"I used the Pokemon. I fought all of the battles. Lance and Red were Tricky. Thank you to all my patreon members. Daily December continues tomorrow with another Heart Gold video."
In Kanto, all three starters are pretty good. They all have their moments throughout the game where they shine. In Hoenn, Blaziken and Swampert are both Monsters. In Johto, one is CLEARLY better than the other two 😂
I'm still surprised Meganium did better than Typhlosion, but then, it makes sense: as Scott said: it's because Meganium gets swords dance, Typhlosion doesn't. So, that means that against Lance's rematch battle, Meganium will struggle a lot, but will eventually make it faster and with fewer resets, thanks to swords dance+ any neutral normal type move to sweep his team. When Scott made it to Lance's rematch battle with Typhlosion, he had 3 fire type moves, like where th is Typhlosion's coverage? He was basically relying on eruption to do good damage. So the poor badger got bullied super hard by the dragons. I mean, it's good to see that strictly in a solo run of HG/SS where you're allowed to use your starter and nothing else (catch other mon only for hms). Meganium is indeed better than Typhlosion, after Goldenrod city, because it gets swords dance.
Yeah deleting Ice Fang was definetly the wrong call, it solves the grass type problem and on average actually does more to the dragon type threats in the game compared to Dragon Claw. That's okay though you're still learning the game after all so mistakes happen. Honestly I agree with what you said in the Meganium video, these games are just so much more fun than Crystal, I love the changes made and how they improve the enjoyability of the game even if they do bloat the time it takes to complete a playthrough. In terms of Cynthia I'm not sure if her rematch in Platinum is going to cause THAT many problems because she still leads with the awful Spiritomb but just be thankful you don't have to face her Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl rematch team....that's the truly terrifying one, it probably makes solo challenges impossible for alot of species if you include it in a run of those games.
@@nunocarvalho6671 What you are noticing is that GSC are, mechanically, the worst games of the franchise. Sorry to anyone that hits in the nostalgia bone, but if you compare the issues you listed to their situation in GSC, GSC had it much, much worse. HGSS isn't my cup of tea either, because of the mechanical issues it carries forward from GSC, but for loving remakes packed with content and straight upgrades from their source, I'd argue that HGSS is probably the best, even if I happen to be a bigger fan of ORAS for its art and FRLG for its accessibility myself.
I'm sure somebody mentioned it earlier, but just in case... Clair's VS intro needs a correction. She actually has a DIFFERENT lineup: a Gyarados, two Dragonair, and THEN a Kingdra. If you think about it, this team shakeup actually is a good setup for when you face Lance as he also has a Gyarados and three Dragon-types.
Not sure if you know about it already, but catching Ho-Oh allows you to open one of the rooms in the Ruins of Alph (the specific ruin is reachable from Union Cave and there is a psychic before the entrance), which allows you to get the Life Orb. This could be really useful for fast offensive Pokemon that don’t rely on set up.
@@Johnny362000 Sheer Force *does* remove Life Orb recoil for some reason, but only if Sheer Force would've triggered anyway. The real reason to dispute me is that Sheer Force didn't exist until Gen 5 so it doesn't matter for HGSS.
@@misirtere9836 oh wow you're right. I even looked it up to double check. I should have scrolled slightly further down the page lol Also I totally forget which abilities were introduced in which gen (except for stuff added in more modern generations because I see a weird name and go "never heard of that one before") so that's a double my bad lol
21:40 rambling and I’m sorry but the rambling is probably the best part cause it feels like I’m at least sitting down and talking to you about the Pokémon games we love cause it shows that we are genuinely passionate about it
crocodiles in real life have a really low survival rate in their first couple of years. they are born too small to really defend themselves to predators and are mostly alone right at the start. then once they get bigger they get a easy time. Imo the totodile line mirrors that. a slow first phase a mid phase that is really short then peak predator for the rest of their lifetime
i like the new evolution line stat boost graphic scott. i usually a audio listener as I do my day but I have been subscribed for years now your evolution as a player and creator is great keep it up!
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'm really not looking forward to a shift toward single species HGSS runs. I'm not sadistic enough to want to watch a video of you trying to beat red with a cyndaquil.
I feel like there might need to be a special rule set for unevolved mons. Lance with pseudo legendaries in the 70s and Reds mons in the 80s gets to a point where their stats are just flat out too high for stuff like cyndaquil rattata and stuff like that. Maaaaybe if they have swords dance…. And I have huge hesitance on that maybe
@@fionordequester6748 fully agreed, I’m just saying from what I saw with Typhlosion fighting for its life against rematch Lance, I just can’t see most unevolved mons making it close
@SecretGizmo1902 fully agree, for the later series (FR, PL, HG) I really enjoy the lines more than single species. I can see single videos that breaks this (for videos to see how fast a single pokemon e.g. feraligatr can do it), but I think this should be the format.
