The Utility Box

Introduction

It's been around two months since the release of ORAS, and if you've played it anything like I have, the hours have clocked up to a considerable amount. Journeying through Hoenn's story plot was pretty fun, but there's still so much post-game to go! At the end of the game was your high-leveled Pokémon of choice beating up the champion, but in your playthrough, you might have included those unsung heroes. For lack of a kinder term: HM Slaves. Those are the guys which kind of sat in the back with some of the seven HMs. If they ever saw the light of battle, it was only as death fodder.

Any kid would know how useful the HM Slave is, but other than them are several more Pokémon which have similar uses outside of competitive value. Some of these are more well-known than others but in this article I'll share with you the ones that I've found and labeled as Utilitymon. Whether they help you get items, catch Pokémon, or help you explore, they're all useful depending on what you hope to do both during the storyline and post-game. So let's get to listing them all!

The Thief

Butterfree (XY), Dustox (ORAS)
Ability: Compound Eyes
Moves: Thief

Tired of catching Pokémon over and over just to take their hold items which they might or might not have, only to release them afterwards? Then this is the Utilitymon for you! There are actually three different chances of wild Pokémon holding items depending on the item and wild Pokémon: 1%, 5%, or 50%. With Compound Eyes in your party, however, this chance is significantly increased to 5%,20%, and 60% respectively! Useful wild hold items in XY include Heart Scales from Luvdisc, while in ORAS, Thief-able items include Lucky Egg from Pelipper, Everstone from Geodude, Life Orb from Absol, and Big Pearl from Clamperl.

Alternative thieves include Galvantula and Vivillon, as they all have the Compound Eyes + Thief combination. Butterfree and Dustox, however, are generally the easier ones to obtain in their respective games.

The EV Trainer

Roserade (XY), Tropius (ORAS)
Moves: Sweet Scent, Razor Leaf, Petal Blizzard (Roserade) Earthquake (Tropius), Fly (Tropius)

New to competitive battling and want to begin EV Training? Are you taking too long to train your awesome team? If you don't have a dedicated EV Trainer, then you just might be! These Pokémon specialize in finding and wiping out hordes for big EV gains. Fly out to the six horde hotspots, use Sweet Scent to begin the battle, then simultaneously destroy all five innocent souls all in the name of stats! A very welcome change to Sweet Scent that ORAS brought us is the ability for it to work in the rain and sandstorms of the overworld. There is still a troublesome horde of Sandshrew found in Route 111 for Defense IVs that can have the Sand Veil ability to dodge attacks. Attach a Wide Lens, though, and you'll increase your accuracy that little bit more.

An alternative EV Trainer is Aromatisse, which can learn Disarming Voice, to hit the Sandshrews without fail. Smeargle can have the amazing combination of Fly, Sweet Scent and Disarming Voice but might not be worth the trouble to make unless you are interested in a long-term investment. Other Pokémon with a combination of Sweet Scent and a move to hit all horde targets include Venusaur with Petal Blizzard and Ludicolo with Surf, although they might be harder to obtain because Ivysaur is only found in Friend Safari and Lotad is an Alpha Sapphire-exclusive.

HM Slaves

Almost everyone has HM Slaves! Even without having heard the term before, you would know what I mean. For finishing the storyline and post-game exploration, Wailord has the combination of Strength, Surf, Waterfall, and Dive while Tropius can learn Cut, Fly, and Strength. However, there are a few which have additional benefits that set them apart from the rest.

The Scavenger

Diggersby (XY), Linoone (ORAS)
Ability: Pickup
Moves: Cut, Surf, Rock Smash, Strength

There are plenty of HMs needed to go through the games. Diggersby, though, can learn a number of these: three if you're using it in XY, and you can add a fourth in Rock Smash when playing in ORAS. Linoone is the ORAS alternative with the exact same four HMs.

What makes these two special is the added benefit of having Pickup to get important items such as Destiny Knot and Leftovers, which are important for breeding and competitive battling, respectively. The chance of picking up an item is 10% after every battle, so it's not a bad idea to bring them along to Thief farming or EV Training battles. Another way to farm Pickup items is to have a squad of six Pickup Pokémon and constantly run into battles! The items that can be picked-up depends on the level of your Scavenger with the rarity and value of the items increasing along with it. The aforementioned Destiny Knot can be found from Level 51 onwards while Leftovers are found starting at Level 81. Pickup is also found on other Pokémon, such as Aipom and Gourgeist, but Diggersby and Linoone are found early on in their games' storyline.

