SOS Shiny Chaining Guide - (Ultra) Sun & Moon

General Information:
  • This is a shiny chaining guide for USUM (note: harvest trick does work in SM): this isn't intended for IV chaining.
  • The Pokemon were chosen for role condensation & because they are easy to find in USUM - you can use others.
  • SOS Chaining is a lot less tedious if you turn off battle animations.
  • A statused Pokemon will not call allies - do not burn, poison, paralyse or freeze your caller.
  • The Shiny Charm is your friend.
  • The Adrenaline Orb is your friend - use it to waste turns (the item won't be used).

This setup works by using one Pokemon to Sync any nature of your choice, and by ensuring the caller will never faint to struggle. This is a good as chains can get really long and you can become inattentive. Before this setup I have personally broken chains in the hundreds, and even fainted a shiny bagon by not paying proper attention.

By using this team you can make it easier to simply put your 3ds down until you're awake enough to deal with it again and not worry about where you were up to.



Ideal Setup:

Lead Pokemon:
355Duskull.png
Literally Anything @ Who Cares
EVs: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
DESIRED NATURE FOR HUNTED SHINY
- Make sure it's fainted in slot one. Nothing but that and the nature matters.

Notes:
In an SOS battle synchronize will use this Pokemon's nature for summoned allies regardless Alakazam's own nature. Seem silly? It isn't! Now you can use one Alakazam (or synchronize Pokemon of your choice) to hunt any nature you like. What Pokemon it is doesn't matter, I just used duskull as an example because it is cute and the skull seemed appropriate. Find it. Faint it. Make sure it is in slot 1 of your party.


Harvest Swapper:
709Trevenant.png
Trevenant @ Leppa Berry
Ability: Harvest
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Skill Swap
- Trick
- Sunny Day/Block/Horn Leech
- Shadow Claw

Notes:
Step 1: hit skill swap.
Step 2: hit trick.
Step 3: Swap to Smeargle.

This essentially gives the 'caller' infinite PP meaning it will never struggle to death. Shadow claw is there in case you get the wrong species to start the chain, and sunny day is there in case you're worried about a berry that hasn't regenerated in a bit.* If you're not worried about that, Block can be used to start Abra chains.

*Harvest gives a 50% chance to regenerate a berry on any given turn. As such the chance of it failing every one of the ten turns provided by the leppa berry is (1/2)^10 or 0.000976%. Personally, I use block.


False Swiper:
235Smeargle.png
Smeargle @ Scope Lens
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Jolly Nature
- False Swipe
- Soak
- Purify/Minimize
- Spore/Baton Pass

Notes:
Smeargle is the only pokemon that can have both false swipe and soak. Enough said. Use soak on ghosts, and false swipe to drop your caller to 1hp. Minimise and baton pass work well together but are optional: they just mean less time spent on broken subs and more time killing things that aren't shiny. Alternatively you can use Purify in case your caller gets a status, and Spore to help catch your shiny (you can soak that too).
If you really want that Minimize + Baton Pass swag, but like purify and spore, see the extra optional team mates section.

Nature Sync:
065Alakazam.png
Alakazam @ Leppa Berry/Leftovers
Ability: Synchronize
EVs: 252 HP / 66 Def / 100 SpA / 100 Spe
Timid Nature
- Substitute
- Psychic
- Signal Beam
- Recycle/Taunt

Notes:
Step 1: substitute to stop synchronize giving your caller a status
Step 2: use adrenaline orb
Step 3: kill everything not shiny (that isn't your caller).

Recycle vs Taunt comes down to how many extra Leppa berries you have laying around. Recycle lets you use the same one over and over, but taunt is better if the chained Pokemon has recovery or status (infiltrator) moves. Signal beam is there to let you chain dark types (I'm coming for you, shiny Zorua).

