Pokemon Emerald Hardcore Nuzlocke - Grass Types Only! (No items, No overleveling)

hey everyone my name is flagonhg and this is the video of my attempts to nuzzlock pokemon emerald with only grass type pokemon using hard nuzlocke rules if you don't know what a nuzlocke is check out my first video where i break it down in detail but in the interest of time let's jump straight into the rules of this challenge 1. if a pokemon ever faints in battle it is considered dead i must immediately release it or perma box it for the rest of my playthrough and 2 i can only catch pokemon from each route of the game and it must be the first grass type pokemon that i find the one exception to this will be pokemon used exclusively for hms the next set of rules are considered hard nuzlocke rules to make the run more difficult three items cannot be used in battle no potions no x items held items however are allowed four i cannot level any of the pokemon i use past the next gym leader's highest leveled pokemon until the start of that gym battle if a pokemon exceeds that level accidentally it must be boxed until the next gym badge is obtained and 3 battle mode must be on set for the whole run meaning that i do not get free switches following the defeat of an enemy pokemon so those are the rules of the challenge let's talk grass types grass type pokemon aren't the worst types of pokemon but they certainly aren't the best grass types generally provide great support with moves like sleep powder and leech seed but when it comes to damaging moves their move pools are usually pretty shallow gamefreak did change this in later games with the introduction of moves like seed bomb and woodhammer but in generation 3 grass types get a pretty raw deal look at gloom's move pool for example its highest damaging move until level 44 is acid a physical move with a base 40 power a shallow move pool is going to be a pretty universal problem for every grass type that i have access to and on top of that grass types are weak to fire flying poison ice and bug type attacks three of which are the preferred typing of gym leaders or elite four members in pokemon emerald so this should be fun in the hoenn national decks there are 10 fully evolved grass types septile ludicolo shiftery prelume vileplume blossom rosalia crawdally cacturn and tropius unfortunately roselia is unavailable in pokemon emerald and i can only get either vileplume or blossom due to something called the species clause the species clause is a common nuzlocke addendum that states that you cannot use more than one pokemon in the same evolution line so if i catch an oddish on route 110 i cannot catch another oddish on route 117 or even a gloom on route 121 so that leaves me with eight possible encounters if more than two pokemon die i'll be left with an incomplete team which means that every battle counts let's see how it goes naturally i start my journey by picking trico as my starter trico is probably the worst of the three starters but sceptile is fast he's relatively strong and he does have niche access to the leaf blade which is the strongest grass type attack in the game that isn't petal dance or solar beam i name him geico after beating my rival mae and her torchic i get pokeballs and access to my first two encounters on route 102 i catch a low tad and name her allstate in petalburg woods i get a shroomish and i name him farmers after some training where allstate evolves into a lombre i take on the rock type gym leader roxanne naturally this is pretty easy her geodudes go down to one absorb a piece from allstate her ugly little child does take a little bit more work absorb is a very weak 20 base power but eventually she goes down and i get the first gym badge from here it's a pretty straight shot to the fighting type gym leader brawley in due for town on the way geico evolves into grovile after hitting the level cap i decide to take on brawley and well to put it simply i grossly overestimate my damage output geico does basically nothing to brawley's machop as he starts setting up bulk up and then he goes down soon after allstate comes in and manages to take out machop but then meditate comes out and because i'm an idiot i let him hit a focus punch which absolutely just destroys allstate farmers comes out and takes out meditate but he's no match for makuhita well that's attempt one this was a good reality check i needed to take things a bit more seriously in attempt 2 i spent the first part of the run brainstorming how to beat brawley the answer comes when i remember that after delivering the letter to stephen mr briny will take you to slateport city even before you've beaten brawley which means that i can get access to one more encounter an oddish on route 110 i name her state farm while she's by no means a powerhouse state farm does learn sleep powder and her poison typing means that she resists fighting type moves with a new strategy in mind i go and take on brawley again this time i start with allstate to take on the machop my plan is to use flash to make his pokemon miss over and over again what i didn't factor in was that flash has a 70 accuracy meaning that i missed quite a bit matchup manages to take out allstate but then geico comes in and kills matcha meditek comes out and as long as i just keep attacking meta type can't get any hits in with focus punch makuhita comes out so i switch to farmers to set up a leech seed and then i switch to state farm to start taking hits i use sleep powder to put makahito to sleep and then i just whittle him down finally getting the second gym badge before i can get to the third gym i have to complete the only difficult rival fight in this game here mei has a wingle and a combustion both of which have super effective moves to everyone in my party in preparation for this battle state farm evolves into gloom and farmers evolves into breelum prelume is an incredibly powerful fighting type with a very high attack stat