Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu/Eevee!

[Maryokutai]

I thought online battles would ignore candy boosts anyway?

[Maf]

Oh, well then I worry over nothing, I guess. 

 

@Maryokutai will you trade your legendaries with me please? The birds, Mewtwo and Meltan. I trade them back after and give you a good Charmander for it

[Maryokutai]

What have you been doing in this game, murdering Legendaries left and right?

 

But yeah, we can do that. You could just simply catch them though.

[Maf]

Cool. Just let me know when you are available? 

[Maf]

Just got a shiny Venonat

 

[Maf]

@one-armed dwarf Do you still have this game and if so can you help me out quick?

 

@Maryokutai Want to battle on this at some point? ?

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm not at home

[Maryokutai]

Probably won't have time until May 1st but we can do whatever then.

[Maf]

Sounds cool. If you’re free next weekend want to get some battles and trading in then? 

[Maf]

So after months I have finally bothered to sit down and work out the best methods for getting competitive Pokemon. And when I say “work out” I mean I took the 2 methods off the internet and tried them both and have weighed their pros and cons.

 

Method 1

 

After deciding which Pokemon you want and what you want it to be go to the nature lady and pay the 10,000 dollars to eliminate the nature randomness. Then buy a lot of Ultra Balls (And if you’re anal like me lots of Pokeballs) and go chain the Pokemon you want until you get to catch combo 31 using Ultra balls, and then after that use Pokeballs. My reasoning is that use the Ultra balls to get to 31 purely because they have the best catch rate and that makes the process faster. Then after I switch to Pokeballs because they’re iconic and that’s what I want my Pokemon in, but they’re also cheaper so you get a lot more. Dependant on the level or difficulty of Pokemon you want to catch you can end up using a lot of Pokeballs. But by using the double joy con strat you can make it easier still. 

 

The good side to this is generally it doesn’t cost as much - economy is actually a real balance in this game so needs to be considered. And even though longer in the short term it’s mostly going to be shorter in the long term because you’re not having to wait for bottle caps. Which leads me too

 

Method 2

 

Bottle Cap to victory. So once every 24 hours you can get a Gold Bottle Cap and a Silver Bottle cap. You can trade these with an NPC and for a Gold he will boost all of your Pokemon’s IV’s to maximum and for a silver he will boost one IV to maximum. The catch is the Pokemon need to be level 100, and you can only get bottle cap per day. So like I was saying earlier, you save your self in the short term because you grinding to level 100 which is pretty easy and straight forward, but even if you grind 6 Pokemon to level 100 at once, if you want to correct the IV’s you’re talking a minimum of 6 real time days. There’s also the economy again as well. Because the easiest way to grind to 100 is to use 2 Ultra balls at once on Chansey in Cereluean cave, and in fairness that strat has a really good catch rate, but every Ultra Ball is 500 dollars so it’s like 1000 dollars per catch, if you get it first try. 

 

The cons to method 1 is RNG. Today it took me a chain combo of a 160 to get just the right Pokemon I was after. It is very frustrating and takes a lot of time. But the plus side is I did it to today and all I have to do is level it to 50, equip the right TM’s and that Pokemon is good to go. But the the amount of time it takes and the frustration and the always chance you might drop your combo - these are really big deal breakers. Especially if the Pokemon you are trying to catch is annoying and moves around a lot.

 

Method 2 is technically a lot faster, easier and cheaper but if you wanted to build a squad then you got to wait 6 days because you can only get one Gold Bottle Cap per day. And that’s not counting if you want to be specific. Like generally it’s a good idea to have special attackers with as low as Attack stat as possible so they’re not hit so hard by Foul Play, but that means you are going to need 5 silver bottle caps over 5 days. For one Pokemon. Easy? Sure but that’s a long time. 

 

Overall I feel like whatever method is dependant on the person who’s playing and the Pokemon you are trying to catch. For low level, easy to catch Pokemon method 1 is the way to go. It takes a lot more effort but it’s faster overall and you’re not wasting precious Bottle Cap resources and can build them up over the course of a week. 

 

However Bottle Caps are fantastic if you fuck up and can make a correction. Like dropping a combo chain on a Pokemon that only has 4 of the 5 IV’s you want. Well, no matter a Bottle Cap will solve that. Also if you catch a really cool shiny or legendary Pokemon but it’s stats are bullshit just Gold Bottle Cap it and boom it’s amazing. 

 

This game will never quite scratch the itch the itch as the traditional Pokemon games because the level of customisation and strategies just aren’t in this game, but the trade off for a lighter game is the demands are lighter all the way around too. Pokemon Let’s Go definitely has the problems I thought it would have before release. Being repetitive, dumbed down, economy difficulty, lack of complexity, lack of strategy, lack of influence over RNG, but none of these problems were the death knell I thought they’d be. And actually some of the streamlining they do like super fast grinding, more easily surfacing data, and bottle cap correction is really nice. 

 

I hope in Sword and Sheild they definitely get back closer to a traditional Pokemon experience but maybe don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

Anyway, this wasn’t meant to be a review of a 6 month old game but more just a break down of the competitive Pokemon team building stuff. 

[Maryokutai]

I've only used method 1 so far and only for three Pokémon until I realised it's just a royal waste of time because everyone is using Mewtwo and the Birds online so it doesn't matter if my Vulpix is super good or not.

 

I do like the straightforward approach though and I hope they re-use at least some of it in Sword and Shield. The candies need to go though.

[Maf]

“A wild Snorlax appeared!”

 

”I choose you...Wolverine!”

 

[Maf]

If you took Pokeballs out of the equation I wonder who would win a fight between Spider-Man and Charizard?

 

Hmmm....this one is a thinker

[Maf]

Yay I got a shiny Diglett

 

[Maf]

And now a shiny Spearow 

 

[Maf]

Playing Pokemon like a pro

 

 

[Maf]

@Maryokutai I got a couple of Helix Fossils if you want an Omanyte? I trade it with you for a Jolly Pinter or Timid Alolan Vulpix? ?

The second one is asking a lot but it would be v nice. 

 

Also I caught a shiny Chansey but it’s absolute shit ?

[Maf]

I’m not even close to being done ?

[Maryokutai]

What's a Jolly Pinter and why do I get the feeling it doesn't sound like a Nintendo character?

 

I'm not sure about the Vulpix thing. Do they have the same nature than the original you gave them in return or is it completely random?

[Maf]

I meant Jolly Pinser and yes Alolan Pokemon are completely random. You can’t even control their nature with the nature lady. I’ve only got Dugtrio, Marowak and Vulpix to go, though and I’ve got all the ones I want 

 

Also @Maryokutai would you trade me some Pokemon today pleeeeeease if you got the time? Want to evolve my Haunter and Machoke