The time has come. For the Whitney saga as a whole, I predict a bloodbath of eliminations. A lot of unevolved Pokemon got by Bugsy, but with so few mandatory battles to level up, Miltank is going to roll wild.
Not sure about that. There are quite a few TM options that will allow a lot of pokemon to survive too. There is Dig, Return, the elemental punches and if you gamble there are Fire Blast, Thunder and Blizzard. With all the TMs we have right now as long as the pokemon learns one of those moves it may have a chance no matter how bad it is.
I think the real question here is whether getting through is possible or not without unreasonable TM moves, exploring the options available in more detail, and understanding that the power spike is going to be short-lived as we progress. Imagine for example, that any Pokemon that doesn't get something good for Ghosts and is just spamming Return is going to have a heck of a time getting through Morty...
I think "Impractical" is the perfect category name for Struggle and early TMs and high luck (Multi-crit/miss) strats. They are *practically* impossible, because they are possible, just impractical
@GSCPokemonChallenges In that vein, anything that can learn Ice Punch at this point could at least be "impractical." Maybe limit it to one luck Freeze per fight or only a Freeze on a critical Pokémon?
Very interesting episode. I'd rename the Struggle section to something like "Pass, But Unfeasible" or "Pass, But Don't". Prediction for total Whitney passes: 90 (ignoring channel member picks and struggle/time sink mons) 125 (including channel member picks and struggle/time sink mons) That leaves around 35-40 fails (depending on how many new channel members there are)
I think that's fair. I will solicit more comments on how to name that section. It's goind to be interesting. The things I can say right now, are that with at least 28 Defense, we can guarantee Whitney can't OHKO a pokemon with 4x weakness to Rollout. so if we go in with at least that much defense, I think we can find a way through. I'm really interested to see the Snubbull before Whitney against some Ghost and Psychic Pokemon.
I agree with how you are handling trainers that you'll have to fight eventually. I enjoy the content and I think it's a good way to keep more pokemon around.
Agreed, I don't want to unecessarily eliminate Pokemon that could progress, even if they need a little extra EXP to gain 1-2 levels from required trainers later on.
The Defense Curl and Rollout combination. After Rollout ends after 5 hits or a miss, use Defense Curl then Rollout again. If you're at +6 Defense after Rollout ends, you have to have your foe lower your Defense before setting it up again.
Speaking of hard to get items in this section there’s the Mystery Gift girl in the Department Store that would unlock Mystery Gift with a roughly 0.20% chance to get a Scope Lens for increasing critical hit chance.
@@GSCPokemonChallenges Well it’s not exactly 0.20% but Gen 2 Mystery Gift is wild. Sirtoastytoes has a video going into it in detail but you would need to find a cartridge whose secret ID has the Scope Lens as one of their 4 rare items (out of a pool of 8) then hit the 10% chance to upgrade to Uncommon, get the 20% chance to upgrade to Rare, then MISS the 20% chance to upgrade to Super Rare. Once the rarity of the item has been decided it’s a 1 in 4 to get a Scope Lens. It’s just easier to call it the 0.20% Serebii and GameFAQs did back in the day.
When i was a kid who had no actual strategies i beat morty with a level 3 ish hoothoot, so im sure pidgey can do it too. If i remember right rest was essential, but its been over 20 years.
For the return pidgey section im not sure if you call it legit or not but you could reset the game clock and grab haircuts which would make that grind for return much faster. It does cost money too as well though which is limited at this point of the game. As always love the content brother!
That's fair. The logic is that 1) it still would take a while and 2) I don't really want every Pokemon just running to get Return and max out friendship. As we saw, there are lots of other ways to progress more efficiently, between Nightmare, elemental punches, buildup moves like Rage, and even just basic Mud-Slapping.
Here we go again! Yikes, that cow is fast. But as you've shown there are a lot of ways to foil her. Mud Slap, sleep strats, inflicting random status condition with a special move... heck, even digging underground to break her combo. There might be a lot more pokemon through than we'd expect. Is struggle even going to be a valid strategy going forward? I guess it may be the best shot some pokemon have against Morty's gym but other than that I assume almost every pokemon learns Return.
