This accusation is not entirely without merit: after all, it is damn near impossible to have a natural team of max stat monsters with no shark as an aide.

As I have said numerous times, the odds of getting a max stat monster are 1/65536. This means that it happens: I think there have been a couple documented max stats Mewtwos, and probably a few others.

Having all max stats on six monsters is less likely than going to a role playing convention with a character that has all 18s (max human stat in D&D).

Let's say it takes 30 seconds to get in a fight, capture a monster, and check his stats. Then, on *average*, it will take 32768 minutes = 546 hours = 22.76 DAYS of CONSTANT PLAYTIME to catch a single max stat monster.

Even at that it isn't guaranteed.

Making that claim for all six monsters is laughable, honestly.

It may be theoretically doable, but walking in with 6 max stat monsters to a tournament is basically saying "I spent around 4000 hours playing pokémon, devoted solely to catching these six monsters. I ignored food, sleep, sex, and the use of the bathroom for this time".

If that were your claim, that might actually be ok. After all, just doing that shouldn't mean that you have the use of a powerful monster, right?

The only problem is this: unlike max stat EXP, max stats aren't guaranteed. You aren't just claiming to save time.

Is this bad? I would fight people who have max stats. However, if you are going to a Nintendo sanctioned tournament that does not allow the use of Gameshark, having max stats is effective acknowledgement of sharking.

Basically, if it smells like a shark, it probably is.

Now it's up to each person what they do in personal duels, and it's also up to you whether you want to take risks in tournaments. You all know how to get max stats (if you don't, go to the main page and poke around). For those who weren't listening before, here is how to get high stats.

By using the max stats codes, you are rolling dice for yourself and claiming they all come up high. It isn't at all unreasonable to demand max speed, special and hitpoints: the odds of those three being max are only 1/1024 (2^[4+4+2]). I've seen that before, it isn't all all unreasonable.

Here are the familiar max stats codes:

01FF86D1 <-ATT DEF R/B
01FF87D1 <-SPD SPC R/B

Here are the more generic codes:
01 WX 86D1
01 YZ 87D1

Remember that all numbers are in hex. That means they go:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

This isn't particular to the gameshark or anything: this is how machines work.

Those sixteen values are the values taken by all five genes.

Note that adding 2 to 8 yields A, so if I say "if this gene has an odd value, add 4 to your hit point gene", and it was previously 8, then it would be C.

W is your attack gene. Attack yields the following things:

1) Damage done by physical attacks is directly proportional to your attack score. A monster that uses physical attacks should have a high attack gene, preferably max. Like all genes, this is determined when you either meet or catch the monster (consult an emulator with savestate if you really care).
2) Damage done to yourself during confusion is directly related to this gene. Monsters that have no physical attacks and won't be struggling should consider getting this gene as low as possible.
3) The hitpoint gene is based slightly on all of the other genes, but more on attack than the others. If you know binary, then the least signifigant bit of the attack gene becomes the most signifigant bit of the hit point gene. In any case, having this number be odd increases your hit point gene by 8 (if you are taking these in order, it started at 0, and is now 0 or 8). This is because the hit point gene is composed of the least signifigant bits of the Attack, Defense, Speed, and Special genes (in that order). Having the least signifigant bit set makes a number odd.

X is your defense gene. Defense yields the following things:

1) Physical damage done to you is inversely proportional to your defense score. It is extremely important to monsters with low base defense values, like Chansey, as it's proportional effect is much greater.
2) Damage done to yourself during confusion is also reduced by a high defense.
3) Having an odd number as your defense gene yields a increase to your hit point gene of 4. This means that it is either 8, 4, C, or 0 by now.

Y is your Speed gene. Speed has the following effects:

1) Monsters with bigger speed go first. This is a very big deal, as if you will both fall in two rounds you will still be rather healthy if you went first. This has the most benefit when the opponent is weak to you, or your moves are extremely strong, or status modifiers are involved.

Speed is very important for monsters that will meet monsters of similar speed. If your monster is almost guaranteed to go last, it isn't as important.

2) The functioning of "1 Hit KO" moves is dependent on speed in the Gameboy version.

3) Having an odd value for the speed gene
increases your hit point gene by 2. This means that, if you are going in order, you hit point gene is either 2, 4, 6, 8, A, C, or E by now.

Z is your special gene. Special has the following effects:

1) Damage done by your special attacks is directly proportional to your special score.

2) Damage done to you by special attacks is inversely proportional to your special score.

Special is important to any monsters that will be using special attacks, and also any that will be hit by them (most of them ). Remember that, unlike speed, having a point of special above or below an opponent isn't as big of a deal, as the damage formula uses random numbers, so a series of bad or good rolls is more signifigant than having a point or two of special (this is also true for attack and defense).

