game and I'm wondering if they'll get to it all in the HOME/PLA update or slowly through 2022. Aside from the announced features, there's the rankings in Jubilife TV that just have a guy blocking them, a kid in a house (Oreburgh?) says he got likes on his secret base, and they still have to eventually release the event items for the mythicals.

 

[R_N]

Did the Shaymin event. Still cute, the Flower Paradise is really pretty and I like that Shaymin got its own battle area for it.

But once more this is another case of "oh Platinum improved on this" lol. It's minor but Marley is added to the event, she comments about why she likes Shaymin (something hinted at in her dialog while going through Victory Road) and gives her gratitude to both it and you for letting her see it again.

But now it's not here so an event that already kind of peters out (Oak doesnt even stick around to check out your new shaymin! c'mon oak!) in both feels even lesser.

 

[Zowayix]

Did the Shaymin event. Still cute, the Flower Paradise is really pretty and I like that Shaymin got its own battle area for it.

But once more this is another case of "oh Platinum improved on this" lol. It's minor but Marley is added to the event, she comments about why she likes Shaymin (something hinted at in her dialog while going through Victory Road) and gives her gratitude to both it and you for letting her see it again.

But now it's not here so an event that already kind of peters out (Oak doesnt even stick around to check out your new shaymin! c'mon oak!) in both feels even lesser.

Extra strange because Darkrai's event did get Platinum's upgrades. However, I can't complain too much because it was ILCA copy-pasting Shaymin's D/P code that made Shaymin glitchable in v1.1.1. ILCA copy-pasted Darkrai's Platinum code and so Darkrai isn't glitchable.

 

[doipy hooves]

After putting it off for a while, I completed the Sinnoh dex today. The Shaymin event inspired me to finish Stark Mountain and go get Giratina and from there I decided to just finish this part off. It was a smaller endeavor than the modern games but I'm satisfied to have it done now before starting PLA. At some point I might get around to seeing the full endgame rematches but it's been a nice journey.

Most of what I had left was evolutions, which I mainly accomplished by just catching them or grinding by surfing underground Camerupt/Houndoom with Empoleon and using EV berries until I hit the mark where the maximum usable showed as 50. The main bottleneck was relying on max level underground mons like Gabite and female Combee that took a while to level up. I resorted to touch trades from reddit for Carnivine and Palkia, and also got Sudowoodo in the process. I also found a guide on reddit for the last Spiritomb NPCs that involved just checking every area for their main NPC spawn.

For the other version exclusives, earlier I idled in the link codes from Austin John Plays and though it was slow especially pre-patch when only 2 people could be in a union room, I eventually got the few I needed. I only ended up using breeding for Azurill, Bonsly, and Mothim, and those aren't even mandatory but it was preferable to use the guaranteed method. The last entry I needed was Mesprit. I ended up circling the Jubilife-Route 204 north border to constantly cycle the roaming routes, and used Parasect to Spore + False Swipe it and Cresselia down to 1 HP. In the end I also brought in my early game Honchkrow that I had evolved earlier with a relearned Mean Look for safe ball throwing, but it went in the second shot anyway.

 

[Ironmage]

Since I've just cleared the elite four, here's my big wall of text reveiwing the main game.

preamble

Why I have this game is a wierd story all of its own. On about January 29, I had a strange fit of twisted logic. It's all fine to show an opinion on a game by not getting it, but I realized that there was a signal resolution problem. In other words, despite being uncertain if BDSP was going to meet my regular standards, I still had a massive preference for it compared to the other mainline pokemon games currently availible. And, darn it all, the devs needed to know that. I then realized that was a stupid line of reasoning and sat on the game for a month and a half because I regretted my descision before actually bothering to play it.

the team and the run

Drapion lvl 56 @ toxic plate
Battle Armour
Cross Poison
Knock Off
Toxic Spikes
X-scissor

Vespiquen lvl 55 @ sky plate
Unnerve
Destiny Bond
Aerial Ace
Fell Stinger
Attack Order

Roserade lvl 56 @ wise glasses
Natural Cure
Dazzling Gleam
Giga Drain
Leech Seed
Bullet Seed

Crobat lvl 55 @ Sky Plate
Inner Focus
Poison Fang
Haze
Bite
Fly

Quagsire lvl 55 @ none
Water Absorb
Earthquake
Toxic
Ice Beam
Surf

Skuntank lvl 57 @ razor claw
Stench
Sucker Punch
Venoshock
Flamethrower
Night Slash