i can buff this attack set even higher with bulk up additionally breelum learns mock punch a priority move that allows me to knock out speedy pokemon before they can even move this is going to be an incredibly vital strategy going forward unfortunately with prelume's secondary fighting type also comes a times for weakness to flying type moves making this a tough strategy against any moderately strong flying type fortunately for me wingle is not a moderately strong flying type farmers can take a wing attack as she uses bulk up headbutt kills wingle and then mei sends out combustion here i go for a headbutt which leaves combustion with a sliver as it counters with a blaze boosted amber knocking out state farm that was really stupid i take out the rest of may's team with geico but without farmers i really don't think that i can beat some of the harder battles in the rest of the run so i reset and it's back to square one again in attempt 3 i'm way too reckless and i accidentally run into an optional trainer battle who has a nin keita that kills geico before the first gym i decide to reset right there and then in attempt 4 well we don't really talk about attempt 4 that was the gas leak attempt in attempt 5 i actually catch a cdot on route 102 instead of a low tad that's a one percent encounter rate but i'm not really complaining i name him nationwide i've refined my broly strategy so that i can easily handle him without losing anyone once i get back to may i lead with state farm sleep powder the window and then switch into farmers i set up two bulk ups this time and proceed to headbutt through her entire team much better the electric type gym leader watson is up next but he's not too tough my plan is to sleep powder his first pokemon with state farm and then set up bulk ups with farmers he sends out voltorb so i holy he just used self-destruct that was really scary but the plan is unchanged sleep powder with state farm a few bulk ups on farmers and that's all she wrote third gym badge is mine after this i get my fifth team member alambre on route 114 i of course name her allstate but now i face the part of the game that i was dreading from the moment that i came up with this challenge the fourth gem is flannery's fire type gym and in emerald every single one of her pokemon knows overheat a 150 base power fire move this is really bad news for my grass types now you might be thinking you just got a lambre he's part water type well yeah but let's take a look at lombre's move set zero damaging water type moves until level 49. i spent hours brainstorming what to do here i eventually landed on a revised bulk up strategy the reason that a straight up bulk up strategy isn't great is because of flannery's torquel it's an absolute tank with an incredibly high defense stat and it would easily knock out farmers with a single overheat with some quick calculations i found out that farmers would need five bulk ups to one shot torkle with return which is the strongest move it can learn at this point in the game so somehow i need to bulk up five times before being taken out by an overheat fortunately flannery starts with a numel which is much easier to set up on i start with gloom who i know can tank one overheat learning from the flash fiasco in attempt 2 i sweet scent to lower numerals of asian and then i hit it with a sleep powder which now has 100 accuracy i switch to allstate and start hitting flashes it's still not 100 accurate but it's pretty close after hitting six flashes i switch back to state farm and put the numeral to sleep i switch to farmers and then numa wakes up instantly fortunately he misses overheat on the next turn i start setting up bulk up and he hits an overheat farmers goes down and with that my hopes of beating this battle are over i don't even try to finish the battle it's back to square one again in the throes of defeat i realize the errors of my way with a few tweaks to my strategy i can make the battle with flannery relatively foolproof save for a couple potential critical hits now that this is my sixth time going through the first part of the game it goes relatively quickly i catch a lot on route 102 again so i pick up cdot on route 117. before i get to my second attempt at flannery i want to talk about something that is usually completely overlooked in most casual playthroughs effort values if you've ever looked into competitive pokemon you'll probably know all about effort values or evs for short basically evs are points given to different stats when your pokemon defeats other pokemon the more evs you have in a particular stat the higher that stat will be in normal playthroughs the game is so easy that you don't really need to take the time to consider which evs your pokemon are getting but in harder playthroughs it can make or break a game for example a breloom with zero attack evs will almost never one shot flannery's torquel with return at plus five bull cups however by investing 252 attack evs which is the maximum number you can put into any one stat this becomes a guaranteed one shot natures and ivs complicate this calculation a little bit but that's the general overview i also get a slight boost in attack from having the stone badge and another boost to my normal type moves by equipping farmers with a silk scarf so 252 evs is a bit of an overkill but i'd rather have as much power as i can going forward so in order to get these 252 attack evs i need to defeat pokemon that give me attack evs pujiana will give you one attack evie every time you knock it out using the held item macho brace i can double that number to two attack evs per puciana but that's still a hundred and twenty-six puciana so i head to route 101 and pound out puciana's while avoiding all other pokemon that will give me different evs the footage you're seeing here is from attempt five when i level up you can really see the difference that the attack evs make raising my attack by 20 points in