The hunt for shiny Pokémon is an absolutely terrifying thing. I have seen people become utterly consumed by the pursuit of a single shiny, to the point where nothing else matters. Days, weeks go by, countless probability equations hastily scrawled on loose leaf. It is a lifestyle I recommend to exactly no one, but since I know you’ll pursue it anyway, the least you can do is arm yourself with knowledge. In this guide, we’ll show you how to get shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
If you don’t know what shiny Pokémon are, firstly, I sincerely envy you. Secondly, shiny Pokémon are Pokémon with an unusual color palette and a distinct sparkly effect that shows whenever you use them in battle. There are no practical reasons to own a shiny, but their sheer rarity makes them highly coveted. The reason for this rarity is that there is no surefire way to make a shiny Pokémon appear.
Shiny Pokémon only appear during regular wild encounters or from eggs, just like regular Pokémon, and the odds of an encounter being shiny are about 1 in 4096 (though that is an improvement over the original Gen IV games). While there’s no way to guarantee a shiny, however, there are ways to fudge the numbers in your favor.
How to get Shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
There are three confirmed ways to improve your odds of encountering a shiny Pokémon in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl:
- Diglett Energy
- Inter-Region Breeding
- PokéRadar Chaining
Diglett Energy
First, Diglett Energy. As you traverse the Grand Underground, you’ll notice various Digletts and Dugtrios burrowing about. Whenever a Diglett pops its head out, it drops a little sparkly bit of energy. If you can collect 40 of these energy pickups, your shiny encounter rate will approximately double for a few minutes. Granted, that’s only an improvement to 1 in 2048, but it’s a start.
Breeding
Secondly, breeding. The odds of hatching a shiny Pokémon from an egg are about as good as encountering one in the wild (which is to say not very), but you can drastically improve those odds by breeding one of your Pokémon, preferably a Ditto for convenience’s sake, with a Pokémon from another country. Any Pokémon from a country outside your own obtained through trading has a much higher chance of producing a shiny when bred, about 1 in 683. If you can catch every non-Legendary Pokémon in the PokéDex, you can also obtain the Shiny Charm, which boosts the odds of shiny breeding even further to 1 in 512.
Chaining
Finally, Chaining. This was the shiny hunting method of choice back in the original Diamond and Pearl, and it still remains the most consistent option, at least for a given degree of “consistent.” The first step in this method is obtaining the PokéRadar, which you can get from Professor Rowan after beating the Elite Four and registering all 150 Sinnoh-native Pokémon in the PokéDex. You’ll also want to speak with Professor Oak in Ramanas Park to get the Chain Counter, which will make this process a little more user-friendly.
Here’s how chaining works in Pokémon BDSP: first, stand in a big area of tall grass and activate the radar. Several patches of tall grass will begin shaking, and if you step into one, it’ll begin an encounter. If you catch the Pokémon you encounter, more grass will begin shaking. Walk into one of the shaking patches, and you’ll encounter another of the same Pokémon you just caught. You need to keep walking into the shaking patches and catching Pokémon to keep the chain going, as the longer you keep the chain going, the more your odds of encountering a shiny variant of the Pokémon increase. According to dataminers, these are the precise chances you have of encountering shinies as you chain encounters:
- 0 Encounters: 1 in 4096
- 10 Encounters: 1 in 2521
- 20 Encounters: 1 in 1820
- 30 Encounters: 1 in 1310
- 35 Encounters: 1 in 1192
- 36 Encounters: 1 in 993
- 37 Encounters: 1 in 799
- 38 Encounters: 1 in 400
- 39 Encounters: 1 in 200
- 40 Encounters and up: 1 in 99
There are a few things you should be aware of in this process. First, you can still encounter regular Pokémon in non-shaking grass, and if that happens as you walk to a shaking patch, your chain will break. Make sure to bring as many Max Repels as you can carry to prevent this from happening. Second, you can’t leave the area without breaking your chain, so make sure you have a lot of PokéBalls for lots of catches.
Finally, you’re not guaranteed a shaking patch even if you’re in the middle of a chain; if you return to the overworld and no patches are shaking, then unfortunately, you’re just going to have to start over. If luck shines upon you, though, you’ll see little shiny sparks emit from a patch of shaking grass. That’s the signal that a shiny has appeared, so you better march your butt into that grass and catch that thing.
If that seemed like a lot of information, well, that’s because it was. Welcome to the world of shiny hunting, Captain Ahab. But here’s a TL;DR for your convenience:
- Stand in tall grass, activate PokéRadar
- Catch Pokémon you encounter in shaking tall grass
- Move to more shaking grass and catch Pokémon you encounter there
- Repeat until shiny Pokémon happens
That’s how you get shiny Pokémon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