Extra Team Mates:
This folder contains Pokemon for special circumstances. Cute charm can be used to help find female Salazzle for example, while skill swap magic guard will stop beldum from recoiling to death (though there are downsides to this - see inside). If you have good sets, feel free to post them in the comments and I'll add them here!
Minimize Baton Pass:
426Drifblim.png
Drifblim @ Leftovers
Ability: Not Aftermath
EVs: 252 Def / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Timid Nature
- Minimize
- Baton Pass
- Substitute
- Haze

Minimize baton pass allows you to spend less time making subs with 'Zam, and more time killing things that aren't shiny. Haze can be used to remove boosts from a caller getting too big for its boots.
Cute Charm.
700Sylveon.png
Sylveon (opposite to desired gender of shiny) @ Leftovers
Ability: Cute Charm
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Wish
- Echoed Voice
- Psyshock
- Substitute

Cute Charm is useful for those 12.5%-ers, however it does mean you cannot sync your desired nature. Salazzle springs to mind - why, game freak? Why?!?
Anti High Jump Kick
20150111220919!012Butterfree.png
Butterfree @ none
Ability: Compound Eyes
- Skill Swap
- Thief
- Roost
- Aerial Ace

OR

235Smeargle.png
Smeargle @ Flynium Z/Normalium Z
Ability: Technician
- Heart Swap
- Defog/Sweet Scent
- False Swipe
- Filler

All wild scraggy in USUM have high jump kick - if your caller misses with it you can break your chain. There are two ways to deal with this: skill swap it compound eyes with butterfree (making it 117% accurate, but loosing the harvest trick), or heart swap it an accuracy boost from Smeargle's Z moves. The second is the better option, but it depends if you can be bothered getting heart swap on smeargle. Lastly, keep a no guard Pokemon in the back to avoid a shiny suicidal scraggy.
Anti Recoil:
561Sigilyph.png
Sigilyph @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Skill Swap
- Psychic
- Heat Wave
- Ice Beam

This is the best thing I could come up with to deal with recoil (thanks to ReturnoftheHavoX for pointing out that Magic Guard negates that), yet still allow for that Synchronization goodness. Sigilyph is the best option for magic guard + skill swap as it isn't even a hidden ability, however this does mean you cannot use the Harvest trick. Choose your poison.


The TL;DR Version:
- Put fainted Pokemon with desired nature in slot 1.
- Use Trev to give harvest and Leppa berry.
- Use Smeargle to reduce caller to 1hp.
- Kill everything that isn't a shiny with Alakazam.

This isn't an original idea as harvest trev has been around for a bit, however the team setup is my own. I have done my best to choose Pokemon that don't require pokebank and that can condense their roles as much as possible - if you like it please leave a comment and feel free show off your new shinies! Here's hoping you found this guide helpful, and that the RNGsus is kind to us all! Good luck from this old nerd,
-Wite.
 
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A couple other considerations beyond Harvest/Synchronize for the ability slot:

Each Pokemon has a base call rate of either 3, 6, 9, or 15 (or 0 for things like Mareanie or Blissey, where if you leave them out as the only survivor in a chain, they can never make any future calls to perpetuate the chain. That represents the percentage of time it will call for help provided it's able to do so (i.e. no status, and it has not yet had a successful call) at the end of a turn where it's in green health and you have not yet used an Adrenaline Orb. That percentage can only have two possible types of multipliers:
-green health, with Adrenaline Orb: x2
-yellow health, no orb: x3
-red health, no orb: x5
-yellow health, with orb: x6
-red health, with orb: x10

As such, a 15-call-rate Pokemon is guaranteed to call for help every single turn in the 10x case, unless it's prevented from doing so by having a status or having the second slot survive.

Separately from that, there's the chance that the call actually succeeds. By default, the 3/6/9/15 call rate groups have success rates of 12/24/36/60, and being in yellow/red heath doesn't improve those chances at all. The oft-cited Pressure, Intimidate, and Unnerve abilities don't actually affect the call rate, but they do affect the odds of success, giving it a 20% boost to 14.4/28.8/43.2/72% respectively. The only other bonus that can improve this chance is the "momentum bonus":
-opponent called for help last turn but "Its help didn't appear!": x4.5
-opponent called for help last turn, and it was answered, but you promptly OHKO'd it with a super-effective hit: x3
-opponent called for help last turn, and it was answered, but you KO'd it with something that wasn't super effective: x1.5

Of course, using an item, switching up which side of the SOS battle is the "caller" (if you're going for a non-Harvest approach), or just biding time while you wait for the new opponent to do something that might identify what ability they have, all forcefully bring your momentum bonus to a close, and you have to go without that bonus until you get another successful call. 15-rates with the red health, orb, and Pressure bonuses just need 1.5x momentum to make sure that not only do they call for help every turn without fail, but those calls are also answered without fail, so you don't need to worry about lining up type matchups there. But for lower call rates, the x3 is a big benefit to helping the chain go faster, if you have a suitable SE move to mow everything down in rapid succession.

