Emulator used: BizHawk 2.10
- Real BIOS files are used.
- Skip Firmware is disabled.
- Non-default firmware settings are used.
Game objectives
- Beat the game as fast as possible.
- Glitch use is allowed (although only one instance is arguably a "glitch")
- Black is used over White. The main difference is the box legendary you catch in the end. Reshiram performs better than Zekrom for the final fights, so Black is faster.
Categories
- Very heavy luck manipulation
- Aims for fastest completion of the game
General Strategy
Pokemon used
The main battler for the game is Lillipup. This Pokemon and its evolutions have very good stats, combined with decent large PP moves. Tackle ends up being particularly great here, having a BP of 50, combined with STAB, and with 35 PP. Bite and Crunch help with PP and coverage, and Bite has the benefit of being able to flinch the opponent. Take Down is learned for a high power move (where Tackle and Crunch cannot KO). Reversal ends up learned solely for a single Bisharp at the end. A second Pokemon must be obtained before Route 3, due to a mandatory double battle, so catching Lillipup itself ends up costing no time.
The starter used in this run is Snivy. Between the starters, we want a Pokemon able to learn Cut, and out of the starters only Snivy and Oshawott can learn Cut. Snivy ends up giving us Chili for the first gym leader, whose Pokemon let us save a turn, so Snivy ends up being the better starter.
A Pidove is caught in Pinwheel Forest. This is just used for Fly. Note that we cannot catch a flyer before the mandatory double on Route 3, it must end up being our third Pokemon. We also don't want to catch our flyer before the optional Pinwheel double battle, as we can only avoid that battle if we have less than 2 non-fainted Pokemon (Snivy will be fainted at this point).
Reshiram is caught at the end of the game and used in the final 2 fights. This is a mandatory catch, the story will not progress until you catch Reshiram. As a bonus too, the game automatically puts Reshiram at the top of the party, so it's best for us to just use it.
Overworld movement
There are modes of movement: walking, running, and biking. The slowest here of course is walking (taking 16 frames per step), proceeded by running (taking 8 frames per step), then biking (taking 4 frames per step). Walking is generally only done at the beginning of the game, before the running shoes are obtained. It is also done as opposed to running for going past spinners, as running near spinners will have them "snap" to your position (note that this does not apply to biking, just running). Running is used for much of the game, before we have the bike and in areas where you cannot bike. Once the bike is obtained, it is the main source of transportation.
Walking and biking are both subject to "turnframes": when you're motionless, you turn in place before you can move in a different direction. A turnframe costs 8 frames. Running is not subject to turnframing, so in various places, it's better to run 1 step before getting onto the bike. Another way to avoid a turnframe is to simply "bonk" onto whatever is in front of you, as you are no longer "motionless" and thus will not turnframe. This is used in places where you must walk, and a few places when we're already on the bike.
Mounting a bike changes the music, which is subject to "music lag": cutscenes, entering the bag, and location transitions might end up "delayed" while they wait for music to finish starting up. In few spots, this makes it worthwhile to run rather than bike.
Battle Strategy
Gen 5 has really fast text, operating at 2 characters per frame. This ends up making it so an extra crit only costs 12 frames. By comparison, an extra turn is around 3 seconds (maybe slightly more or less depending on context). As such, reducing turns has the highest priority, while reducing crits is low priority.
Item usage is rather slow in fights, as such it's not worth it to use an item unless it saves at least 2 turns. Even so, obtaining X Items, which boost stats, come under a fairly heavy cost, as it requires a detour to the X Item shop in Nacrene City, which takes at least 14 seconds. There aren't enough possible X Item usages that can justify this timeloss, so X Items are not used at all.
PP must also be taken into consideration. There are few free (mandatory) heals within the game, so there are large stretches without any healing. Due to this, large PP moves are used, such as Tackle and Bite. These moves are sometimes used while incurring a crit, when stronger moves like Crunch could suffice to save a crit, simply due to needing stretch out PP. However, even with these moves, a Max Elixir is obtained to restore PP, due to a PP stretch that's too wide go through without restoring PP.
For "boss" battles (e.g. Rival fights, Gym Leaders, etc), the opponent will have messages mid-battle. One of these messages is triggered upon damaging their Pokemon (in any way, even from weather/recoil) and it living. As such, aiming for a OHKO for every turn saves some time (although this isn't possible to do in all cases). Similarly, another message is sent specifically upon damaging the final Pokemon. OHKO'ing this Pokemon will avoid the message, although if this message is triggered, the generic damaged message won't be played.
