Pokémon X and Pokémon Y Catch-All

Atras wrote:
Mantid wrote:

*NSFW*
Gardevoir

Dear God why couldn't I have trusted that NSFW? That is so messed up - I used to like that Pokemon, now I can't have her in my party ever again. I'm seriously creeped out by that.

You say that, but this is what you're really thinking

IMAGE(http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2009/8/12/128945845721722320.jpg)

Atras wrote:
Mantid wrote:

*NSFW*
Gardevoir

Dear God why couldn't I have trusted that NSFW? That is so messed up - I used to like that Pokemon, now I can't have her in my party ever again. I'm seriously creeped out by that.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my "never click a link marked 'NSFW' in a Pokemon conversation" rule probably saved my eyes this day.

NO! I do not need you!

Not sure what the swap ability/trading/battling options will be on this, but if they are good, and you haven't already added yourself to the list, this is a pretty comprehensive list of all the Goodjers with 3DSs.

Add yourself in, and you might just get some matches. We're trying to mobilize a friend drive in the 3DS catch all, so fingers crossed, you'll get some hits.

Thanks for posting that Cube.

Woah, sweet guide Cube. Helpful for a Pokemon noob like myself.

Or you can do what I do and just have a bunch of Pokemon you think look cool while covering the base types.

ccesarano wrote:

Or you can do what I do and just have a bunch of Pokemon you think look cool while covering the base types. :D

This is what I do. Can't wait for Sunday!

Damn, that kinda makes me want the game a lot less. It's probably better that way.

Honestly, most of it is pretty easy to pick up while you play. The specific damage stuff is what's somewhat hidden by the game, but the general rules are easy to remember.

And really, I find that I remember specific pokemon's weaknesses or strengths more than the general chart, especially because Nintendo tends to use a rather limited set of pokemon for each NPC trainer type.

Also, with a few exceptions, the difficulty curve has been extremely gentile through the main story. The after story parts are when a lot of the crazy optimization starts to be required. But by that point, the player absolutely has the tools to deal with those challenges.

Chaz wrote:

Damn, that kinda makes me want the game a lot less. It's probably better that way.

You really don't have to get into the meta-game craziness of all that unless you want to delve deeply into the post-story and online competitive gameplay. If you're playing through the story, collecting pokemons, and doing casual battling, you can have a blast without getting deep into the mechanics.

Yup. Look at it like enjoying a fighting game casually, but over there are a bunch of people that use X character because over half of their moves have fewer framerates compared to the rest of the roster and air-dashing and cancel-combos and yatta yatta yack shmack.

I'm just sitting here excited I can pull off a hadouken.

That's how I play Pokemon, and I still have fun. I just need to be sure never to battle cube in a round online.

I gave in to your mass hysteria. I traded in a bunch of old (and a couple of new-ish) DS games, and ended up with a DLC code for Pokemon X, and had $10 left over, to boot.

I wonder when I'll actually be able to download it.

I've played the series from the beginning. I love min/maxing stuff and just trying new things. For example, with Black/White and Black/White 2, I did the entire game without using a psychic type, and I think I'm going to try to force myself in X/Y to try something else... maybe no electric.

Honestly, I can't get into the breeding stuff, aside from getting a few older generation pokemon to round out whatever team strategy I'm trying. It's just too time consuming to actually pull off, especially because you have to level the pokemon from level 1. I also generally don't care about the stuff in the "Hidden bullsh*t" section. Nintendo's really made EV training rather easy in Black/White 2, and it sounds like they're going to make it even easier in the X/Y, too.

Anyway, part 2 will be coming soon.

I have gotten way too deep into the Pokemon breeding. I also managed to use breeding to give moves to Pokemon that wouldn't learn them normally. Usually a killer move with STAB such as giving Weavile the move Ice Punch making him a dragon sweeper. I never got too far into Black/White 2. I had to manage an estate for a passed relative and never came back to them afterwards. I probably will after I finish X&Y.

PART 2: THE ADVENTURING
Congratulations! You just turned... uh... 10! And your mom(dad is MIA in the war... or something) is perfectly fine with the local crazy scientist professor giving a cuddly little chicke-monster that you can fight with other people's coc-monsters! And she's kicking you out of the house! And you can't come back home until you've created the best stable of pokemon in the region!

