#bugrun

Amarys' gimmick is a Trick Room team, although she also has a very speedy Dugtrio with Focus Sash and Stone Edge. I focused on getting rid of the Dugtrio as soon as possible, while I let her Skarm set up rocks and then phase me around with Whirlwind. Lucky for me, the stuff I was phased into was always helpful, so it really wasn't so bad. I used Wo-Chien after changing its Tera type to Bug, with the rule that it had to be Terastallized immediately. It wasn't necessary to use Wo-Chien, I just wanted to for the fun of it. It's a snail, so it's already an honorary bug type, so I wanted to give it a try. Metagross wasn't difficult for Volcarona to take care of.

After Amarys, I stomped the fairy Elite, but I don't have many notes on her, it wasn't hard. Killing Primarina with Galvantula's Thunder + Volcarona's Power Herb Solar Beam was nice. Scizor was useful for fairies, so I added it to the team, and I taught my Rabsca Gunk Shot. Have I mentioned Rabsca has amazing coverage moves? It's really handy.

Crispin was definitely a challenge for an all-bug team. I decided to bring along extra help in the form of Araquanid and Kleavor. We focused on double-targeting the Talonflame because I did NOT want it to get Sunny Day up. Had to use Spike's First Impression to break the sash and Choice Scarf my Galvantula to get the job done. But it was worth it. We cleared out the Rotom in a few turns and then I had Volcarona set up Rain Dance and started hitting with Hurricanes. The Blaziken ace was pretty scary (and it 1HKO my Araquanid with Stone Edge, arghh), but Kleavor and Lokix managed to take it out.

I was scared of Drayton because in my main playthrough he kind of kicked my ass. His team is honestly really good, better than Kieran's, that's for sure. I tried to take out Dragonite on the first turn because I didn't want him setting up Tailwind, which would be a nightmare. I didn't manage to quite take it out on turn one but thankfully it didn't Tailwind anyway. Naturally I brought my Frosmoth to this fight. I had to Tailwind with my Volcarona to prep things, then I could send Frosmoth in and start blasting with Ice Beams. This tears through a good chunk of his team (Haxorous, Sceptile) while Volcarona takes care of Kingdra. The ace is Archaludon, which sucks to go up against. I attack with Rabsca's Psychic and get another Tailwind up with Frosmoth; he sets up an Electro shot on Rabsca and then kills Frosmoth with Flash Cannon the following turn, causing my heart to drop. I send out my Slither Wing and attack with Close Combat and another Psychic from Rabsca. He cleans out Rabsca, letting me use another Close Combat. Thankfully, it's enough to KO!

(Please ignore the fact Rabsca is holding a Soft Sand, I most definitely did Not forget that Drayton would Terastallize his ace into pure Dragon type and Earth Power would be pointless to use, ahem)

Kieran wasn't too bad, especially since his Dragonite doesn't even have Tailwind. I focused on removing Dnite first anyway with Galvantula and Frosmoth. Politoed wasn't that much of an issue so we just left it for a while. Which meant Kieran had a Drizzle Politoed and an Incineroar on the field. 🙄 I have a theory that Drayton let Kieran beat him, because there's no way this kid is better at battling than Drayton. Anyway, even in the rain a Flare Blitz is gonna toast a Frosmoth, but that was fine, she did her job already. I sent out and Sword Danced with Scizor because I was confidant Galvantula could clean out Incineroar, and he did. Galvantula goes down to a Weather Ball and I use Slither Wing and Scizor to eliminate the Porygon-Z and then the Grimmsnarl. Next we focus on removing Politoed so that it's safe for my Volcarona. It's soon down to my two butterflies, Volcarona and Vivillon, who are both packing Hurricane just for Kieran's Tera-Fighting ace.

Then the rain stops. Whoops.

It's not a problem though, I already had a Light Screen up and my Vivillon, Pixel, had Compound Eyes. Her Hurricanes land true and Volcarona just uses some Overheats.

When I took on Terapagos, I maintained the same rules as I have been for the entire Bug Run: bugs only, no items during battle other than hold items and no Terastallizing unless it's Tera Bug. Terapagos requires you to fight the first phase and then rolls into the second phase without healing your party. It packs Zen Headbutt, Water Pulse, Earth Power and Tera Starstorm. I used Volcarona to solo the first phase, holding a Sitrus Berry and getting a few Quiver Dances up before blowing it out with an Overheat.

The second phase is the hard part. This battle is modeled after Tera Raid battles, and if you've played the whole game without interacting with Tera Raids at all, it can be a little confusing. The "shields" that Terapagos put up make it so all your attacks do extremely little damage. You're supposed to attack a certain number of times before you have a chance to Terastallize your pokemon; moves that are powered up with Terastallization will punch through Terapagos' shields very easily, breaking the shields and doing a bunch of damage. It will proceed to break your Tera, then put up a new shield and the process will repeat.

Some notes, though: Carmine and then Kieran will help you during this battle but their attacks do not count towards the meter that will allow you to Terastallize again. Also, if you fail to break the shields once you Tera, you'll need to cycle through two more attacks before getting another chance to Terastallize. Finally, Terapagos will go through a few type changes during this battle. It starts off as Normal type, then becomes Psychic type, then finally Water type.

Here's the problem I had: my rule of "no Tera unless it's Tera Bug." Specifically the problem was, very few of my team actually HAD Tera Bug type. Most of them had the Tera of their secondary type. It made things very difficult. What's more, my team was pretty much hyper-offense, so it had difficulty standing up to Tera Starstorm for very long. The phase when Terapagos was Psychic type was nice and easy for my bug team, of course, but the other two phases were taking too long. The photo on the left-hand side shows how close I got to beating it anyway, but I still died because once Terapagos' HP hit zero IT STILL ATTACKED ONE MORE TIME, killing my Slither Wing and whiting me out. I was confused and angry but I believe the reason this happened is because Terapagos' battle is based on the Tera Raid battles, and this can happen during Tera Raids-- bosses can get a final attack off even after their HP has been depleted. (I'm not sure why)

Eventually I gathered enough Bug tera shards to turn my Slither Wing's Tera type into Bug, because I needed more pokemon on my team who could Terastallize and break the shields. This made it much easier. (Also, specially defensive Araquanid so my entire team wasn't just sweepers certainly helped too, lol) We were able to finish the final boss of the DLCs.

