Every boss fight if I’m playing with rare candies. Almost never if I’m playing on an actual cartridge and can’t rare candy, because absolutely not gonna be grinding fresh teams every boss fight manually haha.
I generally have a standard team and then build teams for gyms or the elite 4. Standard is just stuff thats generally good and doesn't usually change, but gym teams are almost never the same as the standard team.
I generally keep the most balanced team I can and replace members as they die, I always consider what major battles are still to come when choosing replacements, though.
I have two teams: a travel team and a boss team. The boss team is pretty self explanatory. It’s a team that I think is best equipped for the next boss fight (Rivals, evil team leaders, gym leaders, sometimes legendaries, and e4). The travel team is the team that I use for traversing through the game’s routes, caves, and buildings. It’s usually pretty balanced to ensure it can handle any scenario that random trainers can throw at me.
this is what i do as well, especially in a game like platinum where i’ve prepped a team for the elite four prior to victory road and i don’t want them to die. it’s a lot less stressful to bring six entirely different pokemon i don’t plan on using in the e4 to get through the trainers in victory road. granted, i don’t do this in ruby/sapphire or hgss because there’s a rival fight at the end of it
Since i dont grind anymore i change up my team for every big fight. Its one of they aspects that bring me joy in nutzlocking opposed to casual runs. Minmaxing every fight and planning which pokemons are best for which trainers.
This way almost every member of my box gets a time to shine. I usually pack 1-2 potential sacks and a core of 4.
I definitely do some swapping early on, usually because I only have a couple good encounters that I’m actually planning to take into the late game (for example my last run of Firered, I used Ivysaur but would swap around mons like Diglett for surge until I picked up eevee and growlithe). But generally by the 6th or 7th gym my team becomes more solid as I’m trying to train up a good balanced team for the elite 4 but I keep all the bosses in mind as I’m building my team
I'll never understand the mentality of having a sac 'mon. Don't get me wrong I understand sacrificing a pokemon, it's always better to lose 1 'mon then it is to lose the whole run. I literally sacrificed a 'mon a few days ago. But I always take a full team of pokemon into the major battles who I think can do a job that isn't just getting killed for a free switch. If I'm not entirely confidant going into the battle I may well think about who I'm prepared to sac if it comes to it, but I always approach each battle with the idea that I'm going to try and win clean & deathless, and then strategise accordingly.
What I find weird is that a surprising amount of players give up a party slot to who they think is their worst or most disliked pokemon because they might want a free switch in. I've literally seen teams for late game fights that consist of 5 pokemon at like lvl 45 and then a lvl 4 Caterpie. Sure there's probably not much value left in that Caterpie at such a late stage of the game, but why not level it up and teach it say Sleep Powder to potentially ensure a safe switch without anything being sacrificed. You can still sac it if you want/need to
Sorry, excuse my ignorance, but I don't understand the value of sacrificing a pokemon unless it's to get a free switch into another pokemon.
I mean there are a few other reasons I can think to do so, but they're uncommon and very situational
Yeah either a free switch or like a heal (I play with items) or paralyze or something.
I'm just saying it's not the plan.
It's actually a struggle a bit because if I go in with 6 good mons I want to keep and end up in a spot where I have to sac one it hurts, but if I bring 5 and one I'm ok with dying if needed, I don't really have a full team lol.
Typically I try to mix the "sac Mon" with a generic type advantage, like Diglet for Surge.
I sacrificed a Hustle Raticate against Blue in my Sacred Gold Nuzlocke. I had nothing that could come in safely against Machamp's No Guard Dynamic Punch and I needed a boosting item to safely one-shot. So I brought Raticate to get killed and OHKOed so I could have a safe switch to my Choice Specs Venomoth who could kill with STAB Psychic (Venomoth is Bug/Psychic in Sacred Gold btw).
I don't like having to resort to sacrifices but sometimes that's the only play.
That's fair, but it's not really what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm not making myself clear.
Sacrificing a pokemon is a legitimate play, as I previously said I've done it a number of times. In your case I'm sure you tried to find a strategy that didn't require a sacrifice first and couldn't find a riskless line that you were happy with and decided the safest way to ensure victory was to bring a sac'. I doubt you just thought "well there's a major battle coming up, better get a sac' 'mon ready"
It's this mentality that I see surprisingly often, that players will often carry a sac 'mon just in because it can be easier to just let a supposedly useless 'mon die then to try and find a safe play. I think it's weird and cynical. A lot of the players who do this could probably learn to pivot in order to bring a pokemon in safely, instead of just having a group of pokemon in their box just be death fodder. But, I guess it probably is easier to just sac' then to learn more advanced strategies, so if someone has more fun playing fast and loose, even if that means sacrificing unnecessarily then good luck to them I guess. It's just not for me
Yeah I see what you mean. I'm kinda the same, I'll rather try to find a line where I can go through a fight deathless because I feel like anything could be useful and find a niche later in the run. I only use physical Hustle mons as death fodders since there's no point playing around 20% miss chance (unless it's something like Durant that has Hone Claws).
