nuzlocke Episode 7 - Ultra Jellyfishing

[NyxAvatar69]

Sometimes, I really wish there were easier places to grind earlier on in the game that didn't rely so heavily on low encounter rates.  Sure, there is a place like that, but it's not until the next island...and about 3/4 of the way through said island.  Anyway, I'll stop complaining for now.  We got new additions to the team this time around.  First, due to a recommendation, I put Styles in the team.  His level up moves are all kinds of suck, but he can be a useful meatshield.  Other than him, I chose to add in The Third, the Alolan Digglet I caught in the last episode.  Considering we have an Electric trial coming soon, having The Third could help me quite a lot.  Although...

Yeah, Mailbird got quite a lot more in terms of experience than the rest of the team.  That's because I used her as a supporter to get The Third and Styles leveled up until they could fight on their own, but since I had the Exp. Share on...she kinda just got a few extra levels.  Oh well.  This will probably be a shorter episode than normal, but let's press on like usual.  Today, our first destination is Memorial Hill.  Yes, Alola has two graveyard-like areas.  No talk of Team Rocket members killing mothers of Cubone, though.

So I never actually got my encounter for Memorial Hill, and to be honest, there's not really anything too special I'm looking forward to for this one.  This is (I think) the only route in the game where you can encounter Phantump, a trade evolution that I'd rather not have because Gengar is miles better even though my chances of getting one are gone.  It was sort of my fault, but we don't talk about how Spooky met his end.  Anyway, how about we get an encounter?

Welp, I should've honestly seen this coming.  Phantump was my encounter after three Gastlys and a Zubat...during the day even though it's almost 3:30 AM.  I honestly have few good things about Phantump to say, especially since it's another dreaded trade only evolution.  The long and short of it is that it's probably going to be seeing zero use.  I'm gonna call him Deadwood because that's what I always name tree ghost things.

It's another one of those rare cases when something has a neutral nature.  Why do all the things that either totally suck or I have no intention of using have good or usable natures?  I'm totally right when I say it's a curse.  So, let's just make our way over to the Ruins of Life.  At least there's one more encounter on the way, so I'll hopefully get some value out of the trip.

Except by this point, you're likely expecting something to get in the way of progress.  If you thought so, you're right.  Our little headaches are back, also known as Team Skull.  This time, they're caught in a heated battle with an Aether Foundation worker and...some weirdo wearing green glasses.  Meanwhile, the Slowpoke standing behind the Team Skull guys is just probably wondering what's going on and not caring.  Apparently, Mr. Green Glasses is the Aether Foundation's last line of defense, which is his stupid excuse to not do anything.  Of course, that means we have to do all the work.

After one battle with an Alolan Raticate, we ran off the Team Skull grunts like always while the Slowpoke is as derpy as always.  After that's taken care of, Mr. Glasses wants to show us "something truly astounding."  That sounds questionable, to be honest.  Once we finish up our remaining business with our Grand Trial, he'll take us to see a wondrous place.  If it's his bedroom, then I'll totally pass.  With that mess dealt with, the path to Akala Outskirts is open to us, and with that, another brand new encounter.  Let's hope it can make up for the last one.

I found a Stufful...which could be considered a useless encounter for a special reason.  In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, there's a static encounter for it's evolution, Bewear...and it's available after the Akala Grand Trial.  To be fair, since I can just get a Bewear at Lv. 28 and not need to worry about evolving Stufful, I'm just gonna kill this encounter.  It'll be the first failed encounter of the run, but to be honest, I'm fine with that.  It's not worth wasting my Great Balls over...

...but thinking about it now, dupes clause is optional.  That and the original Stufful SOS'd a higher leveled one, so it's actually a bit worth my time now.  Gotta love how I change my opinion at the drop of a hat like I don't think of the bigger picture before I do these things.  I'm gonna name him Tuff Fluff because I already have a special nickname prepared for the Bewear later down the road.

Klutz.  All I can say.  It's not getting used.  It's nature is totally irrelevant if it's ability is possibly the most useless ability in the history of the series.  Well, to be fair, Stall is almost just as bad, but Klutz is extremely far up there in the list of awful abilities.  I can never win with these encounters.  I also can't win with progression, because before we even go to the Ruins of Life, you guessed it, we're going to get interrupted again.  Gladion the Edgelord has apparently been spreading my infamous name around, because some woman knows who we are.  Say hello to Plumeria, Team Skull's sole admin.  Like everyone else everywhere, she wants a battle, and she'll get one.  I like her battle theme, by the way.

