Routes 17 & 18 and the P2 Labs

Surf to the end of the river and climb on land - head west and grab the Full Restore from the Treasure Ball then backtrack east and up for a battle.

Ace Trainer Sean has a Level 66 Durant, Level 66 Espeon, and Level 66 Honchkrow, and pays you $3960.

Ace Trainer Cheyenne has a Level 66 Heatmor, Level 66 Umbreon, and a Level 66 Mismagius, and pays you $3960.

Pokemon Ranger Audra has a Level 64 Wigglytuff, Level 64 Girafarig, and a Level 64 Vileplume, and pays $3840.

Pokemon Ranger Rick has a Level 64 Vigoroth, a Level 64 Stantler, and Level 64 Victreebel, and pays $3840.

When you enter the gate house here you realize that things are not well here... This Route has been cut off from the regular Routes, the big board is down, and the trainers here? They clearly want to be somewhere else. A bit of foreshadowing for what is coming?

Route 17

The sign at the entrance to Route 17 sums up the challenge ahead - “Beware of rapidly flowing water!”

Obviously this is a Water Route, so the Wild Pokemon will be found in water. The good news is that you already have all of the Pokemon you can obtain via Surf, which means you will need to trot out your new Fishing Rod and get to it!

The first thing that you need to understand about this particular set of Wild Pokemon is that they are something of a time-suck to capture and collect, mostly due to needing to spawn a Water Hole and then fish it, and the low catch rates. There is an alternative though...

All that you really need to do is collect a Horsea and a Finneon, and then evolve them to add their full evolutionary lines to your National Pokedex. Now I know that we are not actually actively working on the National Dex right now, but we are HERE right now, so we may as well deal with this.

Use your fishing pole to collect a Horsea and a Finneon, which are the lowest evolutionary forms in these lines, then simply do the following:

For Horsea, place it at the front of your team and head back up to Victory Road to use the high-level Audino there to very quickly level the Horsea once (it acutally would have evolved at Level 32, but it is way beyond that level now) where it becomes Seadra.

For Finneon, do the same thing and get it to Level 31 for it to evolve into Lumineon.

An even faster alternative is to use one of the Rare Candy you have been saving up on each of them, which will instantly trigger their evolution.

That just leaves Kingdra, and to get that evolution you simply trade a Seadra holding a Dragon Scale, and it will then evolve. Have your trade partner trade it back to you and voila! You managed this without spending hours fishing in Water Holes!

Or you could just spend hours fishing in Water Holes. Your call...

As you make your way east through the Route you will encounter trainers as well as some pick-up items...

Fisherman Lydon has a Level 64 Feebas, Level 64 Finneon, and Level 64 Lumineon, and pays $2048.

Swimmer Jefferey has a Level 65 Tentacool, and a Level 65 Huntail, and pays $1040.

After this battle you encounter the first set of rapidly moving water and if you enter towards the center of the west running section will go over a few ramps and find yourself facing your next trainer battle.

Swimmer Ruth has a Level 65 Clamperl, and a Level 65 ellder, and pays $1040.

Avoiding the rapids head east in the calm water to a sandbank for the next trainer battle and a Treasure Ball.

Fisherman Bucky has a Level 64 Krabby, Level 64 Qwilfish, and Level 64 Kingler, and pays $2048.

Taking the rapids east will take you back to where you started, then taking the lower rapids west will take you near the next beach - where we get out of the water and follow the path after you repair your team as needed.

Veteran Gina has a Level 68 Kingdra, Level 68 Skarmory, and Level 68 Dnophan that she brings out for a triple battle. After you defeat them she pays you $5440.

Route 18

Ahead of you is a rest house at which you should rest your team. Inside is a man-in-black who will pay you for hidden items you find under rocks - but only for certain hidden items.

There are several routes you can follow from here, and some boulders to push into holes, so start with the route to the south of the rest house, where you can find a Wild Tropius in the grass if you do not already have one.

Black Belt Zachary has a Level 65 Hariyama, Level 65 Throh, and Level 65 Hitmontop, and pays $2080.

Head back north to the rest house then west down the stairs to reach a fairly complicated area of the Route. You will need to clear the south and east part, then a little north, then the east berm to get everything here...

Veteran Vincent has a Level 70 Tyranitar and pays you $5600.

Hiker Stephen has a Level 64 Hippopotas, Level 64 Hippowdon, and Level 64 Crustle and pays you $2048.

Veteran Maya has a Level 70 Salamence, and pays $5600.

Continuing north and east you will find a split where there are stairs going up and a grass patch. Ignore the grass patch and head up the stairs to meet Pastoria's Gym Leader, Crasher Wake. After a strange encounter with him, continue east for the next battle.

Veteran Chester has a Level 68 Relicanth, Level 68 Staraptor, and Level 68 Krookodile who are deployed in rotation-battle, and pays you $5440 for the lesson.

Head down the stairs and Surf out into the water, and surf east on the lower rapids to reach the far side of this rapids set. Before you head onto the land Surf south and you will find another Pearl String in a Treasure Ball. There is a Shoal Shell hidden here as well, so use your Dowser to find it.

Head back north and then west between the rapids here to the sandbar, where you will find some Shoal Salt hidden here. Continue to work your way to the west and you find another trainer battle.

Swimmer Wright has a Level 65 Carvanha, and Level 65 Sharpedo, and pays $1040.

You can work your way carefully through a narrow path south and west to another trainer battle.

Swimmer Dara has a Level 65 Chinchou and a Level 65 Gorebyss, and pays $1040.

Make your way along the south and west narrow path along the rapids and you will regain the shores of Route 18, heading onto the beach where you will find some hidden items and battle.