just one level at one point during this grind i actually found a shiny worm pole it's not a grass type though so i kill it and move on anyways now that that brief lesson in ev training is over i take on flannery again my strategy is relatively the same only this time the plan is to get numel to hit allstate or state farm with one overheat because they can both tank one of those hits this will lower pneumo's special attack by two stages meaning that he won't be able to one-shot farmers even if he manages to connect through all the flashes the only way this doesn't work is if numo lands a critical hit overheat which is definitely a possibility but it's about all i can do the battle starts off with numel hitting a soft magnitude as state farm uses sweet scent i put the numel to sleep on the next term i hit a second sweet scent to make flash 100 accurate but numa wakes up and hits an overheat bringing state farm down to 2 hp for the record i did pump state farm full of hp evs before this fight by finding whismur's inverted turf tunnel talk about an immediate return on investments i put the numel to sleep and switch to allstate who starts hitting it with flashes after six flashes i switch to farmers and start bulking up on the fifth bulk up he hits a magnitude for two damage but it's all over by now i sweep through flannery with return thank god that's over the 4th gym badge is mine the next gym leader is the normal type gym leader norman who happens to be my dad before taking him on i get access to 2 more encounters in the desert on route 111 i catch a cacnia and i name him liberty and replace nationwide the seadot of the two cacturn is a much stronger dark grass type i also pick up the root fossil and head to rossboro city to revive it into a lily i name him usaa these pickups are both pretty useless at my current level cap but i'm happy that usaa will finally give me a pokemon that's neutral to flying type attacks now it's time for norman he starts with a spinda who loves to teeter dance but equipping state farm with a person berry means that it's a free turn to use sleep powder i switch to farmers and start using bulk up spinda wakes up and hits a teeter dance but another person bury means i go unpunished i mac punch it down and vigoroth comes out i bulk up again and then kill vigoroth with a mack punch my noon comes out and i predict a belly drum so i go for another bulk up and i kill it with another mock punch last is slaking i know that one mock punch won't kill it from here and slaking might use counter so i go for another bulk up on his loafing turn i hit a mac punch which leaves him with a sliver from here it's just a few more mac punches as he heals a few times good game dad you suck next up is the flying type gym leader winona this is a huge problem my strongest pokemon farmers is four times a week to flying type moves winona also uses a move aerial ace which never misses so i can't rely on flash shenanigans so the regular farmer strategy isn't a great option while brainstorming i ev train usaa in attack and hp evs and i ev train liberty and hp and special attack evs he evolves into cacturn i also catch my final encounter atropius that i named the general tropius is a very cool looking pokemon but he's pretty weak so he goes in the box next to nationwide for now so after some calculations i come up with what i think is a pretty surefire strategy liberty can learn growth and after a few gross fain attack will be able to one-shot winona's scariest pokemon her dragon dancing alteria the problem is finding a weaker pokemon to set up on winona leads with a swablu but it knows perish song which prevents setup so the plan is to kill the swablu with allstate growl the peliper that comes in afterwards and then start using growth with liberty while leech seed keeps me healthy from there it's a sweep so the battle starts off great nationwide fakes out this wobble and hits it with surf as it wastes a turn using mirror move winona heals the next turn and i get a critical hit taking out swablu pelipper comes out as expected and i start growling this takes forever because pelipper uses protect to stall but after six growls i switched to liberty to put pelipper to sleep i miss sleep powder but hit it on the next turn i switch to liberty so that i can set up a leech seed but i miss a second leech seed does hit but now i want more sleep turns so i switch back into state farm as peliper wakes up i miss another sleep powder then pelipper hits me with a super sonic and i hit myself in confusion twice three times i snap out of confusion and then i miss a sleep powder i really should have used sweet scent on turn one finally a sleep powder hits and pelipper goes into the red i switch in liberty anticipating that winona will use her second hyper potion but for some reason she doesn't so pelipper goes down and i'm not at all set up this sucks tropius comes out so i switch to allstate who gets hit by aerial lace citrus berry activates so a non-critical hit won't kill i decide to growl once as tropius prepares a solar beam so i switch to state farm to tank the hit and put it to sleep i switch back to allstate and start growling again after a few growls tropius wakes up and sets up the sun so i switch in state farm to tank a potential one turn solar beam here i miss another sleep powder and finally get fed up and use sweet scent sleep powder hits and then i finally switch to liberty who starts setting up growths after five growths tropius hits a critical hit killing liberty this is absolutely devastating and i immediately start to panic here i switch in usaa and hit a sludge bomb to at least knock out tropius but now skarmory comes out and i hit it with confused ray what happens next is basically a hail mary i switch in geico and pray to god that skarmory is confused as i rock to him to slower its speed somehow that does work i switch in allstate and hit a fake out then i switched to usaa and hit