Starter Selection and First Encounters
- Location
- The City of Tears, Hallownest
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Lets start by getting everyone up to speed.
A Nuzlocke is a way of playing pokemon that adds several rules to the game to increase the difficulty. Rule the first, you may only catch the first pokemon you encounter in a given area. Rule the second, if a pokemon faints in battle, it is slain and cannot be used anymore. (you also have to nickname all your mons but that's not really a difficulty rule).
A "Hardcore" nuzlocke adds three more critical rules to the game, that are forced onto you by garbage green so I'll explain them here. You must play on set mode, cannot use items in battle (aside from held items and pokeballs) and shall not level your pokemon past the next gym leaders ace before the start of the gym battle. In pokemon garbage green, not only can you not use items in battle or change off set mode, there is an enforced hard level cap of one level past the next gym leader (to make you manage EXP acquisition during gauntlets).
So, what exactly is Garbage Green?
Garbage green is a romhack of pokemon leaf green produced by youtuber pokemonchallenges, with the express goal of making pokemon leaf green as hard as possible without changing any of the enemy trainers. The increased difficulty comes in three main forms, firstly, changes to encounterable pokemon (nothing has a special move before brock, no grass or electric types before misty, no ground types before surge... etc). Secondly, changes to evolutions and movesets, certain pre-evolved forms of powerful pokemon are obtainable, some very early on, but they will be stuck that way for the majority of the game if not the entirety. Thirdly, the creation of "Gauntlets". In certain areas of the game, starting with Mt Moon, once you enter, you will be trapped by an event or an impassable ledge, and not released until you have beaten every trainer inside/made it through to the other side of the area. "But wait" I hear you say, "what does that matter when you can just use potions and elixirs and antidotes to heal your Pokémon between fights?" Ah, I'm afraid not. Not a single pokemart in this game will sell you so much as a potion, status and HP heal berries are extremely limited, and any that would be repeatable like regenerating drops or thief/pickup have been removed (thief no longer steals items, pickup only provides useless bluk berries) Any damage you take during a gauntlet is a permanant loss of resources, each move you use will not be restored until you are through.
With all that being said, welcome to my Hardcore nuzlocke of garbage green:
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I won't lie to you, I've been playing this game for a couple weeks before deciding to start this thread, and have made it even as far as rock tunnel. Yep, a whole 3 gyms out of 8 plus the sevii islands. But now it's back to starter selection
Obviously, these won't be your normal gen 1 starters, but they do follow a fire/water/grass theming
As you can see, not exactly stellar options
Now, you might wonder what exactly is so terrible about these pokemon. Well, slugma has the natural fire starter weakness to the first two gyms, as well as a truly absymal 250 base stat total, it is the only special user you can get before brock, and flame body can be very strong, it's generally considered the second best starter, but Squirtle rival can be very difficult to defeat early. (oh yeah, he doesn't have to deal with this trash, unchanged enemies remember) As for paras, in one of the few moveset changes in the entire game, it's level 22 spore has been changed to sleep powder (a 25 percent loss in accuracy) and a 4x weakness to flying and fire, as well as a 2x weakness to poison land paras firmly in "3rd best starter" (also you have to fight charmander rival, yikes). Although paras does have some upsides, its one of the few sources of poison before brock, which makes his gym much easier, and leech life before misty makes it a great gauntlet pokemon. But what of goldeen, by process of elimination, it must be the best, right Sun? Well yes, between the weakness of bulbasaur rival and early access to horn attack, a 65 base power normal type move with 100 percent accuracy and no drawbacks, Goldeen is generally the best starter.... but. Well, did you do as oak said and check the moveset? If you haven't, I'll save you the trouble. Goldeen has exactly one water type move in its level up learnset. Waterfall. Which it naturally learns at level 38. Horn attack and flail will be carrying us all the way to Koga. But enough discussion on the starters, We're picking Goldeen and I will be naming my pokemon after the names of elements of the periodic table, so say hello to Hydrogen:
Hydrogen is rocking a brave nature, making it hit harder (great) and move slower (bad). I should also mention that EVs have been removed from this game. All of the starters come prepackaged with an Oran berry to ensure they survive the first rival fight, getting it out will be very useful if I can manage it.
