Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum

The original set for the Pokémon Generation IV games. When HeartGold & SoulSilver are released in the contries outside of Japan, move this page (and HeartGold/SoulSilver) to the Generation IV engine page and make it a clickable link to this page.

Diamond and Pearl

Starters

Turtwig

Pros:

• A Grass type PKMN that knows Earthquake naturally at level 32.

• Nice physical tank (High HP, Attack, Defence)

• It evolves to Torterra at level 32, pretty early compared to most starters.

Cons:

• It evolves to Grotle at level 18, pretty late compared to most starters.

• Poor attacking movepool (needs to be Torterra to know Stone Edge/Rock Slide to counter Flying types). It can only learn Normal, Grass and Dark moves by level up.

• Slowest Starter out of all 12 starters in the franchise. Heavy luck manipulation with Quick Claw to make up for it.

Overall: One the worst types for speedrunning Pokémon thanks to it's bad type coverage and it's limited offensive movepool.

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Piplup

Pros:

• Evolves to a Water/Steel type that has incredible defensive typing.

• Can learn a Ice move (Ice Beam/Blizzard) to counter Grass and Ground moves to counter Electic types.

• Knows Surf by HM which is always nice.

• Highest Special Attack stat of all Water Starter types.

Cons:

• It's low base speed makes Torrent sweeping a bit difficult

• Movepool is pretty bad at the early game, especially in DP where s/he learns Bubblebeam at level 22 or 24 (depending if the Pokémon is Piplup or Prinplup).

• Limited Special Movepool (Surf, Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Grass Knot, Flash Cannon and the occasional Hidden Power [ELEC]).

Overall:

• One of the two useful starters in the run. It's been let down by its limited special movepool and low base speed but it makes up for 10+ resistances & 1 immunity which is useful for X-Item boosting.

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Chimchar

Pros:

• One of the 2 Fire Types familes in the Sinnoh Reigon, the other is Ponyta.

• Can evolve pretty early at Level 14 and learn Mach Punch to easily win the first Gym.

• Can learn some powerful fighting types (Mach Punch, Drain Punch, Brick Break, Close Combat) to defeat Normal, Dark, Rock, Ice, & Steel types.

• Learning Fire Types moves can KO Bronzors & Bronzongs without any hassle.

• High Attack, Special Attack and Speed makes it a good mixed sweeper and a fantastic Wall Breaker.

• Knows Grass Knot, Stone Edge, Shadow Claw, Aerial Ace and Solarbeam.

• With a varied movepool it has some good advantages against 6 of 8 Gym Leaders (most notably Grass, Steel, Ice).

Cons:

• Pretty frail, meaning using an X-Item is pretty risky.

• To know Flamethower by level up, it's only possible as Chimchar and it's level 41. Otherwise you would need to go to Fuego Fireworks and pickup a Flamethrower TM.

• Exposed to Water Types and Ground Types, making Quagsire a good counter.

• Gyrados, Crobat, Garchomp and Milotic are the biggest threats.

Overall:

One of the two impressive starters for speed running. It knows some pretty powerful STABs (Same-Type-Attack-Bonus) and can take down most walls (Bronzong, Blissey & Snorlax) with one attack! You got to have a Lucky egg to have a high level difference from your opponents and using 1 X-Attack or Special attack, it should manage to sweep an entire party (Blaze support should help too but it's limited to Fire attacks). Cyrus's Weavile is OHKO with STAB Mach Punch. If the player was really lucky and the Hidden Power type was Electric (Base Power 60-70) it can take down the almighty Gyarados!

Useful Pokémon other than the starters

Bibarel

This Pokémon is one of the easiest to catch and most effective HM slave. It can learn at least 6 HMs including:

• Cut

• Rock Smash

• Strength

• Rock Climb

• Surf

• Waterfall

It's reccommended to have Cut, Surf, Waterfall, (and any other move). You can find a level 18 Bibarel nearby Hearthome city. It's a good secondary Pokémon to weaken Prinplup's Defences by using Rock Smash (if you started off as Chimchar) in Pastoria City (Hearthome City in Platinum after Fantina) the finish off with Monferno/Infernape's physical attacks.

Because of the 4 moves limit, Geodude is a good subsitute as it can learn:

• Strength

• Rock Smash

• Rock Climb

Starly

If you can wait and catch a Staravia it's a good Pokémon to abuse Intimidate to lower the Physical Sweeper's high Attack stat (Gyarados, Weavile, Snorlax, Garchomp are good examples).

It can also learn 2 HMs including:

• Fly

• Defog

Since Flash is now a TM, they use the Fog as the game's new "I can't work my way round" element. The fog also effects Pokémon battles too, all of the Pokémon evasioness are raised by 2 stages. So the attacks are more likely to miss.

Abra

It knows teleport but we are not fully confirmed if it saves anytime at all, it might save time for the Pastoria City -> Hearthome City warp for DP and possibly Platinum but it has a pretty good special attack stat making a good teammate Pokémon for Double battles.

Medicham

It's best to get this one at Mt.Coronet when you are going to face Team Galactic. If Medicham knows any Psychic moves then it would be handy to take down a couple of Croagunks. But this is not fully confirmed since this is the last important double battle in the speed run before the Real Multi Double battle occurs with your friend Barry.

Notable differences between the two, for speed running

Most of the basic Pokémon in the original Sinnoh dex are pretty pointless, except the Legendary Titans.

Dialga

Diamond version only!

Pros:

• Incedible defensive typing, 10+ Resistances, 1 immunity (Poision), 2 Weaknesses (Fighting & Ground)

• Higher HP & Defence stat compared to Palkia.

