Shiny Litwick’s surprise move teaches Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player hard lesson
A Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player encountered a shiny Litwick in The Teal Mask DLC but was in for quite the shock when it fainted after using a move many trainers didn’t even know it could learn.
Shiny hunting is an important feature of Pokemon with it being the main end-game activity that trainers enjoy. There are plenty of ways to optimize shiny hunting but in the heat of the moment, it’s easy to forget them.
For example, unpredictable abilities like Effect Spore add an element of randomness and could result in a lost shiny. Sometimes it’s not even a trainer’s fault with unfair crashes being the culprit instead.
However, this time around the outcome could have been avoided with this story of a failed Shiny Litwick encounter teaching one player a hard lesson.
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player loses Shiny Litwick after it uses shock move
One player encountered a Shiny Litwick but lost it after the Candle Pokemon used Memento. This unique Dark-type move lowers a target’s Attack and Special Attack by two stages but causes the user to faint.
Crushed by the loss the user posted on Reddit: “PSA: Litwick learns memento in the DLC, Save. Your. Game. First.”
The affected trainer went on to clarify that they were aware Litwick learned Memento and landed a turn 1 Hypnosis to avoid it, but the Ghost-type woke up straight after. Either way, forgetting to save lost them a rare shiny encounter.
Memento isn’t a new move for Litwick by any means as the Candle Pokemon has been able to learn it since it debuted in Unova. However, the overworld spawns in The Teal Mask are high level making it much more likely to encounter a Litwick that has already learned Memento at level 56.
Others chimed in to warn their fellow trainers about other Pokemon capable of learning self-fainting moves. Those highlighted were Poltchageist, Starly, Jumpluff, Skuntank, and Hoppip.
Any Pokemon Scarlet & Violet DLC players looking to shiny hunt any of these Pokemon should save beforehand and then use Taunt to force it to use an offensive move instead.