[Gen 4] First full play Pokemon Pearl

hi guys,

in 2015 my friend lended me his NDS and I tried a bit of Pokemon Diamond but ultimately didn't finish it, I don't remember anything story-wise.
Recently, I bought my own NDSi and I saw a reddit post hating on Gen 4 because it had too many HM-related exploration,
so I decided to put myself to a challenge using a full team of Pokémon having HMs in their movesets, rather than having a smaller team + one or two lower-levelled HM slaves.

I already count 12 hours of play and 2 badges, just arrived in Veilstone city,
here's my lv.26 team so far,

Mandala the Grotle - Razor leaf, Curse, Bite,
Mrs. S the Pachirisu - Cut, Flash, Charm, Spark
Siddharta the Staravia - Wing attack, Quick attack, Endeavour, Whirlwind
Ganesh the Misdreavus - Psybeam, Confuse ray, Mean look, Astonish
Bartolomea the Bibarel - Rollout, Strength, Rock Smash, Water gun
(egg)

Since I've found on a walkthrough that the egg has a Happiny, I'll just not hatch it because I don't really care about Happiny, + I caught a Chansey already.
Pachirisu was intended only to use with Flash, but I also taught it Cut because I didn't want to teach it to Bibarel.
Bibarel is a staple since I already know he's able to learn almost all HMs. I'll probably give Strength to Torterra later if needed, then Fly and Defog to Staraptor.

Pachirisu was hard to use especially with all the ground/rock and steel types that can be found early, so far I have really glaring vulnerabilites, like being unable to OHKO or 2-KO the likes of Bronzor and Stunky.
At some point, I tried to train a Gastly but with its low defenses it was just looking useless, also knowing I have no means of obtaining a Gengar right now.
Another one I was training, then interrupted to carry egg, was Ponyta. I never finished a single run with Rapidash but I heard it is quite a respectable battler.
My plan is to have a "wild card" 6th team member using a pseudo-leg or a leg, because it already seems like it is going to be difficult.
Probably I'm going to have to replace Pachirisu later on, but I have high hopes Mismagius and Torterra will be the MVPs of the team.

Also I haven't been using any TMs so far except Flash.

I only play when I'm riding the subway, progress is slow so far.
I have zero patience to backtrack to visit my honey-soaked trees and berry trees sadly, so no Munchlax and no contests for me.
Thanks for reading,

Hey, here is some heads-up of what I have been doing since last post,

renamed my Ponyta Brahma and trained it, I like how good it is at using stomp.

Finally made it to Veilstone and took the freedom to roam on the southern road before taking the gym challenge, which proved useful because, that was a tough battle.

Generally speaking, this gym was quite intense with all the Machokes used and their high attack stat.

Maylene's Lucario was ridiculously tough, and resisted well all the Embers casted by my Ponyta, which in turn got KO'd quite quickly, as well as other team members, even the Staravia, who couldn't resist much long against Rock type moves from Machoke and Meditite.

I wasn't expecting it but it was Pachirisu who saved the day by using Charm and Flash to lower the amount of damage I'd be taking, and after it got KO'd, Grotle made the last revenge kill.

After that I had a pretty fun fight with Galactic grunt, and now I'll explore the Galactic warehouse. I have the itch to evolve my Misdreavus since a guide suggests I'll find the appropriate stone in this warehouse, but at least I'll let it learn Shadow Ball before evolving, since after the stone it will be missing on a few interesting moves, and I still do not use TMs.

That's all for now. Team is now raised up to lv. 28, meaning for the first time in the playthrough, I am a bit late in levelling compared to gym leaders... Quite exciting.

Mandala the Grotle - Razor leaf, Curse, Bite, Withdraw
Mrs. S the Pachirisu - Cut, Flash, Charm, Spark
Siddharta the Staravia - Aerial Ace, Fly, Endeavour, Whirlwind
Ganesh the Misdreavus - Psybeam, Confuse ray, Pain split, Astonish
Bartolomea the Bibarel - Rollout, Strength, Rock Smash, Water gun
Brahma the Ponyta - Ember, Stomp, Fire spin, Take Down

So, I tried to continue my party. I rushed to Pastoria Town and beat Crasher pretty quick thanks to Grotle and Pachirisu.
After that, I had to chase a Grunt until the lake front, and meet Cynthia to retrieve a Potion for Psyducks.
This part of the game is a bit messy because it makes me go back-and-forth to cities. But there we go.

The roads overall are becoming more difficult and I'm glad the Marts started selling Revives early.

After a bit of difficulty, I end up in Celestic City to know a bit more about the game's Lore.
And then, I have to backtrack again. I don't know how I got the idea to return to Hearthome City? Probably Cynthia or her grandmother mentioned it after giving me the HM Surf. Now Bibarel has gained an update.

