Pokemon Emerald Ralts% FAQ

Pokemon Emerald Ralts% FAQ

Q: What are you trying to do?
A: Beat Pokemon Emerald as fast as possible using Ralts as the main Pokemon, without RNG manipulation.

Q: What is the world record?
A: Unknown. I don't think anyone has seriously attempted this run before.

Q: What is your goal?
A: To beat the manip WR of 3:59:19 by Roushmore. You can watch that run here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZsQ_Vqt87w&t=3963s

Q: What is the route like?
A: Very different than a typical speedrun. Ralts has the Slow experience curve and awful stats, so you must fight about a dozen optional trainers early and get 9 Rare Candies total. Some of these trainers have weak Pokemon that give very little experience, but it's better to fight them than tougher trainers that can kill you. You also split experience with your starter, Treecko, in some fights where Grass moves are super-effective.

The run speeds up considerably once you evolve into Gardevoir at Level 30. All of Gardevoir's fights are reasonably fast, some faster than the Swampert route. You do massive damage with Psychic and Thunderbolt and outspeed nearly everything.

Full route notes here: https://pastebin.com/4M2gXM1G

Q: What Pokemon do you use besides Ralts?
A: Treecko for early-game fights and Cut/Strength/Rock Smash, Zigzagoon or Lotad for Surf, Swablu for Fly, Castform for double battles, and Tentacool for Dive and Waterfall.

Q: What is different about manipless?
A: The main difference is the time it takes to catch a runnable Ralts. Not only is Ralts a 4% encounter on Route 102, but it has the ability Trace 50% of the time. The text from Trace loses about 5 minutes during the run, and the abilities you copy usually aren't helpful. So you grind until you catch a Ralts with Synchronize that has 9 Special Attack (10-31 IV) and 9 Speed (20-31 IV) at Level 5. The odds of any encounter meeting those criteria are less than 1%.

A Ralts with runnable stats will be about as good as the manipped Ralts, which has relatively low stats for a manipped Pokemon because of constraints in wild encounter RNG. The stats are 16/27/18/19/17/30 with a Naive nature (+Speed, -Sp. Def) and no usable Hidden Power.

You also lose time to grinding for HM friends instead of manipping them.