Also used: Budew, Dustox, Haunter, turtwig

Apologies for not fully following my assigned team, breloom is postgame only. I usually run theme teams for playthroughs, and I figured that having a slower-paced team would allow me to see more of the boss fights that are the main draw of this game. There is another reason I picked this particular team, though. I just straight up like the move Toxic. I like how damage-over-time effects in pokemon are always percentage-based, providing an option to overcome lower stats. I like how pokemon emphasizes status moves, and having a nearly-universal source of good damage-over-time was representative of that. Toxic's loss of prominence feels related to the changes in boss designs to feature more single opponents with extra effects over 6v6 fights, something I'm not a fan of. I allowed mons that could not use Toxic to be on the team, but they weren't allowed to do any moves that targeted the enemy. Stealth Rock alone was not enough reason to use turtwig past the early game.

Anyway, the run itself used Set mode and no in-battle items, with one exception written in the rules: Lucario doesn't deserve the typing that gives it immunity to glorious poison, and trainers that use it deserve no mercy.

two negatives make a positive

Despite primarily keeping to a team of 6 throughout, I managed to get through below the levels of the later E4 and with only a single instance of affection doing something in battle. It feels weird to say "just do badly lol," but it kind of felt that way. Fainted mons don't gain Exp, being KO'd reduces friendship, and retained damage was an opportunity to use herbs. That said, I was acutely aware that I was in a possible feedback loop since high levels and affection would reduce the amount of battles I was taking KOs in. For that reason, I generally attempted to avoid trainer fights when possible. Not ideal, but certainly doable.

The more involved movement required for stealth really had me appreciating the tile-based map. NPCs had very obvious sightlines, and I could easily manuver with the D-pad instead of being forced into the analog stick. I ended up not using the bike much since its slow acceleration makes d-pad movement awkward, but running didn't feel painfully slow or anything. The whole thing really gave the impression that issues from the new games are mitigated because they're trying to be features limited by the older mechanics.

NPC rosters

It isn't just the boss fights that have been revamped. several of the more generic trainers also have some small moveset upgrades (I recall at least two RestTalk users). I do feel like it would have been better to have figured out an alternate solution to my own power scaling so that I could take more fights as I'm pretty sure I missed something cool. Victory Road dragged on, however, since it felt like the trainers were there mostly to have forced encounters with the remaining parts of the dex. Admittedly, having those fights is an inherent result of the postgame structure DPPt imposes, so I can't blame ICLA too much for that.

The boss fights are of course the big highlight of the game, and for the most part I was suitably impressed. However, Cynthia was kind of a let down. She's strong, yes. But her fight isn't as interesting as other bosses in the game. It felt like much more of a stat check than the puzzles I had had fun solving before her (As an example, I found Haze useful against both Aaron and Flint, but there was little use for it against Cynthia). I was kind of glad she had lucario so I could just get it over with by reviving my Destiny Bond user repeatedly instead of needing to grind stats. Still, one whiff out of ~20 rival fights, Galactic commanders, Cyrus, gym leaders, and Elite four is definielty a good record.

other content

Grand underground is decent. As a quirk of this particular playthrough, I found the pokemon access to be most useful for removing the frustration of honey trees and the safari zone than adding extra mons from Platinum. Digging is still an okay minigame, but the statues don't feel like good rewards. Maybe if I had a clearer idea of how much they boosted the relevant type I'd be more appreciative, but I was usually more excited for pretty much anything else (spheres included, since they're used to buy TMs).

I was never a contest fan before, and I didn't really see reason to change that.

As mentioned, I've only just become champion. Hopefully, it will be a while before I can comment on how well the battle tower holds my attention.

overall

I no longer regret my descision to get DP: Venoshock Edition. I'm not inherently averse to another playthrough, but I'll be needing multiple themes that are both distinct from that came before and slow enough to stop and smell the stealth rocks (a single large team would mean I would be unable to have the entire team working together at once, which is the main reason I don't play VGC) so I can swap between as another way to limit the problems gen 8 introduced. Even so, the old games are resilient in the face of those new problems. Time to find some legendaries so I can have breloom for the rematches

 

[Ironmage]

Are you telling me that... you are implying... that before judging a game one should at very least bother playing it, and that it's actually possible to have fun?

Sorry we don't do this logic here, please go away, we don't want your kind around.

To be fair, there is a noticable difference between "I'm uncertain but I know my reasoning was crap" and "I already know this isn't the game for me." BDSP had not completely failed to entice me after having all the information available for several months, while for example Legends managed that as soon as it was revealed.