Pokemon Hunting Guide

Hunting Buffs

• Shiny Buff: Improves your shiny chance from 1/4096 to 1/3277
• Rare Buff: Increases your chance to encounter rare pokemon
• Hidden Ability Buff: Improves your hidden ability change from 1/100 to 1/33

Hunting in a party

When hunting in a party, a rare buff is applied only when the person who is initiating the encounter has one active.

In a Triple Battle: Shiny Buffs, Hidden Ability Buffs and Syncs are applied as illustrated. The trainer on the far left will influence the wild Pokemon on the far right, and vice versa. The Trainer in the centre will influence the Pokemon in the centre. Trace is applied randomly and you can trace any mon within your reach. It is not efficient for party hunting.

In a Double Battle: Shiny Buffs, Hidden Ability Buffs and Syncs are applied as illustrated. The Trainer on the left will influence on his diagonal (on the right) and vice versa. Trace is applied randomly and you can trace any mon within your reach. It is not efficient for party hunting.

Hunting Pokemon

The following Pokemon abilities/moves are great utility to have in your party while you hunt:

• Arena Trap: Arena Trap prevents wild Pokemon from fleeing. This is useful when hunting Pokemon that have access to the move Teleport by leveling up
  
• Damp: Damp prevents wild Pokemon from using self-destructing moves. This is useful when hunting Pokemon that have access to Self-Destruct or Explosion by leveling up.
  
• Trace: Trace passively checks the enemy pokemon’s ability without you having to select a move. Common pokemon that have trace are Porygon and Raltz. Trace is great for hunting HA on common pokemon, however in a party battle Trace is random and you can end up tracing the same Pokemon. It also makes each wild encounter longer, so avoid having it as your encountering Pokemon when shiny hunting.
  
• Synchronize: “If a Pokemon with this ability is leading the party (even if fainted), there is a 50% chance that wild Pokemon encountered will have the same nature as the Pokemon with Synchronize.” Abra is the most common Sync used as its caught at a low level and is easy to kill when in your own party. The Sync pokemon can be fainted so you can have your hunting pokemon or Trace come out first, but Sync will always need to be in the first slot of your party.
  
• Sweet Scent: Sweet Scent is a move with a passive use: It allows you to create an encounter every 50 steps. This is useful for party hunting or solo hunting in the safari/battle park. This provides an efficient way to hunt in an area with limited steps. In the Battle Park if you hunt in a 3 man party, Sweet scent can add up to 100 extra encounters.
  
• Simple Beam: Simple Beam is an alternative to Trace. It is a move that removes an enemy Pokemon’s ability and tells you what ability it has. This is great for checking Hidden ability on rare Pokemon. There are a few alternatives to Simple Beam such as Role Play and Entrainment.
  
• False Swipe: “False Swipe inflicts damage, but will leave the target with 1 HP if it would otherwise cause it to faint. If the target has 1 HP remaining, False Swipe will hit and leave the target at 1 HP.” This is great for hunting Pokemon because the lowest HP they are, the higher your chances of catching them are.
  
• Spore: Spore will put wild Pokemon to sleep which increases your chance of catching them. This will fail on grass types or certain abilities that prevent sleep.
  
• Soak: Soak changes the type of wild Pokemon to water-type. This allows you to Spore grass types, and False Swipe Ghost types.

SMEARGLE:
Sketch is a move that allows the user to permanently learn the last move used by its target. Smeargle learns Sketch at Levels 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, 91, but it can only know 1 Sketch at a time. However you can teach it Sketch at a Move Reminder NPC at any level. Smogon has a great Guide on how to sketch desired moves onto your Smeargle.

Smeargle @ Smoke Ball Ability: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
– Spore
– Roost/Soak
– Simple Beam/Entrainment/Worry Seed
– False Swipe

Due to Smeargle’s poor base stats, he takes a hefty amount of damage from some pokemon if they wake up from his Spore. Roost supplements this by providing back-up sustain. Soak (Changes the target’s type to Water-type) is an alternative to this move slot as it allows you to Spore Grass-type pokemon and False Swipe Ghost-type pokemon. Simple Beam/Entrainment/Worry Seed allow you to check for a pokemon’s ability before catching it. This is best used for hunting a rare pokemon, as it eliminates the need for Trace which ends up saving you alot of time. These moves always also remove Shadow Tag and Arena Trap so you can run away. Technician + Adamant allows you to have the highest possible damage False Swipe (Always leaves the target with at least 1 HP). Smoke Ball ensures you can flee from undesirable encounters.

BRELOOM:
Breloom is a bulkier version of Smeargle and has more survivability/damage. However it has a more limited move pool and doesn’t have access to Soak or Simple Beam/Entrainment which has more PP than Worry Seed.

Breloom @ Smoke Ball/Toxic Orb
Ability: Technician/Poison Heal
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant/Jolly Nature
– Spore
– Synthesis/Seed Bomb/Stun Spore
– Worry Seed
– False Swipe

Smoke ball performs the same function as it does in Smeargle, but Toxic Orb gives Poison Heal Breloom consistent sustain. If you choose Toxic Orb (only do this if your trainer level and Breloom’s (Jolly) level is over 70 so you can run away from most mons successfully) over Smoke ball. Don’t run Effect Spore as an ability as it can poison pokemon accidentally; either run Technician or Poison Heal. Stun Spore has some utility as Worry Seed gives wild Pokemon the ability Insomnia which prevents them from falling asleep (from Spore).

ALTERNATIVES:

• Parasect is a great alternative early on as its very accessible, and has access to Damp as Hidden Ability.
• Pangoro has access to scrappy which can hit Ghost-types and learns False Swipe + Entrainment.
  

Catch Rate Calculator

There is a catch calculator which gives you the odds of catching pokemon, its very useful for pokemon that are hard to catch when you are conserving master balls.

Shiny Hunting

You have a 1/4096 chance of finding a Shiny in the wild. You can improve your luck with a Shiny buff which will give you a 1/3277 chance. Please note that it is not guaranteed that you will find a Shiny at 4096, nor is there any kind of pity system. These are just your odds per each encounter.

You can also find Phenomenons in Pokeone. These are special encounters with boosted Shiny and Hidden Ability chances. You will notice them by rustling ground/grass.

Shiny hunting is an endurance test so it is best to start off with easy hunts and work your way up to rarer Pokemon.