The Step-by-Step Guide

That hopefully is followable ^^;;

Step 0 - Deciding + Double Checking

  1. Decide what you want to get, of course!
  2. Make sure you have everything you need in-game (Sweet Scent pokemon, Chatots, Pokemon for catching, an open space in your party if you're doing the catch + check method)
  3. Have all of the programs needed downloaded and ready to go
  4. Review all of the stuff on the other pages!!

Step 1 - In-game Setup

  1. Set up your location in-game so you're standing EXACTLY where you need to be to encounter the pokemon you want, such as in the patch of grass, or in front of a static encounter.
  2. Take a note of where the roamers are on the pokegear (if you have them).
  3. Save and turn off the game.

Step 2 - Pokefinder Searching

For the sake of this guide, I am going for a wild pokemon, the process is very similar for static encounters just with some different settings. Eggs are a whole other situation.

  1. Open Pokefinder
  2. Make sure you're in the right tab (Gen 4)
  3. Choose the encounter type you're going for (Wild)
  4. You should HOPEFULLY understand this page if you looked over the Pokefinder Guide page, refer back to it for reminders!
  5. SWITCH TO THE SEARCHER TAB!!!!
  6. In the Settings and Filters sections, input all of the information corresponding to the pokemon you want to get.
    • [Reminder: Shiny should be set to "Star/Square"]
    • [Advice: Set the IV filters to at least 15 each or so even if you don't care about stats much, Pokefinder gives lower IV results first.]
    • [Notice:TAKE NOTE OF THE TIME OF DAY, you'll have to take that into consideration later if your pokemon is in an encounter slot that changes with the time of day.]
  7. Set Min delay/Max Delay
    • Keep Min Delay at 600 or you won't be able to load the game in time
    • Max delay is essentially the maximum wait time that a result could have, I keep it under 2000 because I'm impatient. Anything 2000 or below should allow you to do a reset in under a minute. You may need to set this further out to get results with better stats.
  8. Set Min Advance / Max Advance
    • Keep Min Advance at at least 15, since you will need to take up some of the advance steps to check your seed. [Advice: You can mess with this later of course, but for the first time I'd say 15 is safe]
    • Set Max Advance to as many advance steps as you're willing to take before reaching your result. [Advice: I would keep this on the lower end for your first tries, just because as you do more of them it's more likely that you'll lose count and mess it up. Or at least it is for me lol. If you want better stats you'll likely have to set this futher out.]
  9. Choose which of the resulting pokemon you want to go for!
  10. Right Click the seed in that row, and click "Generate Times for Seed"
  11. This will pop yet another a new window!

Question - Do you care about the date being accurate/are you aiming for a certain date?

If so - the first thing you should do is scroll down the list of the date/time column and see if there's one on there that is for the date you want. If not, you'll have to go back and choose a different seed.

Question - Do you know if your game's delay is even or odd?

yep! "no & idk what that even means"

For some reason, each game only can hit even or odd delays. In my case it's odd, meaning that if the delay that shows up in the Delay column here was 952, i wouldn't be able to hit that delay. The options here are either to change the year, or go for a different seed. [Note: There are ways to flip your delay if you're really dead set on a certain seed on a certain date, I'll note them later.]

Now continue on with this information in mind! Figuring out if your delay is even/odd will happen as part of the process.

Step 3 - Seed to Time

  1. SWITCH TO THE CORRECT TAB!!!! (HGSS) This always defaults to DPPt.
  1. MAKE SURE THE TIMES GIVEN ARE COMPATABLE WITH THE POKEMON YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.
    • Morning: 4 AM - 10 AM (04:00 - 09:59)
    • Day: 10 AM - 8 PM (10:00 - 19:59)
    • Night: 8 PM - 4 AM (20:00 - 03:59)
    • Your results will all be pretty close together in time, if your pokemon cannot be found at the time shown, you'll need to chose a different seed.
    • [Note: if you choose a time very close to the game rolling over to the next date, you'll probably need to adjust your date with each attempt as well.]
  1. Optional, if your delay is under 2000: Are you impatient & want a shorter wait time?
    1. Put your delay from the table into Eon Timer as "target delay"
    2. Mess with "target second" starting at 32, and going upwards, until the "minutes before target" number is 0, and the first timer it gives you is above 16
    3. Put that target second into the Second box in the Generate Time from Seed window
    4. This will make it so that your wait time is as short as possible!
  1. Fill out where your roamers were when you saved the game and closed it last
    • R - Raikou, E - Entei, L - Lati@s
    • If you didn't take note of where they were and have already closed the game, just reopen the game, take note, and save again. It's important to have these down because it can change the RNG by a bit.
  2. Press generate. This won't look like it changes the Date/Time/Delay table if you didn't input seconds, but it did.
  3. Click the row with the date that you want from the date/time table.
  4. Leave calibration/seconds at the default, these only need to be changed if you're having issues later, and press Generate [PICTURE HERE]
  5. This will give you the calibration table. It will initially focus on the seed you are aiming for, as well as show you the nearby seeds. We'll worry about what we do with all of this in a bit!

Step 4 - Eon Timer Setup

  1. Go to Eon Timer, make sure your Calibrated Delay and Seconds are set correctly (490 delay & 14 seconds for HGSS)
  2. Enter the seconds value of the time selected in Pokefinder, and your delay.

