Video Games

[Maxus]

I wish I had something fast enough to put an abra to sleep so I could catch one of the blasted things before it teleported out, I have fought enemy trainers with Kadabras, and they have taken out non-weak pokemon with one hit with psybeam. I'd like to have some of that offensive power myself.

Right now though, I'm just flat out not satisfied with my team. Ghosts tear me to pieces, because I have no attacks that are good against them. For example; I went into that haunted tower, and had to turn back after the first random encounter because a gastly tore through three of my pokemon before I managed to catch it. I don't have psychic and gastlies are now immune against ground, which blows.

I've just got random pokemon that I've picked up along the way.

My team is:

Fire-fighting starter monkey. (I don't know what the first evolution is, I nicknamed it Pooflinger.)

Geodude

Shellos

Luxio

Staravia

Machop


I try to level them up evenly, although Staravia tends to be higher level simply because fly knocks the living crap out of anything not resistant to flying. I've found that if I'm not fighting rock, steel, or electric pokemon, Staravia wins against anything no higher than two or three levels higher than it is.

I've found a way to beat steel pokemon, I didn't think that steel would be weak against fire, but there you go. (Although those damn bronzors give me trouble, the bastids have psychic attacks that tear up my monkey.)

Are meditites any good? I haven't caught one because I accidentally killed it trying to weaken it, and didn't bother to catch one, but a psychic/fighting pokemon might be a good choice to replace Machop with. Or maybe add in a grass pokemon, I feel odd without one.

Meditites and their evolutions, Medichams, kick major ass.

See, they have an ability that makes all their phsyical attacks do an extra 50% damage. One of those with Hi Jump Kick is scary.

By all means, catch one and be very, very nice to it.

Oh, if you have access to Great Balls, you should be able to catch an Abra, eventually. Just keep chunking them as you find them.

[Surgo]

See, they have an ability that makes all their phsyical attacks do an extra 50% damage.

No, their ability actually doubles their attack (which translates to a roughly 100% increase in damage, but not exactly due to rounding in the damage formula).

[Koumei]

Oh, if you have access to Great Balls

Heheh.

Anyway, I just threw Pokeballs at Abra. It has a fairly decent capture rate, so I simply caught one on the second try. Depending on how cheap you are, you may wish to save before walking onto a grassy patch, and reload every time you fail to catch an Abra.

Psi-beam is a weird attack. It doesn't use the standard formula, instead dealing damage ranging from half your level up to one and a half times your level. So it says nothing about the Sp. Attack stat of the Kadabra.

Unless that's psi-wave. I can never remember which is which.

I had no trouble with the ghost tower. Here's the trick: Monferno sucks against the first two gym leaders. Therefore, storm-trooper at least until he evolves. Now you can use fighting moves (STAB-bonus!) against Roark's ones, and are high enough level to at least dent the water gym ones - you'll probably need a few others though. If you can seriously solo the water gym with your fire monkey, you're doing amazingly well.

Now, your pooflinger is powerful enough to take out any ghost all on his own. It's the same tactic I use in all of them, whether it's Charmander (on the original Blue, we got him to level 100 and seriously never had to use another pokemon ever. He could 1-shot Blastoise no problem), Mudkip, Cyndaquill or whatever.

Staravia is a good choice there (note: immune to Ghost moves, but not the Dark/Poison moves that ghosts usually fling around), and if you can get Luxio to evolve (a shame, it looks so cute in base form), it can dish out the pain with some decent electric attacks for a while. You'll probably end up swapping it out, still.

Oh, and needless to say, it's worth the effort to catch a Magikarp and level that useless fucker up to 20th. Gyarados kicks so much ass in non-competitive play, just don't use it in the lightning gym, because that's a 4x weakness.

[Surgo]

That's psiwave.

Gyarados is awesome in competitive play too.

[K]

I normally abstain from Flash games, but this had kept me playing for the afternoon...It actually has some decent ideas going for it about class roles and abilities...

It's whetting my appetite for a dungeon crawl, when there's little prospect of one in the near future.

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/monst ... -of-dread/

Dungeon crawling cocaine.

Ain't it, though?

Heh, I'm glad I ran into this post the day AFTER law school finals. I played it for 16 hours straight.

[JonSetanta]

Heh, I'm glad I ran into this post the day AFTER law school finals. I played it for 16 hours straight.

