Pokemon Sword and Shield Building a Good Capturemon Guide

by Not_Nathan

Step 1: Obtain a Gallade

• Option 1 – Wild Area Spawns: Gallade spawns on the little island in the middle of a lake near the Bridge Field fly point in the Wild Area. When you land at the location, turn so the house is behind you and run forwards till you see a lake on the left. Gallade spawns on the island in the middle of it.
  • Alternatively, Gardevoir spawns to the left upper side of the Lake of Rage, where you can also find Ditto. Keep running around there until you get a male, cap it and force a Dawn Stone down it’s neck.
• Option 2 – Max Raid Battle: Get a male Kirlia from a Max Raid Battle and use a Dawn Stone to evolve it to Gallade. Bonus here is that a 5 star Max Raid Kirlia comes with at least 4 ‘BEST’ IV’s. I got lucky and got one with 5. Dawn Stone can easily be obtained from the Digger Duo, also found at Bridge Field Fly Point, and one spawns every day behind the rocks at the Lake of Rage circle (go back here daily to farm one of each traditional evolution stone).

Step 2: Get some moves!

• False Swipe – Learned at level 23, so if you don’t have it, just go to the Name Rater in any Pokémon Center and he will recover the move for you. Otherwise, the upper Pokémon Center in Motostoke sells the TM for 10k Pokébucks.
  • This move will do minor damage but never kill your target. Boosting this move is done by increasing Attack (as the move is classed as a Physical attack), which can be done through the Poké Jobs on the PC in any Pokémon Center. There are varying other ways to increase attack, but for me, I put my Gallade in to this quest for 2 days and it capped out the stat.
• Rain Dance – If you aren’t a fan of clock changing, or realise that this game is nearly permanently in a Sandstorm or Hailstorm, you are going to need a way to counter that. I found Rain Dance to be the most viable move for this, as it switches the weather effect to rain for 5 turns. Why is this important? Hail and Sandstorms do little bits of damage every turn to you and often your target capture too, which when at low health can result in it being KO’d (your powered up False Swipe will more often than not take your target down to 1HP in 2 uses).
  • Obtain Rain Dance from a TM which can be purchased at the Hammerlocke Pokémon Center for 10k Pokébucks.
  • You can switch this out with Sunny Day if you wish, whatever suits you.
• Hypnosis – Sleeping Pokémon are easier to catch, and Gardevoir learns this one at level 9. Easy to get, but if you somehow miss it, go to the Name Rater and remember it.
• Thunder Shock – Paralyzed Pokémon don’t use moves as often, and when it comes to things that also damage the user like Wild Charge etc, you want to reduce that chance as much as possible. Get this from winning your first Rotom Rally which you can do (very easily by the way) by speaking to the NPC at our favorite Fly Point, Bridge Field.
  • Paralyzed Pokémon are easier to catch, and have 50% reduced speed.

Step 3: Leftovers

• Leftovers recovers a small chunk of HP (roughly 1/16th) every turn, and is super useful for your Gallade to hold as he will be taking a lot of small attacks and buffeting weather before you can get your Rain Dance off, so this just helps to reduce your down time by flying back and forth to Pokémon Centers to heal. I found mine under a tree, East of Giant’s Seat in the Wild Area (near where you first enter it), but your mileage may vary. This can also be subbed in for a Shell Bell, which I got from Hulbury but not 100% on where exactly.

Step 4: Power Up!

• If you aren’t in a rush, put your new shiny Gallade into the PC and send it out on Attack Up and HP Up quests. 2 full days of each capped out my stats, but again your mileage may vary based on your current level, your training, IV’s and nature. This is down to your preferences though, you might wish to go full defensive or special defense, I don’t know, i’m not your mom.
• Cram candies down Gallades throat until he crawls across the level 100 line. This will give you a nice damage advantage for False Swipe which is weak even at high levels, and give you a higher chance of sustaining damage in battle, and allows you to run away from fights you don’t want to have (being higher level than a wild Pokémon increases your flee chances).

Step 5: Battle and Capture!

• Open with Thunder Wave. Paralyze will nearly always last for the entirety of the fight (unless the target is immune or has reversal traits). This usually results in you now having turn priority every round due to the side effect of paralyze dropping the targets speed by 50%.
• Remove the weather effect if it’s damaging (Hail or Sandstorm) with Rain Dance.
• Use Hypnosis if Paralyze hasn’t taken effect.
• False Swipe till red/1HP.
• Throw your balls at it.

Optional Step: Ghost Pokémon don’t take damage from Physical moves

• I am not sure if these are available but Foresight or Odor Sleuth will allow you to land physical attacks on ghosts, however I do not know if Gallade can even learn them. I have been taking a level 50 ghost type Pokémon out with me for when I need to do some damage, then switching back to disable and capture.