Gameplay Journal Ultra Biker - Riding out in the Sun

Thanks for the bump @Vigilance, very appreciated!

Here is the current update for the long grind. The poke-pelago has blessed me with an arrival that I could not pass up (I always consider the poke-pelago a route for these and only catch the first that fits the type) a Hawlucha! So I have XP share on and Nux is beating up Ledians in a chain (finger's crossed on a shiny because why not). Made up my mind to do one capture for the Island scan and settled on a Litwick. I can really use another ghost since I lost both Gastly and Sableye

Here is the team as of right now!

 

@Bayporeon
Glad you like it! Mesmer was a ref to a rock band from Finland actually. The ones in Subnautica are nice and trippy though lol.

Here is a team update after I finally went through Aether Paradise. Dread tanked like a damn champ it went quite well! Training around the Poni Wilds a bit to get the two newest to catch up, will get myself a Sharpedo tomorrow since its the only one of the types on the Poni Breaker Coast. So we are back on track!

 

I have not played as much as I should to get the team up to snuff but here is where we are at so far.

Had a bit of a roller coaster of emotions with the captures and death. Finally caught a Carvanha (which took a considerable amount of time fishing) called him Chompy and had a fun time raising him to a Sharpedo and to lvl 48 or so. Once he was at that I decided to venture into the Vast Poni canyon at last to get to my next capture. The first freakin' trainer in there takes out a Beheeyem and I am like: "Nothing ole Chompy can't handle with a crunch or two, easy peasy."

It launched a crit signal beam and one shot Chompy in no time I gotta say, I cussed at that point. Ark finished the alien off and I moved on, grumbling to the first outside patches of grass. To my freakin surprise the first thing that popped up was not only capturable but quite rare for the area, a freakin' Jangmo-o! I very carefully caught the little guy and gave him a fitting badass aztec name (Yaotl means War in the aztec language). I have never raised one of these and so far it has been pretty neat. He ended up being Modest which was a bummer at first but at least his fancy Clanging Scales hits like a truck! I do wish they had left more mixed set options for this cool dragon.

So here is the team as I close my game for the night:

 

Here we are again... recovering from a near wipe.

Dragon trial took a heavy toll on the team. Thanks to the quick speed of both the Totem Kommo-o and Noivern many of my Pokémon were outsped even with the extra levels.
- Dread the Toxapex fell to paraflinching, Thunderpunch and Air Slash. Queue war time flashbacks of my time in gen 4 competitive *shudders*
- Yaotl sacrificed himself to give me time to heal Ark and get him back out to get the finishing blow on the totem.
- Nux got overpowered while trying to dragon pulse out the Noivern.
- Nightwish got a burn in with Inferno before falling which ended up preventing a full wipe.

After passing the trial I moved forward and took down the Necrozma/Solgaleo hybrid with just a couple hammer arms from Retsuko.

Put on the goofy space suit and headed out into ultra space to get myself a ultra wilds Pokémon. Found myself a Nuzleaf in the forest biome and headed back to Alola for some training.

It was a heck of a weekend... from what a friend told me Ultra Necrozma will be the make or break of my run (he suggested getting to at least lvl 65 on everyone) so I am working on that now.


*Note: I changed the graveyard to the Pokémon shuffle tiles, easier to space out.

 

Whew! I passed Ultra Necrozma at last...

Can't say I did it with honor lol, I cheesed it with Toxic on Ark since he was the only one that could take a hit safely and just spamming potions until the beast was down.

Poipole obtained but boxed for now since it was a gift it doesn't adhere to the rules

EDIT:
Kept going!

Spent some time training Jett up a bit then went for Mina's trial which they realllly upgraded since the first games. It was fun but stressful, Talonflame scared me pretty badly...Retsuko tanked a Brave Bird like a champ and KOed it back.

After a lot of Iron Heads from Ark the Faerie Z crystal was obtained!

Quiet day at work today so I decided to push this along and trained a bit more before facing the last Trial. Ended up a really close call, I used Jett's typing to avoid the ground Z move from Mudsdale but had nothing to KO it fast. Of course it has Stamina as an ability, so this took aaaaaaagessss. Thankfully I had lots of potions and got through it.