22:54 just a small note: Swalot isn't Koga's ace; it's true that HGSS mess with some of the trainers' aces, but HGSS also sometimes uses a weird team setup where the ace Pokémon isn't the last Pokémon in their party (just like with Morty and Gengar); case in point, in the case of Koga, his Crobat is still his highest leveled Pokémon.
dragon claw might have higher BP but esp against lance, ice fang is the better move. it’s 4x effective against dragonite, salamence, altaria, and garchomp. it also the solution to some grass types to preserve waterfall pp to go longer without healing
In my opinion a fair compromise for the whole voltorb flip situation is to wait until after Claire or maybe even the rocket plot line at the radio tower before you get a mega power boost before Whitney. Of course do what you think is best Scott always appreciate the vids
Shocked by how much better Totodile's line is compared to the other two for a solo run, if I ever go back to HGSS I'm definitely gonna give Totodile a try, I was always a cyndaquil main
In the Claire battle, you should have had black glasses and used crunch. It would have one shot the kingdra and you'd have better accuracy. Technically you'd save time on super effective text too lol
My best guess as to why Feraligatr has such a low evolution level is because of how low of a level you finish the Johto section of the game at, especially in the originals. With little to no grinding and having a standard team of 6, you're entering the league at high 30's, low 40's at best. They probably wanted the player to be able to have at least *some* time to use their Typhlosion before the league. So instead of making Typhlosion evolve at say, 38, to push the design philosophy they had going with this trio, they instead had Feraligatr evolve at 30. If that at all makes sense.
I like how Whitney's Miltank enters the VS screen rolling. 16:08 I mean, maybe at the start of the battle, it would've been a speed tie, but you leveled up mid-fight, so you ended up outspeeding. 19:19 "And I take the victory (bell)."
Leaving another comment to leave more feedback (spoilers below): -Crunch would have done more to Kingdra and gotten the OHKO (very likely), plus it’s more accurate, so I’m not entirely sure why you committed to Ice Fang against it. Maybe you wanted to save time by committing to the same move? Even so, Crunch would also have been better against the Dragonair because they’re less bulky than Kingdra, so you can OHKO them and not risk the 5% misses. -For some solos, it could be interesting to experiment with using early Rare Candies to get to the level of evolution faster. -For the Strength puzzle in Ice Path, you only need to push the top left boulder in its place to solve it; when you drop down, you can go all the way to the right, slide as far up as you can, then left and that’s how you can solve it by moving one boulder (idk if there’s a video of someone doing it that way, but I’m sure it exists).
Love this series with rematching the elite 4 and Red. However I can see an issue when you eventually do this series with unevolved pokemon that a ton if not nearly all of them end up in the impossible tier. Champions with Pokemon in the late 50s is one thing, Lance with pseudo legendaries in the 70s and red with level 80 mons is a whole other monster
Im so happy that Reds Venusaur gets to be a threat. I love the big toad a ton and was so sad his crystal iteration is usually a nonfactor in those runs.
Just wanna hop into the Voltorb flip debate. I think this is the correct approach, because the game designers intended for you to be able to get the TMs from Goldenrod as soon as you got there. There is no reason to delay these, like in the old games by saving up money. Nothing you do in the game will change how quickly you can get the TMs. So when the game is designed to allow you to get the TMs this early, I think its only fair to remove the RNG so that the only factor is how many TMs do you need from the Game corner
Typhlosion is my favorite in Gen 2, but Feraligatr is my absolute all time favorite starter. Sheer Force + Life Orb + Dragon Dance is such a fun combo.
Something to note when looking at water types is that Water/Normal gives excellent neutral coverage which is the goal when running a set up move like swords dance.
On the twenty-seventh day of Christmas, Scott’s Thoughts gave to me… Twenty-seven crocs torrenting, Twenty-six Fire starters blazing, Twenty-five HeartGolden Grass kings! Twenty-four bot and bug bundles, Twenty-three godly showdowns, Twenty-two transformer…Mew, Twenty-one cicada fams, Twenty Swords Dance backports, Nineteen mid tadpole swirls, Eighteen mid bell peppers, Seventeen backported legends, Sixteen evolution tests, Fifteen Kanto kaiju, Fourteen starter redos, Thirteen rare Normal girls, Twelve bear v bull fights, Eleven Gen 1 backports, Ten pounds per pink puff, Nine resists when evolved, Eight Belly Drum badges, Seven years with Psywave, Six slow squad solos, Five mid starter flings! Four Eevee runs, Three years post redo, Two Grass/Ice types, And a Hitmontop in Gen 3!
Hey Scott! Thanks for all the videos, I had a question though, have you considered doing separate rankings on the tier list based on hidden abilities? Salamance would probably get a better time with something like moxie over intimidate and it'd be interesting to see just how big a difference a good vs a bad ability would make
I’ve considered it. It’ll happen if I am still going after or near the end of ranking everyone with regular abilities. Or potentially as streamed content.
25:00 If you do not want to deal with hail, i think the Christmas date disables the hail effect on the Red fight... an essential tactic when using Shedinja.
Just letting you know, the post-game BP TMs and move tutors could actually be an option for HeartGold. One of the Battle Frontier places (opens after beating Lance for the first time) has you pick one Pokemon as well as the type of the opponent in a series of one-on-one battles. It could be a bit time consuming for Pokemon that want/need them, so it's very much arguable as to whether or not it's a plus, but it could work within the rules of a solo challenge.
My guess on the level balancing for the starter evolutions: Cyndaquil, low durability and rather low attack means it would fall behind quickly without evolution - but having a a high special attack as a primarily special typing it is well suited for later in the game. Thus, Quilava at 14 and Typhlosion at 36. Totodile, good physical attack and defense means it thrives in the early game - no need for a quick evolution. Meanwhile having the lowest special stats of the starters, as a family of a primarily special typing, it may have been perceived as needing a boost to keep up in the late game. So late 1st evolution at Level 18 for Croconaw, and early 2nd evolution at 30 for Feraligatr. Chikorita is durable but doesn't have much in the way of attack - which is fine since it is probably intended for more of a support role. Balanced overall, 16 for Bayleef, 32 for Meganium.