True, I think Return replaces Struggle as the go-to last resort, since it is stronger and doesn't have recoil. Morty is where Struggle might make a comeback.
We've finally reached the Goldenrod/Whitney segment. Good thing you decided put the Pokémon who had to use Return/Game Corner TMs in a seperate section, as those are clearly meant to be received later in the game. Also, good thinking regarding the use of Nightmare, that should help a few challengers to defeat the rolling cow. Speaking of which, there are definitely many ways to stop the massive damage from Rollout, be it Dig, status moves, accuracy strats or pretty much any decent move that uses the Sp. Atk. stat. Mind you, each Pokémon that gets through this section actually could get Hidden Power Dark (yes, you don't have to fight any trainer, even without Surf to get the TM for it!) which helps immensely against Rival 3, Morty and his gym trainers. You could also get your first Rare Candy, the TM for Detect and the Blackbelt there (on Wednesday). Keep up the good work, I'm hoping Espeon (favorite Gen 2 Pokémon) gets to complete the entire game on minimal battles!
Thanks. I need people to clarify the route to get Hidden power without optional battles or surf for me. I'm probably just remembering wrong, but I could have sworn there was a trainer that was only skippable with surf en route to getting hidden power.
@@GSCPokemonChallenges I've tested it, you don't have to fight any trainers from Mahogany Town to the Lake of Rage (I think, without Surf, you have to fight a trainer in Gold/Silver version.) Also, forgot to mention, you actually get two Rare Candies before facing Morty, the other is in the Olivine Lighthouse; though you do need an Abra to return to Ecruteak. Sadly, the TM for Swagger is inaccessible because you have to fight an optional trainer to get it. But at least you know that Hidden Power Dark can be accessed right after Whitney and some Pokémon might need it against Morty!
Poliwag smiles as he looks upon a new challenge to consistently conquer. #PoliwagBrosUnite Otherwise, great video. I think a lot of these pokémon will do well as their options open up with TMs. And the branching path that is Johto (4th gym and onward) gives a lot of optional trainers to fight.
Yeah, I think even if Whitney is easier than expected, Rival 3 in the next section could be tough. Then Chuck and/or Jasmine could pose some issues. So even if Whitney proves easier than expected, the series still has a long way to go!
Personally I would argue that the underground trainers are optional here, you need to fight them eventually but you don't need to fight them in order to fight whitney
It's a fair argument. I am thinking of the challenge in it's totality, so I am assuming we can take any trainer that is required to beat the game at any point. Otherwise we run into issues later, like not allowing the Rocket Hideout to be done until Pryce, when Pryce is significantly easier than Jasmine or Chuck in spite of being technically the 7th Gym. We would end up eliminating a lot of Pokemon on Jasmine and Chuck by refusing to fight those trainers, even though with the additional EXP we would be able to win. Same for the Kimono Girls before Morty, or fighting the Lighthouse trainers before Chuck - they technically could be done after those gyms even through they are required to beat the game in the end, and the EXP from those fights could be significant to progress in the game. So I think it makes the most sense to look at the challenge as a whole - A required battle is a battle that is required to beat the game and can be taken at any point of the challenge as a matter of routing. FWIW, when we get to Kanto the concept of fighting trainers in any order is going to be even more significant, since the game is truly open-world at that point.
I would counter that with Whitney being the only available gym leader while the others could be fought in any order, not gonna stop watching just wanted to share my thoughts@@GSCPokemonChallenges
@@GSCPokemonChallengeswith the same logic you can do the entire lighthouse and lake of rage (is there any mandatory though) before rival 3 and Morty. Is that how you will handle it though?
I was longing to see the continuing of the series! This is becoming more and more interesting, GSCPC! I hope your baby is doing great too, after all, he is with maxed dvs, right? Thank you for the entertainment! 🤝
Thank you so much Anderson! Yeah, my baby boy has maxed out DVs and is gaining that all-important stat experience! He is now learning to grab things and pick them up and he is rolling over a little, so soon he's going to evolve into a Miltank with Rollout and Milk Drink.
