Greetings! I'd like to share my new favorite strat for ditto-catching, using Meowth and Payday. This strategy was designed for the Hoenn spot only, because NetBall nerf makes Johto suboptimal. You'll not need to switch to a 2nd pokemon (unlike voltswitch strat).

On top of that, the goal of this strat is to reduce dittos animations in order to save time. (see movepool for more infos)

It is a switchless, two turns + ball strat, including Payday revenues & Pickup ability.

 

Turn 1: Payday -> Turn 2: Assist (Spore) -> Turn 3: DuskBall (Repeat ball)

 

(+)Advantages & Disadvantages(-)

Spoiler

(+) 281k/h average profits (calculation here)

 

(+) Less ditto animations (75% of his attacks will fail).

 

(+) You're side Leveling a Spore Pokemon (including HP EVs.).

 

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

 

(+) Low investment : 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.

 

(+) Do not waste time going back to PokeCenter, thanks to Leppa Berrys!

Using Leppa Berrys is good! Time saved by not having to go back and forth will pay for itself in a single ditto catch!

For heavy farmers, this means you'll never need to go back to PokeCenter until your boxes are full of dittos!

 

(-) Payday+Assist related strats not always put the ditto HPs at red stage and has assist animation.

 

(-) A shiny Loudred in a horde could be difficult to catch. (Please keep some Revives in your bag just in case.)

Requirements

Spoiler

 Any Pokemon with Spore Only + 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.

 

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

If you're using an EXP amplifier: disable it to avoid giving EXP to catched dittos, or use 5 Smeargle instead of one.

 

 

And the star of the show:

😼with 89 Atk and this 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 (Timid, Calm, Modest or Bold.)

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, I recommend having speed to be sure to escape unwanted pokemons.
DO NOT KILL WISHMURS & LOUDREDS ! WASTE OF TIME & MONEY ! RUN !

Movepool

Spoiler

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

If enemy ditto use "Payday": its ok; you'll never die thanks to Leftovers.

 

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

Enemy ditto try to use "Assist": Fail because it has no allies, which will save you animation time.

 

FAKE-OUT: Use it if you have 0 PPs on Payday but few PPs left on Assist (which can happen due to critical hits)

Enemy ditto try to use "Fake-out": 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"

Enemy ditto try to use "Captivate": 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.

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

 

ITEM: Leftovers allows you to stay in the cave infinitely, so you don't need to go back to PokeCenter.
Instead of wasting time returning to the PC, use 6 Leppas (3 for Payday & 3 for Assist).

Using Leppas is good because the time saved by not having to go back & forth will pay for itself in a single catch.

Its more profitable and allows you to stay in the cave until your boxes are full of dittos.

This method result of some tests and research to find the method that would suit me best, as I don't like the strat using foretress. This meowth strat is the one I find most enjoyable. I've had good results with Meowth and find it more enjoyable to farm with. If you have any ideas for improvement, give your feedback and I'll update if anything notable pops up!   Last Update: I spent a lot of time on this strategy, whether for its development or its updates. Unfortunately, this strategy is probably outdated now, since "safety goggles" arrived in Pokemmo, simply using a Smeargle with this item will probably be better than Meowth strat (or very similar in terms of income, but less RNG). You can still use Meowth if you prefer this strat, but I recommend moving towards the strat using "safety goggles". I will therefore no longer update this method. Special thanks to everyone who helped me improve this strategy as well as everyone who participated in this post. (ItzNeso, Matlyn, MaakeItRain & Nekrye) 🍀 GL on catching dittos 🍀

Edited January 26Jan 26 by Arthib
layout, update, improvement, etc

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.

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 November 29, 2024Nov 29 by Arthib

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.

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.

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

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 November 29, 2024Nov 29 by Arthib
updates

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.

 

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 December 2, 2024Dec 2 by Arthib

Awww man, I also thinked about this, but using false swipe, but i did'nt thinked about using captivate to have a 3/4 chance for animation skip, you are a genious

I am working on a profit calculation for a similar method.

I'm using pickup meowth with payday, assist, fake out and endure with a pokemon with yawn and dig in the back.

Endure will save the 1/4 killed dittos. leftovers is used to heal up some payday damage. I also payday all single encounters. Loudred horde shiny is also not a problem, the meowth will kill them one by one with payday.

