BDSP BDSP Travelog Thread

[techitisJ]

It had been a few days since I picked up the game, so I decided to make some good progress today. Despite having just played it today, I really don't remember much of what happened.

I made it to Hearthome City and today and did a practice round of the Super Contests, but I'm probably gonna save doing contests for the post game. After battling Barry (at least I think that was in Hearthome), I went to Veilstone and bought a new outfit for myself before taking on Maylene. Shelly evolved into Gastrodon and I got my third gym badge, then helped Lucas get his pokedex back from Team Galactic. On the way to Pastoria I made a quick stop in the Undeground and caught a Misdreavus who I named Twilight. I still kind of want to use Froslass, but I'll decide when I come to that. Finally, I took on Crasher Wake and earned a new badge, and two new evolutions. Melody evolved into Altaria and Garnet evolved into Infernape.

 

[Sakuraa]

Today I made it to Pastoria. I went through the Great Marsh list of encounters to see if I could make my last capture, but sadly I wasn't able to since it wasn't out today. But I did go in and do some catching. Once again I am thankful for the Grand Underground. I went to the Still Water Cavern and caught my last team member, Dazzling the Croagunk, a Pokemon I've wanted to use on a playthrough team for years. I decided to go ahead and battle Crasher Wake and finally I got a super easy gym battle, mainly since his levels are the same as Maylene's. Sparkling (Pachirisu) one shot Gyarados with Thunderbolt. Twinkling (Cherrim) one shot Quagsire with Solar Beam. And Shimmering (Bibarel) one shot Floatzel with a Swords Dance boosted Take Down, though Bite was doing a lot. I may have lost that matchup if she flinched once. After that I battled Shine and I was shocked to see his Starly hadn't evolved since I swore it was a Staravia last time I fought him, but maybe I'm just losing it. Anyway Dazzling took out Starly and Prinplup, and Shimmering beat Ponyta and Roselia.

I then made my way to Celestic Town to deliver the Old Charm to Cynthia's granny. Tomorrow, I guess I'll be battling Cyrus.

 

[zoroarctic]

Defeated Byron and made it to Snowpoint City today. Also caught a Smoochum in the Grand Underground, which I had been trying to do for a while. I’m still working with a rotation, and might keep it that way until I reach the E4.

 

[UxieLover1994]

I now have 63 Pokémon registered as "caught" in the Pokédex. The Global Room is still as unreliable as always, as people in them offer Shiny (and blatantly hacked) Rares and Legendaries, and you'd be lucky to find a partner who would help evolve your team; while someone helped me evolve my Haunter, Kadabra, and Graveler, they made off with my Machoke/Machamp (I released the Rhyhorn we started with as payback). This is why I'd rather use the Wonder Trade and GTS.

I can only hope next Tuesday's maintenance for HOME is to prepare for linking with BDSP.

I've managed to catch a few more Grand Underground exclusive Pokémon such as Chingling and Swablu. It's trivial now, since I can purchase Quick Balls from the shops. I just finished the Unown collection, and currently working on getting a few Burmy so I could register Wormadam and Mothim. Honey trees have only been spawning Wurmple/Silcoon and male Combee lately.

I'm about to challenge Fantina for my fifth gym badge. My team is otherwise unchanged since Wednesday.

Infernape ♀ (Gertrude)
Gastrodon ♂ (Siegfried - West Sea)
Pachirisu ♂ (Streifen)
Drapion ♂ (Stachel)

 

[JFrombaugh]

Just defeated Fantina & got my 5th badge. Cynthia suggests I go to Canalave City to read up on some local legends at the Library. That's going to have to wait, because right now I'm going to do some playing around with Surf!

In particular I need to go check out Fuego Ironworks for some EXP for Pelipper & a Flamethrower TM for Clefairy (waiting until she learns Moonblast before evolving her).

BTW, I've had the worst luck with Natures in this game. Stuff like Timid on Turtwig the first time, Jolly on Magnemite, the list goes on. But I kept trying until I got at least a semi-decent nature on all my Pokemon. But the hardest member of my team to catch was definitely Ralts, as not only is it a rare spawn & I needed a male, but if you don't catch them on the first try they either Teleport or use Memento.

Current team:
Torterra L39
Absol L38
Gallade L39
Magnezone L39
Pelipper L33
Clefairy L37

 

[Sakuraa]

I must have misremembered the game. I encountered Cyrus but no fight. Maybe that was Platinum? Oh well. In major news, Flaring evolved into Infernape and we headed back to Hearthome to battle Fantina. DEAR LORD, that battle was so hard. I lost FOUR times and I had quite a few levels on her. Now I choose to limit myself to only use the same amount of Pokemon the gym leader has, and my choices were pretty average, but GEEZ. I swear the A.I. in this game is psychic. It's like it always knows when I'm going to use Sucker Punch so it always uses a status move, but the SECOND I switch to another move, then it wants to hit me. So yeah, I lost four times. I had to put everything in a spoiler box to save space.