Decidueye @ Leftovers
Ability: Long Reach
- False Swipe
- Substitute
- Leafage
- Low Sweep/Shadow Sneak/filler

Ghost False Swipers can be valuable tools in their own right: if you put up a Substitute, you immediately blank the entire moveset of stuff like Eevee, and this also allows you to check Pancham/Pangoro chains for Scrappy (KO anything that announces Mold Breaker on sight, and otherwise wait a turn to see if it can actually hit you, but the substitute prevents any chance of being flung out of the battle by Circle Throw), as Scrappy Pangoro is another useful tool in the box to avoid having to use Soak. (The only other things that can False Swipe a ghost without Soaking it first are Mega Pinsir, or if you have one of those extremely old False Swipe Swablus from Pokemon Box, sent it all the way up to the present, evolved it, and mega evolved it. Pangoro also has access to utility moves like Entrainment for ability-scouting.) Now that Long Reach is available, you could theoretically use this thing to chain Larvesta without tripping Flame Body (and without allowing it to KO itself from Take Down recoil), but Marowak-Alola is probably a better choice for that particular chain because of all the other moves like Flame Charge that add up over time. Leafage has the greatest possible PP of any move in the game, and when you're chaining things from 70-80 levels up, even a weak, possibly resisted move like that ought to be enough for KOs to free up the slot and keep the chain moving. The last spot is a "flex" that really depends on what you're chaining. Low Sweep, for example, is preferred against Eevee not just to keep up the momentum bonus, but also because the mere existence of that move in the set means any Eevee that spawns with its HA (Anticipation) will immediately announce that fact in zero turns. Against other opponents, you might prefer the type matchup or extra PP of Shadow Sneak, and there's at least one chain where Baton Pass makes sense in that slot.

Bisharp @ nothing
Ability: Pressure
- False Swipe
- Low Sweep
- Thief
- Metal Claw

This is mostly for chaining Chanseys, so you can piggyback a bunch of teammates for lots of XP. While Pressure, Intimidate, and Unnerve are all identical in their effect of increasing the success rate of calls, Pressure also doubles up on an additional effect: whatever the random level range is for the area you're at (such as 54-57), with a Pressure lead you have a 50% chance to reject that random level and replace it with the top end of the range, so L57 has a 62.5% chance to appear, while the other levels are down at 12.5% each. This results in slightly more XP per KO--not much, but it's something. Item slot might as well be empty so that you have a chance to Thief a Lucky Egg off a Blissey at some point in the chain, adding to your collection of those. If you have one with Mean Look as an egg move, you can also shift into the Mean Look/False Swipe/Stealth Rock/Thief set that's ideal for chaining Abra: the idea there is that by setting up Stealth Rock just once, you can immediately identify an incoming Abra that doesn't take damage from it, and therefore must have Magic Guard.

The Perfect Beldum Chain
Beldum is notoriously annoying to chain, having only one move (which is a recoil move) and then when you find one that you want to catch, you have to deal with that awful catch rate before it potentially KO's itself from recoil or even Struggle. But this team is just plain foolproof.

