Pokemon Sword & Shield: Tips & Tricks for Beginners

Avoid Strong Pokemon Early On

When you first enter the Wild Area in Pokemon Sword & Shield you will likely be drastically under-leveled compared to some of the bigger creatures out there. It’s probably the easiest tip & trick to follow on this list. Just avoid them.

Some Pokemon might try to chase you down, but if you just stay away most of them won’t even care that you’re around. Also, most of these Pokemon will likely be too high level for you to catch anyway.

You can try battling them, but once you get wiped by a Mudsdale, then you’ll understand why you should avoid these Pokemon. There are a few like Diggersby that aren’t awful, but it’s just best to avoid them completely.

Solo One Star Max Raids Early

These are the big Pokemon that you want to take on. Of course, you’ll still want to level up a bit before jumping into Max Raids. I can’t speak for everyone, but you may not be strong enough on your first trip to the Wild Area.

However, it should become easier once you get a Pokemon to level 15. While you’re not technically soloing these raids in Pokemon Sword & Shield, the CPU-controlled trainers can make it feel that way.

They don’t usually pick good attacks or Pokemon for any given Max Raid, but they’re good enough to help you grind these battles which give you tons of valuable candies for leveling up and TRs for teaching new moves.

Balance Your Team

You need to make sure that your team of Pokemon isn’t susceptible to damage from a single type of Pokemon. Nothing is worse than running into a battle with Bede’s Psychic-types and getting wiped because you have all Fighting- and Poison-types.

You can do this manually, or there are many tools online that let you enter your team and it will let you know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Two of the most popular are the Team Type Calculator and the Marriland Team Builder for Pokémon Teams.

These are just a couple of basic tools to help you find your team’s deficiencies. An easy rule to follow is if half of your team is weak to a single type, then you should look at playing with your lineup.

Fill Your Pokedex

Ever heard of Gotta Catch ‘Em All? Sure, you can’t get every Pokemon this time around (what a travesty). It’s still incredibly helpful to fill out the Pokedex that you’ve given in Sword & Shield.

Filling it out will get you the Shiny Charm which makes it easier to find the alternate shiny forms of all the Pokemon in Sword & Shield. Besides that item, catching Pokemon also gives everyone on your team a bit of EXP.

Trying to catch every Pokemon will also expose you to new creatures that you maybe wouldn’t have given a chance in the past for one reason or another. It’s a good way to find new favorites.

Keep Autosave on or Save Often

This is one of the most crucial things you can do in any Pokemon game. One of the worst feelings in the world is doing a late-night Sword & Shield session, then falling asleep and waking up to a dead battery.

Fortunately, Autosave has been added in this game, which can help avoid these unfortunate situations. You’ll see the text in the upper right of the screen when it’s autosaving. Still, make sure that you also save your game manually whenever it comes to mind, just in case.

If you prefer the old fashioned way, then I’ll strongly suggest you get used to Autosaving instead. You can turn off Autosave, but it’s going to be your best bet to assure that you don’t lose any progress in Sword & Shield.

Learn the Type Chart

It’s the last on the list, but it’s most certainly not least. This may even be the most important thing to learn when you’re getting into Pokemon. This Periodic Table of Pokemon types can be quite intimidating, but there are some handy tricks to help you figure it out.

Bulbapedia has a nice type chart, but it can be a bit much to take in all at once. First, just focus on the advantages that make sense. For example, Fire beats Grass, Water beats Fire. Grass beating water is a bit harder to explain, but that’s just the way it is.

People online have come up with ways to remember specific type weaknesses like Psychic (the mind) being weak to common fears (Bug, Dark, Ghost). It’s not perfect, but these little tricks can help you learn an otherwise obtuse system.