Beat Brock is Pokeclicker's shortest and most popular speedrun category. You start a new game and defeat Brock, the first Gym Leader. Runs of this category can take less than 30 seconds with the right combination of speed, strategy, and luck. As the current world record holder of all six subcategories of Beat Brock, here is my guide for anyone to get some crazy fast times.
General Tips
Starter: In all categories, choose Squirtle. It does at least neutral damage to all the Pokemon you encounter in this category.
Poke Balls: A Poke Ball animation takes 1.25 seconds long, and it has a chance to miss. The more Poke Balls you miss, the more time you will lose throughout the run.
HOW-BLU-COIN?: This code will skip most of the tutorial, including catching 5 Pidgeys and talking to Mom. Go to Start Menu -> Save to enter this code. Keep this code pre-typed before you start the run, and redeem it during the second catch animation in Route 1 so you can get right back to clicking.
OOOSHINY: For All Codes runs, you can either type in this code before the run starts to get a random shiny Pokemon, or choose a pre-made save with a Pokemon like Shiny Caterpie already caught. If you choose the latter, remember to type in the OOOSHINY code at the close of the run so the moderators know you have already used it. Go to https://www.speedrun.com/pokeclicker/resources for premade saves with the best shiny mons.
Lag: Unfortunately, Pokeclicker is not the most optimized game, so there can be lag at times. If your computer isn't top rate like mine, you may have to wait a few seconds between runs after the game boots up to avoid a lag spike at the wrong time.
Hotkeys: Hotkeys are extremely important to getting a good time.
- Use + and - to change routes (no need to hold Shift)
- Esc to exit some menus
- Hold P and a number key to select a catch filter
- 5 to turn a catch filter off, 1 to turn it back on
- 2 to enter the Mart in Viridian City
- Number keys to select items and B to buy
- Space to activate things, like opening chests and challenging Brock
Route swapping: EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! This is the single most defining trick in all Pokeclicker speedrunning. Once you defeat a Pokemon on any route, in our case Route 2, you can quickly press + and - in succession. The Pokemon and HP values will be loaded from Route 1, but the progress will count toward Route 2. Keep doing this over and over to drastically lower the HP you need to beat Route 2, as well as finding new Pokemon to catch.
Hyper Route 2: This advanced strategy in particular I use to get a blazing fast Route 2 split, 13 seconds or less. In the normal clicking run, for example, after catching a bug (Caterpie or Weedle), I rest my left hand on the + and - keys while the right hand scrolls the mouse wheel. The middle finger is on the - key, and the pointer finger is on the + key. However, I remapped both keys and swapped them so that the middle finger presses + instead, since the middle finger will apply more pressure to the key than the pointer finger. By effectively just vibrating my left hand with the right timing, I perform exactly 9 route swaps and clear the rest of Route 2 in about 2 seconds. This is extremely fast and precise, though, so it's easy to mess up or get lost.
The forest: Viridian Forest. The only dungeon of this run is a 5x5 grid of tiles you cannot see. Most contain wild Pokemon or Trainers, some contain treasure chests, but only one contains the dungeon boss. This is by far the most RNG-heavy point of the run, and it's right before Brock. The dungeon boss has 510 HP, excluding buffs from treasure chests.
Forest strategy: Ideally you would step on the first tile and go right onto the dungeon boss, but this is a 1 in 24 chance. Alternatively, you can click one chest to reveal all chest locations, and three chests to reveal the entire map. Each chest increases all dungeon Pokemon's HP by 20%. Don't be afraid to reset the run if you get an unfavorable map.
Brock: Brock has 2092 HP, all Rock/Ground types. Keep this in mind especially for clickless runs.
Now that we got all those out of the way, feel free to skip ahead to the subcategory you want to run.
Normal Clicks
Unfortunately, despite being the most popular category, normal clicking on Beat Brock is also the least accessible to achieve top times. Scroll clicking is allowed, so you want your mouse wheel to scroll as fast as you can to click the most per second. I use a Logitech M705 mouse, with a free scrolling wheel that can reach the 20 clicks per second cap with ease. Scrolling too fast can cause lag, so there is a good speed and rhythm you'll have to find, not too fast or two slow.
Alternatively, if you do not have a free scrolling wheel, you can flip the mouse upside down and move it back and forth across the table to also reach the 20 cps cap, though this can get very tiring, and might cause some wear on your mouse.