The starter evolution levels were probably done with the idea of teaching cost-benefit and learning about trade-offs. Cyndaquil is the fast and dirty approach, totodile required time and patience, while Chikorita is a balance. Or something like that.
23:13 you should have a pecha berry in your bag unless you sold it. When you defeat the sudowoodo, the girl that gives you the berry pots also gives you 3 oran berries and 3 pecha berries.
For the Red fight, if you don’t have the leftovers and don’t think you just stall using rest, using the shell bell might be enough to break the hail chip.
My hypothesis on why Croconaw's evolution level into Feraligatr is so low is this: they wanted all the Starters to have different evolution levels, this time around, without keeping the proportions the same (so it's not like a Starter should always evolve last, but they would be balanced); for the first stages, 14, 16 and 18 resulted in all of them being different and Cyndaquil evolving the earliest while Totodile evolved last, but that meant that there weren't many other levels in the 30s left for the final stages, as Quilava becomes Typhlosion at the standard 36, which is last in this trio, while Bayleef becomes Meganium at 32, so they would have had to either shift Meganium to 34 and make Feraligatr 32 or they had to make Feraligatr lower than 32, and 31 likely felt like too little of a difference, so they went with 30.
did Scott make a comment about how the art on chalire's battle is out of date for Gen 4? She has a Gyarados and 2 Dragonair plus Kingdra, not 3 Dragonair and Kingdra?
HG/SS is a fantastic game making Sabrina a lot stronger was a good idea as the trainer probably doesn't have a counter to psychic types since the Safari Zone, a wonderful addition, was really cumbersome
I'm impressed you're not using a script. Usually it's really easy to tell like they're watching with you so they'll talk about things after the fact or they'll try to anticipate what will happen and say something wrong. Even if your playback is on a delay it would be really hard to consistently stay 4 seconds behind or w/e. Do you watch everything twice and then record over it the second time?
Just finished my annual Pokemon Gold Solorun with the Totodile line, getting it to lv100 in one day on a legit original cartridge. It is such a great evolution line to solo run the game with. Only ran into a problem against Karen.
I think it could be a good play for just about anything that can learn ice beam to carry it into the Lance 2 fight regardless of offensive stats. You're getting intimidated anyways, so physical attackers are essentially nerfed for one of the hardest fights in the franchise. In Feraligatr's case, it's good to think of him as a mixed attacker who can fall back on his okay special offense when necessary. I'm also thinking a lot of species should really be taking speed EV's into consideration to make sure they outrun things like Salamence and Pikachu. That rodent went from an annoying joke to the first true existential threat to water types in this game. Regarding Feraligatr, I think it could be one of the most consistently great solo performers across the generations. It's bulky, mono-water is safe defensively, it hits hard enough with a colorful variety of moves, and most games give it flexible setup options, and it has just enough speed to handle most threats.
Regarding the speed tie vs Gengar: you were speed tied but then you leveled up right before it came out so it wasn't even a coin flip like you thought.
Wow, just realized that one rocket is executive Petrel... For some reason i always heard it as Executive Petrol (like gasoline) which I thought was a tongue in cheeck reference to his team of Koffing line mons.
I also noticed on Karen’s Gengar in the first elite 4 run you had the speed tie going into the fight but leveled up right before it came out going from 117 to 120 so the tie ended up not being relevant.
if you're really worried about Will's Xatu (or any other first pokemon) confusing/statusing you you might want to replace the held item by a persim/lum berry, it can allow you free turn of setup. And i think mystic water (and other type boosting items) are going to be less useful than setting up a free swords dance in a lot of cases.
Really wasn't sure what you could do to make Red more consistent, but I think I have an idea. If I calc'd this correctly, Ice Fang at +2 has an 81.3% chance to take out Venusaur after hail chip at level 87. At level 88, this becomes a guaranteed KO (minus the 5% chance to miss of course). Focus Blast from Blastoise is doing roughly 25%, so provided you don't get an unlucky crit or SpDef drop from Blastoise you have just enough HP to set up two more Swords Dances and survive Hail damage for the remaining Pokemon. At +4 at level 88 Feraligatr has a guaranteed KO on Blastoise using Return after the Hail damage. Against Snorlax, this is 81.3%, and against Charizard +4 is enough for a OHKO even without factoring Hail damage. Snorlax has a pretty decent shot of KOing Feraligatr with Giga Impact after all of the Hail damage you've taken plus a single Focus Blast from Blastoise, so it looks like it is probably safer to push to +6 against Blastoise instead of going for the 81.3% roll against Snorlax. Now I'm not sure if investing the time into getting that one extra level would have been worth it for this, but the fight with your stats at level 87 felt just a bit too inconsistent IMO. I think there are some other, riskier alternatives you could employ like using Protect to get extra Hail damage on Red's Pokemon, or running Blizzard to get the guaranteed 2HKO on Venusaur, but this comment is running long as is and I don't feel like doing any more calcs to see how the rest of the battle would turn out. ...as an aside, I'm not sure banning Hidden Power really makes sense in HGSS, due to the updated mechanics from Crystal. It seems as if it would be MUCH less centralizing, due to lacking badge boosts and being unable to max out stat exp, and that's before getting into the physical/special split. That said, thank you for putting all of this time into this format, and I'm excited to see how HGSS evolves over the next year as you improve as a player.
