How long do you wait to have your full team?

[Wateria]

I wait until after victory because like the poster above me I may see something there I want on my Team.

[Olli97]

That really depends on the game and which Pokemon that are available when. I tend to just get carried away whenever I see Pokemon I either like or that I know are good, so sometimes I end up with like 4-5 Pokemon before the third gym even, which kinda ends up getting hard to manage. This was indeed a problem in my last playthrough of Hoenn, when 4 of the Pokemon I wanted on my team were in the wild before the second gym, so I ended up having some that were horribly underleveled by the third gym, which called for some level grinding :( But usually it ends up being somewhere between the 6th and the 8th gym, so not all that bad in every region.

[C Payne]

Depends on the game, although most of the time I just travel through and naturally pick up the ones I want in my party and put any others in the PC. I know you usually have to go through the whole main story before things really open up and you know what you want, but it still bothers me if I don't have a 'nice team for the playthrough'.

I sometimes do a quick playthrough first and get the feel of what I want for a real playthrough because of this.

[roosterman]

well in diamond i would get a party full of bidoofs but would slowly swap out until they were all gone, in black and black 2 i got my permanent team just after the 4th gym badge

[True Honey]

It depends on the generation that I happen to be playing at the time but, most likely my final team is made at the PC box before the Elite Four and my final Pokemon is usually caught in Victory Road, just for its high level.

[Ven Bloodia]

It usually takes me to where I get to the 4th gym or so tbh.

[WeGotTheJazz]

Originally Posted by Hikari10

I usually get my full team assembled by the 7th or 8th badge since some of the Pokemon I like aren't found until later in the game.

I also tend to avoid any gimmick Pokemon or those two-stage Normal-type rodents found early on.

Pretty much this. If it wasn't for Riolu I would have gone solo for half the standard playthrough.

[Snork]

I try to span it out, makes it easier to keep your pokemon levels under control and allows you to look forward to having new pokemon fill spots throughout the game rather than having 6 within the first few badges. I usually end up with 5/6 by the 6th gym.

[Aeon]

On average I have almost everyone by the 6th or 7th gym badge. Generally the sixth slot is open until the 8th gym though, with the exception of White where I had everyone by the 6th badge.

[morrison]

Depends on the Pokémon. in the original B/W it took quite some time because there were just no good pokés around, where as in W2 I already had my full team by the 3rd badge .

[Ice Car]

Let's see... My team was Arcanine, Electivire, Azumarill, Espeon, Lucario, and Cincinno, so... I had my entire team by Route 5. So, pretty early.

[lucaspontes]

I usually get the second one before or after the first gym, the third and fourth between gyms 2 and 4, and the fifth around the sixth gym. If a Pokémon is only available late in the game (after 7th gym), I usually don't catch it. That's my team most of the time (plus a HM user), though sometimes I get a sixth member, which is always post-game unless I'm doing a challenge.

[Xeninacra]

Before BW, I always went to League with about 4 or 5 Pokemon. I didn't like beating the League if my team wasn't full, but that happened to me frequently.

And now it's like the opposite, I get too many Pokemon before the 3rd/4th badge and I don't really like it! (Of course, they're all part of the team I want to make.) And I don't like it because I have so many Pokemon that I don't know which one I should start training first. (And because there are not lots of trainers with high-level Pokemon around.)

I'd like getting them bit by bit, but as soon as I see one of the Pokemon I want in my team, I catch it so I can start training it. It looks like in BW and B2W2, the ones I want appear early in the game, and that's why I catch them relatively soon. (Well, I must say I have traded an egg from my Black 2 to my White 2 just because I couldn't wait to get an Archen that late )

But eventually I manage to get them all and train them all before the League.

[Icy Burn]

I finished my Team by the 5th Gym. :3

[Abnegation]

Always depends on the encounters. If a game has all 6 Pokémon I like right away then I'll catch them. However I do have a habit of catching and training 5 Pokémon up until I get to victory road, then catch a last powerhouse there.

[PiemanFiddy]

Sometimes I don't have my team until my 3rd badge. Sometimes I don't have my team until my SIXTH badge.