 

I tested the pickup items in the desert underpass. 5 items can be found with a pickup rate of 2% each: Max repel, Hyper potion, Ultra ball, energy root and metal powder. This makes the expected profit from 1 payday and pickup around 165$ per pickup chance and 425$ per payday.

 

First results indicate about 200k$/h with this strategy, and for the forretress strategy about 200k$/h as well.

 

Also the crit chance is 1/24.

 

Edited December 10, 2024Dec 10 by MaakeItRain

I wasnt aware of the 1/24 crit chance in pokemmo! Thanks MaakeitRain!

 

Btw, Your calculations are also interesting, But I don't understand how you get a result close to 200k.

200K seems really low compared to what I get in an hour.

I'm calculating on the basis that dittos are sold by boxes (which saves 60k/box listing fees), are you doing the same?

 

 

Edited December 11, 2024Dec 11 by Arthib

I'm still working on the calculations but i'm intending to make a full post about them.

 

Even with ditto boxes at 330k per box and with no listing fee for 1x31 dittos i'm still geting only at most 260k/h. I doubt you are getting more than 260k/h of profit consistently.

The thing is that high IV dittos are not worth much at all at the moment. When i try to calculate the average value of a caught ditto now, i get about 6,5k value per ditto on average.

 

Its less profitable than gym reruns but it's chiller and can be done whenever without having to do a full hour. And it's more profitable than payday pickup at undella but a bit less chill.

 

Thanks for your feedback @MaakeItRain 

 

In my calculation, I count all sources of income (payday, items on the floor, ditto powders, leveling a spore pokemon, good dittos, etc)

I'm assuming you're using good dittos correctly. (selling or breeding)
I'm assuming you're selling shittos by boxes to avoid listing fees. (discord, trade canal, etc)

This calculation is based on a player using the best current string files, and optimizing his onehour run (no unnecessary waste of time)

 

DO NOT KILL WISHMURS & LOUDREDS ! WASTE OF TIME & MONEY ! RUN !

 

Here is an example of an average optimized run :

 

One ditto = 3700$ (5k minus the price of the ball, which I count at 1300, median price between duskball & repeatball)

 

+ 54 dittos (-54 balls) = 199800$

 

- 33800$ from 26 balls that failed catching. (54/0,6811-54) (based on 68,11% catching rate)

+ Payday revenues ≈25k/h (varying a bit depending on crits / number of dittos killed)

 

+ items collected on the floor + via pickup + powders on the dittos + side EXPing a catching pokemon (≈30k/h)

 

+ selling or breeding the interesting ditto (2x31, 1x31 with good stats, 1x31, 140+, 1x30, 2x30, etc) (≈60k/run)
(assuming you are using these dittos correctly.) (more details in hidden content bellow)

 

Spoiler

You can use the good dittos to breed with certain species to get additional profits, which once again requires a decent knowledge of the game, but it is very interesting to exploit and allows you to generate even more profits!

 

For example: 1x31 atq and 1x31 Speed dittos can be used to breed with a lot of PvP mons, or to make new "Spore only pokemons" which will be used for the strategy and will be resold once level 100 (for example, a 31atq & 31speed parasect lvl 100 sell for 250k atm), which gives you an interesting prolific loop.
Another example for 31 SAtq dittos : do not sell them, breed them into Cyndaquil.

You also can maximizing the chances of having a good nature: breeding good dittos with eevees will allow you to have more chances of having a good nature (therefore better profits) because many different natures are used depending on the eeveelutions. (i use this one alot, very good profits, sometimes u can make +60k in one single breed)

This is just a few example on how u can use good dittos; lot of profits can be made from good dittos, selling them is not very interesting, but using them to breed them with interesting pokemons will always allow you to make very good additional profits.

 

Personally, I have specifics PC boxes to store 1x31 dittos in order to breed them later, but if you're not very good at breeding, you can store them & sell them in boxes of 1x31, which also increases profits by around 15% to 20% per box for defensive 1x31 & by around 25% to 30% for offensive 1x31.

 

You also can breed the 20x5 & 20x6, 25x5, etc, if you're good at breeding, good potential for extra profits.

30x1, 30x2 or 30x3 etc can be very good to breed into PvP pokemons.

