It's been a while since I last posted, and I thought I would drop a giant update before the clock rolls over and Sun/Moon hits in the US.
Earlier this year I got bored and thought I would try a HeartGold run with an all-shiny team. I don't do badgequests because I don't have the patience to wait in between gyms, but I figured I could get 5-6 shinies before tackling the league. I had previously SRed a few legendaries and gotten some random shinies from grinding, but this was uncharted territory for me.
I started SRing at the end of July, and three weeks later, I got a shiny Cyndaquil.
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At the beginning of September, I started fishing for Magikarp. Gyarados has a bad rep among shiny hunters for obvious reasons, but it's a good poke to have and I thought I would have a leg up on Lance's Dragonites. Didn't take long - maybe a couple dozen tries.
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Four weeks later, I replaced a regular Flaaffy I had on my team with a shiny version, using Static's increased electric encounter rate.
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Took a bit of a break, and at the end of October, I caught a shiny Krabby while magnet pulling for a Steelix. I did a lot of hunting for a Steelix and resetting in the Game Corner for a Dratini, but that's what I wound up with.
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After that, I decided to get badges 6 and 7 and hopefully catch a Phanpy or Skarmory (which I later learned is not even present in HG). I got a random Zubat 4 days later while trying to catch Pokemon in a cave. I already have a Golbat and Crobat on another file, but oh well.
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And then while EV training 4 days later, I encountered a shiny Rattata. >_> My team sort of dipped in quality near the end, but I can't complain. I got a full team in less than 3 months of off-and-on play, much faster than I'd anticipated.
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So after some very painful EV training sessions, I tried SRing and REing some more, but I lost patience and decided it was time to beat the game. My team has 3 pokes weak to Electric, and as I feared, I ran into a brick wall when tackling Lance. I don't use items during battle, so revive tanking was not a viable strategy. It wasn't even the Dragonites that gave me the hardest time, it was his Aerodactyl- faster than anything I had on hand. My Kingler tanked its Thunder Fang surprising well, but most of the others died swiftly. I didn't help myself by passing up Dragon Dance on Gyarados in favor of keeping Dragon Rage, because I was stupidly looking ahead to more shiny hunting. Otherwise, I could've set up and easily killed 5 out of 6 of his team.
So I lost and reset the game around ten times, and finally got lucky and got away with switching around some weakened pokes, and finished off the last couple members of his team with a weakened Gyarados.
The victory screen: [IMG200]http://i.imgur.com/BRuqrwB.jpg[/IMG200]
I can now tackle Moon with a... clear conscience(?) Well, I got what I wanted done with a few days to spare. I'll still be playing HeartGold at some point after Sun/Moon- I haven't gotten the shinies I wanted the most, and I'm looking forward to picking up more shinies and tackling Red.