While I didn't see the appeal in this after trying it, I have resumed Flyff. Perhaps we all have our vices.

[Koumei]

I played it for about that long the first two times, K. Right now I'm pondering returning to the saved game from yesterday.

As for Gyarados, I figured it was used in competitive, just not certain - the websites that list/rank them (and the competitive movelists and all) list it as "Overused" (as in "Not banned for brokenness ala Mewtwo, but good enough that everyone has one"). Granted, they're the ones who highly praise Future Sight.

My Diamond Gyarados has Surf, Rain Dance, Aqua Tail and Dragon Dance - it was a hard choice losing Ice Fang (and an easy choice losing Hyper Beam. That move sucks balls). It murderises most opposition. My Fire Red one has Earthquake, Waterfall and a couple of others I can't remember.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I actually have a gyarados. He, to put it frankly, sucks. Which is entirely my fault, I put a magicarp in daycare for a couple days and didn't expect him to shoot to level 22 so quickly. Right now, he's only got splash and tackle, and I don't really have any good TMs for him at the moment. (I tend to use TMs when I feel like it, gosh-darn the consequences.)

I picked up a meditite, so far he's pretty good, helped me a lot in the ghost tower.

[Koumei]

I actually have a gyarados. He, to put it frankly, sucks. Which is entirely my fault, I put a magicarp in daycare for a couple days and didn't expect him to shoot to level 22 so quickly. Right now, he's only got splash and tackle,

I made that mistake with Abra in Fire Red. I came back and was surprised to find it at level "higher than 20". So I had to evolve it and was stuck without an offensive move (or indeed, any move other than Teleport) for quite some time. I think I used a Hidden Power TM just so it could hurt things.

and I don't really have any good TMs for him at the moment. (I tend to use TMs when I feel like it, gosh-darn the consequences.)

I'm really stingy with mine. I tend to look up the move list and see what they'll learn in future, consider trading heart scales into the move trainer to learn old moves (many pokemon have really good moves that you can only get this way) and the like.

Consider teaching Gyara some of the following: Earthquake (quite powerful, good for KOing any electric types), Taunt (this will prevent enemies from using many lightning attacks or status-inducing moves, and they're forced to use physical attacks against Gyara's high defence), Surf (useful out of battle, hits multiple enemies, gets the same-type bonus), Waterfall (same-type attack bonus, powerful, used out of battle, causes flinching).

And it really helps to have a powerful Grass type throughout the game - both in early play (first two gyms) and later on as well (elite 4+1).

[Maxus]

I actually have a gyarados. He, to put it frankly, sucks. Which is entirely my fault, I put a magicarp in daycare for a couple days and didn't expect him to shoot to level 22 so quickly. Right now, he's only got splash and tackle,

I made that mistake with Abra in Fire Red. I came back and was surprised to find it at level "higher than 20". So I had to evolve it and was stuck without an offensive move (or indeed, any move other than Teleport) for quite some time. I think I used a Hidden Power TM just so it could hurt things.

and I don't really have any good TMs for him at the moment. (I tend to use TMs when I feel like it, gosh-darn the consequences.)

I'm really stingy with mine. I tend to look up the move list and see what they'll learn in future, consider trading heart scales into the move trainer to learn old moves (many pokemon have really good moves that you can only get this way) and the like.

Consider teaching Gyara some of the following: Earthquake (quite powerful, good for KOing any electric types), Taunt (this will prevent enemies from using many lightning attacks or status-inducing moves, and they're forced to use physical attacks against Gyara's high defence), Surf (useful out of battle, hits multiple enemies, gets the same-type bonus), Waterfall (same-type attack bonus, powerful, used out of battle, causes flinching).

And it really helps to have a powerful Grass type throughout the game - both in early play (first two gyms) and later on as well (elite 4+1).

Ever since GSC generation, I've tended to use Gyarados as an HM-bitch. You can easily fill a Gyarados' moveset with HM moves and just bring it out when you need to crawl through a cave with boulders in it.

It's pretty strong, but there's more exotic things out there that fit in better with how I make my teams.

[Username17]

Water/Flying is a bad fit for a physical attack based pokemon, and a worse fit for any pokemon that has the possibility of facing a Jolteon in any capacity.