Spoiler: Very long

Battle 1. I started with Dazzling the Crogunk in her first gym battle. Why? She's the only one with a Super Effective move. I used Toxic as Drifblim used Fly. Thankfully I switched to Shimmering (Bibarel) who used Crunch but didn't take it out. It lived on a tiny bit and I thought poison would KO it, but it used Strength Sap. Toxic lowed it's health again so the next Crunch took it out. But Aftermath brought Shimmering down to half. I sent out Dazzling to use Sucker Punch on Gengar, but it used Confuse Ray. I got through the confusion, but the Colbury Berry weakened the attack. Then it used Dazzling Gleam which nearly one shot. Sucker Punch become disabled by Cursed Body then the next Dazzling Gleam took out Dazzling (ironic). I sent out Shimmering who fainted to Sludge Bomb before she could do anything. Beaming (Mothim) was my last Pokemon. I used Protect to block a Confuse Ray,, but the next one hit. Beaming then hit himself in confusion. I used Protect and thankfully it worked. I then snapped out and survived Sludge Bomb to hit Ariel Ace, but it didn't KO. She healed and I used Quiver Dance to Boost my speed. I healed and survived a second Sludge Bomb but since Ariel Ace was disabled I had to go for Bug Bite which did nothing. Another Sludge Bomb defeated him. Loss 1.

Battle 2 was very different. I tried to start with Sucker Punch, but she went for a Will o Wisp and Hex Strategy. Dazzling went down in one hit so I sent out Shimmering. She nearly KO'd with Crunch but Drifblim hit fly. Fantina healed so I was able to take it down with Surf and Crunch. This time I sent Beaming out to use Bug Bite and eat Gengar's Colbur Berry. Gengar did hit with Confuse Ray but thankfully Beaming got the Bug Bite off. I healed Shimmering and Beaming fainted to a crit Sludge Bomb. Even without the Colbur Berry Crunch still couldn't take out Gengar, so I used Surf as Fantina healed. Shimmering avoided two moves thanks to friendship bonuses (which I didn't even know I had) and took out Gengar with Crunch. Cursed Body disabled Crunch so I only had Surf against Mismagigus. Not that it mattered, she got confused, got hit by Magical Leaf, then took herself out in confusion.

Battle 3. Started the same as battle 1. Toxic on Fly because of course when I don't use Sucker Punch it Flies! I swapped Dazzling for Shimmering and went for Swords Dance as it Flew again. Shimmering survived to KO it and again got hit by Aftermath. I switched to Beaming for the Bug Bite against Gengar. Thankfully it used Sludge Bomb and not Confuse Ray. Beaming got off the attack and went down to the next Sludge Bomb. Sucker Punch though was still too weak to KO and I switched to Shimmering who KO'd with Crunch. I healed Dazzling when Migmagius came out who took out Shimmering with Magical Leaf. I chose to use Poison Jab with Dazzling expecting a non damaging move to avoid Sucker Punch but she did use a damaging move, so I lost AGAIN. Had I just used Sucker Punch I would have won!

Battle 4. I did what I should have done 3 battle ago and gave everyone Persim Berries! I started with Dazzling's Toixc and thankfully the first Will o Wisp missed. I got off a Poison Jab and used a burn heal on Dazzling. The she used Hex and nearly took me out, but I switched to Shimmering on the Fly and Toxic actually took it out. I did my Bug Bite strategy without needing to worry about the first Confuse Ray. I had to heal Dazzling and Shimmering so I did on the Sludge Bomb. After Beaming Fainted, Shimmering took out Gengar with Crunch. I swapped to Dazzling in case I needed Shimmering for Mismagius. She used two Confuse Rays and Dazzling got confused, but miraculously hit two Sucker Punches without hitting herself in confusion. Finally we won and the icing on the take was Dazzling evolving into Toxicroak after the battle.

I'll make more progress tomorrow. Those battles have me worn out

 

[GhostLucario]

I couldn't play during the week, but got a bit done

Spoiler

-Defeated Roark using a Budew, Psyduck and Monferno. The Cranidos gave me a bit of trouble but I managed to win.
-Went to Floaroma and the Valley Windworks. The Galactic admin there (is it Mars or Jupiter? I always confuse them) was hard! Yay for improved AI!
-Traveled through Eterna Forest with Cheryl. Then went into Eterna City, got the Underground kit, explored the Underground for a bit, hated it, caught a Murkrow, Elekid and Swinub, went above ground and defeated Gardenia with Staravia and Monferno. I almost lost to a gym leader for the first time since Gen 5! I was really happy about that.

