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Being all White and Nerdy: Let?s Sperg Pokemon White!


Fuck, another shitty fanfiction Pokemon LP. How?d this get approved?

Because this isn?t a shitty fanfiction LP. Trust me, I tried that, it was terrible, I moved on.

This LP is going to be mechanically-driven and very, very about the Pokemon series and the complex mechanics which power it. You can expect a lot of metagaming, discussion on why a Pokemon is good or not, exploring what the numbers and characteristics of your Pokemon mean, etcetera.

Oh god, I don?t have even a basic understanding of Pokemon. How am I supposed to understand this spergy nonsense?

The main Pokemon thread in the general Games forum has a great first post [url=?http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3393075?]here[/url] if you literally don?t know how the series works. If it helps, this game is designed for preteens to pick up and play, so maybe you should stop being terrible.

I?m now operating under the assumption that you, the reader, knows what Pokemon is and has a basic but workable knowledge of the game.

You haven?t explored the hidden mechanics (You have used Hidden Machines though :v, but you?ve beaten the Elite Four and become the Champion. The things that the game explicitly tell you are now understood, like type advantages and disadvantages, the same-type attack bonus (although I will cover that in more depth), and basic item use. So let?s begin.

The Pokemon games have long, boring introductions meant to tell you how it works, so my commentary on that will be limited to the following:



You can pick your character?s gender in every game since Pokemon Crystal. I chose the male character because fuck pretending to be the opposite gender.



It comes from Lucas the Evangelist, and also has connections to leukos and lux, the Greek and Latin words for light. As such, it?s pretty much my default name for characters in games which have light-and-dark themes.

Because the plot is Pokemon and boring, I?ll sum it up quickly: your character and their two best friends, Cheren and Bianca, have been given a Pokemon. Black and White is the first game to solve the ?three starters and two people? problem of previous games, and it gives you two ?rivals? to fight every so often.



So here are our three options for starting Pokemon:



Snivy is a Grass-type, and is neither the best or worst starter Pokemon mechanically. Its stat spread is focused on Speed ? Snivy?s final form is the second-fastest starter Pokemon with 113 base Speed, nearly as fast as Sceptile who clocks in at a blazing 120 base Speed. For a frame of reference, most legendary Pokemon have 90 base Speed, the fastest ?normal? Pokemon have 130 base Speed (Aerodactyl and Jolteon being good examples), and the very fastest Pokemon, Deoxys-S, has a whopping 180 base Speed.

Snivy?s evolutionary line also has relatively high defensive stats, but mediocre attacking stats. Its major problem is that its movepool is horrendous ? its only moves are Normal-type moves, a scarce few Dragon-type attacks, not including any of the useful ones like Dragon Pulse or Draco Meteor, Grass-type moves (it has several useful ones here, but only Leaf Storm stands out), and non-attacking moves of various effectiveness ? Coil and Leech Seed being the best options there. Overall Snivy makes a great supporting Pokemon, but lacks the offensive power that an in-game starter wants.

In competitive play, Serperior is generally mediocre because of its horrid movepool and poor typing, but the Dream World gives it an ability which makes a mockery of game balance. Contrary reverses the effects of any stat-changing move ? while it makes the semi-signature move Coil worse than useless by lowering Attack, Defence and accuracy, but allowing it to abuse Leaf Storm to a ridiculous extent ? in addition to being a 140 base power STAB-boosted move, it also boosts its Special Attack two stages every time it?s used ? a single Leaf Storm doubles the offensive power of Serperior, two triples its Special Attack, and three quadruples its damage output. However, without any good coverage moves outside of Hidden Power, it is easily walled by Pokemon that resist Grass-type moves.



Tepig is this generation?s Fire-type, and probably the worst starter Pokemon of Black and White. It has a fairly high HP stat, powerful offensive stats both physical and special, but its abysmal defensive stats and speed let it down. While it?s usable in-game, I?d rather not pick it because I don?t like it.

Its evolutions continue the boring trend of Fire-type starters gaining a Fighting subtype upon evolution. The Torchic and Chimchar evolutionary lines do this much better (one top-level competitive player referred to the Chimchar line as ?the 36-24-36 of starters?), having high offensive stats and decent Speed in the former?s case and ludicrous Speed backed up by a multitude of boosting moves in the latter?s. Tepig?s Speed is pathetic (65 base Speed is beaten by Skarmory, one of the most defensive Pokemon in the game), has no methods of boosting it, and its offensive stats aren?t especially higher than the other starter Pokemon.

Dream World gives Tepig?s evolutionary line the ability Reckless, which is a great ability on a good Pokemon like Staraptor but next to worthless on Tepig?s line. It boosts the damage of moves which also damage the user by 20%, which only affects Flare Blitz on Emboar. While powerful Flare Blitzes hurt like crazy, horrid Speed and defensive stats don?t really give Emboar any opportunities to make use of it. Emboar finds its place far down in the tiers of competitive play where Blaziken and Infernape don?t exist to do his job better, and even then it?s not a stellar Pokemon, although few starter Pokemon are.



Oshawott is the Water-type starter of Generation V, and the best of the three in most scenarios. Its balanced stats and relatively good movepool make it extremely effective in-game, and its phenomenal typing (pure Water-types are great both offensively and defensively) helps out even more ? there are few Water-types in Unova compared to the other regions, and there are several Fire- and Grass-types that can easily complement Oshawott.

Its evolutions are more of the same, with access to a decent selection of moves even without TMs. Razor Shell is the best of the semi-exclusive starter Pokemon moves (the others being Flame Charge and Leaf Tornado), having solid damage and the ability to drop enemy Defence 50% of the time. Aqua Jet helps compensate for the mediocre Speed of the evolutionary line, and Swords Dance gives it a method to boost its Attack as well. It can also make use of great special attacks like Surf, Ice Beam and Grass Knot.

However, Samurott suffers from the same competition that Emboar does in competitive play ? many, many bulky Water-types exist, and they tend to specialise in better niches than Samurott. Feraligatr is better at using Swords Dance and Aqua Jet, Blastoise can defend better thanks to Rapid Spin, and Suicune laughs at them all with its phenomenal bulk and Speed. Shell Armor is a decent Dream World ability, but immunity to critical hits is only particularly useful on Pokemon who rely on boosting their defensive stats, which Samurott doesn?t. It certainly doesn?t completely change how Samurott plays like Contrary does.

I?d love to show off an actual battle for more mechanics work, but I can?t deny you the option to force me to pick Tepig because you hate my guts, right? Vote for a starter Pokemon and suggest terrible nicknames for them ? I?ll pick the spergiest nickname, so explain the obscure manga references that you make, please.