^ Some clubhouse hijinks. Katy is somehow unaware I have been playing the whole game with only bug types. Also, I gave Rika one of my beloved team members, because frankly Rika deserves the world.

Lollipop the Spidops

Silk Trap/Sticky Web/X-Scissor/Counter - Leftovers

Spidops takes some patience to use. This lad has a breathtakingly slow base speed of 35, so you shouldn’t harbor any illusions that he’s going to outpace anyone anytime soon other than some rock types and little unevolved pokes. 

However, Spidops’ moveset is tailored around his low speed. He has access to moves such as Assurance or Counter, which are meant to go after his opponent regardless. He also has moves that are designed to slow down opponents and drag them down to his level. 

His signature move is Silk Trap, which is like Protect but will slow down the opponent if it’s a contact move. Thus, you can get a speed drop for free, basically. I made extensive use of Silk Trap, surprisingly. For example, when I was in a desperate situation where even my fastest pokemon could not outspeed an opponent (such as when Vivillon couldn’t outspeed to use her Stun Spore), Lollipop could get in there and slow it down enough for a Stun Spore. The move is also helpful when you’re dealing with pokes who are just a little too fast for Spidops.

Spidops was also very good at taking some hard hits. He was bulky enough that Counter was a very useful and viable move on him. This was important, because I didn’t have a ton of bugs on my team that were tanky, so his role was crucial. His bulk also meant he could almost always get Sticky Web on the field, despite being slow himself. This role was important because several of my pokes were on the slower side, and thus they needed that extra help.

When combined with Leftovers, Lollipop could get in, slow down his immediate opponent, Sticky Web for the rest of the team, and then surivive long enough either to hit with Counter or a super-effective move of my choice. Spidops has a rather wide pool of coverage moves, including Trailblazer, Brick Break, Shadow Claw, Rock Tomb, Poison Jab and Aerial Ace. With Silk Traps in between moves to regain as much lefties as possible, he can wear down his opponents and often come out on top. And when he failed to do so, he’d slowed things down enough that his teammembers could easily come in and finish the job.

Favorite Alternative Moves: Trailblaze, Rock Tomb, Toxic Spikes

Pixel the Vivillon

Energy Ball/Hurricane/Stun Spore/Quiver Dance - Wise Glasses

I have a bit of a soft spot for Vivillon, it being one of my favorite bug pokes in general. I’ve especially felt close to it after my Gen 6 All-Vivillon challenge run. It’s a plucky pokemon, and while its base stat total is not particularly high by any means, it manages to get a lot more done than perhaps it should. That is to say, Vivillon can really punch above its weight and surprise you.

In the early game, Vivillon’s speed meant it outpaced nearly all its foes. Armed with a selection of Powders, Vivillon could then serve the extremely utilitarian functions of Stun Spore to make a dangerous foe manageable for the rest of my team, or she could instead choose to poison and use Protect to stall out her opponents. Either way, her speed meant that for a large portion of the game, she was essential to the team in her role. Also, Vivillon learns high basepower moves very early on when compared to other species, which meant in the early game, she also was my go-to special attacker. She also was fast enough to run from wild pokemon, haha, so she was often in the lead slot of my party, both for coping with wild pokemon and with trainer battles.

When you reach mid-game in Scarlet, you gain access to other bug special attackers, namely Frosmoth and Rabsca, who both boast higher Spec Attack and tankier Special Defense. However, Vivillon still outspeeds both of those teammates, so her ability to get in and fire first meant she remained important on the team. Even when facing opponents with terrifying 4x effective Rock moves, Vivillon often could kill them first and succeed where Frosmoth would fail. 

During the late-game, you would think a pokemon that’s found in the Route 1 tall grass would start to struggle. But Pixel remained useful all the way to the end, largely due to the wonderful STAB Hurricane + Compound Eyes + Decent Speed combination. When she picks up Hurricane in the late game, she’s scoring essential kills still, and she also had important coverage moves such as Energy Ball to deal with Ground/Rock/Water pokemon. It does sound strange a Flying/Bug type was still going toe-to-toe with Ground and Rock types, but like I said from the start-- Vivillon can punch above its weight and really surprise you. 

Favorite Alternative Moves: Poison Powder, Protect, Psychic, Hyper Beam

Hunter the Lokix

Lunge/Sucker Punch/Throat Chop/Axe Kick - Black Glasses/Silver Powder

Hunter was my second physical attacker. While Spidops is a physically and specially defensive tank (and uses his bulk as a weapon, such as with Counter), Lokix is about being fast and hitting hard. He had synergy with the rest of the team because the others could do the main bulk of the work, fall, and Hunter could come in as a guaranteed revenge-killer, or the others could run more support roles (Powders, Screens, Weather, Tailwind, etc) and then he could come in, terastallize, and just sweep. Because his defenses were pretty low, it was all about setting Hunter up in a position where he can wreck face uninhibited. He also does not have a particularly large coverage movepool, so he could not always just sweep a foe’s team-- which was why he often ended up revenge killing after a teammate had done most of the damage with their SE moves.

That said, Hunter did have access to one kind of coverage move that proved especially essential-- fighting moves. Low Kick, Double Kick, and Low Sweep were important for hitting a huge chunk of opponents. Late-game, he is one of the very few pokemon to learn the brand-new Axe Kick, which was his most prized move for taking out opponents that would otherwise probably completely wreck me. 

It should also be noted that for most of my playthrough, Hunter was the fastest poke on my team. As such, I gave him Scary Face and that occasionally played a vital role when Vivillon couldn’t outspeed and use her Stun Spore. I should also note he was the one I tererastallized the most, for the added boost on his bug attacks but also to avoid foes wanting to exploit his Dark-type weaknesses.

