Remembering Whitney's Miltank

[turkeyfish]

I've actually never had too many problems with Whitney's Miltank. I had caught a Heracross early on and prepared it to face the onslaught of the pink cow. I was expecting a way tougher fight due to past experiences but surprisingly knocked it out in about two hits. I guess a well-leveled party and a bit of quick thinking + luck helped. Thank god I never got immobilized by Attract or that would of spelt game over. Although Stomp was still hard to take straight to the face. Three flinches in a row for god's sake. But things started going uphill from there until Whitney started crying. At least I got the badge?

 

[Cool and Spicy]

I actually don't think in my younger days I had too much problem with her. For some reason Claire was what destroyed me. In SS she was tough, but it only took a couple tries. I believe I have reflect from Bayleef to thank for that. In Nuzlocke runs however... ugh. I just have the worst luck with her. Once all she left me with was a Weedle and a Rattata. I couldn't bring myself to go on.

 

[Stratelier]

With my mains in G2 being something on the order of Quilava, Hoothoot, and Spinarak, you might say I had a bit of trouble with Whitney. I didn't really know Rollout doubled in power with every hit (plus Miltank kept spamming it), I think I used a lot of Sand-Attacks before I won but it was decidedly painful.

HG it was still a pain, but not quite as much. I might have purchased a few Protect TM's exclusively for this battle.

 

[Dr. Buni]

Whitney's Clefairy was actually harder than her Miltank to me. Fuck Metronome.

 

[BorgyDudeMan]

Whitney's Clefairy was actually harder than her Miltank to me. Fuck Metronome.

I agree. It ACTUALLY used Mimic on my U-Turn shiny Zubat and even got a handful of super effective attacks via Metronome.... why...

 

[Dragon Master]

Back in Gen2 on Silver, i started with a totodile and i battled her i dont know how many times but my Totodile was nearly a Feraligatr before i actually managed to beat her, but back then i was naive and didnt fully understand the concept of the game like i do now.
When i got and started Gold, i got Cyndaquil and i actually managed to beat her very easily with Quilava, cant remember the level but i think they were fairly close

SS & HG Was very easy! knew how to beat it without any trouble, better understanding of the game and took her down

 

[Matleo]

poisoning was the best way to win.

 

[BorgyDudeMan]

poisoning was the best way to win.

Well, the problem is, in the remakes, the Miltank holds a Lum Berry, so if it eats it, you're doomed.

 

[Matleo]

Well, the problem is, in the remakes, the Miltank holds a Lum Berry, so if it eats it, you're doomed.

yes but if your team has also a way to confuse or make it sleep then you can go on.

 

[Harryghost]

Okay, so I don't know if this passes, because I did not ever play any Gen II games or their remakes but I did battle Whitney and Miltank in the PWT recently. And even though I was annoyed pretty fast by her spamming Milk Drink, it was actually not much of a threat. My Perish Song Altaria is all that I needed to take that beast out. Seriously, I don't know what I would have done in the PWT, as a whole, without my Altaria.

 

[Stratelier]

Pfft, most NPC trainers don't even know how to respond to Perish Song anyway.

 

[System Error]

I agree. It ACTUALLY used Mimic on my U-Turn shiny Zubat and even got a handful of super effective attacks via Metronome.... why...

It is actually the more dangerous one in speedruns too, Gen 2 and Gen 4. I wrote a little piece on it back in the day when the blogs weren't abandoned and I was truly lord of them, so here it is again for entertainment's sake. Preserved in its original form, 2013-personality and all.

Spoiler

Now when you hear Whitney you might be thinking to yourself: Miltank, that'll be tough. Uh-uh. If things go well, that fat cow is all but free. The real problem is the little ball of shit that comes before it: CLEFAIRY.

Let's go over its moveset. Encore. This is generally good IF it happens. You do the run with Totodile et al as your lone champion. It'll be using Rage and only Rage in this battle, and this will save you some menuing. Mimic. This basically never happens and is a wasted turn if it does, though you don't really want it to use the mimicked Rage either. Doubleslap. This is what you want to happen. Every hit of Doubleslap will boost Croconaw's Rage level by one stage, so what you're hoping for is a Doubleslap with a high number of hits. Metronome. Oh my god.

That fucking move is a roulette of pain and suffering. One wrong roll, and you're done, son. Some of the horrible things that Metronome can give you include: Thunder Wave, Zap Cannon, Leech Seed, Toxic, Dynamicpunch, Spore, Confuse Ray, Sacred Fire, Charm, Reflect, Sand Attack, Disable...so much can go wrong and do anything from waste horrendous amounts of time to outright killing the run. The worst are Selfdestruct and Explosion, both a cocktail of instant death. You're just dead, and there's nothing you can do about it.

