Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Shiny breeding guide

Posted on October 14, 2023 by Ethan in Guides, Switch

For the most part, catching Shiny Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet is easier than ever before, and we’re written up a guide specifically for breeding.

In this game, hunting Shiny Pokemon in the wild is much faster than hatching them from Eggs. That being said, there are more than a few Pokemon that can only be Shiny if you hatch them from an Egg – this includes starter Pokemon, Hisuian forms, and more. Fortunately, the famous Masuda Method is back, and you’ll need to take full advantage of it to get your Shiny Pokemon as quickly as possible. Our breeding guide walks you through the specifics of the Masuda Method as well as how to hatch your next target as efficiently as possible.

How to get Eggs

In Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the Egg-making process has been changed from previous titles. This time around, there’s no day-care center. Instead, you just need to have two compatible Pokemon in your party and then initiate a picnic. From there, all you need to do is wait – eventually, a Pokemon Egg will pop into the picnic basket. Eggs appear here based on the time you wait, not the number of steps you take – this means you’re welcome to leave your Switch on in the background while Eggs start filling up the basket. It can only hold 10 of them at once, so make sure you check in every few minutes. With that said, you won’t receive many Eggs unless you have the Egg Power meal effect active. While you could make an Egg Power Lv. 3 sandwich with four Eggs and a Sweet Herba Mystica, that’s not very economical. Herba Mystica are hard to come by. Instead, make an Egg Power Lv. 2 sandwich with bananas, butter, and peanut butter (it’s called the Great Peanut Butter Sandwich in your recipe list). This saves you time grinding out Herba Mystica. One last note here: the Sparkling Power meal effect doesn’t work on Eggs. It only works for wild Pokemon, which we covered in a previous guide.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Masuda Method Shiny breeding guide

The Masuda Method first appeared in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, and it’s well-known for drastically increasing the Shiny rate of Eggs you hatch. Here’s the shortened version: pair a Pokemon you caught in your game with a compatible Pokemon caught in a different language, and your Shiny odds increase from 1 in 4096 to 1 in 683 (1 in 512 with the Shiny Charm). Your best bet is getting a hold of a foreign-language Ditto, who can breed with any kind of Pokemon. While some Pokemon-related Discord servers give these away, you can technically start up a second Scarlet or Violet file and play it in another language if you’re really desperate to find one. Basically, the hardest part of the setup is obtaining this foreign Ditto. Once you do, it’s just a matter of waiting around until one of your Eggs hatches Shiny.

If you find that an Egg never appears in your picnic basket, it’s possible you’re trying to breed a Pokemon in the Undiscovered Egg group. This group includes baby Pokemon like Pichu, Cleffa, and Igglybuff as well as every Legendary and Mythical Pokemon except for Manaphy and Phione. You also can’t breed Gimmighoul, Gholdengo, or any of the Paradox Pokemon.

How to hatch Eggs

Before we wrap up our Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Shiny breeding guide, let’s review: make a Great Peanut Butter Sandwich, put the two Pokemon you want to breed into your party, and open up a picnic. Wait around and gather Eggs, keeping in mind that each Egg is sent directly to your PC regardless of the number of Pokemon you have in your party. When you’ve picked up a whole box’s worth of Eggs, quit the picnic and swap your two Pokemon for one that has the Ability Flame Body (Talonflame or Coalossal are great examples). Load up your team with five Eggs, and start running around to hatch them fast! If the Egg Power meal effect wears off, you’ll have to make another sandwich. The effect helps you receive more Eggs during a picnic and hatch them faster, so you’ll want to have it active at all times.

You’ll inevitably hatch several Pokemon that are not Shiny. In Scarlet and Violet, you can only release them one at a time. In Pokemon Home, however, you can release up to 100 Pokemon at the same time. We’d recommend hatching a whole horde of Eggs and then releasing them all at once via HOME to save some time (and lots of button mashing). From there, your Shiny odds are a roll of the dice. It could take 10 Eggs or 1,000, and there’s no way to know for sure until you try. As we mentioned before, wild Shiny hunting is certainly faster than Shiny breeding, so if the Pokemon you want to hunt can be found in the wild in Scarlet and Violet, we’d recommend doing that instead.

Which Shiny Pokemon are you planning on hunting next? Feel free to let us know down below. Best of luck!