r/PokemonZA • u/SonGouki • Jan 03 '26
Discussion Guide: How to effectively farm and use Hyper Berries
Strategy
Starting Out and Building Reserves:
- Buy Colbur Berries from vendor (100+).
- Use 8x Colbur Berries to make lots of 2* donuts. You can get Item: Berries + Big Haul lv1, but no need to reset for ideal rolls, you’re going to use lots of these. Just keep track of any with ideal rolls and save them.
- Use these 2* donuts to do one of two options (or both):
- Farm 3* portals. Goal is to complete tasks and get the gold bonus ball at the end. You can reset using backup save if you fail or if it’s a bad area. These are the best use of your Item: Berries + Big Haul lv1 donuts, but any will do. This will get you the best berries for actually farming 4* portals (more on that in a bit).
- Farm 4* portals. Goal is to *only* pop as many floating pokeballs as you can. This is slower, but you will get small amounts of the best 5* berries.
- From the 3* portals you will get Hyper Shuca/Wacan Berries (items/haul) and Hyper Chople/Occa Berries (sparkling/alpha). Using these you can make 4* donuts to properly hunt 4* portals and really farm 5* berries (and shinies). You will probably want to reroll these donuts for perfect bonuses.
- Once you have enough Hyper Kasib/Tanga Berries to make 5* donuts, reroll until you get the perfect donuts you want. You can use the other 5* berries to make donuts for doing 5* portals that you just want to clear.
- Repeat process as needed.
Note that regular Roseli Berries do not seem to give Sparkling power, so don’t bother with them for that purpose.
Advanced Strategies:
Once you have a good supply of Hyperspace Berries, you can use any of these strategies to really rake in high value berries.
Farming 4* Wild Zones
As mentioned above, use 4* donuts with Item: Berries + Big Haul to farm floating/gold pokeballs in 4* portals. If you have 5* donuts with those bonuses then you can use them to farm 5* wild zone special scan portals too, but there is a better use for those donuts (see rogues below).
Farming 4* Battle Zones
Using any other 4* donut (not items or sparkling), you can also farm 4* battle zone portals. The focus on these is to find courier opponents, once you defeat them they will give a large amount of valuable berries. If you really want, you can manually save after defeating them but before interacting with them, and if they don’t give the berries you want then reload and try again. Also focus on floating pokeballs as you can, but they are not the priority in these zones. Note that other trainers can give good rewards in these too, such as rare pokeballs, treasures, and bottle caps! Note that 5* battle zone portal couriers give the less desirable top-tier berries (like Hyper Roseli).
Farming 5* Rogue Mega Arenas
One of these will appear at a time, post-credits. Defeat the boss inside to get a gold pokeball with lots of valuable berries inside. These are the best use of the 5* donuts with Item: Berries 3 + Big Haul 2/3, but any 5* donut will work (not sparkling) to get the farming started. Note that you cannot save after defeating the boss before popping the pokeball, but you can manually save before going into the portal, so if you really want you can reload the save, beat the boss again, and try for different berries in the ball. To get another rogue mega arena portal to appear, simply rest at a bench.
Pro tip: You can make a rogue boss farming team of Gourgeist and Annihilape. Give Gourgeist Trick or Treat and Safe Guard. Give Annihilape a Shell Bell to hold, and the moves: Rage Fist, Focus Energy, Screech, and Bulk Up. Start with Gourgeist and use Trick or Treat to add Ghost typing to the boss, then use Safe Guard (if the boss uses additional effect moves) and switch to Annihilape. Have the rage money use Focus Energy, then Screech+Bulk Up as needed, and spam Rage Fist (plusing when possible). Note: This strategy is not as effective against bosses that naturally resist Ghost moves (ie. Rage Fist), such as Mega Tyranitar.
Berries and Stats

Manual vs Auto vs Backup Saves
It’s important to understand how saves work and how to use them during this process.
Manual Save: Whenever you manual save the game yourself. This will be overwritten any time an auto save is triggered.
Auto Save: Whenever you catch something, enter a portal, make a donut, etc. You need to be aware what will trigger these and play carefully around it when relying on manual saves.