Feraligatr is incredibly powerful, so it coming in first(out of the starters) isn't a surprise, however I'm still kind of blown away that Meganium outdid Typhlosion.
Other than Headbutt and _maybe_ Draco Meteor the tutors will be almost completely irrelevant for these videos since they're locked behind the Battle Frontier (other than the aforementioned 2 and the Grass/Water/Fire Hyper Beam clones)
Even beyond being unable to heal between battles with the Kimono Girls, this gauntlet also means you can't _sweep,_ since any setup is also reset, right? Brutal for a single 'mon.
Speaking about plurals.. Did you know there are no plurals for Pokémon? So it's one Venonat, two Venomat, three Venonat etc. Quite interesting and I actually like it since it prevents weird plurals with names.
I like to think their levels are meant to convey their types Typlohsion has a fast start like a runaway fire but starts to slow down once it begins to run out of guel Meganium like a plant keeps its roots in the ground and takes a steady approach Feraligatr is like a tidal wave where it takes a moment to hit its stride but once it does its off to the races And honestly yeah looking at the starters I knew Feraligatr was gonna win by a country mile. Speed is its only issue but even then much like an actual croc he waits his time. Also Ampharos, Ampharos, Ampharos Hoo boy where to start with you Anpharos is fine but the biggest shot to it is its moveset This thing doesn't get Thunderbolt by level up which is really weird and it doesn't get any boosting moves minus Charge Fortunately Thunderbolt is available via Voltorb Flip but without a boosting move...yeah this is gonna be painful
Honestly, Feraligatr could've gotten an even lower time, with fewer resets, if he hadn't deleted ice fang. That would've made Red's Venusaur so much easier to beat, as well as Lance's rematch team. Like, yeah, it's cool that Feraligatr gets access to Dragon moves, but Ice fang is always the superior choice against Lance, imo. It's still impressive that even while messing up that badly, it still managed to get the best time. Gatr for the win, I guess. Pd: Oh, also, the fact that he forgot to teach Earthquake for Koga's rematch battle, so he had to lose a couple times before finally teaching it. Can you imagine how much faster Fer could've been, if he'd taught Earthquake the first time around for the rematch battles, and never deleted ice fang? I believe he could've gotten a time lower than 2h and 40 minutes. But that's only my opinion on the matter.
By next week each HGSS video will be 40 seconds long
Real
True 🤣🤣
"I used the Pokemon. I fought all of the battles. Lance and Red were Tricky. Thank you to all my patreon members. Daily December continues tomorrow with another Heart Gold video."
the physical special split really did so many mons a favor others not so much
The sheer gap in vid length between Feral and its johto siblings. COMPLETE domination 😂
In Kanto, all three starters are pretty good. They all have their moments throughout the game where they shine. In Hoenn, Blaziken and Swampert are both Monsters. In Johto, one is CLEARLY better than the other two 😂
Feraligatr is privileged and op.
I'm still surprised Meganium did better than Typhlosion, but then, it makes sense: as Scott said: it's because Meganium gets swords dance, Typhlosion doesn't. So, that means that against Lance's rematch battle, Meganium will struggle a lot, but will eventually make it faster and with fewer resets, thanks to swords dance+ any neutral normal type move to sweep his team. When Scott made it to Lance's rematch battle with Typhlosion, he had 3 fire type moves, like where th is Typhlosion's coverage? He was basically relying on eruption to do good damage. So the poor badger got bullied super hard by the dragons. I mean, it's good to see that strictly in a solo run of HG/SS where you're allowed to use your starter and nothing else (catch other mon only for hms). Meganium is indeed better than Typhlosion, after Goldenrod city, because it gets swords dance.
Yeah deleting Ice Fang was definetly the wrong call, it solves the grass type problem and on average actually does more to the dragon type threats in the game compared to Dragon Claw. That's okay though you're still learning the game after all so mistakes happen. Honestly I agree with what you said in the Meganium video, these games are just so much more fun than Crystal, I love the changes made and how they improve the enjoyability of the game even if they do bloat the time it takes to complete a playthrough.
In terms of Cynthia I'm not sure if her rematch in Platinum is going to cause THAT many problems because she still leads with the awful Spiritomb but just be thankful you don't have to face her Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl rematch team....that's the truly terrifying one, it probably makes solo challenges impossible for alot of species if you include it in a run of those games.
Accuracy is king though. Dragon Claw doesn't miss normally
I literally spent the whole video saying yeah, Ice fang would be cool here
I disagree big time, i feel hgss were the worst remakes till bdsp, the lv gap between blue and red and no pokemon at good lv is just dumb
@@nunocarvalho6671 What you are noticing is that GSC are, mechanically, the worst games of the franchise. Sorry to anyone that hits in the nostalgia bone, but if you compare the issues you listed to their situation in GSC, GSC had it much, much worse. HGSS isn't my cup of tea either, because of the mechanical issues it carries forward from GSC, but for loving remakes packed with content and straight upgrades from their source, I'd argue that HGSS is probably the best, even if I happen to be a bigger fan of ORAS for its art and FRLG for its accessibility myself.
@@MrStrawtube 5% though? Is that all it takes? 95 accuracy only has the capacity to miss in a way that's mildly annoying
And now for one of the many Pokémon that wept tears of pure joy when the physical special split implemented.
