I've been looking around for a challenge to put myself through for a while that isn't as luck-dependent as a normal Nuzlocke run, and I think I've found it. See, in the original Alola games, there are only ten fully-evolved Pokemon that are at least partly Bug-type and can be encountered before the postgame, and all of them are originally found on the first two islands. Bug in particular is a type that doesn't mesh well with this game, as Bugs are either resisted by on offense or are weak to two of the Grand Trials, three of the Elite Four, and two of the Trials while only being super-effective against one Grand Trial (Nanu) and one Trial (Lurantis). Knowing these disadvantages, I've still done some research and I'm curious whether it can be done.
The rules of this challenge are simple: I must catch the first Bug-type I see after the capture tutorial, and once that happens, I cannot use any other non-Bug type in my party. I can't officially deposit my starter in the PC until after the festival, but I can just stick it at the back of my party and not use it until then. (I have to do one mandatory battle with Litten at the start, but since you battle Hau right away again at the festival this isn't an issue). I'm also disallowing the use of Pokemon Refresh or Poke Pelago.
First things first, the choice of starter. I decided to go with Litten. There's a reason for this. Since Hau chooses the starter that's weak to yours, if I take Popplio, he will have a Litten with Ember at the festival to happily fry my band of unevolved insects. If I take Rowlet, this will result in Ilima having a Smeargle with Ember, which isn't too awful, but the bigger issue is that the Champion, Kukui, will have an Incineroar, and I'd rather not make this more difficult for myself than I have to. Anyway, let's get into the run! I haven't been too far into the challenge yet, but I'll try and keep this concise and update it often if I can.
Beginnings
Almost immediately after starting, I grab a Caterpie and Ledyba as my starting bugs, and run into a problem right away: these two Pokemon are absolutely terrible. Both are Level 3, so it takes me a little while to get them up to Level 6 so that I can actually survive the first couple trainer battles. It's slow going because every time I encounter a Pikipek, which happens 30% of the time on Route 1, I have to try and run away since all of these little jerks know Peck as their only attacking move. I also only have seven Potions, which I want to try and conserve for battling Hau at the festival. This means I have to keep running back home for free heals. Luckily, there's a solution at hand.
Once I get past the first two trainers, which are fairly easy with just a Rattata and a Caterpie, I can run around in the patch of grass near Iki Town for a 10% chance at encountering a Grubbin. There's two main reasons why I want one: it has 62 base attack and it knows Vice Grip right out of the box, which is a 55 power Normal-type physical move. Not bad for something I can encounter right away. They can appear from Level 3-5, but I got lucky and my first Grubbin encounter was a Level 5. Since Pokemon can't break out of balls thrown at them before the festival, it was no trouble to add to my team. After more grinding (this whole section took me about an hour), Grubbin added Mud-Slap at Level 7 and I made the short trek up to the festival. While it's a Special move and can't benefit from Grubbin's great Attack stat, it has the great side-effect of lowering Accuracy and will come in handy against Hau. Caterpie also evolved into Metapod while I was here, so that was a nice bonus.
Hau's first Pokemon is a Pichu, which can be a pain with Thunder Shock and Static. I used Mud-Slap twice to get a little damage in while lowering its chances of hitting me with Charm. It soon went down easily with Vice Grip. Next up was Hau's Rowlet, but this wasn't too much of a problem since I resisted its STAB Leafage with all of my Pokemon. The only annoying part was that it likes to spam Growl if it can't get a good hit, which made this battle take longer than it should have. After the fight, Ledyba leveled up to 8 and learned Swift. That would've helped now, would it? After winning, I get the Z-Ring and check out Kukui's lab, where he gives me the Rotom Dex. I also went back to Route 1, since I was now playing at night, and grabbed a Spinarak. Its movepool at the moment is crap, but it will provide valuable type coverage later on.
