Pokemon HeartGold Hardcore Nuzlocke - Headbutt Tree Pokemon Only! (No items, No overleveling)

hey everyone my name is flag on hg and this is the video of my attempts at a pokemon heart gold hardcore nuzlocke using only pokemon from headbutt trees before we talk about the pokemon we can get from headbutt trees let's lay out the hardcore nuzlocke rules the basic nuzlocke rules apply one if a pokemon ever faints in battle it is considered dead and two i can only catch one pokemon from each route of the game and it must be from a headbutt tree the one exception to this will be pokemon used exclusively for hms the next set of rules are considered hardcore nuzlocke rules to make the run more difficult items cannot be used in battle no potions no x items held items though are allowed 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 and lastly battle mode must be on set for the entire run okay them is the rules for my hardcore nuzlocke now let's talk about headbutt trees headbutt trees are a game mechanic unique to johto where pokemon that know the move headbutt can headbutt certain trees causing a pokemon to fall out and attack and you can get a lot of rare and really cool pokemon like spinarak ladyba and hoothoot and caterpie okay most of the pokemon are trash here's the limited list of what you can find this limit becomes even more limited when you remove national decks encounters post elite 4 encounters and pokemon exclusively to soul silver in the end we're left with nine unique evolution lines i'll be playing with the species clause meaning that i can only catch one copy per unique evolution headbutt trees are on virtually every route of the game so without the species clause i could theoretically catch over 20 of the same pokemon with the species clause though i'll be limited to just nine individual pokemon but it does mean that i'll be able to reroll encounters to get a unique encounter until i have all nine so in short it'll make the game a little less boring so let's see how this goes oh also really quick yes there is a kanto part of this game but it's long tedious and boring so i'm gonna be ending the run after the first run through the elite four if you hate that if you think it's dumb let me know in the comments section okay let's do this i start off by using the universal pokemon randomizer to replace chicorito with seal and select it as my starter i choose seal because it starts by knowing headbutt and it'll give me the fastest access to headbutt trees i'll be using seal on my team for headbutt until i can teach my pokemon headbutt themselves but what's cool about this challenge is that i can get most of the encounters right away i named seal butt head before i can get pokeballs this red-headed kid steals some pokemon and the police ask me to identify him but i'm not an ark so i name him boy as soon as i'm given pokeballs i start head-butting trees in new bark town to get my official starter a pineco i name him cheerios and i officially begin my journey on route 29 i catch a hoot hoot and name him froot loops yes yes i know that's not how you spell fruit loops like the cereal but there's no need to get too attached to fruit loops in cherry grove city i catch a spinnerack and i name her wheaties on route 46 i catch an apom and i name him corn flakes cornflakes has the ability pickup so he'll be picking up crap for me for the rest of the run which i mean i guess is nice on route 30 i catch an execute and i name him mini weeds that's all the unique encounters i can get for now so after some leveling up i take on the first gym leader faulkner he leads with pidgey and i lead with cornflakes cornflakes knocks out pidgey with two scratches pidgeotto comes out next wow jodo is so cool a pidgey and a pidgeotto so many new and unique pokemon i use tail whip a few times on pidgeotto but once cornflakes is at risk of being knocked out i switch to fruit loops and hit him with two pecks for the win next i get access to two more encounters as i make my way to the second gym on route 33 i catch a spiro and i name her raisin bran and in azalea town i catch a heracross and name him special k special k is by far the best pokemon that i'm gonna get from headbutt trees and he will be very important for destroying a fair share of gym leaders unfortunately he is timid nature which is one of the worst natures for a hair cross because it lowers his attack and he has the swarm ability which is significantly worse than his other ability guts oh well i also head to ilex forest to get my second to last encounter a caterpie that i named applejacks and with that butthead has headbutted his last tree it's time to release him into the wild so that he can roam the sea with his brethren so long butthead after i solve the intricate puzzle that is bugsy's gym i challenge him to a battle bugsy has a scyther which is a pretty powerful bug type pokemon for this early in the game but so is special k and special k knows aerial ace so he just rips through bugsy's team two badges down i'm feeling pretty untouchable after that last battle really nothing can get in my way and by nothing i mean a level 10 marip who knocks out fruit loops while he's stuck in an uproar that's the end of my little bird fortunately i have another little bird so i'm not that upset when i take on whitney next special k makes quick work of her using brick break that's badge number three up next is morty but before i can take him on i get my final encounter i make my way all the way to lake of rage to get a vetonet it's pretty weird that you can get all the way to lake of rage with just three badges and by weird i mean stupid really