Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness

2012-08-26 09:25:06 pm

Claimh Happy

Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
The Ability may obtain Full Heals, Super Potions and Great Balls, regardless of the user's level, as well as Ultra Balls and Rare Candy if the user is at or above level 25.

^Bulbapedia on Pickup

Toothache

2012-08-27 02:23:40 am

Let the music play!

Bulbapedia is dead wrong on this. Pick Up is actually level based, the same way it was in Emerald. At low levels you tend to get a bunch of berries, and more useful items at high levels, but it's not as simple as a few items but more sub-divided, probably every 10 levels exactly like Emerald.

dondon151

Edit history:

dondon151: 2012-08-27 08:22:43 am

2012-08-27 08:21:54 am

I don't actually think you get berries in XD, and the handheld stuff like Repel and Escape Rope are replaced with other things, but Bulbapedia is wrong on this based on my personal experience and the experience of other XD players. I am merely going on assumption that Pickup can net Rare Candies starting at L21; have never seen this happen before in actuality.

Toothache

2012-08-27 09:32:16 am

Let the music play!

I have seen Pick Up users collect stuff like Rawst berries, so I assume the item list is a hybrid of the FR/LG and Emerald item lists. It would certainly be worth testing at the very least, maybe one of the hackers could do some research.

AlecK47

2012-08-31 08:13:56 pm

Sorry, Mapler, I don't stream. I don't have a capture card (I record to dvd), and I would need some money to get one.

Quote from Toothache:

I have seen Pick Up users collect stuff like Rawst berries, so I assume the item list is a hybrid of the FR/LG and Emerald item lists. It would certainly be worth testing at the very least, maybe one of the hackers could do some research.

Pretty sure you're right about that.

As for Rare Candies, Lv 21 sounds right by my experience, and everything I've got lower than that would be useless to me. My plan was to use the Soothe Bell until then, and at some point, where I would have some easy battles, manipulate a couple. If I'm dedicated enough, I may even have an Ursaring for Snattle. As I remember, I had a Lv 27 Teddiursa when I did my test run.

I can get three Great Balls in the Pyrite Hotel and three Ultras in Snagem Hideout (right on the route too!) for my time-saving snags. I'll probably skip the Great Balls, though, and use my four extra Poke Balls on Mawile, Delcatty and two others I haven't totally figured out yet. Unfortunately one of the best candidates is Lunatone, which has a lower catch rate, but at least I would only have to snag one Pokemon in the segment. For the Ultras I'm leaning towards Salamence, Dugtrio and either Magneton or Sableye. Probably Magneton, because I should be able to get Sableye with a Poke Ball.

Sorry, Mapler, I don't stream.  I don't have a capture card (I record to dvd), and I would need some money to get one.

[quote="Toothache"]I have seen Pick Up users collect stuff like Rawst berries, so I assume the item list is a hybrid of the FR/LG and Emerald item lists. It would certainly be worth testing at the very least, maybe one of the hackers could do some research. [/quote]
Pretty sure you're right about that.

As for Rare Candies, Lv 21 sounds right by my experience, and everything I've got lower than that would be useless to me.  My plan was to use the Soothe Bell until then, and at some point, where I would have some easy battles, manipulate a couple.  If I'm dedicated enough, I may even have an Ursaring for Snattle.  As I remember, I had a Lv 27 Teddiursa when I did my test run.

I can get three Great Balls in the Pyrite Hotel and three Ultras in Snagem Hideout (right on the route too!) for my time-saving snags.  I'll probably skip the Great Balls, though, and use my four extra Poke Balls on Mawile, Delcatty and two others I haven't totally figured out yet.  Unfortunately one of the best candidates is Lunatone, which has a lower catch rate, but at least I would only have to snag one Pokemon in the segment.  For the Ultras I'm leaning towards Salamence, Dugtrio and either Magneton or Sableye.  Probably Magneton, because I should be able to get Sableye with a Poke Ball.

dondon151

2012-09-01 05:03:29 am

If you can't OHKO an opponent Shadow Pokemon, it's probably faster to just snag it.

The reason why I think an any% of this game is sort of redundant is because there are so many required battles with trainers with Shadow Pokemon that there really isn't much of a difference between any% and 100%. It's just like, those 2 trainers at Gateon Port and Miror B.'s snags.