So, she has a Golbat lead.  I had Styles in the front solely to get experience from killing this Golbat.  I figured he could do something to it, and he sure did.  A crit Headbutt turn 1 even with confusion and a second to finish the job.  After that, all she has is a Salandit.  It's no Salazzle, so it's no real threat.  Water, Ground, Psychic, they all take care of it.  One Bone Club from Mother shut it down, and this is her with no Thick Club.  Imagine if we can score one of those.  Anyway, easy battle is easy.

Once that battle's done and she leaves, it's time to head on over to the Ruins of Life for the Grand Trial.  Once we head on over, we're joined by Lillie and Burnet.  Lillie's infamous sense of direction that would make Agnès Oblige seem like a rocket scientist strikes again.  Now she's going to go watch her hu...I mean, she's a huge fan of the Masked Royal, who is totally her-

Oh look, Nebby's not in the bag!  Lillie came all this way just for Nebby.  She'll give us a free heal (and not give me my money back on the Antidote I had to use on Mother thanks to a certain woman's Poison Gas using Salandit).  Why are the guardians important to Nebby?  Well, he can't speak in a language humans understand, so I doubt we'll ever find out.  That's not important now, because Olivia's here and it's time for the real show to start.  It's Grand Trial time!

Her team got a huge overhaul of changes in this game because now she has an Anorith lead instead of...whatever she had before.  Hell if I can remember.  I chose to lead with Master Derp so I could just Water Pulse the Anorith to death.  The Quick Claw really saved Master Derp's life because it popped twice, especially after one Bug Bite alone nearly killed him.  That's a relief.

Lileep is next and I hate this thing.  It eventually becomes an annoying, bulky mon with a weird type of Rock/Grass, so it's weaknesses are all over the place.  Mother has good Defense, so I chose to switch her in and give Master Derp a break.  My luck must be some kind of awful since it got the boosts turn 1 with Ancient Power.  Mother wouldn't be able to take two Ancient Powers after the boost, so The Third has to take over.  To make matters worse, this abomination also has Brine for Ground types.  It came down to Mailbird coming in, setting up the rain and tanking an Ancient Power, and then sending Lileep away with a Water Pulse.

Now, it's time for the big one.  Her ace and Z-Move user, Lycanroc.  The Third was my best choice for this one since if she chose to use the Z-Move, The Third should've been able to wall it because of his type.  After the earlier Brine disaster, though, I had to waste the first turn healing, but the Lycanroc hit like a truck with Bite.  A slow battle of heal spamming along with one Mud-Slap ensued before it threw off the Z-Move.  Luckily, The Third completely ate it and ended the war of stall with a Magnitude 8.  Luckily, no deaths this time around and a lot of the team really contributed to our victory here today.

For our victory, we got ourselves the Rockium Z, another pose (and the hip movement is crucial), and traded mons of some level or other can now obey us.  Fantastic, if you ask me.  Olivia will take Lillie back to town, and I guess we'll be left to our own devices...but we all know that part's an absolute lie because we run into Hau almost right away.  Looks like Mr. Glasses also invited Hau to see his bedroo-I mean, the spectacular thing.  Upon mention of the Aether Foundation, Lillie gets a little flustered and decides to stay and watch Hau do his Grand Trial "even though she hates to see Pokemon get hurt."  Nice contradiction there, Lillie.  So, Hano Grand Resort is the next stop, but before we go there, we all know what time it is.  It's everyone's favorite time, MVP Photo Time.

To be honest, it's hard to choose an MVP since Master Derp, Mother, Mailbird, and The Third all did put in work.  If I had to personally choose a team member to take the MVP spot, it would have to be...

Can't go wrong with The Third.  He did disarm the Z-Move problem and survived a 1v1 with Olivia's Lycanroc.  Now that our MVP is out of the way, before we go to see Mr. Glasses, we have some unfinished business on Melemele Island.  Namely, three encounters.  First, let's get those static encounters we're free to snag.

Ah, it feels like forever since we were here in tutorialsville.  There was actually a building I never brought up in the shopping district.  A large building featuring multiple useless places, an apparel shop, and a Battle Buffet.  Unless you got the money to spare, don't bother with the apparel shop.  The stuff there is way too expensive for a poor soul who wastes money on potions to make sure team members don't die like me.  What we're here for is on the second floor in front of a stage.  Let's sit back and watch the Bewear Costume Show...?  That's a little odd, but whatever.  Bewear may look cute, but it's dangerous.  While this show starts normally, suddenly there's a third Bewear.  A closeup later and...oh gosh, it's a real one!  Everyone beware the Bewear!