stupid i like the idea of johto being more open and slightly less linear but the execution is atrocious by making almost the entire map accessible after the third gym all wild pokemon and trainers are shockingly low level by the time that you have four or five badges when you add the fact that you can't really re-battle trainers this makes grinding pokemon obscenely tedious and frustrating and personally i think it makes for a very unenjoyable experience speaking of unenjoyable experiences it takes me forever to find a tree with a venonat in it and when i do i make a really dumb decision and i switch in mini weeds who takes a critical hit leech life and dies retrospectively i'm not really sure what i was doing there maybe setting up leech seed i don't know but i do know that this is not going to be the dumbest thing that i do in this run well anyways i catch the venonet and i name it coco puffs now i do one of those painful grinding sessions that i just talked about where wheaties evolves into area dose apple jacks evolves into metapod and then butterfree and raisin bran evolves into firo morty is up next but he's a total joke because very few of his pokemon can actually do damage to normal type pokemon i teach cornflake's shadowclaw which is just given to you right before the gym and then i go to town shadowclaw one shots ghastly and then the haunter and then gengar comes out and i know that all it can do is sucker punch so i do play it safely and eventually take it out the last haunter is also one shot by a shadow claw it's kind of weird that morty doesn't have a mistress the one ghost type pokemon that was introduced in gen 2. actually it's weird that after four gym battles there's only been one johto pokemon this game is horribly designed but whatever next is the fifth gym match during some training i find a shiny tentacle and kill it cheerios also evolves into fortress after that i take on chuck still no johto pokemon chuck could be scary by using focus punch strats so i try to play around that but for whatever reason he just doesn't really do that so i win pretty easily retrospectively i guess i should have guessed that the guy who trains daily by standing under a giant waterfall might not be the most masterful tactician anyways this is where the non-linearity of johto gets weird the sixth gym leader jasmine has a stelix at level 35 but the seventh gym leader price only has a level 34 pilot swine given that stelix is pretty tough i decided to take on price first after doing a bunch of relatively mundane team rocket stuff i challenge him in his gym oh also cornflakes evolves into ambipom price goes down pretty cleanly to brick breaks from special k his seal actually hangs on and in the moment i couldn't figure out why since dugon is one shot the following turn it took me far longer than i would like to admit before i remembered that seal is not part ice type so i wasn't hitting it for super effective damage anyways moral of the story i'm an idiot and price is easy now it's time for jasmine given that my team is predominantly bug and flying types stelix is pretty intimidating but i do have a plan she leads with her two magnemites which both go down to a brick break from special k steelix comes out and i start to enact my plan which is basically just lowering his defense and then taking it out with digs from cheerios it takes some time because steelix is so bulky and i do have to switch out a few times to get rid of defense drops from screech but eventually stelix goes down and i get my sixth or i guess seventh gym badge now it's time to do the whole thing with team rocket taking over goldenrod city radio tower i would skip over this completely but my rival boy surprises me with a battle that i just really wasn't expecting by the way it's in this storyline where boyd literally narks me out for being in disguise as a team rocket member so i'm starting to really regret not snitching to the police the fight with boy goes fine until the very end where i carelessly leave wheaties in on a sneasel who crits a fan attack for the kill word of advice always always always play around the critical hits more on that later though after finishing off team rocket with little to no fanfare i have to work on replacing wheaties fortunately i have just a replacement for my bug poison type another bug poison type i train up coco puffs until it evolves into venomoth and i do this training on natus which gives coco puffs special attack evs because up next is claire and her dragon type pokemon and coco puffs is going to be key for that after getting everyone to their level cap i challenge claire she leads with gyarados and i lead with apple jacks apple jacks has the ability to compound eyes which increases accuracy by a factor of 1.3 this means that sleep powder has an accuracy of 97.5 percent which is pretty awesome i sleep powder the gyarados and switch in cornflakes who has just learned the move nasty plot which raises special attack by two stages corn flakes isn't a great special attacker but coco puffs is and cornflakes knows baton pass which passes on stat boosts so after two nasty plots i baton pass to coco puffs and proceed to sweep claire's entire team with sludge bomb i gotta say that feels pretty good with all eight badges done i just need to wrap up a few pieces of storytelling and then take on the elite four first is the kimono girls who individually engage you in a battle with one of the five eeveelutions you don't get a break between these fights and some of the eeveelutions are very fast and very powerful so this can actually be quite scary but fortunately by equipping apple