Pokémon Shuffle General Discussion

[HylianGlaceon]

60+ hearts, 0 Gyarados Pikachu. Just the usual reminder that Safaris need to be retired and NEVER BROUGHT BACK.

 

[Exsception]

60+ hearts, 0 Gyarados Pikachu. Just the usual reminder that Safaris need to be retired and NEVER BROUGHT BACK.

I haven't been counting, but I'm somewhere in that boat. But it's not a bad Safari to be stuck in, I suppose. There's a coin stage, an Exp. Stage, and an occasional Exp. Booster; so at least it's not a total waste of hearts.

 

[R_N]

60+ hearts, 0 Gyarados Pikachu. Just the usual reminder that Safaris need to be retired and NEVER BROUGHT BACK.

hmmm interesting, interesting but have you considered bringing back safaris that already had 1% rare encounters and adding.....more??

e: there is absolutely going to be an unown safari featuring all 26 unowns at once and we will all collectively die

e2: Gyarados Pikachu is a gimmie. D2 -> E4. This resets the board. Do this three times and pikachu dies and gives you 40% base shot.

 

[Krokketto Prime Danjal]

Keep up the good progress, Cyberra.

I have S ranked all of the main stages now. Fortunately I didn't need to use a C-1 on Ditto, Lucario's Pummel helped greatly as well as MS Tyranitar. Got a very lucky end skyfall with M Beedrill matches to enable me to S Basculin with just M+5 first time. I had to do Mega Sharpedo twice though to get the S; I was one move short the first time. The second time, I had a worse starting board, fewer opportunities for Pixie Power and a board reset after the fourth disruption but generally better combos, I was able to clear the third disruption quicker and the reset actually helped. Team and items for both were M Diancie (15), Xerneas (20, Quirky + SL5), Togekiss (15, SL3) and Florges (10); M+5, MS, C-1 (my Azumarill is still too weak).

Haven't tried Rapidash or Serperior yet but I will when I'm ready. I'll probably farm SM and various PSB stages for now. My remaining captures can also wait for a bit.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

S-ranking Ditto shouldn't need a C-1...if you invested a lot of RMLs on Machamp, Lucario, Medicham, and leveled their skills up a lot. And maybe for some more coverage, had trained Ditto itself. Then you go in with M+5, MS, and DD.

I would not recommend prioritizing Pummel over Risk Taker unless you can see there's going to be a decent combo opportunity.

 

[Krokketto Prime Danjal]

S-ranking Ditto shouldn't need a C-1...if you invested a lot of RMLs on Machamp, Lucario, Medicham, and leveled their skills up a lot. And maybe for some more coverage, had trained Ditto itself. Then you go in with M+5, MS, and DD.

I would not recommend prioritizing Pummel over Risk Taker unless you can see there's going to be a decent combo opportunity.

All of those fighting types you listed are fully RMLed on my game and I used those exact items but I had to rely on Pummel because, well, I still have eject on Machamp. I'll change it to RT if and when its PSB stage returns which could be a long time but I've managed this long without it. I haven't caught Ditto and I don't like throwing a great ball when an S is on the line and I've paid for items *looking at you, Tentacruel!*

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

All of those fighting types you listed are fully RMLed on my game and I used those exact items but I had to rely on Pummel because, well, I still have eject on Machamp. I'll change it to RT if and when its PSB stage returns which could be a long time but I've managed this long without it. I haven't caught Ditto and I don't like throwing a great ball when an S is on the line and I've paid for items *looking at you, Tentacruel!*

You're sooo missing a lot without Risk Taker Machamp. The fact Normal-types have only one true weakness only boosts its usefulness.

 

[Cyberra]

I got hoopa-U up high enough that a single run through magearna will max it. Was back on the coin grind the last couple of days. Used the jewel I got for beating m-ttar to get three extra tries at weekend meowth and got back up to over40k coins, at which point I decided to hit the safari.

My very first encounter? Magikarp pikachu. Beaten in one move and caught at 28%

Now to find the other one...

 

[R_N]

whew, lucked out and found magikarp pikachu already. THankfully I got a SCP though...the gimmie catch power is nowhere near as good as the gyarados pikachu.

trash meowth run, though. 5700-800

 

[raichu27]

I've actually got to beat Mega Tyranitar on my first try a few days ago. Didn't seem to be as hard as I thought it would've been. lol

 

[Cyberra]

Found and caught the gyarados pikachu. Safari is now complete. I also got the... sinnoh cap?... pikachu at 12% in a regular ball. Back to the coins for now. Hoping for another big forward push soon, or I might go back and S some stages b/c I really should have more of the expert stages unlocked. I might even go actually catch some of the expert 'mons

 

[Leafy Sea Dragon]

Is there a decent strategy on shiny Gyarados Pikachu for a newcomer? I'm only at stage 198 with a few of the event/expert pokemon. I was able to beat the stage a few times when I first tried it, but now I can barely get it to low health. I even caught Landorus Therian and it seems like I'm doing even worse. My team consists of lv 1 Lando, lv 6 Donphan, lv 3 Marowak, lv 2 stunfisk.

