Frisk and Pickpocket Builds for Item Farming

[shamorunner]

Of the many items on the GTL, all are farmed by players in one fashion or another. Many items are simply bought from an NPC and resold at a markup, like pokeballs and TMs. Other items obtained through spending BP to buy items from NPCs and others are items obtained during the storyline. There are also items farmed through pickup and the ability pickup, pickup guides will be linked at the bottom of this guide. The remaining items are primarily farmed using one of three methods: catching the target mon, using frisk mon to be followed by a pickpocket mon, or using a frisk/thief mon. These are the three methods that will be discussed in this guide.

The Catching Method

Spoiler

A minority of items farmed from wild mons are first caught, the player then realizes an item is held and then shortly sells it on the GTL, or trashed instead of sold in some instances. As this is the least efficient of the three methods of the three, most that get into item farming will start here and then go to one of the other two methods. Despite other methods being more efficient, the builds for this method will be more vague with some links to a couple other helpful guides for Smeargle and Breloom. The Catching Method is the slowest as several turns must be spent to catch the target mon as well as dealing with the usage or release of the mon, the cost of pokeballs, and the many mons caught without an item. Most of this method is a build for a catching mon and then simply catching the target mon.

 

The first major mon for the Catching method for item farming is to use a catching Smeargle. The best build for a relatively universal catching Smeargle is going to use: False Swipe, Spore, Soak, and your choice of moves like mean look, sweet scent, teleport, ect. The use of false swipe and spore allow a mon to be "swiped down" and then put to sleep to greatly increase the odds of catching it while soak allows for ghost types to be "swiped down" and grass types to be put to sleep by spore. The fourth move is up to you to choose what you want or to suit your needs.

 

The second major mon for the Catching Method for item farming is to use a catching Breloom. A good starting build will have false swipe, spore, substitute, and your choice of move. Similar to Smeargle, false swipe and spore are used to make catching the target mon much easier. Substitute allows for dittos to be easily caught as well as not have to worry about troublesome damage that chips away at your HP or status moves from deterring you from the catch, although dittos are mainly farmed for breeding rather than items.

 

For the Catching Method, items are viable but quite different in needs. Smeargle can run a leftovers quite well to help make up for some of its overall lack of stats. Choice band can also have a place to make its false swipe more effective, although its quite debatable if having such a pricey item over leftovers is worth it. For Breloom, it's best to have the Toxic Heal ability and then holding a toxic orb

 

Builds

Spoiler

The builds for Smeargle are better covered in the following guide:

 

 

The builds for Breloom are better covered in the following guide: https://forums.pokemmo.com/index.php?/topic/153549-optimal-guide-to-pve-breloom-with-an-optimal-leveling-strategy/

 

The Pickpocket Method

Spoiler

This method, albeit still a minority, is growing in usage and is especially effective in instances where hordes of physical attackers might be present, like Meowth hordes on Kindle Road. The only available build using this method is currently the Weavile line (in the future, Shiftry might be an option when his HA is unlocked). The easiest method for this build is to bring a mon with Frisk and place it at the front of the party. When an item is held by a wild pokemon and triggers frisk, then rotate your Pickpocket Weavile into the fight. The bulk of the Pickpocket Method is rather passive and doesn't even need to use move PP, but some moves will still have good use to blend well with your Pickpocket Weavile. The following moves are good for your Weavile: Thief, Rock Smash, Dig, and another HM or field move. Thief is good to have to help farm more items, although debatable if worth having for the Pickpocket Method if you aren't going to farm fossils. Rock Smash is helpful if you want to rotate to farming fossils, tied with having thief on your Weavile. Dig is helpful for getting quickly out of caves.

 

The remaining of your Weavile build is IVs, nature, and EVs. IVs to focus would be that of tanking stats, so HP, DEF, and S.DEF. It's not of major importance to have max 31 IVs for this, it can help but will work perfectly fine with even lower IVs. For your nature, ideally a nature that benefits defensive capabilities, at the least a nature that doesn't bring down your defenses. For your EVs, I would recommend HP and then DEF/S.DEF depending on what you're planning to farm or to split DEF/S.DEF evenly. The most important part of this will be making sure your nature doesn't bring down your defenses and then making sure you're correctly EV trained for the long haul.

