• Forum Moderator applications are now open! If you're interested in joining an active team of moderators for one of the biggest Pokémon forums on the internet, click here for info.

Spoilers Shiny Hunting in Z-A

Mothmallow

Mothmallow

Bug and Dark type enjoyer
Bulbagala Participant 2025 Bulbagala Fashion Icon 2025 Bulbagala Fashion Star 2025 Nidofam
Joined
Mar 12, 2025
Messages
175
Reaction score
322
Pronouns
  1. He/Him
  2. They/Them
  3. It/Its
Marked spoiler for potential discussion of late- and post-game areas.
I wanted a place to discuss the mechanics and methods of looking for shiny Pokémon in these games, since there doesn't seem to be one here yet. Here's a rundown of what I know right now;
  • Base odds are 1/4096, as is typical of recent games, though apparently the shiny charm in this game triples odds instead of doubling.
  • Once a shiny spawns, the game saves its location and it will not despawn until caught, KO'ed, or scared away. I've seen it said that the game can store up to 10 shiny encounters at a time this way, and then the first will despawn on 11th and so on. This means save-scumming difficult to catch mons works here just like in Arceus.
  • The chime is back, and will play when you come near enough to a shiny Pokémon.
That's the basic info about shiny Pokémon themselves, as for strategies;
  • Pretty much every guide says that fast-travelling and resting at benches resets Pokémon spawns, but that goes directly against my experience with the game. As far as I can tell, at least, spawns are set on a timer that the player has little to no control over, and may even be somewhat random. For example, if I clear an area of Pokémon, it will remain empty for a while no matter how much fast-travelling and bench-sitting I do. Conversely, even nearby wild Pokémon will despawn and be replaced after enough time has passed, shinies excluded. So I would assume anyone hunting these ways only got shinies eventually because they passed these respawn intervals while hunting, and falsely assumed their method worked. Granted I could just be doing something wrong somehow, but for now I'm going to label this as a myth.
  • So with that in mind, hunting in this game does seem to simply come down to waiting. KO'ing and catching mons seems to speed up respawns a bit, but as I said before you can still get new spawns eventually without doing anything. So the easiest method is just to AFK in the area your target spawns.
Both of the above are about wild zones, I'm still not sure how Pokémon that spawn around the city work. Input from more knowledgeable people would be greatly appreciated. Especially with how fast travelling and benches relate to spawns, I do want to believe I'm just being stupid because it would make things so much easier to just spam fast travel
 
Mothmallow said:
Pretty much every guide says that fast-travelling and resting at benches resets Pokémon spawns, but that goes directly against my experience with the game. As far as I can tell, at least, spawns are set on a timer that the player has little to no control over, and may even be somewhat random.
Click to expand...
Based on what I caught on what people say on the internet, my understanding goes as this: If you want to come across a new shiny, resting on the bench works. So you rest, the Pokémon in the area respawn, and there is a chance one of them may be shiny. If there is no shiny, you just go back and rest again. But that only works for the Pokémon within 50 steps around you. So if you are looking for a specific Pokémon, you should mark it on the map accurately and find a bench that's not more than 50 steps away. I think there have been some maps fans made that shows every spawning Pokémon and the closest benches to them.

However, if you already encountered a shiny in an area and if the Pokémon is exclusive to night or day cycle, and if the time changes during that time, this Pokémon will reappear if you visit the area the same time (day or night). But if you trigger the time by resting on the bench, it won't appear again. The time needs to change within game's own cycle.

All above is from what I read by various sources unrelated to each other so that is how my understanding goes. I didn't try it myself.
 
