Pokemon Sun - 0 Exp Part 1: Early Battles (Hau, Ilima, Mr President and Hau again)

Channel:

MoogleBoss

Subscribers:

6,590

Published on January 1, 2017 5:15:29 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzPpBYIUn1k

Game:

Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016)

Duration: 9:23

2,904 views

57

Time to kick off the new year with a new challenge series! 2017 is going to be significant in that in July this year it will be 10 years of me sharing challenge videos on this website. Something special needs to be thought of and carried out this summer, possibly as a reference to how I started out?

A question to viewers reading this: for how long have you been aware of this channel?

What I've been playing ever since I found a way to set up this challenge. Having done a 0 experience challenge run in every generation of mainline Pokemon up to the 7th generation (playlist with every single video - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c1yFi5pg4zf5yWnbidDTm_l ), it was a given that I would seek ways to do the same in the brand new generation and I was eager to start the moment I found out how to do it.

I'll repeat what the idea is for those not in the know. A 0 exp run is a variant of the low-level challenge that is a popular self-imposed restriction when playing RPGs. At the end of the battle, the surviving Pokemon on the player's side gain either no experience or a very negligible amount that will never result in any level-ups taking place. As a consequence, the Pokemon at your disposal will never grow, growing obsolete after a short while (with some exception; killing machines like XY's Mega Lucario stay relevant for a long time, while utilitymons with Sturdy or Prankster can contribute in spite of their stats).

In a 0 experience run, the specifics require the player to constantly shuffle the party as wild Pokemon grow too underlevelled to continue performing well, meaning the player needs to put in a lot of extra work catching the right new ones for the challenges ahead. I make things a little worse by taking an OCD approach to things that are irrelevant to completing the challenge, like spending too much time to capture a mon with the right nature and/or IVs. In the 1st run I did in Silver, I captured all three roaming dogs (!) and ensured their IVs would be satisfactory, but then never used them in the end (to my defence however, that was before I decided no legends would be used in 0 exp runs).

It is currently not possible to set up a run like this without some form of cheating or hacking.

Very early on, I needed to choose my version and also my starter. Sun was an obvious choice, as I would be getting Alola-Ninetales with its potential for Snow Warning Aurora Veil utility, but Cottonee and Passimian also seemed like big boons that a Moon run would be missing while not offering much in return. The starter's a little tricky. I would be facing Hau a lot of times, none of them expected to be particularly hard, and the starter choice also affects the champion's Pokemon, and I didn't want it to be Primarina. I ended up picking Popplio in the end, also having taken into account the fact that a Leafage Smeargle is better walled by Magnemite in that nasty Ilima battle.

So the first video we've got features the four earliest story battles.

Hau 2

The 1st fight isn't worth any time (can't lose it if you try), but the second one is. Popplio has it hardest by not wanting to be struck by Pichu's Thundershock, so some support is appreciated here. Yungoos was caught for this purpose since it was Day and I didn't want to wait for nighttime to get a Rattata, but Pichu's Charm + Static para hax + 3HKO with Thundershock meant this matchup wasn't safe, so I brought in a Pichu of my own. Only after using Tail Whip a few times did I switch out to Yungoos to win a much improved matchup here. Popplio had no trouble 2HKOing Litten even at a lower level.

Ilima

Now this is harder, and I needed the best of the Pokemon from the nearby area for this. Yungoos is handled by Alolan Meowth, who outspeeds and deals severe damage with Technician-boosted STAB Bites, with good chances to flinch. Somebody can finish what Meowth started should he fail. Smeargle is widely known for screwing with people's runs, with Technician and perfect atk/sp. atk. IVs AND EVs to wreak havoc with Tackle and Leafage (due to my starter choice). Imagine him running Tail Slap/Bone Rush instead lol. I can wall him with Magnemite, but can't fight back effectively enough, so my Grimer-A attempts to beat him before he needs any backup - a Poison Touch proc would actually faint Smeargle on the 2nd turn, but it didn't occur here. Mag finished it.

Totem Gumshoos

I do agree that Alola-Raticate would be easier to face with a 4x Brick Break weakness and lower defence. Gumshoos doesn't really have much to say to fighting-types either, packing Bite but no normal-type move that can kill (it's got Super Fang though). It only needs to be struck thrice with Brick Break to succumb, and it's not a bad idea to eliminate the minion Yungoos before then. It's somehow slower than Crabrawler too? The reason I didn't go for Guts!Makuhita is because I feared poison damage could very likely compromise the matchup.

(out of space; continued in the comments)

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