Since Pokemmo PVP use level 50pokemons, 31 and 30 will bring the same amount of stats in PvP.
(31iv/30iv give 31stat/30stat at level 100, but 31iv/30iv will give 15stat/15stat in PvP lv50.)
A lot of pvp players use 30ivs pokemon, use it at your advantage! A 2x30 ditto is not a shitto, its a cool breedable ditto!

With a good usage & knowledge of the game, interesting dittos can be a real gold mine and enrich you alot if you use them correctly.

I put 60k as an average / runs, some might think that it's too much, but in reality, this kind of profit are very easy to achieve & u can do a lot more if you know how to exploit the potential of good dittos.

 

Every time you have a good ditto, ask yourself which pokemon would be the most profitable to breed it with.

For an intensive ditto farmer, it is very important to know how to use the good dittos, because they can hugely increase your profits.

 

199800 - 33800 + 25000 + 30000 + 60000 = 281000$

 

This is based on serious farming and optimizing the runs, i.e. using string files, exping a spore pokemon that sell well (i recommand parasect or smeargle with good IVs), runing away from the Whismur & Loudred, using good dittos smartly, not doing something on the side, etc.

Obviously, chill farming may reduce your profits per hour, so in everyday use, you'll certainly make a bit less, because you're not always farming like crazy at maximum speed, but that's true for all farms and this should not influence the calculation.

 

 

UPDATE : New calculation, more realistic.
Price reduced accordingly (301900 -> 281000)
More infos > here <
Special thanks to MaakeItRain for help!

 

Edited January 19Jan 19 by Arthib
new calculation, more realistic results, based on a realistic optimized run (using best avaiable strings files, with no time loss, etc)

Thanks for the calculation @Arthib

I have just done one hour of ditto farming and I only captured 36 dittos. Though according to my calculations i would expect to capture 39 on average so i got somewhat unlucky. Still 56 dittos in 1 hour is a lot more.

There are some possible reasons for this: firstly i did not play perfectly, i lost some seconds here and there; secondly i am not using strings, just using the instant text speed setting. I don't know what the difference in speed can be. Thirdly, i am using a slightly different catching strategy and i was also paydaying all whismur and loudred. when running from whismur and loudred i would expect on average 41 ditto catches per hour.

The difference in amount of ditto catched in the hour is a big reason why i get about 200~230k$/h (depending on use of dittos) as opposed to you getting 300k$/h.

Another factor here is that you got quite lucky with your catch chance, the amount of failed catches you would expect for 56 succesfull catches with a catch rate a=68,11% is:

56 / a - 56 = 26,2

So if all dittos were at 1HP and asleep you would expect on average 26 failed catches. In reality the catchrate with payday is slightly lower, probably around 64%, that would average 31 failed catches for 56 dittos.

 

Earning 300k$/h for an hour is certainly not out of the real of possibility, however on average i think this might be a bit optimistic.

Quote

firstly i did not play perfectly, i lost some seconds here and there; secondly i am not using strings, just using the instant text speed setting. I don't know what the difference in speed can be. Thirdly, i am using a slightly different catching strategy and i was also paydaying all whismur and loudred.

Ah ok, This explains the discrepancy between our two results.

We cant say "gym rerun is 200k/h" just because someone do not optimize (strings files mods, best team, coin amplifier, etc) & is losing time for external reasons.

 

Here its the same. 41/h is just wrong for an optimized run.
average, fully optimized, using string files / string mods, is for sure 50+

 

Using strings files is game changer for a lot of farms in pokemmo, i highly recommand u to give it a try!

The new instant text settings are good but in the long term you lose A LOT of time & profits without new string files (new mod strings).

Spoiler

Personally, i'm using new strings (mod strings) + old strings (strings files), but the old ones (string files) should have almost the same impact as the new game settings, so I recommend at least using new strings "mods".

That been said, i can admit that my calculations were slightly optimistic, here i'll explain (& try to fix).

 

I don't know how much time you (no strings mod user) spend on each encounters.

With string files mod, a full encounter + run (wishmurs, loudred) is around 10seconds.
With string files mod, ditto encounter + payday + assist (spore) + catching, is around 40seconds.

 

So, by optimal farming (with strings file & not wasting time)

We got around 1 ditto/min for a 33% ditto encounter rate (1 ditto / 3 encounters)
So you'll be at 60 ditto/h if we don't count the external waste of time.

