Pokemon X: The Delcatty Solo Run

Skitty is the mysterious 'Mon that nearly single-handedly made me give up on my planned Eevee solo run. When I encountered him in Castelia City, I was instantly reminded of my delicious playthrough of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky and the great time I had had handling this lovely pink feline, and I wondered why the idea of tackling a Skitty solo run had not dawned on me earlier. The time was more than ripe to address this oversight, and I decided to do so in Pokemon X instead of White 2/Black 2. For one thing, I was getting a teeny-tiny bit tired of cruising Unova; for another, Skitty appears right after the first Gym in X and I wanted to cruise with him as early as possible; and last but not least, I was dying to pet and feed the adorable kitty into oblivion in Pokemon-Amie.

I was expecting that run to be business as usual, but things didn't exactly unfold as planned. Skitty is great solo run material on paper, with balanced stats and a decent offensive Move pool that guarantees an efficient Type coverage. I was struggling a bit in the early stages of the games — the first fight against Lucario being an especially gritty point — but the discovery of a Moon Stone and my Skitty's subsequent evolution into Delcatty gave me a welcome stat boost and some much-needed room in all things fighting. I was set for a smooth ride, or so I thought; but the game had other plans for me. I started sensing something was amiss when none of my Skitty's Moves was able to scratch a random Ghost 'Mon. Now, I fully expected Return and Wake-up Slap to be unefficient; but Dig and Feint Attack? By all accounts and to the best of my knowledge, these last two Moves should have taken care of Ghost 'Mons allright, and yet they were entirely useless, making my Skitty powerless and unable to dispose of Ghost 'Mons. At first, I could rely on my crew of HM slaves to take down these irritating ghostly obstructions; but as the game progressed, these HM slaves became underleveled and I had no choice but to swiftly run away from random battles and carefully avoid all Trainers armed with Ghost 'Mons. This was manageable, if only a tad irritating; but it didn't explain why my Ground and Dark Moves were suddenly unable to pummel Ghost 'Mons into oblivion.

It took me a while, but I finally uncovered the very logical reason for my Skitty's powerlessness against the Ghost crew; and that reason is none other than the Normalize ability, which transforms all Moves into Normal Moves. While this gives a welcome boost on the battlefield thanks to the STAB, it also makes the Normalize version of Skitty a genuinely unfit candidate for a solo run — the first I've encountered since I started soloing Pokemon games, en passant. Because indeed, Skitty comes in two versions ability-wise: the one with Normalize, and another with Cute Charm. It was my bane to get a Skitty with the former; had I gotten a Skitty boasting Cute Charm, I would have blasted through the game without noticing anything. And I would now be crowned Champion instead of stalling at the entrance of Victory Road.

Because indeed, I didn't reach the Elite Four. By the time I polished off the eight Gyms, my Skitty's lack of bite against all things ghostly had grown into a regular and unavoidable issue: at that point, I was basically unable to dispose of Ghost 'Mons, be it with Skitty or my HM slaves. I didn't want to tackle the Elite Four without a fair bit of checking, knowing that a mere single Ghost 'Mon could stop my Skitty dead in her tracks. And lo and behold, it turned out that there was indeed a Ghost 'Mon in the Elite Four roster: Chandelure, a dual Fire/Ghost 'Mon handled by Fire Trainer Malva. That put an end to my lofty Elite Four dreams, and I gave up on my run after roughly 17 hours of play. Now, if I ever tackle a Skitty solo run again, I'll obviously make sure that I recruit a creature with the Cute Charm ability. I'd like to cruise Unova with a Skitty, if only because I like the kitten's sprite in White 2/Black 2; so a Skitty solo run redux is not entirely out of the question. The lovely feline didn't get to prove herself fully, and I want to let her strut her stuff on the Elite Four grounds. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!