 

Due to Pickpocket only being triggered by the wild pokemon using moves that make contact, not all locations will have the same level of efficiency. Luckily, sweet scent hordes of physical attacking mons can work quite well. One of the best locations to use the Pickpocket method is Kindle Road. Here there are Meowth hordes to run into to be able to farm Amulet Coins. If your Weavile or team has Rock Smash available, then you can swap between Amulet Coin farming and Fossil farming. Nearby is a spa to heal your team at the spa, and having dig makes getting in and out rather quick to be able to get back to farming. For encountering Meowth Hordes, lead with your frisk mon until Frisk is triggered and then send out your Weavile. If the item isn't pickpocketed turn 1, then use thief on a target until the item is Pickpocketed or obtained using thief. Due to Amulet Coins being in demand for gym reruns, trainer reruns, ect, there is always decent money to be had by farming them on Kindle Road from Meowths.

The Frisk/Thief Method

Spoiler

The most popular method for item farming, leading with a frisk mon and then using said mon to take an item once frisk is triggered. There are a handful of mons that work for this method as well as moves: thief, covet, and trick. For thief/covet, use it on the wild mon once frisk is triggered, if up against a horde then spam it until you get the item. Trick is the unique move of the three, as trick can be used to get an item even if the user is holding an item, the new item will be picked up by the player the once the fight is over. If trick is the only move used of the three, the user may have other items like Eviolite if not fully evolved, leftovers, and whatever else you want equipped. Thief and covet work the same as each other, the major difference being learnsets, possible targets (thief can't hit psychic and covet can't hit ghost types), Power, and PP. Both have higher PP (Thief 20 PP and Covet 25 PP), with a slight advantage to Covet.

 

In PokeMMO we have a total of six mons with frisk and one yet to be released (Furret). The six mons/lines are as follows: Wigglytuff, Yanmega, Banette, Dusclops, Gothitelle, and Stantler. Of these mons, all have Frisk and can learn thief so all are acceptable. Their individual ability to safely run away, durability, and movesets will vary. Due to all 6 lines having frisk through out their various evo lines, the above ones are listed as roughly the best ones in their lines despite some still being nearly equally viable (Dusknoir, Gothorita somewhat).

 

The rankings for these mons is based off of their ability to run away when frisk isn't triggered or an item has already been taken, their PP longevity, and durability. All of the mons have at least frisk and are able to learn Thief, so all of these are viable (furret still pending HA release) for the Frisk/Thief Method. As most locations for item farming aren't the furthest from a PC to heal up, longevity is only a tie-breaker for mons that are awfully close in the rankings or in the instance of Dusclops/Dusknoir. The ghost types will be classified into their own tier, due to being able to run away under any and all wild encounters, including shadow tag and arena trap giving them a big advantage when underleveled, against faster wild mons, and running into shadow tag/arena trap. 

 

The top tier Frisk/Thief mons are Dusclops line and Banette line. Banette is 9/10 times the better option as it is readily available on the GTL with frisk, cheap, and is a ghost type. Dusclops is also a ghost type, but frisk is a limited release HA for the Dusclops line making it not as readily available and definitely not "cheap" for the average player. Dusclops has one major advantage over Banette, longevity for Turnback Cave. Normally Banette will beat out the Dusclops line due to cost, availability, and readily PC access to easily heal. In Turnback Cave, this will not work as a PC is not readily available to heal so the tankier the mon the longer one will be able to farm items. I recommend a Dusclops with Eviolite/leftovers or a Banette with Leftovers and using Trick as much as possible, otherwise use Thief and then thief normally. Both are also able to learn taunt which can help for catching Shiny Spiritomb in Turnback Cave.

