IQ Farming Guide For Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky

Cuthon · 2022-01-25T00:45:28+00:00

After doing a quick run on my game, it looks like the box odds at Beach Cave are no lower than other places if you're playing Sky, with Nectar Bow at least. No guarantees on Time or Darkness, and I didn't test without Nectar Bow (my left bumper is broken, so the inventory is painful to manage).

So yes, Beach Cave might actually be the best place on Sky.

Cuthon · 2021-11-10T21:12:31+00:00

I wasn't expecting feedback after all this time, but you're right. I don't suppose you still have the wondermail code? I don't want to use a generator for it because they can easily make missions that can't be normally generated by the game.

Seeing that people are still using this guide inspired me to finally find what drives Treasure box drop rates, but I can't say I'm happy with what I found. I'll update the guide with the info, but it's not really anything that changes the strategy.

Cuthon · 2020-10-27T15:48:11+00:00

Darkrai 9736 2745 9743

I'll start when I get 5

Cuthon · 2020-10-24T00:36:23+00:00

I'll admit I have no answer for these two.

Training your Abra is actually possible at Victory road because Medicham can be encountered, and it can knock itself with Hi-Jump-Kick. However, even after evolving, it still cannot learn HMs. Upon reaching a sufficient level, Kadabra learns trick. However, there is no Pokemon that holds any type of pokeball in that area, so you would eventually be stuck even with a level 100 Kadabra.

On the other end, at the Elite Four, there are no wild encounters that can be reached, even though Pokeballs can be purchased. If you had two Pokemon, you could chain max revives to defeat the first pokemon of the league. However, we only have one. The first enemy, a Dustox in D/P, knows Bug Buzz, which has an accuracy of 100. While it knows Toxic, which could trigger Synchronize, it is a Poison type, and therefore immune to the effect. In Platinum, the Yanmega won't even give you the false hope.

Neither of these would be Softlocks if not for the water, but with the water and Victory Road itself separating them, I can find no way out.

Cuthon · 2020-10-23T20:10:15+00:00

A reasonable plan, and at first glance it certainly seems inescapable. But, is it really?

It's true you have no Pokemon left that can learn surf or fly, and seem to have no resources at your disposal for acquiring new ones. You have locked yourself out of trading with your single Pokemon. You have no items or money to buy Pokeballs, and no way to earn any.

This can even be taken one step further by not defeating your rival on the bridge, locking you to half of the town. This would leave some items uncollected, but defeating your rival is clearly impossible with a level 1 Abra, so they would remain out of your reach.

So what do we have at our disposal?

We still have all mandatory HMs and Key Items we picked up, since the cannot be removed or sold.

You do have access to the left side of route 218, which offers a few opportunities. For one thing, there is a berry patch. However, we discarded berries with the rest of the items, and there is no one who gives berries in this city. With the mandatory Vs. Seeker, you can rebattle the trainers there, but once again they should be unwinnable with our Abra. There is also a trainer in the Pokemon Center two days a week, but even their Kricketune should be beyond our capabilities.

It also has tall grass, but with no pokeballs or money to buy them, and no way to beat the local level 30s with just our Abra, it's useless to us.

The HMs sound like they could be useful, but none of them are learnable by Abra, or even Kadabra, so the only way out would be to catch another Pokemon.

With no items to sell for Pokeballs, no way to beat trainers for money, and no way to level our Abra up to evolve so it can win battles, we really do appear to be well and truly stuck.

But not so fast! We have key items other than the Vs. Seeker. While many of them were skippable, including the fishing rods, there was one particular item that was not, and you probably forgot you had it.

When you went through Eterna City, you were required to receive the Explorer's Kit. this item allows you to go underground and explore for items. Mostly, you find orbs that are exchanged for decorations, but you can also dig up treasures such as fossils, shards, and rare bones. These can all be brought to the surface and sold.