RNG Manipulation
Gen 5 has 3 separate RNGs, each with different purposes.
LCRNG (aka PIDRNG)
LCRNG can be understood as the "primary" RNG. It controls PID generation for Pokemon, the Pokemon's nature, NPC RNG (NPC timers and directions), whether or not an encounter happens, whether a phenomenon occurs (every 20 steps in a map where encounters can occur), Pickup RNG, and overworld weather effects. It also advances rapidly during Xtransceiver calls for whatever reason, and it's used for various other misc things in the game. This RNG is notably "hard" to manipulate due to limited ways to advance it, as such Repels are eventually used. This RNG is a simple 64-bit LCG, using the formula x[n+1] = x[n] * 0x5D588B656C078965 + 0x269EC3. It is seeded on game startup, described later.
MTRNG (aka IVRNG)
MTRNG can be understood as the "secondary" RNG. It controls IV generation for Pokemon, when Pokemon blink in battle (causing it to be advanced some amount of times every frame, depending on amount of Pokemon out), AI move decisions, if Pokerus is obtained/spread, and the 50% roll to increase friendship every 128 steps. Due to the above mentioned blink RNG, it ends up being fairly easy to manipulate. This RNG is a standard MT19937 RNG. It is seeded on game startup, using LCRNG after it is seeded.
Battle RNG
Battle RNG is actually just another LCRNG, using the exact same formula. It is only used for battles, and is seeded on battle start, using the same seeding function as LCRNG uses. Nearly everything random in a battle (crits, damage rolls, effect chance, etc) is determined by this RNG, with a few exceptions handled by other RNGs. It is only called when needed for a random event. As such, optimal battles need to have a seed which satisfies all the conditions for an optimal battle.
RNG seeding
Gen 5 has one of the most complicated seeding functions in Pokemon games ever. It first obtains various entropic data:
- Nazos: A community given name given to version and console variant (i.e. DS vs DSi+) specific data used in seeding. This data is actually just junk pulled off the stack (likely indicating the code just tries to grab data of an uninitialized local variable).
- VCount: The scanline number currently being rendered.
- Timer0: One of the configurable 16-bit hardware timers, set by the game to tick every 64 bus clocks.
- Mac Address: The console's mac address is used, making seeds unique to the individual console (in BizHawk, this is set to a constant value).
- Tick Counter: A counter which increments every time Timer0 overflows (thus incrementing every 4194304 bus clocks).
- VBlank Count: Number of VBlanks since game startup.
- GxStat: Status register for the Geometry Engine in the DS's 3D hardware.
- RTC: Current data/time
- Mic sampling data: Last microphone sample obtained and its buffer address
- Touch Input: Touch X/Y and validity flags
- RSSI Pool: Wifi strength data
- Keypad Input: A/B/Select/Start/Right/Left/Up/Down/R/L/X/Y/Lid Closed
Some of this data, while it seems it could be random, is effectively or relatively constant. Notably, the mic sampling data will just be 0s if the microphone has never been sampled since game startup (which is likely, as not many things in the game actually use the microphone). RSSI pool is also 0s if the C-Gear is never enabled (for other reasons, it is not enabled). Of course, for LCRNG seeding on startup, these two would always be 0s regardless. Touch input would also be 0s on startup seeding, as it is done before the touch screen is ever polled, leaving it only useful for Battle RNG seeding.
After all this data is collected, it is hashed with SHA1. The first 8 bytes of the hash are read as little endian and used for the actual seed.
To find required seeds, I created
various tools for that purposes. For Battle RNG, this was extremely critical, due to needing to manipulate the right seed for an optimal battle, as that seed will effectively determine the entire battle.
Initial Seed
One of the tools I made allowed for bruteforcing a possible seed which satifies all the conditions for an optimal initial seed. This seed has a few conditions that need to be satisfied:
- The date used must be a winter month. In Gen 5, seasons advance every month, starting on spring in January. As such, winter months are April, August, and December.
- The date used must be at the final day of the month.
- The time used must be between 21:57 to 22:16.
- Snivy must have a negative speed nature.
- Snivy must have specific IVs. The attack IV must be greater than 10. The speed IV must be less than 13. If a plus defense nature is used, the HP IV must be less than 23, and the defense IV must be less than 3. For other natures, if the HP IV is less than 23, then the defense IV must be less than 15, otherwise the defense IV must be less than 10. Special attack and special defense IVs do not matter.
