New Ditto Strat using Meowth😼

[Arthib]

 

Greetings! I'm here to share my new favorite strat for ditto-catching, using Meowth and Payday.

This strategy was designed for the Hoenn spot only, because the NetBall nerf makes Johto suboptimal.

 

its a two turns (+ball) strat, no switch, including Payday revenues. (+Pickup bonus):

Payday -> Assist (=Spore) -> DuskBall (Repeat ball after 15 ditto catchs in a row)

 

On top of that, the goal of this strat is to reduce all the "secondary elements" that can waste our time:

Opponent's animations time, encounter speed, switch animations (unlike Forretress voltswitch), etc.

 

 

Advantage / disadvantages

 

 

(+) Around 325k / hour profits.

 

(+) Less Attack animations and faster encounters.

 

(+) Side Leveling a Spore Pokemon. (including HP EVs.)

 

(+) Less Clics Than foretress VoltSwitch strat. (+no switch animation)

 

(+) Low investment : The Meowth can easily be bred for around 10k, including the two parents and the Everstone

A Spore only pokemon will be arround 5k (including atq removals) or for free at artisan cave.

This method is therefore very beginners-friendly, which is very cool.

 

(=) You can only use one Meowth, so you'll need to go back to the pokecenter after using all PPs.

Fixed by using Leppa Berrys (on Payday and Assist) which only costs 1 ditto (833 x 6 = 5k) at the current price, so that's fine!

Time saved thanks to Leppa Berrys will pay for itself in a single ditto catch that you catch on the time saved by not having to go back to PC.

 

(-) Payday related strats not always put the ditto hps at red stage.

(which means that we sometimes lose a few % of catchrate)

 

(-) A shiny Loudred in a horde could be difficult to catch with this strat.

(Please always keep some Revive in your bag just in case.)

 

(-) Assist animation time.

 

 

 

Requirements

 

 

 Any Pokemon with Spore Only (no other attacks) + ExpShare

 

 

This Spore Pokemon is here for Meowth to use Spore via Assist,

+ it will bring you additional profits thanks to the EXP gain (+HP EVs).

 

Any spore user will be ok, but for maximising extra profits;

I recommend Smeargle as it only needs 800k EXP to reach level 100.

 

Spore+Dig is good if you dont have the Dig ocarina. (Assist can't use Dig)

Assist cannot use Sketch, use Smeargle for better income via leveling.

If you use an EXP amplifier (1kRP item from CashShop): disable it to avoid giving EXP to catched dittos, or use 5 Smeargle instead of one.

 

 

And ofc; The star of the show:

😼with 89 Atk + this exact moovepool:

 

 

/❗\ Assist is an EggMove, you can get it by breeding a Female Meowth with a Male Skitty/Purrloin that got Assist./❗\

 

To obtain a Meowth with 89 attack; you need a nature that reduces attack (Bold, Calm, Modest or Timid.)

With 4 IVs* in attack, 0 Atk EVs.

*Less than 4 atk IVs is ok since you can add a few EVs to reach the 89 attack, without exceeding it.

(This margin of error, between 0 and 4, enables us to save a reproduction strip to minimize the initial investment. That's why we only need an Everstone)

 

Other IVs and EVs are not very important.

But I would recommend HP and DEF EVs to reduce the potential damage inflicted by the ditto via Payday.

This is particularly useful for the variant using Leppa Berrys instead of returning to the PC.

 

 

 

Explanation of the movepool

 

 

PAYDAY: You'll use this attack to put the ditto low hp (hpbar goes red most of the time)

If enemy ditto use "Payday": its ok; you'll never die before runing out of PPs.

 

ASSIST: You only got a Spore pokemon in the team, so this is a 32 PPs Spore. (assist cant use Transform, Sketch, Dig)

When enemy ditto try to use "Assist": It will fail because it has no allies, which will save you animation time.

 

FAKE-OUT: You can use it to kill the Whismurs if you want. (But Its Better to run)
Good if you have 0PPs on Payday but few PPs left on Assist (which can happen due to critical hits)

When enemy ditto try to use "Fake-out": It will fail because its not turn 1, which will save you animation time.

 

CAPTIVATE: You'll not use this one, but its here to reach 75% (3/4moves) of "animation skip chance"

When enemy ditto try to use "Captivate": It will fail because ditto copied Meowth's Gender,

which will save you animation time.

 

PICKUP Ability : Pickup some items for extra money.

(Super/Max Reppels, SuperPotion, GreatBall, UltraBall, MetalPowder, EnergyRoot...)

Happens when you crit a ditto with Payday, wich happens arround 2 times per run (crit rate=1/16)

It doesn't sound like much but in the long run it's still a profit! Make sure you don't have "Technician" ability, otherwise you'll kill dittos.

 

ITEM: PokéDoll or any similar items to increase encounters.

This aims to reduce the time between each Dittos encounters, to continue reducing wasted time which fits perfectly into our perspective of scrounging up time wherever we can (animations time, encounters, no switch, leppas, etc.)

NB : For the leppa berry variant -> You can switch to Leftovers when you're low hp, then switch back to PokéDoll when you're back to full HP.

 

Conclusion     I found this method after doing some tests and research to find the method that would suit me best, as I don't like the current strategy using foretress. This meowth strat is the one I find most enjoyable.   This method is in constant progress and I'll keep this post updated.   If you have any ideas for improvement, give your feedback and I'll update if anything notable pops up!   I recommend testing this strategy if you don't mind going back to the Pokecenter. (or using leppas) Personally it doesn't bother me and I think this is more than offset by the time saved in various ways. I hope some people like this method just like i do, thanks for reading, GL on catching dittos!   Ps: feel free to correct me if any wording is wrong, I am not a native speaker.

