One of the core parts of Pokemon has always been the battle system, and it’s no different with Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Though it has remained mostly consistent across all the generations of Pokemon, it has gotten some upgrades over the years. 

While Pokemon Legends: Arceus allowed players to capture Pokemon without even fighting them, by sneaking up on them and throwing a Pokeball. In Generation 9, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, trainers are introduced to auto-battle.

This feature lets trainers set their lead Pokemon out by pressing the R button. When the Pokemon is out, it will walk around on its own and find Pokemon to battle. This can let trainers walk around and explore, find items, and more, while their lead Pokemon battles it out. But when trying to take on Pokemon in water, sometimes the auto-battling Pokemon just seems to sit there on a floating raft – and will not battle. So how can trainers get auto-battle to work in the water?

Finding the right Pokemon for the job

Much like each Pokemon has its own type, Pokemon are unique in if they have the ability to swim or not. This does not necessarily mean that a Pokemon needs to be Water-type in order to battle in water, but if it ends up on a raft, it’s not going to work out.

Therefore, players will need to go through their roster until they find one that can actually battle it out in the water. They will know it’s working when the Pokemon no longer sits on the raft and instead swims around the water to battle.

With the ability to auto-battle on the water, trainers can explore more areas and let their Pokemon do the heavy lifting – or swimming in this case.

For more tips and tricks on how to become a Pokemon Master in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, check out our other guides!