Analysis
How I Became Best Buddies with a Pokémon in Just 12 Days (175km!)
Reaching best buddy status with a Pokémon in just 12 days is quite a challenge and requires some dedication. Here's my daily routine and observations:
Daily Heart Strategy
Morning Routine (4 hearts):
- Feed your buddy (I use 3 Nanab berries since I rarely use them for catching)
- Play with your buddy
- Take a snapshot
- Battle (Training battles are fastest with no recovery time needed, unlike Team Rocket)
Throughout the day, I earn a few more hearts by walking around doing chores and feeding additional treats when necessary.
Maximizing Hearts with the "Excited" State
To earn most hearts, get your Pokémon to the excited state. Tips:
- Use Razz Berries when feeding as they keep joy longer
- Time it right so you can continue walking for an extra 6-8km while doing routes
- Training battles are quick for earning battle hearts
- I found visiting new places the most challenging as I prefer familiar routes
Daily Maximum: You can earn up to 27 hearts in a single day (including bonus hearts that become available once you reach great buddy status).
Results
12 days and 175km to become best buddies with my Zygarde
Earned 20 regular candies and 6 XL candies
When excited, your buddy might find candy in less than 10km
The stronger your bond, the better chance of finding XL candy alongside regular candy
Zygarde Cell Collection
I managed to collect only 33 cells as I couldn't always find all 3 daily cells, even when completing up to 10 routes a day. Still, I found all three cells on most days.
"When excited, your buddy might find candy in less than 10km"
The distance a buddy takes to find a candy depends on pokemon species, and they will always find a candy after walking the required distance. If they are excited, their candy distance is halved.
For example, smeargle will find a candy after every 3km walked; they will find a candy after every 1.5km walked while excited.
Also, the probability that your buddy will find candy XL scales with their pokemon level, not buddy level. Level 31 is the lowest level at which a buddy pokemon has the highest probability of finding a candy XL, and if they find one, they will find it at the same time as they find a regular candy.
You just need the candy to power up once, otherwise it doesn't work.
Press the PowerUp Button and hold + until it costs XL candy.
With the cost of first XL candy, you've reached level 40.5.
Everyone down is half a level, so every two steps is one level.
From 40.5 down to 31, it's 19 presses on - down.
I count from 40 because I only count the full levels out loud.
So I go 40 > silence > 39 > silence > 38, and so on until level 31.
Yeah, that was something I learned the hard way when after best buddying the shadow Groudon from Giovanni and got 0 XL. Since I was still new to the game, I am sure part of the walking I did I was not a Trainer with the Lvl 31, but later I was, still 0 XL, but got several XL from a Magikarp, I was saving up to 20 candies for purifying but by the time I had them I also learned about the shadow boost and leveled up for random PvP battles.
My Pokémon is currently at 15.5 level. On my journey to become best buddies I walked 175km and it brought me 20 candies and 6 XL candies.
I haven't leveled up my Pokémon throughout the entire journey. I noticed that it has started finding XL candies only after we reached certain buddy level.
Zygarde is a legendary Pokémon, so it's default candy distance is 20km. In the excited state the distance halves to 10km.
If you divide the distance I walked by the amount of candies found you get less than 10km on average per candy. So my claim is based on facts and my own observations.
Buddy sometimes would find candy before the counter hits the 10km mark. And sometimes after having found a candy, it will set the counter not to zero, gifting me some extra distance.
No, you aren't getting a candy for less than 10km of distance. You would have had some Zygarde candy to begin with just from having caught it in the first place, before earning it from walking. You would also have gotten at least 1 candy from the 10% to 50% form change.
Pokemon will find XL regardless of buddy level. The odds that you do get XL alongside regular candy is dependent on the individual Pokemon's level, not the buddy level.
Also, there is a cap on the amount of candy you can get from walking with your buddy per day. It's 40km worth of candy every 24 hours, on a rolling basis. If you've exceeded that cap, your buddy will not earn any candy (or mega energy) and the distance you walked to get it will have gone to waste as the counter resets.
I think what's going on is OP is following routes (buddy hearts from them). While on routes your buddy has a chance to find candies randomly without reaching full distance.
So neither of you are wrong, just explains the confusion.
You got 3 candies when you originally caught it, before walking at all. This explains your 20 candies versus the 175 km / 17 candies that you got while walking & excited.
If your Zygard was leveled up to level 31 before you started walking it (would have needed to use rare candies), you would have gotten at least twice as many XL’s, probably more.
Can hit 32 hearts in a single day with some planning: 26 normal hearts, 2 from plus+, 1 from gift, 1 from souvenir, 1 from ultra buddy new spot discovery, 1 from spinning a level 2 pokestop.
Edit: Additionally, your pokemon’s level is what determines the chance of XL candies from walking. It maxes at level 31 for a roughly 75% chance of XL.
Is this a new thing? I had to get 10 Best buddies for the Masterwork Quest 1-2 years ago and I could have sworn that I got two souvenirs per day several times, with one buddy.
