4th Gen Honey Trees

[Palamon]

Ah, yes, one of the possibly most forgotten Pokemon mechanic from D/P/Pt. It was completely scrapped, in fact, in future generations.

If you slather certain trees (the golden ones) in Sinnoh, after a certain amount of time, the honey will attract a wild Pokemon! These Pokemon are Aipom, Heracross, Wurmple, Silcoon, Cascoon, Burmy, Combee, Cherubi, and if you're ever lucky enough to be at the right tree, Munchlax.

Munchlax has only a 1% encounter rate through this method, and all these Pokemon, bar The Wurmple family can only be caught through this method.

Anyway, let's talk about Honey Trees.

What did you think of this mechanic?
What Pokemon were you able to capture using this method?
Were you ever lucky enough to catch a Munchax?
Would you like to see Honey Trees return in the future?

Also, fun fact about Honey Trees! There was unused text in Gold/Silver suggesting Honey Trees were going to be in the game, but I guess it was instead replaced with Headbutt Trees.

 

[Deliciousfruit233]

Wow, so it actually is possible to catch a Munchlax via honey tree? So my cousin wasn't lying...

Anyways, I'm so glad that the honey trees only appeared once, because they were just terrible. Why did they take headbutt trees and make them more expensive and put a 6 hour cooldown? My least favorite thing about these games besides the Marsh. I've only manage to catch 1 Heracross and a male Combee my first playthrough that I grinded to level 43 before learning that it can't evolve.

Yeah... If they remake D/P/Pt, I hope they bring back the headbutt trees instead.

 

[blue]

There were good and bad aspects to Honey Trees imo. The good was obviously how you could catch some really cool Pokemon at such an early stage. The bad was how long it took, having to wait 8+ hours only to end up encountering a Pokemon you weren't even intending on catching in the first place was a real blow.

 

[tokyodrift]

I've always liked the aspect of honey trees though I think the wait time is pretty long. But it was all worth it when you finally found that Munchlax or even Heracross. The only Pokemon I really used them for was to find Combee. I was pretty let down when I found a male one. Wish that it was a strictly a 100% chance of finding female one for the sake of it being easier to get a Vespiquen.

 

[Log]

I think I tried using the honey trees once or twice, but after that, I forgot about them. The waiting time was too long for me, and the Pokemon you could find using it were those I didn't usually use or particularly like too much anyways. I wouldn't mind if they didn't make a return, haha..

 

[PurpleOrange]

I actually quite liked the honey trees, in general i tend to like the more obscure ways to encounter pokemon (headbutt trees, berry trees in xy, hidden grottoes etc.). and honey trees were one of, if not the, most obscure. Yes, the 6 hour cool down was a pain in the arse, and you weren't even guaranteed a pokemon, but that relief of finally getting that munchlax is is amazing. Plus you were able to soft-reset for genders and levels (unlike hidden grottoes), so i didn't have to re-slather trees for female combee. regards to it returning, i think it should remain unchanged for the most part, albeit with more variety of pokemon (maybe some that don't appear until you get the national dex) and i even think that if they do return they'll unfortunately make them have a higher chance of being shiny and probably give them a chance of hidden abilities too

 

[miragespot]

I liked the concept, but I'd always forget where the trees were that I slathered. I wish there'd been an app in the Poketch that reminded you which trees you'd slathered and were ready. I also hated having to wait so long and end up with a Pokemon I didn't need.

 

[Rivvon]

It felt like Honey Trees were supposed to sort of be a derivative of Headbutt, but it's much more difficult to grab enough Items to keep using the feature, in addition to the issue of having to remember to go back and check on the tree...

Needless to say, I never dabbled with the feature. I left Honey once, forgot to check back in time, and that's the end of that. I am glad they allowed Honey to be used for attracting Hordes in gen 6, though.

 

[BubbleBeams]

I was pretty neutral on honey trees and didn't use them often. The idea is cute and pretty obscure which I like, but the wait time as others have said was the huge downfall. If it had been more like 30 minutes to an hour that would have been a lot better, imo. If they ever did make a return, all I ask is for the wait time to be reduced. lol

 

[Itcheeee]

I never had many catches from the Honey trees, I think i just bred Snorlax for Munchlax, for my Pearl team :/

Not that it should be easy, but it seemed like I could just not get anything from them for the most part, I'd of rather seen maybe an updated system. Like a reminder on your gear-item whichever when it was time to check it? Either way, an interesting feature.

 

[e.c.fray]

Oh man I'd nearly forgotten about those. It was such a pain to wait forever, half the time I'd forget which tree I'd put honey on.

That said I DID grind them enough to finally get a female Combee, I still have like 3 PC boxes filled with rejected male Combees (so I guess she has a whole hive in there). That Vespiquen is still one of my favourites from my Pearl team, just because of how much work I put into getting her haha.

Never saw a Munchlax, although I think I got everything else on the list.

While I had fun, I think the waiting times just made the trees more tedious than fun. They were never in terribly accessible locations either, some of them were in the middle of long routes. As if I'm going to remember several hours later that I left a tree in the middle of the forest covered in honey.

 

[Hikamaru]

I found Honey Trees a flawed feature. Sure while it did have good Pokemon you could catch in them such as Aipom, Heracross, the elusive female Combee and of course the extremely rare Munchlax, it was annoying having to wait hours before the Pokemon even started to appear.

Headbutt trees in HG/SS I felt were much better handled.

 

[Lysander]

I didn't use honey trees often in D/P, but when I did I only ever got Wurmples or Combees. I did get a female Combee once though, which eventually became a Vespiquen.