Obviously, a level 5 bulbasaur is no great danger for a goldeen and we defeat him with two pecks, preserving our oran berry for the future
Now we can go deliver oaks goods and start collecting encounters
Another bit of information you should probably have, While pokemarts have been changed to no longer sell potions/antidotes, etc and all overworld potions have been removed, there is still a reason to go to a mart beyond filling up on pokeballs. Pokemarts now sell the rare candy item for only 1$ a pop, removing grinding from the game compeletly
But now that our oak goods are sorted, lets see our encounters
From route one, our options range from bad (Unown, Smeargle, Ditto) to Abysmal (Delibird)
And we ended up getting:
An unown, not too bad, but the crucial question is.. what hidden power type is it? While I was catching it, it was not very effective on Goldeen, which gives it four possible types, one of which is fantastic, one is okay, one is fine, and one is basically useless. Those types, in order, are Water, Ice, Fire and Steel. Water, Ice and Fire are all special types, and Water and Ice are both super effective into brock (so is steel, but it needs to run up against base 100 defense geodude instead of base 30 special defense), making this unown one of the better encounters on this route, period (beaten out only by HP grass, HP psychic and HP ground)
After heading to viridian to heal, buy pokeballs and rare candy, and level my pokemon, I can head back to Route 1 and dig up a delibird to check my HP type further, as an Ice/Flying type, delibird is weak to steel and fire, and damaged neutrally by water and ice.
Well, that's less than fantastic, but fine.
Next up is route 2, You can get an encounter on route 22 but one of the potential encounters is abra, If we encounter Swablu on route 2, at the level cap of 14, even a -speed, zero speed IV swablu will outspeed the fastest possible abra, and can use sing (a coin flip at 55 percent accuracy, but still better than the chances of "just ball and pray" (pokemon catch calculations are hard, but it's somewhere in the realm of a 33% chance)
Of course, this all only matters if we encounter a Swablu..
Luckily, we did. Our other options on route 2 (for future runs) are Igglybuff, Psyduck and Spearow, all useful mons in the right circumstances (Spearow stab peck is great for grass types like that bulbasaur without risking Goldeen) And for reference our possible route 22 encounters are Togepi (decent support pokemon with charm, yawn and sweet kiss) Tyrogue (absolutely abysmal Base 35 in every stat + tackle locked) Abra as mentioned (does nothing until after brock and certainly never evolves, but the Thief TM from Mt moon makes it a decent special blaster, and in the late game it wield the psychic tm quite well I've heard) and Whismur (an okay normal attacker for mt moon and cerulean north if you don't get teddiursa). So, all this theorizing for Abra, what did we end up with?
No abra, but charm will be very useful. And finally Viridian Forest can provide us Hoothoot (Access to Hypnosis after brock is alright, kinda doubles up with swablu) Leyba (Comet punch, seriously even after it evolves after brock its traaash) Pineco (Unexciting, but early selfdestruct allows you to basically skip Misty which is neat) or Shuckle (can have over 100 defense and special defense before misty, won't have over 20 attack, bug/rock is a terrible type combo) And we've recieved:
Ah well, better than shuckle.
I won't be showing the viridian forest trainers, we have a level 13+ Goldeen, Swablu and Hoothoot, all with peck, and none of them have anything better than a level 9 weedle, AND viridian isn't a gauntlet (also, for reference, Garbage green removes overworld poison damage) so nothing in here can possibly threaten us. With that in mind let's skip ahead to Pewter Gym... Oh but before that, I took the time to nail down Nihonium's HP type, it's fire (sigh). Exactly how I verified that is left as an exercise for the reader. Anyway on to Pewter. Brock's gym has been ... Modified, to prevent the skipping of Camper Liam, but he only has a Geodude and a Sandshrew, and we still have a special attacking Unown (Sandshrew doesn't even resist fire)
So he shouldn't provide any problem.
of course, it's not exactly quick either, but I'm able to get through with no surprises.