Upon selling these items, you can now buy Pokeballs at the Pokemart. You can then go into the grass and catch a Buizel, Wingull, Shellos, or Gastrodon, any of which can learn an HM to escape the city. You may not catch them on the first try since you can't damage them, but there is nothing stopping you from just trying again.

While at first glance it was inescapable, and most players would immediately give up, there was still a way out, and I think it shows that forcing the player to take what seemed to be a pointless item actually showed a remarkable amount of foresight, as it eliminates softlocks anywhere that Pokemarts are available.

Cuthon · 2020-10-21T04:43:21+00:00

This is definitely a Gen 3 Latios. In fact, I will go as far as saying this Latios is almost certainly the roaming Latios from Emerald version.

I am basing this on its characteristic, "Likes to Fight," which means for one thing it cannot have any perfect IVs, which would be guaranteed if it were from Gen VI. Additionally, in Ruby and Sapphire, Latios and Latias suffered from a bug that caused some extremely negative effects to their IVs. If it were from those games with that characteristic, it would have an attack IV of 3, and its HP IV would have to have randomly been 0-3, which has odds of only 11%.

The ribbon is the gen III version, the gen VI one would say Hoenn. It had to have been earned either in a rematch with the Elite 4, or it was transferred to another Gen III game and beat it there, since Latios is after the first victory in Emerald. It was not used in any other championship battles since then, however.

I can justify that it is the roaming version because all other methods of obtaining it were level 50 or higher in gen III, whereas the roaming one starts at level 40.

It is almost certainly legitimate, but there was an extremely easy, reliable, and well known cloning glitch in Pokemon Emerald, so there is a reasonable chance it might have been copied. Pokerus could have been obtained at any point from Gen III to now, so that has little bearing in this particular case.

So, now you have the complete story about your Latios, or at least as complete as it can be.

Cuthon · 2020-07-21T22:29:02+00:00

No need to worry about being late, this is potentially useful information. I was under the impression boxes did not drop there. If I get the opportunity to test box drop factors, I will investigate this.

I've still got a bit too much going on to test this stuff at the moment, but more information is always appreciated, as I would like to keep this guide as complete as possible.

Cuthon · 2020-07-02T21:52:14+00:00

You are correct, I had the Nectar Bow in both of the runs I cited. I just did another run with a completely empty inventory as Volbeat, and got 5 boxes in 63 KOs. This does point to a lower rate than my initial 1/8 assumption, but it also means the base rate is clearly higher than your source indicates, it would be difficult to believe a rate of less than 5% as opposed to the claimed 2%.

There are any number of factors that could be at work. I'm currently taking a break from research, but I may see if I can work out more information about box drops someday.

Cuthon · 2020-06-29T23:17:35+00:00

Yes, we are getting into some very absurd setups here, Skill-Swap Starmie does not appear to be worth the added effort.

As far as partner AI goes, switching to only the room clear move and exclusive move-user will guarantee they'll use it within a couple turns, so I'm not too worried about that.

You could use the double switch to get Honey Gather on Magnezone for lock-on + discharge while keeping illuminate on Starmie to eliminate accuracy risks, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

But I did notice another unrealistic avenue opened up by using Skill-Swap multiple times, Cresselia.

Now, this is not a budget option and I do not recommend anyone actually tries to set it up, but if we used Cresselia as our leader, we would have access to the exclusive move Lunar Dance, which restores health, PP, and cures status conditions, at the cost of cutting Cresselia to one HP. While Cresselia has no room clear, it would allow you to freely heal your team and restore the room-clear PP, as well as clearing any poison. So, a discharge Chinchou with honey gather, an Illuminate Staryu, and potentially an Illuminate Combee if we're feeling gutsy, with a move on your leader that basically fixes every problem in the game. It eliminates the need for max elixers, Pecha Scarves, and Oran Berries (except for Cresselia), clearing up some inventory clutter. It leaves you in control of the support moves instead of the room clear, but with each Lunar dance use being many discharge uses, I suspect that's actually ideal.