3) Having an odd value for a special gene increased your hit point gene by 1. This means that, if you are going in order, your hit point gene is now determined to be one of the sixteen possible hex values (0 to F)

Please keep in mind that this is mostly a condensation of previous articles and posts: much of it has been on Azure forever.

For 1 hit KO:
http://www.math.miami.edu/~jam/azure/attacks/comp/ko.htm

For general combat info:
http://www.math.miami.edu/~jam/azure/compendium/combat.htm

and this covers that stats in more detail than I have:
http://www.math.miami.edu/~jam/azure/compendium/catching.htm

What this is about is this: apparently, some people have gotten busted in tournaments, and having max stats on their monsters only makes things worse. If you suspect this will happen to you, please shark yourself new, mortal stats.

An example:

Let's say you want a Jolteon. You want his speed max definitely, and his hitpoints max or close. Given your moveset, you don't care about attack. You decide on this moveset:

Attack= 3
Defense= 7
Speed= F
Special= C

From the above, 8*1 + 4*1 + 2*1 + 1*0 = E
Hit point= E

This monster is a strong fighter! Will he lose to a max stat Jolteon? Maybe, maybe not. Having max speed (a one in sixteen chance) is the big thing, and I assure you that all monsters with a speed this high should try to max out. The few points shy in other areas will, by and large, not make a difference...

Except that you won't get disqualified!

Please post opinions, responses, and corrections. Input welcome, as always.

-cfalcon

Err... I mean, what are you talking about? You must have misquoted me. As you can see from above, I didn't make that mistake!

------------------
-cfalcon

Also, remember that with the exception of Speed, genes are more important on lower stats than they are on higher ones. For example, a Chansey with maximum Defense and minimum HP will take about 25% less damage from physical attacks than one with min Defense and max HP.

...my 2 cents, keep the change...

to these values:
01FD86D1
01FD87D1

It looks real enough, and no-one could tell the difference.

I don't even think having a max stats monster is that indicitive of sharking... having a whole team full of them might be considered that, though.

------------------
-cfalcon

Personally, I'm gonna go for pokemon like:
Snorlax (IBeam, DE, Rest, Amnesia) with Genes as: F attack / F Special / F Defense / Any odd number Speed
makes sense for as 'Lax with that set. BTW, cfalcon, how do I see what the chances are with normally catching a pokemon with certain gehes, and maybe one or more stats that just need to be odd?

------------------
ZZTRaider | zztraider@yahoo.com | AIM: ZZTRaider | ICQ: 15030114
* ZZTRaider wonders how Mew survived Labor with Mewtwo
I use Mewtwo, and I don't care if you think he's cheap or not. He'll always be on my team (except in situations where Mewtwo is banned for some stupid reason), including on G/S, not for stats, but because I like him as a pokemon. So there!

There are sixteen bits. Let's say you want max speed and special.

Speed is four bits, and special is another four bits. This means that you need 8 bits to be 1.

XXXX XXXX 1111 1111

2 to the 8th = 256. Odds are 1/256

Now lets go for max speed and hit points. Each of these are four bits long, but they cross:

XXX1 XXX1 1111 XXX1

Well, that's 7 bits, 2 to the 7th = 128. Odds are 1/128, so this happens twice as often.

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-cfalcon

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--EYNH
"The lone person who has cloned so much his cart cloned itself....is not me."

A max stat monster doesn't just have max stat EXP: it also has max genes. A monster with max genes in an attribute has 30 more points than one with min genes in an attribute. This is *extremely* important with speed, usually.

If you caught your monsters normally and boxed them, no one will accuse you of sharking (at least, I hope not: if you use max stat codes to max your monster's genes you might catch slack, however).

Quick hex reference:

0 = 0
1 = 1
2 = 2
3 = 3
4 = 4
5 = 5
6 = 6
7 = 7
8 = 8
9 = 9
A = 10
B = 11
C = 12
D = 13
E = 14
F = 15

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-cfalcon

quote:

---

I don't know if this matters but with pokémon that use more Special attacks than anything, you want to give them the lowest Attack possible so you do not suffer as much from Confusion...anyway, that's what I did with my gengar...

---

Lame as it is, I put 1 in the Attack gene if my pokemon doesn't use Physical attacks.
8 is quite a big chunk of HP!

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-magmar5

"I can play chess, KING ME!" -Me

I'm sad that people can be DQ'd for that...

A couple points over max stats did you say? I might even catch that. I'd definitely catch it on speed or hit points in Stadium with a well known monster like Mewtwo...

