Man FUCK Norman.
After Wattson I went north and got a few catches, including (miraculously) a Zangoose. I then proceeded to waste all my balls on a Solrock which I didn't even catch. Nothing eventful happened on Mt. Chimney and Flannery was a breeze due to Swords Dance/Slash.
Then I went to the desert and got a Trapinch and a Lileep. I wanted Lil Dilly to be this stallmon with Toxic/Ingrain/Confuse Ray to just fuck with major battles, and to an extent it worked, but it made grinding hell. When I was finally done, I fought my dad.
I sent out Phillay and hoped to set up several Bulk Ups. However, on the first turn I was outsped and died to a critical hit. Fantastic. I sent in Lil Dilly to wear the Slaking down with Toxic, and after a while it worked. However, the fucker encored me into Toxic. Norman sent in his next Slaking and I saw the writing on the wall. I Ingrained myself in so I couldn't switch, and even if I did Fenrir would be fucked. From full health Lil Dilly died to Focus Punch. At this point I was terrified at the prospect of losing again. I sent in Fenrir to revenge kill and fortunately the Toxic helped (for some reason the Slaking was in Truant for its first turn, idk why). Then I had to fight the Vigoroth. I wasn't doing as much damage as I hoped, but in the end Fenrir survived with 5hp. I feel so much less secure about my team now that my starter is gone and my wall is down. I like who I have individually but they are pretty frail as a team.
>>43651588He was a good boy ;-;
>>43654321whew, I was typing this up and about to respond to
>>43653415 but damnnnn. Team Rocket sucks sometimes I swear. You don't think about anything because the grunts are so easy and surprise! Bullshit! I get that feel. Sorry for your losses, those are some tough pokes to lose.
As for encounters, yeah the lategame of Johto sneaks up pretty quickly. Technically there's the routes before Victory Road as well but there isn't much good to find there.
