I am really hoping we can requisition some sort of paralysis taser. That said, we only need to touch the pokeball to its body, right? Bag, restraints around bag, touch pokeball to it's foot?
If Oddish got dizzy we could turn it upside down.
Paralyze it through electricity might work.
As for tugging its leaves off... Those oddish will be weakened and basically useless after capture for awhile. It will be a minus score on our exam result, i think.
So in that line, go for oddish with good enough stats/condition, it doesn't necessary have to be younger or older.
[x] Study Gary's Notes (1 Day)
→ [x] Safari Zone North (Safari Area 2) (in-depth)
Oddish is resistant to electricity. Electrocution might work, but it will take a long time, and it might scream and attract the notice of predators.
The idea is that older Oddish will probably have better stats than younger ones. Won't always be true, and it's not what we should focus on, but it's a perfectly natural trend.
I don't believe that an Oddish is weakened by severing its leaves. It's weakened by the evolutionary process, which it starts by severing its leaves, but that process takes longer and is obviously quite stressful in itself. It's
possible that the Oddish will be weakened if we leave it in the pokeball for an extended period while it's trying to regrow its leaves, but I already pointed out that we should avoid that, and if we pick out a strong Oddish it'll still be stronger. Beyond all that, a stronger Oddish is just a headstart that helps make up for having to go into a deathzone; a weaker Oddish still lets us become a trainer rather than failing or getting killed. Otherwise, it's only out of commission for a week. A week isn't long at all in the grand scheme of things. We'll probably have about that long to recover from
surviving a deathzone as a matter of course (before they start seriously discussing our first assignment, that is).
I also doubt that we'll be scored on how strong the pokemon is afterward. I think all they care about is that we get the pokemon and that it can recover to full fighting fitness eventually. The joey that Leaf is planning to catch is totally going to take a lot longer than a week to grow up enough to fight, after all. Even if I'm wrong, I think worrying about a high score on an exam over
actually passing it is having one's priorities in the wrong order. The Safari Zone is a deathzone. Any kind of passing will be passing with flying colors, and if we need to take a penalty to maximize our chances, I think it's a no-brainer.
EDIT:
My insticts are screaming at me that if we don't keep a weather eye on them, social events are going to move on apace and bite us in the arse. We should probably coordinate with silver and leaf nowish, to lock shit down and coordinate prep. Also, after asking Silver to work with us, we should work with him.
Hm, yeah, that sounds pretty convincing to me. We should probably hash out our plan before the vote turns over, in that case. I'll put my change of vote at the bottom for clarity.
Also electroparalysing.
Severing the leaves should probably be a last resort, as crippling as it is. That said, digging to expose a small portion of its body and ball it is probably the best way. Not onl are its leaves where most of the danger probably happens, that maximises the extent to which it stays restrained.
Tbh I'm not completely convinced that electrocution will work like that. It doesn't irl.
In any case, Oddish should be resistant to that, too, so I don't think it's reliable as far as tactics go.
I already mentioned my doubts that severing the leaves would be crippling-- since the only reference to it weakening the Oddish is when it's in the process of evolution, which is another thing entirely-- and also that I don't think worrying about the Oddish being weakened should be our priority compared to maximizing the actual chances of capture. I also don't think that we can depend on the leaf-severing only as a last resort, since it's a plan that's hard to pull off if anything goes wrong. If the Oddish pops out of the dirt at being electrocuted or damaged, for example (in a vain attempt to run away), it probably won't just go back in.
[x] Talk to Silver and Leaf.
(1 Day)
→ [x] Touch base, and start making joint plans. Discuss any preparations that need to be done.
→ [x] Try to be patient with Leaf, and maybe even foster some team spirit. Your lives will depend on each other.