Trainers' School
This is a short section, but contains a couple of sneakily difficult fights and proved to be surprisingly difficult for my team. Luckily, I have the Exp. Share now, so I won't have to do as much outright grinding. The first Trainer I fought was Youth Athlete Hiromi, who sends out...Pikipek. Great. There was a reason why I was avoiding these things earlier, and that's because I don't have an answer for them beyond brute strength. I open up with Metapod, but have to switch out after taking two consecutive Echoed Voice moves from Pikipek. I switch out to Grubbin, and luckily Pikipek doesn't use a third consecutive Echoed Voice, which would have likely been an OHKO. Instead, she uses Peck, which does a fair bit of damage, but then goes back to a base-power Echoed Voice, which allows me to 2HKO with Vice Grip.
The next fight up is Youngster Joey (no, not that one). His only Pokemon is a Metapod, which as everyone knows likes to spam Harden. Thankfully, I have a Ledyba with Swift, which is a 60-power special move that makes this a short battle. The third trainer is Preschooler Mia with Bonsly. Normally this would be a problem, but it turns out its only moves that can possibly deal damage to me are Flail and Copycat. I switch in my Spinarak and manage to luck into a 30% chance to poison the opposing Bonsly on the first attempt. After that, it's just a waiting game with Metapod using Harden until it faints. The final battle with the students is a Rising Star with an Alolan Grimer. It's more difficult to deal with than the other trainers, but a few Swifts from Ledyba do the trick until Ledyba gets poisoned. I then switch out to Grubbin to finish the job with Mud-Slap. The Rising Star gives me TM01 (Work Up) as a reward, but nothing I have right now can learn it so it gets tossed in my bag for a while.
There is, however, the battle with Teacher Emily which is notorious for being difficult right away. Since her Magnemite is Steel-type, this would be a major issue for my squad of four Bugs. However, my Grubbin made a complete mockery of this battle with Mud-Slap easily taking out Magnemite in two hits before Spinarak came in to finish the job with the newly learned Infestation taking out Alolan Meowth. Thanks to the experience from battle, Metapod then evolved into Butterfree afterwards, giving me what will probably be the first fully-evolved member of my long-term team.
Hau'oli City
There's not too much to do here, and I haven't progressed beyond the city yet, but there are a couple of battles I have to get through. First, I grabbed the TM49 (Echoed Voice) from a small field in town, but unfortunately, once again, nothing I have can learn it. The first is a Team Skull grunt with a Zubat, which goes down easily to a 2HKO from Grubbin with Vice Grip. Next up is a more difficult fight: Ilima. His Yungoos and Smeargle hit annoyingly hard with Tackle, and Smeargle has Water Gun for a special option. I sent out Spinarak first to try and get a poison status effect on Yungoos, but it didn't work, so I switched out to Butterfree and took it down with a 3HKO from Gust, which was newly learned upon evolution. Next up was Smeargle, which was more annoying since Ilima used a Potion on it halfway through. It took a full team effort from Ledyba, Butterfree, Grubbin, and Spinarak, but it went down eventually without any of my team members fainting.
Next, I'll be going through Routes 2 and 3, completing the first Trial and the first Island Kahuna battle, and hopefully adding a little bit of Akala Island into the next update as well. There's also one more new Pokemon I can grab for my team while I'm on Melemele Island, so that'll be pretty fly!
If you have any suggestions for me for things to do during the run or ways to make it a little more difficult, feel free to comment!
Current Team Evaluation
Butterfree (Level 11)
- Tackle
- Confusion
- Harden
- Gust
Butterfree is the main special attacker I have so far. The movepool it has is okay, as it learns some good moves early. I expect Butterfree to get some good use in during the battle with Hala.
Ledyba (Level 10)
- Tackle
- Supersonic
- Swift
I'll come right out and say it: Ledyba won't last on this team, so don't get too attached. Its stats are absolutely pathetic even after it evolves into Ledian, and its two best STABs are based off of 55 Special Attack and don't arrive until around Level 40. However, it has been very useful in the early-game with using Swift to break down physically defensive opponents.
Grubbin (Level 11)
- Vice Grip
- String Shot
- Mud-Slap
- Bite
This guy will likely be the ace of the early-game. Vice Grip off of 62 base Attack is nothing to sneeze at, with Bite for coverage. Mud-Slap also came in handy for getting around Emily's Magnemite.