Seriously, THIS STORY DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE IN ANY CIVILIZED WORLD. WHAT MOTHER WOULD I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY ;_;

Ahem.

Part 2 is going to be about the RPG stuff in the pokemon games. Items and general adventuring tips will be here.

Items
You have a backpack/satchel/purse/whatever. It has pockets. Each pocket takes in a certain item type, and it sorted automagically. Each pocket also has, for all intents and purposes, infinite space. You're in possession of a 6+x bag of holding^infinity.

The pockets in black/white were general items, medicine, TM's/HM's, Berries, key items, and a free bag where things could be put in for easy reference. General items contains holdable items, pokeballs, and miscellaneous things like evolution stones or high value items. The rest of the bags are pretty self explanatory.

General item strats:
DO NOT SELL ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR MAYBE NUGGETS.
If X/Y are anything like the games lately, you're going to be swimming in cash with plenty of places to get more with daily battles. Even items that are labeled as "will sell for a high price to shops" might be tradable for rarer or non-buyable items.

Seriously, everything you pick up is pretty much valuable. Don't sell or throw away anything. Potions, even though they only heal 20 HP and are pretty much useless after level 25, can still heal you to full eventually.

As soon as you get the itemfinder, use it constantly. If it's anything like the recent games, it'll be a little display on the lower screen as you walk around the world. That'll get you a lot of additional items.

Some random item tips I've found helpful overall:

1. Don't buy Super Potions. Buy lemonade instead. Super Potions cost around 700 each, and heal for 50. Lemonade costs 350, and heals for 80. And you can use both in battle. In general, drinks are much more cost effective than potions, with a limitation that drinks are either limited in purchases per day, or just take time to get(lemonade takes some time to get through vending machines). Once your pokemon get above 80 HP, start buying Hyper Potions. Full Restores are very expensive, and only really useful at endgame when your pokemon might have more HP than a single hyper potion can heal in 1 turn. Max Potions are worthless, since they only cost 500 less than Full Restores.

2. As soon as possible, make sure you have 5-10 of each status heal item on hand at all times. They're cheap, and you will get screwed if you don't have one. When you can afford a pile of Full Heal, pick up them.

3. There are certain items that are, more or less, worth always hanging onto and never using unless you're in a gigantic pinch. These are elixirs(which restore ability PP), and max revives, which cannot be purchased.

4. Vitamins aren't worth hanging onto. It's usually a good idea to just use them as soon as you get them. Rare candies might be worth hanging on to, since the 1 level might be useful to hit an evolution level early. The exception to this is PP Up and Max PP, since they're not purchasable, and should only be used on moves that you're absolutely positive will be in your pokemon's final moveset.

5. Super repel is the most cost effective repel per step out of the three. The last couple of generations have had a popup that asks if you want to use another one when it runs out, which is really nice.

Berries!?
I have no idea how berries will be handled in X/Y. In some previous games, there was a berry growing mini-game that was basically farmville. Nintendo moved that to an online component with Black/White. I have no idea how X/Y will be handling this, so no comments here.

LETS TALK (POKE)BALLS!!!
You could go here, see all the math, and want to kill me for linking it.

Or you can just do this:
Step 1: Get pokemon's HP low
Step 2: put it to sleep or paralyze it
Step 3: Use an ultra or dusk ball
Step 4: Pray(and repeat step 3 until it works)

There are two different pokeballs worth buying past standard pokeballs once you can afford them: Ultra balls and Dusk balls.
Dusk balls are best for caves and when you're playing at night. Ultra balls are for every other time.

That's it. Seriously. Just make sure you always have as many balls in your pack as you can afford it. You never know when you're going to run into a random legendary(Nintendo's been making these encounters happen at lower and lower levels lately), and you WANT to make sure you can capture them. Obviously, save before you start those encounters.

Finally, I saw in the Polygon review that capturing now rewards XP instead of causing the opponent pokemon to faint. This will be a huge help in leveling, especially when you get to a new area with new pokemon to capture.

Held items!
Ok, this goes with some of the battle strategy stuff in the first post. Held items are items held by your pokemon(hence the name), and have an effect on the pokemon. There's a lot of strategy here, but I personally prefer items that give a passive effect over consumable items like berries or some of the newer items. I use them to boost a stat I need, or to help cover a weakness, in general.