Then today I had the day off so I played for a bit.

Spoiler

-Beat Team Galactic, got Cut, then caught a Gastly in the Mansion. I am extremely happy to see the ghost girl and the ghost butler are still there! I especially love the haunted or scary areas in Pokémon, I was so sad we didn't get any in SwSh.
-Went into the cycling road, then to Mt. Coronet, I stayed there a bit to catch a Cleffa, got a Modest one in the first try, I was super happy.
-Finally arrived into Hearthome. I did a contest, which was boring and got all the fun sucked out of it, then battled Barry and moved onto route 209.
-Beat the Lost Tower and got Strength. But I can't use it yet so...
-Made my way into Veilstone. By this point my team started to get overleveled, so I put all of them into the PC and went through the routes with weaker, untrained pokémon to keep the challenge up. I almost lost to the Ace trainer duo near the entrance to Veilstone. Good times.
-Went and pulverized Maylene and her Lucario. This gym was so laughably easy I wished I used my secondary team instead. Then I helped Dawn get her pokédex back.
-Traveled all the way to Pastoria. I beat Crasher Wake in the blink of an eye. Seriously, being overleveled and the gym trainers having Goldeen and Azurill is not fun.
-Explored the GU again to find heart scales to teach Ancient Power to my Piloswine. I am getting that pig mammoth later tonight.

That's all for now. I am having a good time with the game, but the forced Exp Share IS a big problem. I wished they patched in a toggle or something.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I couldn't play much this weed due to it being Thanksgiving week but I got a bit done on Friday.

Anyway, made my way to Snowpoint City. After spending a fair bit of time in the Grand Underground I battled Candice and won pretty handily. I ended up replacing my original Glalie with a second one that I found in the Grand Underground because this one had Inner Focus, which would make his physical attacks sting much more by being immune to the common Intimidate. So with the newly added Frostbite to the team I took care of the events at Lake Acuity before heading back. I checked out various areas with my newly obtained Rock Climb and spent most of Friday afternoon fishing for Feebas, which, after much trial and error (mostly error) I managed to find a patch of them. Caught four of them since I didn't want to have to go through that whole ordeal again. After exploring the various places that I can now access via Rock Climb I'm now starting the infiltration into Team Galactic's HQ. I also spent some time using the item duplicating glitch in order to make more PP Ups and such. Took several attempts to get it right but I eventually succeeded in exploiting the glitch. Not sure if I'll be able to play more today (Saturday) as my family and I are going out to cut down our own Christmas tree as per tradition so I don't know if I'll have enough time play some more or not.

 

[techitisJ]

Made a little bit of progress yesterday. One of my friends came over and we both played Pokemon so I could trade her a Glameow. I ended up realizing that the old man who gives you the explorers kit has a bunch of missions to do with the mining (where I also realized that while I had been in the underground, I hadn't actually done any mining yet). So, I worked through those missions and got myself a few statues. I didn't make too much story progress though, I just followed the Team Galactic Grunt to Lake Valor, but not before crushing Barry. Outside of Lake Valor I got the medicine from Cynthia and used it to clear the Psyduck off the path on Route 210, so I could make my way up to Celestic Town. There I battled another Galactic Grunt, gave the Old Charm to Cynthia's Grandma, and met Cyrus again. Now I'm on my way back to Hearthome Gym to take on Fantina.

 

[Sakuraa]

I made my way to Canalave City. The battle against Shine was pretty easy. I skipped out on battling with Riley on Iron Island, and went straight to battle Byron. I brought Flaring (Infernape), Dazzling (Toxicroak), and Sparkling (Pachirisu). I sent out Flaring against Bronzor and easily one shot it with a single Flamethrower. Next was Dazzling vs. Steelix. Drain Punch didn't even do half damage and she was instantly destroyed by Earthquake. So I sent out Flaring to finish it off with Close Combat. Since the battle was going so smoothly, I decided to have a little challenge at the end, so the final matchup was Sparkling vs. Bastiodon. I started with Nuzzle to paralyze him, while he used Iron Defense. Then I hit Charm, so his Stone Edge didn't do much damage. I kept with the Charms and he kept with the Stone Edge. Thunderbolt did barely any damage and Bastiodon switched to Flash Canon which did a good chunk to damage to Sparkling. Since it was paralyzed, I switched to Electro Ball which did more damage, getting Bastiodon to half, but he healed with a berry. Next turn he didn't attack due to paralysis. I hit another Electro Ball and he his another Flash Canon. Right as I was about to K.O. it, he used a Full Restore. So I used a Super Potion. I had to Nuzzle it again and go back to spamming Electro Ball as he used Flash Canon over and over. I think it lowered Sparling's Sp. Def becuase I swear it started doing more damage. He healed a second time, so I had to just keep spamming Electro Ball until I FINALLY got the knockout.