1:23:30-1:23:44 yeah but being resourceful and being able to win on minimum battles is more fun to watch than to get a few levels and crush my opponent with like a toothpick. 🤣🤣🤣
A 100% clear rate with everyone that was shown in this video! Will this continue? We'll have to find out in the next video! Is Whitney really that tough, or is she overrated? We'll find out next time on GSCPC!
Fire Pokemon getting through this wasn’t too much of a shock with fire punch access being a huge boon for them So they all should be fine for a while with the exception of maybe Quilava and Charmander against Poliwrath But plenty of mons left to deal with the demon cow
If your Pokemon faints from poison while walking, its happiness goes down by 5 or 10 just like what happened to Meganium, so be careful. Mewtwo might get access to Frustration here as long as its happiness is low enough. The move gets progressively weaker however.
I never even got the Nightmare TM, and didn't know what it did, because I never delivered Kenya, lol. it's interesting to see that it's actually a really useful move.
Yeah, I didn't even consider the move when I did the Hoothoot solo run earlier this year, and now I think Hoothoot needs some redemption, because man that move is good with sleep and accuracy strats. I still expect Hoothoot to be bad, just less bad.
Since Butterfree was a 2HKO even with the Gold Berry, you should give it that item back since it didn't actually do anything over a normal Berry. Of course you could get infinite of them but you said you would try not to
I think near everything's going to pass, not just today but in ALL episodes of this gym. I think the real question for this section is "How many have to use TMs, and what TMs do they use?" With great moves like Return, Blizzard, etc as options, basically everything should be able to get through (barring pokemon that don't learn TMs like Unown). But if they struggle here, I doubt they're making it past the next section. This time they have TMs, but soon everyone ELSE will have good moves too.
Card Flip: Matched Pokemon and Number is x24 payout. Number any Pokemon is x6 payout. Pokemon any number is x4 payout. 2 rows is x3 payout. 2 columns is x2 payout. TAS goes for the Slots. The ROM hack Pokemon Crystal Clear has Voltorb Flip from Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. Pokemon Platinum was censored in Europe and South Korea to comply with European gambling laws. The Australian Classification Board gave it a PG rating. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver were censored outside Japan to comply with European gambling laws. The Australian Classification Board gave them a G rating.
turns out whitney being hard was just a giant mandela effect. it feels like "crowd knowledge" is less reliable than it used to be. Like in 1900 if you filled a jar with jelly beans and then had everyone guess how many, you'd get a bunch of different answers that would converge to something remarkably close. But if you tried that today everyone would echo the guess of the first person, or the most influential person.
Not sure about the Jelly bean. I saw such an experiment being done and it got good results, and I am uncertain where you get data on such an experiment in 1900. As for Whitney, she is hard for unprepared players. There is a huge difference between playing the game as a challenge runner which knows where each TM is and a casual player. To state simply, a new player without information on the specific trainers is likely to lose a few fights against Whitney unless they happen to have a good matchup (Geodude, Machop), well prepared strategy (status moves mostly), or they over levelled. Most other battles (except maybe the elite four and red in the endgame) are likely to be first or second try unless you have specifically a bad matchup. Sure, Whitney is far from undefeatable, but she is a far greater struggle at that point of the game than should be expected.
This is actually one of my main goals in these series, to see how tough the trainers in each section were actually, once we know where everything is and the types of strategies to use.
I get where you're coming from. BUT, I would argue that because Rival 3 has to be beaten before Morty (he is not skippable in Crystal), a lot more Pokemon will fail in that section.
I feel you should add some maximum reset limit, because fights like fearow, while possible is only possible with so much luck. Otherwise any pokemon with evasion/lowering accuracy will be able to win agains any trainer as long as it doesn't get knocked out by struggle.
