Here we are, going all Electric again in Sinnoh! And going all cute this time too, with the utterly adorable Pachirisu being my One and Only du jour. I love squirrels ever since I got a stuffed one as a infant, so cruising with Pachirisu was going to a delight no matter what. After polishing off the Rock Gym with Piplup — let's make this easy, because why not? — I recruited a Pachirisu next to the Valley Windworks; and since I was out of electric-themed names and squirrels are famous for their nut-hoarding ways, I decided to name my new lone ranger Nocciolata. Because hey, who doesn't love delicious italian hazelnut spread?
I'll say it: Pachirisu totally blew my mind. I had a number of preconceptions regarding the Sinnoh squirrel's fighting niche, going from him being a status effect caster to him being one of those fast yet fragile Do-or-die 'Mons. The one thing I never, ever expected him to be — nor any Pikachu clone, for that matter — was a frigging staller. How can that cute teeny-tiny squirrel be so incredibly buff and sturdy? GameFreak nicely subverted expectations with that one, and I loved being taken by surprise — all the more so as it doesn't happen so often anymore with me being the Pokemon solo run veteran I am. The number of hits Pachirisu can swallow without breaking a sweat is properly astounding; my lovely Nocciolata didn't faint a single time, and I can count on the fingers on one hand the number of times he was down to the last quarter of his HP bar. Heck, Ground Moves themselves never took away more than half of said HP bar! Earthquake? Please b*tch, you couldn't one-shoot me even if you had the manual. Needless to say, my peace of mind on the battlefield was utterly ensured with such a hardy 'Mon: I could do my thing unhindered, confident that my little Nocciolata would survive pretty much any assault.
Pachirisu's defensive pizzazz nicely compensates for his slightly lacklustre offensive prowess. With an Attack and Sp.Attack of 45, the Sinnoh squirrel kinda lacks punch; and unlike other weak 'Mons out there, he cannot rely on some evolution down the line to rev up his fighting oomph. On top of that, my Nocciolata's Attack was actually lower than his Sp.Attack, despite him boasting a Docile nature that should have left his base stats unchanged — puzzling, to say the least. This led to an insanely irritating situation that I don't remember having ever encountered before in a solo run, with my Pachirisu being able to empty foes' HP bars nearly entirely — yet not quite completely. I lost count of the number of times the opponent was left with literally one pixel of HP, forcing me to waste a precious move and making the fight last longer than it should. I never knew what I could expect from a hit, and if a turn was going to be the last or not.
Pachirisu's default learnset is pretty similar to Luxray's one, with Spark (later discarded in favour of TM
Shock Wave by yours truly) and Discharge as his Electric Moves of choice.
However, he has to make do with Normal only when it comes to other Types, which
could easily have led to a sorry retread of my Pikachu
solo run of Yellow.
Fortunately, my little squirrel had an ace in the hole: TM Grass Knot, a.k.a.
the best way to wipe a battlefield clean in Sinnoh and virtually erase
Pachirisu's one and only Type weakness. It never dawned on me before how
abundant Rock, Ground and Water 'Mons are in Sinnoh — but I'm very aware of it
now indeed. Ironically enough, I was in no hurry to learn the move at first,
and only did so because I didn't want to be stuck with Normal and Electric
Moves; and boy, didn't I regret it afterwards! Grass Knot's usefulness only
grew over time, and I cannot even begin to explain how much of a death sentence
it proved for Ground or Rock 'Mons that were also heavy. Which, incidentally,
is nearly always the case. In a nutshell: I spent pretty much 80% of my run
spamming Grass Knot, Return, Shock Wave and Discharge, but didn't even suffer
from it thanks to how versatile and efficient those Moves were. This goes to
show that when it comes to Move pools, performance matters more than variety
indeed.
I'm done with my Pachirisu run of Pearl, and let me tell you: I'm also
done with Pearl as a whole, and with Diamond as well. That pair
is just the slowest of the slow when it comes to pacing, and I cannot bear the
thought of enduring any more runs of them. From now on, I'm gonna stick to Platinum
when it comes to all things Sinnoh: it's faster, prettier and overall much
more enjoyable. Thanks for following my solo run Pokemon adventures,
dear fellow gamers; there's more coming soon, so stay tuned!
Wait, it's a
tank? I never knew that. I knew it wad used by the winner of a RL Pokemon
tournament, which shocked (hah!) everyone, but I never took the time to look
too closely. And it's one of the cutest Pikachu clones to boot, tied with
Emolga in my opinion (that has it's own advantage by being part flying, so it's
immune to ground).
I think I might actually take a page of your book and do this as well, though I
still don't want to play Platinum again. Let's see...wait, not available on gen
VII, not available in the gen III remakes, and appears just before the third
gym in gen VI, which is super late considering it takes forever to get to the
second gym. In Black/White II, it's only in a hidden groto at level 55.