@@Amon-qn5rc crocodile tears at best
The drop from over an hour to under 30 mins is insane
I'm sure somebody mentioned it earlier, but just in case...
Clair's VS intro needs a correction. She actually has a DIFFERENT lineup: a Gyarados, two Dragonair, and THEN a Kingdra.
If you think about it, this team shakeup actually is a good setup for when you face Lance as he also has a Gyarados and three Dragon-types.
Not sure if you know about it already, but catching Ho-Oh allows you to open one of the rooms in the Ruins of Alph (the specific ruin is reachable from Union Cave and there is a psychic before the entrance), which allows you to get the Life Orb. This could be really useful for fast offensive Pokemon that don’t rely on set up.
Also when he gets to a Magic Guard or Sheer Force 'mon it's FREE
@@misirtere9836 Sheer Force does not remove negative effects of moves (such as recoil) or any effects of items
@@Johnny362000 Sheer Force *does* remove Life Orb recoil for some reason, but only if Sheer Force would've triggered anyway.
The real reason to dispute me is that Sheer Force didn't exist until Gen 5 so it doesn't matter for HGSS.
@@misirtere9836 oh wow you're right. I even looked it up to double check. I should have scrolled slightly further down the page lol
Also I totally forget which abilities were introduced in which gen (except for stuff added in more modern generations because I see a weird name and go "never heard of that one before") so that's a double my bad lol
21:40 rambling and I’m sorry but the rambling is probably the best part cause it feels like I’m at least sitting down and talking to you about the Pokémon games we love cause it shows that we are genuinely passionate about it
You should go outside more.
When you had Deleted the ice fang, I just knew, that either Erika, or Red will cause issues.
crocodiles in real life have a really low survival rate in their first couple of years. they are born too small to really defend themselves to predators and are mostly alone right at the start. then once they get bigger they get a easy time.
Imo the totodile line mirrors that.
a slow first phase
a mid phase that is really short
then peak predator for the rest of their lifetime
i like the new evolution line stat boost graphic scott. i usually a audio listener as I do my day but I have been subscribed for years now your evolution as a player and creator is great keep it up!
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'm really not looking forward to a shift toward single species HGSS runs. I'm not sadistic enough to want to watch a video of you trying to beat red with a cyndaquil.
I feel like there might need to be a special rule set for unevolved mons. Lance with pseudo legendaries in the 70s and Reds mons in the 80s gets to a point where their stats are just flat out too high for stuff like cyndaquil rattata and stuff like that. Maaaaybe if they have swords dance…. And I have huge hesitance on that maybe
@@beebobber546I feel like Scott still. needs to try a few involved mons, just to get a baseline for what makes a mon able to beat the game
@@fionordequester6748 fully agreed, I’m just saying from what I saw with Typhlosion fighting for its life against rematch Lance, I just can’t see most unevolved mons making it close
@SecretGizmo1902 fully agree, for the later series (FR, PL, HG) I really enjoy the lines more than single species. I can see single videos that breaks this (for videos to see how fast a single pokemon e.g. feraligatr can do it), but I think this should be the format.
@@beebobber546 Indeed
Don't touch that 'Dile! Today the Johtonian prancing powerhouse takes on Gen 4!
I see whatcha did there...
Why not Waterfall against Lance’s Aerodactyl? (17:11)
Think he just missed it going fast or got mixed up by pre physical-special split water moves being special.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Tbf I think Dragon Claw just one shots without a crit, Aerodactyl has bad defense
12:20 Ice fang is neutral to Kingdra so crunch would have been stronger and had better accuracy, just saying
Also Gyarados
At 11:46 Hey Scott are you going to have the art for Claire updated? It shows three Dragonairs and omits the Gyarados.
Great vid BTW!
Oh ur one of those fans….now I see why Scott over explains certain things….just enjoy the content man….the art is so irrelevant
@scro910 Please explain what you mean by "ur one of those fans."
@@scro910one of those fans? They’re simply pointing out an incorrect artwork lineup and doing it very politely. Why get so upset?
@@beebobber546 Imagine pointing out mistakes to Scott so he can fix them and thereby improve his videos. Some fan they are :(
22:54 just a small note: Swalot isn't Koga's ace; it's true that HGSS mess with some of the trainers' aces, but HGSS also sometimes uses a weird team setup where the ace Pokémon isn't the last Pokémon in their party (just like with Morty and Gengar); case in point, in the case of Koga, his Crobat is still his highest leveled Pokémon.
dragon claw might have higher BP but esp against lance, ice fang is the better move. it’s 4x effective against dragonite, salamence, altaria, and garchomp. it also the solution to some grass types to preserve waterfall pp to go longer without healing
In my opinion a fair compromise for the whole voltorb flip situation is to wait until after Claire or maybe even the rocket plot line at the radio tower before you get a mega power boost before Whitney. Of course do what you think is best Scott always appreciate the vids
4:38 Scott discussing B plotlines while fighting Bug Catcher Benny is art
Meganium also managaed to beat the game at the lowest level of all of them
I'm really excited for this video. Totodile was my first starter, and this game is my favorite way to play with it.
Excellent video as always =)
6:10 I only just now noticed the Miltank rolling across the screen in the Whitney intro XD
19:24 those rhymes did not go unnoticed!
Shocked by how much better Totodile's line is compared to the other two for a solo run, if I ever go back to HGSS I'm definitely gonna give Totodile a try, I was always a cyndaquil main
Salty, the Feraligatr, was the first pokemon to make me feel something after losing it in a nuzlocke
Surge is so ‘Surge’ that it transcends generations. Like, at least Bruno improves lmao.
