# Best version of pokemon?



## fractionMan (Mar 16, 2011)

Which is the best one on the GBA then?  There's _millions_.


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## fractionMan (Mar 17, 2011)

Don't all answer at once 

Are they all basically the same?

I went for fire red in the end.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 18, 2011)

Emerald, lol.


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## Dillinger4 (Mar 18, 2011)

Red and Blue.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 18, 2011)

Dillinger4 said:


> Red and Blue.



Can you play them on a GBA?

Cos if so - I'm saying Crystal.


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

Is emerald crap then?  I'm already thinking of which one to play next


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

I tend to like the 3rd ones in a set, simply cos they have extras and you can get more Pokemon. I', playing through Platinum now, it's got more in it than Diamond or Pearl.

Emerald is ace. And let's face it, you can't really go wrong. I think the Gold/Silver/Crystal generation is my fave, though.


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

I have to say I'm enjoying not knowing what things are going to evolve into etc.  The only spoiler type thing I've read is the magicarp thing from kabbes  (although a better knowledge of which elements trump which would be useful)

Currently got: Charmander, Graveler, Hypno, Gloom & Pikachu at around lvl 30. Would like a water/flying guy too so my hopes are with the magicarp


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

fractionMan said:


> I have to say I'm enjoying not knowing what things are going to evolve into etc.  No spoilers for me!
> 
> (although a better knowledge of which elements trump which would be useful)


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

fractionMan said:


> I have to say I'm enjoying not knowing what things are going to evolve into etc.  The only spoiler type thing I've read is the magicarp thing from kabbes  (although a better knowledge of which elements trump which would be useful)
> 
> Currently got: Charmander, Graveler, Hypno, Gloom & Pikachu at around lvl 30. Would like a water/flying guy too so my hopes are with the magicarp


 
I know what you mean.  However, if you want to have any chace of putting together a kick-arse balanced team of superdudes that you can be proud of then you really have to do a modicum of planning.  Otherwise you'll spend 30 hours training some 410-base bozo to level 50 only to discover that it's basically useless.  Much better to spend the time with a pokemon that will really pay off.  In the end, the game is more satisfying if you have some knowledge about what you're actually aiming for.

Knowing who evolves into what only scratches the surface in any case.  REAL players meticulously plan their use of Effort Values to ensure that their specific team of badasses have exactly the right distribution of stats.  No point having 200 in the special attack stat with a pokemon who uses no special attacks!  But I can't be arsed with all that -- it's WAY to much of a grind for me.

In terms of your specific team: have you got an Exp Share?  That takes a lot of the pain out of levelling up shitty pokemon and will get that magikarp up to a gyarados in no time.

The Graveler is useful mid-level but won't cut it at top level, I'm afraid -- be prepared to dump it later in the game.  

I won't spoil evolution for you with the Gloom but I *will* warn you that it won't evolve based on level.  You'll need an item.  Also, I'll warn you that Poison is basically useless as an elemental type -- it's famous for it.  Only good against grass and you have your Fire type foor that.  

Pikachu will also only evolve with an item.

You've got: fire, rock, psychic, grass/poison and electric.  You've very vulnerable to ground, which is one of the most popular types and has the most powerful move in the game, which is earthquake.  The gyarados will help with that though.  You're also going to need something to go against dark, ghost, normal and dragon.

Have a look at the grid posted by catsbum and work out what types you want -- then you can work out who to keep and who to dump.  Ultimately, I think you should stick with your charmander and magikarp but you'll probably find that you've moved on from the others by the time you get to the level 50+ battles.


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

Cool, cheers.  I get what you're saying but that seems the best team so far.  For example, graveller (via geodude) is the only rock pokemon I've encountered in the wild, ditto pikachu for electric.  The only non oodish grass I've seen is that weird grass/bug dude with the mushroom on his back who I levelled up a bit but was crap.


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## kained&able (Mar 21, 2011)

no no he is awesome! I never played much pokemon but that dude levels up into a beast.

dave


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

General rules I follow - no more than one elemental attack on a Pokemon of the same type. So only one electric attack - thunderbolt, say - on an electric type. Have as wide a range of attacks as poss. Or on a mixed type, say a fire/flying type, have a flying move and a fire move. Then other moves according to whether the Special stat or the Attack stat is best.

Also try & have moves that are good against what your Pokemon is weak to. So if you can get, say, Electric Punch on a fire Pokemon, you'll have something to hit a water pokemon with should you be stuck in against one. 