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2012-09-01 11:53:29 am

2012-09-01 11:50:02 am

Quote from dondon151:

The reason why I think an any% of this game is sort of redundant is because there are so many required battles with trainers with Shadow Pokemon that there really isn't much of a difference between any% and 100%. It's just like, those 2 trainers at Gateon Port and Miror B.'s snags.

And the multicolored Cipher Peon sextet, along with a couple other random peons that can be skipped. I'm not trying to get philosophical (or confrontational) here - we are both trying to defend runs in which we have a personal interest after all - but there is something to be said for any% when it saves at least several minutes. In this case, if we assume an average of one minute per extra battle (not counting Miror B for Dragonite), which seems a reasonable average given that almost all of the relevant battles would take two or three turns, that alone is significant. Add to that the shop trips (my any% route only has one) and management of reserve Pokemon (I do none), and that's probably another one to two minutes. You also lose a couple seconds to a snag vs. a OHKO, which adds up over time. Once again, I mean no offense, but I do disagree.

Edit: I grab the Twistedspoon from Ralts, but that's it. Not sure how that slipped my mind. So that would also amend my previous comment to be Poke: Mawile, Sableye, Ralts, Delcatty.

[quote="dondon151"]The reason why I think an any% of this game is sort of redundant is because there are so many required battles with trainers with Shadow Pokemon that there really isn't much of a difference between any% and 100%. It's just like, those 2 trainers at Gateon Port and Miror B.'s snags.[/quote]
And the multicolored Cipher Peon sextet, along with a couple other random peons that can be skipped.  I'm not trying to get philosophical (or confrontational) here - we are both trying to defend runs in which we have a personal interest after all - but there is something to be said for any% when it saves at least several minutes.  In this case, if we assume an average of one minute per extra battle (not counting Miror B for Dragonite), which seems a reasonable average given that almost all of the relevant battles would take two or three turns, that alone is significant.  Add to that the shop trips (my any% route only has one) and management of reserve Pokemon (I do none), and that's probably another one to two minutes.  You also lose a couple seconds to a snag vs. a OHKO, which adds up over time.  Once again, I mean no offense, but I do disagree.

Edit: I grab the Twistedspoon from Ralts, but that's it.  Not sure how that slipped my mind.  So that would also amend my previous comment to be Poke: Mawile, Sableye, Ralts, Delcatty.

dondon151

2012-09-02 02:29:08 am

I wasn't trying to be confrontational; I was just saying that any% and 100% would end up sharing a lot of overlap due to the design of the game. You end up missing OHKOs on a lot of Shadow Pokemon because they get the invisible level boost.

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2012-09-02 07:04:56 pm

2012-09-02 07:04:39 pm

I understood your intent dondon, I just wanted to make sure you understood mine. My words have been grossly misinterpreted in the past, so I tend towards caution when people can't hear vocal intonation or see my face. But enough of that...

In most cases, I will be manipulating crits and such, while in others the opponent has an odd number of Pokemon, and I can get a ORKO without losing turns. The big exceptions (other than my planned snags) are at the end, and because most of those Shadow Pokemon have low catch rates, I don't foresee much difference in the luck manipulation.

dondon151

Edit history:

dondon151: 2012-09-02 08:20:58 pm

2012-09-02 08:20:16 pm

Quote from AlecK47:

I understood your intent dondon, I just wanted to make sure you understood mine. My words have been grossly misinterpreted in the past, so I tend towards caution when people can't hear vocal intonation or see my face. But enough of that...

Okay. I should apologize for my poor choice of words in that post.

Quote from AlecK47:

In most cases, I will be manipulating crits and such, while in others the opponent has an odd number of Pokemon, and I can get a ORKO without losing turns. The big exceptions (other than my planned snags) are at the end, and because most of those Shadow Pokemon have low catch rates, I don't foresee much difference in the luck manipulation.

You're still much better off tossing balls at full HP than rigging critical hits; all but Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos have catch rates of >6.25% with the best available Poke Ball (unless, of course, Ursaring can use Slash). Chansey, Delcatty, and Mawile come close, but are still at above 6.25%.