And really, Hearthome Gym. The quizz system is nice for kids but for me it's a bit boring doing additions, anyway I proceed to beat the different trainers... After a while my team has lost 50% of its members and I am having a hard time.

I will lose one time to Fantina. Drifblim was beaten easily thanks to Rollout, but my Pokémon can't stand the constant pressure of Mismagius and its Confuse Ray or lucky Psybeam...

Fair enough, that's free exp. points in the next battle, so I don't soft reset to avoid being defeated once.

Now the second battle is done with my fully healed team. Unfortunately, after beating Drifblim with Discharge, Pachirisu will be beaten by Mismagius. Ponyta, too. I wanted to inflict paralysis or burn, but no luck this time. Staravia will be next, after inflicting a good deal of damage and lowerig Attack with Intimidate. And then, I will send my own Misdreavus to doodle a bit with his new attack, Payback. Nice. Mismagius is a bit silly in using Magical Leaf instead of Shadow Ball. When Gengar comes, I switch to Grotle and use bite repeatedly until it dies.

It was not a hard battle but I realize I keep being underlevelled with Pokémon having low defenses. How long can I keep at it like this? Will I have to use Defog and/or Flash to setup every battle? Will I be able to find a Legendary before I have to grind to wild Pokémon. Oh, at least the VS Seeker is back in this game, so I may use it for the first time anytime soon.

I also encounter the biggest drama of my play. In this Gym Battle, Grotle levelled up directly from lv. 31 to lv.33, and I saved my game before realizing Toreterra was to learn Earthquake at level 32. So I guess I'll have to use one or two heart scales... I really hate this item-hunting side quest to have the right to return level moves. What if I waited for the TM? Ah but that's right, I want to avoid using TMs in that run. Well, I already used Flash. Surprisingly, I have found Flash early, but there is no dark cave to speak of so far.

That's where we are now:
Mandala the Torterra - Razor leaf, Curse, Bite, Leech Seed, lv. 33
Mrs. S the Pachirisu - Cut, Flash, Charm, Discharge, lv. 32
Siddharta the Staravia - Aerial Ace, Fly, Endeavour, Defog, lv. 33
Ganesh the Misdreavus - Psybeam, Payback, Pain split, Astonish, lv. 33
Bartolomea the Bibarel - Rollout, Strength, Rock Smash, Surf, lv. 32
Brahma the Ponyta - Ember, Stomp, Fire spin, Take Down, lv. 32

Before I forget, here's a quick sum-up of the next steps I've taken.

I got comfortable with the fact my team is underlevelled... Actually, maybe it isn't, because I seem to follow quite well event battles other than the Gym leaders. So maybe the Gym Leaders have higher level Pokemons on purpose?

So now, my team has 3 fully evolved Pokemon, 2 base stage Pokemon and one unevolvable Pokemon. Things begin to be quite hard and I'm also seeing struggle in battling wild evolved Pokemon. For example I've done quite a few backtracking sessions when going from Jubilife to Canalave because the Pokemon I wanted to train would get run over by Tentacruels.

The Canalave gym was surprisingly easy and I was bewildered to see all the Onixs in this gym, it's not even a Steel Pokémon. But the highest point was the girl with an Azumarill.

Toreterra and Pachirisu were the real MVPs for the battle against Byron. This little shit used potions to give life back to its Bronzor and to its Bastiodon. But I stayed patient. Pachirisu inflicted the main hits to Bronzor and diminished him with Flash, then Steelix was taken down quite fast with Bibarel, then I put my Torterra against Bastiodon and stalled it as long as I could using Curse and Leech Seed... Eventually it took too many hits and died, so Pachirisu was back in and used Charm to decrease attack and take all the hits, until eventually it got KO'd too. Then the battle was pretty much over because all I had to do was to stall a bit more Leech Seed turns with Bibarel. In the meantime I tried to inflict super-effective damage to Bronzor with Misdreavus but it was just too weak yet. Feeling the need to evolve it or teach it a TM anytime soon, but it's still doing quite good in regular battles.

Now, the Lake even has triggered, but I've seen a little boat in Canalave that took me to "Iron Island". Which became a huge disappointment because the only wild Pokémon I find are Graveler and Golbat... But I keep going, there may be a surprise here, eh? I'll go and save the lake later.

It is fun to see how much easier this run could have been if I let my HM slaves take turns in my team and taught all the right TMs already.

Now they've all reached lv.36 or are close to.

Mandala the Torterra - Razor leaf, Curse, Bite, Leech Seed
Mrs. S the Pachirisu - Cut, Flash, Charm, Discharge
Siddharta the Staravia - Close Combat, Fly, Endeavour, Defog
Ganesh the Misdreavus - Psybeam, Payback, Pain split, Astonish
Bartolomea the Bibarel - Rollout, Strength, Rock Smash, Surf
Brahma the Ponyta - Ember, Stomp, Tail Whip, Take Down (seems like I never had Fire Spin in this moveset, my mistake)