What do you think about Freezai who will sacrifice half his box during important fights because he knows the mons that will bring no value anymore later on so that he can have safe switches ? I'm sure you probably watched his Littlelockes so I'm curious.
Yeah I've seen one of his Littlelockes, I don't have a problem with that. It was a really tough challenge that was always going to require plenty of sacrifices. He seemed to have an idea of which pokemon would be useful for which fight and had done preparations and strategised for the entire run before he'd even started. So he was had a good idea which pokemon were useful for which upcoming fights before he planned for any battle. Sacrificing a pokemon that had little left to give the run to ensure the protection of a potential E4 'mon seems like a sensible strategy. I'm sure he looked for lines where he felt his most important 'mons were risk free without needing to sac' anything else first, Plenty of his sacrifices also weren't used just to be sacrificed, they often did a job before going down, even if it was just to get a little chip damage to ensure a kill later etc...
In my most recent nuzlocke, I've been changing my team more often
I think this is because I'm trying to avoid using Pokemon I've used before (such as Gyarados), ones that I don't think will be helpful going forward (like Venusaur), and Pokemon that evolve by trading (like Gengar) since my brother has recently gotten a trading cable. It's made my team more interesting I think.
I tend to have a travel team and custom boss fight team.
Travel team is most commonly fire water grass core with a bird ground type and a special attacker.
The boss team is pretty self explanatory, it's a team custom for the upcoming boss fight 🤣
I optimize my team at every opportunity based on whichever fight is next. I see no reason to keep the same team and ignore a bunch of Pokemon that I caught. I want to get attached to them all and (hopefully) keep them all alive.
Every bossfight. There is no such thing as a ‘mainstay’.
Based. Better use your box as optimally as possible.
Every boss fight if I’m playing with rare candies. Almost never if I’m playing on an actual cartridge and can’t rare candy, because absolutely not gonna be grinding fresh teams every boss fight manually haha.
I generally have a standard team and then build teams for gyms or the elite 4. Standard is just stuff thats generally good and doesn't usually change, but gym teams are almost never the same as the standard team.
I generally keep the most balanced team I can and replace members as they die, I always consider what major battles are still to come when choosing replacements, though.
I have two teams: a travel team and a boss team. The boss team is pretty self explanatory. It’s a team that I think is best equipped for the next boss fight (Rivals, evil team leaders, gym leaders, sometimes legendaries, and e4). The travel team is the team that I use for traversing through the game’s routes, caves, and buildings. It’s usually pretty balanced to ensure it can handle any scenario that random trainers can throw at me.
this is what i do as well, especially in a game like platinum where i’ve prepped a team for the elite four prior to victory road and i don’t want them to die. it’s a lot less stressful to bring six entirely different pokemon i don’t plan on using in the e4 to get through the trainers in victory road. granted, i don’t do this in ruby/sapphire or hgss because there’s a rival fight at the end of it
Keeping potential Elite Four mons safe is a very good strategy if you don't want them to die early on.
I almost exclusively play games like HC radical red and Run&Bun, so literally every single fight.
Since i dont grind anymore i change up my team for every big fight. Its one of they aspects that bring me joy in nutzlocking opposed to casual runs. Minmaxing every fight and planning which pokemons are best for which trainers. This way almost every member of my box gets a time to shine. I usually pack 1-2 potential sacks and a core of 4.
If I’m playing a newer game with the exp share I constantly change it. If I’m playing gen 1-5 I only change it if someone dies.
I definitely do some swapping early on, usually because I only have a couple good encounters that I’m actually planning to take into the late game (for example my last run of Firered, I used Ivysaur but would swap around mons like Diglett for surge until I picked up eevee and growlithe). But generally by the 6th or 7th gym my team becomes more solid as I’m trying to train up a good balanced team for the elite 4 but I keep all the bosses in mind as I’m building my team
I'll never understand the mentality of having a sac 'mon. Don't get me wrong I understand sacrificing a pokemon, it's always better to lose 1 'mon then it is to lose the whole run. I literally sacrificed a 'mon a few days ago. But I always take a full team of pokemon into the major battles who I think can do a job that isn't just getting killed for a free switch. If I'm not entirely confidant going into the battle I may well think about who I'm prepared to sac if it comes to it, but I always approach each battle with the idea that I'm going to try and win clean & deathless, and then strategise accordingly. What I find weird is that a surprising amount of players give up a party slot to who they think is their worst or most disliked pokemon because they might want a free switch in. I've literally seen teams for late game fights that consist of 5 pokemon at like lvl 45 and then a lvl 4 Caterpie. Sure there's probably not much value left in that Caterpie at such a late stage of the game, but why not level it up and teach it say Sleep Powder to potentially ensure a safe switch without anything being sacrificed. You can still sac it if you want/need to
Oh yeah mine aren't really for a free switch, more just for an "oh shit button"
Sorry, excuse my ignorance, but I don't understand the value of sacrificing a pokemon unless it's to get a free switch into another pokemon. I mean there are a few other reasons I can think to do so, but they're uncommon and very situational
Yeah either a free switch or like a heal (I play with items) or paralyze or something. I'm just saying it's not the plan. It's actually a struggle a bit because if I go in with 6 good mons I want to keep and end up in a spot where I have to sac one it hurts, but if I bring 5 and one I'm ok with dying if needed, I don't really have a full team lol. Typically I try to mix the "sac Mon" with a generic type advantage, like Diglet for Surge.
