Whos your slave?

wobbles

Dont know about anyone else, but i really REALLY hate having to teach my pokemon moves like surf, fly, strength etc and having them take up move spots that i could have decent moves in. So my strategy has always been to sacrafice a pokemon, my slave, and try teach this pokemon as many HMs as possible, leaving my real battling pokemon with decent moves.

My choice of pokemon for this has always been Gyarados as he can learn surf, strength, waterfall and rock smash and is available early in game. I normally catch a magicarp, stick it in day car until its level is up and rare candy it to evolve.

So who do you use as your slave?? Or have you go a completely different strategy.

TheChrisD

In DPPt I used to shove the moves onto a Bibarel, since he can learn the majority of the crummy HM moves.

In my Jap HGSS though, I just use my Mew

Atavan-Halen

I generally have different types of 'mon on my team so each if them will more than likely know a HM. Eg: my bird pokémon will know fly, water will know surf etc...

elekid

Bibarel and Tropius. Between then they can learn all of the HMs so you can go anywhere with them as long as you don't mind sacrificing 2 slots.

MatthewVII

Have Charizard for Fly, Cut, Strength, Defog

Bibarel for Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb

Good times

MatthewVII

MatthewVII wrote: »

Have Charizard for Fly, Cut, Strength, Defog

Bibarel for Surf, Waterfall, Rock Smash, Rock Climb

Good times

Bit of a waste of raising a Charmander though.

Banjo

I usually end up with Fly on a permanent birdie (although I made a point of using crobat in Platinum 'cause I always ditch them early on normally) and surf on a water type, then cram rock climb, strength and rock smash onto a geodude, with Earthquake so he's not totally helpless. Didn't find I used Cut much in D/P/Pt. I wish they'd cop on and make them either viable moves for the duration of the game or some sort of trainer based ability that's independant of your Pokemon so you don't have to gimp your team or have 2 seperate teams on the go

CianRyan

Golduck, although, I really regret it.

I'm going to catch a new psyduck later!

CDH

I usually spread out my hm's but alway's teach flash and cut to someone that I never use.

wobbles

Banjo wrote: »

I wish they'd cop on and make them either viable moves for the duration of the game or some sort of trainer based ability that's independant of your Pokemon so you don't have to gimp your team or have 2 seperate teams on the go

Here here. id rather the allow pokemon use certain moves outside battle, freeing up the 4 slots for moves during battle

CianRyan

I wish they could gets boats and axes...

Angron

In D/P I had a Staraptor with Defog/Fly, then just a Bibarel with all the others that I didn't care too much to teach another.

tman

Currently playing through pearl and this has really been annoying me - think I'll try taking Bibarel out of the box and teaching him as many of the moves as poss.
Seems like such a backwards bit of design... You'd think after god knows how many games they would have sorted this out!

TheChrisD

I wish that they'd just overhaul the HM system completely. Add the ability for other similar moves to do the same job. For example, things like Slash, Psycho Cut, Air Slash and the like doing the same job as Cut. Bounce for Rock Climb. Wood Hammer for Rock Smash.

Or just make the HM moves all fairly strong and actually make them a viable move to put on your team. Surf is practically a staple on a Water-type because of it's power. Strength is a good all-round move. Fly, although slightly gimmicky, has the power. And Rock Climb is alright, although it's accuracy leaves something to be desired, the secondary effect is welcomed.

Cut, Rock Smash, Whirlpool, Flash, Defog etc. just plain suck.

Banjo

TheChrisD wrote: »

I wish that they'd just overhaul the HM system completely. Add the ability for other similar moves to do the same job. For example, things like Slash, Psycho Cut, Air Slash and the like doing the same job as Cut. Bounce for Rock Climb. Wood Hammer for Rock Smash.

I like that. Would make a lot of sense. And would mean that if you decided to go all Gym Leader and have a type-themed team you wouldn't be railroaded for choices based on HMs. I suppose the problem is that you'd either need a lot of HMs or you'd be forced early in the game to train whatever's available that will learn one of the many cut moves at a reasonable level. Unless you replaced HMs with something like the Move Tutors, who'd teach you a move that performed Cut / Surf etc. that was appropriate to either your level or your progress through the game (badges, I guess) so you could scale up the power?

It always bothered me that you can Fly to other towns, but you can't fly up a small hill without Rock Climb.

Davidius

Lack of planning landed me with a HM based Empoleon during my first Diamond playthrough. Over reliance on HMs has to be one of my main gripes with the newer games. Makes everything so tedious.

tman

Sorry about bumping this thread, but which easily available wild pokemon are people using as their slaves in SS?
I don't mind having fly on my main flying type, but it'd be handy to be able to squeeze the remaining 7 moves onto 2 different pokemon if possible...

ToasterSparks

This Moveset Calculator is great for finding HM Slaves.

Omitting Fly, the moves you'll want are the HMs + Flash for caves.

So:

Surf, Whirlpool, Waterfall and Flash can be learned by Wooper. Available after Violet City.

Strength, Rock Smash, Rock Climb and Cut can be learned by Sandshrew (buy in Game Corner) or Pinsir (Bug Catching Contest).

tman

Perfect!

I'm just in the middle of the second safari zone mission so should have a sandshrew soon, and I'd already figured out that Wooper is good for surf and whirlpool, but hadn't thought of adding flash as well!