Pokemon Sword & Shield: How to Catch Shiny Pokemon

Pokemon Sword & Shield are out in the wild and plenty of shiny hunters have already begun looking to catch shiny versions of their favorite Mons. Here’s how to catch Shiny Pokemon in Sword & Shield.

How to Catch Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Sword and Shield

Percentage Chance

First, we need to discuss the percentage of actually discovering a shiny before we can go into how to turn the odds in your favor.

The percentage chance of finding a shiny version is 1/4096. That translates roughly into .002%. Now, it may sound impossible to catch one of these, but there are some tricks to making it a bit easier.

Let’s talk about chaining combos.

Chaining Combos

After you figure out which Pokemon you want to hunt the shiny variant of, you’ll need to find a location that has a lot of them. For instance, if you want a shiny Rolycoly, starting on Route 3 you’ll find an abundance of them.

The more Rolycoly you defeat in a row, the higher your chain combo will become. Once it hits 25 your chance of finding a shiny will increase.

Down below is a handy chart to see how the percentages play out.

You’ll also notice on the left-hand side it says number battled. Which is a new system in place for Sword & Shield. The game will keep track of how many times you’ve defeated a Pokemon with or without chaining.

After hitting certain thresholds your chances of finding a shiny increase. So if you’ve beaten a Pokemon 500 times your game will grant you something called “extra rerolls.”

This simply means that when you encounter a Pokemon it will roll the percentage chance of finding a shiny pokemon multiple times. In this case, it will reroll 6 times. Giving you higher odds of finding a shiny the longer you grind.

Shiny Charm

If you want to make shiny hunting even easier there is an item that will allow you to double your chances of finding a shiny. The Shiny Charm can only be obtained after you fully complete the Pokedex.

After that, you can speak to one of the developers in the Hotel located in Circhester Town. It will take a long time to get this, but it makes shiny hunting a whole lot easier.

Starter Pokemon are Shiny Locked

In previous games, you could reset your game over and over again in hopes of obtaining a shiny starter Pokemon. Well, in Sword & Shield your starters cannot be reset in order to change their appearance.

You’ll have to breed them at the nursery on route 5 if you’d like to obtain a shiny starter Pokemon.

Well, that’s everything you need to know about how to get shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Sword & Shield. For more tips, tricks, and guides, be sure to check out our extensive Pokemon Wiki Guide.

Some other guides you might find helpful can be found below.

• Where The Move Reminder Is & How to Relearn Moves
• How to Transfer Pokemon from GO, Let’s Go & 3DS
• How to Get XP & Level Up Pokemon Fast