Cons:

• Poor offensive movepool (in speed running) it requires TMs and most of the good ones needs detours.

• Poor secondary type for offensive (2 types are weak to Steel attacks, 3 types are resistant to Steel attacks)

• Lower Base speed compared to Palkia.

• Signature move is only useful against the trainer's last Pokémon, it needs to recharge like Hyper Beam.

• Fighting is a very popular attacking type and Lucian's Alakazam knows Focus Blast.

Palkia

Pearl version only!

Pros:

• Faster than Dialga by 10 base speed points which could make a difference against Cynthia's Garchomp.

• Only has 1 weakness (Dragon) and only Garchomp is a threat in a speed run.

• Better Signature move (Higher Crit Hit Ratio, no turn loss)

• Knows Surf which is a good secondary type STAB move.

Cons:

• Lower HP & Defence than Dialga

• Doesn't have 10+ resistances... only has 3 resistances (4x resist to Water and Fire, 2x resist to Steel).

• Spacial Rend is less powerful than Roar of Time.

Strategies

Basic order to capturing your Pokémon

1. Starter (Piplup, Turtwig, Chimchar)
2. HM Slave 1 Geodude, level 3 near Oreburgh City (Teach Rock Smash, Strength and then Rock Climb).
3. HM Slave 2 Bibarel, level 18 near Hearthome City (Teach Rock Smash (vs Prinplup), Cut, Waterfall and Surf).
4. HM Slave 3 Starly/Staravia various levels under 2-20ish (Teach Fly and Defog)
5. Teleporter/Double's team mate: Abra/Kadabra (level up to 16 to let Kadabra know Confusion, good against Zubats in Double battles).
6. Legendary Monster (Palkia/Dialga): Used as backup or sweeping the Elite Four if your main Starter gets KO'd.

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Battle Strategies

To update later

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Good/Free item pickups

To update later

TMs

TM 35: Flamethrower - Fuego Fireworks

TM 13: Ice Beam - Route 213 (After using Rock Climb)

TM 46: Thief - Eterna City

TM 80: Rock Slide - Mt.Coronet (Before the Spear Pillar)

TM 59: Dragon Pulse - Victory Road

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Important Battles

Glitches

A normal, glitchless run is pretty straight forward but there are some glitches that it's possible to skip the Elite 4 and go to the Hall of Fame.

Elite Four Surf Glitch

This glitch is pretty well known in Japan back in late 2006, it became possible to capture Darkrai, Shaymin, and Giratina, it's even possible to skip the Elite Four. It's so popular that Gamefreak and Nintendo were aware of the exploit and fixed it in both the International release and newer copies in Japan.

Pros:

• Very easy to work out, apparently you use the Surf Glitch and then go down a few steps, then go right for 5->10 steps and then go up for roughly 200->500 steps (I can't really remember) and then go left 5->10 steps and then go up to trigger the Hall of Fame cutscene.

• Saves 15->20 minutes for both setup, and battling the Elite 4

Cons:

• It has to be done on a Japanese copy that was out since September 2006

• The viewers would need to watch the entire run in Japanese, a speedrun wouldn't be easy to watch as the Battle Animations are turned off (to speed up the game).

Jubilife Void

There was a tweaking glitch that created black voids which was discovered a few months after the American release, nearly 1.5 years later, players have managed to workout how to capture Darkrai & Shaymin with this glitch and even the lesser known Giratina. It's also possible to trigger the Hall of Fame cutscene skipping nearly 4-5 gyms and the Elite 4. Insert video/Youtube Link on how to do it.

Pros:

• Can be done on any version.

• Not much battle planning.

Cons:

• Requires the underground kit.

• Likely to cause a black screen after loading the game, meaning you're stuck forever.

• The Tweaking glitch (moving the D-Pad in random directions) can be pretty tough on a DS Lite.

• It might not work on the DSi due to the extra ram that is stored in the system.

• The Jubilife Void to the Hall of Fame Cutscene takes over 2 hours to get there, meaning you are on the Bike riding & no battles triggered making a very, very, very boring run that people would rather watch Clue or Back to the Future on the NES.

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Platinum

Changes from Diamond/Pearl

• Hypnosis is now 60% not 70% which is a bit easier when facing against your oppoents who uses this move.

• There is a battle against Cyrus in Celestic Town and he has Golbat, Murkrow and Sneasel.

• You have a battle against your rival as soon as you get your starter. Your rival will always use a stat dropping move (Growl/Leer) and it's not possible to score a critical hit.

• The Distortion world doesn't have any new battles other than Cyrus before facing Giratina.

• Elite 4 has a updated team, most notably the Pokémon from the updated Sinnoh Dex, Cynthia's party level has reduced slightly.

• The later gym leaders has teams updated such as Magneton in Byron's team and Electivire in Volkner's team.

• Updated level up movepools, most notable example is Piplup now learns Bubblebeam at level 18 now and not 22. Scizor can learn Bullet Punch via Heart Scale and Darkrai can learn Nasty Plot instead of Calm Mind via level up.

Giratina

• Giratina's Another Forme is designed to be a dual tank. But Giratina's Origin Forme is a mixed sweeper... sort of. The problem is that it's Special attack is 120 compared to Dialga/Palkia's 150. When playing the game normally, Giratina would not have the Griseous Orb so he would only be as Another Forme (dual tank). This makes the Attack/Sp.Attack base stats at 100... very low compared the other two titans. He does make up for having very high HP (up to 500+ at level 100). It's a good 'partner' pokémon if your main starter gets KO'd and using (max) revives to get pass the Elite Four.