Pokemon Platinum Kazza% FAQ

						Pokemon Platinum Kazza% FAQ

	What is Kazza%?

There is a trade in Oreburgh city with a girl named Hilary who will give you an abra in return for a machop, the abra is named Kazza. Turns out that that abra is an absolute beast and crushes the game with little effort, barring Fantina, but we'll come to that in a moment.

	So what is the basic route?

Catch a Machop on Route 207 (north of Oreburgh), use it to kill Roark/Gardenia then clear the rest of the game with Kazza.

	Is this a fun category? Or is it WR viable?

I believe that Kazza should be the fastest way to complete this game. I'm certain that the post-Maylene part of the game is the fastest possible, it just depends on how much time is lost before that (and spinners, obviously).

	What starter are you picking? Do the stats matter?

I will be picking Turwtig as my starter. It's for three reasons - firstly Turtwig makes a good HM slave (Cut, Strength, Rock Smash, Rock Climb), secondly Turtwigs early game is theoretically the fastest possible (starters use stat moves and Chimchar's stat move is leer which doesn't slow down the fight) but in order to be fast I need to catch a starly before entering Jubilife. Lastly picking turtwig changes the Rivals pokemon to include a Buizel and the Chimchar evolution line meaning that in every battle with Kazza each of his pokemon die in one hit.

	Do the stats on Machop matter?

Unfortunately, yes the do. That means that, with this route, Platinum has one of the longest reset times in Pokemon of between 22-25 minutes. At level 8 I need to see 19 Attack and 12 Special defense, I will normally check the level 7 stats to see if I have 17-18 Atk or 11 Sp. D. Ideally 31 in HP and 12 in speed, but that's less important and is still runnable. Without these stats I won't be able to put Roark's Cranidos into potion range reliably (and hence avoid double headbutt) or survive 2 of Gardenia's Roserade's Magical Leaf.

	What is the chance of you getting such a Machop?

It's 35% to encounter a Machop at night, of that 35% about 20% of that is level 7 machops and 10% level 8 machops -- I can't take anything lower than a level 7. After catching the Machop there is a probability of 15/32*18/32 that the IVs are acceptable (~25%). So roughly 1/4 of the machops will be runnable, before factoring in natures.

	Do the stats on Kazza matter?

Actually, Kazza comes with preset IVs. They are: 15/15/15/25/25/20, Hp/Atk/Def/Sp.A/Sp.D/Spe. Kazza's nature is also preset, it is quiet (+Sp.A -Spe).

	Why is the time 2:15am?

I want to get the Choice Specs in Celestic town which only happens in the morning (4am-10am). But also, there is an annoying jogger that you can sometimes run into. Joggers only fight you during the morning, so we want the time to be night when you pass by the jogger. Turns out that 2:15am will let you bypass the jogger and still allow you to get the Choice Specs.

	What other pokemon will you be catching?

I plan on getting a flyer (starly), a surfer (psyduck), and some extra fodder (eevee). Eevee is a rather crucial pokemon in the run because it can make the Fantina fight insanely more consistent assuming Eevee is a male (so Captivate works on Mismagius). It also serves as the double battle partner where required.

	What are the major problems in the run?

0) Losing the first Rival fight
1) Getting a usable Machop.
2) Hitting Hiker Daniel before Gardenia or two spinners
3) Gardenia (60% chance to win)
4) Jupiter in Eterna (Crits... 66% chance to win)
5) Fantina (60%~ chance with a female eevee, 90%+ with male)
6) Maylene (obedience trolling)
7) Random crits from certain trainers (e.g. Wake, Candice)
8) Bunch of damage ranges against certain trainers (e.g. Aaron, Cynthia)

	Why is hitting Hiker Daniel before Gardenia or two spinners before Gardenia a bad thing?

While hitting spinners is generally bad in a pokemon speedrun, they're particularly bad for Kazza% pre-Gardenia. You see, if the Machop gets to level 24 before the trade, the run is over. That is because when Kazza evolves into Kadabra he will no longer learn Psybeam (learns Psybeam at level 24, if I trade at level 24 then I still need to level abra once to obtain Kadabra, thus missing psybeam). At the moment the amount exp. I gain leaves me with about 300 exp. wriggle room. Daniel gives more than 300 and any two spinners adds up to over 300.

	Isn't obedience a factor?

Yeah it is for 1-3 fights in the whole run. Obedience works like this: 50% of the time the command goes through, 25% of the time a random command goes through (although I think it picks from the other 3 moves) and 25% of the time Kazza does nothing. The first two fights are basically free; I will very rarely lose those because of obedience issues (that doesn't mean they won't be slowed down a lot...). Maylene is the only tough fight that needs to happen through obedience issues. Fortunately, she isn't that difficult and with the cleverly chosen move set I can beat her relatively consistently (up to a factor of RNG).

	Who else runs Platinum?

MoneyHypeMike 	(WR holder; 356 with piplup) 	-- http://www.twitch.tv/moneyhypemike/
Viskiv 		(407 with piplup)		-- http://www.twitch.tv/viskiv/
eekcast		(428 with chimchar)		-- http://www.twitch.tv/eekcast/

They're all awesome so go follow them if you don't already.

	Will you release your notes?

If I'm able to get the WR, I'll release my notes. Until then I expect them to be changing on a per-run basis and I'm too lazy to maintain a pastebin of up to date notes. If I get WR I'll probably stop running this game as often and thus the notes won't be changing as much.

	I thought you played Golden Sun, why are you playing Pokemon?

I routed Platinum turtwig% back before anyone had touched the game and was waiting for an opportunity to run the game. Since then, Mike has routed Piplup% and it's painfully obvious that Piplup is the best starter for the run. Knowing that I got a bit demotivated from looking at Platinum until drazerk and I did some work on Kazza% and concluded that Kazza%, with an appropriately optimised start, would be the fastest way to complete the game. Now that I know that I'm eager to do runs to illustrate this. Golden Sun is on the backburner for a bit as a result (I don't have the time to keep up my mechanics for GS1 100% atm anyway T_T).

If anyone is interested in my Turtwig route, you can find it here: http://pastebin.com/rAGk3Qkp

	I have a question that isn't covered by this FAQ!!

Then feel free to ask in chat :) I'm always happy to answer questions.