How to catch shiny pokemon in scarlet and purple

There are few things in life sweeter than finding a shiny Pokémon – but nothing worth doing comes easy. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, like its predecessors, features shiny versions of 400 of the animals in the games. But getting them takes time, work and luck. Fortunately, though, there are a few ways to get lucky in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.

When Pokemon appear in Scarlet and Violet, they have about a 1 in 4,000 chance of being Shiny. These odds are not good, but they can be improved in three ways. Two of them are only available in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet postgame, but one aspect can be used very early on.

If you want to catch shiny Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet, here’s what you need to know.

Pokemon outbreaks are key

Here’s the basic shiny hunting method in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that you can do no matter how early you are in the game.

First you have to look for Pokemon hotspots. If you look at the world map, you’ll see Pokemon icons scattered around Paldeo. These indicate the focus where the area is flooded with the Pokemon in question. (Note that if you see a question mark on the map, it’s an outbreak of Pokemon you haven’t encountered yet.)

If you’re not happy with the Pokemon on offer, you can rotate your selection using a risky move. Go to your own Toggle the settings to change the date and time to a day in the future. A new day brings new Pokemon outbreaks.

Let’s say you’re after Magneton and you’ve found an outbreak in Glaseado Mountain. Now you have to kill Magneton – lots of them. Press ZR to activate Let’s Go mode, at which point your lead Pokemon will come out of its ball and then seek out and destroy it. This is much more efficient than engaging Pokémon one by one in standard battles. Yours the chance of finding a shiny Pokemon increases once you kill 30 – and increases even more once you kill 60.

Make sure you have a recording in your head, phone or computer. After you kill 60 of a particular Pokemon, the odds of finding a Shiny version of that Pokemon go from about one in 4,000 to just over one in 1,000.

Once you kill 60 it’s time to hunt. Explore the area for shiny. If there are none, have a picnic and then pack the picnic. Doing so will reset the pokemon in the area, giving you a new set of pokemon for the shiny to lurk in. Keep going until you find your price.

It’s important to note that finding a Shiny Pokemon often means checking it thoroughly. There is no shiny sheen in the open world around them, and no sound or other cues to indicate their presence. Only when you start a battle with a shiny Pokemon will it become covered in sparks during the opening battle animation.

Shiny Elemental Boost	Sandwich recipe
A normal glossy sandwich	1x Chorizo, 2x Savory Herba Mystica
Shiny Battle Sandwich	1x Pickled vegetables, 2x Salted Herba Mystica
Shiny fire sandwiches	1x Basil, 1x Sweet Herb Mystica, 1x Savory Herb Mystica
Shiny water sandwich	1x cucumber, 2x salty Herba Mystica
Shiny poison sandwich	1x Noodles 2x, Savory Herba Mystica
Shiny ground sandwich	1x ham, 2x salty Herba Mystica
Shiny rock sandwich	1x Jalapeno 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny psychic sandwich	1x Onion, 2x Savory Herb Mystica
Shiny electric sandwich	1x Yellow Pepper, 1x Salty Herba Mystica, 1x Spicy Herba Mystica
A shiny dark sandwich	1x smoked fillet, 1x sweet Herba Mystica, 1x salty Herba Mystica
Shiny Dragon Sandwich	1x Avocado, 2x Salted Herba Mystica
A shiny ice cream sandwich	1x Klawf Stick, 2x Salty Herb Mystica
Shiny ghost sandwich	1x Red Onion, 2x Savory Herba Mystica
A shiny steel sandwich	1x Hamburger, 1x Savory Herb Mystica, 1x Sweet Herb Mystica
A shiny fairy tale sandwich	1x Tomato, 2x Savory Herb Mystica
Shiny Bug Sandwich	1x Cherry Tomato, 2x Salty Herba Mystica
Shiny flying sandwich	1x ham, 2x salty Herba Mystica
Shiny grass sandwich	1x Salad, 1x Salty Herba Mystica, 1x Sour Herba Mystica

This method works and can be done early in the game. But your chances of finding a shiny Pokemon can increase dramatically once you beat the main storyline.

Five Star Tera Raids Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

If you’ve been playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet for any length of time, you’ve definitely participated in a few Tera Raids. These are the key to catching shiny Pokemon. Once you’ve completed the games three main quests, you’ll gain access to five-star Tera Raids. These boss encounters pit you against level 75 Pokémon, made even stronger by their terrastalized state and harnessing the chaotic crystal energy that flows throughout Paldea.

To maximize your chances of finding a shiny Pokemon, yyou must collect the ingredients for the Herba Mystica sandwich. Once you have the right combination, you can make sandwiches that increase your chances of finding a shiny Pokemon by 300%. In order to collect Herb Mystica ingredients, you must compete in five-star Tera Raids.

Unfortunately, Scarlet and Violet don’t exactly give them out – I had to do about six of these high level raids before I got my first Herb Mystica. Note that you can also get the Herb Mystic from the six-star Tera Raids that you unlock after defeating all the bosses in the Paldea gym a second time and winning the Academy Ace Tournament, but your chances of getting them don’t seem that high. So it’s best to stick to the easier (but still hard) five-star Tera Raids.

To give yourself a good chance of succeeding in these five-star Tera raids, you’ll want a crew of Pokémon between levels 80 and 90. Head to the Delibird Presents shops around Paldea to collect items to hold in battle. They are particularly useful Band selection and selection specificationswhich will significantly strengthen your attack or special attack, and Metronomewhich allows a move if you perform it multiple times in a row.

Once you’ve completed a few of these five-star Terra Raids, you’ll collect the Herb Mystic with luck. They come in several varieties – sweet, salty, spicy and so on. If you make a sandwich with the right combination of ingredients, you will increase your shiny Pokemon encounter rate by 300%. The catch is that each recipe correlates to a Pokémon element. So, for example, I wanted to look for shiny Magneton, which is an electric pokemon. So I created a sandwich that increases the chance of finding a Shiny Electric Pokemon.

And to further increase your chances of finding a Shiny Pokemon, you can use the Shiny Charm item. But to get it, you must first complete your Pokedex by catching all 400 Pokemon in Paldea. If you’ve caught all of Scarlet and Violet’s Pokemon, talk to Jacq in your school’s biology lab to get a shiny charm.

A combination of hearths and sandwiches

Now it’s time to put it all together. Once you’ve found the focus and killed 60 of the same Pokemon, it’s time for the real hunt. First pause the game, go to options and disable auto save. Then, manually save the game. Finally, create your sandwich using your rare Herb Mystica ingredients.

Sandwich buffs in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet only last 30 minutes. The reason you disable autosave and then save before creating a sandwich is so that if you don’t encounter a shiny Pokemon within 30 minutes, you can close the game and restart. before you have used your rare Herb Mystica resources. If you fail, you can reset it to after you’ve killed 60 Pokemon, meaning you won’t have to go through this laborious task again.

As you’ll see, once you put your sandwich together, you’ll get a 3x buff for a Sparky Pokemon of a certain type (see image above), depending on the recipe you used. Now it’s time to use the same method as above: Search the area for Pokemon, restart the Pokemon in the area by preparing and ending the picnic, wash, rinse and repeat until you find your shiny.

The hardest part is to collect Herb Mystic from the five-star Tera Raids. Once you’ve done this, you can usually find a shiny Pokemon in about an hour if you follow this method. Good luck!