Hardest Shiny Pokemon To Hunt In Scarlet And Violet

One of the most popular aspects of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, shiny hunting all kinds of Pokemon available in these games, is challenging enough with the base 1/4096 odds of finding one. What makes this process even more difficult, however, are certain Pokemon that refuse to be found easily.

Ranking from fairly difficult to excruciating, some shiny Pokemon are next to impossible to hunt for. Between Pokemon that are difficult to spot, Pokemon that are difficult to catch, and Pokemon that are impossible to visually notice as shiny, the hardest shiny Pokemon to catch in the Generation 9 games are obvious.

10 Glimmet

A Shiny-Hunting Hazard

Glimmet initially seems like a fairly easy shiny to notice and consequently catch. With its dual typing including Poison, it can be easy to single out using the sandwich method compared to other cave-dwelling Pokemon. Its difficulty spikes, however, with what moves it knows.

In Scarlet and Violet, the best practice when hunting a shiny Pokemon is to immediately save once it appears, and Glimmet shows precisely why. With most, if not all, wild Glimmet knowing the move Self-Destruct, it’s entirely possible to fail to capture it during battle if t destroys itself first, much like the Pokemon Voltorb and Geodude.

9 Tadbulb

Electrifying Eye Strain

One of the best, and sometimes worst, additions in Scarlet and Violet is how Pokemon are shown at their true, Pokedex-accurate sizes. This fun detail becomes significantly less fun when a Pokemon is so small, it can make seeing a shiny version nearly impossible.

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Tadbulb has a dangerous combination for shiny hunters. The shiny color is only slightly darker red on the tail, which is already hard to notice, but coupled with it being a smaller Pokemon, it can be difficult to tell. Hunting for this electric tadpole features constant eyestrain.

8 Varoom

A Quick To Miss Shiny

When looking at the shiny color of Varoom outside of the game, it seems like spotting the rarer variant would be pretty easy. However, as this Pokemon is made of metal, its model is highly reflective, and since this Pokemon spawns mostly in a brown, desert environment, the difference between a silver Varoom reflecting bright brown colors and a shiny gold Varoom doing the same can be impossible to spot.

Beyond the visual difficulty, since Varoom is obviously based on an engine, it’s a speedy Pokemon that runs around the world, so it’s possible that the shiny will vanish right before the player’s eyes.

7 Tauros

Nearly Impossible To Spot Color-Swap

Paldean Tauros, in all of its forms, is perhaps the shiny Pokemon that suffers the most from the lighting of the game-world. Besides having a bizarre palette swap of its dark black mane and its lighter black body, already making its shiny form less noticeable, the lighting of Scarlet and Violet makes it almost impossible to notice.

With Tauros spawning in groups as well, it can both help and hurt by noticing which member is the odd bull out, while also dealing with constant rushing bulls getting the player into battles as they try to reach the shiny one.

6 Flabebe

The Smallest Shiny Pokémon

As one of the smallest Pokemon in existence at 4 inches tall, spotting a shiny Flabebe is a daunting task. Along with having multiple forms already, spotting the shiny variant of the tiny fairy isn’t helped by the fact that the shiny form changes only the eyes and lower body of the Pokemon itself, while the much larger flower it’s attached to remains one of the standard colors.

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While other smaller Pokemon can be annoying to spot, the fact that Flabebe has such a minute color difference on top of sometimes being hidden by its flower makes it perhaps the hardest tiny shiny Pokémon to notice.

5 Dudunsparce

A Rarer Than Normal Shiny

With outbreaks and being one of the few normal types in the depths of Area Zero, shiny Dunsparce isn’t too hard to find. And since obtaining a shiny Dudunsparce is possible both in the wild and from evolving a Dunsparce, initially it seems like an easy shiny to snag. However, with Dudunsparce having a 1/100 alternate form, shiny hunters going after the rarer variant may have a far trickier time.

As the three-segment Dudunsparce form can only be obtained by evolving a Dunsparce with that 1% “gene,” it can take tens of shiny Dunsparce before a three-segment Dudunsparce appears, with the base odds of finding one at roughly 0.000002%, feeling nearly as impossible as the actually impossible shiny Pokemon.

4 Maushold

Slight Color-Swap Detail With Tiny Odds

Much like Dudunsparce, Maushold also has a rarer alternate form, with the tiny mouse family only having three members as opposed to four, but unlike the long-awaited evolution to Dunsparce, the shiny forms of both Tandemaus and Maushold are far, far harder to spot.

With shiny Tandemaus having somewhat golden clothes-shaped coloration as opposed to the slight silver, along with the smaller size of Tandemaus, the colors tend to blend into the white of the Pokemon, which isn’t helped by their bouncing movements. Like Dudunsparce, the “Family of Three” form of Maushold has a 0.000002% chance of appearing.

3 Zorua

The Illusive Shiny

Zorua, famous for its illusionary powers, has turned into one of the hardest Pokemon to shiny hunt in Scarlet and Violet. Since Zorua is known for disguising itself as other Pokemon, the only way to actually battle and catch a Zorua is by repeatedly checking the Pokemon its disguised as, with it never appearing in the wild as itself.

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Shiny Zorua, then, is actually impossible to notice from visuals alone. The only way players can know if a Zorua is shiny is by using the Let’s Go feature, and certainly not the Synchro Machine, on every single Pokemon in their general radius, as their Pokemon will not attack a shiny Pokemon. The same applies to Zoroark, though the evolution spawns in a slightly easier space to manage.

2 Ditto

The Hidden Shiny

Ditto is in the same boat as Zorua and Zoroark, as in the wild, Ditto appears as other Pokemon by using its transformation powers. Likewise, it is actually impossible to see a shiny Ditto in the wild through visuals alone, but unlike Zorua, this is the only way to obtain a shiny Ditto, as Ditto cannot breed to produce other Dittos.

Besides that, as a normal type, trying to single out Ditto using a Herba Mystica sandwich is still difficult, since so many normal type Pokemon appear in the same areas.

1 Minior

Difficult To Spot And To Catch

Minior is the hardest shiny Pokemon to hunt in the wild in Scarlet and Violet for three very simple but very important reasons. Like Ditto and the Zorua line, Minior’s form cannot be determined through visuals alone. As the Pokemon is based on meteors, it is always inside its shell in the wild, hiding which of its standard colors it can appear as until battle, along with whether or not it’s shiny.

The second element that makes Minior so tedious to hunt is its movepool. Not only does it learn Self-Destruct, but it also learns Explosion and Double-Edge, meaning that players that forget to save when finding this elusive shiny will most likely fail to capture it. The final detriment to hunting a shiny Minior is its Shields Down ability, which prevents the Pokemon from being afflicted by status, making it more difficult to actually catch. At the very least, as a Flying type, it can be easy to single out Minior with sandwiches, along with a newly discovered method, but that’s only the start of the battle.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Released

November 18, 2022