- Lillipup must have a plus attack nature and must not have a negative speed nature.
- Lillipup must have Pickup as its ability, rather than Vital Spirit.
- Lillipup must have specific IVs. The HP, attack, and speed IVs must be 31. If a negative defense nature is used, the defense IV must be at least 10. Other IVs do not matter.
- Lillipup must contract Pokerus after the first battle in which it is is used.
For this run, a winter month which rolls over to a spring month mid-run is needed. Winter is needed for Twist Mountain, as a shortcut becomes present which saves several minutes. Sometime after Twist Mountain, Route 8 is passed through. This route is fairly slower to navigate in winter compared to spring (by roughly 6 seconds, give or take).
Snivy needs low stats in order to optimally lose the first 2 fights. They do not need to be won, and are fastest lost. Low speed allows for being outsped/speedtied by both Rivals, and low defense allows for a 2HKO in both cases. Some attack is still needed however, due to needing to win the next fight against N.
Lillipup wants the highest attack possible, which is needed to save some turns in some fights. It also wants the highest speed possible, as we want to outspeed (or at least speedtie) every opponent. 31 speed IVs is in fact needed for this, one less will result in being outsped by one of the opponents. Special attack and special defense do not matter at all. Defense does matter slightly, as we need to avoid being placed into guaranteed OHKO range with Lenora. HP needs to be high due Take Down's recoil damage and opponents with Iron Barbs/Rough Skin, abilities which cause damage upon being attacked with a contact move.
Pickup is not really desired on its own, if anything it is annoying due to needing to avoid it actually picking up an item. It is needed due to Lillipup's evolutions having the abilities Sand Rush and Intimidate. Intimidate loses time for every single battle due its activation message, while Sand Rush notably will give immunity to sandstorm damage (one fight will be under sandstorm). As such, Sand Rush is desired, which Pickup corresponds to.
Pokerus doubles EV gain, and therefore is highly desired. Technically, it could be contracted during the initial Rival battles, but there is a mandatory Pokemon Center heal done as part of this game's tutorial section. This heal will have the nurse give some extra dialogue about Pokerus if Pokerus was already contracted. It could also be triggered during the N fight, however, this is a bit undesirable since Lillipup needs Pokerus here rather anyways, and it is right before Lillipup IVs would be manipulated, and thus harder to manipulate if combined with Pokerus in this way.
The tool ended up finding the seed 5E937561DEC6940C, using a date and time of 2077-08-31 at 22:10:33, with a "short" firmware message. Having a short firmware message here has a lower vcount/timer0 due to less time being spent copying the firmware message into RAM on startup, compared to a "long" firmware message.
Route
Intro
The intro has an interesting quirk, where in the background it is "creating save data" and will give you a "creating save data" textbox at the end. The longer you take in the intro, shorter the "creating save data" textbox will appear. If you go through the intro slowly enough, this textbox won't appear. Due to this, some "timeloss" is acceptable as it balances out in the end. This is used to pick the girl character without any actual consequence. Some delay is also present before ending the naming screen, this is for properly ensuring MTRNG advances the expected amount of times.
The player is named M. Having a 1 character name saves time whenever it appears. M is choosen as the game has N as a rival character.
Player's House
Once control is given to the player, options are set, importantly setting Battle Scene to Off and setting Battle Style to Set. Text Speed is also set to Fast, more just due to dealing with mid-speed being incredibly annoying and only a few frames are lost setting this.
Snivy is manipulated with 30/15/7/7/14/9 IVs and a Brave nature.
Both rival fights are lost, as the rewards are not needed, and it's much faster to lose due to less dialogue.
Juniper's Lab
Snivy is not nicknamed, due to that taking a considerable amount of time and it being unneeded given Snivy will quickly be swapped with Lillipup anyways.
To aid in manipulating Lillipup later, as much grass is walked through as possible. Walking through the grass will only advance LCRNG, while MTRNG can be manipulated by waiting during battles.
Route 2
Xtransceiver calls advance LCRNG rapidly, so some time is waited at the end of the call to manipulate the Lillipup encounter.
The Lillipup encountered is manipulated with 31/31/19/13/9/31 IVs with an Adamant nature. It also has Pickup as its ability, which is just used so its evolutions have Sand Rush. Some item usage will be done, so Pickup will be manipulated to NOT pickup any items. The Lillipup is nicknamed Z, as to give it a 1 character name.