Favorite Alternative Moves: Scary Face, Detect (for tox stall)

Snowglobe the Frosmoth

Protect/Reflect/Ice Beam/Infestation - Never-Melt Ice

For most of the game, Frosmoth was my biggest Special Attacker. She was much slower than Vivillon but her Special Defense was much higher, so in some situations, Vivillon prevailed, but in others, I needed Frosmoth if I had to punch harder. In those cases, she could sometimes absorb a special hit and live long enough to clear her foe out. However, she was pretty frail defensively, so often her teammates needed to slow opponents down first to help her out. Once they did, Snowglobe did very important work. She was quite specialized and focused pretty much on just getting her Ice hits, but that was quite frankly just fine-- Ice is fantastic offensively, especially for a bug team, taking out the very dangerous dragons, flying types and ground pokemon that were so common in Scarlet (while also not needing to keep any Bug moves on her roster, since Ice hits Grass too). 

I did play around with a few other strategies on occasion. For the Poison or Steel types I couldn’t poison, I would sometimes use Snowglobe as a pseudo-tox staller, using Infestation and screens and Protect instead. Sometimes she traded off with Pixel to combine both poison and infestation stalling. I also had Blizzard and Snowscape on her for a short stint. 

Primarily, though, Snowglobe’s job was to use Ice Beam and the rest of the time, she played support, getting Screens up, Tailwind, and the likes.

Favorite Alternative Moves: Quiver Dance, Light Screen, Tailwind

Fireball the Rabsca

Psychic/Power Gem/Bug Buzz/Earth Power - Twisted Spoon

I’m gonna be honest. I never really figured out how to use Rabsca. I think I somehow got it into my head that he was kinda frail, but that’s just not true, as his base Spec D is higher than Frosmoth’s, and his Phys D is also higher than anyone else on the team (even more than Spidops due to a Relaxed nature). Part of the issue is that he’s so gosh-darn slow, the slowest on my team (even outslowing Spidops, again, due to being Relaxed), and it made it hard for me to figure out how to best use him. I understood how to use Spidops with his slowness, but with Fireball, he kept being outsped and killed before he could do his job. I think the other issue is that Rabsca has a lot of weaknesses (six total), since Bug/Psychic is not a great type combo defensively, so he fell to a lot of moves. I think those issues, plus me getting it into my head that he was kind of hard to use, made me under-utilize the poor guy for quite a while. 

Which is a shame, because I do think there probably are good ways to use this poke, and he has such a cool design! He can learn Trick Room, but I didn’t really have the team composition to run Trick Room. He also can learn the new Speed Swap, which offers another option to deal with his slowness, but it was difficult to find an opportunity to use that move. I dunno. 

The most exciting thing he had going for him was he could learn Earth Power, which filled out an otherwise glaring hole in my team’s coverage moves. Being able to hit Electric and Fire types hard was great, and hitting Steel types on their typically weaker side is an added bonus. Sadly, though, Fireball wasn’t the reliable counter to Electric and Fire types that I wanted him to be. It just was a rare moment he truly could do the job I sent him out to do. 

Still. I don’t blame Fireball for that. I blame myself. I simply have yet to figure out how to best use him on the team. Hopefully I will get the hang of it during the post game.

Ra the Volcarona

Fiery Dance/Bug Buzz/Overheat/Quiver Dance - Charcoal

Ra is an interesting case, because for most of the game, he was a Larvesta. The thing about Volcarona is that it’s a late bloomer-- it evolves at the incredibly late level of 59, similar to a pseudo-legendary. And also similar to a pseudo-legendary, it has an incredibly high base stat total (550), making it the single strongest bug pokemon other than Mythicals, Megas or Ultra Beasts.

As such, I decided it would be rather boring to have Larvesta for most of my game. So I left Ra on the bench during that time, and my Vespiquen filled out my team instead. Then, when I was reaching the final gauntlet of the game, I took Larvesta back and did some power-levelling so I could place him back on the team. The “Let’s Go” feature is very handy for power-levelling, as it turns out (as well as a trusty Lucky Egg, of course). I sat there and let Ra go to town on a patch that had lots of Psychic and Grass pokemon. And then, in the middle of the Elite Four battles, Ra finally evolved. 

It’s honestly probably for the best that Volcarona evolves so late. If I had him on my team early on, things would have been far too easy, I suspect. This was supposed to be a challenge run, after all, not a spreedrun where I sweep everything with Volcarona. When Ra finally did evolve, he was able to join the team without hogging all of the limelight. I used him for important moments but I don’t feel I over-relied on him. And personally, that’s the experience I prefer. I enjoy a team that supports each other, rather than doing everything with a single poke. As mighty as Volcarona is, he is intensely vulnerable to Rock moves, and his movepool for coverage moves is pretty shallow. So he really does benefit from his teammates making up for his weaknesses. 

From a technical perspective, though, Ra was definitely my ace on the team. 

Ruby the Vespiquen

Roost/Air Slash/Venoshock/Toxic - Shell Bell

Hold on, seven pokemon?? That’s illegal! Well, it seemed unfair to not include Ruby, since she was such an important member of my team through most of the run. I caught her extremely early on, in the South Province at level 9 when she was just a Combee. (Yes, you could find Vespiquens alongside the Combee in this area, but I have a level cap if you’ll recall, so I wanted to start off with a low level). She was the third member of my team, so yeah, she was with me a very long time. 

Vespiquen is a very tanky build; slow and focused on both physical and special defense. As such, she was great to have around when I needed someone who could absorb some hits. She’s also a mixed attacker, so she has a lot of versatility. Her movepool lets her capitalize on that, offering coverage in the form of Sludge Bomb, Venoshock, Toxic, Toxic Spikes, Power Gem, and Hex; she can thus work offensively but also set up hazards and tox-stall her enemies, with Roost really enhancing her stalling tactics. Ruby remained very dependable throughout my run, and quite frankly, having such a tanky bug helped a lot when so many of my teammbers were awfully squishy when it came to defenses. Her Power Gem was a very exciting coverage move for a team that just did not have very many, and her poison moves came in handy for Fairy types, such as Ortega and Penny’s ace. 

