The Grinding Thread

[Blaine.]

This came to me last night as I was grinding in Black 2, to make a Grinding Thread for help.

In here, you can post suggestions, ideas, or ask for ways to grind.

This thread is for Levels, XP, IVs, EVs, Shinies, or Money.

No real rules except being reasonable about tips

I guess I'll toss my share in.

In BW2, you are grinding for Marlon, or maybe the team plasma ship, well you get a lucky egg earlier, and you can rechallenge breeders. On Route 22, after you used strength on the boulder, with the lucky egg, you can battle the breeder and leave consistently for levels. It doesn't take an insanely long time and can be managed with 2 or 3 pokemon center trips per mon, but the grind is worth it.

 

[Gengarzilla]

You mean Breeders and not Rangers, right?

 

[Blaine.]

You mean Breeders and not Rangers, right?

Yeah, whoops

 

[NMLewis]

In Ruby and Sapphire, grinding high level Pokemon is possible in Sky Pillar, particularly on the top floor. It can be annoying getting up there (crumbly floor fun), but if you have a good supply of Leppa Berries, once you're there, you can be up there a long time. I like to have something I'm leveling up at the top of the party... and the rest of the party Zigzagoon/Linoone/your choice of Pickup 'mon. For obvious reasons!

This is just one of my many mindless grinding/item farming strategies.

 

[Almonds]

If you already completed giving your pokemon the select amount of EVs you desired and only need to reach 100 in Gen 6

Put the two pokemon in the Day Care (or four if you are playing ORAS) and loop around either Lumiose Tower or the Battle Island. Once you set the direction you can use a coin or something to keep the circle pad in that direction and do something else.

Two things:

1. You'll need to pay the Day-Care to get your pokemon back.
2. You might need to use Heart Scales to remember moves that got replaced during the level up process.

 

[Phosphene]

If you are playing in a gen 5 game, I highly recommend grinding almost exclusively in the dark grass. Not only are the Pokemon higher leveled than ones in regular grass, double battles are a great way to level up members of the team that are too slow to run away from most wild Pokemon, too weak to fight on their own, and/or just don't have good type match-ups with the Pokemon in the current area. It's also nice because it increases the chances of finding Pokemon that are good for grinding.

 

[Cookies and Creme]

Grinding in Gen 5 is the best because of the aforementioned Dark Grass, as well as Audinos, which are basically Unova's Chansey. Audinos are also pretty common in shaking grass after the first gym.

 

[CynthiaLover]

In Gen IV, specifically DPPt, one of the best ways to grind is when you've got one of the Stat Trainers with you, such as Cheryl and Mira. Because of the fact they keep healing your team after every fight, every encounter is a Double Battle, effectively doubling EXP gains, and generally are in a place with decently leveled Mons (for that particular part of the game) to turn into punching bags makes it very easy to get some low-level Mons or new recruits up to speed. While it makes catching a Mon with them very risky, it's worth the risk. Riley is probably the best one to grind off of due to his position in the game, though one needs to be very careful of those Gravelers and their tendency to go kablooie, plus he's the last one until post-game, so one should take advantage of him while they can.

For post-game grinding, the Battleground is the absolute best. Not only do you get Gym Leader rematches, but also can duke it out with the previously mentioned Stat Trainers. They all have really good teams to fight and give great EXP, so it can make taking down the E4 in the post-game cakewalk. While it is a one-battle-per-trainer-per-day thing, the fact that it gives such good EXP makes that rather moot. I often find myself back here in Platinum's post-game to buff up the team and prepare for rematches with E4 and Barry, so it's a very good place to grind as well as earn some extra cash.

 

[Gengarzilla]

In Gen IV, specifically DPPt, one of the best ways to grind is when you've got one of the Stat Trainers with you, such as Cheryl and Mira. Because of the fact they keep healing your team after every fight, every encounter is a Double Battle, effectively doubling EXP gains, and generally are in a place with decently leveled Mons (for that particular part of the game) to turn into punching bags makes it very easy to get some low-level Mons or new recruits up to speed.

I can concur. This is the method I used to train three of my team when they were new and underleveled, those being Milotic with Mira, Metagross with Marley, and Dusknoir with Buck. Not needing to take time out for Pokémon Center trips significantly sped up the grinding process. I didn't use Riley for serious grinding though, nobody was a recent catch or lagging behind at this point.