In the Claire battle, you should have had black glasses and used crunch. It would have one shot the kingdra and you'd have better accuracy. Technically you'd save time on super effective text too lol
Scott I love your content but some of these mistakes were PAINFUL!! Why would you get rid of Ice Fang!?
my favorite starter! good to see it pulling its weight
Got here before the YT bell notif. May or may not have been refreshing for the video to show up :)
My best guess as to why Feraligatr has such a low evolution level is because of how low of a level you finish the Johto section of the game at, especially in the originals. With little to no grinding and having a standard team of 6, you're entering the league at high 30's, low 40's at best.
They probably wanted the player to be able to have at least *some* time to use their Typhlosion before the league. So instead of making Typhlosion evolve at say, 38, to push the design philosophy they had going with this trio, they instead had Feraligatr evolve at 30. If that at all makes sense.
16:45
😅 I have no clue where solar beam is in gen 2. So now I certainly don't know where dragon claw is now.
Nice to see Red’s Venasaur give you some challenges, it seemed to be Red’s weakest team member in Crystal.
isn't it 2 blackouts? the magmar and the koga one was also a blackout wasn't it?
I love how Miltank Rollouts onto the Whitney intro! Very flavorful. The Clair intro seems slightly off tho
the best part is that Feraligatr can learn Ice Fang, which makes Claire and Lance irrelevant when u set up with swords dance
Okay first time I get your video under 1 min after you posted it, time to watch it !
I like how Whitney's Miltank enters the VS screen rolling.
16:08 I mean, maybe at the start of the battle, it would've been a speed tie, but you leveled up mid-fight, so you ended up outspeeding.
19:19 "And I take the victory (bell)."
Leaving another comment to leave more feedback (spoilers below):
-Crunch would have done more to Kingdra and gotten the OHKO (very likely), plus it’s more accurate, so I’m not entirely sure why you committed to Ice Fang against it. Maybe you wanted to save time by committing to the same move? Even so, Crunch would also have been better against the Dragonair because they’re less bulky than Kingdra, so you can OHKO them and not risk the 5% misses.
-For some solos, it could be interesting to experiment with using early Rare Candies to get to the level of evolution faster.
-For the Strength puzzle in Ice Path, you only need to push the top left boulder in its place to solve it; when you drop down, you can go all the way to the right, slide as far up as you can, then left and that’s how you can solve it by moving one boulder (idk if there’s a video of someone doing it that way, but I’m sure it exists).
Gatr has always been an incredible mon, it just has such a good matchup into Gen 2
Love this series with rematching the elite 4 and Red. However I can see an issue when you eventually do this series with unevolved pokemon that a ton if not nearly all of them end up in the impossible tier. Champions with Pokemon in the late 50s is one thing, Lance with pseudo legendaries in the 70s and red with level 80 mons is a whole other monster
Im so happy that Reds Venusaur gets to be a threat. I love the big toad a ton and was so sad his crystal iteration is usually a nonfactor in those runs.
Feraligator is definitely the one the most benefited from the physical special split outta these 3
22:55 Swalot isn't his ace, is it? It's lv62 while the Crobat is lv64
Just wanna hop into the Voltorb flip debate. I think this is the correct approach, because the game designers intended for you to be able to get the TMs from Goldenrod as soon as you got there. There is no reason to delay these, like in the old games by saving up money. Nothing you do in the game will change how quickly you can get the TMs. So when the game is designed to allow you to get the TMs this early, I think its only fair to remove the RNG so that the only factor is how many TMs do you need from the Game corner
Your audio changed at Faulkner. Got me hyped for once lol
Typhlosion is my favorite in Gen 2, but Feraligatr is my absolute all time favorite starter. Sheer Force + Life Orb + Dragon Dance is such a fun combo.
Something to note when looking at water types is that Water/Normal gives excellent neutral coverage which is the goal when running a set up move like swords dance.
As a certified Croconaw enjoyer, this pleases me greatly.
The pointing arrow revealing itself to be Venomoth's head will never not amuse me!
Feraligatr is arguably the best starter ever Lol
its for sure getting a sub 3 HR run (I just started watching the video)
On the twenty-seventh day of Christmas, Scott’s Thoughts gave to me…
Twenty-seven crocs torrenting,
Twenty-six Fire starters blazing,
Twenty-five HeartGolden Grass kings!
Twenty-four bot and bug bundles,
Twenty-three godly showdowns,
Twenty-two transformer…Mew,
Twenty-one cicada fams,
Twenty Swords Dance backports,
Nineteen mid tadpole swirls,
Eighteen mid bell peppers,
Seventeen backported legends,
Sixteen evolution tests,
Fifteen Kanto kaiju,
Fourteen starter redos,
Thirteen rare Normal girls,
Twelve bear v bull fights,
Eleven Gen 1 backports,
Ten pounds per pink puff,
Nine resists when evolved,
Eight Belly Drum badges,
Seven years with Psywave,
Six slow squad solos,
Five mid starter flings!
Four Eevee runs,
Three years post redo,
Two Grass/Ice types,
And a Hitmontop in Gen 3!
almost to the end keep it up :)
I love this cute little friend
Hey Scott! Thanks for all the videos, I had a question though, have you considered doing separate rankings on the tier list based on hidden abilities? Salamance would probably get a better time with something like moxie over intimidate and it'd be interesting to see just how big a difference a good vs a bad ability would make
I’ve considered it. It’ll happen if I am still going after or near the end of ranking everyone with regular abilities. Or potentially as streamed content.
