dondon151

The splits are segmented but the route should be RTA-able. Obviously there are some potential resets in some fights (which the route says to save beforehand) but I would say the only bad fights are Aster + Eclipse 4 and Solaris + John. I have played through the route twice on E18.1, with different natures of Blaziken, and generally I have been using low IVs on the essential Pokemon. The route has not been very RNG dependent. So actually the biggest question mark is that I don't know how higher IVs affect the strats. This is all thrown out the window for E18.2 anyway because there are some significant differences in the battles.

Yeah tbh the 18.2 update completely flew under my radar and I didn't even know that it was released until a day after posting this thread, LOL. There are a couple of reliability improvements that I was going to include in the run anyway so I was planning to do another test run, this time with Adamant Blaze Torchic and 0 Spe IV Diggersby. I'm also not sure how likely the 18.2 AI is going to represent the "final" version, as users have pointed out problems with it already. @bloo123 @Arkadius can you DM me your Discord tags, please and thank you.

So I have not yet had the chance to play 18.2, but this problem also existed in previous versions, and I'd like to highlight it specifically, because this also affects partner battles and can really screw you over. It seems that the AI often prefers to use its weakest move that has a chance of KOing a Pokemon rather than its weakest move that is also most likely to KO a Pokemon. For example, if the AI uses Smack Down instead of Brick Break against a low HP Pokemon, you could argue that it's justified to cover a possible switch to a Flying type. But at least in 18.1, it will use Smack Down even if it's not guaranteed to KO, but Brick Break is guaranteed to KO, and that shouldn't happen.

'Sup all, As a preface, this run in a sense has been 5 years in the making. Going through my post history, I first played Reborn in 2014 and started writing a speedrun route soon after completing the game. I had a long hiatus due to losing interest and new episode releases messing up the route. With the main story nearing completion and @Arkadius making a competing speedrun route, I decided to rewrite my route from scratch. This ended up taking much longer than I expected. Turns out Reborn is a hard game! Some key differences. Arkadius played the game with native Alt speedup, which cuts the amount of real time needed to play the game (RTA) but increases the in-game timer (IGT) due to imprecise movements. The degree to which Alt speeds up the game depends on your computer's processing power, and my computer does not have a good processor. My route does not use Alt speedup at all. As such, our times are not directly comparable. Arkadius's final RTA was 6h 26m, corresponding to an IGT of ~14h 40m. Even accounting for IGT inflation due to imprecise movements, I believe that my route is faster. All of the earlygame battles are significantly faster in this route, and fewer Pokemon are trained for the lategame. This route does not do any optional battles aside from a couple of low level trainers in Lower Peridot Ward at the beginning of the game. There is less time spent using TMs due to using a dedicated TMX slave for the Water type TMXs. Both routes select Torchic as starter and get the male Espurr in Lower Peridot Ward. Beyond that, the routes are entirely different. This route only levels up Blaziken and Diggersby to the lategame (instead of Blaziken, Ampharos, Sharpedo, and Nidoqueen). It adds a Cottonee to the team before Charlotte. The full route can be viewed here. Here is the final team at the end of E18: Splits: Thoughts / ranting: Worst fights: Aster + Eclipse 4, Aster + Eclipse 2, Fiore Gauntlet, Aya, Bennett 1 / Serra I think Arkadius also considered Aster + Eclipse 4 to be one of the worst fights in his speedrun. Bulldoze spam with dual screens is very hard for this team comp to deal with. Aya is also a shitty partner. I think the worst thing is when her Venusaur uses Nature Power > Discharge in the Short-Circuit Field and paralyzes Blaziken or gets a high damage roll. Before I incorporated an X Sp Def into that fight, Aya was probably the #1 reason for resets. Aster + Eclipse 2 puts you in a field that tickles Blaziken half the time and murders Blaziken the other half, with no good way to mitigate the field in a speedrun. Victoria's Torracat randomly has Intimidate even though it always has Intimidate in her battle right after. The rest of her team is trash too. Part of this is my fault because I am trying to train Espurr in this battle too. Fiore Gauntlet is hard for everyone. Tag battles are very hard to route for because there's a lot of randomness. Fern + Blake is easy if Hippowdon uses Yawn. Solaris + John is the really bad fight. I think including an X Sp Def will probably help, but I've spent literally days playing this fight over and over. I've lost a ton of runs to Florinia's Tropius using Fly and leaving Blaziken to face down 2 enemies by itself. Why can't she have any other Pokemon? Aya is iffy just because Blaziken has to dodge Sludge Wave's status for 2 turns and hit 2 Blaze Kicks. It's nowhere near as bad as the other fights. Bennett 1 and Serra are on a bullshit field and even with Misty Terrain strats, their Pokemon are holding Bright Powder and you can still miss anyway. There's no way to increase accuracy at this point in the game - no Gravity, no Hone Claws, no X Accuracy, no Wide / Zoom Lens, no Aerial Ace, and Synthetic Seed only boosts Evasion and not Accuracy. Suggestions: @andracass pointed out in Arkadius's thread that she's open to suggestions for incorporating solutions to speedrun timing in E19. In my opinion, unless it's proven that IGT is inaccurate, I don't see the need for a frame counter. Displaying seconds on the in-game timer is probably sufficient, if this is feasible. As it stands, a full E18 speedrun would probably be around 10 hours RTA. This is barely viable for a single segment run. I know that Pokemon Essentials is the limiting factor, but if basic game functions can be sped up, that would significantly increase the viability of Reborn as a single segment speedrun. Things such as menu navigation and text displays in-battle are probably the slowest parts of the game. Honestly, if in-battle messages went as fast as overworld messages (by holding X), it can probably cut over 1 hour out of the run. Beyond that, I have a handful of suggestions to the game itself that would reduce RNG in the run (I don't expect them to be implemented but it's worth bringing up nonetheless): - I remember at some point that the Espurr in LPW was always an Espurr. Finding a Minccino here kills the run. I don't see why the Espurr can't be guaranteed and Minccino moved to a separate event. - There are a lot of major battles in the earlygame with random enemy abilities. The Victoria example vs. Aster + Eclipse 2 is the most impactful one. Intimidate Torracat makes the battle less random; Blaze Torracat is useless. - Please please please take away Nature Power from Aya's Venusaur and Fly from Florinia's Tropius when they're partner NPCs. Nature Power especially. - 15% encounter rates for Bunnelby and Cottonee in Beryl Cave and Route 4 are workable, though RNG has a large effect on time with these low encounter rates. Anyway. Props to Ame and the dev team for making a game that's intensely difficult to break. Special thanks to @Paperblade for his boss stats spreadsheet. Tagging @bloo123 for his involvement in route improvements. Thanks to Arkadius as well for creating a competing route and, in a way, influencing me to come back to this game.

