Interesting thought. One problem I see with Blaziken is the first gym - I don't think Torchic will know any fighting moves yet. A problem with Dusclops is that we don't like to train pokemon in TASes - IIRC, the most training against wild pokemon in any TAS was Tilus' Pokemon Blue run, where Squirtle fought 1 wild Ratata to learn Bubble in time for gym #1.
Oh, and @ fractalfusion: I think the use of Machop will bring on some massive timesavers. Facade will pwn all!
Update time. It turns out that I was 71 seconds behind after Flannery. Fortunately, I saved a whole minute against Norman's gym, which means that the run is only 10 seconds behind!
Low Kick is more useful than it seems. It deals more damage to heavier opponents, such that it is able to OHKO Slaking.
However, I have decided not to submit this run if and when it is finished. Earlier, I decided not to pick up X Attack from the marts, hoping that it would not matter. That was a big mistake. Even one X Attack saves at least 20 seconds against Archie. OHKOing Golbat makes all the difference.
Then again, I never planned this out anyway.
:D
Where does Blaziken get these moves?
Well, you can train against trainers, which is better in general and is what the Sapphire runs do (and the Pokemon Red run as well).
You don't learn Mega Kick by leveling up or TM.
About the TMs: They're very hard to get. IIRC, Flamethrower costs 5,000 coins in the casino, and idk where you get the other 2. If it's too hard to get the TMs, then it's not worth doing.
Update time. Skarmory can't be OHKOed without an X Attack. However, I can make Skarmory either Sand-Attack or Aerial Ace. For some reason, Sand-Attack messes with my ability to get a critical hit (I thought move misses were determined when the move is selected, but apparently Sand-Attack changes this). So I took the Aerial Ace hit, surviving with 1HP left.
Not that it should be an issue, since I should have gotten X Attack in the first place. At first, I thought it would be impossible to get Swellow not to use Aerial Ace, but that's only when Machoke is not close to full health.
Now I only hope Steven's Skarmory leads with Spikes. Or Toxic. :D
The lead is fluctuating wildly. I do know that Machop evolved to Machoke somewhere already, and Marshtomp in the other run has yet to evolve to Swampert.
Regarding Mega Kick, it is a Emerald move tutor move, so Blaziken can't get it without being traded.
You didn't ask regarding my other run.
I believe it is slightly faster to bike back to Petalburg instead of using death. I didn't calculate it exactly since I am against deathwarping in this run anyway. Deathwarping only impresses me if you use poison deathwarping outside of battle.
By Emerald, I meant FireRed, but it doesn't matter.
I'm through with the last 2 gyms. Now in the lead by 10-15 seconds. But I still have to teach Earthquake.
I don't think Earthquake can OHKO the Dusclops, so all the PP will be consumed in that battle. It puzzles me that none of the ghosts have Levitate, but I won't complain.
Finally, I hope that Skarmory does something other than Aerial Ace, and that I can take care of Metagross and Armaldo. Also, I never tested Facade on L55 Pokemon.
Started shortly after finishing some other TAS. I'm now trying to get Machop.
Steven's Armaldo is in the back of my mind. Somehow, I was so close (in the test run) to getting a Cross Chop KO but I couldn't (maybe 1 or 2 HP away). When I caught Machop, it was L16 with 21 attack. Now in this run, I encountered a L15 Machop with 21 attack, which is better than L16 with 21 attack. Problem is, the missing 500 experience will result in not leveling up to L48 for Armaldo! So I need to KO Kecleon or something, or take a Slash hit from Armaldo.
I wasn't able to come up with L16 22+ attack Machop. Machop is not common, and the RNG is not versatile since it only uses time dependence.
Edit: I did come across a L16 21 attack Machop somewhere. As a last resort, I will check if its attack IV is higher than in the test run.Edit2: I'm sorry, I really didn't know what I was thinking. My test run caught a L15 $21 attack Machop. By the way, the attack numbers were in hexadecimal. :X
Done Liza and Tate. Last time I checked (after beating Winona), the run is 15 seconds faster than in my test run.
As long as I beat 20 seconds, I can beat the now-published run.
I have a sneaking suspicion Machoke would have been slower, given that the gym is psychic... Better check again.
Still, the elite four should be quite a bit quicker. I like the though of a big RPG run with a significantly different route, but is not very different timewise.
No, the Machoke version is faster. The AI being stupid helps.
I discovered something rather unsettling. If the music fades out from one area to another, the game waits for it to fade before loading the next area. If the music doesn't fade out, the game doesn't wait. There were times that I triggered the bike music and entered a new area. It would have been faster to dismount the bike to trigger the normal area music, then enter.
I didn't correct anything before Liza and Tate. Just the Seafloor Cavern and later.
I'm currently at Elite 4, but some time will pass before the submission occurs.
The fadeout property does not extend to earlier games. The music does fade out but the next area is clearly loaded.
Joined: 2/13/2007
Posts: 448
Location: Calgary, Alberta
About this fadeout thing, I have tried it on my emerald and, I think that the time wasted getting off the bike and moving into the area and getting on the bike and accelerating again is much more than a 84 frame pause.
Edit: My mistake, I did some more testing, and its about 24 frames of slowdown.
Renting this space for rent.
Trying to fix image on this site. Please cut slack.
As of April 6th, 2012:
After a long absence, here we go again?
The time wasted to stop and accelerate again is definitely less than 84 frames.
It depends on the situation. In fact, I intentionally bumped the bike just to get off and quickly hop back on. This immediately plays the regular area music and fades, trying to get to the bike music. As it fades, I exit the area so it doesn't wait for the music to fade. This is assuming I can ride the bike, and the regular area musics of the two areas are not the same.
Currently done Flannery. Estimated to be about 12-13 seconds faster than previous as a relative comparison. I still haven't caught the bird yet.
Norman done. I caught Taillow on the way, so a straight-up comparison says that this run is 20s faster than the previous, which in turn is 8s faster than the practice run.
Checking Machop's IVs, I found out that it has near-max Attack stat, with the (+Atk, -SpDef) nature and 28 Attack IV. It does come with a cost, namely the worst SpDef possible. I'm not joking. Who cares though.
IVs
HP: 13
Atk: 28
Def: 23
Spe: 1
SpAtk: 7
SpDef: 0
The 0 IV SpDef and low IV SpAtk actually threw me off while trying to find the memory containing the IVs, because the high byte of the encoded IVs was the same as the magic XOR number, which it rarely is, and I look there first.
Of course, the biggest thing is Attack and I have a lot of it. Defense and HP are important only to stay off the Aerial Ace OHKO route (if they can't OHKO, you can make them do no damage) while using items. The other stats are absolutely meaningless; they could all have 0 IV for all that matters, though whether I could discern the IVs from other stats in memory is another question.
I do need to make sure later on that Castform doesn't have bad SpDef, because it needs to survive Solrock's Psychic.
Regarding fadeout, here are the possibilities:
- no bike: can't do anything
- (on bike, no bike music) music A -> music A: do as normal
- (bike music) normal music A -> music A: just before exit, bump bike, get off, run to exit
- (on bike, doorless entrance) music A -> music B: from farthest point possible, bump bike, get off and on, bike to exit before bike music comes
- (door entrance) music A -> music B: do as normal
I also found out that the delay caused by turning after entering a new area can be cancelled somewhat by turning and then using the bike. It is still faster to go forward if possible, though.