Okay so after some more testing, it turns out I am just stupid. Pokémon spawn slots are rerolled upon fast travel/timeskip, I made the mistake of knocking out/catching Pokémon first. Respawns seem to work differently, that spawn slot is temporarily 'removed' for a while, and nothing will take its place until it's refreshed. So fast traveling or benching without KO'ing or catching wild Pokémon does seem to be the best method.
 
i will say, shiny hunting in this game is a breeze; just about as simple as it was with the shiny sandwich method in s/v. whether or not that "cheapens" the value of shiny pokemon i'm not going to comment on (because i think your mileage may vary when it comes to that), but regardless of that, i find the shiny critters fun to catch, still. tedious at absolute worst for some pokemon like fennekin, tynamo, and other pokemon where there aren't a ton of in a wild zone or other areas, but it's not too bad an experience for me (yet).

i haven't completed the game nor have the shiny charm but i still have a near full shiny team due to persistence and patience, and i feel a sense of accomplishment from it, still! can't wait to get the shiny charm and start having more fun catching shinies. c:
 
Man, I wish about the game saving Shiny locations earlier. I've missed out on 3 Shinies already, a Budew and an Espurr that ran away because I wasn't careful enough, and earlier an Abra that teleported away. With the latter I was as careful as I could but I couldn't reach it with Ultra Balls because it was on a slightly higher roof.

Anyway, I do have a lot of Shinies in this game already, even before I got the Shiny Charm I've come across several somehow.
 
I'm slowly working on grinding through my battles to get the shiny charm right now (currently at about 700 battles completed so i'm over the hill!) once i get it im probably gonna hunt Aron if i can! in the past ive only ever done masuda hunts in Scarlet so im excited to do something different this time!
 
i am using this thread as an opportunity to share that i am over 150 shinies into an AFK turbo controller hunt on a bench in area 20 for female shiny chikorita and i still don't have the lesbian pear. i am shiny hunting her because mega meganium's shiny makes the flowers on the neck lesbian flag colors. this is a necessary shiny for me. LOL

overall i have over 20 shiny starters (including a few totodiles because i spent a day accidentally hunting by the wrong bench before realizing my mistake) and all of them are boys. 9 of those are chikoritas, all boys. the chances of a female starter are 1/8 so i must be due for female shiny chikorita soon right?? copium.

except just today i phased on a female shiny alpha flareon in the alpha roulette center of area 20 and like. it's so hard to complain because i am a fiend for the eeveelutions and i used a female flareon during my playthrough of the game that i got super attached to so in the context of z-a i feel like i was destined to also get a shiny one sometime. but like. NOT NOW!! why couldn't i have rolled the 1/8 female on a chikorita instead... girl help... i hope i didn't use up my gender roll luck on that LOL knock on wood

i want to do some more active shiny hunts in this game at some point instead of AFK hunting but i have so many other priorities right now and it's been nice to have the AFK hunt going while i work on other things. eventually i will actually manually hunt the one static drampa encounter because i adore mega drampa...

i do have the shiny charm and that 1000 battles requirement is ridiculous but otherwise i'm a huge fan of how shiny hunting works in this game and also that the charm boosts the odds by triple instead of double. i like a lot how much freedom there is to shiny hunting in Z-A; like it's really as active or as passive as you want and you aren't punished for missing a shiny because of the whole shiny saving feature. so glad that if you accidentally let a shiny (or any pokemon) run away it doesn't autosave too, which feels intentional so that you can still reload to grab it. and i love the middle ground between PLA's shiny sparkle system and SV's shiny sparkle system, or well, lack thereof, because you can still spot a shiny from far away and have the excitement of "wait... is that SHINY?!" and have that confirmed to you as you get closer, but you won't miss out on a nearby shiny from simply not seeing it (and of course it doesn't despawn if you don't walk close enough to it in passing). like really it's the perfect system and i hope future games keep doing something similar
 
i am using this thread as an opportunity to share that i am over 150 shinies into an AFK turbo controller hunt on a bench in area 20 for female shiny chikorita and i still don't have the lesbian pear. i am shiny hunting her because mega meganium's shiny makes the flowers on the neck lesbian flag colors. this is a necessary shiny for me. LOL
Click to expand...
WOWZA good luck with that haha.
I have a few randos from my playthrough (vanilluxe, pyroar, roserade, and a malamar I actually found yesterday right after putting on a shiny hunting video in the background) but I just finished my first proper hunt this morning. Shiny skrelp in the sewers after ~2300 encounters. That was without shiny charm, so pretty lucky. I got to trade with someone for completion just a few minutes ago so I have charm now, I just like to do at least one full odds hunt before I get it in a game. Planning on hunting for all the starters at some point, I expect chespin and fennekin will be annoying but nowhere near THAT bwahah
 