-Start with your desired-nature Pokemon. It doesn't even need to be fainted, in fact.
-If it's not fainted, switch out to your Trevenant on turn 1, while Beldum uses Take Down and whiffs.
-Set Beldum up with Leppa/Harvest over the next two turns, as usual.
-Switch to Decidueye. This time, however, it shouldn't hold Leftovers: instead, it actually needs Lagging Tail. Beldum of course keeps whiffing, since it is imperative that you are never presenting a non-ghost type for it to hit.
-Keep False Swiping Beldum down into the red (it doesn't necessarily have to be all the way to 1 HP).
-Switch to Gourgeist (or Pumpkaboo). Neither of these Pokemon are available in any Alola game, so they have to be transferred up from Kalos, or you can crawl the GTS in search of one. But their role is absolutely irreplaceable here: using Trick-or Treat to make sure Beldum is now a ghost.
-Switch back to Decidueye, and use a Lagging Tail Baton Pass to become the ultimate slow pivot. Switch in Mew, who gets brought in slowly enough that Beldum doesn't get a chance to hit it that turn, and thus can't recoil itself to death. (Oh yeah, you'll need one of the many Mew events that's been available over the years). There are no Ghost-type Synchronizers in the game, but...
-On Mew's first turn out, have it use Reflect Type to steal Beldum's new Steel/Psychic/Ghost type for itself. Now it's immune to all Take Downs, and you can safely ignore any possibility of recoil for the rest of the chain.
-Put up the Adrenaline Orb at last, and start running up the score with Thief as new Beldums get called in. The other slots can be comprised of more attacks, or Mew obviously has lots of utility options like Sunny Day if you're worried about a Harvest cold streak, or Recycle (with a Leppa Berry of course) if you're willing to spend the occasional turn to avoid having to use Roto PP Restores. Mew obviously means the chain gets the benefit of Synchronize this whole time, and the Harvest Beldum can do absolutely nothing but flail around in place as more Beldums get called in alongside it.
-When you finally do see the shiny Beldum or whatever, go back to Trevenant, set the shiny up with Harvest, and use Trick two more times: stealing the Leppa Berry from the original Beldum and handing it off to the new one.
-You also needed to have another Ghost in reserve, such as Rotom-Normal, with the ability to Thunder Wave (as neither Trevenant nor Gourgeist can learn that, or even Stun Spore). Use an X Accuracy if you're that worried about the prospect of missing several times in a row on a 90% move. This stops any further calls.
-Once again switch to Decidueye, to wear the paralyzed Beldum back down to 1 HP. The other Beldum will probably struggle to death around this point, which frees you up to throw Poke Balls.
-Use a Roto Catch Power if you want, and keep chucking your ball of choice until it hits. Beldum is still powerless to hit ghosts, and still has Leppa-Harvest, so it's just a matter of time.
 
First, while it is a pain to get Mew, I really like your Beldum chain team. The best I had come up with so far (that kept Sync) was skill swap magic guard to remove the recoil. That, and the information about pressure etc was quite useful - there is a lot of contradictory information about those abilities on the internet. Do you mind if I compile these into the original thread (with credit of course)?

Edit: according to >this thread< cute charm only works if it is in slot one when the battle is activated BUT can be swapped out afterwards. Theoretically then, couldn't we use cute charm to modify the gender + its nature to sync? If anyone has time to test that, it'd be appreciated.
 
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Hi, i have a few question. regarding the desired nature using sync pokemon

1) Does it still work if my first party for desired nature is not fainted?
2) Does it also still work if my first party is also a sync ability with desired nature but also using another sync pokemon to chain kill till I get a shiny?
 
Hi, i have a few question. regarding the desired nature using sync pokemon

1) Does it still work if my first party for desired nature is not fainted?
2) Does it also still work if my first party is also a sync ability with desired nature but also using another sync pokemon to chain kill till I get a shiny?
It's a very old post, but pretty much not I'm afraid.

If your first Pokemon in the party is not a fainted Syncronizers, pokemon coming in from SoS will not be getting the Sync effect.
If your active pokemon is a Syncronizer, it will be applying its own Sync effect over the one from the fainted party member as far as I know as well.
 
If your active Pokemon at the time of an SOS call is a Synchronizer, that ability will be in effect, but it will not necessarily be looking at the sync's own nature: it will look at the nature of whatever Pokemon was in slot 1 way back when the chain started (regardless of what that Pokemon's ability is).
 
It's a very old post, but pretty much not I'm afraid.

If your first Pokemon in the party is not a fainted Syncronizers, pokemon coming in from SoS will not be getting the Sync effect.
If your active pokemon is a Syncronizer, it will be applying its own Sync effect over the one from the fainted party member as far as I know as well.
ah okie, thanks. :)
 
If your active Pokemon at the time of an SOS call is a Synchronizer, that ability will be in effect, but it will not necessarily be looking at the sync's own nature: it will look at the nature of whatever Pokemon was in slot 1 way back when the chain started (regardless of what that Pokemon's ability is).
oh, I see, thanks a lot
 

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