N00b Mistakes

[AkameTheBulbasaur]

Let's face it. We were all Pokemon n00bs at some point, whether it was when we were four or fourteen or forty, we've all made some really stupid mistakes when we were first starting out. It's okay to make mistakes, and hopefully now we can all laugh/cringe at them together.

When I first started playing Pokemon I thought that your starter was the only Pokemon you were supposed to really use and had to have all the HMs as moves. So I ended up challenging the Elite Four with a level 78 Empoleon knowing Cut, Waterfall, Surf and Rock Climb. All my other Pokemon were like level 30.

Another mistake was when I was first playing I didn't want to talk to the Name Rater because I thought he would do a full critique of your Pokemon's nickname and be really mean and I didn't like that, so I went the whole game being afraid to talk to the Name Rater.

What are some of the things that you thought (which ended up not being all that true) when you first started playing?

 

[DraconianWing]

-Leveling up only your starter/favorite Pokemon, then having five level 10 Pokemon on your team. And to follow up on that, having your "MVP" defeated through type advantage, then wondering how the hell you took so much damage.

-Not using repels, then proceeding to complain about the large amount of wild encounters.

-Being too afraid to explore new areas due to the thought of someone being out to destroy me in a battle, or encountering some absurdly powerful Pokemon.

 

[Laguna]

Yeah, I didn't use anything but my Treecko/Grovyle/Sceptile first time through Ruby. I did catch a Wurmple, Aron and Electrike and even evolved the Wurmple into a Cascoon but my starter was out 95% of the time. I also lost to Roxanne like 6 times in a row because I had no idea how to do anything.

 

[Drayton]

• Picking a grass-type starter, I thought I want more challenge, but I was dead wrong when the fully-evolved just double/quadrupled exposing to much threats (weak to flying x4)
• I thought letting a starter battling and not switching other pokemon and the starter hogs the glory
• Forget to buy repels and escape ropes because wild pokemon may leap and battle you and your unprepared state like your pokemon is dead and need healing ASAP
• Realize I need a pokemon who knew HM because while traveling, you may need either of these HMS (Cut, Surf, Waterfall and Rock Smash and the important HM Fly so when you need in critical state, best not to forget to teach your pokemon to learn fly. Fly is crucial when low on budget/recoveries. If you don't have the HM or can't learn fly, your dead)
• I always thinking about saving for the best, I spend too much ;_;

 

[Hyzenthlay]

1.) I'm also guilty of using my starter 90% of the time in some of my first playthroughs. It was always over ten levels above the rest of my team haha.

2.) The first time I played Pearl, my Empoleon was practically a HM slave, only I kept the move Tackle. ¬＿¬;

3.) I didn't strategise or attack using super-effective moves, just whatever I thought was cool and powerful. .3.

 

[KetsuekiR]

When I first played Gold, I had no idea what I was doing xD I started out with Chikorita and once I got the Red Gyarados, I used nothing else xD When I got to fighting Lance, I had a level 80+ Gyarados and a Meganium who had just evolved xD I've since learned that it's more fun to think and use strategy than to sweep with a over leveled Gyarados :P

 

[Kikaito plush]

When I first started pokemon yellow I couldn't work out how to get out of the house.

 

[Blueredemption]

I might be the only one who had a balanced team my first time through xD I have made many noob mistakes though :P Lets see...

- I thought my game was broken when I unconsciously pressed b and canceled my Charmander's evolution. Multiple times.

- I thought the VS seeker reset every trainer in the game.

- I thought pressing random buttons while catching pokemon made the catch rate go up. (I still do it anyway)

 

[AkameTheBulbasaur]

When I first started pokemon yellow I couldn't work out how to get out of the house.

Whoopsies. That must be embarrassing to admit. I guess your first journey didn't last very long.

That gets me thinking, how many opportunities have we missed in our lives because we didn't know or were too afraid to get out of the house? It's such a huge step to leave the house when you think about it. You're putting yourself at risk. You're exposing yourself to the whole entire world. But you also can't grow or do anything new if you never leave the house. Just figuring out how to break out of your shell is such a major step in life!

