Tragic Nuzlocke Deaths:THE RETURN

[estralita]

Doing a fairly casual Electric-Fairy X run, and twice in a row, I lost a Pokemon to the rival's Absol crit. The secobd time it happened, I almost laughed, and the fact that I was already imagining Serena a grim worshipper of Yveltal, god of Death, before that was just the cherry on top.

 

[foxishere]

My White 2 nuzlocke from 2016, which was probably the single best run I've ever had, had a crazy amount of tragic deaths. My Arcanine, Calhoun, was the longest survivor. The poor dog saw so much. I even made a storylocke from it back in the day.
-Elesa's Zebstrika killed my Scolipede, Minccino, Swoobat, and Yamask. Calhoun lived with 7 health and knocked it out through Paralysis.
-I got all the way to Victory Road with only three more deaths. By that time I'd built an amazing new team around Calhoun; it had a Hidden Grotto Heracross, an Excadrill, N's Zoroark, a Starmie, and a Roserade. Calhoun was the only one to make it out of Victory Road alive.

I also did a White nuzlocke last year that ended in utter disaster at the Elite Four. After losing my Seismitoad to a critical Night Slash from Grimsley's Bisharp, my team basically fell apart. It ended with my Serperior having a heroic last stand against Shauntal's Cofagrigus. I think I broke down.

Two of my most tragic ever, weirdly enough, were from my most recent nuzlocke.
I lost my Dudunsparce against Nemona's Quaquaval in Alfornada; I'd ran out of healing items according to my ruleset and had to sack someone to save my Meowscarada. There's still worse, though. I was training around Casseroya Lake right before the Dondozo Titan and I sent out my Azumarill, who had carried a lot of the midgame for me, out against a Dragon Tamer. Little did I know the trainer's Haxorus had Guillotine. I had to set the game down for a moment from sheer shock.

 

[PageEmperor]

Was saving this for once I got to that part in the comic but…

Spoiler: Massive, MASSIVE spoilers for my Scarlet nuzlocke comic

Spoiler: I mean massive spoilers, these are gonna happen in the comic

Spoiler: Last warning

I split the first big area into about 3 smaller ones. On the path near the town I got a Wooper, and then a Flamigo near the lake. Both were added to my team immediately.

Miranda the Clodsire went on to participate in the first 3 gyms and supported us through a massive chunk of the game, and Leonard the Flamigo was insanely overpowered during the first half of the game and cheesed the first two gyms for us. I thought he would eventually lag but he never did.

Both of them lasted almost the whole game, and then there was Eri. I remember worrying a lot about Fighting types, due to the fact they were common and it was a common coverage type, but the rotation of 8 mons I had at that point… only had two mons weak to Fighting, and everyone else actually had an advantage over Fighters instead. (I had two flyers, also two ghosts, a Psychic, and a resist in Quagsire) So I figured that maybe it won’g be so bad.

Well… the first five mons went fine, but it left most of my team battered. So then we got to Revavroom. I spent a good amount of turns healing everyone up… as it used Shift gear. I believe it used Shift gear 4 times before I sent out Miranda to tank him out… and then he pulls out High horsepower, obliterating Quagsire.

In a panic, I summoned Leonard. I hoped that his recently acquired Brave bird would one shot. It didn’t, and Flamigo gets destroyed by Roll over.

Yeah, I wasn’t too impressed by these. I mean I planned to box Flamigo after that battle anyway, but I was hoping for a better outcome in general, amd I planned to have Quagsire in my final team had she not died.

 

[MixnMatch]

I still remember that time when I was doing pretty standard Nuzlocke of FR. Ivwas in double battle against two little girls on route before Fuschia. Their Charmander and Squirtle vs My Charmeleon and Dugtrio. I was pretty confident that spread on 3 targets, magnitude from my Dugtrio will not hurt my Charmeleon too much... except my Charmeleon crit killed Charmander and Squirtle used protect... and my Dugtrio rolled full damage magnitude crit...
The amount of hate and names I threw on these two little girls was unmeasurable.

 

[PageEmperor]

In my first SV run, I picked the starter that could hit Ryme super effectively. And it made mincemeat out of her because it was also really overpowered. I didn’t even need to use other mons, they were only on support because that cat was so powerful it could even shrug off Houndstone’s Play roughs with ease.

In my second SV run, I didn’t pick that starter. But I did have two Dark types on the squad solely because of Ryme. But that didn’t stop her from eradicating two of my teammates, one of which including one my Dark mons. That being my Cacturne who I actually really enjoyed using because of his great offenses and status potential, but no, Toxtricity destroyed him with even a resisted attack.

