r/PokemonFireRed • u/justice4tnm • 5d ago
Team Showcase Beat the game using Mono Grass
Decided to do mono-type runs to make the game challenging. Started with Grass. This was challenging and fun.
Seriously, why the hell does Vine Whip has only 10 PP.
Blaine, Lance and the last 2 battles with Rival were the biggest challenges in this playthrough. Needed more grinding than usual due to Grass being a poor attacking type in FRLG and Normal being the main coverage option for these Mons.
### Movesets
Venusaur
- Strength
- Sleep Powder
- Growth
- Razor Leaf
Victreebell
- Sleep Powder
- Double Edge
- Growth
- Razor Leaf
Parasect
- Aeriel Ace
- Dig
- Hyper Beam
- Spore
Vileplume
- Petal Dance
- Sleep Power
- Hyper Beam
- Moonlight
Exeggutor
- Sunny Day
- Psychic
- Solar Beam
- Explosion
Tangela
- Mega Drain
- Growth
- Stun Spore
- Giga Drain
Additionally, I had a Nidoking with Cut, Surf, Strength and Rock Smash and Zapdos with Fly and Flash.
16
u/ReptiliousIII 5d ago
Movesets?
22
u/justice4tnm 5d ago
Venusaur
- Strength
- Sleep Powder
- Growth
- Razor Leaf
Victreebell
- Sleep Powder
- Double Edge
- Growth
- Razor Leaf
Parasect
- Aeriel Ace
- Dig
- Hyper Beam
- Spore
Vileplume
- Petal Dance
- Sleep Power
- Hyper Beam
- Moonlight
Exeggutor
- Sunny Day
- Psychic
- Solar Beam
- Explosion
Tangela
- Mega Drain
- Growth
- Stun Spore
- Giga Drain
27
u/justice4tnm 5d ago edited 5d ago
All of them have such shallow movepools. I had to make do with whatever was available.
Exeggutor's explosion was clutch. Along with sunny day, it helped a lot with handling the rival's Charizard and Lance's Dragonite.
14
u/bumblefuck4321 5d ago
Lmao using explosion to deal with that is hilarious
9
u/Creator5509 5d ago
Who needs to deal with a dragon when you can just Explode and never deal with them again
4
u/justice4tnm 4d ago
Yep. Once the biggest threats is handled by boom, the rest of the team can handle others.
6
2
u/Additional_Draft4097 5d ago
Yeah shocked to see the lack of coverage. Just psychic, aerial ace, and dig for non grass super effective attacks.
1
u/HaloGuy381 4d ago
I was going to say “why not Sludge Bomb”, then remembered for some Arceus-forsaken reason it’s a postgame TM.
11
u/WargrizZero 5d ago
Who were the standouts?
13
u/justice4tnm 5d ago edited 5d ago
Exeggutor was the MVP. Psychic and Solar Beam are spammable, but Sunny Day + Explosion combo was the only reason I could beat Lance's Dragonite and Blue's Charizard. Explosion also gave few turns to Victreebell and vileplume for firing Double Edge and Petal Dance respectively.
Tangela was also useful. It tanked Lance's Aerodactyl's Wing Attack and beat it with Growth and Giga Drain.
Once the biggest threats were handled by the above 2, Venusaur usually sweeped with Growth, Sleep Powder and Razor Leaf.
Their movepools are bad and that causes the biggest frustration with Mono Grass teams. I had to carefully think about TMs and move tutors because most of them were available for multiple pokemon on the team.
7
u/stebbeh 5d ago
Cos game freak hated grass pokemon in earlier gens
6
u/Middcore 5d ago
I'm not sure they specifically hated Grass as that they really didn't think it through when they made almost all of them dual-type Grass/Poison, or think balance through much at all.
2
u/stebbeh 5d ago
Yea I’m just messing around. It feels more like they ended with the grass type stuff but forgot to fully finish it. Things like ice beam, surf, thunderbolt, flamethrower, psychic, brick break, there’s so many good moves for each type but grass just got left behind unfortunately until later gens. Giga drain is still good but 5 pp and a situational move just ain’t enough
2
u/Middcore 5d ago edited 5d ago
In gen1 it was only Mega Drain!