But this, ladies and gentlemen, is a static Bewear encounter, so I am free to catch it.  After a very long battle of Styles taking hits and using Headbutt to chip away at it, we caught it.  Now, earlier I said I had a special nickname for this one, but it wouldn't work too well now since this Bewear is male and the character I'm going to be referencing is female.  We'll just say it's a genderbend and call it that, alright?  So, I named him Haruyo, as a reference to a character in the fifth volume of the Psycome light novel series.  I'd recommend it, but we aren't here for light novel recommendations.  Anyway, Haruyo is known as the Costumed Killer, and Bewear looks like it could easily be mistaken for one of those animal mascot costumes you see in anime, like how a certain best girl in Love Live Sunshine wears one in an episode.  You is best girl in Sunshine, and that's my opinion.  Anyway, that aside, we got another Speed lowering nature because that seems to be pretty standard at this point.  I'll keep him in mind in case something happens to Styles.  Now, onward to the next encounter.

Even though I have not been arrested for my infamous habit of blowing up teams, we must pay a visit to the police station.  Apparently, a crime has taken place here in Hau'oli City that wasn't my fault.  Captain Ilima was robbed.  His guard Machamp (because he totally has one of those) was found passed out on the floor when he came back from a family vacation and his Nugget was stolen.  His suspects are three Hypno, each with a skill they could've used to pull off this daring crime.  One can use Hypnosis like a champ, the second is a nasty schemer, and the third seems to be able to use Psychic to move stuff.  I'm choosing the Nasty Plot Hypno as the culprit so it'll attack and make this yet another static encounter.  One Ultra Ball later and the criminal Hypno was caught by my ball of justice.

I chose to name him Lullaby as a reference to that Hypno creepypasta.  As for his stats, he's Bold, but he's a Psychic type, so we can say that this is an amazing nature, and he even has Insomnia so he can't be put to sleep and also has Nasty Plot for extreme Special Attack boosting potential.  We're also getting a TM for Psychic very soon, so this was a good catch.  A shame my team is full right now.  After that, we solve the mystery and find out that the three Hypno were working together to steal Captain Ilima's Nugget.  Those fiends!  At least I got a Big Nugget out of the deal.  With that out of the way, we have one final order of business, then we can say goodbye to Melemele...again.

Remember Kala'e Bay?  No?  Well, I don't either.  But we can still get an encounter over there since I never actually got it yet.  It was too out of the way at first, but now that we have the power of Lapras, we can go there and get something that should hopefully not suck.

I should never ask for nice things.  I took my chances with the grass and all I got was an Alolan Rattata.  Welp, looks like it's something else to add to my collection of mons I don't intend to use.  Naturally, I'm naming it Joey, since it will one day become the top percentage Rattata...but Mild nature kinda sucks to be honest.  Welp...of course it has to be bad.  Let's get out of Melemele and progress the story.

However!  Before we progress the story, now would probably be the best time to say this.  From this point forward, the bigger changes in the games start making themselves known.  I will not be holding back on discussion about spoilery topics from this point forward, so if you either don't want the game spoiled or have not finished the games yet (even though it's March and the games came out in November), I would advise against it.  For those who either don't care about spoilers, enjoy my despair enough to be spoiled, or have already played the games, sit back, grab some Arizona Iced Tea, and let's go see Mr. Glasses at Hano Grand Resort...

...but we can still get an encounter on the beach, so how about we scoop that up real quick.  Instead of risking the water again, I chose to go for a land encounter, and I got myself a Sandygast.  It's a Ghost type...and it eventually becomes a sandcastle.  The one downside about this thing is that it's slow, just like a ton of Gen 7 mons.  Unfortunately, Styles couldn't do anything, I didn't want to risk Spark Plug, so I tried using Mailbird...and then I killed it in one shot with Air Cutter.  Whoops.  Now I've officially missed an encounter.

As for Hano Grand Resort, it's a pretty fancy looking place, to be honest.  Looks like a place for all those bigwigs who go on vacation would stay at.  Speaking of bigwigs, Mr. Glasses is actually Faba, and the wondrous place he wants to show is isn't his bedroom, but the Aether Paradise.  Since it's totally not creepy anymore, let's totally go.  Of course, Hau will show up just in time to join us because of course he would.  Kukui has his own business to attend to, and by that, he probably means he's working on a way to make me lose this locke like last time.  We'll meet up with him later, so it's off to Aether Paradise.

