Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
From SDA Knowledge Base
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.
Contents
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.
- Can double as an HM whore with the below Abra/Kadabra strategy, as it learns Rock Smash, Rock Slide, Strength, and Cut.
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 its bad type coverage and its limited offensive movepool.
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.
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).
- Can double as an HM whore with the below Abra/Kadabra strategy, as it learns Rock Smash, Rock Slide, Strength, and Cut.
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
Pros: 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.
Abra/Kadabra (In-game trade)
There is an in-game trade, a Machop for an Abra, that can be made in Oreburgh City, to replace your starter as your main Pokemon in a segmented run.
Pros:
- Enables a teleport back to Jubilife.
- Ties Infernape for base speed (assuming same level)
- Out Special Attacks Empoleon for base speed (assuming same level)
- Kadabra is available WELL before the final stage evolution of any starter.
- Boosted experience immediately.
- This value later stacks with Lucky Egg for a 225% experience rate
- Faster than all Pokemon except the Rival's Floatzel, and ties the Rival's Buizel earlier in the game.
- Quiet Nature (+ special attack, - speed)
- Decent IVs
- HP: 15
- Attack: 15
- Defense: 15
- Special Attack: 25
- Special Defense: 25
- Speed: 20
- Able to score nearly all OHKOs unassisted (less than 10 that need Critical manipulation or x items), and many are neutral effectiveness.
- Learns Shock Wave (useful in the fog, for type coverage, and for PP conservation)
- Learns Grass Knot (again useful for PP conservation and type coverage)
- Learns Shadow Ball (same as above)
- Learns Charge Beam (70% chance of raising special attack), and capable of scoring OHKOs while raising stats.
Cons:
- Preset IVs
- Hidden Power Ice 34
- DISOBEDIENCE:
- Immediately after trade until 2nd gym
- After obtaining Lucky Egg on Route 209 until 4th gym.
- Against Byron in the 6th gym.
- Weak Defenses (only a very minor inconvenience)
Overall: The sheer level of this Pokemon is ridiculous. Combined with decent IVs and a good nature, already pretty godly stats where it counts, reasonable type coverage, and the useage of Charge Beam manipulation makes Kazza so powerful, that only a single X item is needed the entire run, and no Rare Candies are needed at all. Since there is an X special en route on the ground, the Veilstone Dept. Store can be avoided entirely. The one and basically only problem with this is the obedience issue, or lack thereof. If one is willing to power through it, and maybe segment a bit heavier during certain parts of the earlier game, Kadabra should be a shoe-in as a great segmented choice.
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:
- Incredible defensive typing, 10+ Resistances, 1 immunity (Poison), 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
- Starter (Piplup, Turtwig, Chimchar)
- HM Slave 1 Geodude, level 3 near Oreburgh City (Teach Rock Smash, Strength and then Rock Climb).
- Machop (if using the in-game Abra trade)
- HM Slave 2 Bibarel, level 18 near Hearthome City (Teach Rock Smash (vs Prinplup), Cut, Waterfall and Surf).
- HM Slave 3 Starly/Staravia various levels under 2-20ish (Teach Fly and Defog)
- Teleporter: Abra
- Legendary Monster (Palkia/Dialga): Used as backup or sweeping the Elite Four if your main Starter gets KO'd.
Battle Strategies
- Avoiding Double Battles: If you only have one Pokemon on your team who is not KOed, all of the sets of double trainers will not battle you. This, however, does not apply to two seperate trainers who see you at the same time. The exception to this rule is atop the Pillar right before the Legendary, the two Galactic Grunts will force you away if you do not have a double partner.
More updates later
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
Glitches
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.
Tweaking
Maps in all 4thgen Pokemon games are loaded in 32 tile by 32 tile sections. These sections include the collision data, graphics, and terrain. The triggers for new 32x32 sections to be loaded are load lines that bisect each section vertically and horizontally, and intersect in its center. By crossing combinations of load lines very quickly in certain patterns, the game can be forced to load a section that corresponds to a different nearby area.
Finding load lines is a very simple task in most cases. Area changes (i.e. Jubilife to Route 203), always occur at the edges of a section. Therefore, from directly inside the boundary of a section, you will always cross the load line parallel to the boundary on your 16th step away from the boundary.
Tweaking is done on the 4 tiles in the very center of each section where the loadlines intersect. In tweaking pattern notation, these tiles are named as follows.
1 2
3 4
Tweaking patterns are a series of numbers showing the order the tiles should be ridden over to produce certain effects. All tweaking patterns must be done without any stopping or slowing down to achieve the desired effect.
Here are some common tweaking patterns and their effects (all example patterns can be rotated in any direction as needed to affect different sections so long as the movements remain the same):
-Opposite tweak: This pattern is done on the bike's high gear, and takes an area adjacent to the section you are tweaking in and puts it on the opposite adjacent side (i.e. east to west, north to south). This pattern does not load graphics for the displaced section. Example patterns: 42121 (east to west), 34242 (south to north).
-Diagonal displacement: This pattern is done on the bike's low gear, and displaces sections diagonal to the section the tweak is done in (ex. northeast to northwest). It creates a black, unwalkable section on the adjacent section that the tweak ends facing towards (in the NE to NW example, a black section would be created to the west). This pattern loads graphics for the displaced section. Example patterns: 42124 (NE to SE), 34243 (SE to SW).
The Void
Every map in the game is 65536 by 65536 tiles. However, very little of this space is used for the game world. Most of the tiles are black, empty space. As you go through this black empty space, called the void, you will encounter sections, usually 32x32 tiles in size, that are associated with a map ID. These sections are arranged in a diagonally repeating pattern that varies depending on what map is loaded and what flags are set. Saving will load the map with the map ID of the section you saved in, but the coordinates you are at on the map will remain the same, regardless of what map is loaded.
The most common and useful method of entering the void is to tweak East to West in the center of Jubilife, and refresh the graphics by opening a menu category such as the bag while standing on the tile directly behind the Poketch Co. door. This allows you to enter the door backwards, which makes your character exit the door backwards as well. This allows you to get out of bounds on the Poketch Co. map. To get onto the outdoor Sinnoh map (All of outdoor Sinnoh is on one map): go 1 step south, 5 steps east, 430 steps north, save, reset. This location is called 430N and is usually the starting point for any void exploration.
If you try to go to any coordinate greater than 65535, your position in relation to the area of the map with terrain will reset, starting with 0 at 65536 and so on. This will cause an instance of this in-bounds area with no collision data to be loaded. This "fake" instance's coordinates correspond to the real area's. By saving on a part of the fake area, in a section with a map ID that will load same map you are on, you can get back in bounds onto the real, fully loaded area. Everything will initially be black, but simply refresh the graphics again and everything should be normal.
Some sections in the void have events associated with them that play on entry. The most important of these is induction into the hall of fame, which allows a speedrunner to beat the game without fighting the elite 4 or collecting the badges. The quickest path to a section with this event is, from 430N:
-839 steps West
-2066 steps South
-83 steps East
-Save and reset
-974 steps North
-Save and reset
-1 step in any direction
Platinum
Changes from Diamond/Pearl
- TM 10 Hidden Power is no longer obtained by the Training School in Jubilife City. It is only obtained by collecting 6000 Coins in the Casino (120k pokeyen).
- 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.
- The void no longer works.
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.
