08: The Road to Nacrene City

08: The Road to Nacrene City

Heading west out of town you find yourself in a park – in the south section over the bridge you will find a Great Ball inside a treasure ball.  The Trainer running around the fountain will tell you about TM's, The guard at the gate to the north will block you from entering Route 3 if you have not yet obtained the Gym Badge – but as you have, he will not stop you, and you enter Route 3!

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Route 3 Area Pokemon Report

Dex No.      Pokemon     Rarity   Season   Capture Note
#012/506     Lillipup   (R)       All      Grass
#015/509     Purrloin   (R)       All      Grass
#025/519     Pidove     (U)       All      Grass
#028/522     Blitzle    (C)       All      Grass
#037/531     Audino     (C)       All      Shaking Grass

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As you head north and reach the turn in the road you'll see Trainers and buildings up a short flight of stairs.  First thing first, stick with the road and head west to battle the two Trainers here – a Twins Battle with Trainers Kumi & Amy, who have a pair of Level 10 Purrloin.  This should be a cake walk for you, as your team should be around Level 15 at this point if you are following the guide.

Continue west until the road splits, at which point you will be stopped by Cheren, who will engage you in battle as you both have now obtained your first Gym Badge!  Cheren has a Level 14 Oshawott, which is a Water-type so you should use your Monkey to battle it.  He follows with his Level 12 Purrloin, and the battle is over.  It is a good idea to use two different Pokemon for this so you spread out the XP.

After the battle a pair of Team Plasma Grunts run past you being chased by Bianca and another Trainer – they have stolen the other Trainer's Pokemon it seems.  Cheren runs ahead to the cave entrance – you do not follow him though, as we have a few things to do here first.

In the tall grass above where you and Cheren fought is a treasure ball with a Super Potion – grab that now.  You should be able to quickly capture a Pidove here – and as you want a flying type to add to your team, that works out well!  Go ahead and troll up a Blitzle while we are here and capture that, and you have obtained all of the Pokemon we can get on Route 3!

Backtrack to the stairs and head up to the cluster of buildings – this is the Pokemon Daycare Center – and outside there are some Trainers to battle.  First you fight Nursery Aide Autumn, who has a Level 10 Lillipup, followed by a Level 10 Munna.  Next is Preschooler Doyle with a Level 10 Panpour, followed by his mate Preschooler Wendy who has a Level 10 Pansear.  In the far corner is Preschooler Tully who has a Level 10 Pansage.

Inside the red roofed building is a girl who will heal your team – do that – and then talk to the girl to the right if you want to learn about doubles battles.

The building with the dark green roof next door is the Day Care Center – inside you will find a networked PC to use, and of you want, you can drop off a Pokemon to be leveled here.  Basically any Pokemon you leave here will gain levels for x number of steps you take in the world.  When you return to claim them you pay a fee based upon the number of levels they gained.  For now we do not need to do this, but it will come in handy later when you want to level up some of your lower level Pokemon to get their other forms, or you want to breed.

Breeding Pokemon is a whole other matter – read the Appendix entry on breeding later to learn about it if you do not already know how it works!

Right now though we want to access the PC – which is why we came in here.  This will save us a trip to town basically, as there is something we want to do, that being alter our team.  At the moment you have a bunch of Normal-type Pokemon, your starter and the opposite type Monkey.  We have picked up some better team members though, so why not rotate them in now so we can quickly level them to the team level by using the shaking grass method?

So, we access the PC, and our new team is something like this:

(1) Your Starter
(2) Your Monkey Pokemon
(3) Pidove (Normal/Flying)
(4) Purrloin (Dark) HM Mule
(5) Blitzle (Electric)
(6) Some Other Pokemon

The 6th Pokemon could be Audino or one of the other Normal-type that you have – which does not really matter as they are basically the place-holder for your other archetype.  In my case, that will be a Water-type, as I have a Grass-type Pokemon (my Monkey was the Pansage), and of course I started with the Fire-type Starter, Tepig.

Obviously we are missing the third archetype, but the important thing is that our team is now better balanced!  You could use one of the Pyschic-type that we captured in the Dreamyard, but the thing about those is that they are inherently slow, which means they hardly ever hit first, which means they start battles by taking damage.  They can be effective once you level them up, but it is your call if you want to try to complete the process while you are building your main team.   I chose not.

With the new team in place, head to the tall grass above where we had our battle with Cheren and troll up shaking grass to quickly level your new team members to Level 15 (or whatever your current team level is).  AFTER you complete that process, return to the Red Roof building and heal up, then save, and THEN join Cheren at the entrance to the cave!

Before you talk to Cheren and go inside, head north then east where you will encounter Pokemon Breeder Adelaide, who has a Level 9 Patrat, and Level 9 Lillipup, and a level 9 Pidove.  After you beat her she gives you an Oran Berry, and then you head south to the treasure ball in the tall grass and grab the Repel from it.