Favorite Alternative Moves: Attack Order, Power Gem

Team Fun Facts

This team was pretty terrible when it came to its defensive type coverage. Bug types have three weaknesses, and the team did almost nothing to cover for it; we were all very vulnerable to Flying and Fire for 99% of the run (when Volcarona joined, he offered a single Neutral to Fire) and we were incredibly weak to Rock the entire run. As such, our best defense was a strong offense, wiping out dangerous pokes before they had a chance to sweep through our team.

Clavell

I actually needed to do this battle a few times, because Fire Dog is scaaaary for my team and I needed to figure out how to deal with it. Also, it started to rain the second Clavell sent his ace out, Quaquaval, soooo yeah, my first run was kinda screwed at the end there. I nailed things down quickly enough, though. 

I led with my Spidops (Lollipop) to get Sticky Web and two layers of Toxic Spikes up, and then stall out the Oranguru’s Reflect. Insomnia rarely comes in handy as an ability but it made Lollipop tailer-made to be the lead in this fight, since Yawn/Dream Eater is Clavell’s entire strat here. When Lollipop goes down, my Lokix (Hunter) finishes things off.

I gave my Rabsca (Fireball) an Occa Berry to survive Houndoom’s Fire Blast, but I suspect the AI cheats when it comes to these berries and they will avoid using a Fire move even though Clavell couldn’t possibly know my hold item. Anyway, Fireball could survive one Dark Pulse and get off an Earth Power before going down. Thankfully, Hunter is always around to mop things up at the end.

Naturally, the Abomasnow died to my Larvesta (Ra), but not without getting snow & and annoying Aurora Veil up first. I tried using Larvesta on the Polteageist, but that was a bad idea since it was just setting up Shell Smashes (+ Weak Armor). Hunter can take out the ghost before it becomes a menace, but he has to take a Will-o-Wisp as punishment, which kinda sucks. 

On Amoongus, I have the luxury of using Tailwind and Reflect before killing it with my Frosmoth (Snowglobe). The mushroom does absorb the t-spikes though, because I am silly and forgot it could do that. The ace is left, and while it bodied me in previous fights with Aqua Step (the speed boost is awful!), this time my Vivillon (Pixel) prevailed with her Miracle-Seed-boosted Energy Ball. Pretty sure the Reflect is what saved us, because she could take that first Aqua Step and fire off a second Energy Ball (she still outsped, thankfully) and get the foe into the low red before perishing. Hunter coud then step in and Sucker Punch for the win.

Penny

Penny was certainly the easiest fight in the late-game gauntlet when I played the game the first time around. However, with a team of six bugs it’s a little bit harder, mainly because Flareon has Flare Blitz. I want to point out my team composition does a very poor job of balancing out our weaknesses. We have massive Fire, Rock and Flying weaknesses across the entire team. So that means we have to be pretty careful about these glaring weak spots.

I used my usual Spidops lead for Sticky Web and t-spikes, except instead of letting him faint I switched into Hunter to take care of the Umbreon. I needed Lollipop to send back out against the Flareon. I was hoping I could slow it down enough with Silk Trap for my remarkably slow Fireball to outspeed. Sadly, this is not the case, it still was not enough, but luckily the Flareon used Baby-Doll eyes first, so Fireball still could use his Earth Power. That plus the recoil from Flare Blitz took it out. 

Leafeon was not an issue, of course (one Ice Beam and byebye). I knew Pixel’s Energy Ball didn’t do much against Vaporeon’s bulk, so I tried to use Hunter instead. It took a while, to be honest, but hacking away with Axe Kicks and terastallized-Lunges eventually worked (I got a lucky confusion and it hit itself a few times too). Jolteon died to Snowglobe’s Ice Beams, and Snowglobe could handle a little Thunder. 

Finally, Sylveon. I brought back my Vespiquen, Ruby, just so she could use her Venoshock on the poisoned Slyveon. The hit did . . . surprisingly little, but she chipped away enough that the ace fell at the same time Ruby fainted. And thus, we completed the Team Star storyline. Next up, the Elites!

Rika

The ground-type Elite was not somebody I expected would give me any trouble, but there were a few tight spots. Donphan had Stone Edge, but fortunately was too slow to be a real threat for long. Camerupt was doable with Fireball’s Occa berry still in hand-- it melted to Earth Power. Really, the only hiccup was Dugtrio. Which seemed to have a supernatural, utterly ridiculous number of Flinches with its Rock Slides. That plus all the moves it evaded due to Sand Veil was truly tiresome. This did force a re-start of the match, but with identical strategy. Just this time, ever-so-slightly fewer Flinches. After that, the poop fish died to Snowball’s Ice Beams easily enough.

Poppy

This elite’s lead folded to two of Ra’s Flame Wheels. Corviknight is much spookier. I got a really good hit with Ice Beam, and that plus the recoil damage from Brave Bird meant that Hunter could Sucker Punch to finish things. Magnezone went down to Fireball’s Earth Powers without any trouble. I used Lollipop to slowly chip away at Bronzong until it yeilded. Tinkaton is intimidating, so I use Pixel to Stun Spore it, then Hunter gives it a nice Axe Kick. Hunter actually takes the Gigaton Hammer to the face pretty well. He finishes things off with a Throat Chop. 

Larry

Things start to get serious here. Lollipop’s usual tricks (Sticky Web, Toxic Spikes) won’t work here. However, Larry’s opening poke isn’t so bad; I hit Tropius with Ra’s Flame Wheel. It decides to Sunny Day (lol) and then Solar Beam (lolol) and then goes down. 

The rest are a bit trickier. I slow Staraptor down with a Silk Trap before going down to Brave Bird. Then Hunter can outspeed and Axe Kick the bird, and Brave Bird recoil takes care of the rest. The trouble is, I have to send a poke out now with no clue what Larry will pick next. He’s either gonna pick Alteria or Oricoro. I think he’s gonna choose Alteria so I send out Pixel.