After having a meeting with my homies at the Canalave library, I battled Saturn and Mars. Saturn wasn't too noteworthy outside of randomly switching out his Bronzor when it was literally about to faint. I also must say, Chibi Mars is still so adorable to me Mars shocked me in how strong her team was. Sparkling's Thunderbolt only did half to her Golbat, then Purugly crit her with Slash. I hit Nuzzle, but then I had to switch to Dazzling. Slash really hurt, but Drain Punch K.O.'d in one hit. Well, looks like it's time to upgrade Thunderbolt to Thunder.

I bought the winter style to head to Snowpoint City in fitting fashion. I mean I thought I was until I realized I never got the TM for strength. If it wasn't for the menu notifs, I wouldn't have even thought about it. So I had to go through Lost Tower with my hugely overleveled team just to get that TM. I must say, I love how the Poke fan's child stands next to him in battle and commands the Pokemon as well.

I made it to Snowpoint and my next mission is to battle Candice.

 

[CynthiaLover]

I started a new playthrough in Brilliant Diamond on another file. This time there is going to be a theme with the nicknames: Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun. I also wanted to try some different Mons this time around.

Anyway, I started with Asmodeus the Chimchar (now Monferno). Caught Balam the Starly (now Staravia) around Jubilife (after getting some Heal Balls, as I like my team to be in a variety of balls). I beat Roark and dealt with Team Galactic and Mars in the Valley Windworks. I then escorted Cheryl through Eterna Forest, catching everything I could along the way. Around that time the Manaphy egg hatched but I boxed it, as I don't like using either Legendaries or Mythicals on in-game teams. After getting to Eterna City I spent some time in the Grand Underground where I caught my next two members: Oswell the Murkrow and Opera the shiny Roselia. I also spent plenty of time catching various GU Mons and digging for treasures. Taking a small break now so I can recharge my Switch Lite.

 

[Juliko]

@Orchid How'd you manage to get a Light Ball?

Nabbed myself a Magmarizer, traded my Magmar to BD, and evolved it to Magmortar! My SP team is officially complete!!

 

[Okido]

@Orchid How'd you manage to get a Light Ball?

Wild Pikachu in the Trophy Garden have a 5% chance of holding one! (Putting a Pokémon with the ability Super Luck or Compound Eyes in the first slot of your party raises this chance to 20%, which makes it much easier to find.)

-

I've been digging for Mysterious Shards so I can get everything Ramanas Park has to offer. After getting Regice, Regirock, and Registeel, I made a brief stop at the Snowpoint Temple yesterday to get Regigigas. Today I've caught Entei, Latias, and Latios, and I still have one large Shard left.

I also recently hatched and trained a full second team just for fun:

Spoiler

Blastoise ♂
Arcanine ♀
Dodrio ♀
Nidoqueen ♀
Umbreon ♂
Electivire ♂

...no points for guessing what the theme is supposed to be.

80:55 playtime, 291 Pokémon seen.

 

[GhostLucario]

This weekend I spent an unholy amount of time in the GU to get Spiritomb. They really REALLY made it difficult to obtain this time. No longer can you go down and up several times to speak to the same person. It has to be an NPC too, not another player.
I spent maybe.... 15 hours on this. But I finally got my boy Spiritomb. I wanted to shiny hunt it but I gave up around 200 resets, I did not have the energy to do this. Maybe I will try again in the post game when I've unlocked all the GU areas and the NPC hunt becomes easier.
I also caught a Togepi and Gligar down there. Now I will try to optimize my team for future battles. I've heard there's a significant difficulty increase from normal trainers and gym leaders to the E4, making this the first time in ages (since BW2) where I feel the need to improve my team and prepare for the endgame battles.

 

[zoroarctic]

A lot’s happened the last few days. I defeated Candice, stopped Team Galactic, evolved Wraith into a Mismagius, and just defeated Volkner.
I head over into Victory Road with 5 spots locked in: Slider, Wraith, Devil Dog, Shiva, and Mink. Last spot still TBD.

 

[Juliko]

Wild Pikachu in the Trophy Garden have a 5% chance of holding one! (Putting a Pokémon with the ability Super Luck or Compound Eyes in the first slot of your party raises this chance to 20%, which makes it much easier to find.)