Battle Girl Wendy has a Level 65 Poliwrath, Level 65 Sawk, and Level 65 Medicham, and pays $2060.

Head up the cut and stairs to the north and you will find a Treasure Ball and hidden item, so go ahead and collect that now. With that mischief managed, head to the water and make your way back to the shore and the P2 Labs now!

At this point in terms of Wild Pokemon, you should have caught a Carnivine and Tropius if you needed them still, which will have fully completed the Habitat for both Route 17 and Route 18, so well done on that!

Using your Dowser you should find a Blue Shard, Heart Scale, PP Max,Pearl, Pearl String, Prism Scale, Rare Candy, Shoal Slat, and a Shoal Shell.

In Treasure Balls there can be had a Blue Shard, Dive Ball, Iron, Magma Stone, PP Max, Pearl String, Star Piece, and Zinc. You will also have obtained TM19 Telekinesis.

P2 Labs

When you arrive you find the Team Plasma ship docked along the shore by the Lab, with a Team Plasma Grunt outside! Talking to the Grunt gets you nowhere - you can board the ship and make your way to the bridge to talk with Colress, who explains that he has disbanded Team Plasma and he wants the former members to make up their own minds as to what there futures will hold.

After you talk to him you have another battle so he can assess the strength of your Pokemon!

Colress has a Level 72 Magneton, Level 72 Magnezone, Level 72 Klinklang, Level 72 Metagross, Level 72 Rotom, and Level 72 Beheeyem, and pays you $14800.

After you beat him he tell syou that he is happy that you did - that it is one more element that helps prove his research went in the right direction. He also gives you a very VERY special gift - a Master Ball! So well done you! This was certainly a worthwhile side-trip to be sure!

Remember if you took damage to your team you can head back outside and down the stairs in front of the other entrance and use one of the beds in the lower deck to heal up. Do that if you need to, and then head back on deck and use the gangplank to head back on shore.

The P2 Laboratory

The door is there - use it - and you find yourself in the lab. Be sure you grab the Treasure Ball with its Dubious Disc, and read the memo on the side of the display.

If you check the Habitat entry for the P2 area you will see that it is basically the same as the one for the nearby Routes, with the exception of the Qwilfish, which means that there is just that one you need to collect here.

The Qwilfish is obtained by fishing in Water Holes, so get to that and soon enough you will have added this one to your collection.

Now that you have that Habitat List filled, there are some outstanding collections that we need to do - so use Fly to head to Striaton City, heal and resupply as needed, then warm up your fishing skills because we got some work to do.

Remember, a day spent fishing is way better than a day spent working... But, what if your job is fishing? Errr...

What we want to do is start replacing those blank spots on our Habitat List with Red Poke Balls so that we are up-to-date with the whole Catch 'Em All thing. So head out onto Route 3, which should be the first one on our list after Wellspring Cave working from bottom to top.

Route 3 Fishing Catchup

The outstanding Pokemon for the Fishing Habitat are Goldeen which is collected by Fishing, and Seaking, which is collected by Fishing in Water Holes. When you have collected both of these you will complete the Fishing Habitat for Route 3, Striaton City, Pinwheel Forest, Route 22, Route 11, and Aspertia City.

Wellspring Cave Fishing Catchup

Now we head to Wellspring Cave and go inside. In the Caves what you should have yet to collect are a Poliwag, which you get by Fishing, and a Poliwhirl and Poliwrath, which you get by fishing Water Holes.

Victory Road Fishing Catchup

Now we had back to Victory Road and grab the only outstanding Pokemon for that area, a Politoed!

A brief check of the Habitat Lists now shows that we have fully completed the Fishing Lists for P2 Laboratory, Wellspring Cave, Victory Road, Route 23, Giant Chasm, Relic Passage, Route 6, Lostlorn Forest, Floccesy Ranch, Route 20, and Route 19 and well bloody done there mates!

We have also revealed all of the Fishing List Pokemon for Route 4, which we will be dealing with soon.

Humilau City Fishing Catchup

For this pleasant stop we need to fish up a Shellder and a Luvdisc from regular fishing, then a Cloyster from fishing in the Water Holes.

Once you have those you have completed the Fishing Habitat List for Humilau City, Seaside Cave, Route 13, and Undella Town. Nice.

Route 21 Fishing Catchup

Our next minor collection is in the water on Route 21 where we will fish up an Octillery in the Water Holes. That completes the Habitat Lists for Route 21.

Village Bridge Fishing Catchup

The pair that we need to collect here are a Carvanha, which you get from just fishing, and a Sharpedo, which you fish in the Water Holes.

After you capture these two and add them to your collection you complete the Habitat List for the Village Bridge.

Undella Bay Fishing Catchup

Out in the bay here we need to fish up a Chinchou, then fish up a Lanturn in the Water Holes.

When you get these two you complete the Habitat List for Undella Bay.

Route 4 Fishing Catchup

Here you want to fish up a Clamperl, then Water Hole a Gorebyss and Relicanth. If you want to take a faster route you may like to know that Clamperl evolves into Gorebyss when traded holding a DeepSeaScale or into Huntail when traded holding a DeepSeaTooth...

That will complete the Habitat List for Route 4.

Virbank City / Virbank Complex Fishing Catchup

The two you need from here are a Krabby, which you fish, and a Kingler, which you fish in the Water Holes.

After you obtain these two you have basically completed ALL of the Fishing Habitats Lists for the world - save for the very few areas we have yet to visit that is. Take a moment to feel good about this mates.

That resolves the outstanding Habitat Lists, and clears the way for the next phase of this post-story Adventure, so use Fly to head for Nimbasa City and hit the Pokemon Center there to heal up and save your game. You should resupply any balls or potions and the like, and when you are ready step out into the big city and head for the East Gate!