another confused ray here i completely forget that skarmory has steel wing and usaa almost goes down time for another hail mary i need to set up elite seed with farmers skarmory does hit an aerial ace but farmers manages to tank it then i switch in usaa to tank an aerial ace i switch to state farm to tank steel wing and here i try a third hail mary and go for a sleep powder this one doesn't work and state farm goes down that's two deaths i bring in usaa to regain some health and then switch to geico as winona uses a hyper potion i use screech which of course misses and geico goes down to a critical hit aerialist this is a goddamn massacre allstate comes out and i regain health with fake out i switch to usaa to tank and aerial ace and then back to allstate for a steel wing i growl so that i can have usaa in on the altarium a final switch to usaa takes out skarmory last is alteria and she immediately starts dragon dancing as i hit a toxic a second dragon dance allows me to hit a confused ray alteria hits an aerial ace leaving me with a sliver as i hit a sludge bomb right now if alteria hits itself in confusion next turn i win if not i'm losing one of my three remaining pokemon i just have to risk it with usaa so i click sludge bomb and altaria snaps out of confusion killing my fourth teammate allstate comes out to finish alteria off with a fake out winning me the gym badge but man do i not feel good about this that was awful i did have a string of bad misses in the middle there but honestly i played this one really poorly and made a ton of mistakes i never should have opened myself up to that many potential critical hits in preparation i also made a few critical mistakes the biggest mistake was that i didn't know that i had access to ice beam the tm for icebeam is on c mauville i thought it was behind a dive spot but it turns out that it was completely accessible to me and would have made alterius significantly easier oh well i guess at this point i have to decide whether to restart or soldier on with my four remaining pokemon good news is that farmers the breelum did make it out in one piece bad news is that there are a few fights coming up that i was really relying on crawdally for i do decide to keep going though i ev train nationwide in special attack and speed as she evolves first into a nuzleaf and then with the help of a leaf stone into a shift tree i also ev train the general in special attack and hp before i take on the psychic type gym leaders tate and liza i have to do a bunch of team magma and aqua stuff normally i'd skip the evil team stuff but maxie has a crowbat which is incredibly fast and incredibly strong making this fight incredibly scary any strategy i could come up with is susceptible to a critical hit so i just have to risk it farmers sets up a bull cup as maxie's mighty anna uses scary face he hits me with a takedown as i use another bulk up he then gives me a free attack boost with swagger as a person barry cures my confusion and i go for a third bulk up a mock punch takes care of mighty anna crobat comes out and it'll just be faster than me so i click return and hold my breath wing attack comes out thankfully doesn't crit and i counter with return camera comes out so i switch to allstate and knock it out with t serves that was lucky now it's time to take on tate and liza but compared to winona they're a cakewalk i lead with allstate and nationwide after a single growth nationwide can one shot all of their pokemon so i fake out the zatu and set up a growth playdoh hits a pretty hard earthquake but i can survive a few more of those i take out zatu with fain attack and allstate does some baby damage with surf as soul rock comes in cleodoll hits another earthquake and manages to take a crit on allstate i'm at risk to another critical hit earthquake so i switch out allstate for the general and take out the soul rock lunatone only knows psychic as an attacking move so i take out clay doll the next turn magical leaf plus faint attack is enough to take out lunatone winning me an easy seventh batch next up is more team magma team aqua stuff including a rematch with maxie and his crowbat this time it's a double battle against maxie and his admin with steven stone on my side i'm a little worried because computer partners can be a nightmare to deal with fortunately steven and his metang are total gross i start with lombre to take the intimidate and then switch in pre-loom who gets a free attack boost from swagger after a person berry cures my confusion i knock out camera up with return and on the next turn i knock out golbat now there's two mighty anas i knock out the weaker one so that maxi's pokemon are all alone maxie finally decides to go for another swagger so on the next turn i switch to allstate as matang knocks out the mighty anna crobat is out but a psychic icebeam combo takes it out lastly camerup falls to a psychic surf combo steven is just such a bro he also gives me the hm for dive so i'm finally able to get a water stone and evolve allstate into his final beautiful form next is a fight with archie who also has a crowbat but this goes exactly the same as the first maxi battle i hate gambling on no crit from krobat but it does work out after fast forwarding through the weather wars it's time to take on juan who straight up does nothing the entire time that three legendary pokemon are waging war a mere six tiles away from his gym it should come as no surprise that the water type gym is pretty easy he starts with love disc and i set up bulk up not wanting to deal with a tract i go for a quick kill with mock punch celio comes out and goes down to a mock punch kingdra his ace comes out and tries to set up with double team but i hit it with a return i go for another bulk up as he rests two more mock punches take it out as he just tries to do more double teams lastly return one shots to wiscash and mockpunch one shots the crawdon what an underwhelming eighth