Team Planning

[Andrew]

So, do any of you plan your team for when you play Pokemon games?

The first time I swapped and changed and tried out new Pokemon. I kept Blastoise and Kadabra till the end (Surf, Hyrdro Pump, HYPER BEAM & Bubblebeam kthnx)

But since every game I've planned more and more to get the most out of my Pokemon. I enjoyed playing through with my poison team once.

For SoulSilver I've already decided on most of my potential team. I'm going with:

Jynx
Breloom
Drapion
Rotom
Typhlosion
& Octillery.

The only one I've used before being Typh, and I haven't done a good job with him previously.

So, do you plan, or no?

If yes, who are you using for the next game?

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

Personally I don't plan my teams much. I have a vast variety of Pokémon which I use in battles (around 60 right now). I just put them randomly together, just making sure the weaknesses are somewhat covered.

I find nothing more boring then planning ahead all attacks of the Pokémon so they match and assist each other and form a team of out of them. You always end up seeing more or less the same Pokémon in battles that way.

I even made a team out of six Fire Pokémon once and won as many times as I've lost in online battles.

[DivineAll]

I often do plan out my teams beforehand before playing most Pokémon games. However, I usually plan out my team depending on which Starter I'm getting and, sometimes, the Legendary Pokémon that are available.

For Soul Silver, I'm going to have pretty much the same team I had in the original Silver, slightly modified and without Lugia, for a bit more of a challenge this time through and to diversify my team so that no one Pokémon has the same type as another.

Typhlosion
Ampharos
Espeon
Lapras
Crobat
Machamp/Machoke

I'm not entirely sure if I'm evolving Machoke because I don't know anyone outside this forum who's willing to trade back with me.

[Heald]

I plan my team, to a certain degree. If I was blissfully unaware of the meta-game that I am now aware of thanks to the internet, I wouldn't really plan at all. I usually try to have a mix of balanced, powerful Pokemon (I like Psychic, Steel, Fighting in particular) as well as Pokemon I think are cool (like MOFOING TROPIUS OH MY GAWD TROPIUS GUYZ). I invariably always keep my starter in my team, purely because I want it to be involved in the battles with my rival, although I've never really liked any of the starters, with the exception of Chimchar, Totodile, Mudkip, and of course the original three.

[Jeff]

I don't usually plan my teams, maybe some of the Pokemon on it, but not all 6.

I can definitely expect to use Feraligatr, since I'll be starting with Totodile again, and I also always use a Crobat, since it's easy to come by, and pretty good in-game.

[Telume]

I usually just plan the starters, the other pokemon get the slot as I catch them.

[Blademaster]

I plan in the sense that I go "Hey I wonder what it'd be like training this thing...?" on occasion and try to get a good balance of types. That's how I did my last run of Pokemon Fire Red, anyway. I think my final team was Blastoise, Crobat, Parasect, Dragonite, Raticate for HM's, and some throwaway I can't remember.

[Master Rudy]

I've never planned out my teams in the sense of wanting this or that. Typically what I do when starting a game in a new gen is start of fairly basic. I try to get at least one of the following types: fire, grass, water, electric, dark and psychic. That way I can get through the game in decent order and then when I actually start with link battles I'm decently covered. Following the Elite Four is when I usually start to expand the Pokémon I use in battle. As for HG/SS I couldn't tell you what my final team could potentially look like past the fact that I'm mostly likely going to start off with Totodile once again.

[Andrew]

I generally try plan ahead because I know what new Pokemon I want to use and try and get them ASAP to raise up.

[Telume]

I don't plan my teams too much mostly because if I do I might end up seen something I want in-game and having to end up raising it later.

[Houndoom_Lover]

I never really plan out much. I tend to rotate Pokemon between evolutions so I can fill a Pokedex :3

[DarkestLight]

I never plan. I just catch all the Pokemon for pokedex filling purposes, and usually end up with like 3 or 4 of my first 10 encounters as the ones that make it all the way through. I just catch everyone I wanna train and set them in a different box.

[Andrew]

After Silver I gave up on completing the Pokedex. Too much work for too little payoff.

[Telume]

After Silver I gave up on completing the Pokedex. Too much work for too little payoff.

Not only that but after Gen II it became almost impossible. Of course now it's a lot easier because of Nintendo WFC, the downside is that you can't tell if pokemon are hacked or legit.

[Master Rudy]

As far as bragging rights are concerned the Pokédex can be fun. However as some of you have pointed out it's damn near impossible at this point to actually do it in a legit manner. Between legendaries that are a pain to catch, limited Master Balls, multiple games each gen, breeding, link trading, Wi-Fi trading, GBA to DS transfers, special "one time only!" events, ect, ect, ect.......well quite frankly the games pretty much BEG to be Sharked!

Hacking the game isn't worth it I think. I say enjoy the game and don't beat yourself up too much if you miss Legendary X in location Y. At this point there's so many Pokémon that you would have to be insane to be willing to reset the game multiple times for the sole purpose of getting every last Pokémon. There's only one or two per gen that I'd be willing to go to that much trouble for. Plus in the event that you do happen to fill in the 490+ pages on the Pokédex then what's next? Gen 5 will most likely bring about another 100 into the fold and at this point if I know Game Freak well enough then I'm willing to bet 100% Pokédex completion will be once again impossible until Gen 6. First Gen was the only one where 100% was even possible with only those games. Ever since GSC you've needed either a game from the previous gen or had to wait for a later game/sequel in order to get 100%.

Don't get me wrong the games are still fun in many ways. But in case you guys haven't noticed even Nintendo has dropped the whole "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" crap. I haven't seen or heard that slogan in regards to anything Pokémon related in quite some time. That right there should tell you something.

[Telume]

The reason the dropped the slogan was also because even owning 1 of EACH pokemon, it was impossible for a pokemon "master" to take care of 493 pokemon. Another thing is they never really gave a clear definition of what a "master" is. Most people assumed that it was catching every single pokemon, and tbh the last time I did that legit was in RBY (even using the Mew Glitch, which I consider legit since you didn't technically shark or change the state of the game in any way).

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

I always go for a team of four pokemon and two versatile HM slaves.

I'm not that big of a 'master' trainer, in the sense of longduring games. I tend to defeat everything in the game and then start over as quickly as possible, using four new pokemon. I also never train something that I won't be using until the end. Seems futile to me.

Pick a good starter if I haven't played the game before, otherwise I just capture a pokemon that's available in the beginning (and that I haven't used before) and use that until I can catch my second pokemon, etc.

I guess I like a limited elite =/

[DarkestLight]

GSC relied on tradebacks? I thought you could gain all 251 from those two games? Huh. I forget.

[Jeff]

The starters, Legendaries, Kabuto, and Omanyte needed to be traded from the old games. Probably others.

[Telume]

GSC relied on tradebacks? I thought you could gain all 251 from those two games? Huh. I forget.

And in terms of the USA and Europe, the GSC pokedex would never be filled legally because we never got the Celebi event like they had in Japan. You had to hack to get it.

HG/SS is supposedly making up for that though.