Bite is eventually learned here, and it's used whenever possible over Tackle (assuming it doesn't need a crit while Tackle doesn't need one etc), due to it saving 1 frame over Tackle due to its name length. It also has the ability to flinch the opponent, therefore denying the opponent the ability to do a move, saving a small amount of time whenever the opponent is not OHKO'd.
Cheren here is one of the first "boss" fights where the mid-battle message quirk comes into play. While I could use Bite twice on Tepig, it would trigger the mid-message battle. Therefore, Leer is used before Bite in order to OHKO Tepig, as to avoid the message.
Striaton Gym
In this gym, which leader you fight depends on the starter choosen. Since Snivy was picked, Chili is fought.
Chili notably has a Lillipup with a Careful nature, while the other leaders have a Lillipup with an Impish or Lax nature. Impish and Lax natures are plus defense natures, and end up making the Lillipup unable to be OHKO'd on turn one. Careful nature on the other hand is a neutral defense nature, and so the Lillipup can be OHKO'd on turn one.
The later Pokemon (Pansear for Chili) can't just be OHKO'd, regardless of leader. Like with the earlier Cheren fight, going for Leer first in order to do a OHKO saves time as it avoids a mid-battle message.
Dreamyard
HM01 ends up taught to Snivy and used to cut down the tree in the Dreamyard. This is the only use of Cut in this run and only required HM usage in the entire game.
Fennel's House
Fennel gives the C-Gear after the Dreamyard. It is not turned on, as turning on here has a fairly long cutscene associated with it. Turning on the C-Gear also should cause a ton more lag in the game, although melonDS is not currently accurate enough to actually show that, so this is more just avoiding the lag that's not there because of emulator inaccuracies.
Route 3
The double battle here is required, thus at least 2 unfainted Pokemon must be in the party. In this battle, Snivy is knocked out, as to avoid an optional double battle later.
Take Down is also learned here. Take Down is a rather strong Normal type move, but it has recoil damage. As such, the move has to be used sparingly, only whenever it can save a turn (although HP sometimes makes that not possible).
Wellspring Cave
Lillipup evolves into Herdier, giving a welcome power boost.
Nacrene Gym
Lenora's fight is rather simple, just two Take Downs, OHKO'ing each Pokemon. Take Down usage so far in this run has however lowered HP down to 25 when Watchog is sent out, and Watchog will always be faster. Watchog can be coerced into using using non-damage moves such as Leer and Hypnosis, as long as Herdier cannot be KO'd by the lowest roll possible. In case Herdier has less than 10 defense IVs and a minus defense nature, this will end up being true, thus the need to have some defense on Herdier. Note that while Watchog's Retaliate normally would be boosted due to the opposing Herdier fainting last turn, that boost is not accounted for when determining if the lowest roll will KO.
Pinwheel Forest
Since Snivy is fainted, the double battle passed here will not trigger.
Pidove is caught in this forest, as a Fly Pokemon is highly desired to speed up later story mandated backtracking.
Pinwheel Forest Bridge Gate
A Quick Claw is obtained from one of the NPCs. The Quick Claw when held gives a chance to go first within the same priority bracket regardless of speed. This will be needed for Nimbasa Gym later on. Note that Quick Claw activation gives a message, even if it isn't actually needed to go first, so most of the time Quick Claw will be manipulated to avoid activation rather than trigger activation.
Castelia Gym
While a turn technically can be saved on Burgh by using Take Down Whirlipede, Herdier does not enough HP to do so. As such, 2 Bites are used on Whirlipede instead.
Dwebble has to be take out with 3 Bites. This is due to it having Shell Armor, which prevents critical hits.
Crunch is learned after Dwebble, annoyingly enough. It provides some needed extra PP along with being a slightly more powerful move than Tackle, along with it giving some type coverage otherwise delegated to Bite.
While the Quick Claw technically could be equipped to outspeed Leavanny, it's a significant timesink to equip an item. As such, equipping the Quick Claw is delayed until the Bike is obtained (where the menu to equip the Quick Claw can be combined with the menu to register the Bike). Quick Claw is also only very slightly faster than the opponent missing regardless.
