3rd Gen How long did it take for a full team?

For my 100th post, I thought I go back to where I began, a book end if you will and go back to FireRed and LeafGreen. When I was kid, I only used my Bulbasaur and somehow managed to beat the eight gym leaders before losing to my rival. So I wanted to ask, how long in the game did it take for you to assemble a full team? Also, did you get a full team and swap out members after doing so?

Usually after 4th-5th gym I managed to have a stable, full team. I rarely swapped one or two Pokemon afterwards.

I have my team by the fifth gym leader battle.

I've played through each game once, LeafGreen being the first game I ever finished. In that one, I had a team right away but I didn't understand typing so my team was really awful and I mostly relied on my Blastoise and the legendaries I had caught to beat the Elite Four. To this day I don't have a legit team in that game. But in FireRed I had a very controlled team that I had planned from the beginning and traded all my pokemon from LeafGreen to start off with as babies. I had five Pokemon on my team through all the gyms, but then I caught a Scyther in the Safari Zone to add to my team and beat the E4 with it. Usually though, I try to add a pokemon to my team at every gym or every two gyms until I get to the last one and have a full team of six. FRLG were special cases for me.

I never have a set place that I have a full team, but I don't like to have them all too quickly. I prefer having them all after maybe...the 6th or 7th badge. But it can happen sooner, and indeed it has happened sooner.

I always had battles with my friend in Leaf Green so I usually took the strongest pokemon I could get (generally legendaries). I can't remember much of Leaf Green though.

I believe I had a team of Blastoise, being my main pokemon because my friend had a charizard but also a venusaur which I gave him, with a Groudon to counter his venusaur. Also had a Raikou which I managed to catch after like a month.

If I remember correctly this was my exact team:
-Blastoise
-Kyogre
-Rayquaza
-Groudon
-Raikou
-Tyrannitar

Yeah...

I rarely plan my team out in advance, so it usually takes me until between the fifth and sixth Gyms to get a full party of Pokemon. At that point, I'll usually rotate 8 or so Pokemon through my six slots right until I've beaten the Elite Four, since I can rarely pick favorites on my team.

I know that once I did manage to have my team full by the time I got to Erika (the fourth Gym), but most of them didn't last on my team for the entirety of the game.

In FRLG I rarely had or do have a team planned out so it was whatever I liked alot. In my last playthrough, I didn't have my final team around getting the 7th or 8th badge so clearly I don't really get full team for a while.

I plan my team before hand, and I'll have the last member when I can access it in the game. But I'll always have my team before the Elite 4.

Before the second gym, Jigglypuff, Mankey, Starter, Pidgey, Caterpie, Zubat.

I have my team before first Gym.

I usually try to plan ahead and have a general idea of what pokemons I'd like to use. In the end i have a list of about 8-10 pokemon that i'd like to have in my team, and i normally have a full/stable team around the 6th badge, unless i really want to have a pokemon that can only be caught later on in the game

vaporeon7 said:

I plan my team before hand, and I'll have the last member when I can access it in the game. But I'll always have my team before the Elite 4.

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You do the same thing I do.

I used to plan out teams before I started playing. I used to stick to my comfort zone mixed teams that would counter the Rival's team. But since I started doing challenges, I tend to simply build up teams as I go.

I didn't have my sixth Pokemon, Jynx, until I beat the last gym leader. But I had my first 5 by the 5th gym I think.

I have a team of 6 by the 6th caught pokemon. I keep switching them out as I catch better pokemon and i don't really plan out my team unless i'm doing a challenge. Generally my pokemon are stable by the 3rd gym. Except I have a hard time in gen 5 with doing it this way... I tend to have to plan somewhat in gen 5.

Depends on what I want.
Usually what I want is different each time.
Training for EVs you want and EXP is super easy with the Versus Seeker, so I don't mind waiting until I get to the Safari Zone or late Routes for my full team.

Once I fished for the rare Grimer in Celadon's pond instead of waiting until reaching Cinnabar to finish a team, which takes a lot of patience.

Between Leaf Green and Fire Red, there are still some Pokémon I haven't used - Golduck, Vileplume, Chansey, Pinsir, Scyther, Dugtrio - to name a few, but as a rule, I avoid Pokémon that gained evolutions in Gen IV or trade evolutions.


Sometimes I don't even go for the full team if I want a quick playthrough to see what Pokémon I like.
Makes distributing Rare Candies for the end much more of a boon.

First time through was pretty typical...started with Bulbasaur, finished evolving Dragonite. So the longest it's ever taken me is to get all 6 members capturing Dratini in Fuchsia City.

I never swap in/out team members in LeafGreen, at least until after becoming Champion as the level curves too steep to avoid tedious amounts of grinding (that's not counting making sure Dratini is a Dragonair before heading out for Seafoam Islands, otherwise it just gets killed). Well, actually its not entirely true. When I did a run using the team of Red out of PokéSpe I swapped Eevee out later on as it was too weak and I had 7 members. Also because he didn't use it in the Pokémon League :)