Current Events > I'm doing a solo run in Pokemon Red with Porygon (who did nothing wrong)

(+) Yeah! (+)

After a lot of thinking while I went through Victory Road (nothing of interest happened along the way, I managed to dodge every single trainer in the cave) I think Ive come up with a strategy for the final gauntlet. Agility and Recover are permanently staying in Porygons moveset because theyre simply too important, so this leaves me with two moveslots for attacking moves and a good selection of one-use TMs to use in those slots.

For Lorelei, I replace Psybeam with Thunderbolt and I set up my Agility boosts against her lead Dewgong. 4/5 of her team is weak to Electric-type moves, and her Jynx is so frail on the physical side that Tri Attack should take it down. Then for Bruno, I replace Tri Attack with Psychic. I still need Thunderbolt for later and I do have a TM to have Porygon re-learn Tri Attack if I need it. I set up my Agility boosts against his lead Onix, 3/5 of his team is weak to Psychic-type moves (though if his Machamp has the bulk to survive a Psychic it could be a big problem) and his pair of Onix have such low Special that even neutral Psychic should take them down pretty easily.

For Agatha, Psychic alone should hopefully be enough to win because her entire team is weak to it, and I still need to keep Thunderbolt for a certain problematic Pokemon later. I dont know when (or even if) Ill be able to set up my Agility boosts because all of her Pokemon have status moves and her Golbat even has Haze to remove all of my boosts (even the Badge Boost Glitch boosts) as well. I may have to settle for 1 Agility to outspeed her Pokemon and then stop there. While there is another tactic I could use in this battle if I get really desperate (Mimic to steal Hypnosis from the first Gengar and put it to sleep to make it easier to set up Agility boosts) and I could go out of my way to grab the TM for Thunder from the Power Plant if I feel like I absolutely need to forget Thunderbolt to use that tactic, Id rather not resort to it. That tactic has worked for Jrose in a few solo runs before, but it also makes the Agatha Lottery even more luck-based, which Id rather avoid if possible.

For Lance, I replace Psychic with either Ice Beam or Blizzard. Blizzard has 90% accuracy (instead of 70%) in gen 1 for some inexplicable reason which is busted as fuck, so the substantial increase in power might be worth the 10% chance to miss. His lead Gyarados that Ill need to fight without any Badge Boosts ready is why I said I needed to keep Thunderbolt, and Id rather not have Thunders 70% accuracy adding even more randomness to the mix. After dealing with the Gyarados, I set up my Agility boosts against his first Dragonair and then hopefully everything else goes down to my Ice-type move.

For the champion battle against my rival, his lead Pidgeot (which I would set up my Agility boosts against), Rhydon, and Venusaur are all weak to Ice-type moves, so the Ice-type move I used on Lance stays. His Arcanines moveset is so bad that it wont be a threat even with just neutral moves. The problem is his Alakazam and Gyarados. Re-teaching Tri Attack or possibly teaching Double-Edge to hit Alakazam on its much weaker defense stat and trying to deal with Gyarados without a super-effective Thunderbolt (but hopefully with Badge Boosts, unlike with Lances) seems like the better choice compared to keeping Thunderbolt for Gyarados and trying to brute force Alakazam with only Special moves when it has such high Special stats and Recover.

And as a reminder: I have to win all of these battles in a row without saving between any of them, and I have to reset when I lose instead of keeping the experience from the ones I was able to beat. Porygon is level 57 going into the first attempt, plus I have 10 Rare Candies that Ive found along my journey that I can use, either for exp manipulation (to try and avoid leveling up in the middle of a battle and losing my Badge Boosts at a bad time) or simply to level up more to secure KOs that I fall barely short on. Theres also a bunch of unfought trainers left out there in Victory Road and the rest of Kanto if I need even more levels than those 10 Rare Candies will provide, but Id rather not resort to that unless I absolutely have to.

Ill start my first attempt tomorrow, so wish me luck!

First attempt = Lost to Bruno. Porygon leveled up to 59 and lost its badge boosts right before Machamp came out, then Machamp survived and hit with a super-effective Submission to KOd Porygon.

Second attempt = Lost to Agatha. Before this attempt, I trained slightly in Victory Road, so from this attempt forward Porygon will level up to 59 before Brunos second Onix instead of right before Machamp. Now Ill have Porygon use 1 Agility against the first Onix, then used the remaining 2 Agility boosts on the second Onix, that way it can KO Machamp safely. However, after that, the Agatha Lottery unfortunately whittled Porygon down with confusion damage and weak attacks, and Porygon couldnt fight through it.