Do you know about STAB moves? Same Type Attack Bonus (or Boost). Basically you do 1.5 times the damage if the move is the same type as your Pokemon. So a 80 power Normal attack would actually be 120 power.


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

Yeah, it's true -- a lot of the pokemon that are more useful at high levels aren't actually thrown at you until you're also high level.  The answer is to make sure you don't get too sentimental about being attached to your start pokemon; be prepared to drop them like the dead weights they are the moment something more powerful shows its pretty ankle 

Evolutions aside, once you get to the point where you are establishing a high-level team (50+), you might actually start to find it fun to check out bulbapedia (or other sources) and find out the base stat levels of your picks.  The base stats are a kind of "equalised" summary of each pokemon and their total forms a single number that makes for easy comparison.  For example, the Graveler has a base of 390 compared with the 540 of gyarados.  In a similar-levelled type-for-type encounter, a 540-base will hammer a 390-base into pokedust.

(Mind you, the Graveler has a reasonable 485-base final evolution... but only via a trade.  If you're like me and catsbum then evolutions via trade are utterly useless to you because you have nobody to trade with!)

One correction too -- Graveler is apparently rock/ground, not just rock.  That offers you some protection vs. another ground type.  It makes it 4x weak vs. water though, so watch out for that.  

There are a few mixed types that could cause you a lot of problems too.  Water/ground will neutralise the water's weakness to electric, meaning that you only have your Gloom to face it -- if the Gloom is out of action then you're in big trouble.  There are a few dark- and ghost- mixes that are going to hurt you bad too, because dark is immune to psychic attacks and ghost is immune to normal and fight attacks.

One more thing -- you'll want a flying type at some point.  Fly is an HM that allows you to go anywhere on the map and only flying types can learn it.  Playing the game without it in the later stages becomes very irritating.


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

I evolved a pigetotto  and a couple of bugs but they're on their third form at only lvl 10.  Theres some duck thing with a twig in its mouth I'm thinking of working on but I thought I'd wait until a flying/something turned up before putting any real effort in.


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

Steel☼Icarus said:


> General rules I follow - no more than one elemental attack on a Pokemon of the same type. So only one electric attack - thunderbolt, say - on an electric type.



I'd love to follow that but I generally find that it's useful to have one standard and one special attack type.  It's also useful to have an area effect (like discharge, earthquake or surf) for the double-battles, but sometimes you want to avoid these for the same reasons.  As such, my eelektross (which is fucking awesome -- electric _with levitate_, which makes it immune to ground!)  has discharge, thunderbolt AND spark!

I agree that the general point is sound.  But I try to make up for it with a team balanced enough to have a pokemon with double-advantage (ie attack AND defence) against virtually anything and at least a single advantage against everything.  Then I can let the specialists specialise.



> Have as wide a range of attacks as poss. Or on a mixed type, say a fire/flying type, have a flying move and a fire move. Then other moves according to whether the Special stat or the Attack stat is best.



To expand on this: water defends well against water but obviously the converse is true.  So having a water type with an electric attack (gyarados, I'm looking at you) is brilliant -- you have both attack and defence covered.

In general, if you have a type that defends well but doesn't attack well against another type then give it an attack that _does_ work well instead.



> Also try & have moves that are good against what your Pokemon is weak to. So if you can get, say, Electric Punch on a fire Pokemon, you'll have something to hit a water pokemon with should you be stuck in against one.



Disagree with that.  If my pokemon is weak in defence against a type, I pull it from battle against that type.  I don't want it trading one-hit kills with something it is inherently disadvanted against.  So if I have a fire type then I will avoid giving it anything good against water because I don't see the point.



> Do you know about STAB moves? Same Type Attack Bonus (or Boost). Basically you do 1.5 times the damage if the move is the same type as your Pokemon. So a 80 power Normal attack would actually be 120 power.


 
And THAT is exactly why my eelektross has three electric attacks AND a zap plate!


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

what's a standard attack and what's a special attack?  How do I tell the difference?


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

fractionMan said:


> what's a standard attack and what's a special attack?  How do I tell the difference?


 
standard (or physical) attacks are the ones with the little star.  Special attacks are the one with the little whirlpools.  Do you know what I mean by that?

The pokemon have attack/defence AND sp. attack/sp. defence.  You might up against a pokemon with excellent defence but poor special defence.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

kabbes said:


> One more thing -- you'll want a flying type at some point.  Fly is an HM that allows you to go anywhere on the map and only flying types can learn it.  Playing the game without it in the later stages becomes very irritating.



