Limey-chan in The Eternal Quest For Perfect Pokémon

I guess I felt that instead of taking over other threads by pissing and moaning about the lack of any decent Pokémon near me, i'd document everything here. Just.. don't expect anything too flashy as i'm not too hot on CSS and graphics, sadly.

So, a little preamble:
I'm currently Level 15, which was the level I earmarked whereby i'd start focusing more on IV scores and movesets, and trying to capture the strongest of each species that I can find. My Pokédex is currently 50/52, and I have 61,539 Stardust to use when the time is right. The plan is to try and find something which would be viable competitively and then evolve it (if I have enough candies), and power it up; obviously the less stardust I have to spend powering it up, the better.

Current Pokémon:

Yeah.. it's pretty poor. On the face of things, Staryu is arguably the best of a bad bunch, with a nice IV spread and a good quick move in Water Gun; it's just a shame about having Swift as its special attack. Spearow, Growlithe and Cubone all have nice potential but are badly let down by their movesets. For the record, i'm using Silph Road and PoGoIV.com to calculate everything.

Basically, i'm going to continue catching any and every Pokémon I meet, calculate their stats and, if they're better than what I already have, replace the old with the new until I have a squad of perfect IVs (or as near to perfect as I can get).

This should be fun :P

Four eggs hatched, one incense used, dozens of Pokémon caught, but sadly not a lot to show for it:

As you can see, the CP409 Drowzee I caught today was the pick of a pretty woeful bunch, but I did at least manage to find a Jynx that was far better than the one I had originally. One of my Magikarps has the potential to be very, very good (or also very, very poor), so there is that. I also took the time to organise my table a little more, and put my Pokémon in some sort of order, based on potential.

I probably won't get the chance to tomorrow due to work, but i'm hoping at some point this week to go out with one of my other incense and go on a catching spree (that was originally the plan for today but alas, my phone's battery started to die). If nothing else, it'll bump me up to level 16, plus I have seven more eggs to hatch (though it's a shame they're all 2k).

Another day where a lot of Pokémon were caught, but not a lot of significant progress was made. I did manage to earn myself an updated 'Collector' medal while I was at it, however!

The best catch today by a country mile was the CP458 Ryhorn I found while passing by a PokéStop with a Lure Module active; i'm very pleased with those IVs as Rhydon is one of the Pokémon I would love to own, it's just a shame about the awful moveset. Elsewhere, it was upgrades to the common Pokémon I had already caught, though my quest for a half-decent female Nidoran sadly continues.

I'm three captures away from Level 16, and I have almost 72,000 Stardust banked. I also have two 5km eggs incubating, thanks to my PokéStop spamming, though it'll probably take me a few days to hatch them. I should progress to my next level tomorrow, and I have my fingers crossed that somewhere will be setting off lures so I can attract some decent Pokémon.

Only just noticed your journal, very nice job on it! Congrats on the Rhyhorn catch, how long do you think it'll take to get that Rhydon you're after? Good luck getting the level tomorrow! Your spreadsheets are really cool to look at and you have a lot of interesting info in there - if you're into that side of GO then you might be interested in this video. The guy guys through (and links) a giant spreadsheet of all of the ideal moves for Pokémon to know, which combinations do how much damage in which scenarios and which movesets are best for attacking and for defending, etc etc, and in general I think it'd be something you're interested in haha. Keep up the progress it's awesome to read :D

Squirrel said:

Congrats on the Rhyhorn catch, how long do you think it'll take to get that Rhydon you're after?

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A good while, unless I get incredibly lucky with egg hatches! Today was the first time i'd ever seen a wild Rhyhorn, which doesn't bode well for my Rhydon-centric dreams :P

Good luck getting the level tomorrow! Your spreadsheets are really cool to look at and you have a lot of interesting info in there - if you're into that side of GO then you might be interested in this video. The guy guys through (and links) a giant spreadsheet of all of the ideal moves for Pokémon to know, which combinations do how much damage in which scenarios and which movesets are best for attacking and for defending, etc etc, and in general I think it'd be something you're interested in haha. Keep up the progress it's awesome to read :D

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Oh, I love Trainer Tips videos! I try and catch the new ones every day when I get home from work, they're incredibly well researched, and I like the way they simplify the mechanics of the game so that they're easier to understand. Tbh, it's thanks to Trainer Tips that i've taken such an interest in the IV side of the game, though being a statto by nature, it was always something I was going to stumble across haha!

So, today was an interesting one...

I accidentally set off one of my Lucky Eggs as I was browsing my items, so to try and make the most of the double experience, I evolved a bunch of Pokemon. Mostly just my bottom feeders and the ones without much potential. It bumped me up to Level 17 pretty quickly, and thankfully I evolved mostly common Pokémon so I didn't waste too many candies. I also added Beedrill, Butterfree and Jolteon to my Pokédex as a result, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Little annoyed at myself for wasting one of my eggs, however.

I also downloaded an app which gives me precise IV reads as opposed to estimates. Whilst this sounds ideal for the type of thing i'm doing here, i'm not sure how I feel about it, and not least because of the risk that my account may be suspended. Honestly, I quite like sitting working out stats rather than having them put out in front of me, I like the sense of not knowing if a Pokémon will be either top class or terrible; the convenience of having accurate IV reads at the cost of intrigue. Either way, I have my original spreadsheet saved just in case I ever need it.