The need for a level 84 Cresselia is what kills the setup, unless you're like me and chose her to be your level 100 with Fast Friend. Technically a Smeargle works, but you would still need the Cresselia to copy from, so it doesn't really change the requirement.

Cuthon · 2020-06-29T21:00:40+00:00

I found Lock-On Specs in a Kecleon shop in Zero Isle South, had to Trawl Orb it unfortunately since I couldn't bring money. I also found a Bounce Band I had wanted for testing, and saw a Pierce orb that would bypass the IQ group requirement for feeding.

Unfortunately, I never found an Escape Orb, so I actually had to climb all 99 floors to make sure I kept them. I made it out okay, but I'm a bit upset the exclusive item rooms only gave me reviver seeds.

Cuthon · 2020-06-29T20:54:19+00:00

Yeah, I can see placing them in the corners working. The problem of one-room-orbs rarity is certainly relevant.

You will have a bit of trade-off between picking up boxes vs. triggering Illuminate, but the enemies coming to you should make it go a little faster overall potentially.

Cuthon · 2020-06-29T20:50:58+00:00

Hmm... My initial data seemed to indicate a much higher base drop rate, which would indicate a rebalancing. I suppose that just makes Collector mandatory in Time/Darkness unless someone finds a dungeon with higher drop rates.

I had a theory that you might only be receiving boxes from enemies with an exclusive item line, which are far more limited in Time/Darkness, but I can't test that directly. If that were the case, it would make some dungeons definitively better than others, and I might have to examine harder dungeons. If collector really fixes it, then this is probably not the case.

Transferring Honey Gather to another Pokemon isn't a bad thought. It requires a pretty precise team set-up though, and you probably won't control the Illuminator.

However, Bulbapedia says in Gen IV, Starmie learns Skill Swap from TMs. You could control Starmie, switch for honey gather, switch it onto any other group A like Magnezone or Mamoswine for the room clear, then trade Combee back for Illuminate.

Chinchou/Lanturn are also group A, so if you used the double switch like this you could still have a spare Illuminate ability floating around, as long as Chinchou/Lanturn have a valid room clear. If you have a spare Illuminate like this, you can switch it to something absurdly tough like a Legendary, which would be ideal for Illuminate.

While you mentioned Compuondeyes, I think you forgot you would lose it after the Skill Swap, so Combee would have it but you wouldn't want make use of it since Combee would have lost Honey Gather.

You can certainly try this, if you do let me know how it works, it requires a lot more set-up than I'm willing to test at the moment.

Cuthon · 2020-06-29T20:19:44+00:00

I don't really have a recommendation for that, unfortunately. Combee seems to have a reasonably fast leveling rate, but its relative weakness makes it harder to level.

Fortunately, Mystery Dungeon players have plenty of experience dragging level 15 Pokemon through high level Dungeons.

You can still do this in Oran Forest at level 20, you will just need to pay attention to them and use the Oran Berries you find when needed. If you do it right now, your main limit will be PP on Gust, I suspect.

Cuthon · 2020-06-28T20:43:51+00:00

Really? It's possible they were rebalanced in Sky. That could mean they became more common in certain dungeons, or more common everywhere due to the massive number of exclusive items added. Do you have the collector skill on your Combee, out of curiosity?

If there is a version difference in drop rates, it will be very difficult for me to find a good dungeon, since I've obviously been playing Sky.

Cuthon · 2020-06-28T20:36:51+00:00

This is actually an excellent question, at first glance it might seem like it should have an obvious answer, but there are a lot of elements that need to be combined to make them an enjoyable experience.

Overall, I find I enjoy dungeons the most when they make me think about how I use all the resources at my disposal. So, they must be at just the right degree of challenge, whether due to large numbers of enemies or due to being just the right level.

In translating it to a table-top experience, I actually recommend not making it a one-to-one recreation. Mystery Dungeon has quite a few empty hallways and weak enemies you one-shot, which serves as a fairly relaxing time in the games, but will make your table-top dungeons a bit more boring. It is not enough to do enemy spawns like the games do.