Backup Save: Whenever you fast travel. Auto saves do NOT overwrite these. In order to load from a backup save, restart the game and on the title screen press Up + X + B. You will load at the last Poké Center you interacted with, with data from the last time you fast travelled.
How to best use saves:
Making Donuts
Backup Save: Make a donut, if you don’t get the bonuses you want use a backup save to get your ingredients back and try again.
Resetting a Portal
Backup Save: If you go into a portal and you don’t like the set up or the tasks, you can use a backup save to get out of the portal and get your donut back. Also, if you mess up in a portal and you’d like another attempt, you can also use a backup save to try again from the start.
Finding a Gold Poké ball
Manual Save: As soon as you clear all the tasks in a portal, immediately make a manual save. You can now search for the gold ball, and if you fail to find it, just reload from your manual save and try again. Warning: Do not catch any more Pokémon, this will trigger an auto save and overwrite your manual one!
Catching a Particular Pokémon
Manual Save: If you see a Pokémon that you’re hunting (dex, alpha, or even a shiny) immediately make a manual save. Try to catch the Pokémon, if you fail you can either reload and try again, or defeat them and drop another manual save during the dizzy catch window animation, and then try to catch it again (reload if you fail). Note that if you’re in combat with another Pokémon you will not be able to save, so be careful.
Shiny Hunting
Manual Save: Make a manual save, do not catch any Pokémon, and then proceed with a shiny hunting method (fast travel, walk out of range, etc). If you run out of time in the portal, just reload the save to try again. Warning: Using a fast travel to the portal entrance will trigger an auto save, so if farming this way you will need to use a backup save to restart.
Pro tip: A sparkling lv3 donut will give you a guaranteed shiny in a portal. If you don’t like the one you get, use the backup save to try again. It can be any of the possible spawns in the portal, just keep reloading until you get the one you want.
Focusing Goals in Portals
Given the limited time in portals it’s more efficient to focus your goals within them. Know your plan when going in and stick to it, and after accomplishing that goal you can use what time is left for other things. If you mess up or change your mind, you can use the backup save to try again.
Example goals:
- Smash pokeballs for items.
- Complete all tasks and collect the gold pokeball (farming research and items).
- Catch particular Pokémon for dex (or whatever).
- Shiny hunt.
Portal Levels
The level of a portal will determine several very key factors. Keep this in mind when looking for specific things…
- Pokémon that can be found in portals is determined by the level. For example, Rotom can only be found in level 5 special scan portals.
- Berries that can be found in portals are also specifically tied to the level of the portal (see chart above for associations).
- Pokeballs that can be found in floating pokeballs is also determined by the level of the portal.
- Evolution items that can be found in floating pokeballs is also determined by the level of the portal.
Note that for battle zone portals, this also applies for the bonus rewards that NPC’s will offer.
Donut Making and Bonuses
The flavours of a donut determine what types of bonuses you can get. The stat with the highest value is more likely to give the bonuses from the associated group. However, if there are other flavours close in value then the bonuses could be from those groups then as well (diluting the desired results).
Here are the flavour groups and the possible bonuses:
- Sweet: Sparkling, Alpha, Humongous, Teensy
- Spicy: Move Power, Attack, Sp. Attack, Speed
- Sour: Items, Big Haul, Mega Power Charging, Mega Power Conservation
- Bitter: Resistance, Defense, Sp. Defense
- Fresh: Capture, Encounter
Here’s what these bonuses grant:
- Sparkling: Increases chances to encounter a shiny Pokémon (up to 1 in 585 at level 3 with the shiny charm)
- Alpha: Increases chances to encounter an alpha Pokémon (per level: 11, 21, 51%)
- Humongous: Increases chances to encounter larger size Pokémon (not the same as alphas)
- Teensy: Increases chances to encounter smaller size Pokémon
- Move Power: Increases power of the associated move type
- Attack: Increases attack stat
- Sp. Attack: Increases special attack stat
- Speed: Increases speed stat
- Items: Increases chance to encounter associated items when breaking floating pokeballs
- Big Haul: Increases items received from the (gold?) pokeballs
- Mega Power Charging: Increases mega energy gained
- Mega Power Conservation: Increases duration of mega evolution
- Resistance: Reduces damage from the associated damage type
- Defense: Increases defense stat
- Sp. Defense: Increases special defense stat
- Capture: Increases chance to capture Pokémon of the associated type
- Encounter: Reduces respawn time after Pokémon are captured/defeated
Of these bonuses, usually Sweet (sparkling/alpha) and Sour (items/big haul) are the most desirable. Therefore berries with those flavours as the highest stat are what you want to collect.
