Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver (May contain spoilers)

[! october]

Why don't Ultra balls work? Aren't they supposed to be better than great balls?

And I agree; this thread is extremely helpful. ^^

[Epischlol]

I'm not quite sure, but the pokeballs that aren't supposed to be the best, usually work best on legendaries. That's how I got a shaymin with a heal ball on pearl. My little hana is a miracle isn't she?

[Yamanaka Shin]

They suggest using an Ultral Ball on Articuno for the old games X3


I love Dusk, Luxary, and Friend Balls the best. Moon Balls too, cuz of the name.

[Rainbow Dash]

The 5th Gen Pokemon games are Pokemon Black and Pokemon White. The titles were translated from the official Japanese Pokemon site.

More on topic, Karen strategy! WARNING: TL;DR.

Ah Karen. Karen is the dark type trainer and the one standing between you and the champion in the Elite 4. I'll be going Pokemon-by-Pokemon. But first just a generic overview of the Dark type.

Every Dark type attack that deals damage (with the exception of Dark Pulse ) are Physical attacks. Unfortunately for you, her powerhouse, Houndoom, has Dark Pulse. Everyone else has Faint Attack, Payback, Sucker Punch, and Crunch in the ways of Dark moves. Dark types are typically walls rather than offensive attackers, although a few select Dark types can serve as decent sweepers (Houndoom fits the bill of a Nasty Plot sweeper.)

First is Umbreon. Umbreon may not be the most offensive Pokemon in the world, but there is a reason I have one named Tank. Umbreon is the token Dark type wall. However, this wall has a nasty trick up its sleeve in terms of a move called Payback, which is only base power 50 if it hits you first. But its base power is 100 if you hit it first, plus it gets STAB from it. A hard hitting Fighting type move will make short work of Umbreon. If you have Battle Frontier points, you can teach a Pokemon Superpower, which is a Fighting move with a base power of 120 and an accuracy of 100, but it lowers your Attack score after using it. Which is fine in this battle since you can switch out and it'll fix itself. Another option is Scyther with X-Scissor. Umbreon is the only pure Dark type of the team.

Next is, out of nowhere, Vileplume. Vileplume has its trademark status powders. Light it on fire with a fast Fire type like Rapidash or slap it around with Flying type moves. Fearow or Pidgeot will work fine, but Sacred Fire and Aeroblast from Ho-Oh and Lugia will work wonders here.

Also out of nowhere, but not entirely unreasonable, is Gengar. Morty introduced you to Gengar before, so this isn't too bad. This Gengar, will make you hate it. It has Destiny Bond, which will KO your Pokemon if you KO Gengar in the same turn Destiny Bond is used, it's irritating but not unfixable if you stocked up on Revives. Dark Types will work fine here. If you have your Eeveelutions, Eevee, Vaporeon, and Flareon learn Bite, but all can learn Shadow Ball. Just about everything nowadays can learn either Bite or Faint Attack, something with a good attack score with either move will work wonders with Gengar. A good swift Psychic type like Alakazam can also work due to Gengar's Poison dual type, but prepare for Alakazam to bite it if Gengar uses Lick and you don't hit it first or Psychic doesn't KO it. Espeon might have the speed to pull it off and has less horrendous defense than Alakazam, but it'll still be prone to Licking.

Murkrow is barely even worthy of note. It's a pathetic Dark type with fairly mediocre attacks. The most it can do is Whirlwind you out, which is pretty laughable. Ampharos with Thunderpunch or something with a solid Rock move (no pun intended) like AncientPower from either Ho-Oh or Lugia will do it in pretty fast. Hell, even an Ice move will work.

Then we get to the final member and the beast of the team, Houndoom. Houndoom comes with Nasty Plot, Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Crunch. Nasty Plot kicks up Special Attack by two points, which makes Flamethrower and Dark Pulse a lot more painful. Remember what I said about Houndoom being a decent sweeper with Nasty Plot in tow? Yeah, Karen figured that out too. Houndoom will cower in fear from Vaporeon, who can learn the always reliable Surf to wash up Houndoom and has the proper defenses, both special and normal, to make even Nasty Plot insigificant for at least a little while.

[ShortyGinger]

i used to use dusk for everything, cause i'm a night owl, but now i use fast balls. i caught lugia and entie with them. they work well on (of course) faster pokemon. i tried catching raikou with heavy and fast balls, but fast seem to work better. i use love balls on weaker pokemon because they don't really have a good catch rate. friend balls seem to work good on all kinds. i only used a lure ball once, but it seemed to work ok (on poliwags ) moon balls aren't even really worth having cause they only work on less than ten pokemon (clefairy,skitty,jigglypuff,nidorino,nidorina) haven't tried level balls yet.

have 13 badges

main team:

giratina-master ball
jirachi-cherish ball
lugia-fast ball
red gyrados-heavy ball
meganium-poke ball
groudon-ultra ball

[Epischlol]

Ooh, you got an event Jirachi! (xD I got three!) That's why it's in a Cherish Ball.

Time to update my team!:
Swellow Lv. 32 (new)
Umbreon Lv. 29 (new)
Ho-Oh Lv. 71 (new)
Lugia lv. 59
Typhlosion Lv. 38
Red Gyarados Lv. 31

[Yamanaka Shin]

The only update to my team is my Manectric boy, Joss <333

[Epischlol]

Manetric? Cool!
Don't you hate how they make Manetric sound in the show? It sounds like some drunk, constapated(sp), old hobo!

[Yamanaka Shin]

Manectric is one of my favorite Pokemon ^^ It is quite lovely and bad@$$. Gotta have it on my Emerald team everytime. Hoenn is easy to get through because of it. Sinnoh is easy to get through because of Luxray. But Kanto & Jhoto are hard because I'm not too "down" with Ampharos or Raichu. But I do adore Umbreon.

[Epischlol]

Manectric is one of my favorite Pokemon ^^ It is quite lovely and bad@$$. Gotta have it on my Emerald team everytime. Hoenn is easy to get through because of it. Sinnoh is easy to get through because of Luxray. But Kanto & Jhoto are hard because I'm not too "down" with Ampharos or Raichu. But I do adore Umbreon.

Yeah it is! Hehe...
I have one on my Emerald team, but he's not exactly a very high level... I have tons of Luxray in my Sinnoh games. They sure are powerful! Except for when it comes time to battle Bertha of the Elite 4...
I usually make sure my team consists of cute Pokemon, so I just had to get a Mareep. Next thing I know it's evolving twice in 10 minutes. I didn't like Ampharos at first, but now I love it to death! Once you get it up to lv. 70, I think, it can use Discharge, Thunder, Hyper Beam, Iron Tail, and all of those REALLY powerfull moves!
I'm not exactly "down" with Raichu either. It's not the most powerful, or good looking, Pokemon you'll ever meet...