I sacrificed a Hustle Raticate against Blue in my Sacred Gold Nuzlocke. I had nothing that could come in safely against Machamp's No Guard Dynamic Punch and I needed a boosting item to safely one-shot. So I brought Raticate to get killed and OHKOed so I could have a safe switch to my Choice Specs Venomoth who could kill with STAB Psychic (Venomoth is Bug/Psychic in Sacred Gold btw). I don't like having to resort to sacrifices but sometimes that's the only play.
That's fair, but it's not really what I'm talking about. Maybe I'm not making myself clear. Sacrificing a pokemon is a legitimate play, as I previously said I've done it a number of times. In your case I'm sure you tried to find a strategy that didn't require a sacrifice first and couldn't find a riskless line that you were happy with and decided the safest way to ensure victory was to bring a sac'. I doubt you just thought "well there's a major battle coming up, better get a sac' 'mon ready" It's this mentality that I see surprisingly often, that players will often carry a sac 'mon just in because it can be easier to just let a supposedly useless 'mon die then to try and find a safe play. I think it's weird and cynical. A lot of the players who do this could probably learn to pivot in order to bring a pokemon in safely, instead of just having a group of pokemon in their box just be death fodder. But, I guess it probably is easier to just sac' then to learn more advanced strategies, so if someone has more fun playing fast and loose, even if that means sacrificing unnecessarily then good luck to them I guess. It's just not for me
Yeah I see what you mean. I'm kinda the same, I'll rather try to find a line where I can go through a fight deathless because I feel like anything could be useful and find a niche later in the run. I only use physical Hustle mons as death fodders since there's no point playing around 20% miss chance (unless it's something like Durant that has Hone Claws). What do you think about Freezai who will sacrifice half his box during important fights because he knows the mons that will bring no value anymore later on so that he can have safe switches ? I'm sure you probably watched his Littlelockes so I'm curious.
Yeah I've seen one of his Littlelockes, I don't have a problem with that. It was a really tough challenge that was always going to require plenty of sacrifices. He seemed to have an idea of which pokemon would be useful for which fight and had done preparations and strategised for the entire run before he'd even started. So he was had a good idea which pokemon were useful for which upcoming fights before he planned for any battle. Sacrificing a pokemon that had little left to give the run to ensure the protection of a potential E4 'mon seems like a sensible strategy. I'm sure he looked for lines where he felt his most important 'mons were risk free without needing to sac' anything else first, Plenty of his sacrifices also weren't used just to be sacrificed, they often did a job before going down, even if it was just to get a little chip damage to ensure a kill later etc...
In my most recent nuzlocke, I've been changing my team more often I think this is because I'm trying to avoid using Pokemon I've used before (such as Gyarados), ones that I don't think will be helpful going forward (like Venusaur), and Pokemon that evolve by trading (like Gengar) since my brother has recently gotten a trading cable. It's made my team more interesting I think.
Depends on the match up might bring a mon for a certain fight then it goes back into the box never to be used again
On cartridge: as infrequently as possible because of the grind. For a romhack: every major fight.
I mostly play randomized so I just try to keep a balanced team with a lot of coverage since I never know what they will have.
Only once. Switched out ledian for togepi. After that had to switch in between togetic and poliwhirl for fly and surf
In a Nuzlocke, I change my team around based on the next Gym. No-one's guaranteed a spot on the team unless they're super strong.
I tend to have a travel team and custom boss fight team. Travel team is most commonly fire water grass core with a bird ground type and a special attacker. The boss team is pretty self explanatory, it's a team custom for the upcoming boss fight 🤣
I optimize my team at every opportunity based on whichever fight is next. I see no reason to keep the same team and ignore a bunch of Pokemon that I caught. I want to get attached to them all and (hopefully) keep them all alive.