Guess I better try that out then.

 

[pokemoll]

Just arrived outside of Victory Road a few moments ago. I picked the game up a few hours ago, and have mostly been messing around with clean-up, exploring a few areas that were previously inaccessible due to Cut/Surf/Rock Climb/etc. before I took on the Sunyshore Gym. Unfortunately, it was a total breeze; Gastrodon swept through his entire team with minimal effort on my part. I suppose that was to be expected! Now I'm probably going to make an effort to catch every Unown variant before heading through Victory Road proper and taking on the Elite Four.

Yesterday I wrapped up my contest shenanigans by acquiring the Master rank Cleverness and Toughness ribbons for my Rotom and Purugly respectively, so... thank god, I don't have to cook a Poffin again for the foreseeable future! Q__Q Azelf and Uxie have been caught, along with Palia of course - wish I could get my hands on Mespirit already, though. Either way... off to the Unown grind I go!

 

[CynthiaLover]

In my Demon School-themed run I defeated Gardenia's gym. I ended up replacing Oswell with another Murkrow, this time a female named Smoke. The reason being is that she has Super Luck, which I prefer over Insomnia. This also adds a female to my ranks, as my team was pretty much all males, which helps balance things out more. Anyway, I took on Team Galactic and Jupiter. Man, her Skuntank is far better equipped than before, what with the smarter AI and better moves, so it gave me a workout. But in the end I won. I picked up a blue bike and I'm spending more time in the Grand Underground hunting for items. I managed to nab several Plates from the GU, which are apparently very rare according to Serebii, along with things like an Icy Rock, a Hard Stone, an Iron Ball, an Everstone, and well over a dozen Heart Scales. I plan to use the item duplicating glitch to give me more of certain items like PP Ups, TMs, and the like so I can better equip my team for the road. My team is as followed:

Asmodeus (Monferno, male, Lv30)
Balam (Staravia, male, Lv25)
Smoke (Murkrow, female, Lv26)
Opera (Roselia, male, Lv26, shiny) (yes, I know that Opera's gender is unknown in Demon School but here Opera is male for sake of the playthrough)

 

[pokemoll]

Now I'm probably going to make an effort to catch every Unown variant before heading through Victory Road proper and taking on the Elite Four.

Only a couple of hours later, and I'm all done with that! EXTREMELY bummed that the reward for obtaining them all this time around isn't letter stickers for your ball capsules, but just... more ball capsules to work with. Really wish I had known this before! But it's alright, it's cool to have a box full of Unown forms for the first time since... what, HG/SS? It's been a long time since I've purposefully sat down and put my mind to catching them all, that's for sure. Will probably stop here for the night and pick up in Victory Road tomorrow.

Also, I received that Porygon I was wishing for from my friend! So, poor Silky the Purugly has been tucked away inside a PC box whilst Dr. Worm takes the last remaining slot on my team. They're only in the level 20s, obviously, so I'm hoping to do some attempts of the E4 where I purposefully fail in order to grind some experience out for the little guy. Either way, that's for tomorrow's pokemoll to deal with.

Spoiler: the unown collection!

 

[Sakuraa]

I made it to Snowpoint and had my match against Candice. Thankfully, it was quite an easy battle after Fantina and Byron got on my nerves. I lead with Beaming (Mothim) who started with Quiver Dance and took about half damage from Avalanche. After that, a single Struggle Bug took out Snover. Next was Medicham, who didn't even get to attack as a single Air Slash defeated her. Hail damage had brought Beaming to very low health, so I swapped to Dazzling (Toxicroak) as Candice sent out Sneasel. I was surprised when it went for Dig, but I choose to use Toxic for funsies so hilariously it still got poisoned. Dig actually took out almost half of Dazzling's health, but a single Drain Punch KO'd it even with it's Chople Berry weakening the attack. Last I sent out Flaring (Infernape) to battle Abamasnow. Not gonna, lie I played around and didn't take it out right away because I was like 'what can this thing actually do to me'. So I used Work Up while she went for Aurora Veil. Then I used a Power Up Punch which only did took off 1/3 of her health. Then she shocked me as she used Earthquake which took Flaring to half health. A crit literally would have destoryed him. So I stopped fooling around and took out Abamasnow with Fire Blast. After that I went to comfort Shine after his loss to Jupiter.

Since I was done with the snow, I decided to ditch the winter outfit for a new Pikachu Hoodie. Then I got to work battling the Galactic Grunts at Galactic HQ. I'll hopefully finish that up tomorrow and maybe finally battle Cyrus? My memory on when I battle him is so terrible