Anyway, let's talk about the actual run! Time starts as soon as you faint Squirtle. Press Esc to quickly exit a menu. Catch Pidgey and Rattata on Route 1, generally if you miss a Route 1 catch just reset the run. Remember to redeem HOW-BLU-COIN? at the first non-starter Pokemon you find during the catch animation and Esc out of some menus.
After 10 defeats on Route 1, click Close out of a menu (I position my mouse about top-left of where Aerodactyl is in the background) and Esc out of another menu. Press - to move on to Route 2, and refresh the route by pressing + and - over and over until you find a bug. Catch the bug or face a huge time loss. During the catch animation, hold P+2 and then 5 to turn off catching new Pokemon, then Esc out of the menu. Then you can use route swapping (+ and - with each Pokemon on Route 2) to fight 20 HP Pokemon instead of 185 HP Pokemon, over and over again. It takes good timing and rhythm to get good route swaps in, but muscle memory will kick in.
After 10 defeats on Route 2, press + to go back to Route 1. Catch Pokemon until you reach 400 coins. Then click Viridian City, and press the following buttons in quick succession: 23b4b. This will buy an XClick and the Dungeon Ticket you need to enter the forest. Click Close, then the XClick you just bought, then the forest location, and press Space to enter. Use the forest strategy I shared above, hopefully you will find the boss on the first tile. Defeat either the boss Weedle or Pikachu, then click Pewter City, and press Space to take on Brock!
For All Codes: Choose a save with either Caterpie or Weedle. We don't know for sure which one saves more time, but I like Caterpie more since it evolves into Butterfree and can get a few super effective hits on the boss Weedle. Whichever bug you choose, catch the other one on Route 2.
Clickless
Clickless is substantially different from all the other runs. It is the slowest and most RNG heavy of the bunch, but it can also surprise you. Before you choose Squirtle, be sure to click Challenge Modes and turn No Click Attack on as this is mandatory for all clickless runs. You also want the weather to be rainy or a thunderstorm as this gives a 1.1x boost to Water mons. You can change your system clock to have this weather if you desire.
Time starts as soon as you faint Squirtle. Press Esc to quickly exit a menu. Pidgey has 20 HP and Rattata has 19 HP, so you only really lose time on Route 1 if Pidgey is your first non-starter encounter. You can enter HOW-BLU-COIN? at any time on Route 1, but besides that, be prepared to wait for 50 seconds. And don't miss any catches, each miss can be a hefty time loss in lost Attack.
After 10 defeats on Route 1, click Close out of a menu and Esc out of another menu. Press - to move on to Route 2, and refresh the route by pressing + and - over and over until you find a bug. Catch the bug or face a huge time loss. You can then use route swapping (+ and - with each Pokemon on Route 2), or you can route swap onto Route 22 and catch a Mankey for additional help fighting Brock. During the desired catch animation, hold P+2 and then 5 to turn off catching new Pokemon, then Esc out of the menu.
After 10 defeats on Route 2, click Viridian City, and press the following buttons in quick succession: 24b. This will buy the Dungeon Ticket you need to enter the forest. Click Close, then the forest location, and press Space to enter. In clickless it's actually not a good idea to beeline for the boss unlike all other runs. Instead you want to find at least 1 XAttack from a chest, you can use the XAttack during a battle. Defeat either the boss Weedle or Pikachu, then click Pewter City, and press Space to take on Brock!
For All Codes: Choose the Poliwrath save. It does 4x damage to both Brock and all the Rattata. You can oneshot every rat, so there is a bit of extra RNG up until you can oneshot Pidgeys as well.
Autoclicker
Autoclicker runs are largely the same as Normal runs, but using an autoclicker with 100 ms intervals (10 clicks per second). Without a doubt the best autoclicker to use is the Pokeclicker Speedrun Tools extension on Mozilla Firefox. This not only has a built in autoclicker but live splits for each run. You can also move your mouse elsewhere while the autoclicker does the work for you, say have your mouse already on the Save button by the time the first catch animation appears. Refer to the Normal section of this guide for the walkthrough of this subcategory as they are mostly the same.
Conclusion
This guide was a lot longer than I expected, but it goes to show you how much in depth each 30 second run can be. As with all speed games, just keep trying and you'll eventually hit that awesome time you've been hoping for. There is still lots of optimization left to be done in each category, and I'm excited to see what the future of Pokeclicker speedrunning brings. Good luck!