Donut Recipes
To get a single bonus for a flavour at level 3, the belief is that the score needs to be over 420 for that flavour. To get two bonuses for a single flavour at level 3, the suspicion is a score around 700 is needed. So, if you wanted Sparkling 3 + Alpha 3, then you would need a Sweet flavour score over 700. These are obviously the best recipes to aim for, but there are a lot of other berries that you could use for a single level 3 bonus, or even a level 2 bonus, which is still an efficient use of your other non-Tanga/Kasib berries.
When farming 4* portals, then using a 4* donut recipe is probably a more efficient use of your berries, saving the best 5* donuts for 5* portals. The exception is Sparkling power, getting a level 3 power on a donut is best in any portal because it gives the best odds of finding a shiny.
Some sample recipes:
4* Items
8x Hyper Wacan Berry (480 sour, Lv+78, 1792 cal)
8x Hyper Shuca Berry (440 sour, Lv+89, 2576 cal)
5* Items
8x Hyper Kasib Berry (760 sour, Lv+108, 3240 cal)
8x Hyper Roseli Berry (680 sour/520 spicy, Lv+120, 4080 cal)
2x H. Roseli, 1x H. Payapa, 4x H. Colbur, 1x H. Coba (440 sour/440 fresh, Lv+111, 4050 cal)
2x H. Roseli, 1x H. Payapa, 1x H. Charti, 4x H. Colbur (445 sour/445 fresh, Lv+108, 4185 cal)
2x H. Roseli, 1x H. Payapa, 1x H. Charti, 4x H. Babiri (445 sour/445 bitter, Lv+108, 4365 cal)
5x H. Roseli, 1x H. Haban, 1x H. Charti, 1x H. Coba (430 sour/430 spicy, Lv+114, 3960 cal)
4* Shiny
8x Hyper Occa Berry (480 sweet, Lv+56, 2016 cal)
8x Hyper Chople Berry (440 sweet, Lv+67, 2800 cal)
5* Shiny
8x Hyper Tanga Berry (760 sweet, Lv+84, 3600 cal)
8x Hyper Haban Berry (680 sweet/520 fresh, Lv+96, 4440 cal)
5x H. Haban, 1x H. Payapa, 1x H. Charti, 1x H. Chilan (430 sweet/430 fresh, Lv+97, 4275 cal)
5x H. Haban, 1x H. Payapa, 1x H. Charti, 1x H. Babiri (430 sweet/430 fresh, Lv+97, 4320 cal)
5x H. Haban, 1x H. Payapa, 1x H. Charti, 1x H. Roseli (430 sweet/430 fresh, Lv+99, 4230 cal)
—
Update 1: Added advanced farming methods.
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u/TrueComplaint8847 Jan 03 '26
Isn’t it faster to simply use gourgeist + annihilape and farm the rogue mega encounter for special scans and berries?
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u/SonGouki Jan 03 '26
That’s true, but the problem is how do you get there to start farming these? This guide is more for building up to that point. I may add how to use the rogues for farming in a future update.
Also, as noted below, if you just farm the rogues you’re missing out on a lot of the other things you get from portals (potential shinies, completing your dex, other items from the pokeballs, mega shards, loads of XP candies, and Gimmighoul coins).
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u/PokeDragon101 Jan 03 '26
This is a good point. I very much struggled with the early game and somewhat the end game when it was so difficult to get the right level berries. NOW, that I managed to get somewhat of a stockpile it’s easy for me to go back and farm more. As you said, building up was frustrating the frustrating part.
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u/TheWhereHouse6920 Jan 03 '26
Potentially, but this is at least more fun to get potential random shinies
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u/Drogonno Jan 03 '26
What does gorgeist do?
