The newest generation of Pokemon games are officially out and along with that are several new mechanics introduced into the game. One of them is called the S.O.S system, which allows wild Pokemon to call for help. While that might seem annoying at first, it’s actually something you want to take advantage of.
You’re going to run into the S.O.S mechanic in a normal playthrough of the games, but there are times when you’ll want to force it. This means finding the creature of your choice and using a move like False Swipes or Hold Back, so that the creature’s health will be low and will call for help. You can also buy a new item called the Adrenaline Orb, which will cause the likelihood of a Pokemon calling for help to increase.
When a wild Pokemon calls for help you might get the same creature or another one easily available, but keep this battle going because there is a chance it might call for Pokemon you can’t normally encounter. A good example would be that you can’t normally capture Gyarados, and would need a Magikarp to call for help to encounter one.
This means you could go through the whole game without running into certain Pokemon in the wild, because the battle would not last that long enough for it to spawn. You might even get some powerful Pokemon at lower levels because of the S.O.S system, such as running into a low leveled Dragonite because it was called by a Dratini. You should also take note of what the weather is like in a certain area, because there are Pokemon that will only appear by the S.O.S system if the weather is right.
Once you fill out your Pokedex, you can then move on to shiny hunting, which does become a bit easier with this new system. As the chain progresses, your chance of finding a shiny becomes higher, and if it isn’t a shiny then it might actually have perfect IV’s. Your overall chance of finding a better and cooler looking Pokemon increases as the chain goes on. This is the only way you can find Pokemon with their hidden abilities, and while you could do the same with breeding, this way will be faster because there is a less of a wait.
It would be the worth the time also, since you can get some EV training done while hunting for new creatures. As you go along in the chain, your Effort Points are multiplied by two, which makes things go along faster. If your Pokemon has a power item and PokeRus, you should be able to get 36 Effort Points from one Pokemon battle if you can chain 7 KO’s. This means you could max out those stats after one long chain and thus making your training sessions easier.
The S.O.S mechanic is something that should be used normally whether you are a casual player who wants to catch them all, or a competitive battler who is working on their next team. Hopefully this is a system that stays in place for the next generation of games.
Check out our wiki for everything related to more Pokemon Sun and Moon, including tips and tricks.