@ you know just in case you were worried about running out of things right? I look forward to all the heart gold content coming up
[Electrode on-field]
"Surge drops the ball."
Me seeing the Totodile line having the fastest time: That’s my girl 🙂
25:00 If you do not want to deal with hail, i think the Christmas date disables the hail effect on the Red fight... an essential tactic when using Shedinja.
basically speedrunning the game with the exception of the guy with a fire-type is hysterical
Just letting you know, the post-game BP TMs and move tutors could actually be an option for HeartGold. One of the Battle Frontier places (opens after beating Lance for the first time) has you pick one Pokemon as well as the type of the opponent in a series of one-on-one battles. It could be a bit time consuming for Pokemon that want/need them, so it's very much arguable as to whether or not it's a plus, but it could work within the rules of a solo challenge.
21:20 I love the rambling❤❤
The magic of actually getting to use your higher attacking stat
You weren't speed tied with karens gengar. Lol. You levelled up right as it came in and that pushed you to higher speed
My guess on the level balancing for the starter evolutions:
Cyndaquil, low durability and rather low attack means it would fall behind quickly without evolution - but having a a high special attack as a primarily special typing it is well suited for later in the game. Thus, Quilava at 14 and Typhlosion at 36.
Totodile, good physical attack and defense means it thrives in the early game - no need for a quick evolution. Meanwhile having the lowest special stats of the starters, as a family of a primarily special typing, it may have been perceived as needing a boost to keep up in the late game. So late 1st evolution at Level 18 for Croconaw, and early 2nd evolution at 30 for Feraligatr.
Chikorita is durable but doesn't have much in the way of attack - which is fine since it is probably intended for more of a support role. Balanced overall, 16 for Bayleef, 32 for Meganium.
The starter evolution levels were probably done with the idea of teaching cost-benefit and learning about trade-offs. Cyndaquil is the fast and dirty approach, totodile required time and patience, while Chikorita is a balance. Or something like that.
on the topic of heart scales, rock smashing the rocks up north from cianwood yields heartscales sometimes.
23:13 you should have a pecha berry in your bag unless you sold it. When you defeat the sudowoodo, the girl that gives you the berry pots also gives you 3 oran berries and 3 pecha berries.
For the Red fight, if you don’t have the leftovers and don’t think you just stall using rest, using the shell bell might be enough to break the hail chip.
My hypothesis on why Croconaw's evolution level into Feraligatr is so low is this: they wanted all the Starters to have different evolution levels, this time around, without keeping the proportions the same (so it's not like a Starter should always evolve last, but they would be balanced); for the first stages, 14, 16 and 18 resulted in all of them being different and Cyndaquil evolving the earliest while Totodile evolved last, but that meant that there weren't many other levels in the 30s left for the final stages, as Quilava becomes Typhlosion at the standard 36, which is last in this trio, while Bayleef becomes Meganium at 32, so they would have had to either shift Meganium to 34 and make Feraligatr 32 or they had to make Feraligatr lower than 32, and 31 likely felt like too little of a difference, so they went with 30.
11:46 guessing no plans on changing this intro so that it's HeartGold team accurate?
did Scott make a comment about how the art on chalire's battle is out of date for Gen 4? She has a Gyarados and 2 Dragonair plus Kingdra, not 3 Dragonair and Kingdra?
HG/SS is a fantastic game making Sabrina a lot stronger was a good idea as the trainer probably doesn't have a counter to psychic types since the Safari Zone, a wonderful addition, was really cumbersome
I'm impressed you're not using a script. Usually it's really easy to tell like they're watching with you so they'll talk about things after the fact or they'll try to anticipate what will happen and say something wrong. Even if your playback is on a delay it would be really hard to consistently stay 4 seconds behind or w/e. Do you watch everything twice and then record over it the second time?
Just finished my annual Pokemon Gold Solorun with the Totodile line, getting it to lv100 in one day on a legit original cartridge. It is such a great evolution line to solo run the game with. Only ran into a problem against Karen.
I like the rants. They are your Thoughts after all, Scott.
Is there ever a world where it’s smarter to beat red before the league rematch?
I think it could be a good play for just about anything that can learn ice beam to carry it into the Lance 2 fight regardless of offensive stats. You're getting intimidated anyways, so physical attackers are essentially nerfed for one of the hardest fights in the franchise. In Feraligatr's case, it's good to think of him as a mixed attacker who can fall back on his okay special offense when necessary. I'm also thinking a lot of species should really be taking speed EV's into consideration to make sure they outrun things like Salamence and Pikachu. That rodent went from an annoying joke to the first true existential threat to water types in this game.
Regarding Feraligatr, I think it could be one of the most consistently great solo performers across the generations. It's bulky, mono-water is safe defensively, it hits hard enough with a colorful variety of moves, and most games give it flexible setup options, and it has just enough speed to handle most threats.
tbh i dont midn if these videos lasts hours :D i really enjoy to listen to u
If i remember right you can farm out heart scales pretty fast with rocksmash
Regarding the speed tie vs Gengar: you were speed tied but then you leveled up right before it came out so it wasn't even a coin flip like you thought.
Wow, just realized that one rocket is executive Petrel... For some reason i always heard it as Executive Petrol (like gasoline) which I thought was a tongue in cheeck reference to his team of Koffing line mons.