[Note: I'm going to make a page on Eon Timer as well tho it's a lot shorter, explaining the beeps and shit]

Huh, am I missing a step or is this really short?

Question - What DS System are you using?

Standard DS or DS Lite DSi 3DS with Cartridge 3DS with TWiLight Menu++ (don't do this one) Emulator (can't help you there)

Step 5 - Starting your Resets

  1. Open up your DS, and go to the settings
  2. Change the date to the date in Date/Time
  3. Open up the clock, change the time to the time in Date/Time, but do NOT press confirm yet.
    • If Eon Timer says "Minutes Before Target" is more than 0, you'll need to subtract that number from the time shown on the table when you put the time into your DS! So if your time is 16:55, and it says "Minutes Before Target: 1", you'll have to set the DS time to 16:54.
  4. Hit "Start" on Eon Timer at the same time as you press "Confirm" on the clock on your DS
  5. Press B to back out of the DS Settings until it shuts down, then turn the DS back on
  6. Wait on the home screen, ready to open the game, until Eon timer reaches the end of it's first timer.
  7. When it hits 0, open the game.
  8. Smash A until you reach the menu where you can load into the game. Wait there, ready to open your save file.
  9. Load the game when Eon Timer's second countdown reaches 0.
  10. Pause the game ASAP

Step 6 - Checking Your Seed

Okay, not to brag, but both of my test runs while writing this I've hit the seed I was going for on the first try lol?????

XD This actually makes it harder to write a guide when I don't have to do the "try again!" steps, whoops...

Anyway, hopefully you manage to pause the game before any RNG advances. It's not a huge deal if not though, as the tools in pokefinder will still work for confirming your seed anyway, and having a few extra at the beginning won't mess you up unless you were going for a SUPER early advance.

Reminder not to open the radio when you open the Pokegear!

  1. First thing and easiest thing to check is the Roamers, open the Pokegear and check your map. Pokefinder will show where your roamers should be located in the "Calls" column of the calibration, (which no that doesn't make any sense. It's a glitch, the actual Calls column is called "Coin flips" instead, left over from the DPPt side.)
    • If your roamers are not in the right place, you know you didn't land on the right seed, but if you're just starting your attempts don't restart yet.
    • If they are in the right place, you could technically skip the calls in this section and move onto the generator tab. I personally still do the calls just to confirm for sure, and to pin down what advance I'm on, in case there were NPC movements before opening the menu.
  2. Next to check is the dialogue in the calls from Juggler Irwin (or Elm), these are marked by letter in the "Coin Flips" Column.
    • If you have roamers, it will show the first two as "skipped" because those are the RNG advances that the roamers use when their locations are determined.
  3. Press the "Search Calls" button in Pokefinder, then move over to your phone in the Pokegear and start to call your buddy Juggler Irwin!
  4. Hope and pray that there aren't very many "P" calls in the seed you landed on.
  5. As you make calls, press the corresponding letter button in the Search Calls popup, If you're on the right seed and not just checking for calibration, write down these calls elsewhere too, you'll need to keep track of what advance you're on as well
  6. Keep going until it says "Possible Results: 1", then press "Ok" (NOT cancel, cancel will just close it.)
  7. This will highlight the row with the seed that you landed on, if you hit the one you were aiming for yay! Congrats! & If you did it on your first try, wow you're as good at this as I am! :D
  8. If you did NOT, and the delay you hit is NOT the same even/odd-ness of the one you were aiming for, [delays explaination here],
  9. If you did NOT, and the delay you hit IS the same even/odd-ness of the one you were aiming for, [calibration explaination here]

Step 7 - The Generator tab, finally.

  1. Copy your seed, and switch to the Generator tab back in the main Pokefinder window.
  2. Fill in your Seed, Encounter Location, and Time [image here of those circled].
    • You do not need to fill out the filters or the Pokemon section, you want the table to show EVERYTHING at the moment, not just certain results. There is a "disable filters" option if you do fill out any of that though.
  3. Have Initial Advances at 0, and set Max to something shorter like 100, this just controls how many rows of the table it shows you.
  4. Press Generate, this will show you every RNG advance for the seed you've landed on!
  5. Here's where you want to have kept track of the calls, (which I totally did not do during my testing here lol.) Count down the rows for each of the calls you made to figure out what advance you're on.
    • As an explaination of the process, I know the first two of mine were skipped because of the roamers. I also know that I got the calls of "EEPPEP" when verifying my seed. So my next advance should be advance 8. To be 100% sure I'm on the advance I think, I use that advance to make another call, it should be P, and it is. 9 should be K, and it is. So I can be 100% sure that my next advance will be 10.
  6. Now you can switch over to the chatot. Typically, I click the chatot pitch cell of row I'm in, and then press down on the keyboard as I hit the buttons to switch between the Chatot summary screens. This will keep the current chatot pitch highlighted as you listen to them.
  7. Switch between the chatot's summaries and follow along with the rows in Pokefinder until you reach the advance BEFORE!!! the one you are aiming for.
    • The pokemon I'm aiming for is on advance 21, so I would listen to chatot cries until I am on the row that says advance 20, the next row should be the one with the pokemon you're aiming for.
  9. Back out of the Chatot summary, and use sweet scent! :D You should get the pokemon you wanted!
    • Or if you're going for a static encounter, back out of the menu and IMMEDIATELY press A. In some locations there's a small chance of NPC movement between the menu closing and your input happening,