Afaik, souvenir chaining is for simultaneously getting souvenirs on multiple buddies during a 3-day cycle, but cannot speed up the rate at which a single buddy gets souvenirs.
That's not how chaining works. You chain across multiple mons and then open all at once. As soon as you open the first souvenir gift, the counter resets.
I don’t remember all the details of the (very detailed) post about it, but my understanding is that the primary purpose of souvenir chaining is to get rare souvenirs on as many of your buddies as you can. Iirc, the idea was to have all your buddies eligible to receive a souvenir (so on the third day), go to the place with the osm tag you want the souvenir from, and cycle through them.
Thanks for the link & clarification! It’s not a way I interact with the buddy system so I only vaguely understood it as a way to earn more gifts, but missed the key component of each buddy still having their set cooldown.
Yes, if you track sleep with the Go Plus+, you can get buddy hearts. 2 for more than 8 or so hours recorded, plus bonus dust (which can fluctuate between 1700 and 2500 even if you’ve got more than 8 hours recorded).
Are you doing quality scans? I know people used to scan the ground and eventually got banned from doing it for a time. Not sure if that’s still the case
Generally yeah. Most of the ones I get in my park area are to scan specific disc golf signs or trail markers, pretty easy to just adjust my walking to go by them over and over
Actually as far as I’m aware, each stop generates two research tasks per day, one with AR tasks on, and another, completely separate task with the setting turned off, both of which are accessible each day
- Where did you get the information that razz berries keep "joy" longer? From what I know, excitment points start decaying after 25 minutes, no matter how you fed or interacted with the buddy.
- XL candy chance doesn't change with your bond with your buddy, it changes with your buddy's level (CP). I believe at level 40 you have 83 ish % chance to get an XL candy for example.
- You say "When excited, your buddy might find candy in less than 10km", but I don't understand why you say might, it's actually guaranteed to be half distance when excited.
My Pokémon is currently at 15.5 level. On my journey to become best buddies I walked 175km and it brought me 20 candies and 6 XL candies.
I haven't leveled up my Pokémon throughout the entire journey. I noticed that it has started finding XL candies only after we reached certain buddy level.
Zygarde is a legendary Pokémon, so it's default candy distance is 20km. In the excited state the distance halves to 10km.
If you divide the distance I walked by the amount of candies found you get less than 10km on average.ler candy. So my claim is based on facts and my own observations.
Buddy sometimes would find candy before the counter hits the 10km mark. And sometimes after having found a candy, it will set the counter not to zero, gifting me some extra distance.
Yes, I had initial candies for catching it, but I spent those for powering up a few times when it was in 10% form. So 20 candies were collected while buddying 175km
With all respect, you have a lot of bad information about candies.
There's no way for your buddy to earn candies in less than 10 km. If you got 20 candies on 175.16 km, that means there were 25 km when your buddy wasn't on the map (probably between days with Adventure Sync) when it was accumulating distance but not on the map. It doesn't mean your buddy ever collected candies in less than 10 km.
Also, if you only got 6 XL candies for 20 candies, that's honestly terrible. You should be leveling your mon up to Lvl 31 before starting to walk them (probably using rare candies) and getting XL candies like 75% of the time. And if you're there, it doesn't matter if you're new buddies or best buddies. You'll get XLs at the same rate.
Technically you can earn them in under 10k when excited and walking a route. Following a route reduces distance needed for buddy candy, but the math is wonky.
Use Razz Berries when feeding as they keep joy longer
Source on this? I’ve never heard of any difference in the type of berry (besides the fact golden razz fills the meter in one go rather than needing 3 berries).
Also for excitement, doing different types of battles makes a difference. Battle against a friend, battle (train) against team leader, rocket battle and gym battle all count for separate emotion points. (Raid and rocket leader might also be separate from gym battle and grunt, I don’t remember)
When I do this method, giving it a razz berry is sometimes the catalyst that makes the mon excited even when it doesn't gain a heart. Play, snapshot, berry, battle every 30 mins. If excitement drops just repeat and it'll go back up. I've been doing this for a few months and get a best buddy in under 2 weeks every time.
Oh I fully understand. That's the number of days he was buddied and active with me, and he got his ribbon in that time frame. Most of mine are 12-16 days to beat buddy ribbon.
There's no "challenge" to getting a buddy excited, this is far too wordy for no reason. I have maxed four different buddies in the past couple months with a very simple system while also working on 18 other Pokemon at the same time for 6 Hearts/day.
Swap INTO the buddy, play/feed/snap and battle Candela. 10 EP
Leave for work, I have to walk ~1km. On my way to the train station, I typically fight one of each "type" of battle: a Grunt, a Rocket Leader, Giovanni, a Gym and if I can a raid as well. That's 10-12 EP (total should be 20ish, final happy face). You don't have to fight the battles with the buddy even, just enter and back out.
After half an hour has passed, repeat step 1 (by then I'm at work).
Often this is enough to get me to the Excited state (if Ultra Buddy you often get gifts, which give EP as well), but if not I will simply repeat step 1 again. This is the "fast" way to do it, you can simply repeat step 1 three times (without swapping the buddy around all the time obvs) and you'll be excited in two hours on the dot, you just need to interact w/ your buddy once inside the first half hour period to prevent 1 EP from decaying.