jacks with a choice scarf i'm able to hit those 97.5 accurate sleep powders before any of them can do any real damage the last piece of storytelling before the elite four is to challenge the fat chicken at the top of bell tower normally i just catch this thing with a master ball and box it but technically i'm only supposed to catch pokemon from headbutt trees unless i'm using them for hms so i decide that i should try to kill it instead that's pretty tough though given that a fire flying type is not super easy for my predominantly bug flying types to deal with but my plan is to use cornflakes to tickle the o-ho and then use natural gift natural gift is a move that changes type and power based on the berry the user holds if i hold a charty berry natural gift becomes a 60 base power rock type move which is four times super effective against ho ho using a tickle first to lower hobo's defense will guarantee a one shot so cornflakes uses tickle and huhu retaliates with a critical hit sacred fire knocking out cornflakes always play around a critical hit this sucks not only is cornflakes one of my best pokemon i went all in on this strategy so literally none of my other pokemon are capable of handling this giant bird things go bad really quickly ho ho manages to murder four of my pokemon leaving me with apple jacks and cheerios some very quick googling of the elite four tells me that it will be virtually impossible for me to beat it with just these two pokemon so after getting all eight gym badges i reset the game and go back to square one in attempt 2 i accidentally kill the butterfree encounter in ilex forest so i decide to just reset the game right there i'll just skip that attempt entirely attempt 3 starts very similarly to my first attempt i catch the same pokemon though in a slightly different order we get orange the hoot hoot grapes the execute watermelon the spinarak strawberry the spiro kiwi the pineco banana the a palm blueberry the hair across apple the caterpie and plum the venonet there's only a few notable differences in this attempt first banana the 8 palm has the ability run away instead of pickup which will be important later second plum the venonat has tinted lens instead of compound eyes which is a fantastic ability more on that later too third although grapes the execute still dies from a careless mistake on my part orange the hoothoot survives so i use her as she evolves into a knock towel and lastly in this attempt i'm much more careful in allocating effort values most of my pokemon are ev trained in two stats to make things easier while eevee training orange in hp for example i've happened to find another shiny a whopper and i kill it eventually i get back to where i was in attempt one facing down how how but now i have a literally foolproof strategy remember how banana my new apom has the ability to run away instead of pickup that turns into technician when he evolves into ambipom which increases the power of moves with 60 base power or less by a factor of 1.5 this means that natural gif's 60 base power rock move when holding a charty berry now becomes a 90 base power rock move which is enough to kill the ho dasho in one shot now we are finally at the elite four but we do have to fight our rival one last time and i want to use this as an opportunity to talk about how great the ability tinted lens is tinted lens is an ability that doubles the power of not very effective moves essentially making them regularly effective this pairs really well with choice specs an item that increases special attack by a factor of 1.5 with the drawback of only being allowed to use a single move by setting up a single nasty plot and baton passing to plum i'm able to sweep through my rival's pokemon regardless of whether or not his pokemon resist my attacks it's such an amazing ability this strategy will be very key in the elite four after some training to level up everyone to match karen's level 47 hound doom here's my final team lance is going to be tough but i'm confident i can make things work first is will the psychic type trainer i sleep powder his zatu and then switch to banana who sets up two nasty plots instead of going to plum who might take a psychic on the switching i have a ton pass to orange who shakes off a confused ray with a person berry from here it's a sweep with shadow ball jinx is actually faster than orange and hits an ice punch which would have been bad if it froze me but it doesn't the second satu also outspeeds me and hits a confuse ray but i fight through it and win the battle next is koga who should be easy if i can set up plum my plan is the same as before but i remember half a second too late that ariados has the ability insomnia and can't be put to sleep so i should have led with banana not apple this is a pretty bad mistake to make i switch to banana and get hit with a hard poison jab i'm dead to a crit but i decide to risk it and go for a nasty plot he opts for spiderweb so i baton pass to venomoth and sweep through his entire team i'm not using a choice specs here so muck actually hangs on but i get a high roll on the next turn and win the battle third is bruno whose fighting types make it a bit harder to set up with banana fortunately two of his pokemon have no fighting type moves whatsoever and orange can learn reflect to reduce physical damage so i lead with orange and realize that i completely forgot to teach him reflect that's another mistake for the second battle in a row word of advice if you're repeatedly making mistakes take a break don't keep going but because as we've already established i'm an idiot i decide to keep going i knock out