WELCOME TO THE POKEMON XY POKERADAR GUIDE!
I know, I know, this has already been talked about around the Internet, but I guess I should try giving what I know on how to do this. If you don't know what the PokéRadar is, then you're either a beginner or you missed a very useful item before. Anyway...the PokéRadar is a key item that helps you capture shiny Pokémon (hope you know what are shiny Pokémon, 'cause I ain't gonna explain it. JK! Well, I would actually give you a link to an explanation, but the link function doesn't work for me sorry). In order to catch that shiny one, you gotta make a chain, or better said, a streak of fainting the same Pokémon over and over. You'll see what I mean. Alright, on with what you're here for!
What you will need:
- The PokéRadar. 'Cause what's a guide like this without the PokéRadar?
- A Pokémon you have in mind that you wanna catch in its shining colors.
- A large enough area of grass where the Pokémon you want is catchable. I would try to find the biggest area you can find, but perhaps 7x5 area may sound possible to me.
- A lot of Repels. And I mean, A LOT. Like 200 Super Repels works for me, if you have the money (Super Repels have a better price-quality ratio than Max Repels, if you know what I mean).
- Why 200 you ask? Because when I had a 100 of them, I wasted almost all of my repels (after making the best chain possible), & I still couldn't find a shiny Pokémon. I broke my chain by accident after all that work. Sad, I know...
- Tons of patience, like "Always getting bullied at school, but I'm still alive" kind of patience. lol
- Joy for when you catch it! (And, no, not "Nurse Joy" -.-)
What the PokéRadar does:
First of all, let me explain what the PokéRadar does. Normally, the chances of finding a shiny Pokémon are 1/8192. Yeah, that big of a long shot. If you actually encountered one with nothing but luck, you were extremely lucky to find it (I actually encountered a shiny Wooper by accident, kinda shocked me).
What the PokéRadar does is that it allows you to chain Pokémon. "Chaining" means to encounter the same Pokémon over and over and defeat it or catch it while following a set of rules (I'll get to that later). When you chain Pokémon, your chances of finding a shiny increases. When you reach a chain of 40, your chances are at its peak, 1/200 (0.5%) chance of finding a shiny. WAY better than doing it without the PokéRadar.
Rules & Tips:
As soon as you start your chain, you will have to follow these rules if you want to continue your chain:
- If you are on the edge of the grass patches, your chain will break. I believe it's when you encounter a Pokémon at the edge, not walking or standing on the edge.
- If you encounter a different Pokémon, your chain will break.
- If you use the Roller Skates, your chain will break (well, that's a bit crazy...)
- If you use another key item other than the PokéRadar, your chain will break. (say wha...?)
- Unregister every key item except the PokéRadar. You don't wanna accidentally choose the bicycle & break your chain, do you?
- Make sure to have a Pokémon that can defeat a Pokémon quickly.
- If you have a Pokémon with False Swipe, bring it along, so you can catch the shiny & not accidentally defeat it.
- If you don't have a Pokémon with False Swipe, bring Quick Balls or any other useful Poke Ball, like Repeat Balls (if you have encountered it before) or Nest Balls (if it has a low level).
- NEVER. BRING. EGGS! It's been reported that if a egg hatches while chaining, your chain will break.
- PAY ATTENTION! Don't wanna lose sight of those shaking patches, & possibly break your chain.
- Never go into patches that are 1 or 2 spaces away from you.
- Never go UP after the patches shake unless you are completely sure that patch didn't move. Your head can block your sight of that, so be careful.
- Never go into those patches that were shaking slow, they are decoy patches that no Pokémon will show, & will break your chain. (Oooo, that's new...)
- [UPDATE] People have reported that going to the patch that shakes the same way as your first encounter will help you continue your chain.
- UNCONFIRMED: Don't go into patches that are exactly horizontal or vertical from your starting position. My chain broke, & this might have been the reason, but I'm not sure.
- Go into patches that are 3+ spaces away from you (4 spaces are recommended though). I almost guarantee you'll continue the chain if you follow the rules and tips correctly.
- REMEMBER TO FOLLOW THESE TIPS! THESE WILL HELP YOU A LOT!
- If you see a patch that sparkles and makes a sound, THAT PATCH HAS A SHINY POKEMON IN IT! Go, and catch that Pokémon, and triumph with joy! (again, not Nurse Joy )
- UNCONFIRMED: There's a speculation/rumor that you can only obtain 1 shiny Pokémon per chain, though this may be untrue.
- [UPDATE] According to the confirmation of the latest guide to this from Japan, there's a small chance that the music will change into a more up-beat music (I'm sure you've heard it before, but you never knew why it happens). When this happens, you'll have a higher chance of encountering a shiny Pokémon. Although, the music will go away at a random moment when you use the PokéRadar again, or after a battle (personal experience), so make the best of it.
- Enter the grass patches & start searching! First, you are going to need to find your Pokémon you wanna chain. It's best to start using your repels now. Now, use the PokéRadar! When you activate it, there will be grass patches shaking. Some will shake a lot, and others very little. For now, step into the shaking patch of grass, & hope it's the Pokémon you wanna chain. Try going to the ones that shake hard if the Pokémon is rare, & avoid the patches that shook very weakly, as you know from the tips. If it is the Pokémon you want, congrats! Now defeat or catch it to start chaining! If it isn't walk 50 steps to recharge the PokéRadar, & try again until you find it.
- Time to chain! As soon as you started your chain, you have completed a chain of 1 (Achievement Get! lol). You will see more patches are starting to shake, but don't go into just any patch you want. From here on out, you will have to follow a set of rules & tips as shown above if you wanna get that chain going.
- Chain! Chain! CHAIN! Keep it up until you finally reach a chain of 40! You may fail at some point, but get up and try again until you succeed (take my experience for example, I made it to the chain of 40, and I LITERALLY HEARD the shiny patch, but I couldn't identify it, since it was a field of yellow flowers, I ended up going to the wrong, then breaking my chain later... D:, but I'm still trying to get my 1st shiny in X, a shiny Riolu ).
- You made it! Now...SCAN! What I mean by "scan" is that you will keep using the PokéRadar until you find the shiny patch. There's no need to chain anymore, since your chances reaches its limit at the chain of 40 (1/200 chance). Keep scanning until you see a patch that sparkles and makes a sound that I'm sure you'll be glad to hear. Go for it!
- *sparkle sound in 3DS* OMG... You found it?! OMG! Now, go to the patch without screwing up...and scream happily if you want. And, guess what? A SHINY POKEMON! All it's left is to catch it, sooooo CATCH IT! XD
If you think I made an error in this guide, if you wanna give an idea or suggestion or idea to me to make this guide more complete, if you have any questions or need any help, or you simply just wanna chat about your shiny encounter, feel free to talk about in the thread.
Hope I helped ya guys out. See ya!