Recruiting Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is no easy task, as only strong foes can be shiny Pokemon. You can recognize a strong foe by the special triangle symbol above their heads, or on your map. The game also tells you the strong foes in every dungeon on the dungeon select menu, allowing you to choose which Pokemon you want to go after.
Strong foes are rare in dungeons as well, so encountering them can be an added challenge. Here is what you need to do to maximize your chances of recruiting shiny Pokemon.
First, find a Pokemon that can learn False Swipe. This is the only move that increases the chances of recruiting Pokemon. If you knock out an enemy with False Swipe, they will be more likely to join your adventure. The downside of this move is that it is relatively weak. I recommend boosting its power with Power Drinks to make up for this. Since you cannot really tell how much health an enemy has, you want to be able to defeat it with False Swipe.
Once you have your Pokemon with False Swipe, you can work on giving it a rare quality. The two you want to go for are Squad Up and Friendly. You will need two Pokemon to have both these qualities on your team. They do not both need False Swipe though, but you can do that if you want. These two are essential in boosting your recruitment chances.
Squad Up makes it so the more members you have on your team, the more likely it is that Pokemon you battle against will want to be your friends. With this quality you should make sure to always have a full team to maximize its effect. Keep in mind that guest Pokemon do not count towards Squad Up, since they are only there for the mission.
As for Friendly, it boosts the chances Pokemon you defeat will want to join your team. You only need one of each rare quality, because you cannot stack the same quality with itself. So having two Friendly qualities does not boost its effect.
Next you will want to gather these items: Friend Bow, Inviting Orb, and Rare Quality Orb. The hardest of these three items to get is the Friend Bow. You can only get this item after you beat the main story, because it can only be found in post-game dungeons. Since obtaining this item is no easy task, I have prepared a guide to help you find your Friend Bow. As for the two orbs, you can get these from Kecleon’s shops both in town and in dungeons. Occasionally you will also see Pokemon offering the Inviting Orb or Rare Quality Orb as rewards for helping them.
Now that you have everything to maximize your recruitment chances, it is time to go on the hunt. For this strategy, you should bring a lot of Apples, Big Apples, or Perfect Apples. Hunger can be a problem when going shiny hunting. Other things that help with hunger are the Tight Belt and rare quality Small Stomach. These are not necessary for shiny hunting, though. You also want to bring X-Ray Specs if you are doing a dungeon that does not allow you to see enemies on the map.
You are going to spend a lot of time on dungeon floors, so here’s the strategy! On the first to second floor of the dungeon, recruit every Pokemon who asks to join. You want to get 5 Pokemon to join your team as fast as possible, to maximize Squad Up’s power. Once you have a full team, you want to get to a high level floor; floor 6 or 7 is a good number for short dungeons. If you are doing a long dungeon, then floors 10-15 will be more useful. This is because the farther you go into the dungeon, the more difficult it becomes. That means there is a higher chance of strong foes spawning.
When you are at the designated floor, you will want to clear the map of all enemies. Then run around until you see enemies respawn on your map. Keep knocking them out and running around. Every time an enemy is spawned, there is a chance for it to be a strong foe.
By repeating this method you will eventually force a strong foe to spawn. Make sure to switch leaders to conserve your food supply. Be careful of the winds, though: you should leave as soon as it spawns. If you stay too long, the winds will blow you out of the dungeon and you will lose your money and items! This is why you do not start your shiny hunt on the very last floor.
What do you do when you finally see that shiny Pokemon? First, make sure to turn off your team members’ ranged moves and moves that hit the entire room. You want to make sure you KO the shiny Pokemon with False Swipe. Depending on how strong your team is, you can go into tactics and change the tactic to Don’t Use Moves, or Wait There. Be aware that the Pokemon you recruit during the journey will not follow these tactics. You can block them into a corridor or room with careful positioning, if you are worried about them messing up your plan.
After that you will want to use the Inviting Orb and Rare Quality Orb. Shiny Pokemon do not always have rare qualities, but it is good to use it just in case. Then you just spam False Swipe on the Pokemon, and hope it asks to join your team. You should know, that even with all these boosts the shiny Pokemon is not guaranteed to join your team. Hopefully this is not the case, and it asks to join.
After it joins, you can use an Escape Orb or just fight your way to the end of the dungeon. That way you can officially get the shiny Pokemon on your team!