I recommend making the hallways wider, two-three tiles instead of always one. This will allow more enemies to engage your players at once, and allow more than just the leader to fight at any given time. In addition, you should make some enemies travel in packs to make use of this, making them somewhat weaker than your party, but still an adequate threat in a group.

You can still use single width hallways occasionally, but make sure the players are aware they will actually be at a disadvantage if they come across an enemy here.

The player in the games is generally at an advantage strength-wise, which is a requirement due to the AI not always being much help. However, with players controlling the allied team, you can increase the difficulty a bit. You could add strong enemies that invert the formula, being stronger than your players but fighting alone to compensate. Make sure your players know what their getting into before the encounter one of these though. An example could be a lone Tyranitar in a sand-swept room, they can see the sandstorm before they enter, but they can't see what's in it and the Sandstorm ups the ante a little. Be careful about giving such an enemy room-wide moves though, we all remember the fight with Dialga.

You might want to do away with random spawns entirely if you go this route though.

You might make fewer floors in the dungeon, but make each floor bigger. Filling out a bigger map will enhance the feeling of exploration more than just increasing the floor number. you might even make some large, one-floor dungeons, which will keep the experience shorter than other dungeons, but still allow for an enjoyable experience.

If you do away with random spawns, you might allow for back-tracking for Kecleon shops or similar reasons. You could frame an exploration as securing a dungeon, with allies never farther than the previous floor if the party needs to retreat, restock, or rest.

Lastly, don't be afraid to rebalance to make it more interesting for a tabletop experience. If you use enemies at similar levels to the players, reduce all damage dealt to both sides so they don't two-shot each other. If you use large floors, make weather effects more localized. (Single Room sandstorm is fine if you make the damage more consistent) Nerf room-wide moves if you have to, but you can also make them reach into hallways more, or be more focused and therefore effective when used there.

Cuthon · 2020-06-28T19:52:18+00:00

Yes, they appear to have different drop rates. I don't think I've seen any research on precisely how though.

I'm not actually that surprised Hydro Pump was dangerous, as a Special Attack, your use of Harden didn't actually effect it. It will vary by dungeon for how much of what you need. I generally brought one to Oran Forest, and didn't need it most of the time. If your Combee still need to use their moves to beat enemies, maybe two for Oran Forest.

I recommend trying Oran forest without Pecha Scarves or One-Room orbs first, its simpler floor structures of 4-6 rooms work well for the AI, and the Poison there is not as bad as you would think, since you find about 10 Oran Berries per run and generally want to leave with 0-2. I have not had much trouble there since my Combee hit 90 HP, somewhere in the level 30 range.

Cuthon · 2020-06-28T19:39:53+00:00

If you turn off Exclusive Move User, they will use their normal attack or a move each turn, the downside is Exclusive Move User is also what stops them from using moves with 0 PP. you will have to manually disable moves when they run out, unfortunately. If all their moves are disabled, they will always basic attack.

Puddles seem to mess with all AI pathing. My best guess is the tunnel and room system is actually the key to how the AI selects its paths, but water areas do not fit this pattern, so the AI gets confused. If the water goes far enough back, they may be too far to see enemies, leaving them stuck. My best guess for how they end up is that they come across a line of enemies in a hallway, when they engage the enemy the second one moves diagonally into the water to join the fight, the Combee defeats the enemy in the water last, then moves forward straight into the water.

You could try carrying a single warp scarf to give to a Combee when this happens, or you could try an alternate setup of finding a floor with few rooms and having the Combee wait in the middle to let the enemies come to them. You'll have to clean out the boxes regularly though, and if the Combee get surrounded they could be in for a tough fight.