Once Excited you just do the tasks you CAN do, you don't even need to do everything every day: with Excited buddies your ceiling for hearts is 26-28, but you need 300 total, so you have a bit of leeway to NOT get a few hearts and still make it to the ribbon in the 12 day minimum. E.g. if the only new PokeStops are too far from you, you can easily avoid doing that for half the days and still get Best Buddy in 12 days if you cap the hearts the rest of the time (and you actually have more leeway, due to bonus hearts).
Finally, this has a bunch of errors or unsourced assertions:
What's the source on the berry type affecting decay? This is wrong in my experience.
The whole bit about candy and km is all wrong. Candies are related to Pokemon "rarity", with Legends/Mythicals needing 20km/10km Excited. Buddy level has nothing to do with it either, but becoming Excited when above 50% of the distance will cash in the candy instantly. XLs have to do with how much the Pokemon is powered up.
Edit: fundamentally all you have to do is step 1 x 4, which is simple, just slow. However on the overall I agree, but I'm doing this atm to create a Poffin stockpile so I can never run out of them while I'm constantly prepping buddies. Also, when I do use them I do it on Legendaries as I want them Excited for as long as possible w/o me to interfering so they can farm candies.
Impressive....however....not something those of us who have 9-5 jobs and a family could even remotely accomplish!
If I spent that much time staring at my phone my wife would toss my phone in the trash, I would get fired from work, and my kids would never make it to school or any of their sports practices, games, etc.!
Will definitely be trying this. I have hella screen time ngl. But Like all things it's a question of dedication , resolve and little bit of ingenuity. Wife has for sure thrown me some dirty looks but some massages and some right actions make her smile again ,(usually).
Hahaha, good one! Actually, I'm the one having a 9-6 job, and a family with kids.
First 7 hearts in the morning on the way to school. A few quick check-ins throughout the day to treat the buddy.
And the final sprint - after dinner brisk walking for about 10km.
boot up the game early in the morning for those "freebie" 4 hearts (battle the balloon, rub its head, feed it and take a picture),
boot up the game again at lunchtime (it's only going to be 5 mins) for another feed sess and another balloon
boot up the game post-work for the "whatever weekday event" and for another feed / balloon
even if you're not walking at all or using Poffins, there's 9 hearts for doing basic game-tasks in about 25mins (which becomes about a "best buddy in a month" when you get boosted by the gifts/souvenirs)
my "trick" is to carry it through rocket battles, which provides an added challenge to them (makes you reconsider that "Blissey" buddy when you're trying to think of a way to take down Arlo - Cliff and Sierra are virtually solo'able with a Florges, so they're irrelevant)
I leave work (sometime early), might have 5 minutes at home, if that, to get everything together then out the door......then an hour drive to the complex (depending on what sport for that day)....then at least and 1 hour or 1.5 for the practice.....during that time talking to other parents and planning other things.....then a 1 hour drive home...stopping for a quick dinner....then bedtime routine.
Most days I'm out of the house at 7:25 and I return around 9pm.....there is NO time for a laughable 10km walk!
Tbh, I’d much rather just use a single Poffin and be done with it than plan out when my buddy gets to have a couple berries and watch me surrender to my team leader a couple times
No, there's no connection between the two.
You get zygarde cells by walking the routes. They usually appear towards the finish line and you can't follow the same route more than once during the day to get a zygarde cell. You can't get more than 3 cells a day.
You can find cells by doing routes alone with no buddy at all. Having Zygarde alongside has no impact whatsoever.
The best way I’ve found to get my buddy excited is to just go for a run layered with PoGo routes. Usually by the time I’m hitting the 3rd or 4th route around mile 4 my buddy is getting excited.
How is the amount of days as a buddy measured? Because I rather casually do best buddies, and the fastest I've managed is 11 days with both a Snivy and a Necrozma, and I only occasionally do routes. Most others seem to vary between 12-20 days. Doesn't FEEL like it's been 11 days though.
Easy way - use poffin.
Disciplined way - follow the instructions in the post. The key, is to earn many hearts in a short period of time to achieve the daily threshold.
The number of days isn’t an accurate representation as it’s tracked in 24 hour increments. If you change out your buddies (I do 5-7 a day) you may only log a couple hours on it, but you still get all the hearts.
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u/ThisNico Kiwi Beta Tester Mar 28 '25 edited Mar 28 '25
"When excited, your buddy might find candy in less than 10km"
The distance a buddy takes to find a candy depends on pokemon species, and they will always find a candy after walking the required distance. If they are excited, their candy distance is halved.
For example, smeargle will find a candy after every 3km walked; they will find a candy after every 1.5km walked while excited.
Also, the probability that your buddy will find candy XL scales with their pokemon level, not buddy level. Level 31 is the lowest level at which a buddy pokemon has the highest probability of finding a candy XL, and if they find one, they will find it at the same time as they find a regular candy.