Go here for some more information: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...

The new mega evolution items are really interesting, and I really am not sure how much that's going to change my general strategies. We'll see how this plays out.

General adventuring tips!
1. Amulet coin goes on pokemon in 1st slot. The amulet coin doubles the amount of money you get from trainers. The pokemon only needs to appear in battle, so you can switch it immediately after starting, and still get the benefit.

2. HM strategies. Hidden Machine abilities are moves that can be used on the field as well as in battle. These are traditionally: Cut, Flash, Strength, Surf, Waterfall, and Fly. There may be a few new/changed ones in X/Y, but those will definitely be there.

As moves, Cut and Flash are pretty iffy. Cut is a fairly low power normal attack with a relatively low accuracy rating, and Flash reduces the opponent's accuracy. Flash could be useful for an annoyer, though. Strength is a fairly powerful normal attack, and Surf and Waterfall are both extremely powerful water type attacks. Fly is also a decent attack.

One key thing to remember is that these moves cannot be unlearned after learning them, unless you talk to a move deleter. So there are a few schools of thought for these. One is to use a HM slave pokemon, which is generally one not in your standard team's lineup, and has as many HM's as possible on them. You never level this pokemon or use it when adventuring.

The other school of thought is to incorporate them into your party. I personally like this approach, since it's a fairly interesting experiment to see if I can still have a decent party even with those limitations, but YMMV.

3. Interact with everything. It's a JRPG. Steal everything not nailed down. You kleptomaniac, you.

4. Always be aware of where you are on the world map. If you can, go to a pokemon center instead of healing with items. Nintendo's also been pretty good lately of placing random old ladies that will yell at you to rest your pokemon in the middle of forests, too, so keep in mind that pushing forward just a little more might give you a chance to heal up instead of having to run back all the way.

Great post Cube, that second one is good info for everyone, be they casual or seriously into the metagame.

Wow. Thanks for all of that. Seriously. I was ready to jump in completely blind.

Right now, my only issue is the starter pokemon. I'm a water starter and I cannot pass up a Squirtle. The X/Y starter I want is Froakie. ... I don't know what to do.

EDIT: Would it be possible to link these tips in the OP? I think it'll benefit us in the long run as more players join the discussion.

Great write up cube; I would add that the move False Swipe will never KO a Pokemon and always leave them with at least 1HP. This is often the most effective way to capture a Pokemon and with Legendary Pokemon can be the only convenient way to be caught.

The HMs are the one area that always have me kind of squirming. You always get Cut pretty early on, so it's always pretty useless in comparison with the rest. The really unfortunate thing is, I can rarely give it to a Pokemon where I'd be fine with having only three abilities in the late game. I think Black and White was the closest, where I gave it to my Snivy whose plant abilities were bad ass enough to do damage to even neutral foes.

I never had a problem with Surf or Fly, though. I always used them as backup type abilities (if I can, I like having one Normal type attack on my guys for a pinch, two type-based, and a fourth wildcard (could be another attack type, such as my Zebstrika having Flame Charge, or could be an elemental)).

I actually wonder, however, if all this information will be as necessary. From what I've read, X&Y are actually a bit more accessible than the rest of the series.

Is it Sunday yet? Huh? Huh?

I'm running a 5k Sunday morning before I can play though anyway. That'll be my reward: finish running, go home, then lay on the couch and play Pokemon all day.

Farscry wrote:

Is it Sunday yet? Huh? Huh?

I'm running a 5k Sunday morning before I can play though anyway. That'll be my reward: finish running, go home, then lay on the couch and play Pokemon all day. ;)

Are you guys getting the release on the 12th or the 13th?

Awesome guide Cube, thanks! My last Pokemon game was...LeafGreen on GBA. Wow, 10 years ago.

Release on the 12th means midnight Friday night I think.

Farscry wrote:

Is it Sunday yet? Huh? Huh?

I'm running a 5k Sunday morning before I can play though anyway. That'll be my reward: finish running, go home, then lay on the couch and play Pokemon all day. ;)

Dude, what about Saturday?

Wait, it's out Saturday? I assumed it was out Sunday like every Nintendo release I can recall.