Whenever you make the shop trip in your route, I'd still think it would be prudent to grab as many balls necessary to one-shot snag all of the Shadow Pokemon that appear that both 1) cannot be OHKO'd without a critical hit (or with Ursaring's CH Slash) and 2) appear on trainers with an even number of Pokemon (probably faster to gang up and KO the last remaining Shadow Pokemon). Ursaring learning Slash at L37 is great for fishing for OHKOs, but I'd wager that you'll find a lot of the mid-game Pokemon very difficult to OHKO with either Teddiursa's 5x Fury Swipes or Espeon's Confusion.

[quote="AlecK47"]I understood your intent dondon, I just wanted to make sure [i]you[/i] understood [i]mine[/i].  My words have been grossly misinterpreted in the past, so I tend towards caution when people can't hear vocal intonation or see my face.  But enough of that...[/quote]
Okay. I should apologize for my poor choice of words in that post.

[quote="AlecK47"]In most cases, I will be manipulating crits and such, while in others the opponent has an odd number of Pokemon, and I can get a ORKO without losing turns.  The big exceptions (other than my planned snags) are at the end, and because most of those Shadow Pokemon have low catch rates, I don't foresee much difference in the luck manipulation.[/quote]
You're still much better off tossing balls at full HP than rigging critical hits; all but Moltres, Articuno, and Zapdos have catch rates of >6.25% with the best available Poke Ball (unless, of course, Ursaring can use Slash). Chansey, Delcatty, and Mawile come close, but are still at above 6.25%.

Whenever you make the shop trip in your route, I'd still think it would be prudent to grab as many balls necessary to one-shot snag all of the Shadow Pokemon that appear that both 1) cannot be OHKO'd without a critical hit (or with Ursaring's CH Slash) and 2) appear on trainers with an even number of Pokemon (probably faster to gang up and KO the last remaining Shadow Pokemon). Ursaring learning Slash at L37 is great for fishing for OHKOs, but I'd wager that you'll find a lot of the mid-game Pokemon very difficult to OHKO with either Teddiursa's 5x Fury Swipes or Espeon's Confusion.

AlecK47

2012-09-02 08:28:18 pm

No offense taken dondon, wanted to make sure it was the same for you. Smiley

Yeah, I dunno. I'm almost of two minds about this. I can see both sides of the argument, and I do only plan on doing one run of this game. So how about this, an open request for input. Who favors which run? I think we can safely say right now that it's a 1-1 tie between us (in part because your meticulously planned route means less work for me, in a way). I will run whichever has more interest. So let your voices be heard, if you have an opinion!

dondon151

2012-09-02 11:30:20 pm

Well, I was planning on either having CaptainYama do 100% (if he ever finds time to come back to speedrunning this game) or me do it (if I ever find time/resources to do record a full segmented 100%). Any% is obviously way easier when it comes to resetting. 100% is I guess more impressive because every segment will have Pokemon getting caught and full health and we know that seeing 70+ of those is pretty ridiculous Tongue

Marche_Fighter_Paladin

2012-09-03 10:19:47 pm

Claimh Happy

Critical hits for OHKOs are faster than snagging, right (because of the catching animation and text)? if that's the case, and especially if the run will be segmented, I think that's what you should do. 6.25% is a pretty damn good chance for a segmented run.

AlecK47

2012-09-04 06:55:11 pm

I'm going to give it until I catch a good Teddiursa to decide because that's where the routes diverge, and it will give other people some time to chime in, but thanks for the input, mapler. But dondon, if you would like to do the 100% yourself, just let me know. In the meantime, good luck on Crystal Chronicles! thumbsup

dondon151

2012-09-05 04:38:27 am

Oh right, totally forgot about the fact that it's much faster to just manipulate a crit whenever you can (unless, of course, you don't need one). That's a really crappy thing to have to do, though.

Don't feel pressured to do one or the other just because I want to; with the upcoming school year, I think it's going to be a long while before I ever get back around to XD.

AlecK47

2012-09-05 06:09:47 pm

I'm not feeling pressured, or even terribly worried about what others may think. I just like to think things over before I dive in to something of this magnitude. Really it's about making sure that I am committed enough to go through the frustration a segmented run of this game will surely bring, and if a lot of people wanted 100% that would provide extra motivation. It's only been a couple days and nobody has really pushed for 100%, so it seems I'll run any%, but I'll still leave my options open until I get that Teddiursa.