Now it is time to join Cheren and enter the cave!

– Wellspring Cave --

As you enter you will notice two things – a treasure ball to the south, and the pair of Team Plasma Grunts to the west.  Chances are very good that within the first few steps you will trigger a wild encounter – and it will be a wild Pokemon you do not have :)

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Wellspring Cave Area Pokemon Report

Dex No.    Pokemon      Rarity     Season     Capture Note
#033/527   Woobat       (C)        All        Cave
#030/524   Roggenrola   (C)        All        Cave
#035/529   Drilbur      (C)        All        Shaking Dirt
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I find that the Roggenrola and the Woobat are about equally as common – and while they are not necessarily Pokemon we want for our team – you may I don't know – they are ones we need to add to our Pokedex and collection, so we may as well get them before leaving the cave.  I replaced my 6th with Roggenrola because I feel it is a better place-holder, as it is a Rock-type.

It is a bit hard to spot but the treasure ball is actually on the wrong side of a ledge, so you cannot get it right now.  Go ahead and battle the grunts – they have the Level 12 Patrat they took from the Trainer girl, and you defeat that easily.  After that though another pair of grunts appear, and you have the Doubles Battle that I thought we would have with the first two.

You and Cheren face the two new Grunts, who each have a Level 12 Patrat.  During Doubles Battles remember that AOE (Area of Effect) moves like Air Cutter and some stat-impacting moves will actually effect both of the opposing Pokemon, so this is a good place to use those types of moves.

They lose, and so they give back the stolen Pokemon – and Cheren takes it and heads back to return it to the girl, leaving you on your own in the cave.  Now that is OK, because we have some stuff to do here, but if you took serious hurt in the battles you may want to return to the Daycare Center to heal and save...

Either way, we have to do two things – troll for the Pokemon here, and for the special Shaking Dirt spots.  The thing about that is, to get the Shaking Dirt spots we have to run, which will naturally troll up wild encounters faster.  You can fight them all if you like, but once you have the two Pokemon from the wild encounters, running from them makes more sense.  Your call either way.  You should be aware though that in addition to the shaking dirt spots you spawn through running, you can also find shaking spots while walking that have special items in them rather than Pokemon – like Dark Gems.

Trolling for Shaking Dirt

If you return to the Daycare Center to heal up, you will be stopped at the branch in the road by Bianca and the girl, and she will give you some Heal Balls as a reward for helping her. 

Heal Balls are a special Poke Ball that automagically heals the Pokemon you capture with it and are really only useful if you do not have a full team, since if you do, the Pokemon you capture is sent to the PC, where is heals as a routine part of that process.  That being the case, save these for when you plan to go out with a smaller team and want to be able to field the Pokemon you capture in the process.

After you capture the three Pokemon in the cave head back to the Daycare Center to heal and save, and then use the PC to once again adjust your team if you want to...  Wither Roggenrola or Drillbur can become the 6th team member for now – at least until we find a dual-type to replace them.

You can also replace your Pidove if you like, as the Woobat is  Flying and Psychic types, while the Pidove is Normal and Flying – personally I kept the Pidove as I am not real wild about Psychic-types to begin with, but this is your call.  Either way if you swap in a new member or members, you will need to use the Shaking Grass trick to level them to the current team level, so go do that now if you need to, and once you are done, head back into the cave.

Back in the cave head west to the pool of water then south and up the stairs, continuing east where you will grab TM46, Thief, from the Treasure Ball we could not get to earlier.  This wraps up everything that we can presently do in the cave, so head back to the junction in the road where we fought Cheren earlier – if you need to heal, do that before we head south at this junction in the road.

– Back on Route 3 --

You'll encounter School Kid Al who has a Level 13 Blitzle, then grab the Antidote from the treasure ball in the Tall Grass. 

As you round the corner Cheren is waiting to tell you about the special Dark Tall Grass spots that spawn wild doubles battles – something new for the game in this gen.  You don't actually have to do one right now, but if you do and there is a Pokemon that you want to capture in it, be aware that you have to KO one of the pair of them first in order to capture it.

Standing in the center of the road to the south is School Kid Marsha who has a Level 13 Woobat.  On the bridge ahead is School Kid Gina who has a Level 12 Patrat, and a Level 12 Purrloin. 

Backtrack to the start of the bridge and go into the tall grass south then west to find a treasure ball with a Great Ball, then head across the bridge and south into the grass for another treasure ball that has an Awakening in it.

Around the corner is School Kid Edgar, who has a Level 12 Pidove, and a Level 12 Roggerola.  A few steps further along the path and you enter the gate to town – inside you can pause a few moments to watch the news ticker to catch the weather and a brief about your victory in the Gym Battle!  If you chat up the people here you will get some advice and a short but rather pointless quiz, and that wraps up the gate and this section, as you have arrived!