Appendix:Repel trick
The Repel trick allows a player to find the highest-leveled wild Pokémon in an area. To perform it, the player needs several bottles of Repel and a Pokémon at a specific level. This trick works in all generations.
How to use
To perform the trick, the player simply needs any type of Repel (preferably multiple) and a Pokémon at a specific level at the front of the Party. Specifically, the Pokémon's level must be the same as (or possibly less than) the highest wild Pokémon level in the area.
This trick is possible because the Repel's effect is to prevent "weak" wild Pokémon from appearing. In this case, "weak" means a Pokémon at a lower level than the first Pokémon in the Party. This means that if wild Pokémon of multiple different levels (a range of levels) appears in an area, which is almost always the case, and the Pokémon at the front of the player's Party has a level in between this range, any wild Pokémon with equal or higher levels will continue to appear while any Pokémon with a lower level will stop appearing.
This trick can be useful for finding a specific Pokémon in an area, or for Pokémon of a higher level than the natural inhabitants such as Roaming Pokémon or Ultra Beasts. It can also be used with Pokémon luring Methods, such as the use of a White Flute and the Pokémon March broadcast to increase the probability of finding a Pokémon.
Perhaps the most common and well-known use of this trick is to find roaming Pokémon, as they are almost always on a (significantly) higher level than all other Pokémon that can appear in that area. It can also be also effective in Nuzlocke Challenges to attempt to make the first encounter a Pokémon of a certain kind that only appears at a certain level.
Examples
Mt. Silver
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At the exterior of Mt. Silver, the Repel trick can be used to find a Rapidash, which otherwise has a relatively low encounter rate of 10% at the most. The player should perform the trick during the Day, put a Level 44 Pokémon in front of his/her party, and use a Repel. Since the only wild Pokémon that can be encountered at Level 44 (or higher) during the day time are Rapidash, he or she is certain to find one. |
Route 111
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This is a list of wild Pokémon that can appear in the desert area of Route 111. In this case, if the player wants to find the highest-level wild Pokémon possible (a Baltoy in Ruby or Sapphire and a Cacnea in Emerald), he or she simply has to put a level 22 Pokémon in the front of the party and use a Repel. |
Trophy Garden
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Another common example is the Trophy Garden. One can use the Repel Trick with level 18 Pokémon with Compoundeyes to have higher chances of finding Chansey holding a Lucky Egg or Pikachu holding a Light Ball. This trick, however, works only in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, as levels of common Pokémon in Pokémon Platinum are higher. In Platinum, a player could use a level 24 Pokémon and only find Pikachu and Staravia. |
Kalos Route 12
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A specific example is Kalos Route 12. One can use the Repel Trick with level 27 Pokémon to find only Tauros and Miltank in the grass. If the player wanted to encounter only one of the two, a player could instead use a level 27 Pokémon with Cute Charm. Since both species have only one gender, Tauros is more likely to appear if the lead is female, and Miltank is more likely to appear if the lead is male. |
Limitations
- This trick cannot be used to find 'weaker' Pokémon in an area, which may in fact be rarer, such as a Larvitar found inside Mt. Silver.
- It does not work when fishing.
- It does not work when using Sweet Scent or Honey for Pokémon found by triggering a Horde Encounter.
- It does not work in phenomena or ambush encounters.
- It may also be difficult to obtain a Pokémon at a specific Level to do the trick.
- It appears to fail within Pokémon Sun and Moon due to all wild Pokémon having the same level range in their respective locations.