Nimbasa City
The Bike is obtained after dealing with some Plasma grunts near the entrance. While it would seem logical to register and use the Bike right away, trying to open the menu here would be subject to "music lag." As such, the next area is ran to rather than biked, then the Bike is registered (along with the Quick Claw being equipped). The Bike is still not used here however, as doing so will make the proceeding cutscene start be subject to music lag, so it's best to just run to the next cutscene. Only after the N fight is the Bike actually used.
Musical Theater
Dress Up could be exited immediately upon starting, but that causes the theater owner to have more dialogue, so it's faster to just play the minigame fully.
Route 5
After Cheren, Herdier evolves to Stoutland, giving another welcome power boost.
Right before the multi battle, Cheren will give a free heal, importantly restoring all PP.
Driftveil Gym
Clay's fight is rather interesting. His ace is an Excadrill, which normally would take two attacks to take out, and thus trigger a mid-battle message. However, his lead Pokemon has the move Swagger, which gives a 2x attack boost and confusion to the opponent (in this case, to Stoutland). This allows for OHKO'ing Excadrill with Crunch, avoiding extra mid-battle messages.
Driftveil Pokemon Center
11 Max Repels are bought here, as soon Chargestone Cave will be entered. Chargestone Cave has very little in terms of being able to manipulate away encounters due to it being a cave, where everywhere could trigger an encounter. Other places with a similar issue will also be passed through, thus repels are needed.
Chargestone Cave
Chargestone Cave has one of the hardest and luckiest tricks of the entire run: Plasma Skip.
Plasma Skip skips several trainers within Chargestone Cave. It abuses "Trainer Skip," an exploit where NPC trainers can be skipped by having their line of sight obstructed by a phenomenon (e.g. dust clouds). This obstruction mechanic appears to be intended (as the game has an explicit check for phenomenon being in the line of sight), although it leads to being able to skip otherwise mandatory trainers.
Every 20 steps in an area where encounters can happen and a phenomenon is not present, a phenomenon may appear. Phenomenon spawns within a 11x11 area, with the player in the center of that area. Whether or not a phenomenon appears is first decided by an RNG roll that rolls a number between 0-999. If the roll is less than 100, a phenomenon might appear. If that passes, another roll will be done to determine which direction to scan for possible spawn locations, rolling a number between 0-3. 0 scans rightwards, 1 scans leftwards, 2 scans upwards, and 3 scans downwards. This then thus makes the area limited to a 11x6, 5 tiles away from your current tile to the direction to scan and 5 tiles away in each perpendicular direction. Once all valid locations are scanned, another RNG roll is done to determine which location should spawn the cloud, rolling a number between 0-N, where N is the number of valid spawn tiles - 1. Note that tiles with the player and NPCs currently on them are considered valid in this context, but if the RNG roll lands on such a tile, the phenomenon will not spawn. There are some extra restrictions here however possibly, as the checks won't go past the current 32x32 "chunk" the player is in.
In theory, all 7 Plasma grunts could be skipped using dust clouds. However, after one trainer is skipped, the dust cloud has to be despawned to skip the next trainer. Entering a battle, interacting with an NPC, picking up an item, or leaving the map will despawn the current dust cloud. Since fighting a Plasma grunt obviously eliminates them from the pool of trainers, fighting 1 grunt effectively acts like a 2-in-1 deal, as the next grunt can be freely skipped. This then means fighting 1 Plasma grunt to despawn the cloud is equal to encountering 2 wild Pokemon in terms of advancing through the pool of trainers. Due to this, the 2nd trainer is not skipped, as it is slower than encountering 2 wild Pokemon.
For the 4th and 5th trainer, 2 wild Pokemon are encountered to despawn the dust clouds, as it is faster than fighting the 4th trainer. The current repel is aligned so it wears off after skipping the 3rd trainer, allowing for these wild encounters. After the 5th trainer is skipped and the dust cloud is despawned, another Max Repel is used.
"Interacting with an NPC" will despawn a dust cloud. I've discovered when making this TAS this actually includes the movable crystals. Pressing "A" in front of one of these movable crystals as if you were to talk to an NPC will end up despawning a dust cloud, although no actual text will be yielded for such an "interaction." Using this, the 6th and 7th trainers can be quickly skipped without doing any wild encounters.
Doing all this of course requires very, very specific RNG to happen. As such, a save+quit is done, along with a soft reset. This gives 16384 possible RNG seeds, abusing the 13 possible keypad inputs, along with timer0 able to be varied by 1 by adjusting the exact frame the soft reset happens. One of the tools I created searched through these seeds to find the best workable one.
