Poké Radar

This thread is for discussion of the best locations to use the Poké Radar, questions about the Poké Radar, and your own experiences while using the Poké Radar.


I'm not going to put a guide in this post yet, mainly because I am not completely sure how the radar works in this generation.

I'll try to put together a list of good places to use the radar, and what Pokemon you can find in each location.


I'll start off talking about one of the harder Pokemon to chain with the radar: Eevee.

This is a map I created of Upper Route 10, which includes all the grass locations. Green is grass, White is plain land, and Black is impassable land/obstacles. The light shades of grey are just noise that was created by MSPaint when I was resizing this to a visible size. (originally 25x70)
2cxyy3s.png
As you can see, this route is absolutely littered with obstacles, making it quite difficult to maintain a chain. To make it worse, many of the obstacles are really high and obscure your view of the grass. This version of the map shows in light green the patches of grass that can be blocked from view depending on where you stand. The largest square-ish patches on the route turn out to have some big problems with visibility.

I personally use the upper-right patch of grass. It's quite wide, but unfortunately the shape isn't optimal. If anyone else has better luck with a different place on this route, I'd love to hear it.

The method that I use to more easily find Eevee is to start in the yellow flowers where eevee is more common, then move to the bottom right grass patch and use the radar again, then slowly move up to my usual patch. This is not necessarily faster than just staying in the grass and hoping for good luck, but it's a bit more consistent.

Something I've noticed is that sometimes the pokeradar music changes to become more upbeat. I have no idea what it means, but I'm guessing that it means that a Shiny pokemon has been detected. If so, then I've had quite a bit of misfortune - the first time I had this happen I didn't see any good patches of grass so I reset the radar, and the music turned back to the normal pokeradar music. The second time I had this happen, I thought there might be a shiny patch located out of sight behind a rock, but when I tried going there, it turned out to be something else and my chain broke.
 
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I haven't caught a shiny yet with PokeRadar, but I have managed to get a chain of 40 and several 15~20 chains, and by far the best place I've found to chain is Pokemon Village. There is so much grass, it's easy to determine the different shakes because of flowers, and I hardly ever had to reset due to bad patches. I've found the goals the scientist gives you in the pokelab are pretty hard; the last he gave me was pidgey, and since pidgey is only found on route 2-3 and there is only one medium sized patch of grass it was very difficult to even get a chain of 5. But if you want an Amoongus/Ditto/Gothorita/Jigglypuff, Pokemon Village is the way to go.

The second and third best places imo are the Mossy Rock on Route 20 and the large patch of grass right before you go into connecting cave on Route 7. Route 20 Mossy Rock has Trevenant/Zoroark (as well as Noctowl/Amoongus/Jiggly/Gothorita) and Route 7 has Croagunk/Illumise (just my personal faves). At mossy rock I was able to chain ~10 multiple times on Zoroark/Trevenant but got disconnected after entering a wrong patch of grass. This is why I think It's easier to see the different shakes in flowers as opposed to regular grass. Route 7 is fine, but I found I had to reset multiple times to get a good patch as the height of the patch is only 8, while the width is ~13-15, even then I find this is two small of a patch of grass to get good shakes on and you'll have to reset multiple times.

One thing I am unsure about is the edges of grass and if they actually cause you to end the chain. I have step on shaking patches on the edges several times and not broken the chain, but one notable time on a chain of 15 I decided to and it ended. There *may* be a difference between *edge that hits a wall* and *edge that is adjacent to normal ground* but more testing will have to be done for this. It may just be that there is a higher probablility of ending the chain if you step on an edge.

About the more upbeat music, I had the same problem as goomy pls; the upbeat music started and there were no patches of grass that shook correctly, so I had to reset and the music ended. On a different note, I encountered the upbeat music about 5 times in a row, and no shiny. A guide I read said that this means there is increased chances of shiny with this music, so it may just cut down the probability by a factor.

A couple other things:
I think it's easiest to identify grass that is shaking hardest to continue your chain. I always start with the hardest shaking grass as the lesser shakes are more difficult to identify for me, and I end up breaking the chain earlier.

On a chain of ~40 in Pokemon Village something weird happened: I was reseting over and over as I had reached 40 and a guide said that the probability caps at 40 and then starts over, so reset at 40 until you see a shiny patch. I walked a long distance away from the shaking patches to recharge the pokeradar, and the music stopped and the chain ended. So if you walk completely out of view of the patches then it will cause your chain to end.
 
I recently got myself a shiny Fletchling on a chain of 42. It took me 140 minutes and 127 max repels (31750 steps). It gets really nerve-wracking when your chain gets higher - I guess it doesn't help that I was doing it at 1AM. Route 2 really isn't that good of a place to chain because of the relatively small patch of grass. I would always activate the radar at a position that is 3 steps from the bottom edge and 3 steps from the left or right edge.

I always go for the fastest shaking no matter what the first patch I entered was like. It seems to work.

Edges are more likely to end your chain because the game selects a few random spots near you to shake, and if that spot has no grass, that shake is wasted, so to speak. If nothing shakes, the chain ends. I don't know whether a edge that touches a wall has the same problem though.

You can walk up to 19 steps away from where you used the radar without breaking the chain. This is how I move from the flowers to the grass in route 10 for eevee. I still haven't got a shiny eevee yet......

My shiny Fletchling turned out to have 31IV in SpA, SpD, and Speed, and 0IV in Attack. By comparison, a random shiny Panpour I got while walking through santalune forest to the fletchling spot had no 31s or 0s. Wonder if that's significant at all.
 