AlecK47

2012-10-11 07:17:53 am

OK, so it's been a while. In my defense, the game refused to give me a good Eevee, and I had to deal with an injury (now mostly healed) to my left hand. I am still working on this, and so far this is the best I've come up with:
Eevee (Rash) HP 34 (30-31), Atk 16 (0-9), Def 17 (20-29), SpA 17 (20-29), SpDf 18 (20-31), Spd 18 (20-29)
I was originally shooting for 18 in both SpA and Spd, but factoring in that only three natures can posslibly work, and the IVs required, the chances of that are .2747%, or about 1/364. Ironically, I got this Eevee on my 346th attempt. Angry

To put this in perspective, each attempt takes slightly over two and a half minutes, meaning I spent fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes (assuming exactly 2.5 min., so actually more) of my life on this. In his Colosseum run, Toothache got an 18 SpA Espeon with four resets. Toothache, I hate you right now. I got one Eevee with 18 SpA. ONE! And it had crap Spd. As in the worst possible.

At any rate, I'm going to roll with this even if it means I need to manipulate another crit or two, although judging by the lack of necessary crits (by Espeon, at least) in dondon151's 100% route, that shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully the low Atk won't be a problem, but I guess I'll just KO Sableye (which has a low catch rate anyway) and snag Carvanha for the Blackglasses. And maybe grab the Great Balls in the Pyrite Hotel to make snagging Mawile less of a nightmare. Although that would take about 30 seconds, it may be worth it, given Mawile's low catch rate (45). Unfortunately, the Pyrite Poke Mart doesn't have Great Balls. I also may use an Ultra on Swellow in case I can't outspeed it (I really should, though).

Now to get a good Teddiursa... I'll go for 27 Atk (22-31 with + nature) and 16 Spd (20-31). Three possible natures again, but this time the odds are a bit better: 1.236%, or about 1/81. Sad

Hopefully I can get either a 28 Atk (needs a 31 IV) or 17 Spd (30-31), but I won't obsess over it.

OK, so it's been a while.  In my defense, the game refused to give me a good Eevee, and I had to deal with an injury (now mostly healed) to my left hand.  I am still working on this, and so far this is the best I've come up with:
Eevee (Rash)     HP 34 (30-31), Atk 16 (0-9), Def 17 (20-29), SpA 17 (20-29), SpDf 18 (20-31), Spd 18 (20-29)
I was originally shooting for 18 in both SpA and Spd, but factoring in that only three natures can posslibly work, and the IVs required, the chances of that are .2747%, or about 1/364.  Ironically, I got this Eevee on my 346th attempt. >:(  To put this in perspective, each attempt takes slightly over two and a half minutes, meaning I spent fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes (assuming exactly 2.5 min., so actually more) of my life on this.  In his Colosseum run, Toothache got an 18 SpA Espeon with [i]four[/i] resets.  Toothache, I hate you right now.  I got one Eevee with 18 SpA.  ONE!  And it had crap Spd.  As in the worst possible.

At any rate, I'm going to roll with this even if it means I need to manipulate another crit or two, although judging by the lack of necessary crits (by Espeon, at least) in dondon151's 100% route, that shouldn't be a problem.  Hopefully the low Atk won't be a problem, but I guess I'll just KO Sableye (which has a low catch rate anyway) and snag Carvanha for the Blackglasses.  And maybe grab the Great Balls in the Pyrite Hotel to make snagging Mawile less of a nightmare.  Although that would take about 30 seconds, it may be worth it, given Mawile's low catch rate (45).  Unfortunately, the Pyrite Poke Mart doesn't have Great Balls.  I also may use an Ultra on Swellow in case I can't outspeed it (I really should, though).

Now to get a good Teddiursa...  I'll go for 27 Atk (22-31 with + nature) and 16 Spd (20-31).  Three possible natures again, but this time the odds are a bit better: 1.236%, or about 1/81.  :(  Hopefully I can get either a 28 Atk (needs a 31 IV) or 17 Spd (30-31), but I won't obsess over it.

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2012-10-12 09:43:40 pm

2012-10-12 06:50:36 pm

Triple post? Ehhhh.... oh well. I got my Teddiursa sooner than I expected (44 attempts). Smiley

Teddiursa (Adamant or Lonely): HP 34 (0-7), Atk 27 (22-30), Def 16 (0-9 or 19-27), SpA 16 (19-27 or 0-9), SpDf 18 (19-27), Spd 16 (20-29)
Not very beefy, but it shouldn't need to be.