OOPS, wrong answer. He sends out the electric Oricoro. I use Ra as death fodder to get a clean switch to Fireball. I Power Gem, which does a respectable chunk, but then go down to two Air Slashes. Snowglobe can finish things off, but she cannot outspeed so she takes a bug chunk of damage in the process. A scary sight when I am now down to my last two pokes. It was going to take a miracle to clear things now.

Alteria is out next. I send out Pixel to use Stun Spore. I knew I had to slow it down enough for my Frosmoth. I get a very lucky first-turn paralysis, so I’m free to try and attack it. I use Hurricane and also get lucky with some Confusion (although it doesn’t kick in). I’m hit with Flamethrower and survive. Hurricane looks to be a three-hit KO. But there’s no way I can survive another Flamethrower. 

But Alteria gets paralyzed again. And Pixel finishes it off with two more Hurricanes.

Larry’s ace is Flamigo. Pixel is still around to perform her most vital task, using Stun Spore. She then goes down to Liquidation. Snowglobe is my last, and she’s a little under half health. Flamigo has Brave Bird, so Snowglobe needs to one-shot with Ice Beam to win. I wasn’t very familiar with Flamigo and didn’t realize how much of a glass canon it was, so I was so relieved that Slowglobe outsped and clinched the victory.

I fully admit that if Pixel hadn’t gotten lucky with paraylsis and soloed the Alteria, we would have lost, because Flamigo would have outsped my Frosmoth. (Also, Frosmoth probably could have one-shot Oricoro, so there would have been no need to sack Rabsca and Ra, and in that case, I would have been on much better footing to fight Alteria. Still, paralysis hax prevailed in the end!)

After this battle, the very very long wait was finally over . . . Larvesta evolved.

And what an opportune moment it was. We would need all the help we could get in our bid for becoming a Champion.

Hassel

Our team now at levels 57 - 59, we faced down the Dragon master. Lollipop led with his usual Sticky Web before perishing to the Noivern. Lucky for me, after I sent Slowglobe in, we got the Air Slash 5% miss, and thus got rid of Noivern cleanly. For Haxorous, I slowed it down even further with Pixel’s Stun Spore (& then died to Rock Tomb) so that Snowglobe could once again come in and get a clean kill. Flapple . . . um, I love Flapple dearly but that lad was obviously a freebie for my team. The final dragon, though, was Baxcaliber, an Ice Dragon with a terrifying new move, Glaive Rush. However, the good news was that all Gym Leaders and Elites in this game choose to terastallize their ace right away. So Baxcalibur became pure Dragon type, and Snowglobe had no trouble taking him down. This fight certainly made me thankful for the ice moth.

Geeta

To be perfectly frank, Geeta’s team was not the scariest team for me to face. In fact, it was almost trivial. Her Espathra was easy pickings for an all-bug team. Hunter crushed her with Lunge (she tried to use Dazzling Gleam on me, but I had  terastallized and lost my weakness to it, so it was shrugged off). Hunter destoryed the Veluza and the Gogoat just as easily. The weird-looking Kingambit wasn’t going to survive an Overheat from a Volcarona, and an Avalugg certainly wasn’t going to be an issue either. The only actual threat was the ace, Glimmora. I had just Fiery Danced on the Avalugg and had a Sp Attack boost I didn’t feel like wasting, so I stayed in on the Glimmora just for funsies. I actually got two Overheats off on the darn thing before it finally decided to use its Tera Blast. I decided I would finish things off with the pokemon most dear to me, my little Pixel.

And that was it. Right? No more battles?

Well. Almost. There were a few more still to do.

Arven wasn’t any real problem; Fireball swept most of his team, and Hunter took care of Mabosstiff. Nemona was a little harder to face because of her opening Lycanroc. In the past, I dealt with it by using Lollipop to Counter. But her Lycanroc now knew Stone Edge, and that was just a bit too much for Lollipop to handle. Eventually I decide to slap a Charti Berry on Lol that I happened to have, and it did the trick!

The last fight of the main game, of course, is AI Sada. I did some planning before going in, because this one was a genuinely challenging one. She opens with Slither Wing, and Lol got his usual Sticky Web up. Pixel can then get a clean kill with Hurricane. She sent Flutter Mane out next, and I had Hunter Throat Chop. He barely survived the Power Gem, but he did have a small sliver of health left, so he could finish with Sucker Punch. I used Volcarona on Scream Tail, testing the waters with Fiery Dance, seeing it did way too little, and then just killing with Overheat. Sandy Shocks hits pretty hard but Fireball could just barely take it out with two Earth Powers. I discovered that Brute Bonnet was the perfect time to set up, because it couldn’t do much to Snowglobe; after a Reflect and Tailwind, I cleared it out with an Ice Beam and AI Sada deployed her ace. Roaring Moon is quite a terrifying beast, especially with a Stone Edge. One Ice Beam drops him to the low red, and Snowglobe falls to the Stone Edge. With Tailwind still at our backs, Pixel can step in and end things. Once and for all.

In phase two, Arven comes out with a level 44 Scovillian and I feel a tad underlevelled with my 27-30 team. But it ends up being fine. I hit it with some Psybeams from Pixel (earlier, I didn’t realize it was super-effecitve) and some Trailblazers with Lollipop while Arven mostly uses Razor Leafs, and then finish things off with Snowglobe. I’m worried my team might get too much EXP but fortunately they only gain a level from this fight. 

This is good news, because I still have a lot of important battles I don’t want to be over-prepared for. It was time to finally face Mela, the Fire-type boss. 

However, right before the fight, I happened to see online how Rellor evolved, and I’m very glad I did. Otherwise, I might have been stuck waiting for ages for the thing to evolve on its own. Apparently, to evolve Rellor, you must “walk at least 1,000 steps with Rellor in 'Let's Go' mode and then gain a level.” However, it’s not that simple. As it turns out-- as of right now, anyway-- these steps are not cumulative. You need to walk 1000 steps with Rellor in a single session and then gain a level. If, at any point, Rellor returns to its ball during this process, the steps will be reset. This is deeply aggravating because the speed at which Pokemon follow you is pathetically slow. You can NOT run while you have them out because you will quickly outpace them and they will return to their ball. I believe this was an intentional ‘feature’ (one NPC even comments on this, how it’s ‘cute’ how the pokemon are struggling to keep up with their trainer), but boy that’s a crappy ‘feature’ to have in my opinion. Especially when a pokemon’s evolution depends upon it. 