Some time down the battle I sent in my Tinkaton and hoped that it would take a hit from Toxtricity, but no, it crushes her too with Discharge.

Oh, and that happened immediately after my Mabosstiff ALMOST DIED to getting ganged up on. Houndstone missed PLAY ROUGH.

 

[Brendan Rizzo]

Now that I’m running Nuzlockes again, might as well tell about some tragedies in earlier runs. The one I’m currently doing already has some tragic deaths, but it’s better to wait till it’s over.

So some years ago, in my Crystal run, I sent out Totodile against Falkner’s Pidgeotto, being forced by my rules to match levels with him, meaning none of my team had any STAB moves, so my Geodude wouldn’t have anything, making Totodile the next best option. And me not knowing about how Rage works made me dismiss it as useless, costing my starter its life.

Much later, two fully evolved team members would each be taken out by self-destructing Koffings owned by Team Rocket. If I didn’t hate that subplot before, I certainly did now. The Machamp and Slowking were probably my two strongest Pokémon at that point.

Then at nearly the end of the Radio Tower, Team Rocket ruined my day again, thanks to the female Executive, who in the remakes is Ariana. I had somehow arrived at the National Park during the Bug-Catching Contest, and my first encounter was somehow one of the two rarest, a Pinsir. I had brought it in just now to replace my losses, and Ariana’s Arbok went down nicely. Yet I didn’t realize she had a Murkrow with Pursuit. So I couldn’t risk switching out. Return (not Vicegrip like I said in an earlier post) wasn’t doing enough, and I could only watch as Pinsir was doomed to fall over several turns.

Fortunately, that was the last death for a long time, but almost all of my later ones took strong Pokémon that knew unique TMs away.

In a different run, I tried Emerald, and this run failed completely. Eventually I lost too many party members to recover after major battles. But two deaths stand out:

Against Flannery’s Torkoal, I sent out a Spoink, thinking to get around Attract with Magic Coat. That actually worked, incredibly, but it didn’t matter since the Torkoal hit through the mutual attraction and got a crit.

Much later, I lost my favorite Pokémon of the run to a nameless Grunt in the Magma Hideout. Like, come on, man! Shuppet would’ve evolved the next level! I had even used that mon in contests too!

Other than that, Maxie’s Crobat wrecked my team and I barely made it out, but just no longer had any counters to Tate & Liza, so the run was doomed.

 

[Brendan Rizzo]

So my run failed. Every death was tragic, but here are the specifics:

1. Poochyena died one level before learning Bite, while grinding, against a meaningless Trainer with a Wurmple. He got poisoned and then a crit brought him to 1 HP, making the poison finish him off.

2. I had to sacrifice Whismur against Roxanne. I had three Normal-types and as such did not bother training this up till after the battle, but my Treecko was a bit too weak to continue against Nosepass and I needed to be sure my Marill would switch freely. Then when I brought out the Whismur to sacrifice, Roxanne healed, making it totally unnecessary.

3. Before the battle ended Treecko died thanks to Rock Tomb BS.

4. Then I lost Makuhita against Brawly's Makuhita, which had started setting up. If I hadn't tried to use Rollout with my Azumarill against the Meditite in the hopes that it would build up enough power to oneshot the ace, this wouldn't have happened. Because of course, Rollout missed, and if it isn't 100% accurate... (Azumarill survived but was way too weak to stay in against Makuhita. Ironically, after losing two more Pokemon, I brought it back in to pick it off.)

5. I had too many Normal-types, and had to send in Vigoroth. It survived a REVERSAL on 1 HP, and even though I had the King's Rock equipped (thank you, Pickup!) I didn't consider the possibility of flinchhaxing which would've been the only realistic way out, since Scratch seemed too weak, so I immediately used Slack Off, and Vigoroth died to Vital Throw.

6. Everyone else wiped to Wattson. But this wouldn't have happened if not for the worst luck I've ever got: so I had taught Illumise Attract as a last resort, since I knew I had no counters to Electric-types. Hoenn is very unbalanced and I wound up with half my surviving team Water-type. (And insultingly, you start getting more encounters immediately AFTER Wattson.) Well Illumise tanked one Shock Wave from Manectric, so Attract got off. I planned to heal to full with Moonlight and then attack. But Wattson hit through the attract three turns in a row! AND I got paralyzed. So once Illumise died, there was no longer any hope.

If only the level cap for Gym 2 was 20 instead of 19, I'd have had Gyarados for Brawly and not lost everything good.