gym badge with all eight gym badges it's time to head to victory road and take on the elite four here the level cap is equal to the strongest pokemon of the last elite four member but does not include the champion wallace drake has a salamance at level 55 so i train up my team of four and get ready for the final challenge first is sydney the dark type trainer and let's not sugarcoat it this dude is a total joke one bulk up with farmers to compensate for the intimidate attack drop makes all his pokemon a one shot with brick break next is phoebe the ghost type trainer i start with nationwide and set up a growth while her dusk lops uses protect all her pokemon are one shots by faint attack with the exception of stabili who goes down soon after two down and we haven't even broken a sweat things are going well third is glacia the ice type trainer and all of her pokemon also get one shot by brick break after a single bulk up from farmers okay the fourth elite four member is actually a bit scary drake and his dragon types all have moves that make it a bit harder to do the bulk up strategy but it's nothing an icebeam tech can't handle drake leads shelgon and after a protect allstate takes it out with a single ice beam altaria comes out wastes time dragon dancing and then goes down to an ice beam king drug comes out and now things get a little more difficult i switched to nationwide as kingdra sets up a dragon dance i use growth as kingdra uses smokescreen which is removed with a white herb next turn kindred hits a critical hit body slam as i go for a second growth well switch out time i guess i go to all state hit a fake out and then miss an ice beam as kindred uses smoke screen kinder goes for another dragon dance and i hit ice beam which happens to freeze him i switch out to the general growth once and hit a magical leaf kingdra full restores as i hit another magical leaf we trade body slams and magical leafs leaving the general with 19 hp and kingdra going down flagon comes out oh hey that's me i switch to allstate and flygon hits a dragon breath paralyzing allstate not great flygon come on man an earthquake comes out and thankfully i connect with an ice beam for a one shot last is salamence who does scary damage with dragonclaw and then goes down to an ice beam honestly i probably would have lost if kingdra hadn't gotten frozen i have no idea what i was gonna do that was pretty lucky last is the champion wallace and you might think that this should be pretty easy since wallace focuses on water types but wallace has a very strong very fast tentacruel that can probably one shot my whole team with a critical hit sledge bomb many of his other pokemon also know ice type moves so this battle is by no means free but i do have a plan wallace leads with whale lord who has blizzard double edge and water spout the plan is to stall out whale lord with allstate until it runs out of blizzard pp and then switch to nationwide and set up growths with the dynamo badge boost to his speed you should be able to just ever so slightly out speed tentacruel things go pretty well with nationwide lowering whalelord's attack stat with growl as it tries to bait out blizzards at one point i do get frozen karma i guess but it's not a huge deal since whale lord kindly sets up rain giving allstate some free health from her raindish ability i also make sure to hit whalelord to about half health so that his waterspouts are weaker once the blizzards are gone i eventually make my way to nationwide and start setting up growths i need a full six to one shot tennecruel who is a special defensive tank whalelord hits a few soft double edges but on the third growth he gets a critical hit which bypasses the drops from growl and knocks out shiftry that's really unfortunate i bring in farmers and start setting up bulk up using leech seed to keep me healthy farmers will be slower than tentacruel so yet again we have to avoid a critical hit after i'm comfortably set up return knocks out wailord and my loading comes out she actually outspeeds me here which i wasn't really expecting and hits me with a toxic mockpunch probably would have taken it out so i probably should have done that instead return kills mylodic but now farmers is on a timer kenacrul comes out and i roll the dice one last time an icebeam comes out and doesn't crit as i counter with return which ironically does crit not that it necessarily mattered next is whiskash who goes down to a single return next is ludicolo who will go down to a return but then farmers will succumb to toxic the next turn since this is the last fight that's not a huge deal but before that i go to check the stats on the general to make sure he can take the gyarados waiting in the back but instead of checking his stats i accidentally just switch him in oops this ends up being fine though because i just set up growths as ludicolo starts setting up double teams what this doesn't know is that i have magical leaf which never misses so after six growths and recovering health with synthesis i knock out ludicolo with magical leaf last is the gyarados who hits a wet fart of a surf and goes down to a magical leaf winning me the match and the run well that was insane definitely the hardest nuzlocke challenge that i've done but i had a ton of fun there were so many fights that pushed me to brainstorm crazy strategies and think on my feet i definitely choked pretty hard on the winona fight and keeping ly leap alive would have made some of the later fights a lot less risky but overall i'm pretty proud of how i problem solved my way through this incredibly tough challenge if you enjoyed watching this please like the video and subscribe and comment down below if you think you have a strategy that would have made some of those battles easier let me know what i did wrong the plan for my next video is to do a hard nuzlocke playthrough of heartgold using only headbutt pokemon so until then thanks for watching