Saturday?! WHOOPEEE!!!

Oh man, I assumed the 12th was Sunday too. Awesome.

...we'll see if I get to play...

Ok... since the game is a week out, here's cube's quick, completely spoiler free(because the game isn't out) bunch of tips and random sh*t about Pokemon games.

General links:

Serebii pokedex(Will update when the XY listing is up)
Serebii is great for general stats and quick looks at individual pokemon. It's one of the best quick reference sites around

Bulbapedia wiki
Bulbapedia generally contains the same information that serebii has, but in a much less compact arrangement. However, they are probably the best general game reference outside of the official guides for the parties that opposing trainers have.

Smogon competitive database
This is a competitive battling database, and while it's generally going to be worthless for just about everyone here, it's a decent starting place for thinking how you're going to build any given pokemon.

Battling 101:
First off, let's talk stats.

Let's look at Blaziken and Infernape. They're similar types(both fire/fighting), have identical abilities, and generally fit the same party role(sweeper, i.e. a high damage attacker). Scroll to the bottom, and take a look at the "Base Stats" list. These are comparative stats that give an idea of how high the stat will be as the pokemon levels. They're useful for comparing two different pokemon, and range between 1 to 255. In general, pokemon have base stats below 100. If they have any stats above 100, those stats should be considered exceptional, and strategies should be built around those stats. Note: Legendary pokemon have base stat totals of 580 and above. There are some pokemon(mostly dragons) that have stat totals around there. They're referred to as psudo-legendary pokemon, since you can usually breed them.

Blaziken's stats are:
HP: 80 Attack: 120 Defense: 70 Sp Attack: 110 Sp Defense: 70 Speed: 80
Infernape's stats are:
HP: 76 Attack: 108 Defense: 71 Sp Attack: 104 Sp Defense: 71 Speed: 108

Offhand, we can see that:
Blaziken is slower, with a rather average 80 speed. They are equal on defensive stats, and Infernape is slightly lower on HP. For the attack stats, Blaziken dominates. Sweeper types, which these two are, generally rely on high attack/special attack as their primary stats, and speed as their secondary. As a result, Blaziken is preferred because while it is slower, it hits harder, and the higher HP means that it might be able to take an attack that Infernape could not.

Pokemon Natures:
Each individual pokemon has a nature. Bulbapedia has the chart here:
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...

These are fairly important, because they can really assist with your pokemon's build. Each nature adds 10% to a stat and lowers another stat by 10%, or does nothing. So this can be used to really power up a pokemon's abilities. For example, Crobat has insanely high speed, a decent attack stat, and a poor special attack stat. Since the moves I normally give it are all regular attack based or status effect moves, I don't need a high special attack value on it. So it's a good idea to have either an adamant(+attack, -sp attack) or Jolly(+speed, -sp attack) nature on that pokemon.

The type chart
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...

Yes, it's huge. Yes, it's something you probably will need to look back at repeatedly. Yes, it's probably the most important thing in the entire game. So... yeah. Realistically, you're just going to be going to serebii when you see a new pokemon anyway, and they have the type weaknesses/strengths right there anyway. Remember, this chart is attack type vs defending pokemon type(s), not attacking pokemon's type vs defending pokemon's type. This means that a Swampert with Ice Punch can beat a Tropius, even though Tropius' grass/flying type hard counters Swampert's water/ground type.

MOVES!!!!
Attacks do stuff(duh). There are 3 different classes of attacks: Physical attacks, special attacks, and status attacks. Physical attacks are influenced by the Attack stat, and defended with Defense. Special attacks use special attack and special defense(duh). Status attacks don't use either stat set, but result in a variety of effects. The power stat of an attack is best used as a general comparison to other attacks-i.e. a 40 power attack will do less damage than a 60 or 80 power attack. It's important to keep in mind the PP value and accuracy as well, since a lot of the uber-powered attacks have rather low accuracy ratings, which can bite you during battle. Also, keep in mind that the 0 multiplier in the type chart also applies to status attacks, so attacks like Thunder Wave do not work on ground type pokemon.

Same Type Attack Bonus-STAB
When an attack matches the pokemon's type, it does 50% more damage. Obviously, you want to use this as much as possible. However, it is important to keep a few off-type moves on hand, to help provide additional type coverage(see the swampert example above).