I think I had more luck when I was using a mega gengar, I tried using M-Charizard Y but clearing out the middle of the stage doesn't really help me.

 

[R_N]

Does anyone else have the worst luck with combo boosters
like, in my case, one of two things happen. Either it just never goes off even with skill bosted to decent rates or it DOES activate and then gets a combo of like...3. Max.


ps kirlia repeat is bad and i hate it. 5 dedicated turns to a puzzle and a lot of hp and the first board after the puzzle clears will never have instacombo so you need to waste another turn. Might just complexity it and be done with it thoug you pretty much need to bring moves+5 no matter what because finishing that stage in 2 moves is a bit charitable, shall we say

 

[Beat!]

I stopped playing a year ago and recently i got the urge to start playing again. Man, lots of new Pokemon and catching up will be a pain.
But is it me or the game got harder? Also, the capture rates are crappy. Kinda like they're desperate for people to spend money (more so than when the game was initially released)

 

[R_N]

I stopped playing a year ago and recently i got the urge to start playing again. Man, lots of new Pokemon and catching up will be a pain.
But is it me or the game got harder? Also, the capture rates are crappy. Kinda like they're desperate for people to spend money (more so than when the game was initially released)

here is a summary of the past year:
-hundreds of trash pokemon
-increasingly crappy catch rates
-increasingly high hp totals
-the worst competitions you have ever seen

 

[Cyberra]

here is a summary of the past year:
-hundreds of trash pokemon
-increasingly crappy catch rates
-increasingly high hp totals
-the worst competitions you have ever seen

Accurate. So unfortunately completely accurate.

And of course to even have a chance at most of this crap you have to have caught, trained, RMLed, and skill-boosted all the pokemon-of-the-week for the last six months XP

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

This game is slowly turning into a bad mobile phone game.

 

[R_N]

This game is slowly turning into a bad mobile phone game.

I'd argue it's already there. The competitions absolutely are, if nothing else.
Related, but I know guaranteed s ranks have always usually suggested mega starts but sometimes it feels like you need them to really even BEAT the stage these days due to such high HP totals with such low turn counts. Or rather, beating it in a timely manner. And things like mega boosts feel less usable since any time you could be doing that could be doing (entirely luck based) burst damage needed to eat through as much hp as you can. Or having to use something like Sleep Charm(itself totally luck based) to give a better combo while stalling disruptions. It kind of makes mega speed ups way less valuable unless you can reach single digits, honestly.
e: well that's not entirely fair, gengar and his speed range are still usable depending on the stage. it just feels less usable over all
Especially if stages like Krilia & Shellos become the norm, where it has a dedicated 5 turn puzzle that exists solely to screw you over.

and of course, we have a variety of stages that get rid of the item that would make the stage much easier to handle.

Special Stages (competitions aside) have their own set of garbo problems like catch rates, appearence rates or stuff like Solgaleo & Lunala, but on the whole are generally better balanced by necessity of needing to be done by new(or new-ish) players as well.

 

[Krokketto Prime Danjal]

Does anyone else have the worst luck with combo boosters
like, in my case, one of two things happen. Either it just never goes off even with skill bosted to decent rates or it DOES activate and then gets a combo of like...3. Max.

Yes, all the time! I thought it was just me.

Since people are having a rant about this game atm, I'll add my complaint which is this: I've completed this game to about 98% (my estimation). I have the last 2 expert stages to beat and 13 Pokémon from the latest area still to catch. As has been said, the recent catch rates are absolutely dire and that is the major issue I'm having right now. I've been trying to catch Ekans; about a dozen hearts used and it won't stay in the ball. I haven't even had SCP to even tempt me into throwing a great ball. Now, if I'm having to use a similar number of hearts on say, at least 8 of the remaining Pokémon I've yet to capture assuming I get a bit lucky with the others, then I really can't see the motivation for going through all of that frustration and wasted hearts especially since these Pokémon are hardly anything special. I might as well just leave them and as I always say, they're not going anywhere. Make the stages harder if you must, but why make the Pokémon near impossible to catch as well?

On the positive side, I did quite well on A-Meowth (not as great as last week, mind) and Eevee felt oddly generous and gave me 2 boosters.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

This is the last day for the free 7 items.

Get them while they're hot, unless you already did.