Gyrados has great stats, but the lack of STAB and stat synergy on anything meaningful it can do makes those stats a lot worse than they at first appear.

Rar!

-Username17

[Koumei]

Jolteon isn't that great. Honestly, there aren't many electric types that are capable of switching in on a Gyarados. Essentially, if you suspect your opponent is going to switch Jolteon in, use Earthquake. That's a 1-hit KO right there. Now, if it starts off with Jolteon against Gyarados, you need to switch out or sacrifice Gyarados.

And yes, there are better ones, but it's important to stick with the classics, I feel, and it's still considered quite decent (indeed, most charts say it's Overused in competitive play, with several builds existing specifically as Gyara-counters).

Funny comic.

[Jerry]

I liek Mudkipz. They are the best.

[Maxus]

I can get good results with a Raichu, myself. Back when I could duplicate the damn TM, I'd teach it Body Slam (a move I've always found very useful to have).

But there's other stuff. Lanturn is actually very sexy, because I can get one with Surf, Thunderbolt (or Thunder), Ice Beam, and Rain Dance.

Electabuzz had its selling points, especially when Crystal came out and you could breed one to have a lot of freaky moves (like Cross Chop).

[Jerry]

Lanturn is actually very sexy...

No, no, NO!!!

[Koumei]

Electabuzz had its selling points, especially when Crystal came out and you could breed one to have a lot of freaky moves (like Cross Chop).

And Ice Punch. They never suspect that one. Good for taking out dragons and the ground/rock types that typically own Electabuzz. But I have nothing bad to say about Cross Chop (aside from "Goddamn it, another fucking critical. You knocked out my Kangaskhan! Fine, Charizard, time for Sunny Day + Blast Burn.")

[Jerry]

I remember when I first played Pokemon, I got a Gyrados. It was my favorite.

[shau]

My favorite pokeman from the first game was Snorlax. Finally a game that realizes that fat and lazy people can be powerhouses. My people have never been represented so kindly before.

[Koumei]

Snorlax has an ass-load of HP (and that's a huge ass to fill with HP) and the Belly Drum ability (cuts your HP in half and gives you the full +6 degrees of attack bonus). It is not to be taken lightly.

Note: If something has Belly Drum as an egg move, it almost always means mummy is fucking a Snorlax. I assume the moral of the story is that fat, lazy slobs get laid all the time if they have something to offer.

[Surgo]

Gyrados has great stats, but the lack of STAB and stat synergy on anything meaningful it can do makes those stats a lot worse than they at first appear.

This was sorta true in the Advance generation, but not true at all in Diamond/Pearl with the introduction of physical water attacks like Waterfall. The following Gyarados set made it one of the most feared Pokemon in the early competitive game (and still excellent to this day):

Gyarados @Leftovers
Adamant, 216 HP / 16 Attack / 176 Defense / 100 Speed
- Dragon Dance
- Taunt
- Waterfall
- Stone Edge

(I had originally used Ice Fang for this but quickly found that Stone Edge was superior; this may have changed with the times.)

[K]

The thing I wonder is this: every time I play RPGs like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights(1 and 2), I always end up LG with a high reputation (or whatever the game uses).

I also end up with the most evil ending. The only exception is Neverwinter Nights 2, where I killed the Shadow guy because he pissed me off. The expansion to Neverwinter Nights 2 had me becoming a dark god-thing that killed gods and destroyed Faerun.

Go figure.

[Jerry]

By being Good and getting an Evil ending, the cosmic forces realign you to make you Neutral. Such is possible in the context of alignment logic!

[Draco_Argentum]

LG with high rep is usually the best way to see all the game's content. In general the quests tend towards being helpful to people.

[Koumei]

When I played Hordes of the Underdark, I went NE (Druid), but sort of forgot that and ended up playing her as NG. Being too nice, even to video game characters, will always be a flaw of mine.

That being said, I did make that deal with the mind flayers instead of exterminating them, and that got a mention in the ending sequence.

[JonSetanta]

Oh. Well shit.
I end up Chaotic. And sometimes Evil.
Stupid alignments...

But slaughtering thousands of drow with powerful AOE sorcerers isn't evil, right?
Practically solo'd the Underdark, except for the latter half with a giant golem as tanker.
Beholders ain't got shit on me in the dark.
Drow Clerics got eaten when I buffed up and turned into a dragon.
Sorcerers rock.