Shiny Pokémon are among the most sought after creatures in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl, and the rarity of finding them makes the alternately-colored Pocket Monsters hard to catch. It isn't just the fact that Shiny Pokémon are rare to find on their own, however, but rather it's the rarity of the Pokémon combined with an already low Shiny rate. The starting rate of finding a Shiny Pokémon in Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl begins at 1 in 4096, but certain Pokémon have lower spawn rates than others making them even more difficult to catch.
One of the unique features of Pokémon BDSP is that nearly every Pocket Monster in the game can be found and captured as a Shiny Pokémon. The only exception to this are the Jirachi and Mew in Pokémon BDSP that players can get as gifted Pokémon from the NPC couple in Floaroma Town. For having a save file of Pokémon Sword or Pokémon Shield, players can get a Jirachi, while having a save file of Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee will allow them to get a Mew. In both cases, these are they only Pokémon that are Shiny-locked in the game, meaning there is absolutely no way for players to receive the Shiny versions of these Pokémon from the NPCs.
Of course, there are multiple things that players can do in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl that will allow them to increase their odds of finding a Shiny Pokémon. For starters, finding the Shiny Charm in Pokémon BDSP will allow players to have an increased chance of hatching Shiny Pokémon, but it does nothing for the static encounters that players will have in the game. Furthermore, players can also use in-game tricks and items like the Masuda Method, Poké Radar, and 40 Diglet Bonus to increase their odds of getting Shiny Pokémon, but the static encounters or event encounters are entirely left up to chance back at those starting base odds of 1/4096.
Shiny Burmy Forms Are Rare To Find In Pokémon BDSP
Similar to the original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, Burmy can only be found in the Honey Trees that are scattered throughout the Sinnoh Region. In the original versions of the games, several Pokémon like Burmy, Cherubi, Munchlax, and more were only available if players slathered Honey on a tree with golden-colored leaves, then waited six hours for a Pokémon to appear. Honey Tree Pokémon in BDSP can be found via an identical method, but the majority of them can be found in the Grand Underground as well. The only exception to this is Burmy and its alternate forms.
Honey Tree Pokémon are divided into three different categories, namely Normal, Rare, and Very Rare. Normal Honey Tree encounters have a 70% of happening, and within that amount trainers only have a 10% chance of finding a Burmy. Rare encounters increase those odds, allowing trainers to find Burmy 20% of the time, but the Rare encounters only occur 20% of the time as well. Burmy won't be found in the Very Rare Honey Tree encounters, and there's always the possibility that no Pokémon will respond to the honey at all. Factors in the Shiny odds, and Shiny Burmy becomes incredibly rare to find. Furthermore, its Shiny forms look nearly identical to the originals.
Feebas May Be The Hardest Shiny Pokémon To Find In BDSP
In Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, getting Feebas can prove to be challenging because players will need a few items just to reach its spawn location alone. Once the Super Rod has been received, players will need to make their way Mt Coronet from the entrance that is closest to Eterna City. Once inside the cave, trainers will need to head north until a foggy area is reached to clear the pathway to a lake. This lake is where Feebas can be found with a Super Rod, but it's more challenging than one may think.
There are four tiles that are completing randomized per save file that will allow players to find Feebas with the Super Rod, and even then there's only a 50% chance that Feebas will spawn in those specific tiles. This means that players cannot use the Poké Radar in Pokémon BDSP to find and capture any Feebas, thereby making the Shiny version that much more challenging to capture. To get a Shiny Feebas or Milotic, players are better off catching and breeding a normal colored one.
Shiny Static Encounters In Pokémon BDSP Are Rare Finds
Throughout Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, there are a number of static encounters that, while rare, can result in trainers finding a Shiny Pokémon. None of these encounters are Shiny locked, but they do require incredible patience and determination as players must constantly perform software resets to trigger the engagement over and over again. Software resets completing alter the data of the static Pokémon, resulting in a new variation with mostly different stats, natures, and even color configuration from the previous iteration. Legendaries, Drifloon, and starter Pokémon in BDSP have shiny variations that can all be encountered through software reset methods.
To perform a successful software reset, trainers will want to save their game as close to the static encounter as possible without actually triggering the encounter itself. For the starter Pokémon, the latest place that players can possibly save the game is right before they enter Lake Verity with Barry for the first time. For Legendaries and Drifloon, players can save right before they interact with the Pokémon itself to access the most recent save file. Afterward, all that needs to happen to perform a successful software reset is for players to return to the Home page of the Switch, then close out of Pokémon BDSP.
For Drifloon in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, specifically, players will need to make sure that it is also the correct day of the week and time that the Pokémon can be found. The Ghost- and Flying- type only appears on Fridays in the Valley Windworks once players have progressed far enough that Team Galatic has vacated the area. Trainers can alter the time on their Nintendo Switch to manually make it Friday in game, but in-game events will only take effect after 24 hours have ed, meaning the day will have to changed to Thursday in order for Friday events to trigger in Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.