I haven't caught a shiny yet with PokeRadar, but I have managed to get a chain of 40 and several 15~20 chains, and by far the best place I've found to chain is Pokemon Village. There is so much grass, it's easy to determine the different shakes because of flowers, and I hardly ever had to reset due to bad patches. I've found the goals the scientist gives you in the pokelab are pretty hard; the last he gave me was pidgey, and since pidgey is only found on route 2-3 and there is only one medium sized patch of grass it was very difficult to even get a chain of 5. But if you want an Amoongus/Ditto/Gothorita/Jigglypuff, Pokemon Village is the way to go.
You forgot Zoroark.
 
Goomy is a pain in the

^Lol, I caught one today at streak of 34. So it doesnt seem necessary to reach 40...
 
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Hello, I have some questions and I'd like to share a very odd thing I experienced while chaining.

First off, I'd like to start out by saying that I never used the radar in the 4th generation, and I've had very little experience with it in X and Y as well, so I apologize if my questions seem dumb or if the answers are common knowledge.

So, for the first time ever, I got to a chain of 40 today. I had not encountered or caught any shiny Pokemon at any time during my chain. I've done extensive research on how chaining works, and I was so excited to finally have reached the coveted 40 Pokemon.

I then spent the next hour resetting the radar and not finding my shiny patch. I thought the odds were highly elevated with radar chaining? I've tried chain fishing, random encounters in the safari, and horde battling, and they've all had pretty decent odds.

Then I started to notice something weird. Not only was my shiny not showing up, but more than four patches of grass were shaking at once. I've read so many guides on chaining that I've lost count, and none of them mentioned that. Not only were five or sometimes even six patches all shaking at the same time, but they weren't following the rule that only one patch that's one square away shakes, one that's two away, and so on.

I thought that since it had never been mentioned anywhere on the internet (that I've seen) I would try to get a video to prove it so I didn't seem like a troll or like I was making up a story to get attention. Unfortunately I was paying more attention to how many shook (sometimes it was just the four) than where they were, and while filming I walked into one of those grass patches that hardly move at all and have no Pokemon in them, thus ending my hard earned chain.

So, now, the questions.

How long, on average, does it usually take someone to find a shiny Pokemon once they're at 40 defeated in a row? (In the 6th generation)
Has anyone else noticed the grass behaving like I mentioned when they've gotten to a chain of 40 or higher?

And some more information if any of it helps.

I was chaining Doduo on route 5
The grass was behaving normally before I got to 40 in my chain
I didn't notice it right away, so it might have been some time into my radar resetting that more patches started to shake
I got the increased shiny chance music once very early on in my chain but did not find a shiny from it

Thank you very much for any information you're able to give me regarding my questions ^.^ I can provide more information if needed, and I'm willing to try to get the oddly behaving grass again and take a video of it if proof is needed.

EDIT: Okay, a day later, and I think I was just unlucky and impatient on my other chain, I also think five patches shake in X and Y instead of four like I read in the guides for 4th gen chaining. Decided to actually pick which Pokemon to chain this time instead of just going with whichever one I found first, so I now have a lovely shiny Furfrou ^.^ Sorry for the long post that doesn't really add to the conversation.
 
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Has anyone noticed a change in music when chaining? Not back to the regular music of the route or whatever, but another hyped up jingle. Heard it today while i was chaining Dittos, came on after a battle and actually stopped before I was able to get in to another one, and went back to the regular music when using the Pokeradar.
 
Has anyone noticed a change in music when chaining? Not back to the regular music of the route or whatever, but another hyped up jingle. Heard it today while i was chaining Dittos, came on after a battle and actually stopped before I was able to get in to another one, and went back to the regular music when using the Pokeradar.
the more exciting, hyped up music is supposed to signify an increased chance of finding a shiny, although I have not personally found a shiny when the music was playing
 
Ahhhh, okay. I knew it had to be something haha! Gamefreak always has a reason for things. I will say that the music did not show up until I was past 40, and then again around 65-67. I scrambled to catch the Dittos during the music though "maybe better IV's!" was my train of thought lol. Thanks for the response andrew!
 
Has the location and number of patches when using the Poke Radar changed in this game or something?

In D/P/Pt it was always something to fit this pattern:

444444444
433333334
432222234
432111234
4321 1234
432111234
432222234
433333334
444444444


where the center is where your character is.
Exactly one random square corresponding to each number would be selected; if it was a grass square, it would shake, and you were always supposed to enter the "4" square. Everything else was derived from that; e.g. you wouldn't ever want to enter a square on the edge of a large patch, since then there would be a chance for all four random squares to not be grass, breaking the chain.

Has it been drastically changed in this gen?
 
I can confirm the 5-6+ patches shaking, and from my observations the patches don't seem to follow the 1-2-3-4 patterns as they did in Gen IV. However, thus far I haven't found an instance of 5 or more patches shaking in which all 5 or 6 were hard-shaking- i.e. at least one of them were the dummy patches that break your chain. According to other sites I have read, the instances where the upbeat music occurs increases your odds enough that people have found shinies at chains as low as 5 or 6 with relative consistency (about once every 6 or 7 times the music occurs), leading me to wonder whether the shiny rate becomes a certain set rate when the music plays. From what I've read, the best course of action to take when the music plays is to just stop entering patches and just reset until the music stops (which according to research seems to be 4 resets exactly). The music does not seem to fade after a set amount of time (I have left my 3DS open for a few hours while the music was playing and when I came back it was still going).
 
There's a pretty good patch of grass in Santalune Forest. I've caught a shiny Scatterbug, Panpour, Pansage, Fletchling, and Pikachu there.
 
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