How to Increase Friendship

Increase Friendship with Pokemon by getting massages, feeding them vitamins, or walking with them outside the Pokeball. Read on to learn how use the Friendship Checker, what decreases friendship, Pokemon friendship evolutions, how to check friendship level, and the benefits of increasing friendship in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP).

How to Increase Friendship Video Walkthrough

How to Increase Friendship with Pokemon

How to Increase Friendship
Feed Your Pokemon Vitamins Give Them Massages Walk with Your Pokemon Give Your Pokemon a Soothe Bell Catch Pokemon with a Luxury Ball Feed Pokemon Berries

Feed Your Pokemon Vitamins

The most efficient way to raise your Pokemon's friendship is by feeding them vitamins, which also raises their base stats. However, you'll need to purchase large amounts of vitamins to siginificantly increase their friendship, so this is only recommended if you have the Pokedollars to spare.

You can buy vitamins at the Veilstone City Department store or exchange them for Battle Points (BP) at the Battle Tower.

Vitamin	Description
HP Up	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base HP of a single Pokémon.
Protein	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base Attack stat of a single Pokémon.
Iron	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base Defense stat of a single Pokémon.
Calcium	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base Sp. Atk stat of a single Pokémon.
Zinc	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base Sp. Def stat of a single Pokémon.
Carbos	A nutritious drink for Pokémon. When consumed, it raises the base Speed stat of a single Pokémon.
PP Up	A medicine that can slightly raise the maximum PP of a single move that has been learned by the target Pokemon.

How to Get Money Fast

Give Them a Massage (Once Per Day)

You can give your Pokemon massages from the Massage Girl in Veilstone City or a spa at the Ribbon Syndicate. Both increase friendship between you and a Pokemon.

The massages at the spa are more effective at increasing friendship, but to access the Ribbon Syndicate in the post game, you first need to obtain 10 ribbons.

Pokemon Massage Locations
Veilstone City	Resort Area

Walk with Your Pokemon

A passive way to raise a Pokemon's friendship is to travel around the map with the Pokemon outside of its Pokeball. The Pokemon increases in friendship every so often, with the amount of steps you take.

How to Have Pokemon Follow You and Walk With Pokemon

Give Pokemon a Soothe Bell

Soothe Bell	An item to be held by a Pokemon. It is a bell with a comforting chime that calms the holder and makes it friendly.

A Pokemon holding the Soothe Bell will have its friendship growth boosted, which is a quick and easy way of raising friendship stats. Let a Pokemon holding a Soothe Bell participate in battle and walk around with you in order to get the maximum possible friendship boost.

Catch Pokemon in a Luxury Ball

Luxury Ball	A comfortable Poke Ball that makes a caught wild Pokemon quickly grow friendly.

A Pokemon caught in a Luxury Ball will have its friendship growth boosted. You can purchase the Luxury Ball for 1000 Pokedollars from the Poke Mart in Sunyshore City and the Pokemon League.

How to Catch Pokemon

Feed Pokemon Berries

Some berries can increase your friendship level with Pokemon, but keep in mind that these berries have the side-effect of reducing EVs (effort values) in a certain stat. As such, they can also be used for resetting unwanted EVs.

Berries That Increase Friendship
Pomeg Berry	Kelpsy Berry
Qualot Berry	Hondew Berry
Grepa Berry	Tamato Berry

How to EV Train Fast and Reset EVs

What Decreases Pokemon Friendship?

Making Pokemon Faint

Your Friendship with a Pokemon will decrease every time it faints. When you are trying increase their friendship, it is best to avoid them from fainting as much as possible.

Giving Pokemon Herbs

Herbs are another type of healing item in the game that are cheaper than potions and other items found it the Pokemart. However, using herbs also decreases your friendship with Pokemon.

Friendship Checker Locations

Receive Poketch App in Eterna City

Location	Talk to Aroma Lady in Eterna City Pokemon Center

The Friendship Checker is the most efficient way to check the friendship of a Pokemon on the go. Press and hold the A Button while hovering over a Pokemon to reveal hearts. The higher the friendship level, the bigger the hearts will appear on screen.

All Poketch App Locations

Pokemon Evolve at 2 Small Hearts

When you see 2 small hearts above your Pokemon when using the Frienship Checker, it usually means the Pokemon is ready to evolve if it evolves through friendship. This does not apply to all Pokemon but it is the standard for friendship evolution.

Talk to Friendship Raters

Friendship Raters can be found all around Sinnoh. However, it's still preferred to use the Friendship Checker app, since their evaluations could come across vague. Make sure that the Pokemon you want to check is at the front of your party before talking to the Friendship Raters.

Friendship Rater	Location
	Pokemon Center Eterna City
	Pokemon Fan Club Hearthome City

Benefits of Increasing Friendship

Improve Battle Performance

Increasing friendship with your Pokemon can improve their performances in battle. Pokemon with high friendship may inflict critical hits onto its target or hold on to 1 HP when getting attacked by a move that would otherwise knock it out. It may also heal its own status condition.

Some Pokemon Evolve With High Friendship

The following Pokemon will evolve once they level up with a high friendship stat.

Pokemon	Lvl. Up	Evolution
Budew	➤ (Day)	Roselia
Golbat	➤	Crobat
Buneary	➤	Lopunny
Chingling	➤ (Night)	Chimecho
Chansey	➤	Blissey
Cleffa	➤	Clefairy
Pichu	➤	Pikachu
Munchlax	➤	Snorlax
Riolu	➤ (Day)	Lucario
Azurill	➤	Marill
Eevee	➤ (Day)	Espeon
Eevee	➤ (Night)	Umbreon
Togepi	➤	Togetic

Get Ribbons from Friendship Raters

The lady in the Hearthome City Fan Club and Dr. Footstep in Route 213 both give you ribbons once you show them a Pokemon with high enough friendship. If you are aiming to collect all the ribbons, remember to visit these NPCs.

List of Ribbons

Pokemon BDSP Related Guides

Training and Breeding

Training and Breeding Guides
How to Breed Pokemon and Hatch Eggs	Nature and IV Breeding Guide
How to Level Up Fast	How to EV Train Fast
How to Reroll for Best Nature and IVs	How to Increase IVs
Pokerus Effects	Shiny Hunting Guide
How to Learn Egg Moves	How to Change a Pokemon's Nature
How to Check EVs	How to Check Pokemon IVs
How to Hatch Eggs Faster	How to Get Hidden Abilities
How to Catch High IV Pokemon	How to Increase Friendship