It was covered WAY back in the start of the Falkner series, but we cap luck at essentially the odds of one critical hit to progress. I eliminated a TON of pokemon in the Bugsy/Rival 2 section on the basis that they needed too much accuracy luck to progress. That being said, I don't pre-check damage ranges (I test and comment live), so I will tend to have more resets when trying different strategies in a given fight. In general, I will reset for accuracy luck when either 1) Outspeed the opponent and need 2 or fewer misses to progress 2) The opponent outspeeds us and I need 1 miss from the opponent Fearow was kind of an oddball case of being exactly in a speed tie, so we had a 50% chance to outspeed on any given turn, and initially I was using Fury Attack since its maximum damage output from a 5-hitter (5x 15 power = 75 power) is higher than the damage of Swift (60 Power). As such I was resetting more for the chance of a Turn 1 and 2 Mudslap before she got Rollout off, and hoping to get a good 4-5 hit range from Fury Attack. However, after testing I found the Leer/Swift strat to just be more reliable to 2HKO after setup. The other complicating factor is that misses from Rollout are not all made equal, since a Turn 2 miss saves a lot more HP than a Turn 1 miss, so you will see me go for a lot of 2-accuracy drop setups here even with weaker pokemon to find the ranges from there. As long as we can get a Rollout miss from Miltank on Turn 2 (which is a 46% chance after 2 Mudslaps), adding on the Gold Berry heal to get back at least 1 turn worth of damage, it kind of contorts the luck necessary to get through a fight. The Pidgey fight on the other hand, I determined that the number of misses we would need to get through with accuracy luck while also not 2HKOing the Clefairy was just too much, which is why we went into Max-friendship Return to get an effectively 150 power move and even then the ranges were pretty tight.
I think quite a lot will get through here with no real problems. The amount of options you have to get through will help almost everything. From here the options will just expand too. Does hidden power require a battle to reach? If hidden power isn't an option later that might make a few wall at Jasmine. But overall I think most will cruise from here until the Elite Four given the sheer amount of mandatory battles in the rocket sections and the options they have to tackle things.
I agree. Hidden Power requires Surf, because we need surf to bypass a couple of trainers there. Also, we will not be manipulating the Hidden Power type, so every Pokemon except the Unowns will only get Hidden Power Dark.
@@GSCPokemonChallenges I don't think that is true. I believe you can bypass all the trainers and still access Hidden Power. I guess choosing to redo a Pokemon that fails a later fight, but would win with a given HP, at lower DV's is technically doable, but lots of extra work, since the whole run would have to be redone every time.
Another odd question that might need clarification if you have not answered already; what is "minimum battles?" Especially at this point where "mininum" could imply doing things out-of-order, such as fighting any required battles to beat the game, but going to different routes to fight trainers early and using their XP to get over a fight that proved challenging, or jumping ahead a route to get a TM (like Dig) that could impact a fight like Whitney (force breaking her Roll-out combo).
Minimum Battles, as defined in the intro to the first video of the series, is no optional battles, but I define that looking the the game in it's totality, not specific to the section.
Not Surprising to have seen everyone advance in this episode (getting to where now if a Pokemon can't get a good TM to learn in goldenrod it's effectively done) , in regards to friendship I think maxing it out would be the better idea because in minimum battle you would by no chance have enough for the baseline to get return that being 150 friendship (I've watched a few of your Pokémon comrades and found out that's the minimum to get it from the shop based on their overlays) and walking around is way too time consuming since it's +1 for every 512 steps
Yeah, We also have to consider that it takes a lot more happiness for Return to be stronger than other options in this section, e.g. headbutt and the elemental punches, so I think it's fair to just keep Return with max friendship in that separate section. I honsetly think when I was younger I just didn't understand the relative power of moves and the wide variety of strategies here as well as I do now.
I know its a ways away, but after Morty, are you going to open it up to a chuck-jasmine-pryce section so each pokemon can tackle it in the orser that gives them the best chance, or are you going to force an order for all of the mons to adhere to?
I initially questioned fighting those two underground trainers before Whitney, but I think you're right. They are required to beat the game, its XP all pokemon will get, so I don't think it should matter when you get it, especially since after Whitney the game can be very open if you need it to be.