hitmontop with two air slashes out comes hitman chan who knows zero fighting type moves i switch to banana and take an ice punch i set up a nasty plot and then baton pass to plum who gets hit by a fire punch that's pretty unideal especially since hitmonchan can now kill me with a critical hit priority bullet punch but he doesn't go for it and choice spec's sludge bomb clears through the rest of his team seriously tinted lens is ridiculous the final elite four member is karen she can be scary but my plan is to just do another nasty plot strat she leads umbreon and i hit a sleep powder for the record i should say that in these battles apple is holding a wide lens to make her sleep powders hit a hundred percent of the time i'm really not trying to lose this run on a 2.5 chance of missing anyways i switched to banana and umbreon instantly wakes up and starts using double team pretty ironic i baton passed a plum and umbreon is just going all in on this double team cheese it takes a few turns but i eventually hit him with a signal beam and then that's that karen doesn't stand a chance gengar does survive a signal beam because it's four times resistant but it knows terrible moves and it really can't do anything to plum with that i've beaten the elite four last is the champion lance the plan is you guessed it nasty plot with venomoth i decide to be a bit fancier and start with orange to set up a choice scarf to reflect i then switch to apple and put the gyarados to sleep then i switch to banana and set up nasty plot gyarados wakes up and hits some nasty waterfalls as i baton pass to plum if he crits either of those waterfalls i'd probably be done plum knocks out the gyarados but then out comes aerodactyl and in that moment i realized that i was not remotely prepared for aerodactyl plum is fast but aerodactyl is much faster i have a charty berry to reduce the damage from a rock type move but i didn't think about the damage that gyarados would do on the switch in aerodactyl outspeeds and kills plum with an aerial ace this is really really bad aerodactyl can out-speed and one-shot everything on my team that isn't kiwi the fortress i was just not at all prepared i switch in orange to set up a reflect but even with choice scarf aerodactyl out speeds and orange goes down aerodactyl even outspeeds banana and knocks him out before he can get off a tickle a few turns later and i have been completely wiped by the champion in the last fight of the run this is absolutely devastating it's not hyperbolic to say that i'm completely gutted especially because i really really should have known that aerodactyl would be so fast and i should have prepared for it attaching the choice scarf to plum instead of orange would have allowed me to out speed it and knock it out this was completely avoidable and it was entirely my fault at this point i have no idea what to do do i really restart and play the whole game just to get back to this one fight i have spent weeks on this playthrough shirking responsibilities and sleep to finish it restarting after getting so far in the first attempt really broke me and i wanted to rush through this challenge on the next attempt and ultimately the desire to finish it quickly cost me if i had taken just a second to really think everything through i would have seen that aerodactyl deserved a lot more respect i could definitely spend another several days replaying this game and i'm sure i could beat it on the fourth attempt but frankly this has been a pretty miserable experience as i said before the grinding in heart gold is really slow and large portions of the game are very dull and very uninteresting so in the interest of personal mental health i'm just not gonna do that however i did save right before lance so as a final send-off to this challenge i'll take on lance one more time giving plum a choice scarf as you can see things go much better i'd still be in trouble if gyarados landed a critical hit waterfall but once i get past those hurdles it's a clean sweep with plum and i win the battle this proves to me that it is definitely possible and maybe someday i'll come back and do this run for real but for now heartgold using headbutt pokemon is over and it's officially the first nuzlocke on this channel that i've failed if i'm searching for a silver lining here it's this failing nuzlockes makes being able to beat other nuzlockes all the sweeter so i guess i've got that going for me but writing this i really can't help but feel absolutely frustrated by the outcome of this challenge at the very least i'd like to say that i did learn a lot from this run if there's a couple things to take away from this it's that you should always have a backup strategy in case things go to and of course always play around a critical hit if you can avoid it and also that aerodactyl can burn in hell here's to hoping that the next time i do a challenge like this i don't choke on the champion speaking of which my next challenge will be pokemon platinum with water type pokemon only it's not like that game has a notorious reputation of having an incredibly difficult champion that ends nuzlocke's right right anyway stay tuned for that if you enjoyed watching this please like the video and subscribe and comment down below if you think i'm a massive wimp for giving up insulting me is good for the youtube algorithm thanks for watching and remember to always always always play around the crit you

Channel: FlygonHG

Views: 506,097

Keywords: Pokemon, Gaming, Nuzlocke, PokemonChallenges, Pokemon HeartGold

Id: n4ST4OVHdtk

Length: 21min 16sec (1276 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021