Spinarak (Level 10)
- Poison Sting
- String Shot
- Absorb
- Infestation
Spinarak has been kind of meh so far, but I expect it to be very useful later in the run. It gets great STABs like Pin Missile, Poison Jab and Cross Poison while also being able to learn Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch.
The rules of this challenge are simple: I must catch the first Bug-type I see after the capture tutorial, and once that happens, I cannot use any other non-Bug type in my party. I can't officially deposit my starter in the PC until after the festival, but I can just stick it at the back of my party and not use it until then. (I have to do one mandatory battle with Litten at the start, but since you battle Hau right away again at the festival this isn't an issue). I'm also disallowing the use of Pokemon Refresh or Poke Pelago.
First things first, the choice of starter. I decided to go with Litten. There's a reason for this. Since Hau chooses the starter that's weak to yours, if I take Popplio, he will have a Litten with Ember at the festival to happily fry my band of unevolved insects. If I take Rowlet, this will result in Ilima having a Smeargle with Ember, which isn't too awful, but the bigger issue is that the Champion, Kukui, will have an Incineroar, and I'd rather not make this more difficult for myself than I have to. Anyway, let's get into the run! I haven't been too far into the challenge yet, but I'll try and keep this concise and update it often if I can.
Beginnings
Almost immediately after starting, I grab a Caterpie and Ledyba as my starting bugs, and run into a problem right away: these two Pokemon are absolutely terrible. Both are Level 3, so it takes me a little while to get them up to Level 6 so that I can actually survive the first couple trainer battles. It's slow going because every time I encounter a Pikipek, which happens 30% of the time on Route 1, I have to try and run away since all of these little jerks know Peck as their only attacking move. I also only have seven Potions, which I want to try and conserve for battling Hau at the festival. This means I have to keep running back home for free heals. Luckily, there's a solution at hand.
Once I get past the first two trainers, which are fairly easy with just a Rattata and a Caterpie, I can run around in the patch of grass near Iki Town for a 10% chance at encountering a Grubbin. There's two main reasons why I want one: it has 62 base attack and it knows Vice Grip right out of the box, which is a 55 power Normal-type physical move. Not bad for something I can encounter right away. They can appear from Level 3-5, but I got lucky and my first Grubbin encounter was a Level 5. Since Pokemon can't break out of balls thrown at them before the festival, it was no trouble to add to my team. After more grinding (this whole section took me about an hour), Grubbin added Mud-Slap at Level 7 and I made the short trek up to the festival. While it's a Special move and can't benefit from Grubbin's great Attack stat, it has the great side-effect of lowering Accuracy and will come in handy against Hau. Caterpie also evolved into Metapod while I was here, so that was a nice bonus.
Hau's first Pokemon is a Pichu, which can be a pain with Thunder Shock and Static. I used Mud-Slap twice to get a little damage in while lowering its chances of hitting me with Charm. It soon went down easily with Vice Grip. Next up was Hau's Rowlet, but this wasn't too much of a problem since I resisted its STAB Leafage with all of my Pokemon. The only annoying part was that it likes to spam Growl if it can't get a good hit, which made this battle take longer than it should have. After the fight, Ledyba leveled up to 8 and learned Swift. That would've helped now, would it? After winning, I get the Z-Ring and check out Kukui's lab, where he gives me the Rotom Dex. I also went back to Route 1, since I was now playing at night, and grabbed a Spinarak. Its movepool at the moment is crap, but it will provide valuable type coverage later on.
Trainers' School
This is a short section, but contains a couple of sneakily difficult fights and proved to be surprisingly difficult for my team. Luckily, I have the Exp. Share now, so I won't have to do as much outright grinding. The first Trainer I fought was Youth Athlete Hiromi, who sends out...Pikipek. Great. There was a reason why I was avoiding these things earlier, and that's because I don't have an answer for them beyond brute strength. I open up with Metapod, but have to switch out after taking two consecutive Echoed Voice moves from Pikipek. I switch out to Grubbin, and luckily Pikipek doesn't use a third consecutive Echoed Voice, which would have likely been an OHKO. Instead, she uses Peck, which does a fair bit of damage, but then goes back to a base-power Echoed Voice, which allows me to 2HKO with Vice Grip.
