[GUIDE] Campaign Team Building in Pokémon Silver/Gold/Crystal

[RetroTyphlosion]

@PerchPond As someone who played Silver three times, I'd like to make some suggestions. 

Mean Look actually has no effect on the legendary beasts.  If you mean look a beast, it will just use Roar and the fight will end. The best way to catch a beast is with a Master Ball. Other than that, you need insane luck.

Lanturn is not a great waterslave as it is unavailable until Kanto. 

Marowak is a good False Swipe substitute for Scyther if you can't find one in the Bug Catching Contest.

The best options for Flyers are Fearow and Pidgeot as they are found early on in the game.

Furret should be a team essential as it learns all sorts of HMs, and can even fill all four slots with HM moves.

If you picked Chikorita and need help with the first two gyms, a commonly found Bellsprout can be traded in the first town with an NPC for a powerful Onix, which pretty much wrecks the first two gyms.

All in all, you wrote a great guide, Perch. Rep given.

[PerchPond]

(Dec 27, 2017, 10:19 AM)RetroTyphlosion Wrote: @PerchPond As someone who played Silver three times, I'd like to make some suggestions. 

Mean Look actually has no effect on the legendary beasts.  If you mean look a beast, it will just use Roar and the fight will end. The best way to catch a beast is with a Master Ball. Other than that, you need insane luck.

Lanturn is not a great waterslave as it is unavailable until Kanto. 

Marowak is a good False Swipe substitute for Scyther if you can't find one in the Bug Catching Contest.

The best options for Flyers are Fearow and Pidgeot as they are found early on in the game.

Furret should be a team essential as it learns all sorts of HMs, and can even fill all four slots with HM moves.

If you picked Chikorita and need help with the first two gyms, a commonly found Bellsprout can be traded in the first town with an NPC for a powerful Onix, which pretty much wrecks the first two gyms.

All in all, you wrote a great guide, Perch. Rep given.

@RetroTyphlosion 

I didn't know about Mean Look, thanks for the info. I guess I mix up things between Silver, Gold, Crystal and HGSS since I've played them all at various point in time.

Lanturn is great; it can be caught in route 41, Olivine City and New Bark Town in Johto by fishing for Chinchou with the Good Rod that you obtain in Olivine City after the 4th Gym in all iterations of the Johto games.

Marowak is only obtainable in Kanto so I don't think it's a good fit on a team, since it will take more time to level up to high levels by the end game to False Swipe efficently, and base 45 speed is slow for a Swiper, meaning higher levels are required to outspeed. It's also outclassed by Dugtrio, Golem, Nidoking and Donphan as a general Ground-type.

I don't consider normative statements such as "the best option", since that is relative to how you want to play the game, I only list some viable options and let people decide. Pidgeot is "the best option" if you want your flyer to give you early power and access to the move early; Dragonite is "the best option" if you don't mind catching a random Spearow or Pidgey and don't battle with it and only use it to fly, while leaving your planned flyer to be a strong force in the later parts of the game eg. Dragonite. Skarmory is "the best option" if you want to comprise the role of a pivot/bulky mon and a flyer in one, with its Steel typing.

Having a pure HM-slave like Furret with 5 other mons with more optimized movesets is just as useable as spreading the HM moves across all members of your team, depending on what you want to go for on your team.

Yes, the Bellsprout trade is rather nifty; however it poses some issues. The bonus experience that traded Pokémon recieve from battles makes it level up really fast if used alot. This is an issue because the first badge only lets Pokemon up to lvl 20 obey you in battle, which means that if u use your Onix alot, it could be above that by the second Gym, rendering it useless. Steelix is also quite bad in gen 2. Iron Tail is its only Steel STAB with 75% accuracy, it only learns a Ground move through TM and base 50 Rock Throw is its strongest Rock-move. It's also outclassed by Dugtrio, Nidoking, Donphan and Golem as a Ground type, and Skarmory as a Steel type, and Onix requires trade to evolve as well. In that case, I prefer getting a Geodude before the first gym, but the Onlix can sure work if you like it.

Thanks

[RetroTyphlosion]

I see. Thank you for your response; I appreciate it so much!!! I hope that I helped you improve your guide. I thought Lanturn was only available until Kanto, I agree, Scyther is the better False Swiper. I just used it because I hated the Bug Catching Contest. :p

-Retro

[PerchPond]

(Dec 27, 2017, 05:27 PM)RetroTyphlosion Wrote: I see. Thank you for your response; I appreciate it so much!!! I hope that I helped you improve your guide. I thought Lanturn was only available until Kanto, I agree, Scyther is the better False Swiper. I just used it because I hated the Bug Catching Contest. :p

-Retro

@RetroTyphlosion No worries, yeah thanks, I edited the part about Mean Look. It's an easy mistake since Chinchou is rather rare in the wild as well. Haha I quite like the bug contest because of how difficult it is to catch the higher end ones like Scyther and Pinsir

[PerchPond]

I've now updated this "guide" for the up and coming release of Pokémon Crystal on Virtual Console on January 26th. I'm really hyped for it, and I hope this thread will help out on your journey through Johto!

Cheers