Pokemon Sword and Shield - Friendship Evaluation

Overview

What is Friendship?

Friendship or also known as Happiness is a recurring feature in the games. Often used interchangeably, friendship affects certain factors such as evolution and damage output of some moves. In Sword and Shield, friendship is now tied to affection from previous games. That being said, raising friendship in the main story has a passive effect of allowing Pokemon to dodge moves or survive some hits.

Evolution Methods

Measuring Friendship

Friendship is a quality that can be gauged by talking to an NPC. Like most games, the npc is often inside a building or facility. In the Galar region, the npc is a small kid that lives in Hammerlocke. When you reach the town, head to the right and enter the nearest house. Interact with the boy with the blonde hair and show the Pokemon whose friendship you wish to be checked. He’ll describe it in a few words. Below is a list of lines that the npc may tell you and some effects that may occur in offline battles.

Friendship evaluation list

How to boost Friendship

There are many ways on befriending your Pokemon to raise its value. For starters, simply have it in your party and walk many times. After reaching the max friendship value with one of your Pokemon, you can interact with the little boy again to receive a Best Friends Ribbon.

Ribbons

Spend time while camping

Since affection and friendship are one and the same in the Galar region, an alternative to boosting friendship values is to go camping. You can spend time with your Pokemon at the camp by doing the activities. One way to raise your friendship is to interact with your Pokemon. You can talk to them, play with the Poke Toy or have them fetch a ball. Another way is to cook curries. Some curries are more effective in boosting friendship than others.

Pokemon Camp

Using items

Some items also makes the Pokemon more friendly. Give your Pokemon some vitamins like Calcium to raise its special attack stat and boost its friendship value. You can buy vitamins from the BP shop in Hammerlocke’s Pokemon Center as well as the mart vendor in Wyndon.

List of Supplements

You can also feed it some special berries like Pomeg Berry at the expense of losing some effort values on HP. If you don’t want your Pokemon to lose EVs, you can feed it some berries before you start training. You can shake the berry trees near Bridge Field since they drop some of these. There is also the Soothe Bell, a held item that can boost the amount of friendship it gains. This item stacks with walking, so you can take a stroll or have your Pokemon hold it while you explore certain areas.

Berries

Using Poke balls that make caught Pokemon more friendly

Another way to boost a Pokemon’s friendship value is to catch it in certain balls. The Luxury Ball and the Friend Ball offer some edge compared to using other balls for catching. Use a Luxury Ball if you wish to earn a boost in friendship. On the other hand, if you need a Pokemon to start with 200 happiness points from the get-go, use a Friend Ball. Keep in mind that you can’t force the Pokemon to get the effect when bred. For example, when generating an egg from the daycare, the starting happiness value of 200 does not get passed down to the hatched egg. You can get the Luxury Ball from certain Pokemon centers or from the Watts trader. Whereas you automatically receive a Friend Ball from Ball Guy in one of the gyms. You can randomly get another Friend Ball from the him after completing the Champion cup.

List of Poke Balls

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