The Deep-Sea Diver

Sharpedo (ORAS)
Moves: Rock Smash, Surf, Strength, Waterfall, Dive

Zoom Zoom. Hoenn has arguably too much water but there have been small additions to both surfing and diving locations in the overworld. One awesome new feature in ORAS is that surfing with a Sharpedo moves at double speed which is useful for all kinds of underwater fun, picking up overworld items scattered around the region. Conveniently enough, Sharpedo also can use other HMs so that you don't have to fill your party with too many slaves.

The Living Repellant

Skuntank (XY), Mightyena (ORAS)
Ability: Stench (Skuntank), Quick Feet (Mightyena), White Smoke
Moves: Strength, Cut (Skuntank), Rock Smash (Mightyena)

While Skuntank and Mightyena don't have the largest HM movepool, their abilities have the lesser-known overworld effect of decreasing wild Pokémon encounters to 50% so long as it's in the lead spot of your party. While definitely not as effective as a Repel, it's essentially for free and its effectiveness can be multiplied with a Stealth O-Power! Stench, Quick Feet, and White Smoke all have the same repelling effect.

Arena Trap, Illuminate, No Guard, and Swarm have the opposing effect in making wild encounters more common, although I don't think that there could be much use in it.

The Breeding Duo

Talonflame (XY), Magcargo (ORAS)
Ability: Flame Body (Talonflame), Magma Armor (Magcargo)
Attacks: Fly (Talonflame), Rock Smash (Magcargo), Strength (Magcargo)

Ditto @ Destiny Knot / Everstone

So you want to get into competitive battling on cartridge? These two are the staple kit for every breeder. There are more in-depth guides out there, so it won't be covered here, but a Ditto with perfect IVs combined with Destiny Knot makes breeding down IVs as fast and easy as possible. Ditto with the right nature can also hold an Everstone to pass down their natures. The second half of the duo is Talonflame or Magcargo, which when kept in your party means that Flame Body/Magma Armor cuts the number of steps required for eggs to hatch to half. That's twice as many eggs in the same amount of time!

Going one step further from 6 IV Dittos are those which are more specialized for special attackers and Hidden Power breeding. It's handy to keep a Ditto with 31/0/31/31/31/31 IVs to breed special attackers, as 0 Attack IVs are actually ideal to reduce damage from Foul Play as well as confusion hits. Ditto with Hidden Power spreads also speed up the process to pass down the right Hidden Power type. Although less commonly used, Dittos with 0 Speed IVs can pass down that minimum Speed for Trick Room teams as well as maximum damage for Gyro Ball.

Any Pokémon with Flame Body or Magma Armor works as a replacement, but Talonflame has the added use of flying you around. Volcarona similarly has Flame Body and Fly. These hatching abilities by themselves are already pretty good, but combined with Hatching O-Power Level 3 and the Oval Charm, you'll be obtaining and hatching eggs at the fastest rate possible.

The Pokémon Catcher

Smeargle
Ability: Technician
Moves: Spore, Soak, False Swipe, Simple Beam / Entrainment

Gotta catch 'em all, so you take the False Swipe TM, teach it to your in-game Pokémon and then go out there, right? NO. This Smeargle is the premier Pokémon catcher in the game. Spore increases the catch rate by 2.5 times before Smeargle reduces them to 1 HP with False Swipe! Are they Grass-type and immune to Spore? Are they Ghosts, thus being immune to False Swipe? Have no fear, Soak changes that for you! Simple Beam or Entrainment can also be used to put Pokémon with abilities such as Insomnia to sleep, although there aren't so many of them.

The Honorable Mention Award for Pokémon Catching Pokémon goes to Breloom, which is more easily obtainable in ORAS. Although it doesn't have a type- or ability-changing move, the combination of Spore and False Swipe is still enough to catch the majority of wild Pokémon. The reasons to use it over Smeargle are how much easier it is to get as well as its stronger Attack stat to back up the False Swipe damage.