 

The middle tier Frisk/Thief mons are Stantler, Gothitelle, and wigglytuff. All three have a somewhat stable level of durability but not a high level like Dusclops. Stantler and Gothitell aslo learn trick, which is a good primary move or backup if you forget to remove an item gained by thief. Stantler and Gotchitelle have decent speed and should be able to run away from all but Dugtrio/Wobbafets when at a high level. Both Gothitelle and Wigglytuff can learn covet too. The top of this tier goes to Stantler, despite having less tank than Gothitelle, Stantler is able to run away from higher level mons more easily. Gothitelle is a close second with a decent chunk of tank and a lower speed stat. In last for this middle tier is Wigglytuff, who doesn't learn trick, has a low speed setting, and but has the highest HP stat of all the Frisk mons available in PokeMMO, allowing it to survive longer than many of the other Frisk mons, this is the only major reason to go for Wigglytuff over any others though as many others learn Thief/Covet and Trick in addition to other benefits.

 

The bottom tier for Frisk/Thief is made up of Yanmega (not tanky enough), and Furret (HA not available). Yanmega only learns thief of the available moves and is also  not the best to use against many of the rock type mons that folks run into heavily that will hit 4x as hard with rock type moves against Yanmega. Yanmega does have a higher speed to run away from mons, but a couple rock type moves from a Gigalith or Graveler are likely to put it out of commission and are decently plentiful in places where folks will be using the Frisk/Thief method (fossils, r45). Furret (once HA is released) will have a good base speed stat and somewhat acceptable HP stat, but doesn't have any beneficial tank that would move it up in more viability. Furret does Thief, Trick, and Covet. For this bottom Tier, Furret is the top with Yanmega at the bottom of this bottom tier.

 

Onto IVs, Natures, and EV spreads. For IVs, 31 IVs isn't needed too much but is helpful as many Banette, Stantler, Yanmega, are benefitted more noticeably than Dusclops and Gothitelle who already have rather decent base tanking stats. In reality, a base of 15+ in HP/DEF is perfectly fine, I have personally used Banettes with 0s before and have been fine. Don't worry over IVs too much if in the beginning, they always help but aren't needed to start farming. For your Frisk/Thief mon's nature, it's best to have a DEF nature and at the minimum a nature that doesn't hurt your DEF or S.DEF. For your EV spreads, train for HP and then pick or split evenly between DEF/S.DEF, I recommend DEF if you are to pick one of the two as some of the highest level mons for Frisk/Thief are physical attacking, rock types encountered while fossil farming.

 

Items to supplement a trick build

Item usage for Frisk/Thief builds only work when the user is only using Trick. Good items are Eviolite for pre-evo mons like Dusclops, leftovers for any trick build, assault vests for farming against Special Attackers when using a klutz mon for tricking, ect. This list can be quite vast, but the best go to item is leftovers, as leftovers extends the durability of your frisk/thief mon when using trick as your primary item farming move. Another great item is the Choice scarf, as it will give you a noticeable speed boost. Not all items can work as the item loses is tricked to the opponent, so it is best to have an item that gives an initial buff (choice scarf, ect) or is useable for sustainability due to catching the target mon (Spiritomb, ect).

 

Frisk/Thief Route Guides and Methods:

Spoiler

Hoenn RS

Tnums guide on Amulet Coin/Fossil farming on Kindle Road
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD313QAHEdA&pp=ygUYcG9rZW1tbyBsZWZ0b3ZlciBmYXJtaW5n
Toxic Orb Farming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s4GzsZGNsM
Bestfriends moneymaking guide, item farming segment
https://forums.pokemmo.com/index.php?/topic/106650-in-depth-money-making-guide-multiple-methods-2nd-edition/&tab=comments#comment-1655418
Leftovers Farming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B__p-8y-DP0&pp=ygUYcG9rZW1tbyBsZWZ0b3ZlciBmYXJtaW5n

 

Pickup guides

Spoiler

Builds
https://forums.pokemmo.com/index.php?/topic/146969-optimal-pve-pickup-teddiursa-munchlax-and-meowth-with-leveling-strategies/
Pickup item locations and notes
https://forums.pokemmo.com/index.php?/topic/106742-money-guide-community-pickup-guide-2nd-edition/

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by shamorunner