Learning new moves:
There are two primary ways of learning moves:
Technical Machines/Hidden Machines, and leveling. The other ways(move tutors, breeding, etc.) are pretty self explanatory if you go to bulbapedia.

With leveling, there are a few lower evolution pokemon that learn different moves than the higher evolved pokemon. It's up to you whether or not you want to stop the evolution. Note that it's not a good idea to stall evolution if a pokemon learns a move at a lower level with the lower evolution than a higher evolution, because you'll potentially be losing out on some stats.

TM's/HM's: With Generation V(black/white), Technical machines are now infinite use. Previously, TM's were single use, and HM's have always been infinite use. That change alone has really opened up experimentation possibilities for your party. You don't have to worry about "wasting" a TM on anything anymore, especially with the move relearners. This is quite possibly the best change Nintendo ever made to the games, because it's extremely friendly to both the old school players, and new players.

The above information is pretty much the basics that you should keep in mind while playing. It's quite a bit, but it's pretty easy to digest once you're playing, and the more annoying parts like strengths and weaknesses will become pretty apparent as you play through the game. Trainers fall into categories where each one uses a specific type, so you can learn how the types work through fighting them as you play. The gyms are all of one specific type as well, which means that you're going to be building your party to handle specific types in each one. Which leads me to...

The Hidden Bullsh*t:
This is the silly "hardcore" part of the breeding subgame, because there are not one, but TWO DIFFERENT sets of hidden stats on each pokemon.

Hidden Bullsh*t 1: Initial values:
This is the one that sucks. Because you're entirely at the mercy of the RNG gods, and if they hate you, you won't know for 40 levels. Which can be about an hour at endgame, but still, annoying. Anyway, Initial Values(IV) are basically a pokemon's "genes". They're the strict limit of growth for a given stat. They range from 1-31, and are hidden. And this sucks, because you don't know until you've levelled a pokemon quite a bit, and done some additional math involving the OTHER hidden value to see that your prized Empoleon's mom smoked and drank a handle of vodka every night while the egg was popping out, and now you're stuck with a pokemon that falls over when you look at it too hard, and can't attack it's way out of a wet paper bag. I'm not bitter about this, I swear. But seriously, this is why you get a massive pile of pokemon when you find a wild one that you want, and test them out by giving them around 5 levels. A bit grindy, but it'll save you a ton of grief. Nintendo did give a way to tell the "highest" number through some flavor text on the pokemon and a few NPC's(http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wi...), but it still remains annoying as hell.

Hidden bullsh*t 2: Effort Values
This one sucks less than IV's. Because you can control it. With [st]performance enhancing dru[/st] SCIENCE! Effort values are 0-252 for each stat, and cap out at a total of 510 added up. So you can max out up to two stats. It's important to note that these can be modified with items. Some berries reduce EV's, while vitamins and other items increase it. Also, supposedly the Pokemon-amie feature will gives additional ways to train EV's. In Black and White 2, Join Avenue served this goal.

With X/Y, apparently the EV's will BE VISIBLE: http://serebii.net/xy/supertraining....

The purpose of these stats is to increase the stats that they match. So having 252 Attack EV's, for example, will give a HUGE boost to the attack stat. Defeating pokemon will also give a handful of EV's per pokemon defeated. This is determined by the pokemon's species. Note: with the changes in black/white 2, it appears that increasing EVs cause the pokemon's outward stats to be recalculated at level 100, so there isn't that much of a detriment to boosted pokemon.

Breeding:
Get a bike, get a ditto, and start thems pokemon a f*cking. Seriously, this is what serebii and bulbapedia are for.

Pokemon party design:
In general, pokemon have a few party roles. They're listed here, but there's a lot there and let's face it, you probably don't care that much. The basic ones are as follows:
1. Sweeper: These are your "standard" pokemon. You want these to hit hard, and to be relatively fast, and use the STAB bonus for additional damage. If they can take a hit, that's an added bonus. They're often separated into regular and special attackers, Blaziken can be either, and Lucario is an example of a physical sweeper. This is basically a fighter or black mage.
2. Annoyer: This pokemon's job isn't to do direct damage, it's to wreak as much havoc as possible. Status ailments, the ability to dodge attacks, etc. Speed is key, because you can get in and hopefully get out. Crobat is my personal favorite, with lots of poison moves, supersonic, and Fly.
3. Baton passer: This one uses status boosting abilities and Baton Pass, which allows them to switch to another pokemon while keeping the boosted stats.
4. Tank: High defense, doesn't take much damage, while spitting it out.

