Pokemon Black Sawk FAQ

Q: Is this faster than using Lillipup?
A: Yes

Q: If Sawk is faster, why don't more people use it? Why do I see most people using Lillipup?
A: Sawk is much less beginner friendly and is more difficult. It's much more difficult to find a satisfactory seed, as you need to be able to catch Sawk at night (so that dusk ball works), and the Sawk needs to be holding a black belt (5 percent chance). The second point in particular severely reduces the amount of runnable seeds. Not only that, but Sawk is difficult to catch and you need to be very good at dodging spinners since some of them have *really* bad pokes for Sawk to face off against. Also, Shauntal is a huge run killer for Sawk which is worse than Lillipup's main run killer being Lenora, as dying to Lenora so early on isn't nearly as backbreaking as dying to Shauntal so late into the game.

Sawk isn't faster than Lillipup by a lot so most people just go with Lillipup. I wouldn't recommend running Sawk if you're completely new to speedrunning and rng manipulation. Sawk is still a nice challenge for those willing to work for it.

Q: How much faster is Sawk?
A: See: https://pastebin.com/XtJ7TDZC (It's not 100 percent accurate since it uses a strat that differs from the strat that I use but it should give a pretty good idea)

Q: What is rng manipulation?
A: RNG manipulation is used in this speedrun, which involves resetting on a specific second starting from a specific timer0 and time, and hitting the correct frame for the correct seed after resetting. This allows manipulation of Sawk's and Lillipup's stats, Sawk's held item (black belt), a Woobat or Pidove encounter, and encounters up until Nacrene City.

In order to rng manipulate, you need to know your timer0 which is different for everyone. This means that each person's rng manipulation route is different, and each person would need to route out rng manipulation themselves.

For more information: see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC0kkpCeapo

Q: What do you rng manipulate?
A: Lillipup and Sawk's stats to have near perfect ivs and in Sawk's case, hold a black belt when caught. I also manipulate encounters so that I get none until Nacrene City, and I get a Woobat encounter for fly.

Q: Why don't you manipulate everything in play?
A: Nothing really is worth it. Manipping no encounters throughout the entire game to avoid needing max repels isn't humanly possible. There's no master ball lottery, nor roaming legendary worth getting. Battle manipulation isn't possible due to how much one certain rng advances during battles. For the same reason, pokerus is impossible to manip for.

Q: How good is Sawk?
A: Past the difficulty of manipping and catching it, it's very good. Its attack is incredibly high especially for how early you get it. It gets boosting moves (Work Up and Bulk Up) and a really strong stab moves such as Brick Break and Close Combat. It's coverage movepoll is rather lacking which really shows in the endgame but past that, it's amazing. After Elesa and until route 10, it's incredibly consistent

Q: Have you considered x?
A: The PSR discord has been discussing strats for the Sawk route for a while so we most likely have already considered any strat you come up with. Here is a list of strats we considered but decided that they weren't worth it: https://pastebin.com/jfqTYbbZ

Q: What are the run killers in this run?
A: The two biggest run killers are Shauntal and Elesa. Everything else is pretty consistent. Caitlin's worth mentioning since you need to change your strategy throughout the game and get some moves specifically to beat her consistently, but she ends up not being very bad as a result.

There are two other run killers worth mentioning. Catching Sawk can be a pain due to its low catch rate. Route 10 and Victory Road also also worth mentioning, since there are two spinners that are really bad for Sawk to hit: Ace Trainer Cheyenne with Jellicent and Ace Trainer Dwayne with Scolipede

Q: What moves does Sawk use?
A: Mostly fighting type moves. The entire movepool is: Work Up, Double Kick, Low Sweep, Retaliate, Brick Break, Return, Bulk Up, Endure, Close Combat, Bulldoze, and Reversal.

Q: Who do you catch?
A: I choose Snivy as my starter, Lillipup the early game, Pidove or Woobat for fly, and Sawk for the rest of the game.

Q: Why did you choose Snivy as your starter? Doesn't it suck?
A: To make it so that my rivals don't have Serperior in their final battles, which outspeeds Sawk and has Coil, wasting a decent amount of time.

Q: Why do you run with Lillipup early game?
A: The answer is a bit complicated so brace youself. The best alternate early game route is Oshawott + Pansear and it's actually slightly faster than Lillipup as shown here: https://pastebin.com/12twFnqu. However, using Oshawott + Pansear means that in the final Cheren fight, he will have Serperior, which is really bad for the reasons I stated in the last question. If I were to fight Cheren with Serperior, I would need to get 2-3 rare candies so that Sawk is a high enough level to outspeed Serperior. If Cheren doesn't have Serperior, I could skip those rare candies and save a decent amount of time, making up for the timeloss in using Lillipup.

It's also worth noting that the reason why Lillipup is slower than Oshawott + Pansear is because you need to save and quit before you get Lillipup. It is technically possible to get Lillipup without saving and quitting as long as you take one with random ivs but still has an adamant nature and is level 7, and doing that would save a huge amount of time. However, that is *immensely* difficult to pull off because rng advances like crazy during xtransceiver calls so while no S + Q Lillipup is worth considering, it's unlikely to be pulled off anytime soon.

Q: Is it better to go with Woobat or Pidove for your fly slave?
A: That's difficult to decide as both have their advantages and disadvantages. Pidove's catch rate is noticeably higher than Woobat's and can be found in either route 3 or Pinwheel Forest, giving you more options to manip it. Woobat, however, has a higher encounter rate in the location it's caught at and, more importantly, quater resist's Sawk's moves, making it much easier to weaken and catch Sawk. It's really up to player preference.

Q: Does Pokemon White work for this?
A: Pokemon White can be run with Sawk but it's harder and overall worse. In Pokemon White, Sawk can only be found in rustling grass. It doesn't actually waste time but it makes Sawk harder to manip for.

It's also worth noting that you use Zekrom in White instead of Reshiram in the final 2 fights. Zekrom is worse at those two fights due to its lower special attack, meaning that it takes longer to kill Reshiram and Cofagrigus. It wastes very little time so it's not that significant, but it's worth mentioning anyways.

Q: Does this run use glitches?
A: Technically, yes. In Icirrus gym, some of the rocks don't have barrier properties when they should have them, meaning that you can walk right through them. This allows you to skip a trainer. In glitchless categories, this wouldn't be allowed, however, Black and White isn't separated into glitched vs glitchless categories because this is literally the only instance of glitches affecting the speedgame and it barely affects it in the first place, whereas other pokemon speedgames have massive differences between glitched and glitchless. Thus, it would be pretty pointless to separate BW runs by glitched and glitchless.

Q: Who came up with that absolutely genius Caitlin strategy using endure and reversal which made an otherwise extremely hard, dumb, and inconsistent fight, actually consistent and not very bad?
A: Current World Record holder Minnow, pay your respects. I, Cr1ticalSimp, helped discuss and bring that strategy to light but Minnow deserves the credit.