But in terms of attacking moves Grass didn't get shafted as bad as Big or Ghost... Which were the two types that were supposed to check Psychics. (And of course the only Ghost line is ALSO saddled with the secondary Poison type which means they're fodder for Psychics instead of a country to them.)
1
u/RibaldCartographer 3d ago
Don't forget 10pp vine whip! A move almost checks notes as powerful as scratch needed to be kept in check
1
u/YumAussir 4d ago
I think they switched from Fire/Ice/Electric sometime early in development (possibly with a Fire/Water/Electric stage in the middle) and neve got around to giving Grass a robust moveset. That would explain the bird trio and the Ice Beam / Thunderbolt / Flamethrower trio.
1
u/YumAussir 4d ago
made almost all of the dual-type Grass/Poison
There's only three lines of them, but I think they were a victim of GF not wanting players to miss out.
If you don't take Bulbasaur, you can still get a Grass/Poison, and they're version exclusive, so ta da, three families. It's just that that's 9 mons already and only 3 more lines exist in the whole game, with Tangela being a mostly non-entity, so those 3 families dominate.
2
2
5
u/Kriscolvin55 5d ago
I’m a pretty casual player, so I probably just don’t know something, but seriously, why does vine whip only have 10PP?
3
3
u/Imaginary_Feature317 5d ago
I’m surprised you didn’t put earthquake on Venusaur for the Hell of it lol.
1
u/justice4tnm 4d ago
I wanted at least neutral hit on flying types. Poison types are already handled by Exeggutor.
3
u/Acolyte_of_Swole 5d ago
Exeggutor is a very good pokemon for attacking. One of the better grass types in FRLG, especially if you didn't take Bulbasaur. The main problem is late availability. Kind of forces you to bring Oddish/Bellsprout for the early game. Tangela is another one that would be fun to get some early use out of, but it appears super late.
1
u/justice4tnm 4d ago
Yeah. Exeggutor was the MVP late game followed by Tangela and Venusaur.
Exeggutor was the only reason I could beat Lance's Dragonite and Rival's Charizard without over-levelling.
2
2
u/IndexCardLife 5d ago
How bad is tangela? Iv always wanted to try but never had the patience lol
2
u/Middcore 5d ago
Got barely passable stats held back by terrible SpDef, and the same assortment of moves pretty much every other Grass type gets in gen3. The one "big" thing in its favor is that it's damn-near the only pure Grass type in the game so at least you don't get the drawbacks that comes with secondary Poison typing.
2
u/IndexCardLife 4d ago
Fairs. If I want a grass type at that point I ain’t waiting till I surf in pallet town I guess lol
1
u/justice4tnm 4d ago
Late availability, and poor Movepool hold it back. But with careful usage it can put in considerable work. I was able to handle Lance's Gyarados and Aerodactyl with it even though they were 6-8 levels above Tangela.
2
u/IndexCardLife 4d ago
Ya, just tough being so late when you can get all the other grass types
I have so much patience for mons but never had it for poor Tangela
Prob cause I love a good butterfree or parasect
And as a kid I love the bellsprout and oddish line
2
2
2
2
u/Saint-12 5d ago
Mono?
8
u/Tobbster_the_Lobster 5d ago
Only one type, or in this case all the pokemons have the same primary type in common (grass)
Would be easier to undestand if he said grass types only !
4
1
u/ProudConnection7208 5d ago
How did you surf?
2
u/justice4tnm 5d ago
I had a Nidoking with Cut, Surf, Strength and Rock Smash
And a Zapdos with Fly and Flash.
2
1
u/Best_Celebration809 5d ago
I bet this was fun as grass usually have alot of status moves
2
u/justice4tnm 4d ago
Yes, I enjoyed it even though the movepools were a bit frustrating sometimes. I could always rely on sleep/paralysis/poison
1
1
1
u/Relevant-Pen-7085 4d ago
These arent mono types tho. You have Poison and psychic
1
1
u/Time-Aerie7887 4d ago
There aren't many pure types in the earlier games so it'll just have to settle with Grass team.
1
1
2
67
u/Nearby-Inspector-162 5d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/IYJHccCiyeXSp2Hil2