Mothmallow said:
WOWZA good luck with that haha.
Click to expand...
thank you, unfortunately i just checked my hunt after completing an exam for college and there was a female shiny bulbasaur in the same day as the flareon. two 1/8 female shinies in one day and neither were chikorita. i'm losing my mind LOL

Mothmallow said:
Shiny skrelp in the sewers after ~2300 encounters.
Click to expand...
major congrats!!
 
I've decided I'm gonna keep going in the sewers until I get a shiny alpha. It's pretty convenient because you don't get interupted by the day/night cycle and it's easy to count since the section I'm in has a consistent 12 spawns every refresh; 3 skrelp, inkay, ariados, and noibat each. All of which are mons I happen to like, so I'll be happy no matter the outcome. I'll edit this post as I go I guess
Phase 1: Shiny skrelp at ~2300, full odds. The rest from here are all with shiny charm. I actually predicted near the beginning of this one that it would be skrelp, haha.
Phase 2: This time I predicted noibat at 1800, and got a noibat at ~1700!
Phase 3: I'm gonna say another noibat at 1000. Let's see how it goes. Edit: Skrelp at 590, and in the exact same spawn slot, lmao! Not noibat, but it was the other repeat and I think that should count for something
Phase 4: Guess- Ariados at 1500, maybe? Update- Bad news: not ariados and nearly double 1500. Good news: SHALPHA INKAY! Over 2800 encounters. I was thinking towards the end that the only way for this phase to redeem itself was to be the alpha, and lo and behold, lmaooo. I might keep going a bit just so I can round things out with an ariados, I was expecting to have at least one of each by the end...
 
Last edited:
I just managed to get my dream ZA Shiny, an Alpha Shiny Beldum :giggle: Which is already a Metagross now
pBMj1QT.jpeg
Shiny Hunting in ZA is pretty easy, especially in Lysandre Labs with the teleporter method. Though the real challenge was getting an Alpha, since that's still a complete coin toss. I might try for a Shiny Honedge next.
 
after 197 phases, i have finally gotten my dream shiny! back in the days of ultra sun in 2017, my first ever shiny was a female fennekin. i hatched eight fennekin eggs, and the eighth was not only a girl but also shiny. the luck was crazy, and ever since then, i have been waiting for another chance to shiny hunt a female fennekin... and with legends ZA, that chance arrived.

i was afk hunting on the bench in wild zone 18, hoping to get a girl. i am now drowning in pretty much every pokemon that spawns in that area. i even got a few rare spawns (mawile, eevee, and gastly) to be shiny. after getting 10+ boys, today i checked and finally got the girl that i was looking for... and she was also an alpha. needless to say, i completely lost my mind and screamed. and i got her!

fennekin info screen.jpeg

fennekin at cafe.jpeg

fennekin smiling.jpeg

shiny fennekin is my favorite in the entire franchise, and she's always going to have a special place in my heart as my first. so now, i have another one of her! this is ashwind, and she's the most important girl in the world. i like fennekin's shiny better than braixen or delphox since fennekin was my first, so she's always going to be small... or big, i guess. she's huge. but she's also my sweet little baby at heart.
 
I've really been enjoying shiny hunting in Legends Z-A so far. It has my favorite bits of shiny hunting from Legends Arceus, but adds methods that are just more conveniant and a little less time consuming. Besides the shiny charm there is no way to boost the chance of a shiny Pokemon appearing, but I think the various methods they have to reset spawns make up for it.