The Legendary Pokémon Catcher Squad

Ralts
Ability: Synchronize

Staraptor
Moves: Final Gambit

Smeargle
Moves: Spore

These three Pokémon are specially designed to quickly discover the precise IVs of legendaries, making soft-resetting for them much easier. There are various guides with similar methods that may use different Pokémon, this largely depends on availability and which legendaries you'd like to catch.

The first of them is a Pokémon with the Synchronize ability (Not Synchronoise! That's the attack with a confusingly similar name), such as Ralts. When placed at the start of a party, all wild encounters including legendary Pokémon have a 50 percent chance of having the same nature as the Synchronizer. Want to soft-reset for a Timid Raikou? Bring along something like a Timid Ralts and your chances massively increase.

Although XY and ORAS have started the trend for legendaries having at least three 31 IVs, the hunt for perfection is still time-consuming, especially when you lack the Utilitymon to speed up the process. Staraptor learns Final Gambit to deal an exact number of damage as the HP it has. If you want to catch a Level 50 Timid Raikou with 31 HP IVs, it would have a total of 165 HP. If you had the right Staraptor with 164 HP to use Final Gambit you would see whether or not the Raikou dies! If it lives, then it would have 1 HP left and is confirmed have either 30 or 31 HP IVs, which is true in the majority of cases. Another way to check the HP of legendaries is to use Seismic Toss to deal the same damage as the level of the user. The same Raikou can be Seismic Tossed twice by a Level 82 Pokémon and still live with 1 HP.

The third slot for the Legendary hunting crew is for a Speed IV checker. This Raikou in particular has 148 Speed for both 30 and 31 IVs. The strategy then is to have a Pokémon with 147 Speed to use a move and see which one goes first! Smeargle is especially useful because it has the added utility of putting them to sleep with Spore. Another method is to use a Pokémon with an ability that activates when sent out. In the same way that attacks work, abilities also activate in order of speed. Because Raikou has Pressure, you could use a Pokémon with abilities such as Mold Breaker with 1 less Speed and see which ability activates first.

Although these aren't surefire ways to get perfect legendary Pokémon, it will certainly speed up the time in soft-resetting. For a much more detailed guide and listing of legendary Pokémon with their stats, check out Buckert's Soft Resetting Guide.

The Fisherman

Swalot (XY and ORAS)
Ability: Sticky Hold
Attacks: Rock Smash, Strength

Shinies. Some look good and others not so good but one thing is for sure: they aren't easy to find without preparation. There are detailed guides for shiny fishing elsewhere, but the basic idea is to stay in one spot and keep fishing for Pokémon and as you keep getting them over and over again (or chaining) the chances of them being shiny increases. Sticky Hold increases the chance for Pokémon to be found fishing and thus ensures that they don't get away and break the chain. Anything with Sticky Hold works but Swalot is one of the easier ones to get in both of the games. If you're a hardcore shiny hunter, I would recommend that you complete the National Pokedex before moving on to obtain the Shiny Charm, boosting shiny encounter rates as much as possible.

The Money Maker

Smeargle (XY and ORAS)
Ability: Technician
Moves: Pay Day, Happy Hour

The fastest way to get money in XY is without a doubt grinding Le Wow, but Hoenn doesn't get the luxury of having a method anywhere as good. I'm not sure why you'd need so much money in ORAS, but if you ever feel short of cash, Pay Day and Happy Hour are the best ways to get it back. Happy Hour, in particular, doubles the prize money given from a trainer battle. When stacked with the Amulet Coin or Luck Incense (both also double money) and a level 3 Prize Money O-Power (triples money), that's a massive 12x money gain! Trainers to look out for are classes such as Rich Boys and Gentlemen, daily battles in the Mauville Food Court and, if they're gone, perhaps rematching the Elite Four. It might seem tough to obtain Happy Hour as it's an event move, but there are Secret Bases dedicated to teaching Smeargle these moves!

Conclusion

And there we have it. Although you might not need all of them, hopefully there was at least one that you found useful or even sparked an idea for a different kind of Utilitymon!

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