I also said that I'd mention whether I was going for any% or 100% when I got to this point. So even though it should be fairly obvious, I am running any%.

Now I can get to some actual running!

Edit: it's lonely

Toothache

2012-10-14 06:49:42 am

Let the music play!

Methinks you got confused a bit. I haven't attempted to run XD at all yet, been focusing on Colosseum (which is where the 4 reset Espeon came from). Sounds like you have a great start though, keep it up!

AlecK47

Edit history:

AlecK47: 2012-10-14 04:03:39 pm

2012-10-14 03:59:07 pm

I wasn't confused; note the beginning of the sentence. Smiley

That was a bit of a wall of text, though.

On the bright side, the RNG has apparently decided to make up for trolling me on segment one. I got a rather incredible string of segments over the last couple days where only one or two took longer than statistically probable. I'm watching football now, but I was basically going through the game at ludicrous speed on Friday and Saturday - I'm already at the first Miror B. fight.

Edit: I also forgot to mention a while back that I will be using a Great Ball on Zangoose for the Silk Scarf. I'll just use EQ on Magneton. One other route change is a second shopping trip (in Gateon, before I head to Citadark) for some high-level healing items, which will let me skip buying Protect for Espeon. That also means no Light Screen for Greevil, but I beat him without it on my test playthrough, so that should be OK. Current time 1:16.

AlecK47

2012-11-01 09:36:50 pm

OK, so I've been treading water for a while now. The mechanics for pickup (if they are as suspected) should give me a 0.3% chance of getting a Rare Candy (10% to get an item, times 3% for that item to be a RC), but the RNG gods seem to hate me again - or at least they've stopped being super generous. I've only got items at about a 5% rate so far, and of course, no Rare Candies (although I have a Hyper Potion from earlier, when everything was roses). It's unfortunate because manipulating them from Torkin, Lobar and Exinn, and using them after Gonrag would get me an Ursaring for Egrog (the guy right before Snattle). I can't see saving more than 2-3 minutes doing this (and that's being generous), and the more I try, the more it seems like a fool's errand. There is a 2RC strat that would get me an Ursaring for Snattle (but not Egrog), but even that is starting to seem a bit much. I need to devote some more time to learning FFXII for the time being, but I would like to know what other people think for when I dive back into this in a week or two.

Also, I had a brain fart on Magneton - I won't have EQ yet - but a flinch or crit should work well enough.

OK, so I've been treading water for a while now.  The mechanics for pickup (if they are as suspected) should give me a 0.3% chance of getting a Rare Candy (10% to get an item, times 3% for that item to be a RC), but the RNG gods seem to hate me again - or at least they've stopped being super generous.  I've only got items at about a 5% rate so far, and of course, no Rare Candies (although I have a Hyper Potion from earlier, when everything was roses).  It's unfortunate because manipulating them from Torkin, Lobar and Exinn, and using them after Gonrag would get me an Ursaring for Egrog (the guy right before Snattle).  I can't see saving more than 2-3 minutes doing this (and that's being generous), and the more I try, the more it seems like a fool's errand.  There is a 2RC strat that would get me an Ursaring for Snattle (but not Egrog), but even that is starting to seem a bit much.  I need to devote some more time to learning FFXII for the time being, but I would like to know what other people think for when I dive back into this in a week or two.

Also, I had a brain fart on Magneton - I won't have EQ yet - but a flinch or crit should work well enough.

AlecK47

2013-06-03 09:57:35 am

Bumping this for two reasons: first, somebody showed interest; and second, I have no desire to finish my run. While there's nothing egregious, I could have very easily saved about ten seconds had I segmented and manipulated differently, I lost about 4-5 seconds to bad menuing, and it turns out that my Eevee is decidedly subobtimal for segmented (note to future runners: make sure your Eevee has at least 17 Attack and Special Attack in addition to the 16 Speed). Between the fact that I'm mildly dissatisfied with the run so far and the fact that I'm not sitting through that opening again to restart it, I may as well officially throw in the towel.

dondon151

2013-07-20 11:33:06 am

Hmm... why do you need a 17 atk Eevee?