I got my first 12 shinies before getting the shiny charm, but there was a hunt I was working on that I was just droughting on so in order to boost my chances I finally went ahead ahead and grinded out battles in the Z-A royale for 8+ hours last week. Since then I've only had the time to get a handful more but I've gotten some good ones so far.

Legends Z-A offers new oppurtunities to shiny hunt a lot of Pokemon I've wanted for a long time but just never got around to finishing hunts for. I've wanted a Shiny Pumpkaboo for years, and with this game having it available in the wild and it being around Halloween time, I knew I wanted to go for one. Actually, my major target was the Shiny Alpha Gourgeist. Even though I wanted shiny Pumpkaboo more I thought Gourgeist would make for a better hunt because it was an alpha and I didn't have one yet in Legends Z-A. Plus I thought I'd phase on Pumpkaboos a few times anyway. Nope, that was not the case. After about an hour of fly resetting to the cafe in zone 15, I got the Alpha Gourgiest. I was so happy to have him, but was also a bit sad I didn't get any Pumpkaboo, so I stayed in the area trying to get Pumpkaboo and it got to the point I thought my game was broken. Nothing would shine, not in the day or the night. That's when I finally decided to grab the shiny charm in hopes that it would force the game to give me a shiny and even then it took me a bit but finally, Pumpkaboo shined. What's more, she was an alpha. Back in Legends Arceus I never found a single random shiny alpha. All my alpha shinies were static spawns. I was so excited to see that Shalpha Pumpkaboo, so happy that I didn't spend any time trying to figure out the best Pokeball for her but whatever. It's fine. She can enjoy her ultra ball.

Another Pokemon I've wanted shiny for years is Shiny Absol. And when I say years I mean when I first learned about Shiny Pokemon 13 years ago and saw a picture of the red Absol. It's not even my favorite shiny, I've just wanted one for so long and attempted to hunt it in multiple games, the most notable one being on Mount Lanakila in Pokemon Sun. I waited for a bit to hunt it, but this evening while taking a break from antother hunt I'm on, I found one on a roof and thought I'd test out the simple method of running back and forth to spawn and despawn the Pokemon. And oh my gosh it appeared so quickly. Like probably less than 5 minutes after I started running (to be fair, I had just done been resets for almost an hour and a half last night with nothing to show for). I was checking to make sure he respawned and saw the little red tail and freaked out a bit. Eventually I went up and caught him in a premiere ball. Still not sure what I'll name him but he is my baby now.

The hunt I actually took a break from today is a Shiny Amaura hunt. I love Shiny Amaura and Aurorus and I've never attempted a fossil hunt before so I thought I'd test it out in this game. I'll admit, after the nightmare that was the Sprigatito Masuda hunt, I was a little worried about hunting something that wasn't in the wild for the first time in a little over 2 years. It really hasn't been too bad though. I bought 30 sail fossils and have just been resetting the game after filling a box of them. So far I've checked 1100 fossils which I think is actually over the amount of eggs I hatched looking for Sprigatito, and it didn't feel painful at all. The revives work significantly faster and I'm able to check a box in 12-15 minutes depending on how attentive I'm being to it. Plus, it's a great hunt to do while I'm watchin youtube videos as I don't have to look at the screen, I just check the box after awhile to see where I'm at. Overall, I like the fossil revives a lot more, and I guess depending on how these ones go, I might even go for Aerodactyl, my previous favorite fossil Pokemon.
 
I missed out on a Shiny Alpha Goomy earlier today. Got ganged up on with a bunch of Thunderbolts before I could even save. That one will haunt me for a while.

I did just make up for it with this guy though. The hardest part was getting it into a Beast Ball lol

6oVqPgi.jpeg
 
i Dont know if this page was created for telling people about your catches but,
I caught my first shiny on accedent a couple of days ago
it was a shiny bellsprout.
 
Back
Top Bottom