If you're hunting for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny Pokémon, you're in the right place. Shinies have been around since the days of Pokémon Gold and Silver, and are a different color for each Pokémon that is incredibly rare to find, taking up pride of place in many Pokefan's collections.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet change a lot from previous generations, so there is plenty to learn. For more information, check out our coverage, with articles on topics such as Pokémon Scarlet and Violet starters, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet exclusives, and Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Terastal Pokémon. If all you care about are the sparkles, our Pokémon ZA shiny guide might be worth a read as well.
Let's dive into our Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny guide.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny
Are Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny Pokémon visible in the overworld?
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny Pokémon are visible in the overworld, but unlike Pokémon Legends: Arceus, there's no audio or visual cue outside of their appearance. Some shiny Pokémon have a very similar color palette to their regular colorway (I'm looking at you, Gengar), so you will have to pay attention to see some of them.
Luckily, there's one easy way to spot if a Pokémon is shiny or not. When using the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Let's Go feature, you choose a Pokémon to explore the overworld with you, and they can take part in auto battles for resources and EXP. If you send your chosen Pokémon to attack a shiny Pokémon, they will refuse, with a small icon appearing over their avatar in the bottom left-hand side of the screen that resembles them
How do I increase Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny Pokémon odds?
Here are the best ways to add a couple of shiny 'mons to your team.
Wandering the world
The simplest way to encounter shiny Pokémon is the easiest, just wandering around the world. While the shiny rate is still around 1/4000, the fact that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet feature a large open world means that players can see more Pokémon at once than ever before.
To go alongside this, using the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Let's Go feature allows a Pokémon of your choosing to attack and knock out Pokémon in the overworld without a full battle. This clears the spawns, meaning more Pokémon appear in their place, and crucially, your Pokémon using the Let's Go feature cannot and will not attack a shiny Pokémon. Instead, they will stop in their tracks and look distressed, with a small effect appearing over their icon in the bottom left corner.
Mass outbreaks
Mass outbreaks are a mechanic introduced in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and they return for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. This sees a huge group of one particular species invade an area, much more than you would find in normal spawns. While these don't have increased shiny odds, just the fact that you encounter so many in one go highly increases your chances of stumbling across a shiny.
Breeding and the Masuda method
One of the major changes in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is the removal of the daycare, now instead of having to go to one place on a map repeatedly, you can breed eggs wherever you are with the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet picnic mechanic. Having two Pokémon that can breed in your party and setting up a picnic can produce some eggs, and you can also use specific Pokémon Scarlet and Violet recipes to increase the chances of eggs.
When breeding, any Pokémon that hatch will normally have exactly the same shiny chances as any other full odds encounter (1/4,000), but there's a technique called the Masuda method. Named after Pokémon staff member Junichi Masuda, if you breed two Pokémon from different regions, the eggs they lay have a much higher chance of producing a shiny, bringing the odds to around 1/683, though the exact odds for the Masuda method this time have yet to be tested.
Sandwiches
The newest way to increase your shiny odds in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is one of the most interesting players have had for a while. When setting up a picnic in the world of Paldea, you can use the ingredients you gather around the world to make tasty sandwiches for you and your Pokémon. The mixture of ingredients has a number of effects, including increased attack or defense against certain types of Pokémon, increased rates of certain types of Pokémon, and more.
Once you have completed the main story of Scarlet and Violet, you unlock access to five-star tera raid battles, to face off against particularly powerful Pokémon. These raids give you plenty of rewards, and one of the most important is an item known as the Herba Mystica. You can find sweet, sour, and more types of Herba Mystica this way, and combining them in a sandwich can increase your shiny odds for certain types of Pokémon. Some combinations will increase the odds for dragon Pokémon, and some will increase the odds for water, etc. To find a full list of sandwich recipes, you can read our Pokémon Scarlet and Violet recipe guide now.
Tera raid dens
The last and possibly least effective way to encounter shiny Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet is with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet tera raid battles. During Pokémon Sword and Shield's run, the Dynamax raids would occasionally increase shiny odds for the Pokémon featured, while we don't have confirmation on shiny odds just yet, but we expect this to be the case again with Scarlet and Violet.
Secondly, any Pokémon you encounter in tera raid battles can be shiny, but at the moment the odds are unknown and presumed to be the normal 1/4000 odds. We do not yet know if sandwich boosts can affect the Pokémon that spawn in tera raid battles of their shiny odds, but we hope to confirm this information soon.
What are the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet shiny rates?
While we wait for confirmation as to whether Pokémon Scarlet and Violet follow the formula of Pokémon Sword and Shield, the regular shiny rate for overworld encounters will be 1/4096, so it's not very likely. Though every game in recent memory has produced some sort of method of increasing the odds for specific Pokémon, like chaining encounters, so we fully expect there to be a similar wrinkle to shiny odds in the latest generation.
Alright, shiny hunters, that's all we have for now. For even more great content from Pocket Tactics, be sure to check out our guide to the best games like Pokémon for Switch to get your fix today.