Well, one trip on the ferry later and here we are at Aether Paradise.  Faba gives us the short version of the grand tour until we run into everyone's favorite Aether Foundation woman (no, that's not a joke), Wicke.  I personally don't see the appeal.  Apparently, one of the Aether Foundation employees told her our names, so that's introductions aside.  Now with the grand tour, which is pretty much the exact same as the original games.

Apparently, once upon a time, Wicke traveled through Kanto...because of course it was Kanto instead of any other region.  After a short Pokedex lesson nobody asked for, we are tasked with finding the president, Good Person Lusamine.  She'll "protect Pokemon with her love," she says.  Keep that in mind for later.  I want to talk about that when a certain point comes along.  On another note, those heels.  How does she walk around in those things?

So, Good Person Lusamine goes on her tangent about stuff I honestly don't care about.  She's also over 40 despite not really looking that old.  Must be new age beauty technology or something.  Hau does point out that Lusamine's choice of style is very similar to Lillie's.  She doesn't seem to take that too well, though, and before we can continue this smashing conversation, sudden tremor and weird spatial distortions.

Then all of a sudden, a big hole opens up and some jellyfish thing comes out of it.  No, I'm not making this up, this is actually happening.  As Hau says, that thing isn't right.  It's left.

...Ok, I'll shut up now.  Because nobody wants to step up to the plate and fight this thing, we gotta do it.  This is probably going to be the easiest battle in the entire run.  Why?  Because this thing, despite being a Rock type, has paper thin Defense and it's also a Poison type, so The Third can destroy it with no challenge with one Magnitude.  Or...it gets +2 Defense, because of course it needs to cover for that awful stat.  At the end of the day, it actually didn't matter because I got Magnitude 10 first try and instakilled it.  The Third wasn't playing games today.

So after being thoroughly destroyed by a Dugtrio with awesome hair, the jealous jellyfish thing ran off.  I bet he went to go visit his stylist or something.  The bald look is so Generation 1.  For a moment, Good Person Lusamine's inner crazy showed for a bit, but she seemed a lot more calm about an encounter with an extraterrestrial jellyfish thing than she does in the original games.  Suddenly, Ultra Recon Squad.  When did they even get here and how?  They hardly know how to catch a Pokemon, but they know how to ride the ferry?

Anyway, after they ramble about Ultra Beasts a bit, we learn these crazies are Good Person Lusamine's guests.  Why would anyone want these weirdos as guests anywhere?  Apparently, they came to Alola through an Ultra Wormhole, from a world of darkness.  So...from some Kingdom Hearts world?  Now they finally bring up Necrozma, halfway through the game and we're getting new relevant story content.  According to the Ultra Weirdo Squad, Necrozma will one day come to Alola and steal it's light...whatever that's supposed to mean.  Instead of going crazy over a single Ultra Beast, Good Person Lusamine has a much more noble mission in this game.  Big surprise, right?

With that exposition aside, Wicke will bring us on our way to the next island, or as I'd like to call it, the place where we can finally evolve Spark Plug.  Before we go, however, we get gifts from Wicke.  Hau gets some malasadas to fuel his fetish, and to fuel my destructive reign of terror, a TM for Psychic.  For once, someone who knows what I really want.  A super good Psychic type move that's perfect for Master Derp, Lullaby, and any other good special attackers who can learn it.

So while we take the ferry to Ula'ula Island, we're gonna end it there.  Yes, I know there's a rival battle almost right away in the next town, but I want to be ready since this battle can actually be kind of scary compared to past encounters with Hau.  Anyway, one final thing before we end it off.  We are finally at the place where we can groom Styles, so feel free to recommend what kind of style that Styles will be taking souls with for next episode.  Please remember that Styles is a male Furfrou, so let's keep the styles something a guy would probably go for.

[lVergill]

Someday, Mystery the Mimikyu will strike the heart of trainer everywhere. >3<

[NyxAvatar69]

Just now, lVergill said:

Someday, Mystery the Mimikyu will strike the heart of trainer everywhere. >3<

Unless I get a Shuppet :P

[lVergill]

NoooooooO!!!!!! Curse you Shuppet! D=

[NyxAvatar69]

1 minute ago, lVergill said:

NoooooooO!!!!!! Curse you Shuppet! D=

30% encounter rate with a 15% Klefki rate.  You may want to pick another route, like that static Frillish encounter.