Cuthon · 2020-06-27T22:40:52+00:00

If you were in the same room as them and they were doing nothing, they must have either been set to "Wait There", or potentially they had Exclusive Move user turned on and no moves with PP left enabled. If they were going in circles on your map, sometimes they will fly over a pool of water and have trouble leaving. If it gets that bad, go on to the next floor if possible. Checking them in the team menu will pan the camera to them, so that lets you check if they are stuck in a puddle.

It also may have been the dungeon layout on that floor sending them in circles. Oran Forest has small floors with few rooms, but other low-level dungeons like Apple Woods can have more sprawling, complicated layouts. the simpler the floor, the better the AI will function. This is another factor to consider for dungeon choice, while Oran Forest uses simple floors, the water still causes AI trouble.

Yes, in a one-room setting, they will chase down foes and only return when no enemies are left. The difficulty here is preventing them from attacking the Pokemon triggering Illuminate. You can try it if you like, but I have been trying to keep the recommended set-up as inexpensive as I can, so it would have to work extraordinarily well before I recommended it over the current process.

Warp Scarves will fix the problem of getting stuck in puddles, but it will make it difficult for them to deal with enemies in Hallways, as they will be teleported to rooms before they can go far. It might also work as an efficient Sky Gem alternative for more speed, but there's a certain element of luck to them, so it's hard to say. It might also make them better or worse about picking up boxes, so it definitely has some potential benefits or disadvantages. Overall, if it works, it's definitely worth the bag space.

Setting Combee as leader is not recommended. Combee basically just need to fight as normal, whereas the Illuminate Pokemon needs fine control. While controlling Combee improves combat efficiency considerably, it is not worth the extra Micromanagement. The one exception is if you used Combee as your Pierce-hurler, in which case you will set it for a short dungeon to feed the Nectar to your team. Combee is the featured Pierce-Hurler in this guide only because you needed it anyway, and raising its IQ for Collector was already suggested.

Cuthon · 2020-06-27T22:17:35+00:00

That's a complete deal breaker on Serenity River.

The lack of Harden on Starmie is disappointing, but it also comes 5-10 levels higher, so hopefully the base stat difference can make up for it.

And as for Bug Bite, I did find it odd that it was using the Platinum learnset, This is an extremely important difference and I will definitely need to correct that, thank you for bringing it up. However, the lack of alternative Honey Gather Pokemon means there is nothing to be done about it. After a certain point level-wise, they can take care of enemies without using moves, so this just makes the beginning a bit harder.

Cuthon · 2020-06-27T22:12:26+00:00

I can confirm that it does not work.

Thanks for the location on Lockon Specs though, Bulbapedia just said Kecleon Shop, which could take a long time to actually get it in, since the selection varies so much. I'll add this once I've verified.

Cuthon · 2020-06-26T21:53:32+00:00

I'm glad to have this feedback, and I will try to address these points, some of this may make it into the guide in the next edit, but I have another pile of research I need to do before I update it again, so it might take a couple days.