See, once you get the boosts from Rage, Miltank isn't bad at all. You can just body the hell out of it with your raging Croconaw and get the win. You may fear Rollout, but that's what you want! It won't build up enough power in time to kill you before you kill it. The only danger at this point is a flinch from Stomp or a critical Stomp, both of which are bad news. But without the boosts from Rage, you get wrecked no matter what you do.

You can see now why Metronome from Clefairy is such a big problem. Just not using Doubleslap is bad enough, and even though it can sometimes give you a substitute like Barrage, you're way more than likely to get something that will kill your ass. Just use your imagination. Even things you wouldn't expect like Baton Pass (switches to Miltank), Conversion2 (can't build up Rage anymore if it procs Ghost), Transform (loses Doubleslap), and Belly Drum (can cause Clefairy to die too early or make it do too much damage) are pretty much run over.

This is an absolutely brutal fight due to that one move, making it the most likely to kill you. It's definitely the third-most obnoxious in the speedrun, only behind Azalea Rival and Red.

That said even casually I've never had problems with the cow. Get a fighting-type like that Machop you can trade for, or just something that can wreck it before Rollout builds up. Also in the speedrun, unless Stomp flinch happens, you wreck the cow in two hits (with Rage 4+) and it cannot get you in two.

 

[King Robert]

Didn't her Miltank have Attract too?

 

[Camille]

I do remember my team having trouble against Miltank in Crystal, but this was mostly due to sheer lack of good Fighting-ype moves back then. In the remakes, however, my Heracross with Brick Break made short work of both Whitney's critters.

 

[Gengarzilla]

That cow? Nah, I've never really had any problems here. It's Clair's horrible Kingdra who always gives me those Johto headaches instead.

 

[zvinko]

That cow? Nah, I've never really had any problems here. It's Clair's horrible Kingdra who always gives me those Johto headaches instead.

Yes, Kingdra and that annoying smoke screen plus her Dragonairs with thunder waves, she destroyed me. I still have horrible flashbacks everytime I see a Kingdra

 

[noworry]

I did struggle a little, but Miltank was no match for my female Quilava. The biggest problem have always been Attract, for me at least.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Hope I'm not repeating anything already said in this thread-

What makes Miltank so especially notable was how badly it punished players for relying too much on their starter. Since players were only up to the third gym, they often didn't get many Pokemon they thought were interesting enough to train more than their starter. So the starter stays up front, getting most of the Exp and maybe some other Poke's got the Exp. Share. Nobody thinks there's anything wrong with this-your starter is plowing through things just fine, and you're probably going to switch out some of these Pokemon, anyways.

The battle with Whitney is just the same- slightly-harder-but-still-easy hits, and every Pokemon's down. And then we've got Miltank, with so much going for it.

• Tank stats, which let it pull at least one of its tricks at the start.
• Attract, which, given the earlier-mentioned starter reliance, almost always worked. (starters tend to be male, after all)
• Milk Drink, an unlimited potion.
• And, the cream of the crop, Rollout. If your starter was taken out, the rest of your party quickly fell to the snowball effect.

And of course there's the real-world context-most people playing GSC were kids at the time, and there wasn't the mass of resources and strategies out there like there is today.

I think that's really neat. Whitney's Miltank wasn't hard because of typing or stats, but a simple strategy that hit a shared experience hard.

(but is nobody going to complain about Whitney crying after the loss? That infuriated me when I was little...)

 

[zvinko]

Hope I'm not repeating anything already said in this thread-

What makes Miltank so especially notable was how badly it punished players for relying too much on their starter. Since players were only up to the third gym, they often didn't get many Pokemon they thought were interesting enough to train more than their starter. So the starter stays up front, getting most of the Exp and maybe some other Poke's got the Exp. Share. Nobody thinks there's anything wrong with this-your starter is plowing through things just fine, and you're probably going to switch out some of these Pokemon, anyways.

The battle with Whitney is just the same- slightly-harder-but-still-easy hits, and every Pokemon's down. And then we've got Miltank, with so much going for it.

• Tank stats, which let it pull at least one of its tricks at the start.
• Attract, which, given the earlier-mentioned starter reliance, almost always worked. (starters tend to be male, after all)
• Milk Drink, an unlimited potion.
• And, the cream of the crop, Rollout. If your starter was taken out, the rest of your party quickly fell to the snowball effect.

And of course there's the real-world context-most people playing GSC were kids at the time, and there wasn't the mass of resources and strategies out there like there is today.

I think that's really neat. Whitney's Miltank wasn't hard because of typing or stats, but a simple strategy that hit a shared experience hard.

(but is nobody going to complain about Whitney crying after the loss? That infuriated me when I was little...)

Making her cry was actually very satisfying for me xD