Celestial Tower
Within the repel menu, Fly is taught to Pidove. This needs to happen now, as Fly will be used to leave Celestial Tower in the end.
Spinners in this area have a peculiar quirk, where they do not spin randomly. They instead just turn whenever "B" is pressed. This of course makes it easy to pass through these trainers, and allows for forcing them to spin very very fast :)
Route 7 (after Mistralton Gym)
To save on repel usage, the next Max Repel isn't used until right before the third tall grass patch. While it would be faster to just walk the planks entirely over the first and second tall grass patches, this isn't possible, as a trainer faces the end of the first plank line. This trainer is also notably a rotation/triple battle (depending on game version), which requires 3 non-fainted Pokemon in the party to encounter, which will be the case in this run. As such, the planks are only partially used, resulting in a slightly slower path.
Twist Mountain
The snowfall from winter creates a shortcut, allowing for Twist Mountain to be completed quickly and without any trainer battles.
Icirrus Gym
Icirrus Gym is home to the singular glitch used in Pokemon Black/White speedruns. The game does not have collision in some of rocks. This ends up allowing an otherwise mandatory trainer to be skipped.
Reversal is also learned in one of the gym trainer fights. It will see little use.
Dragonspiral Tower
The tower only has the first 2 rooms actually able to have encounters, the rest can't generate encounters at all.
A Max Elixir is obtained here, as a PP restoration is needed for this PP stretch.
Relic Castle
Within the repel menu here, the Max Elixir is used. The 2 Fresh Waters obtained in the first 2 gyms are also used. HP is running low, and there various more Take Down usages needed, along with Rough Skin opponents who need to be fought.
Relic Castle has various quicksand patches. If these are ran or biked over, a slow "cutscene" will occur with the player unable to move, slowly dragged down into the center of the quicksand, which the player will proceed to go under and into the floor below. This "cutscene" can be avoided by walking over these quicksand patches, and going to the next floor can be sped up by just going to the center directly without triggering the slow drag down cutscene part.
Nacrene City
Within the Fly menu, the Quick Claw is unequipped. The Quick Claw has been unneeded for a while, and it will cause slowdown during the Elite Four, due to one of the members having Frisk.
Route 8
During winter, the puddles are frozen over and end up being fairly slow to slide through to get to the end. With spring, this slowdown is avoided.
Route 10
During Cheren's fight, Reversal is used against Simisage. HP is low enough where this saves a crit. Not critical, but a nice timesave given the circumstances.
After Cheren's fight, Cheren gives a free heal. Fairly important given how much PP the Elite Four will exhaust, along with Take Down needing to be used.
Victory Road
The only mandatory trainer within Victory Road can actually be skipped, using the same dust cloud trick as Plasma Skip. Only 1 location can have a dust cloud in order to skip this trainer however, so it's rather tricky to manipulate.
Pokemon League
Since Gen 5, the Elite Four can be fought in any order. This offers some potential for routing optimization.
This run does Marshal->Caitlin->Grimsley->Shauntal. Marshal is done first as regardless of any extra exp from other members, Stoutland cannot save a crit nor Take Down usage. Caitlin is done second as with an extra level, Stoutland can Tackle rather than Crunch Sigilyph, thus trade a super effective hit with a (slightly faster) critical hit. Grimsley is done third as with 2 extra levels, Stoutland can Tackle rather than Take Down Krookodile. Shauntal is done last more as she has much less dialogue than Grimsley as the final Elite Four member fought, her fight is just as fast if she is fought third.
Reversal is used against Grimsley's Bisharp. This is the only other and only critical usage of Reversal.
N's Castle
Reshiram is a mandatory catch here. Reshiram will also be brought up to the top of the party, so it's best if it's used for the remaining two fights.
Reshiram is manipulated to have 12/3/15/24/31/31 IVs with a Bold nature. The only actually mandatory stat requirement here is 15+ special attack IVs, but higher special defense is preferable to reduce Dragon Pulse damage. Note however special defense can't be too high relative to defense, as otherwise N's Zoroark will use Night Slash (a 100% accurate move) over Focus Blast (a 70% accurate move).
For catching Reshiram, a Heal Ball is used. This saves time over the Poke Ball due to having less lag loading its item description.
Reshiram is named -, as the name is shown enough times where a one character name will save time.