I think Stadium clears illegal status mods anyhow.

Those actually ARE cheating, no doubt about it. At least the game is meant to handle max stats...

Or maybe that's what you meant. I could have misread it.

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-cfalcon

It's highly unlikely that they read Net forums, since they didn't even know how to do the box trick right...

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damn hackers deleting my shit!
-StaRMiE121

Well, due to something in G/S Givera and I have agreed not to reveal on a forum lest
Nintendo spy and fix, a max-stats full team may be very possible on G/S. There is a
way to transfer any Pokemon's genes to any pre-evolved Pokemon (I'm not sure what
happens if they're fully evolved). This is the same way Shiny Pokemon are cloned; by
copying the genes. In this way, a platyer only needs ONE max stat Pokemon to get as
many as he wants.

Also, when you're talking about high-level players, there's really no way to judge
Gameshark or not. It's a horrible paradox between getting max stats and getting
called; if you train the old-fashioned way and get the whole team, you'd still probably
get called for Sharking, which would be rather insulting...

The only thing I could see doing is just Sharking them on another game and trading
them over as to leave no signs. If I went to a national tourney, I wouldn't take any
risks of anything; I'd put my 6 Pokemon (maybe a few more) on my Yellow cart, take it
to a tourney, and that would be it.

Also, keep in mind, if someone has a group of say, 5 friends, who all help try to get
maxed Pokemon a couple hours a day, it's doable. then they can each all clone each
other them and kick ass in tourneys. And the fact is, incredible things don't just happen
in the movies. It wouldn't be surprising to me if something could get a team of 6
maxed Pokemon. Hell, once Crystal comes out, we can have 20 or 30 people on our
forums all working at once, if that's what it would take.

The question is whether it's worth it. the answer is no. NO MATTER HOW YOU DO IT, it's
EXACTLY the same end result. When you walk in that door to the tourney with your
millions-of-hours-taken maxed Pokemon, you're going to be NO different than if you
had Sharked them, besides the fact you might have witnesses.

Also, the other fact is that I don't think Nintendo is even sure exactly what the max
stats are (at least the judges). I'm sure an extra 2 pr 6 points over a non-maxed one
won't look suspicious. I think the only reason Philo got DQed on the UK tourney is
because someone ratted him.

In conclusion, GameShark is probably, even with DQ possibilities considered, your best
bet for winning. Playing down a few notchs wouldn't prove much. To the trained eye,
max stats are obvious, but to a judge's eye, they may be considered nothing more
than higher. What can the judge do? DQ you on the spot for us of GameShark? If you
complained to the organizers and held your case, I'm sure the judge wouldn't ever do
that again. The fact is, since they can't prove you didn't do it through hard work, they
have no case besides circumstancial evidence. Otherwise, not only are the GSers
screwed, but the players who take their time are too, which means no matter how you
do it you're equally screwed over.

Of course, I, and I hope the rest of you, don't intend to repeat Philbo's case. I don't
plan on talking about how I train my Pokemon, and if/how I use GameShark, so all of
their evidence will be circumstancial should they try to DQ me. If someone tried to DQ
me because they said I posted that I use a GameShark, I could confidently say they're
a lier. Someone who supports GameSharks is no more a GameShark user than
someone who supports abortion is someone who has had an abortion.

Anyhow, this is WAY too long. In the end, it comes down to one logical conclusion:

If you have a Shark, use it to get max stats.

yeah I agree

Second, if you legally have a team of six max-stat Pokémon, then frankly, I still wouldn't weep for you if you got DQed. It could be the best thing to happen to you. You'd probably realize the staggering amount of time you spent hunting Pokémon and start to focus more on getting a life (or at least settling for less suspicious Pokémon).

You'd be amazed how well you can get by settling for Pokémon that have just two or three max stats. As long as one of them's Speed, you can take the Sharkers on. And there's little in Pokémon that's more satisfying than whooping the ass of a cheating rat bastard.

-Velox, disgusted by Sharkers in general.

Using growth hormones and steroid in the Olympics is banned because:

(1) It's dangerous to the athletes: you wouldn't be able to compete and win unless you did a regiment of liver destroying drugs.

(2) It lets you do things beyond "normal" human performance.

A surgeon can't operate on a person's heart without drugs, but there are inherent disadvantages to using them casually.

That actually is cheating.

Sharking max stats? That doesn't even get you something outside of the rules, just outside of the realm of likely things.

Disgusted? Calm down.

Not everyone has a shark. True. I got mine for 15 bucks, so it isn't a big deal, but the point you are making (it's external to the game) is valid. The point is that the things being done that we are discussing are valid within the rules of the game.

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-cfalcon