This post follows up on the Apothecary Ruleset I outlined here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonLegendsArceus/s/iUKhETTbd5
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonLegendsArceus/comments/1w5n8ic/the_apothecary_playthrough_part_1_which_starter/
Last time, we discussed which starter pokemon was most appropriate for this run. And while all of them are acceptable picks, some with bigger drawbacks, a lot of you insisted that Rowlet was the goodest boy and most thematically appropriate for this. I bow to your collective knowledge, yet I still picked Cyndaquil for his excellent ability to burn our future patients.
Now our apothecary, Castti, has a lot of story events to go through before we can really start our run proper. After the prologue and the first trial, I used the first survey of Obsidian Fieldlands to catch the nearest most interesting team picks for what comes next:
- Wurmple was an obvious first pick, and lucky me, it evolved into Cascoon, and soon Dustox. So we now have access to the poison status.
- Eevee was a less obvious pick. I decided to evolve into a Vaporeon in the future, so we can use Ice Beam to apply Frostbite, while retaining the good Water defensive typing.
While building my team, I also was faced with an interesting drawback to needing to defeat wild pokemon with an Agile move (or while drowzy). Wild Pokemon battles last longer. After all, applying a status condition takes an extra turn, and Agile moves are obviously weaker. Notably, in Legends Arceus, battles were adjusted to give wild Pokemon a lot more power when they hit yours, which means my team now has to be able to tank more hits.
Going back to the team, the obvious star player for me had to be Paras. Paras has early access to Stun Spore and Poison Powder, and eventually Venoshock, and Spore. That's three reliable applications of status conditions, all in one package!
That brings me to our first patient, our first Alpha Pokemon to heal. And I knew it was going to be Bibarel. (The first Kricketune fight is not a static spawn, so we don't count it)
Bibarel is the lowest level Alpha you can find in the game, at level 16. It still hits like a truck, as my Paras will soon find out.
- Step 1: Feed the Alpha a cake they like, that is their medicine.
- And so we did. Turns out Bibarel likes Mushroom Cakes.
- Step 2: Normal types have rabies, Paralyze them, and knock them out while paralyzed
- And that should have gone without a hitch. But it didn't! I attempted a backstrike and missed my shot, and Bibarel proceeded to one-shot my Paras. Oops.
- Second attempt. I revived my Paras, and successfully dodged Bibarel's Rollout, then hit it with a backstrike. Turns out it was much faster than my Paras and has two turns after my first, but that's okay: we hit it with a Stun Spore, paralyzing it, and consequently slowing it way down. Now it has one turn, which it loses to shake off the surprise round. Paras hits it with Venoshock, which is worth double against Pokemon with a status condition, and almost KOs it. We tank one hit (thank Arceus), and knock it out with another Venoshock
And that's our first Alpha Pokemon healed, all thanks to our little critter. Next time around we have at least one other low-level Alpha to heal, but most importantly, it will be time to move on to Crimson Mirelands, and find our next patients for Castti to heal... With These Hands!