Pokémon FireRed Elite Four Round 2 FAQ

What is Elite Four Round 2?
This is a category extension of FireRed/LeafGreen, where we complete a few additional tasks to unlock and defeat the second, more difficult round of the Elite Four. These tasks include:
- Recording 60 pokédex entries to acquire the national pokédex
- Completing the Lostelle and Ruby/Sapphire sidequests on the Sevii Islands

Overall, these tasks make for roughly 90 minutes of additional gameplay compared to the current Any% WR route.

Technically, this is an Any% category so glitches are allowed; however, no glitches have been found in this game that can meaningfully save time on this route, so this is essentially a glitchless run as well. In addition, due to limitations in our understanding of manipulating RNG in this game, the only thing we can manip is squirtle; the rest of the run (including battles, encounters, and catches) is done manipless.

What is the WR?
The World Record is 3:27:52 by WaveWarrior.

Why FireRed over LeafGreen?
In the route, we buy 2 pokémon from the Game Corner. These pokes are significantly cheaper in FireRed than in LeafGreen; and given the already tight money route in this category, this makes LeafGreen virtually unviable to compete for WR.

(Squirtle manip/reset questions)
Since this is arguably the most complex part of the run (and it occurs within the first 2 minutes), I'll refer the explanation to pokeguy by linking his Any% FAQ here: <link tbd>. Note that while the steps to perform the manip are the same, IV requirements may differ between the two categories.

In this category the minimum IV's I accept are:
	21/4/x Atk
	16/0/x Def
	x/x/30 Sp Atk
	x/21/x Speed
Some notes on how to read this chart:
	- IV's are formatted as {- nature}/{neutral nature}/{+ nature} by stat.
	- x = N/A (i.e., I don't accept a nature where such an IV could be considered).
	- Stats not listed are considered to have no minimum requirements: 

I prefer higher attack Squirtles (15+ neutral generally) for this category since Squirtle is lower level (than Any%) for most of the segments where Squirtle's attack stat matters (i.e., Rival 3 through Rock Tunnel). However, there are minor workaround strats for lower attack Squirtles (these strats sometimes risk timeloss due to being at risk for being statused or missing ranges, etc.).

-- Outdated but I left this here since it's useful information anyway --
Early Surge has WR. Why late Surge?
While fighting Surge early (i.e., right after Rival 3) has a faster top end, the Surge fight itself is horrible. Like, really horrible. The late Surge route makes that fight trivial at the expense of some extra movement time (due to not being able to use fly yet) and some ranges in the Rock Tunnel segment due to being a lower level, many of which can be alleviated with some combination of a high atk stat and Torrent.

In other words, the new late Surge route allows me to grind the first ~hour of the run so I can get to the time bottleneck segments (aka catching segments) more often. And yes, late Surge can WR.