I'll be breaking these up for the image Limit, Next up is the pre-brock teamsheet (there won't be one of these every time, but it seems like a good way to start off) and then Brock.
A Nuzlocke is a way of playing pokemon that adds several rules to the game to increase the difficulty. Rule the first, you may only catch the first pokemon you encounter in a given area. Rule the second, if a pokemon faints in battle, it is slain and cannot be used anymore. (you also have to nickname all your mons but that's not really a difficulty rule).
A "Hardcore" nuzlocke adds three more critical rules to the game, that are forced onto you by garbage green so I'll explain them here. You must play on set mode, cannot use items in battle (aside from held items and pokeballs) and shall not level your pokemon past the next gym leaders ace before the start of the gym battle. In pokemon garbage green, not only can you not use items in battle or change off set mode, there is an enforced hard level cap of one level past the next gym leader (to make you manage EXP acquisition during gauntlets).
So, what exactly is Garbage Green?
Garbage green is a romhack of pokemon leaf green produced by youtuber pokemonchallenges, with the express goal of making pokemon leaf green as hard as possible without changing any of the enemy trainers. The increased difficulty comes in three main forms, firstly, changes to encounterable pokemon (nothing has a special move before brock, no grass or electric types before misty, no ground types before surge... etc). Secondly, changes to evolutions and movesets, certain pre-evolved forms of powerful pokemon are obtainable, some very early on, but they will be stuck that way for the majority of the game if not the entirety. Thirdly, the creation of "Gauntlets". In certain areas of the game, starting with Mt Moon, once you enter, you will be trapped by an event or an impassable ledge, and not released until you have beaten every trainer inside/made it through to the other side of the area. "But wait" I hear you say, "what does that matter when you can just use potions and elixirs and antidotes to heal your Pokémon between fights?" Ah, I'm afraid not. Not a single pokemart in this game will sell you so much as a potion, status and HP heal berries are extremely limited, and any that would be repeatable like regenerating drops or thief/pickup have been removed (thief no longer steals items, pickup only provides useless bluk berries) Any damage you take during a gauntlet is a permanant loss of resources, each move you use will not be restored until you are through.
With all that being said, welcome to my Hardcore nuzlocke of garbage green:
----
I won't lie to you, I've been playing this game for a couple weeks before deciding to start this thread, and have made it even as far as rock tunnel. Yep, a whole 3 gyms out of 8 plus the sevii islands. But now it's back to starter selection
Obviously, these won't be your normal gen 1 starters, but they do follow a fire/water/grass theming
As you can see, not exactly stellar options
Now, you might wonder what exactly is so terrible about these pokemon. Well, slugma has the natural fire starter weakness to the first two gyms, as well as a truly absymal 250 base stat total, it is the only special user you can get before brock, and flame body can be very strong, it's generally considered the second best starter, but Squirtle rival can be very difficult to defeat early. (oh yeah, he doesn't have to deal with this trash, unchanged enemies remember) As for paras, in one of the few moveset changes in the entire game, it's level 22 spore has been changed to sleep powder (a 25 percent loss in accuracy) and a 4x weakness to flying and fire, as well as a 2x weakness to poison land paras firmly in "3rd best starter" (also you have to fight charmander rival, yikes). Although paras does have some upsides, its one of the few sources of poison before brock, which makes his gym much easier, and leech life before misty makes it a great gauntlet pokemon. But what of goldeen, by process of elimination, it must be the best, right Sun? Well yes, between the weakness of bulbasaur rival and early access to horn attack, a 65 base power normal type move with 100 percent accuracy and no drawbacks, Goldeen is generally the best starter.... but. Well, did you do as oak said and check the moveset? If you haven't, I'll save you the trouble. Goldeen has exactly one water type move in its level up learnset. Waterfall. Which it naturally learns at level 38. Horn attack and flail will be carrying us all the way to Koga. But enough discussion on the starters, We're picking Goldeen and I will be naming my pokemon after the names of elements of the periodic table, so say hello to Hydrogen:
Obviously, a level 5 bulbasaur is no great danger for a goldeen and we defeat him with two pecks, preserving our oran berry for the future
Now we can go deliver oaks goods and start collecting encounters
Another bit of information you should probably have, While pokemarts have been changed to no longer sell potions/antidotes, etc and all overworld potions have been removed, there is still a reason to go to a mart beyond filling up on pokeballs. Pokemarts now sell the rare candy item for only 1$ a pop, removing grinding from the game compeletly
But now that our oak goods are sorted, lets see our encounters
From route one, our options range from bad (Unown, Smeargle, Ditto) to Abysmal (Delibird)
And we ended up getting:
An unown, not too bad, but the crucial question is.. what hidden power type is it? While I was catching it, it was not very effective on Goldeen, which gives it four possible types, one of which is fantastic, one is okay, one is fine, and one is basically useless. Those types, in order, are Water, Ice, Fire and Steel. Water, Ice and Fire are all special types, and Water and Ice are both super effective into brock (so is steel, but it needs to run up against base 100 defense geodude instead of base 30 special defense), making this unown one of the better encounters on this route, period (beaten out only by HP grass, HP psychic and HP ground)
After heading to viridian to heal, buy pokeballs and rare candy, and level my pokemon, I can head back to Route 1 and dig up a delibird to check my HP type further, as an Ice/Flying type, delibird is weak to steel and fire, and damaged neutrally by water and ice.
Well, that's less than fantastic, but fine.
Next up is route 2, You can get an encounter on route 22 but one of the potential encounters is abra, If we encounter Swablu on route 2, at the level cap of 14, even a -speed, zero speed IV swablu will outspeed the fastest possible abra, and can use sing (a coin flip at 55 percent accuracy, but still better than the chances of "just ball and pray" (pokemon catch calculations are hard, but it's somewhere in the realm of a 33% chance)
Of course, this all only matters if we encounter a Swablu..
Luckily, we did. Our other options on route 2 (for future runs) are Igglybuff, Psyduck and Spearow, all useful mons in the right circumstances (Spearow stab peck is great for grass types like that bulbasaur without risking Goldeen) And for reference our possible route 22 encounters are Togepi (decent support pokemon with charm, yawn and sweet kiss) Tyrogue (absolutely abysmal Base 35 in every stat + tackle locked) Abra as mentioned (does nothing until after brock and certainly never evolves, but the Thief TM from Mt moon makes it a decent special blaster, and in the late game it wield the psychic tm quite well I've heard) and Whismur (an okay normal attacker for mt moon and cerulean north if you don't get teddiursa). So, all this theorizing for Abra, what did we end up with?
No abra, but charm will be very useful. And finally Viridian Forest can provide us Hoothoot (Access to Hypnosis after brock is alright, kinda doubles up with swablu) Leyba (Comet punch, seriously even after it evolves after brock its traaash) Pineco (Unexciting, but early selfdestruct allows you to basically skip Misty which is neat) or Shuckle (can have over 100 defense and special defense before misty, won't have over 20 attack, bug/rock is a terrible type combo) And we've recieved:
Ah well, better than shuckle.
I won't be showing the viridian forest trainers, we have a level 13+ Goldeen, Swablu and Hoothoot, all with peck, and none of them have anything better than a level 9 weedle, AND viridian isn't a gauntlet (also, for reference, Garbage green removes overworld poison damage) so nothing in here can possibly threaten us. With that in mind let's skip ahead to Pewter Gym... Oh but before that, I took the time to nail down Nihonium's HP type, it's fire (sigh). Exactly how I verified that is left as an exercise for the reader. Anyway on to Pewter. Brock's gym has been ... Modified, to prevent the skipping of Camper Liam, but he only has a Geodude and a Sandshrew, and we still have a special attacking Unown (Sandshrew doesn't even resist fire)
So he shouldn't provide any problem.
of course, it's not exactly quick either, but I'm able to get through with no surprises.
I'll be breaking these up for the image Limit, Next up is the pre-brock teamsheet (there won't be one of these every time, but it seems like a good way to start off) and then Brock.