Edited Monday at 03:30 PM by Arthib
layout, update, improvement, etc

[ItzNeso]

Nice strat, using fake out and captivate is genious.

Also having free item slot for Poke Doll is huge for this strat.

But having pickup 10% chance for activating only on kills and having only two mons available are big cons.

Also extra assist animantion, and running back and forth from pc to cave can add up over time.

Being reliant on pc so much also means it's tougher to hunt in Johto.

Payday money is great, but it negatively affects the catch rate, meaning more balls per ditto, meaning more money spent.

And at the end shiny loudred in a horde could be nightmare to catch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trash talk you, I am too looking for most optimal strat.

Hope these things I pointed out to you help you out.

[Arthib]

On 11/22/2024 at 8:25 PM, ItzNeso said:

Nice strat, using fake out and captivate is genious.

Also having free item slot for Poke Doll is huge for this strat.

But having pickup 10% chance for activating only on kills and having only two mons available are big cons.

Also extra assist animantion, and running back and forth from pc to cave can add up over time.

Yup, there is up and downs, but after few tests i personally realy enjoy this strat (i dont mind going back to PC but i understand people that dont like it)

 

Edit : Going back to PC problem is Fixed by using Leppa Berrys, which only costs 1 ditto (833 x 6 = 5k) at the current price, so that's fine!

The time saved thanks to Leppa Berrys will pay for itself in a single ditto catch that you catch on the time saved by not having to go back and forth!

  

 

On 11/22/2024 at 8:25 PM, ItzNeso said:

Being reliant on pc so much also means it's tougher to hunt in Johto.

This strategy was designed for Hoenn, not for Johto, Johto dittos will die on Payday because they're too low-level.
This is a Hoenn only strat (I'll add a line to clarify this in the original post)

In my opinion, Johto is no longer an option for intensive farming since the NetBalls nerf, as you have to go there at night to enjoy the DuskBall rate.

 

 

On 11/22/2024 at 8:25 PM, ItzNeso said:

And at the end shiny loudred in a horde could be nightmare to catch.

loudred hordes are very rare but you're right, i'd better put some Max revives in my bag just in case 😂

Edit: I'll add this as a disadvantage of the strategy, thanks for your help!

 

On 11/22/2024 at 8:25 PM, ItzNeso said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trash talk you, I am too looking for most optimal strat.

Hope these things I pointed out to you help you out.

No worries, constructive comments are welcome, thank you for your help. 🙂 

Edited Friday at 09:39 PM by Arthib

[ItzNeso]

5 minutes ago, Arthib said:

I think that farm Dittos in Johto is no longer viable at all since the NetBalls nerf, as you have to go there at night to enjoy the DuskBall rate

It's still possible to build up a catch streak and go to Johto with Repeat Balls, imo it's still worth it, legendary chance is really nice $$$

 

17 minutes ago, Arthib said:

loudred hordes are very rare but you're right, i'd better put some Max revives in my bag just in case 😂

hahaha yeah, buts it's fixable with ha espeon with yawn and having maybe high atk low def meowth and than using assist(yawn) > pay day > dusk ball

and espeon can come in case of a shiny

not sure if it would cost you some time tho

 

All in it's a nice strat, some extra cash from payday is always nice.

[Arthib]

Indeed, (assist)Yawn -> Payday -> Duskball could be an interesting prospect.

 

In terms of time, it doesn't change much in most cases, except when the Ditto comes out of the ball and then wakes up: using (assist)Spore in this scenario saves a turn compared with (assist)Yawn.

This is the "worst case scenario" and is rather rare, but in reality, the change from x3.5(netball prenerfs) to x2.5 (Duskball) makes this kind of scenario much more frequent.

[ItzNeso]

3 minutes ago, Arthib said:

using (assist)Spore in this scenario saves a turn compared with (assist)Yawn.

Spore can give you either one guaranteed turn of sleep(if meowth wins a speed tie) or two guaranteed turns of sleep(if ditto wins a speed tie) to throw a ball.

While yawn always give you two sleep turns to throw a ball, since ditto falls asleep at the end of the second turn.

 

Not sure if it would go well with this strat since you lose out on some catch rate since dittos are not 1hp and if you don't manage to catch them in those two turns yawn will take an extra turn to put it asleep again.

 

It's a tricky trade off

[Arthib]

10/24 : Back with a few updates:

 

Go back to the pokecenter issue fixed using Leppa berrys, which only costs 1 ditto (833 x 6 = 5k) at the current price, so that's fine!

The time saved thanks to Leppa Berrys will pay for itself in a single ditto catch that you catch on the time saved by not having to go back and forth!

 

added the loudred horde issue in disadvantages (thanks to ItzNeso for pointing this out!)

 

some layouts to help make reading clearer

 

changed pictures, added some details

 

11/24 : more data, more details, improved layout

Edited Friday at 09:39 PM by Arthib
updates

[ItzNeso]

On 11/22/2024 at 11:37 PM, Arthib said:

Go back to the pokecenter issue fixed using Leppa berrys

Great fix! Pay Day will pay for the leppas basically. 

 

On 11/22/2024 at 11:37 PM, Arthib said:

added the loudred horde issue in disadvantages

It's easily fixable with Magic Bounce, Soundproof or Trace pokemon with Dig and Leftovers. These pokemon can't get switched out by Roar, can't get confused by Supersonic and Dig can't be called by Assist. It's a safe switch in a shiny Loudred.

 

[Arthib]

Yes, there are many ways of countering this so its ok.

After 7days of using and updating the method, I think I'm at a stage where I'm happy with it.

december update: few improvments & more infos

Edited Monday at 03:31 PM by Arthib