Third attempt = Lost to Agatha. Her first Gengar outsped Porygon and put it to sleep right off the bat. Porygon never even got a chance to attack before being KOd.

Fourth attempt = Lost to Lance. First time successfully making it past the Agatha Lottery, but Lances Gyarados outsped Porygon and got a critical hit with Hydro Pump right off the bat. Nothing Porygon could do. Porygon leveled up to 60 right before Agathas second Gengar, but I had only set up 1 Agility so I dont think the missing badge boost actually mattered.

Will try again more later today.

https://i.imgur.com/d3F8LKP.png
Pictured: The Elite Four meeting to discuss how they are going to crush that pesky Porygon.

Fifth attempt = Lost to Agatha. This Agatha Lottery is already annoying.

Sixth attempt = Lost to Lorelei. Her Lapras had been a clean 2-hit KO with Thunderbolt this whole time, but in this battle it got a critical hit with Blizzard (and critical hits ignore stat boosts, including the badge boosts) to KO Porygon. Unlikely and unfortunate, but oh well.

Seventh attempt = Lost to Agatha. How does Jrose keep his sanity while doing these runs? He uploaded a new video today of a Krabby solo run, and he talked about having to do the Agatha battle dozens of times. Im not even in double digits yet and I already want this old bitch dead.

Eighth attempt = Lost to the champion, my rival. Made it past the Agatha Lottery and Lances Gyarados didnt crit with Hydro Pump, so it went down to a Thunderbolt after 1 Agility. I had Porygon use its remaining 2 Agility boosts on his first Dragonair, then all of his other Pokemon were cleanly 1-shot by Ice Beam despite Porygon leveling up to 61 right before Aerodactyl. Im surprised that Dragonite was 1-shot without the badge boosts. I know its double weak and all, but its also super bulky.

The battle against the rival went smoothly up until when Porygon leveled up to 62 and lost its badge boosts when he was down to just Arcanine and Venusaur. I had to Recover off damage from Arcanines Take Down until it finally used a different move, took it down, then Venusaur came out. It survived an Ice Beam and hit back with a critical hit Razor Leaf. Porygon then proceeded to MISS WITH ICE BEAM, COSTING ME THE BATTLE. Dont worry, Porygon. Its not your fault. You did nothing wrong. For those not aware, attacks coded with a 100% accuracy actually have a 1 in 256 chance to miss in the gen 1 games only due to the formula the game uses to calculate accuracy, hence why its infamously called a gen 1 miss. The only way to truly have 100% accuracy in gen 1 is to use the move Swift or use an X Accuracy on your Pokemon first, because those just straight-up ignore the accuracy formula. I went so long into this run without a gen 1 miss screwing me over, and when it finally happens, it happens when Im so close to the end.

Im done for the night. More attempts tomorrow.

I haven't seen this until now, but what's your final moveset? And why do you have Tri-Attack? Wouldn't Hyper Beam be a better STAB move with its no recharge perk if you OHKO

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/2/AAfWomAAD2Ye.png

Oh man, I can't believe you lost to a gen 1 miss. Very last move too.

NeonTentacles posted...

I haven't seen this until now, but what's your final moveset?

Porygon's "final moveset" will be Tri Attack, Ice Beam, Agility, and Recover, but due to the way I have to switch TM moves around between the Elite Four battles, I'll only be using that final moveset for the battle against the champion. I purposely went through most of the game with Psybeam as its second move to keep most of the really useful TM's (Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Psychic, Blizzard, the ability to re-teach Tri Attack if I need to forget it) available for extra flexibility during this final gauntlet. Read post 51 if you haven't already, it has more details.

NeonTentacles posted...

And why do you have Tri-Attack? Wouldn't Hyper Beam be a better STAB move with its no recharge perk if you OHKO

Only 5 PP, only 90% accuracy, it's a bit too risky if something does survive and Porygon gets caught recharging, and I'm too lazy to go to the Game Corner and either play the slot machines or mash A buying 50 coins at a time for like half an hour until I have the 5500 coins I need.

LeCh0nk posted...

Oh man, I can't believe you lost to a gen 1 miss. Very last move too.