At any rate, I hope a future patch makes Rellor’s step counter cumulative, so that it makes its evolution easier. What I did was run my top speed in a circle in a town for a few minutes-- Rellor would end up walking across the circle to keep catching up with me-- and then use a Rare Candy (because, again, leaving some town’s borders, flying, or switching out would put Rellor back in the ball and reset things). This is the method I suggest people use for now. (Also, once you evolve, don’t forget to check the moves you can Remeber. Once you evolve you may have access to new moves in that move bank.)

And here’s Fireball, the freshly-evolved Rabsca! 

Getting that evolution was very handy against Mela. After Pixel used a Rain Dance to make things easier on my team, I spent a little time softening her pokemon up and then Rabsca easily destroyed her. As it turns out, this Bug/Psychic type has very respectable Special Attack and some great (and badly-needed) coverage moves, such as Mud Shot. Mela ended up being no problem at all.

The next Team Star boss, Atticus, was a bit harder, though. Snowglobe was able to solo the Skuntank, and Lollipop almost killed the first Revavroom with Counter (and also got Sticky Web up). Hunter had to finish the Revavroom off, and then I sent Pixel out to deal with Muk. She almost got a 3-hit KO with her Psybeams but it lived on a sliver, so Hunter mopped up again. Then the ace comes out, and I try to win against the thing in a speed fight. However, no matter how many Scary Faces I can use with Hunter (plus Sticky Web!), the thing rapidly undos all our work with its Flame Charges. I opt for a different approach, getting a Reflect up with Snowglobe and then clearing it out with a few of Fireball’s Extrasensory.

After that, we walk all over Larry at his gym, which is a trivial battle. There is a Nemona battle directly afterwards, and for a moment I’m worried because she opens with Lycanroc and it might just sweep my team. Thankfully, Spidops was able to stand up to it and take it out, though. After that, it was an easy fight, no frills or tricks, just simply beating her down.

And then . . . well, and then, things continue to be awfully darn easy.

Once I worked through the trainers along the way up the mountain, the Ghost-type gym wasn’t a challenge, especially now that my Frosmoth had levelled up enough to possess Blizzard (+ Snowscape). This gym battle has the potential to be quite interesting, since it’s Doubles and since there are a lot of factors that will trigger buffs from the crowd (on both your side and your foe’s side). Despite that fact, it still didn’t give us any trouble. I was careful to clear out Banette and Greavard first, and then Toxtricity finished off its teammate Mimikyu on its own. Hunter could then easily get rid of the Ghost-Type Toxtricity.

After that, we faced the final Titan of the group, the fishies, which ended up a disappointingly simple affair, especially with Ruby’s Toxic. I should probably mention that I put Ruby the Vespiquen back on the team. I kind of decided that it felt annoying to have Larvesta on the team, since it does not evolve until level 59 and gosh that’s a long wait. Once my team ends up around those levels I’ll add my Larvesta back in again. 

Anyway, after destroying the final Titan and getting Arven the last herb to heal his dog buddy, I headed for the Psychic gym. As you might imagine, a full team of bug types did not struggle against a Psychic gym, especially since we had some warm-ups with Nemona again and some trainers in the gym test. Nemona’s opening  Lycanroc continued to be a pain to me. I was trying to Counter with my Spidops but the Rock Slide kept flinching me, god that’s annoying. Hunter finished it off though and then the rest was a breeze, as usual. We then wiped the floor with Tulip’s team and immediately headed to the final gym, Grusha’s Ice gym.

I wish I could say THAT fight was a challenge, at least, but it wasn’t. We started with his Frostmoth vs. mine, and despite the fact his was a few levels higher, my Snowglobe prevealed. I used Hunter’s Low Kick for the Cetitan, and I used Lollipop’s Counter for the Beartic, before finishing the bear off with the speedy Pixel. And then Pixel just soloed the Ice-Type Alteria, somehow?? Alteria kept trying to use Hurricane, so Pixel just kept buzzing away with Bug Buzz. After missing two Hurricanes, Alteria finally hits one, but somehow Pixel survives it pretty easily (I mean, I know there’s no STAB on it anymore, but still!) and finishes Grusha’s ace off. 

Anyway, after a reluctant photo with Grusha, we had finished all of the Gyms, without even breaking a sweat. But before moving on to the Elites, we still had a few Team Star bosses to clean up.

The fight with Ortega, the Fairy Boss, is fortunately a little less cut-and-dried, so there’s more to talk about. We headed straight to him and went right into the thick of it. Lollipop opened with Sticky Web and then I tried to use Trailblazer to kill the Azumarill. It was a bit slow going, but because Azumarill kept spamming Bounce, it wasn’t so bad-- I could simply Silk Trap on the second turn of bounce, attack with Trailblazer again, rinse and repeat. This was fine until apprently Ortega FINALLY grew bored with it and used Aqua Tail instead, taking Lollipop out. I sent my Vivillon out to finish off the water bunny with her freshly-learned Psychic. 

Then we had Wigglytuff to deal with. At first, I tried Hunter out with my OWN Bounce, but while it did land a very nice paralysis, the damage output was not gonna hack it. I switched into Fireball and a couple Extrasensories did the job fine. Next was Bread Dog, so I took a little time with my Frosmoth to set up, using Reflect and Tailwind and then taking out the dog with a couple Ice Beams. The Starmobile is last, of course. I manage to get it down to half health with two Ice Beams before going down. Then I send Ruby out, and I still was not clear on the Starmobile’s ability so I tried to Toxic but it failed, unfortunately. Roby gets off two Venoshocks and the foe falls into red health before she goes down. 

