How to prepare for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s Indigo Disk DLC

The Indigo Disk DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is just a few days away. It adds an extended story campaign at the Blueberry Academy that can only be accessed after you’ve cleared all three branching paths of the base game. Even though the release of the DLC is almost here, there actually are a few things you can do to prepare yourself for the new story campaign. We’ve come up with a few ideas right here.

Make a new team for The Indigo Disk (or update an existing one)

Some players like to play through Pokemon’s DLC campaigns with a completely new team. This helps the game feel less like a steamroll and a little more fresh. That being said, making a new team might be a bit difficult in this case. Trainers in The Indigo Disk can only be challenged after you’ve cleared Scarlet and Violet’s main game, so the levels of their Pokemon are quite a bit higher than what you’ve seen in The Teal Mask and Pokemon Sword and Shield’s DLC campaigns. In fact, there are reports that most trainers have Pokemon at or above Level 75, So if you’re planning to make a new team for The Indigo Disk, it might be best to start early. That way you can level them up to be right around the same level as your opponents’ Pokemon.

It’s also important to note that most of the Indigo Disk’s battles are Double Battles. This is no doubt being done to better prepare players for competitive Pokemon matches – indeed, the Pokemon World Championships only operate in doubles. Pokemon that are good in singles, like Garganacl and Skeledirge, aren’t quite as strong in doubles. When making a new team for the Indigo Disk, you’ll want to include more spread moves and possibly more utility moves. For instance, Surf hits every Pokemon on the field except the user, whereas Muddy Water only hits the opposing two Pokemon. Fire Blast and Flamethrower only hit a single target, while Heat Wave hits both. Lots of Pokemon in doubles also run Protect, though that might not be as necessary here given that you’ll be fighting CPU opponents.

Stock up on Poke Balls and healing items

This is definitely an obvious one, but the Indigo Disk is confirmed to include tons of Legendary Pokemon from previous titles. You’ll need to catch them, of course, so it’s a good idea to make sure you’re stocked up on Poke Balls and healing items. The auction house in Porto Marinada has a small chance of selling Apricorn Poke Balls every day – such as Fast Balls, Heavy Balls, and Love Balls. If you like catching your Legendary Pokemon in fancy matching Poke Balls, it might be a good idea to check the auction house to see if any of them are for sale. If you’re lacking the money to buy them, you can play the Academy Ace Tournament with an Amulet Coin on your Pokemon to save up some funds.

Make a “catcher” Pokemon

You need more than just Poke Balls to catch Legendary Pokemon in The Indigo Disk, though. Ideally, you’ll have a dedicated catcher Pokemon with a tailored moveset. Breloom is a great choice here – you can give it Spore, False Swipe, Swords Dance, and Substitute. That way you’ll be able to put wild Pokemon to sleep, boost your attack with Swords Dance, avoid status moves with Substitute, and finally whittle their health down to 1 using False Swipe. For an item, you could either go with the Poison Heal Ability plus a Toxic Orb to restore health or go with the Technician Ability plus Leftovers to boost the power of False Swipe. Either one is perfectly viable – it’s up to you! Keep in mind that Breloom can only learn Spore as a Shroomish, so you will need to level up Shroomish without evolving until it learns Spore at Level 40.

Another good Pokemon for this role is Gallade. It can’t put opponents to sleep as easily as Breloom and its False Swipe isn’t as strong, but it’s a bit easier to raise. A moveset including Hypnosis, Thunder Wave, False Swipe, and Heal Pulse works great here, and gives Gallade some utility that Breloom doesn’t have. With this, you can choose either sleep or paralysis to inflict on a wild Pokemon and then heal it with Heal Pulse if it starts to use Struggle (or if it becomes confused on low health). Hypnosis has a low accuracy, however, so a Wide Lens will help patch this up a bit.

Stock up on Herba Mystica for The Indigo Disk Shiny hunting

The Indigo Disk is home to a huge terrarium with tons of Pokemon in it that don’t appear in Paldea. This includes starter Pokemon. You’ll no doubt want to Shiny hunt some of them, and you can bookmark our Shiny sandwich hunting page for later if you want to know how. You need Herba Mystica to make Shiny sandwiches, however, and you can only obtain these as rare drops from 6 and 7-Star Tera Raid Battles. Scarlet and Violet will generate at least one black 6-star raid den per day, so it might be a good idea to do a few of these in advance. That way you can jump right into Shiny hunting when The Indigo Disk becomes available to download on December 14. It’s also a good idea to get the Shiny Charm well in advance, too. You can do this by catching every single Pokemon in the Paldea Pokedex, including the version exclusives.

We’re going to be releasing a whole bunch of guides for The Indigo Disk over the next few weeks.How are you preparing for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s new DLC? Feel free to let us know down below.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and its DLC packs are available now, and you can visit the official site right here.