Spoiler

I don't know the exact encounter rate for ditto, but from my experience, looks like its 1/3 or a bit more.

if you (or someone else) knows the exact encounter rate number at this spot for ditto, please let me know!

 

So, Now, we have to calculate this "waste of time", due to some factors, MAINLY because of failing balls.

Sending another ball takes around 10 more seconds (compared to "one ball catchs").

So even with 26,2 balls failed (your numbers) we'll lose around ((26,2x10)/60) = 4,36 ditto / h
So we got 55,64 ditto / hour (poor little dude get sliced), using strings & full optimizing the run (no time loss)

 

Also, Something I forgot in my previous calculation: bike time spent to encounter dittos. (I just realized this thanks to our exchanges)

 

The true average is somewhere between your calculation and mine, so I will revise the profits downward, this way :

 

55,64 was rounded to 56 in my "old optimistic calculation".

Here we'll rounding it down to be more realistic & simulate "bike time" (Time spent cycling between each encounters)

Since I don't think 0.36 is enough to simulate "bike time", I will remove another ditto for "bike time", now estimated at 1.36 ditto.

 

We're now at 54 dittos (instead of 56 in my old optimistic calculation)

54, from my experience seems to be realistic if we talk about average optimized run (using strings files mods etc.)

 

I will edit both posts (initial post & calculation post), accordingly.

 

After updatated maths, we're now at 281000$ for an average fully optimized run.

 

Maybe the price can varies a bit, because there are always approximations and estimates (like "bike time" or "items revenues" for example) but I think we're at a very realistic amount rn.

 

Thank you again for your help!

Edited January 19Jan 19 by Arthib

On 11/22/2024 at 12:07 PM, Arthib said:

 

 

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.

 

Pokedoll is not to increase encounters... Everyone misinterprets the explanation.
Pokedoll is like Smokeball, it is a consumable items, You need to use it in battle in order to escape. It says that it attracts pokemon, because you throw them, distract them and escape from any battle.

@Nekrye Hi ! After checking, you are completely right. I will update the original post accordingly! Thanks for your help.
The method is even better now (no need to switch from pokedoll to leftovers anymore)

Edit : January udapte:

-Updated Held item for meowth, thanks to Nekrye.
-I stopped dissociating what I called "Leppa variant" and "PC variant" because the Leppa method is just much more efficient and profitable.
Original post now only based on the Leppa method because its the best strat (going back & forth is pure waste of time... and money).

-Some small adjustments to the method and formulations.

-A lot of Layout improvements to make reading easier.

 

Thanks again to everyone who helped improve the method! If you still see errors, whether they are english errors (I am not a native speaker) or errors in the method  please give your feedback, I'll keep the method up to date as fast as possible.

Edited January 26Jan 26 by Arthib

On 11/22/2024 at 12:07 PM, Arthib said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

(-) Payday+Assist related strats not always put the ditto HPs at red stage and has assist animation.

 

(-) A shiny Loudred in a horde could be difficult to catch. (Please keep some Revives in your bag just in case.)

 

@Arthib Hi, assist doesn't work with many moves, but the ones that do damage are Covet, thief, Chatter, Circle Throw, Dragon Tail, dive, among others. For Example you can take Weavile lvl 100 with thief for a shiny loudred in hordes, you can kill the others and catch the shiny one. 

Yep it's a good way to make sure you don't lose the shiny! There are several methods, but because a shiny is very rare, I don't think it is useful to overload the initial post.

I prefer not to overload the original post to make reading more digestible.

 

Last Update: I spent a lot of time on this strategy, whether for its development or its updates.
Unfortunately, this strategy is probably outdated now, since "safety goggles" arrived in Pokemmo, simply using a Smeargle with this item will probably be better than Meowth strat (or very similar in terms of income, but less RNG).
You can still use Meowth if you prefer this strat, but I recommend moving towards the strat using "safety goggles".

I will therefore no longer update this method.
Special thanks to everyone who helped me improve this strategy as well as everyone who participated in this post.

(ItzNeso, Matlyn, MaakeItRain & Nekrye)

🍀 GL on catching dittos 🍀

Edited January 26Jan 26 by Arthib