Yep, that's gen 1 for you. The Agatha Lottery was bad enough, but having that gen 1 miss happen right at the end was just extra painful. Oh well, I'll just get back to the grind tomorrow.

Are you playing this at 4x speed?

LeCh0nk posted...

Are you playing this at 4x speed?

No. I started the run on an emulator only to use the gameshark code to change my starter to Porygon. After that, I used homebrew to insert the save file into my 3DS Virtual Console version of Pokemon Red. So the entire run has been done on legit hardware, on a legally bought version of the game, at standard 1x speed. I prefer playing on legit hardware whenever I can, plus I just prefer playing Pokemon on handhelds.

The 3DS can play gen 1-2 through VC, gen 4-5 through DS backwards compatibility, and gen 6-7 natively, plus I also have a Switch for gen 8 and the upcoming gen 9. The only generation that I don't currently own hardware to play it on and would be required to emulate is gen 3. For those, I would be playing them in probably the most cursed way imaginable to play a Pokemon game: in a GBA emulator on the Playstation Vita.

That's probably why Jrose can do Agatha a dozen+ times. 4x speed makes it so much less tedious.

This has been a fun run to follow.

Calwings posted...

probably the most cursed way imaginable to play a Pokemon game: in a GBA emulator on the Playstation Vita.

Whoa, calm down there Satan.

I do this too lmao

You got this TC, you're almost at the end!

Ninth attempt = Lost to Agatha. I got really close to beating her this time, which should be encouraging but isnt because I know its all just luck.

Tenth attempt = Lost to Agatha. Pain.

Eleventh attempt = MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

https://i.imgur.com/YWOfT0Q.png
https://i.imgur.com/t23pN2H.png
https://i.imgur.com/XaWGlHW.png

Porygon got the luck to overcome the Agatha Lottery, Lances Gyarados didnt crit with Hydro Pump, and there was no bad luck against the rival we did it! I had Porygon set up an Agility against his Pidgeot, set up 2 more against Arcanine after leveling up in the middle, and then KOd Venusaur to clinch the victory and the title of champions. Not only that, Porygon managed to complete the solo run a couple levels below the champions strongest Pokemon, which is the first time this is has occurred in any of my solo runs and is also pretty impressive for a Pokemon with a base stat total as low as Porygons. If I had made it to 12 attempts without winning, I was prepared to start using my Rare Candies, but it turns out that wasn't necessary. Of course, the Badge Boost Glitch (and the boosting move of choice being one that directly boosts its lowest stat) certainly helped offset the lower level and stats a bit, but thats just gen 1 being scuffed as it always is.

And with that, this run is over. Thank you to everyone who decided to follow along. Gen 9 will finally dawn on us with Pokemon Scarlet/Violet releasing in a couple of weeks, and for my first time playing it, Im just going to do a normal playthrough with no special restrictions and whatever Pokemon catch my interest. But after that, Ill probably pick out a Pokemon I like and do a solo run in that game too. See you all in Paldea!

Calwings posted...

Porygon then proceeded to MISS WITH ICE BEAM, COSTING ME THE BATTLE.

The Cyberduck is calibrating.

For your safety, please do not look directly at the Cyberduck.

Calwings posted...

https://i.imgur.com/YWOfT0Q.png

ASS looked directly at the Cyberduck.

Congratulations!!

I just looked up those Gen 1 sprites in 3D
Those are incredible

Why did you dodge the victory road trainers?

Unsuprised_Pika posted...

Why did you dodge the victory road trainers?

I don't like overleveling, and I was confident that Porygon could get the job done at its current level.

None of those extra levels would actually help with the core problem of the final gauntlet, which is the RNG of the Agatha Lottery. The only way leveling up would actually significantly help at all would be if I leveled Porygon enough to outspeed the first Gengar without any Agility boosts, which wouldn't be until nearly level 100 with how terrible Porygon's base speed is. Scarlet/Violet would be out by the time I finished all of that grinding, so fuck that. Aside from the Agatha Lottery, which is already a battle entirely based on RNG, my losses were all due to even more random fluke RNG like a critical hit and a gen 1 miss. I knew that as long as the RNG went my way, which it would eventually, Porygon could do it at its current level, which it did.

It's kind of funny that Porygon has such terrible speed given that he's meant to be digital.

pegusus123456 posted...

It's kind of funny that Porygon has such terrible speed given that he's meant to be digital.

It was the 90's.