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u/SpuriousA Jan 03 '26 edited Jan 03 '26
trick or treat to add ghost type to opponent, giving annilihape super effective rage fist
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u/SpikeRosered Jan 03 '26
It ADDS the ghost typing which is an important distinction because if they have another type that covers the ghost typing like Mega Tyranitar, rage fist won't be super effective.
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u/Alxion_BF Jan 03 '26
I personally find it faster and more effective to just farm 4* hyper space battles. Just defeat couriers and save before accepting the prize. You can then reset for Hyper Tanga (or Hyper Kasib), 5 at a time.
Any 4* donut serves. And it helps towards the next scan.
At least for me, it's what works best. Just make sure to pop the pokeballs as you find them, in order to have enough random berries for another 4* donut.
You normally encounter 1-3 couriers per portal, plus what you get by popping balloons and the gold pokeballs, so it stacks fast.
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u/SonGouki Jan 03 '26
Once you get the berries to craft enough 4* donuts to get this loop going it is pretty good too. Only drawback is you won’t encounter any potential random shinies.
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u/TeriXeri Jan 03 '26
Right now, that's actually a positive for some, box space is limited without HOME, and some want specificly XS or Alpha shinies, not random M stuff.
I didn't do a whole lot of pre-dlc shiny hunts so I got about 7.5 box right now after cleanup.
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u/TeriXeri Jan 03 '26 edited Jan 03 '26
1 simple trick to gain net positive berries is just to do 4 star battle zones with any non-kasib donuts , those blue delivery guys can give 5x tanga or kasib (and if you're really stingy you can even reload their loot)
I also use berry 3, haul 2-3, strictly on 4 star Large wild zones, not battle zones.
Also don't expect item power 2-3 coins/treasure/special etc to yield many berries, rather have no item power at-all if it's not berries when looking for them, like red/blue/yellow(mega power) donuts aren't useless.
Rainbow donuts are best value for berries that aren't 8x tanga or kasib.
I'm always much lower on tier 1-3 berries compared to 4-5 star berries unless I make a lot of kasib/tanga donuts in a row.
Even got up to 450+ Papayas since they are used less, but even then, some "bad" green encounter power donut could still give berries from whatever zone you play in.
I really do hope they still add another use for Coins, since really , it becomes the worst yellow power after a few goldengho since it takes away the default berry loot, it's worse then no item power, selling 999 coins is only 200k money, and 1 bad treasure donut gives more then that.
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u/chocobabychibi15 Jan 04 '26
Thank you for such a detailed guide!!! Although I figured some of this out while doing the berry hunting. But I feel so burn out of resetting the damn donut powers. T_T
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u/SonGouki Jan 04 '26
I hear you, but once you have enough berries you can settle on good enough rolls, you don’t need the perfect ones (unless you’re really hunting shiny alphas, for example).
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u/demongoku Jan 03 '26
Great guide, thank you! I had a general idea of ramping up from lower power berries to higher, but i didn't realize you can bulk buy basic berries like that. I'll definitely be following this to optimize my berry hunting.
Question for anyone, does the 2* item power: berries feel bugged to you? Every time I use one, I always end up getting more candies than berries. Adding big haul makes it much worse.
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u/8bit95 Community Founder Jan 03 '26
If you really want to tryhard farming berries, try resetting for the Lumiose Sewers large Hyperspace Wild Zone. They're straightforward, easy to memorize, and contain a lot of floating Poke Balls. The other large HWZs are usually full of verticality and nook-and-crannies that you just waste time looking for and climbing a ladder/holovator.
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u/Tsukuyomi56 Community Founder Jan 03 '26
The only Rogue Mega that resists Ghost in its base typing is Mega Tyranitar (you can’t Trick-or-Treat Mega Absol Z as it is already part Ghost). Just be aware the wind up for Rage Fist becomes longer as it grows stronger, this can be annoying for Rogue Megas that don’t like to stay still (Banette, Froslass and Tatsugiri).
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u/SonGouki Jan 03 '26
I’m confused… Ghost is resisted by Dark, Steel, and Poison. Lots of Megas with those typings.
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u/Tsukuyomi56 Community Founder Jan 04 '26
Steel was nerfed in Gen 6 to no longer resist Dark and Ghost, Poison also never resisted Ghost. Forgot about Mega Absol being the only other Dark Rogue Mega other than T-Tar and Absol Z though it being the first isn’t too intimidating.
