Part 14: The Incredibly Pretty Girl!

Update 12: The Incredibly Pretty Girl!

Goldenrod City



Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

Pokemon Gym



: This GYM is home to normal-type POKéMON trainers. I recommend you use fighting-type POKéMON.



What would I do without that man? Anyway, Goldenrod City Gym is a slight maze with a load of flowers and girls. Man, I'm having flashbacks.

"you down!"

Hostile!




HP: 40 | ATK: 45 | DEF: 35 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF: 40 | SPD: 90 | TOTAL: 290
#136: Meowth



They see me rollin... uh, Pay Day (Neko ni Koban: Coin for a Cat) is a weak Normal move with 40BP, 20PP and 100% accuracy that scatters coins on the ground with a value equal to twice the user's level each time it's used. We'll pick it up in just a sec when we win.



It has been real smooth getting Churchill up in levels. I wonder if that'll apply to the rest of my future team members...



Aw yeah, we could buy... uh... half an Antidote?

"on any type..."

Good luck against Steel types then. Anyway, can't go this way now.



: I like you, but I won't hold back!



Some real ferocious trainers in here. Fury Swipes (Midare Hikkaki) is one of those lovely Normal muti-hit moves we'll see around here and there. It has 18BP, 15PP, 80% accuracy and hits between 2-5 times, with 3 being the average, giving this move an effective power of 54.



Haha, fuck off.

"Keep it up!"

And another way is blocked. Great. But we can just go slightly to the right and go around.



Now that Churchill has caught up, it's time to use the other two members. Remember them?



Aw man, I thought we were done with the whips in these games.



Uh, was Jeremiah sitting near a level up this whole time? Whoops.



A lot of people make that mistake. Uh, that I'm weak, not that you're cute. Uhhhh, not that I'm saying you're not cute, it's just... ah whatever.

"strong POKéMON."

: But I have strong and cute POKéMON!



Aw crap that's all the easy fights out of the way.

"It's depressing."

: It's okay! If I just lose, I'll just try harder next time!



Well that's f**king ominous. Let's go prepare with the extra money we obtained.



A'ight. Let's do this.



: Everyone was into POKéMON, so I got into too! POKéMON are super-cute! You want to battle? I'm warning you--I'm good!

Hoo boy is she not fucking kidding...

Gym Leader Battle VS Leader Whitney






Whitney: The Incredibly Pretty Girl
(From the word white)
Akane: Dynamite Pretty Gal!
(From akane, the Japanese name of the Rubia genus of climbing shrubs, or from akarui, bright or luminous)




HP: 70 | ATK: 45 | DEF: 48 | SP.ATK: 60 | SP.DEF: 65 | SPD: 35 | TOTAL: 323
#041: Clefairy



Due to the freight truck that is Churchill, this Clefairy is the least of our problems, but it can be a bit annoying if you let it. Now it should be noted that Whitney has been pretty sneaky here and given her Clefairy some Egg moves. It doesn't normally learn Metronome until level 34 and it can't learn Mimic any other way. So she's crafted her Pokemon to be a lot more potent. We'll go more into that in just a moment.



Okay, that's the first one down with minimal damage. Should be pretty easy from here on out.




HP: 95 | ATK: 80 | DEF: 105 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF: 70 | SPD: 100 | TOTAL: 490
#149: Miltank



Welcome to what may be one of the biggest difficulty spikes in Pokemon. Miltank is a very interesting combination of fuck you, from its high stats, to its deadly movepool, to how you're still in the part of the game where you don't have a huge amount of options as your team just isn't really ready yet. First up, we have Attract (Meromero: Mad Love), a Normal status move with 15PP and 100% accuracy that, if the opponent is the opposite gender, will inflict them with infatuation, a nasty status that prevents the Pokemon from attacking 50% of the time for the rest of time both Pokemon are in battle.



If you were planning on using your most likely male starter in this battle, then think again. Miltank will use Attract on you and will more than likely outspeed you, so unless you like rolling the dice, it's best to switch out. I don't have such a luxury, I need to neuter this thing quickly.



Next up is its strongest move. Stomp (Fumitsuke: Trample) is a good Normal move with 65BP, 20PP, 100% accuracy and a 30% chance to flinch. With a higher than average Attack, this STAB move is going to hurt and the flinch chance could be devastating at the wrong time. More than likely, Miltank will go for this move but thankfully Kakarott can take three of them.



And so far my strategy is paying off. From how this battle goes, lowering the accuracy of Miltank makes it less likely to go for Rollout (Korogaru: Roll), a Rock move with 30BP, 20PP and 90% accuracy that doubles in power with each consecutive hit for five turns, capping out at 480BP. Unless you use Defense Curl beforehand, in which case it starts off at 60BP and builds to 960BP. If this hits and keeps hitting, this will devastate your team, no question. So finding ways to interrupt Rollout is one of the big things to winning this battle.



That should be good enough, don't want Kakarott taking too much damage. I stopped at 3 Smokescreens, since from there, the diminishing returns are just too low. Right now, it has a 50% chance to hit something, technically giving it the infatuation status for the rest of the battle.