Now, I still had Hunter and Fireball waiting in the wings, but I have been waiting WEEKS to try this strat out, so I ended in style. I sent out Pixel and used a Normal-Gem boosted Hyper Beam to obliterate Ortega’s poor little truck for good.

The last of the Team Star bosses was the Fighting-type leader. But with my team, I had plenty of options to exploit Fighting type’s weaknesses. Ruby’s Air Slash and Pixel’s brand-new Hurricane (and THIS is why I made sure at the start of the game to pick up a Scatterbug with Compound Eyes, for this single move) could make pretty quick work of things, even if the foe’s team was five levels higher than us. In no time, we’d cleared out the last of Team Star.

I had an issue, though. Or perhaps not an issue exactly, but I was annoyed with how I had no real coverage moves across my entire team. So I set out to hunt down more TMs and fight just a few more trainers along the way, hoping I could get a useful Ground move, maybe. I traveled very, very far for somebody who only had the ability to dash, all over Paldea. But my search proved fruitless. I found TMs, sure, but no useful ones that any of my pokes could actually learn. Along the way, I also captured a Larvesta and a Rellor in the desert, but their levels were too high, so I refused to use them for the Electric gym, considering my rule of a level cap.

All right, then. I guess we’ll do this the hard way. I used a strategy that didn’t require supereffective moves. Opening with my Frosmoth, Snowglobe, it could take out the Wattrel with a single Icy Wind. I set my Vivillon up with Protect and Poison Powder, to use the tried and true poison-stall approach on the Bellibolt. Switched to Hunter to burn more poison turns because frankly, the unevolved little guy wasn’t going to contribute in this particular battle anyway; he burns a few turns. Switch back to Snowglobe to stall the rest and finish off Bellibolt.

Next up was a Luxio, and Vyn the Kricketune ate Sparks to the face and survived long enough to charge up his Fury Cutters and take it out (despite the Intimidate). What a champ. Mismagius is this gym’s ace, and my plan was to use Lollipop to slow it down with a String Shot before going down. Mismagius just opens with Confuse Ray though, so I try and get some X-Scissors off too-- and to my surprise I actually do, since she’s only using Hex. Lollipop performs above and beyond expectation, now in red HP, and I decide to reward him by letting him see the end of this fight. I switch him out so he doesn’t faint and sack Vespiquen, then let Snowglobe finish the ghost off.

I was pleased with how my team performed this fight, they were real troopers; Pixel surviving a Spark to help stall poison, Vyn soloing the Luxio with just Fury Attack, Lollipop putting in real work. Proud of them all!

After this fight, we were jazzed and went straight to the second Titan, which I thought would be difficult. But unfortunately, the first phase died to a single Icy Wind from Frosmoth (after Pixel used her Stun Spore). In the second phase, I open with Lollipop since Pixel had fainted. I wear the bird down enough and don’t quite take it out before Lollipop faints, so I decide to switch in little tiny Hunter to see if he can soak up all the sweet EXP. To my amusement, this works and he can land the final hit.

(As an update, at this time my team are levels 21 - 23. Slowglobe has NeverMeltIce, Lollipop has Silver Powder, Vyn has Leftovers, Pixel has Wise Glasses, and Ruby has a Shell Bell. Our team is fully evolved except for Hunter.)

After felling this Titan, I decide to try out the next one right away, and head over to the Steel worm. To my disappointment, it falls just as easy, and that was from just bashing away at it with not very effective moves.

C’mon, man! This is supposed to be a challenge! I march right over to the fourth Titan in the desert, praying it won’t be as easy as the others, and thankfully the thing creams my whole team. Okay. So at least some of the Titans will be difficult. We’ll come back to Great Tusk a little later.

I chose to fight some more trainers and head towards the Water gym. We were slightly underlevelled for it, but I fancied my odds in the Water gym over Mela. Along the way, Hunter finally evolved!

Once again, our movesets were not very diverse on our team, but we would have to rely on strategies that worked with our limited moves. Hunter was able to solo the Veluza easily (I slapped a Coba berry on him because I remembered from my last playthrough the fish had some kind of Flying move). I knew Wugtrio was a physical attacker, so I sent out Lollipop to Counter. I got some very annoying Headbutt flinches (three in a row, ughh) and did get my Counter off but Vyn had to finish things off. The last was Crabominable, which is the only one who really gave us any trouble. We cut things a liiiitle close. Pixel Stun Spores and then I try out a Struggle Bug, and it does nothing, hah, and she goes down. I proceed to send pokes out and try moves but they hardly leave a scratch. Down goes Rellor, down goes Frosmoth. Not lookin’ good. 

I had Hunter and Vyn left. I had to decide who should go out first. Send Hunter in and Screech in the hopes Vyn can get a kill? Hmm. I looked at their stats. Hunter had the biggest-hitting move with Lunge and slightly more attack than Vyn. So I send Vyn out first to do as much damage as he can, to soften the opponent up. He gets a few lucky turns of paralysis so he can attack before succumbing to a single, sparkle-powered Crabhammer like the others. Hunter comes out to finish things off with his Lunge.

Except Crabominable lives on a single sliver of health. I am devastated and watch the ineviable Crabhammer fall to end my fight.

. . . except, somehow, Hunter lives on just as small a smidgen.

I guess we both got low rolls that turn. Thankfully, Hunter can of course finish things off. 

Also, I NOW realize I could have Terastallized, but I swear I was not doing this to make it more dramatic, I just am stupid and I forgot Terastallizing was a thing I could do too, lol.

After this fight, it’s time for Vyn to retire, since I wanted a Volcarona. I bred one, since I kept catching ones that had lousy natures. While I raised Larvesta, I came across a Tera Raid battle that had a Rellor with a Fire Terastal type. Fun fact! Dung beetles were revered by the Egyptians, and they felt the way they rolled their balls of dung along the ground reflected the sun’s journey across the sky each day. And, in fact, dung beetles probably use the sun’s location (and possibly the moon, as well) to help them orient themselves as they travel. As such, these comparisons make a Fire-type Rellor very sensible! Admittedly, I chose to not Terastallize other types, so he’d never get to actually use it, but it still was cool to me so I decided to raise him anyway.