Channel: FlygonHG

Views: 933,279

Keywords: Pokemon, Gaming, Nuzlocke, Pokemon Challenges, Pokemon Emerald, Grass Type Only, Monotype

Id: hfR49BEFAOI

Length: 27min 46sec (1666 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/FlygonHG]

So I’ve been doing Nuzlockes for years and recently I decided that I wanted to start recording them and making videos out of them, while also taking on some more unique challenges. This is one of my first videos, so I’m still working out how to video edit and such! Any advice for video editing/style would be really appreciated.

My Rules:
1. Faint = Dead
2. Only catch the first grass-type Pokemon encounter in each Route (Species/Dupes clause in effect to prevent multiple catches of the same Pokemon and to ensure I can get each unique grass type)
3. No items in battle (Held items okay)
4. No leveling-up past the highest-leveled Pokemon of the next Gym Leader/final E4 member until the start of the gym battle
5. Set battle mode

My Encounters:
Geico the Treecko/Grovyle/Sceptile
Allstate the Lotad/Lombre/Ludicolo
Farmers the Shroomish/Breloom
State Farm the Oddish/Gloom/Vileplume
Nationwide the Seedot/Nuzleaf/Shiftry
Liberty the Cacnea/Cacturne
USAA the Lileep/Cradily
TheGeneral the Tropius

Run Overview:
I’d highly recommend this challenge. It’s hard, but a lot of fun! It took me six attempts to beat it, and I ended my sixth attempt with five deaths and three surviving team members. The hardest gyms, by far, were Flannery and Winona for obvious reasons. Brawly was also very difficult until I cracked a good strategy. Crobats from Maxie and Archie were a pain, and I had a few scares from random trainers with flying types. MVP was Farmers the Breloom using Bulk Up and Mach Punch. This was so fun and I hope it inspires someone to try something equally as crazy.
Next up for me, HeartGold Hardcore Nuzlocke using just Headbutt Pokemon. Should I make update posts?

[u/sound59]

Very cool video!

[u/TheFox6113]

I like your explanations mister FlygonHG look forward to more videos from you ;)

[u/Raptorsarelegit]

Seen your vids on youtube. Good stuff.