I also noticed on Karen’s Gengar in the first elite 4 run you had the speed tie going into the fight but leveled up right before it came out going from 117 to 120 so the tie ended up not being relevant.
Man swords dance carrying the day here. It’s really unfortunate for Typhlosion having no set up and being a full mixed attacker.
Awesome video, poor Gyrados in Clair team tho lmao
>One of the best defensive types in the series
>Fast
>High attack stat
>Good coverage moves
>Access to Swords Dance
Yeah, this should be pretty good.
Swords dance before the 3rd gym is nuts
It seems like swords dance is going to be massively centralizing in HGSS, huh?
if you're really worried about Will's Xatu (or any other first pokemon) confusing/statusing you you might want to replace the held item by a persim/lum berry, it can allow you free turn of setup. And i think mystic water (and other type boosting items) are going to be less useful than setting up a free swords dance in a lot of cases.
Really wasn't sure what you could do to make Red more consistent, but I think I have an idea. If I calc'd this correctly, Ice Fang at +2 has an 81.3% chance to take out Venusaur after hail chip at level 87. At level 88, this becomes a guaranteed KO (minus the 5% chance to miss of course). Focus Blast from Blastoise is doing roughly 25%, so provided you don't get an unlucky crit or SpDef drop from Blastoise you have just enough HP to set up two more Swords Dances and survive Hail damage for the remaining Pokemon.
At +4 at level 88 Feraligatr has a guaranteed KO on Blastoise using Return after the Hail damage. Against Snorlax, this is 81.3%, and against Charizard +4 is enough for a OHKO even without factoring Hail damage. Snorlax has a pretty decent shot of KOing Feraligatr with Giga Impact after all of the Hail damage you've taken plus a single Focus Blast from Blastoise, so it looks like it is probably safer to push to +6 against Blastoise instead of going for the 81.3% roll against Snorlax.
Now I'm not sure if investing the time into getting that one extra level would have been worth it for this, but the fight with your stats at level 87 felt just a bit too inconsistent IMO. I think there are some other, riskier alternatives you could employ like using Protect to get extra Hail damage on Red's Pokemon, or running Blizzard to get the guaranteed 2HKO on Venusaur, but this comment is running long as is and I don't feel like doing any more calcs to see how the rest of the battle would turn out.
...as an aside, I'm not sure banning Hidden Power really makes sense in HGSS, due to the updated mechanics from Crystal. It seems as if it would be MUCH less centralizing, due to lacking badge boosts and being unable to max out stat exp, and that's before getting into the physical/special split. That said, thank you for putting all of this time into this format, and I'm excited to see how HGSS evolves over the next year as you improve as a player.
Feraligatr is incredibly powerful, so it coming in first(out of the starters) isn't a surprise, however I'm still kind of blown away that Meganium outdid Typhlosion.
Is ho-oh not worth the XP? Maybe running away felt strange because it's better to KO
There's no-where in the learnset list that shows the tutor moves. Every time you teach headbut I look over at that list and it's not there.
Other than Headbutt and _maybe_ Draco Meteor the tutors will be almost completely irrelevant for these videos since they're locked behind the Battle Frontier (other than the aforementioned 2 and the Grass/Water/Fire Hyper Beam clones)
You’re the man, Scott
Even beyond being unable to heal between battles with the Kimono Girls, this gauntlet also means you can't _sweep,_ since any setup is also reset, right? Brutal for a single 'mon.
I swear, we will reenter 2024 in 5 days just so more HeartGold videos can be made
Speaking about plurals.. Did you know there are no plurals for Pokémon? So it's one Venonat, two Venomat, three Venonat etc. Quite interesting and I actually like it since it prevents weird plurals with names.
Not sure cause of stats but is waiting for ice fang for level 20 then evolving viable or good
I like to think their levels are meant to convey their types
Typlohsion has a fast start like a runaway fire but starts to slow down once it begins to run out of guel
Meganium like a plant keeps its roots in the ground and takes a steady approach
Feraligatr is like a tidal wave where it takes a moment to hit its stride but once it does its off to the races
And honestly yeah looking at the starters I knew Feraligatr was gonna win by a country mile. Speed is its only issue but even then much like an actual croc he waits his time.
Also Ampharos, Ampharos, Ampharos
Hoo boy where to start with you
Anpharos is fine but the biggest shot to it is its moveset
This thing doesn't get Thunderbolt by level up which is really weird and it doesn't get any boosting moves minus Charge
Fortunately Thunderbolt is available via Voltorb Flip but without a boosting move...yeah this is gonna be painful
I feel like Feraligatr is gonna dominate
Honestly, Feraligatr could've gotten an even lower time, with fewer resets, if he hadn't deleted ice fang. That would've made Red's Venusaur so much easier to beat, as well as Lance's rematch team. Like, yeah, it's cool that Feraligatr gets access to Dragon moves, but Ice fang is always the superior choice against Lance, imo. It's still impressive that even while messing up that badly, it still managed to get the best time. Gatr for the win, I guess.
Pd: Oh, also, the fact that he forgot to teach Earthquake for Koga's rematch battle, so he had to lose a couple times before finally teaching it. Can you imagine how much faster Fer could've been, if he'd taught Earthquake the first time around for the rematch battles, and never deleted ice fang? I believe he could've gotten a time lower than 2h and 40 minutes. But that's only my opinion on the matter.