First time I ever played it, I dropped my Graveller like a stone (pun intended) when it became apparent it was a bit crap. I'd called him Rocky as well. And my starter Pokemon. 

Fly is a decent attacking HM, like Surf - but I tend to put Cut & Flash & Strength on a Pokemon I use just to have with me when getting around. A bit time-consuming but easy enough to stash in a box while you're in a town for a bit. 

Kabbes, I'm doing Platinum - and as we've got a completed Diamond in the house I must admit to having traded a couple of low-rank but annoying to get Pokemon in. Gible, Gyarados, Carnivine, Aerodactyl and Anorith. Not going to do it with the legendaries, though, I will be using the trade trick to get a Magmortar later.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

kabbes said:


> The pokemon have attack/defence AND sp. attack/sp. defence.



Not in Generation 1 - it was just a Special stat.


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## fractionMan (Mar 21, 2011)

In fire red there's atk/def and sp.atk/sp.def but I've not seen the icons.


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

Steel☼Icarus said:


> First time I ever played it, I dropped my Graveller like a stone (pun intended) when it became apparent it was a bit crap. I'd called him Rocky as well. And my starter Pokemon.



This time round I haven't renamed my pokemon.  I found that I only knew my nickname for them and didn't know what they were actually called, which was a pain in the arse when I wanted to look them up!  So I don't name them and then I automatically learn their proper names.



> Fly is a decent attacking HM, like Surf - but I tend to put Cut & Flash & Strength on a Pokemon I use just to have with me when getting around. A bit time-consuming but easy enough to stash in a box while you're in a town for a bit.



I have fly, surf and waterfall as standard attacks because they're all really powerful.  

In B&W, however, TMs are infinite use and boulders are things that get moved once and never again.  And trees only grown back after several days.  Also, flash is a TM rather than an HM.  All that means I don't bother keeping cut, flash or strength as permanent moves.  I put them on temporarily when I need them and then as soon as I've moved the boulder, cut the tree or got through the cave, I just fly to the move forgetter (HMs only!) and have them taken away again.  It's much better -- no need for wasted moves slots at all.



> Kabbes, I'm doing Platinum - and as we've got a completed Diamond in the house I must admit to having traded a couple of low-rank but annoying to get Pokemon in. Gible, Gyarados, Carnivine, Aerodactyl and Anorith. Not going to do it with the legendaries, though, I will be using the trade trick to get a Magmortar later.


 
Lucky lucky lucky!

I think you can theoretically trade between gen iv and gen v but I haven't tried it yet.  At some point I will and see if I can get some of the trade-evolvers to evolve.


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## Dillinger4 (Mar 21, 2011)

Bad idea. You are going to look stupid in front of Gary Oak with pokemon with all those names.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

kabbes said:


> This time round I haven't renamed my pokemon.  I found that I only knew my nickname for them and didn't know what they were actually called, which was a pain in the arse when I wanted to look them up!  So I don't name them and then I automatically learn their proper names.



Exactly the same here. No names until I know the 'mon well. And even then, not. Cos I'm 39.


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

You and your Gary Oak obsession.

in Diamond, he is just a professor that turns up at the end to give you a national pokedex.  In White he is absent.  That explains why he means NOTHING to me.  NOTHING.


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

In Diamond I named 'em after pre-70s Hollywood stars.  In White I started naming them after 80s cartoon characters but then realised that it didn't help.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 21, 2011)

fractionMan said:


> In fire red there's atk/def and sp.atk/sp.def but I've not seen the icons.



Simply put, a Special Attack is mainly a non-contact move. So it's Water, Grass, Fire, Ice, Electric, Psychic, Dragon & Dark type moves. Your Sp. Defence is how well you're able to deal with getting hit with one of these - not taking specific weaknesses into account, as in the table I posted earlier.

A Physical Attack relates to your Attack & Defence stats, so that's moves that usually make contact. Normal, Fighting, Flying, Ground, Rock, Bug, Ghost, Poison, & Steel. 

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Special_move
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Physical_move


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## kabbes (Mar 21, 2011)

fractionMan said:


> In fire red there's atk/def and sp.atk/sp.def but I've not seen the icons.


 
Look at this still:






See the "whirlpool" in the top-left quadrant of the shot?  That shows it is a special attack.

Physical attacks have this instead:


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