You can chain Brilliant Pokémon through fishing in Pokémon Sword and Shield
Acquiring Brilliant and Shiny Pokémon is an art form, and the process is no different in Pokémon Sword and Shield. While all trainers start with a 1 in 4,096 chance of encountering one, there are several techniques for increasing the chances of having them spawn in the game. There’s the Masuda Method Egg Breeding, or you can go about chaining Pokémon in the wild, which is fighting the same species over and over again. There’s another technique to chain Pokémon trainers encounter by fishing.
You do need to fish in the Wild Area.
The concept first came about during Generation 6 for capturing Shiny Pokémon. Now, you can do it in Pokémon Sword and Shield to locate brilliant Pokémon. The technique requires you to continually fish for Pokémon at a single location. You want to stay in a single area, so make you’re fighting Pokémon of the ideal level range you want to encounter.
To properly chain fish, you need to defeat Pokémon you reel in and start a battle with successfully. If you run away, lose, catch the Pokémon, leave the area, or turn off the game, you start over from scratch because the streak stops. It shouldn’t take you too many hooks, though. You continue the chain if you have a Pokémon faint in combat, or if you camp.
Here’s the overall break down of how many times you need to hook a Pokémon for the increased chances.
- 0 to 2: A Brilliant Pokémon could appear
- 3 to 6: You have a 1.3x chance of encountering a Brilliant Pokémon
- 7 to 14: You have a 3.3x chance of hooking a Brilliant Pokémon
- 15 to 24: You have a 6.6x chance of reeling in a Brilliant Pokémon
- 25+: You have a 16.6x chance of reeling in a Brilliant Pokémon
After 25 successful hooks and defeating Pokémon, you’re going to max out the increased chances of encountering them. It’s far quicker than the other methods and makes sense given the limited amount of Pokémon you encounter by reeling them in and fishing.
You’ll know you’ve captured a Brilliant Pokémon by the small golden aura radiating from the splashing water before you reel it in and before you toss in your fishing rod.