Whew all crystals obtained! Cleared up the fight against Gladion and went to catch what I thought was going to be my last catch: Vesper the Sneasel. While reviewing my catches and Zcrystals for the below sheet I realized... I never went to Haina Desert after beating the Ghost trial! So I doubled back and caught what should be my last capture for this run, rounding out the team to 6: Sheila the Krokorok!



So lots of grinding to get the team up to snuff for the final leg of the journey. It's been a heck of a ride.

 

Yeah it has been rough, the weakness overlap has gotten me into tight spots quite a few times. Thank you for the compliment on the graphic, it is my favorite of the runs I have done.

It was a close call, I was lucky to have Ark and have him pretty high level. That speed and type combo couldve easily ended my run.
===============
Final update before the elite 4!

The team has now been leveled to 60+ with no casualties (got a couple of crit scares but they pulled through)

I will be facing the Elite 4 a bit later this afternoon and will edit or post later tonight with the results. Send me your good luck vibes!

 

And here it is everyone... the final outcome of the run.

Our training was now complete, we ascended to the peak and after some encouragement from Professor Kukui took on our first challenger: Olivia. Figured I would start off with the easier type match up, it worked out quite well, dispatching each of her Pokémon with quick Brick Breaks from Jett as well as powerful smacks from Retsuko's Hammer Arm.

Next up I opted to go for Molayne. Had to be careful with some of his Pokémon, thankfully Klefki didn't drop any spikes before getting dropped so that helped. Metagross gave me a scare since it hits like a tank but Sheila tanked a Meteor Mash and took it down with a good earthquake. Ended with some pretty low health but thankfully I bought a crap ton of potions before leaving.

Next, the adorable and odd, Acerola. Ghost is another type that the team can deal with well so no major issues here. Retsuko used its Normal typing to avoid Palossand's Zmove and took it down with some Shadow Claws, including a nice crit to finish.

And last in the elite 4, Kahili. Now she was one that I was a bit worried about with since 3 out of the four members of the team find themselves weak to flying. Vesper has an advantage on them but is a glass cannon so it was touch and go from the start. Things were down to the wire with most of the team in the yellow/red range when she brought out the fiery Oricorio. Now I got caught with my pants down a bit with Ark out (weak to fire) but the Sheila and Jett pretty low (the only ones that can take a fire hit ok and at full should be able to tank a flying hit.) So I healed up Ark and prepared to take a fire hit, and the damn bird delivered... crit Revelation Dance the power of which surprised me...and KOed Ark. I switched to Sheila and healed her up, KOing the damn dancer bird with a big Rock Slide.

Kicking myself over this major loss I healed up the team and got ready for the finale against the champion. Freakin' Hau. Now he was the one I was proper scared of for one reason... his goddamn Alolan Raichu (okay two with his Crabominable). The zippy zappy mouse got so close to KOing everyone with Focus Blast it was not funny. Thankfully Havok tanked the last Focus Blast (surprised me since she is pretty fragile) and took the rodent down with a Brutal Swing. Crabominable was a close call. Retsuko was the only one that wouldn't get one shot I figured, thankfully her toughness was not tested yet again, she dodged the Ice Hammer and took the abomination down with a big ole' Hammer Arm. The rest of the battle went much better though I had to potion tank his Tauros (he wouldnt stop using double edge for some reason, thankfully didnt think of going for the super effective Zen Headbutt). But with one last Aerial Ace from Jett to take down Decidueye it was done.

We are now champions.

Spoiler: The final sheet.

After quite a long journey, we can finally ride out into the sunset as promised...

Epilogue:
This run has been a heck of a ride. I started it as a way of distracting myself from my grief after losing my father (an avid fan of motorcycling) and put in on pause while I worked with my mother to turn things around in the many months that followed. I picked up the run again fairly recently when I found myself with free time for the first time in months and seeing that promise I made myself so long ago. That I would finish what I started this time.

And I did.

Thank you for following me on this journey! I will be starting off another run pretty soon with a new twist for me: Randomization! Vote on how I should do this run here: https://lakevalor.net/threads/the-next-great-adventure.24386/