Pokemon Sapphire Marathon Practice FAQ

Pokemon Sapphire Marathon Practice FAQ

Q: How is this different from "normal" attempts?

A: In a marathon setting, like with races, real-time is our ultimate metric. As such, s+q is allowed. This allows access to Mudkips unavailable in a single-segment run as you can save before the bag and reload your file, getting kips very close to soft reset. This is good because you wouldn't want to do standard 3-min resets during a marathon and potentially spend hours just looking for the right Mudkip. In addition, being so close to soft reset and loading in the area that we do, there is much less chance (possibly no chance) for RNG-variance that can occur in normal single-segment resets as the game has less (probably no) opportunity to call the random() function, which would otherwise advance the RNG in an unpredictable way. This makes obtaining such Mudkips quick and easy.

Q: What Mudkip will you run?

A: Factoring in the time required to save, the earliest most well-known Mudkips you could aim for are pirate's lonelies, the HP Fighting kips (10602/3). If I missed them both, I would reload and aim for 148/9 (~11.2s from soft reset):

  148 | Naughty 24/27/10/31/31/30
  149 | Hasty   30/31/31/24/16/10

I am in the process of looking for better "first choice" Mudkips to aim for than 10602/3, but 148/9 appear to be the best options for quick race/marathon kips, should you miss your first choice kip and have to reset.

Q: What if you PB? Will it be WR?

A: If I run with 148/9 then the run cannot stand for WR as it would not meet the "single-segment" specification of the category. As well it is less likely that I could even PB RTA-wise, depending on how many resets it takes until I get the kip, and given the amount of other "safety saves" I will be making.

Q: Is there anything unique about 148/9?

A: Definitely. Being Naughty, 148 would generally be dispreferred compared to a Lonely (as -spdef is generally worse for a few reasons), but it happens to have a perfect spdef IV and high HP, combined with great speed, perfect neutral spatk, and exactly high enough atk to qualify for the best +atk strats.

149 unfortunately does not qualify for the best +spe strats (which requires +spe with at least 26IV), but its other stats are quite good. Its perfect def IV means that it does not require late candy, allowing it to skip Timmy, and it has perfect neutral atk as well as decent spatk. Though its spe IV is low, its nature grants it speed equivalent to ~22IVN, which is just enough to outspeed the necessary threats.