The next fight up is Youngster Joey (no, not that one). His only Pokemon is a Metapod, which as everyone knows likes to spam Harden. Thankfully, I have a Ledyba with Swift, which is a 60-power special move that makes this a short battle. The third trainer is Preschooler Mia with Bonsly. Normally this would be a problem, but it turns out its only moves that can possibly deal damage to me are Flail and Copycat. I switch in my Spinarak and manage to luck into a 30% chance to poison the opposing Bonsly on the first attempt. After that, it's just a waiting game with Metapod using Harden until it faints. The final battle with the students is a Rising Star with an Alolan Grimer. It's more difficult to deal with than the other trainers, but a few Swifts from Ledyba do the trick until Ledyba gets poisoned. I then switch out to Grubbin to finish the job with Mud-Slap. The Rising Star gives me TM01 (Work Up) as a reward, but nothing I have right now can learn it so it gets tossed in my bag for a while.
There is, however, the battle with Teacher Emily which is notorious for being difficult right away. Since her Magnemite is Steel-type, this would be a major issue for my squad of four Bugs. However, my Grubbin made a complete mockery of this battle with Mud-Slap easily taking out Magnemite in two hits before Spinarak came in to finish the job with the newly learned Infestation taking out Alolan Meowth. Thanks to the experience from battle, Metapod then evolved into Butterfree afterwards, giving me what will probably be the first fully-evolved member of my long-term team.
Hau'oli City
There's not too much to do here, and I haven't progressed beyond the city yet, but there are a couple of battles I have to get through. First, I grabbed the TM49 (Echoed Voice) from a small field in town, but unfortunately, once again, nothing I have can learn it. The first is a Team Skull grunt with a Zubat, which goes down easily to a 2HKO from Grubbin with Vice Grip. Next up is a more difficult fight: Ilima. His Yungoos and Smeargle hit annoyingly hard with Tackle, and Smeargle has Water Gun for a special option. I sent out Spinarak first to try and get a poison status effect on Yungoos, but it didn't work, so I switched out to Butterfree and took it down with a 3HKO from Gust, which was newly learned upon evolution. Next up was Smeargle, which was more annoying since Ilima used a Potion on it halfway through. It took a full team effort from Ledyba, Butterfree, Grubbin, and Spinarak, but it went down eventually without any of my team members fainting.
Next, I'll be going through Routes 2 and 3, completing the first Trial and the first Island Kahuna battle, and hopefully adding a little bit of Akala Island into the next update as well. There's also one more new Pokemon I can grab for my team while I'm on Melemele Island, so that'll be pretty fly!
If you have any suggestions for me for things to do during the run or ways to make it a little more difficult, feel free to comment!
Current Team Evaluation
Butterfree (Level 11)
- Tackle
- Confusion
- Harden
- Gust
Butterfree is the main special attacker I have so far. The movepool it has is okay, as it learns some good moves early. I expect Butterfree to get some good use in during the battle with Hala.
Ledyba (Level 10)
- Tackle
- Supersonic
- Swift
I'll come right out and say it: Ledyba won't last on this team, so don't get too attached. Its stats are absolutely pathetic even after it evolves into Ledian, and its two best STABs are based off of 55 Special Attack and don't arrive until around Level 40. However, it has been very useful in the early-game with using Swift to break down physically defensive opponents.
Grubbin (Level 11)
- Vice Grip
- String Shot
- Mud-Slap
- Bite
This guy will likely be the ace of the early-game. Vice Grip off of 62 base Attack is nothing to sneeze at, with Bite for coverage. Mud-Slap also came in handy for getting around Emily's Magnemite.
Spinarak (Level 10)
- Poison Sting
- String Shot
- Absorb
- Infestation
Spinarak has been kind of meh so far, but I expect it to be very useful later in the run. It gets great STABs like Pin Missile, Poison Jab and Cross Poison while also being able to learn Shadow Sneak and Sucker Punch.
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