K. I can do well under 20 hours for a full run of E18; I'm estimating that it might end up being around 10 hours or so without the speedup function.

Any thoughts about doing a run without the Alt speedup function? I'm about 75% done with a competing route but it's hard to gauge if it's faster or slower at this point without going by the in game time, which is way off if you're using speed up all the time.

Okay, thanks. I ended up changing the event in RPG Maker to remove the Minccino conditional.

I've been trying to get a good Torchic and also get an Espurr in the Lower Peridot Ward house, but this has been extremely time consuming because every time I've gotten a good Torchic, I've found a Minccino there. Is this event determined at the very start of the game, or determined after getting your starter, or somewhere in between?

I don't think that anyone has the authority to make a claim about how Pokemon "should be played." You may make arguments for or against restricting solutions to difficult scenarios (having too many solutions necessarily cheapens the difficulty), but please don't pretend to have any sort of authority on this. Lightningrod does make Goldeen immune to Explosion, and exploitation of the AI is a fundamental aspect of single player video gaming. This sounds like an odd exception to make. The level limit for obedience with 0 badges is L20. There's nothing wrong with walking into the Julia battle with a L19 Kricketune (which outspeeds both of her Voltorbs if it has at least 13 spd IV and neutral nature). What I'm getting here is that you've complained that Julia is too cheap, I've given you 2 easy suggestions for how to win that battle, and then you've complained that my suggestions are too cheap.

lol someone's salty Supposedly Lightningrod Goldeen destroys Julia Kricketune also wrecks Julia with Fury Cutter

Diggersby has HP manipulation with Flail which many players don't seem to realize. Sticky Barb is buyable with only 1 extra department store sticker and it's really easy to control Diggersby's HP to reliably get a 150 BP, 100 acc STAB attack. A Black Sludge can be found as a hidden item as well.

Setup sweeping is consistently the most reliable way to do a battle because it only relies on things going correctly against one opponent Pokemon. X Speed is generally the most useful X item because for most Pokemon with middling speed, only +1 is sufficient to outspeed almost every target. Of course X items should be considered. X items are a big reason why Diggersby is viable late in the game and why Meowstic-M and Cottonee are so good.

How are they a stupid argument? X items do not affect all Pokemon equally. They are not free boosts for all Pokemon because it costs a fair amount of money to actually get these Pokemon to sweeping status. Samurott only needs one X Speed to complement Swords Dance boosts in order to sweep. Swords Dance + X Speed is functionally equivalent to 2 Dragon Dances if Samurott outspeeds all of its opponents at +1 speed. I am playing the game up and thus far the water-type looks like a pretty good offensive type (in general) to me.

The event Totodile is not guaranteed Dragon Dance. In the case in which it does get Dragon Dance, then it's infinitely superior to both Samurott and Swampert (aside from having to get it up to speed), so you may not use Totodile as an argument against Samurott but not against Swampert. You're overstating how difficult it is to get Samurott set up. Your grievance about it not being fast enough to sweep is irrelevant; an X Speed allows it to outspeed almost all similarly leveled opponents in the game. That's an odd way of saying that Swampert's special STABs have very situational use whereas Samurott's Razor Shell is generally better. But I'll take it.

I just kind of guessed. If Totodile appears even later in the game then the case for it outclassing Samurott is even worse.