...for all the good that did. Even though it can't hit as often, when it does, it still hurts a huge amount. So Jeremiah was at least useful in one regard.



Cause it's Churchill's time to shine. Would've been nice to get Hypnosis off so Churchill can do her work without much worry, but we'll manage.



As you can tell this is my main strategy, cause otherwise, my entire team falls to seven Stomps. So Miltank has a lot of very strong and dangerous moves it can use and it follows on from Clefairy. Both Rollout and Attract it learnt through TMs. It would normally have Stomp by this point anyway, so even without the TMs, it would still be pretty tough, but a lot more predictable. And be glad it knows Attract, cause otherwise it could learn Defense Curl and that would make Rollout even more of a game ender.



So what the hell can you do against such a monstrosity? Well, there's actually a lot of things you can do. It's just the matter of being able to pull off your strategy before you get trampled. There are a few things you need to note: first, Attract only works on male Pokemon; Rollout has 90% accuracy and can miss; Miltank is Whitney's last Pokemon, anything you do to it, aside from damage, will always be permanent; with its current moveset, the only move that can hit Ghost types is Rollout and consequently, all of its moves are resisted by Rock types; while it does have high Defense, it shouldn't be a concern when you've dealt with its high Attack and Speed; compared to its other stats, it has pretty low Special Defense.



With these things in mind, the first thing that seems incredibly effective is status. And you'd be right, paralysis is fantastic, cutting its Speed and potentially interrupt its Rollout massacre. Sleep can also be a good way to just give yourself time to breathe and press on with your strategy. Burn is also great if you can land it, chipping away at its health and neutering Stomp and the early turns of Rollout, hopefully ensuring it never reaches its later turns of Rollout. Poison, meanwhile, is the worst status to use, since it reduces its health and nothing else, but if its all you have...



50% accuracy my ass... Uh, anyway, the strategy that I have available to me, is the lowering of a load of its stats. Since it can't switch out or boost its stats, what you lower is lowered the entire fight, there's nothing it can do if you lower accuracy, Attack or Speed. Therefore, Snubbull is a fantastic option and one I didn't really think of until I caught it. All the starters can be used as well. While Quilava is weak to Rollout, it has Smokescreen and can hit on Miltank's weaker Special Defense. Croconaw has, uh, Leer and Water Gun and maybe Bite if its level 21. Admittedly it's not the best choice, not the worse choice either. Bayleef is also a good choice, mainly due to Reflect and with the chance crits from Razor Leaf. Annoyingly, it only has Poisonpowder, but, uh, better than nothing, right?



Son of a... you've also got to account for Milk Drink (Miruku Nomi), a Normal status move with 10PP and restores 50% of her health. This can undo all the progress you've made if you get unlucky and it uses it often enough. But hey, at least it's not a turn where it's kicking your ass, eh?



Like with accuracy and such, there's not a huge reason to go to -6, though it might be if you've got some real slowpokes on your team.



Now this is looking a lot more manageable. There are a few other Pokemon that work well. Both Gastly and Geodude are fantastic counters to this thing, more or less. But it is a hassle to backtrack if you don't have them handy. The trade for a Machop is a great idea, giving you a powerful super effective answer to your Normal problem, but it will get stomped if you just charge in fists flying. If you get real desperate, then buy a Wobbuffet and Counter it to oblivion. And finally, twist it back round and use Ditto. Nothing more satisfying than using Rollout on Miltank. And if you feel like boosting your own stats to compensate, there's always the X items. Revives are your friend also, there's a reason you can first buy them here.



Overall, while Miltank is a difficult bump in the road, perhaps even a bit much this early in the game, you still have a variety of tools to manage her. Figure out what your team can do, create a strategy and stick to it. It might be hard, it might be long, but eventually, you'll take down this damn cow. Does just one single Pokemon deserve all these words to really state a load of obvious things? Maybe, but I'm nothing if not thorough so maybe this is all necessary, cause if I feel like all these words are needed to take just one Pokemon down, then it's obviously something you need to prepare for.



Regardless, we're nearly done here. There's not much Miltank can really do, other than just stall us out with Milk Drink. And that's the main reason I revived up Jeremiah, to keep it asleep so Kakarott can take it out quickly so it hopefully doesn't use Milk Drink



Oh just faint already.



Thank you.

Gym Leader Defeated



: ...Waaaaaaah! You're mean! You shouldn't be so serious! You... you child, you!

Pokemon Gym



After such a tough and annoying battle, you're really not endearing me to your character. Unless this is supposed to make me feel good about finally beating you?



: Oh, no. You made WHITNEY cry. It's OK. She'll stop soon. She always cries when she loses.



Hrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.



: What? What do you want? A BADGE? Oh right. I forgot. Here's PLAINBADGE.



: PLAINBADGE lets your POKéMON use STRENGTH outside of battle. It also boosts your POKéMON's SPEED. Oh, you can have this too!



: It's ATTRACT! It makes full use of a POKéMON's charm. Isn't it just perfect for a cutie like me?



You know, it's fine. It's alright. It was definitely a puzzle of a battle and if Whitney is still cheery after this, then I am too.

"the ladies here."

Priorities, man.



But that's badge number three. Good job everyone.