Maybe Pokemon inadvertently taught you one of the most important life lessons of all time!

Or maybe I'm just looking too deeply into it.

Yeah it's probably the second one :P

 

[AkameTheBulbasaur]

• 
  [...]Fly so when you need in critical state, best not to forget to teach your pokemon to learn fly. Fly is crucial when low on budget/recoveries. If you don't have the HM or can't learn fly, your dead)[...]

Fly is so hugely important. There's a requirement on all my new teams to have at least one Pokemon who can learn Fly. Walking around a whole entire region is long and tedious and plus if you have Fly you don't need to use other HMs to get to the places you've already been.

One of my earlier mistakes was forgetting to have a Flier. I caught a Starly and then put it away for a while until I realized I would really need Fly once I got the HM. Luckily I redeemed myself before I had to pay for it.

 

[DraconianWing]

-In RSE, not realizing you had to surface at the Seafloor Cavern's entrance to get there, and getting stuck in the story.

-Going to challenge a legendary, then forgetting to stock up on Pokeballs

-Movesets with all attacking moves (granted, you can still get through a game playing this way)

 

[Sopheria]

Way back when I first started playing Pokemon as a kid, I always evolved Pokemon by stone immediately. Back then I didn't realize how disadvantageous that was, because they basically stop learning moves when you evolve them by stone ><

 

[magicalgirlj]

When i was a kid I never saved before trying to catch a legendary.

 

[Hikamaru]

I once had just STAB moves on a Pokemon's moveset in Ruby back in the day. Never did I know until later that coverage was important.

 

[Pendraflare]

To name one, I remember when I first played Yellow, I had my Blastoise OHKO Giovanni's Dugtrio (his first Pokémon). Then, when I came to his Rhydon, instead of knocking the tar out of it with that same Blastoise, I had my Sandslash, who I had been trying to use against the rest of his team.

Also, in Ruby, first I didn't even see the rest of the path on Route 110 that leads to the rival battle.

 

[Nolafus]

I didn't understand the physical/special split on my first pokemon game (Black), so I ended up having a bunch of weird stuff like Power Gem Gigalith and Discharge Zebstrika, haha.

I quickly learned the difference when I started competitively battling, however.

 

[Crystal Berry]

Let's see.. umm.. I made my own starters HM slaves. I would frequently walk around in the grass without any Pokeballs on me, and there were numerous shinies I found that I couldn't capture because of this mistake. I really got frustrated with myself whenever that happened :/

Also fun fact, but I remember how I first discovered STAB. I had a Blaziken with Flare Blitz and Brave Bird and I realized FB hit significantly harder and I couldn't figure out why. After that day I stopped using Brave Bird as often because I realized that despite the two moves having the same power, FB was definitely hitting harder.

 

[Precious Tears]

I wasn't aware of Natures, let alone the catgeorizing of Physical, Special, Status moves. My first ever Empoleon was packed with Physical moves. I is proud of myself!

 

[Ryz]

One thing I'll always remember is that when I didn't know crap about Pokemon, I'd lie to my friends and say I have a level 300 Mew. Keep in mind the Mew event hadn't even been released yet.
I also remember on FR/LG I'd lose to Blue almost all the time because I only used my starter and by the time I got to the Poke League my starter was like 56 and the rest of my team besides my Pidgeot which was like 40 were like below 20. I could go on but it'd fill up a whole page.

 

[Embernight]

When my rival said, "I'll bet our local lake has a Pokémon like that in it, too! So, that's what we're gonna do. We'll go find a Pokémon like that!" and "All right! To the lake! Let's find us a red Gyarados!" I seriously spent hours fishing in Lake Verity when I finally got the fishing rod and a Pokemon with Surf, just to try finding that red Gyarados. I never found it... Until HGSS came out. I never played the originals, so the catchable red Gyrados was a nice surprise.