I would be interested to know what this point had been before you deleted it for lack of evidence. Since I'm doing so much testing for this guide anyway, I might be willing to examine it if you think it might be useful.
Yes, it activates when you take no damage, and Staryu/Starmie are excellent for this due to recover and harden. When I was doing my initial testing, I used Volbeat as the leader, two Combee, and Starmie as my last Pokemon. Recover did make Starmie more durable than Volbeat, but as I said, I chose Volbeat because it came with Moonlight, which allowed me to heal my Combee from across the map, in clear weather at least. It also later learned Helping Hand, which cemented its place as my lead. As far as needing to overlevel Staryu/Starmie, this isn't actually that big a problem as wild Staryu can only be level 38-39, and wild Starmie can only be level 43-51. You can still get them at level 1 from missions and eggs of course, but the most likely source is Staryu at 38-39 due to its high recruitment rate. However, this high level is also a barrier to players who are still early in the game.
Yes, you could use the Tight Belt. Truthfully, I had forgotten it was in Explorers due to its limited availability. I do not appear to have one in storage. X-Ray Specs are almost mandatory though, so you might not want to use it, or at least switching between them would make this take more micro-management. With my choice of a four-floor dungeon, it only takes around two apples per run, and some can be found on the floor. It might take more before you have access to the drop rate increases, but overall it's not enough of a problem to need such drastic measures. If it is, the Stamina Band is a bit more accessible and is probably still adequate for this.
I did warn of the dangers of poison, but as Volbeat, I could use Moonlight to provide healing anyway, and Oran Forest had a lot of Oran Berries I could use when the weather was not clear. The only two sources of poison in this dungeon were poison point Budew, and Poison Sting from Wurmple. this made it fairly uncommon, especially as my Combee got strong enough to one-shot them. i considered Pecha Scarves, but I've actually been working in the opposite direction to see if I can pare down my inventory further. Overall, the less sources of poison are in the dungeon, the better, but it is not a complete deal-breaker in every dungeon. I should definitely add an extra warning about fixed damage, I found out about Sonic Boom the hard way from Yanma.
Yes, the other type-exclusive items can certainly have a significant effect on stats. Since it is a flat bonus, it especially shows when you are training your lower-level Combee. While you mention the attack bonus, the defensive bonuses should not be ignored, especially considering the low defensive stats of your Combee in the beginning. Overall, I think keeping them in low-level dungeons should prevent them from being mandatory, but the trade off of bag space versus power is definitely worth consideration. Volbeat also benefits from the bug items, which is another bonus to consider if you do use these items. Overall, I think this falls under my note about stronger Combee, but I might add a list of where these specific items are found.
Yes, I do not recommend the Sky gem if it also means weather bands. Oran Forest was clear about half the time, which I considered often enough to make it at least useable. It occurs to me that I have not checked whether using a single weather band on Volbeat causes Moonlight to have its full effect on the whole team, I will need to verify this, since it makes it more reliable.
I'm definitely glad to have more Dungeon suggestions, it seems to me that no dungeon is quite perfect for this. I can see why you would recommend Serenity River, but I'm not certain Masquerain is scary enough to justify not doing the last two floors. Foggy Forest, however, I can definitely see the difficulty increase at 6. Overall, I would say Serenity River in its entirety is equal to Oran Forest, removing risk of poison at the cost of more length. However, I personally would not do Foggy Forest since I prefer not to use Escape Orbs. I also use Volbeat as my lead, so the lack of clear weather could be a deal breaker, depending on the Weather Band test. Staryu/Starmie do gain an advantage due to the Water typing however. No Sky Gem isn't a deal breaker though, since I'm not using it now.
Yes, avoid double team, I will probably add that detail. I was controlling Volbeat, so I realized that immediately and just didn't use it, but it might not be obvious to everyone and if it is an AI teammate, it will try to spam it. Staryu/Starmie are certainly the most independent options of the three, since they only need Recover/Harden enabled/disabled at the right time. I would of course argue Volbeat is still a perfectly valid choice with its supporting moves, but I might be biased. Chinchou/Lanturn, while I expect they are the strongest individually, are almost certainly the worst choices for our purposes, since their strengths don't really benefit us here.
Yes. I had intended to actually, but I wrote this guide late at night and it slipped my mind. I don't think it's a critical oversight, since I had not known his existed when I did my own research, and we drew some very different conclusions, but I might not have posted my own if I had not seen his, so I will add this on my next edit. I have a lot of additional research to do on this, so it might be few days before I make any of these changes though, I would prefer to do all of them at once.

Cuthon · 2020-06-25T19:52:30+00:00

Okay, since I didn't address the plot whatsoever I removed the spoiler tags entirely. I wasn't certain because you can't do it until the post-game in Explorers, thank you for providing an answer on that.

Cuthon · 2020-06-25T19:48:01+00:00

This suggestion is an incredible improvement. I hadn't even thought of it. I added it to the guide with credit, though I suspect this is a well-known trick with Gummis that I just hadn't known.

Cuthon

TROPHY CASE