With that said, on to the table, which i've given a little bit of a facelift...

Yeah, not a good day. One pleasant surprise is how decent my Jolteon actually is, given that the Eevee I evolved it from was always my 'experimental' Eevee; it bodes well for when the time comes to evolve my newly caught CP203 Eevee (fingers crossed). No new names added to the list today, sadly, just newer, better Pokémon replacing what I already had. On the whole, I guess today has been progress, albeit painfully slow progress.

As a result of today's little evolution spree, i'm 3350 exp into Level 17, my Dex reads 'seen: 56, caught: 59' (I came up against a CP??? Gengar on my travels today which sadly broke out of two great balls and fled), and I have 78,718 Stardust saved.

Oo very nice face lift for the table - it's looking pretty swanky now! You have no idea how happy it makes me to see Sandshrew at the top of that list by the way, one of my favourite Pokémon ever haha. How accurate do you think the CP after evolution column is out of interest and how did you work it out? I'm very curious to see how that kind of thing is calculated as I'd love to be able to guess what mine will end up as too. What do you think you'll be using the dust on?

Squirrel said:

Oo very nice face lift for the table - it's looking pretty swanky now! You have no idea how happy it makes me to see Sandshrew at the top of that list by the way, one of my favourite Pokémon ever haha. How accurate do you think the CP after evolution column is out of interest and how did you work it out? I'm very curious to see how that kind of thing is calculated as I'd love to be able to guess what mine will end up as too. What do you think you'll be using the dust on?

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I'm glad you approve of the facelift (and my Sandshrew!) :D

I use clicky to work out the CP after evolution. It's a useful site, it's what I originally used to work out the IV % estimates.

As for my dust; i'm hoping to have some Gym-worthy Pokes by around Level 20, upon which i'll start distributing it among the most powerful. I'm just crossing my fingers, toes and any other dexterous limbs and phalanges that by that juncture, i'll have enough specific candies to power things up.

Table time:

I'm slowly but surely starting to improve my Pokes, 'slowly' being the operative word. That said, today seems to have been quite a progressive day, all things considered. Very pleased with my upgraded Seel, Eevee, Jynx and Oddish, and, fun fact: that 73.3% Paras was a last-minute addition, it literally appeared as I was making this post. I'm pleased to have finally caught a Poliwag and a Slowpoke; though i'm a little devastated that neither are very good at all (though I doubt Squirtle minds much, seeing as how he's no longer bottom of the pile!)

I'm now just under 3,000 exp away from Level 18, so I should hopefully hit that tomorrow (if not, I have a free day on Friday to hammer some PokéStops and go Pokémon hunting); my final 5km egg is almost ready to hatch, and i've almost amassed 88,000 stardust.

So, thought i'd condense my last two days into one post as there's barely anything to report.


I've added an Ekans and a decent Doduo to my ranks, the latter hatched from an egg. I wasn't really looking to replace the Shellder I had, but I found a better one today, I just hope it gets better moves once I can evolve it. Squirtle, Nidoran F and Meowth all got minor upgrades.

Almost halfway to Level 19, I have 95,970 Stardust, and i've finally joined a team (albeit i'm still not ready to start taking on Gyms yet). I decided to champion the underdog and join Instinct, given I don't think i've seen a single Instinct-owned Gym in my town yet.

Ooo very nice Doduo, 86.7% IVs is great. Looks like the whole eggs = good IVs thing is really paying off! Shame that the CP is somewhat low but nothing you can't fix by shoving some candy down its throat :D Shame that you didn't join Mystic but I'm sure Instinct are happy to have you! Have you any ideas on what your team is shaping up to be now then?

Squirrel said:

Ooo very nice Doduo, 86.7% IVs is great. Looks like the whole eggs = good IVs thing is really paying off! Shame that the CP is somewhat low but nothing you can't fix by shoving some candy down its throat :D Shame that you didn't join Mystic but I'm sure Instinct are happy to have you! Have you any ideas on what your team is shaping up to be now then?

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Ideally, i'd like a decent Grass type to try and combat the obscene amount of Vaporeon and Lapras that are pretty much omnipresent at the Gyms here, i'd frickin' love an Exeggutor, but i've not so much as even seen an Exeggcute yet :(

From the Pokes I have available, my best are all Water types. Starmie, Cloyster and Golduck wouldn't be too bad, but they'd be difficult to base a team around and i'd have problems taking over many Gyms with aquatic Pokémon. Sandslash would be awesome, but, again, I doubt he'd be much use against Vaporeon.

tl;dr I need new Pokémon :( haha

Apologies for the lack of updates, had a lot going on this week and haven't really had time to post. I've made a little progress since my last post, but not all that much.

I've updated my table a little, it now shows each Pókemon's maximum level, and a lot of the IV ranges have been narrowed down.

Sandshrew, Aerodactyl and Zubat are still the three strongest Pokes, i've finally added an Exeggcute, and recently I hatched a Kabuto. Also pretty pleased about that 86.7% Rhyhorn, even if his moveset is a little disappointing. I have a few Pókemon now who are going to be pretty impressive once I evolve them, which i'll hopefully be able to do in the near future.

I'm Level 20 now, so i'll be looking to start evolving things within the next few levels. If I can get a few more competitively viable Pokémon added to my ranks, i'll start attempting some gyms.

I've now amassed 135,000 stardust, and I have 4 lucky eggs which i'll be using soon.