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I know the basic gist of the Repel Trick, to manipulate what you encounter in the wild. It’s a handy tool in game, but it got me thinking on how it truly works in specific situations. Did a little math and want to know if my theory of how it works is correct for areas like the following.

In Hoenn Route 113 in Generation 3, there are 3 different types of Pokémon that can appear under normal circumstances:

  1. Spinda, Level 14-16, 70% of the time
  2. Sandshrew (RS)/Slugma (E), Level 14-16, 25% of the time
  3. Skarmory, Level 16, 5% of the time

I assume for the Spinda and Sandshrew/Slugma the 70% and 25% are even distributed among the 3 levels you can find them at (23 and 1/3 for each level of Spinda, 8 and 1/3 for each level of Sandshrew/Slugma) essentially making the Hoenn Route 113 encounter list:

Spinda
- Level 14, 23.3333% of the time
- Level 15, 23.3333% of the time
- Level 16, 23.3333% of the time

Sandshrew/Slugma
- Level 14, 8.3333% of the time
- Level 15, 8.3333% of the time
- Level 16, 8.3333% of the time

Skarmory
- Level 16, 5% of the time

Finally to the real meat of my question. If you lead with a level 16 Pokémon and use the repel trick do the odds change accordingly since the lower level Spinda and Sandshrew/Slugma are no longer possible thus increasing the percentages of those that remain by the average of the removed percentages (21.11111 repeating):

  1. Spinda, Level 16, approximately 45% of the time
  2. Sandshrew/Slugma, Level 16 approximately 29% of the time
  3. Skarmory, Level 16, approximately 26% of the time

Or does it just make it so you don’t run into the level 14 and 15s and keep the same basic 70-25-5 split between the three species?

by
I believe it would be the first possibility because the only thing repels do is prevent low level encounters, not changing the chances of high level encounters. I have no actual evidence or sources though.
I'm actually pretty sure it's the second possibility, you could test this pretty easily by just going to Route 113 with a level 16 Pokemon and seeing how often you encounter Skarmory; 5% to 26% will be a big difference


Also this: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/278300/what-is-the-encounter-rate-of-skitty-if-using-a-lv-repel-trick
Skarmory's encounter rate would be closer to 14% (0.05 / (0.233 + 0.083 + 0.05)), which means it would take more testing to confidently tell it apart from 5%.

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