Party creation:
Honestly, there aren't many hard rules here. A few things to consider:
1. You don't want all sweepers, because that makes your team very fragile to one hit KO's.
2. You do not want to reconfigure your entire party for any given Gym, since they're good experience, and that experience is better for your main squad than on a throwaway helper. If you can get 1 or 2 core pokemon in your party for each gym, you're probably good.
3. You don't want a mono-type party. Though all dragons would be interesting...
4. The Elite Four will have at least 1 Dragon user. Traditionally, dragon types are super powerful because:
a. They had extremely high base stats, with many of them rivaling legendary pokemon totals.
b. They are weak to ice and the new fairy type
c. Ice type, as a whole, sucks. There are quite a few water pokemon(the starters) that learn good ice type attacks, however.
d. They learn fire and electric movies. Fire is good against ice. Electric is good against water. And, combined with reason a, they usually went first and destroyed any ice or water types before they could get a hit off. The new fairy type should really help with this.
5. If there is a dragon gym before that, I will be distributing Mudkip eggs with the moveset from god(surf, waterfall, avalanche, and , which is to be replaced with earthquake at the earliest convenience) as soon as the 27th of December rolls around in order to stop them.
6. The Elite Four will also have 3 other types that will cause you grief, and reach through your entire party to beat them. They're tough, and are the end bosses for a reason.
7. Because of the way EV's work, the earlier you get a pokemon you're happy with in your party, the better. It will be more powerful the longer it's with you compared to some scrub in the brush.
8. Even with that in mind, don't worry about experimenting. That's the best part of these games, that you can experiment with party setups and groupings to your heart's content, and you might find a new strategy that really clicks with you.

Ok, that's it for now. Part 2 will be tomorrowish.

The types of the final starter evolutions have been announced.

The grass turns into grass/fighting, fire turns into fire/psychic, and water turns into water/dark. It's interesting that Nintendo kept the rock paper scissors nature for the subtype as well as the main type.

Two other things I would throw into the fray are extremely rare occurrences but it's important to know about them.

Shiny Pokemon - You may see people out there bragging about getting a Shiny version of a Pokemon. These are a color palette swap of the Pokemon in question and there is no difference in their stats or move set. Why are these so important you may ask? Because you only have a 1:8192 chance in encountering one when the game generates Pokemon. Even then, you may not encounter the shiny Pokemon the game loaded into the tall grass in your area. These are bragging rights even if they are not an amazing battling Pokemon.

Pokerus - This is a virus that your Pokemon that can contract while fighting a wild Pokemon. It sounds bad but this is actually an amazingly helpful virus. Cube posted in his first part about the importance of IV vs EV. The Pokerus will cause the EV you earn to be doubled from each battle. So, that Magicarp you just destroyed and earned you 1 speed EV automatically earns you 2. This is even more rare than finding a Shiny Pokemon with the encounter rate being 1:21,178.6.

When you get the virus you will be told by Nurse Joy in the Pokecenter when you heal your Pokemon. She will have a little bit of text letting you know about the virus. From this point your infected Pokemon will have a Pokerus icon on it and can infect any other Pokemon in your party during battle even if it is not actively participating. So, I highly recommend taking a handful of spare Pokemon and infecting them as soon as you discover you have the Pokerus. Also, if you allow the infected Pokemon it will become cured and can no longer infect other Pokemon. You will know the status because the Pokerus icon on your Pokemon's status will change to a happy face. Therefore, it is important to keep spare Pokemon that are infected in your boxes so they do not get cured and can continue to spread this valuable virus to your team.

I currently have this virus and when the online trading opens up in December I will be happy to trade with anyone on the forum that wants the Pokerus.

Oh Hai copy of Pokemon X!

What's that? HMV broke the street date resulting in GAME getting permission to sell it a day early?

Oh, GO ON THEN, might as well pick up a copy...