You can get Emolga before the first gym in X and Y, but super late in Sun and
Moon. Level 57! Sky battles with Emolga sounds adorable, but I'm really tired
of X and Y. Well, I guess I'll save it for when I want to do another run of
Black and White.
This sucks. This is why I hate having so many pokemon. Unless it's a gen I
pokemon or it's ultra super popular, you're only going to reasonably have that
pokemon in a team in its own generation and nowhere else.
I hate to always compare the series to Digimon but...in Digimon Story you can
raise any digimon from a few babies you can get in the first few areas, some
just take a longer than others. This makes it so you can have a completely
different team each playthrough, and start planning for it from the start.
(actually I don't regret comparing them all the time. Pokemon fans were always
deriding Digimon by calling it an inferior rip-off, so screw it.)
Pachirisu works
really well as a tank, no doubt about that. On top of his high defensive stats,
he has Sweet Kiss, Endure and Last Resort in his arsenal, which gives him the
potential to be the most annoying pest in combat. Pachirisu's call in life is
to linger on the battlefield for a million turns, taking hits comfortably while
slowly but surely destroying the opposition. Can you imagine the havoc Last
Resort alone can wreak? That Move makes Pachirisu a tool of destruction! He's
more than sturdy enough to endure three turns and use his other Moves first,
especially if he cast Sweet Kiss and manages to confuse the opponent. I could
certainly have used that trick in some of the Pokemon League battles!
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that Pachirisu is a
really versatile and well-rounded 'Mon. He's really fast on top of being
sturdy, which means that he can often act first in battle and thus gain the
upper hand. He can survive one-shooting with Endure, and inflict it with Last
Resort. And he can dole out Paralysis and Confusion thanks to Sweet Kiss and
Discharge. I'm not surprised somebody won a Pokemon Tournament with that little
wolf in sheep's clothing! Writing about this actually makes me want to try
cruising with Pachirisu again, this time using different strategies and making
the most of his stalling Moves. Maybe I'll go for it again in X&Y; Gen VI
made Pachirisu even more badass, and I can use trading to get him right from
the start.
And talking about Gen VI and squirrels, Emolga is most definitely on my
shortlist of solo run candidates. He's just too utterly adorable to ignore! I
love the Pikachu clones overall, and totally wouldn't mind running solo with
them all. Now that's an
idea for a future feature! ^__^
I think
everyone was shocked to even see Pachirisu in a tournament, much less be the
winner. The extremely boring thing about competitive pokemon is that there's 5
or six optimal teams you'll see, and most of those will have shared pokemon
between them. It's very against the core of pokemon in my opinion. Sadly, with
the way the meta game works, it's very unlikely to see something like that ever
happen again, but at least Pachirisu will always be remembered.
You know, as much as I hate Sun and Moon, Togedemaru is absolutely adorable.
And the steel typing is interesting. I hope he's in sword and shield so I can
play him in game without lag (hey, finally a little bit of optimism towards
that game!). Dedenne is...ugly, but his dual typing is also interesting (though
in retrospect, it should have gone to Alolan Raichu). Honestly, out of all the
clones, only Plusle and Minun are boring. If you do this idea, is it even worth
it to do two runs for them?
Also, I'm stealing Nocciolata's name because I'm garbage at naming Pokemon.
When I do Nuzlockes, I have to have a list of names with a theme (like trees,
colours, desserts, etc) or else it all goes downhill. Otherwise I just pick
simple names in Japanese (like Saru for any monkey pokemon) or a dumb meshing
of syllables. I'm only proud of the name I give my male Eevees - Janus, who is
the roman god of beginnings/transitions/duality - and I didn't even come up
with it. I saw someone else on the internet with that idea. So from now on, all
my squirrels in gaming are being named Nocciolata or plain Hazelnut.
Regarding
Plusle and Minun, I'll only do two runs if their stats and learnsets are at
odds enough to justify it — like, male and female Meowstic levels of being at
odds. Otherwise, I'll just cruise with the better half of the pair, or with the
first one I manage to recruit. We'll see!
Oh boy, don't get me started on the hassle of finding suitable names for 'Mons!
:D I generally suck at it too. I usually go for simple names tied to the 'Mon
du jour physical characteristics or type, and I try to tie them with the
entry's title to make things easier. I love gen III and IV in that regard,
because I can use and reuse names of gemstones and metals endlessly! :P I also
try to play with different languages to give myself more leeway. At least,
things are nicely clear-cut when it comes to my Trainer: they always get the
name of the entry I'm playing. Problem solved! Except with X&Y, of course.
:P
Funnily enough, the only name I'm genuinely proud of is also an Eevee name!
That would be Eeveeta, which was the name of my female Eevee in my Flareon solo
run of White 2. Too bad female Eevees are so darn rare! Heck, maybe I'll slap
that name on all my Eevees regardless of their sex. I still have plenty of
Eevee runs to perform, and it would be a shame to let that name go to waste!
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