When you say you’re skipping vitamins, are you talking about the purchasable ones? Or all vitamins. Because I would argue that ones you get every playthrough without extra battles to pick it up don’t violate minimum battles
For sure. I think the bigger conversation is about the DVs, since running on Max DVs and needing 16 resets means it's MUCH worse on lower DVs (in this case if we had lower defense or relevant attacking stats).
I was thinking about that. I didn't use it here, so I'm keeping it in my pocket. I think it could be an OP set going forward - Consider that Pokemon with Nightmare, Mud-slap, and Hypnosis.
Tyrogue and the Hitmons feat. Tauros are always male. Chansey, Blissey, Kangaskhan, Smoochum, Jynx, and Miltank are always female. Magnemite, Magneton, Voltorb, Electrode, Staryu, Starmie, Ditto, Porygon, Unown, Porygon2, all the legendaries, Mew, and Celebi are gender unknown. Mystery Dungeon Blue and Red Rescue don't use genders so it's up to the players' assumptions. Those two games can have a few gay and lesbian moments.
Crobat will be ready in episode 3. Speaking of, I made a spooky request for Halloween on the Discord server. We'll have Morrigan the 0 DVs Crobat. It's gonna be spooktacular!
A six point stat difference would make a huge difference for Charizard here. While Charizard would still probably survive the first Rollout, it would become one point slower than Miltank, giving it a chance to be hit the second time. Is it still possible to win? Sure. Rollout can miss and the Gold Berry might give it enough HP to live the second hit, although that's a big maybe (I haven't done calculations). Still, it would be a lot harder.
I think you should allow the use of vitamins personally. As long as you don't need to do any extra battles to obtain the money to afford them it still seems to be in line with the spirit of the run. Vitamins are just another resource for you to use
I think we might end up allowing vitamins that can be picked up later on, but spamming vitamins really gets into the whole do we want more of X or Y and it overly complicates things. Plus it is a synthetic way to add more "battles" through stat exp. Not sure though, I'll think about it.
If something isn't practical, I think we should not allow it. So, I would allow the Game Corner TM purchases only if you had the money to do so. Friendship based moves are beyond awful, and Return is the worst offender. It is such a boring and ubiquitous move. I wouldn't allow Return simply out of interest of this series.
Disagree. Impractical doesn't mean impossible. A lot of the luck-based strategies are impractical, but they work. Besides that, categorizing them as unrealistic is a decent enough compromise, especially since this is mostly an exercise of theory anyway. And you may dislike Return but there's no solid justification for banning it. It's not a move that obviates any sense of difficulty or is bugged to the point where it can break the game in unintended ways; it's simply a powerful Normal-type move. It would be like saying Earthquake, Thunderbolt, Surf, etc. should be banned.
@@kaseywalton You are conflating "impractical" with "unlikely." He eliminated Pokémon which were highly unlikely to succeed because while in theory they could get high rates of luck, the odds of it happening are prohibitive, and there are no other ways of improving those chances. Return and the Game Corner TMs are not unlikely. Because of the nature of the draw game, net positive over time is a virtual guarantee, and friendship raising is inevitable with time investment. You WILL be able to get them, it simply takes a long time. So it's not a matter of needing to get lucky, but how much time you're willing to invest in an available option to raise your odds. If the option is legitimately available, it SHOULD be on the table, even with acknowledgement that it's probably not what you'd want to do in an actual solo run if time is a consideration.
My basic stance is to agree with you on this, because I really hate ending up with EVERYTHING running return or Game Corner TMs. I allow them to progress, albeit in an unreasonable TMs category because while annoying, they are possible within reason. The difference is controllable versus uncontrollable factors. I.e. I can't control if/when a Pokemon gets a critical hit in battle or how many times an opponent misses from accuracy strats, therefore I will eliminate Pokemon based on those factors. Getting Return and maxing out friendship, on the other hand, is something the player can control, it's simply time consuming. We just need to spam haircuts and run around. Same for the Game Corner TMs since the Card Flip game has a winnable repeatable strategy that means that while it is time-consuming, it is predictable the amount of grinding it would take to get those TMs. However, because I also personally dislike those strats and really don't want to grind the Game Corner and run around in every run to get those moves, I am putting them in a separate category and only using them as a last resort.