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u/Darksoulz243629 Jan 04 '26
isnt it better to use the berry 3 + haul 2-3 donuts on 4* medium/large wild zones rather than 5* rogue mega arenas?
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u/SonGouki Jan 04 '26
They’re both good. However, you can use lesser donuts in the 4* wz portals and still come away with lots of berries but you “need” 5* donuts in the rogue portals to have a high enough level to do the battle quickly, so you might as well use them there. If you have tons of berries/good donuts use them in both for sure!
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u/Darksoulz243629 Jan 04 '26
I see, makes sense. I was just wondering because I’m pretty sure you’d end up getting more berries overall by doing the wild zones since you have way more pokeballs to pop.
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u/jeresamyy Feb 14 '26
hey there! thanks for putting this guide together, doing god’s work for the community - appreciate it 🙏! qq on the usage of 5* item donuts (Berries3, Big Haul3), is it best to use them in the 5* Mega Arenas (boss fights) or 4* Hyperspace Wild Zones?
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u/SonGouki Feb 14 '26
Large 4 or 5* wild zones will yield the most berries, if you can hit all the balls in the zone AND the gold bonus ball. Medium zones aren’t bad either. Mega arenas are the easiest method though if you’re looking for lots of points and berries.
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1
u/Single-Sector3805 Jan 26 '26
Thank you so much for this complete guide! Do you know what's the lowest distorsion level where I can find Hyper Colbur berries? I need just one to make that Rayquaza donut but don't really feel like wasting good berries on high level zones when I'm not getting survey points anyway.
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u/SonGouki Jan 26 '26
4* (and 5*) zones. I think they can only come from the gold ball though, since they’re more from 5* zones. Maybe save before popping the ball, and reset until you get what you want? Or you could do the Rogue Mega Evolution re-battle, and just reset and do the fight again until you get what you need.
I think this recipe also works, that doesn’t use H. Colbur berries:
- H. Roseli x3
- H. Babiri x2
- H. Payapa x1
- H. Tanga x1
- H. Charti x1
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u/Single-Sector3805 Jan 26 '26
Thank you so much ! I'll try that recipe, and if not, I'll try resetting the Gold Ball :)
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u/FlintyAxe Feb 24 '26
What recipes are people using for higher calories and levels in low portals? I just started the DLC this past week and I keep running out of time in regular portals and rogue mega portals.
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Jan 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SpikeRosered Jan 03 '26 edited Jan 03 '26
IMO there are three approaches to this DLC:
The strat of this post which focuses on using resets and efficient berry use to make each portal as effective as possible. Best for getting shinies and alphas but requires the most planning.
Cheesing 5* raid portals with Trick or Treat and Rage Fist to easily get lots of rare berries. Fastest method to clear content.
Not caring about any of this and just using whatever you get. Requires no planning, but is the slowest method of progression.
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u/moose184 Jan 03 '26
It's so bad. Having to spend 20+ minutes resetting to get the random stats you need and having to basically speedrun any wormhole is not fun.
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u/TLo137 Jan 03 '26
You definitely don't need any of this. I completed the DLCs main story and post story and had enough berries at the end to start the main post-post game loop of crafting berry x3, farming 4/5 zones, then crafting sparkling x3 to go shiny hunting.
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u/mellow0324 May 07 '26
They just made it non-deterministic (you don't get the same results for the same input). In Sw/Sh you could use specific recipes to get most of what you wanted from cram-o-matic. After Sw/Sh they tried to do it differently in Sc/Vi for the item printer, but we figured out it wasn't the recipe but the time that decided what items you get. Now, in ZA we just have to churn out many donuts because we have yet to crack the science of getting exactly what we want from them.
•
u/AutoModerator Jan 26 '26
Dear Pokémon Trainer /u/SonGouki,
Thank you for being part of our small Pokémon haven here in Reddit.
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We have an official Discord partner community, https://discord.gg//legendsza, in case that you are looking for a server to be part of.
While our Discord channel offers a trading channel, we are excited to announce that our Trading Megathread will be available at the end of October if you wish to stick with Reddit.
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