While raising my new team members, I ran into a trainer in Tagtree Thicket with a team that was tough for me-- Jumpluff, Pupitar, and Umbreon, mainly because Jumpluff is such a fast poke with Flying STAB moves and Stun Spore immunity. I had to slow it down with Lollipop’s Silk Traps so my Frosmoth could get a clean kill. I also put the new TM Trailblazer on Lol to take out the Pupitar, which worked like a treat. It’s a good coverage move for him because it increases the user’s speed after use, which is great because Spidops is very slow and is kind of built around either capitalizing on or coping with its low speed (with Silk Trap, Sticky Web, Assurance, Counter, etc). 

In this gen, as with all pokemon games, we are forced to have our first battle with our starters. But after that, we are free to ditch the starter and catch our first wild-caught beauties, who we shall treat as our true starters for this game. Our rival Nemona leads us to Baby’s First Pokemon Route and we are set free to catch stuff.

Fortunately for us, Nemona gave us a lot of balls, because I'm gonna be picky. I wanted to choose pokemon with good natures. I also wanted the proper Abilities. I spent around half an hour or so hunting and catching things until I found the lucky chosen ones: an Adamant Tarountula (Increase Attack, Decrease Sp Attack) which I named Lollipop and a Timid Scatterbug (Increase Speed, Decrease Attack) with Compound Eyes, which I named Pixel. Nemona was perhaps getting bored waiting for me, but we finally moved on with our tour of Paldea; we had a lot of sight-seeing to do. Which included a random angsty teen giving me a gigantic dragon motorbike. Look, I know this run is about the bugs, but I need to show you a photo of my son anyway. I love him more than anything and will protect him with my life.

Now, the first hour of this game is sort of a giant tutorial + cutscenes/story, so there are not a lot of challenges early on, other than the occasional Youngster with a Houndour. However, there is one tricky battle we must pass before moving the rest of the game forward, and it comes when you’re about to enter the gates to Paldea’s largest city-- Nemona steps in and wants a quick second battle. And she has a few surprises to throw your way; a second member to her team already, and a surprise Terastallization to boot. 

Because I chose Fuecoco as my starter, Nemona’s starter was Sprigatito, and that one wasn’t really a problem. The trouble was her Pawmi, which only knew Thunder Shock and was boosted with sparkle power. After levelling my team up to 9 and equipping them with Oran berries, it still was not quite enough to survive. I wasn’t sure what to do, because I scoured the area and picked up all the TMs I could, but my team could use none of them. I didn’t have a lot of options so early on. However, I finally discovered a solution while fooling around. I could make a TM that was actually relevent to my team: Struggle Bug. My Tarountula already knew the move, but my Spewpa normally would need to wait for level 12 and its final evolution to acquire it naturally. By teaching it early, it was the bit of edge that I needed. With a string shot and a bunch of Struggle Bugs, which thankfully decreased Pawmi’s special attack, my team managed to squeak by.

After that, there’s our first run-in with Team Star, but that was not anything noteworthy. And then we complete Act One. Before Act Two, which is the game proper, I buy some cute clothes and pick up a Silver Powder for Lollipop, and then they let me lose on the world.

I choose to start West. Immediately I run into more bugs and add them to my team, a Kricketot and a female Combee. I name them Vyn and Ruby. My Spewpa evolved into Vivillon as well. Our first gym, the bug gym, is destroyed without breaking a sweat. It was actually pretty pitiful. It makes me sad when these games make the bug gyms so easy, because I know bugs can put up a proper fight when you do things right. Alas, Katy is added to the list of weak bug users. Still, I admit seeing all the people in that town enjoying the company of bug pokemon is absolutely adorable. Also, Katy’s character design’s pretty cute too.

The next gym is a grass gym, so to no one’s surprise, this one’s not exactly difficult for us either. Kricketune’s powered-up Fury Cutter mowed his team down with ease.

After the first two gyms being such a cakewalk, I hold out hope that the first Titan, a Rock type, will present a challenge. Alas . . . Klawf falls to Vivillon’s Struggle Bugs anyway. Did he even have a rock move? A single rock would have obliterated my Vivillon, but it never came. 

In Cortondo, the bug town, there’s a child who wants me to trade a Flabébé for his Snom. I thought I was being all smart by taking note of this and deciding to hunt down a Flabébé right away. This was a very time-consuming and difficult quest for me, because it was hard to read the Pokedex map indicating where they spawned, and then traveling to that location and searching the area. Nothing was showing up so I looked up where I could buy a meal that would give me a boosted Fairy Encounter power, then tracked all the way back to search some more, and still couldn’t find it. I was about to give up when finally I see a little Floette in the corner of my eye. So I capture it and then I need to breed it, so I go catch another fairy to breed it and then have a picnic and wait for the egg, and then hatch the egg, and then go trade it . . .

Then I decide I don’t like the Snom’s nickname so I need to breed the Snom I received, and that takes MORE work, because they won’t breed and I need to find a meal with Egg Power 2, which is in a town very far away, but finally I succeed and I am happy with my little Snom. “Good thing I noticed this trade! It must be the only way to get Snom in this game,” I think to myself.

. . . we’re not gonna talk about it ok, just pretend I was right

ANYWAY, during all that madness I also caught a Nymble for our team (named Hunter) and did a little work fighting some trainers. Then I decided to head for the first of the Team Star bosses-- Giacomo. Since he was a Dark type user, once again I did not expect much of a challenge here. However, it actually took some work. My team at the moment was still mostly unevolved, except for Vivillon, Spidops and Kricketune. Spidops takes time to truly hit his stride, though, so in the early game, Vivillon and Kricketune really were the MVPs. Pixel took care of the Pawniard (the Defiant boosts were annoying, but we coped) and then Vyn was bulky enough to have plenty of time to power his Fury Cutter up. (Oddly, the Revavroom is unaffected by Sing for some reason) This is how the team fared after the fight:

(please ignore the fact that my character looks like she just stepped in dog doo)