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Published on May 13th, 2015 | by Adib

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Competitive Secret Base Training: A Setup Guide

Hey everyone, this is Adib. I’m here today to talk about how you can setup your Secret Base quickly and in a way that can help you raise an individual Pokémon’s EVs, happiness and levels much faster. Notice that I said “individual.” For EV training multiple Pokémon, horde battling is far more efficient. For more details, see Gonzo’s horde battling article for ORAS. For individual Pokémon, however, EV training can basically be a matter of talking to a few NPCs in about two minutes when you have a competitive Secret Base.

NOTE: I won’t talk about decorations and the like in this article. Plenty of other people have already written very good guides about that on more general sites like Bulbagarden. This article will also assume you know the very basics of Secret Bases, such as collecting flags, setting up decorations, adding/generating QR codes, adding Secret Pals, etc.

Why Secret Bases Are Helpful Competitively

Short answer: competitive secret bases allow easy daily access to:

  • 300 EVs
  • 10 levels
  • 10 massages + 1 in Mauvile City

Long answer: read on.

In each Secret Base, you can have up to five Secret Pals, all of whom you can recruit from other Secret Bases you get from StreetPass. Each Secret Pal comes packed with up to four Special Skills, depending on the avatar type of the Secret Pal. To use a skill, simply talk to a Secret Pal in your Secret Base, select “Show me a special skill,” then choose the skill you want to use.

If you have collected 1000 flags and achieved Platinum Rank status, then each Secret Pal can use two skills per day which is huge. The skills are listed in the table below (Source: Serebii & Bulbapedia):

Special Skill Effect
Massages Raises a Pokémon’s happiness
Do Some Training Raise a Pokémon’s level by 1
Do Some Exercise Boosts a selected stat by 30 EVs
Egg Nurturing Makes Eggs hatch quicker
Make some goods Creates a decoration
Gather Berries Get one of either Cheri Berry, Chesto Berry, Pecha Berry, Rawst Berry, Aspear Berry, Leppa Berry, Persim Berry, Lum Berry, Sitrus Berry, Liechi Berry, Ganlon Berry, Salac Berry, Petaya Berry, Apicot Berry, Kee Berry, Maranga Berry
Picking up Get one of Elixir, Escape Rope, Full Restore, Heart Scale, Master Ball, Max Revive, PP Max, PP Up, Rare Candy, Revive, Ultra Ball
Pick up Stones Get one of: Dawn Stone, Dusk Stone, Everstone, Fire Stone, Leaf Stone, Moon Stone, Shiny Stone, Sun Stone, Thunder Stone, Water Stone
Search for Treasure Get one of: Big Nugget, Big Pearl, Comet Shard, Float Stone, Nugget, Pearl, Pearl String, Rare Bone
Tell your fortune Get one of: Bargain Power Lv. 3, Capture Power Lv. 3, Prize Money Power Lv. 3, Full Recovery Power Lv. 3

As you can see, most of the skills in the above table are either useless or inferior to other methods available in the game. However, the top three rows highlighted in bold—Massages, Do Some Training, Do Some Exercise—are the reason why you should even bother setting up a competitive Secret Base in the first place.

After getting 1000 flags and achieving Platinum Rank status, you can use these three skills twice a day for each of the five Secret Pals. If you do the math, each Secret Pal can give you 30 EVs per selected stat to a Pokemon twice a day. Multiply those 60 EVs by the 5 Secret Pals available and you’ve got 300 free EVs every day right there. By the same logic, you’ve also got access to 10 free levels or 10 massages or various combinations of the three per day.

The 300 EVs part is huge because it means that when combined with vitamins, wings, and/or 1-2 quick Super Training exercises, you can fully EV train an individual Pokémon without horde battling in many cases — just by talking to a few NPCs over the course of two minutes. The 10 massages, in addition to the 1 in Mauville City, allows you to raise your Pokémon’s happiness very quickly. This is (debatably) good news for Kangaskhan!

However, there is a catch—in order for each Secret Pal to have access to at least three skills and the ability to use them twice a day, you must collect 1000 flags and talk to Aarune to reach Platinum Rank status. That’s a lot of flags. You can collect 1 flag from each Secret Base currently in your game once a day. Sounds like it would take forever, doesn’t it? Well, not really.

Fly by Easy Access

Flyable Secret Base

Before I discuss how to efficiently collect 1000 flags, make sure to set up your Secret Base somewhere very close to a place you can Fly to. Don’t forget, you can fly near signposts you’ve checked on routes as well as cave entrances now! Also, avoid setting up your Secret Base in a place where you have to use an HM move like Surf or Rock Smash to access. It’ll get really old really fast. By having your Secret Base in a place you can Fly directly to, you’ll significantly cut down on the amount of time needed to collect 1000 flags and even future EV training once you’re done.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s talk about how you can collect 1000 flags very quickly.

How to Quickly Collect 1000 Flags

Aarune

User PreyingShark made a very good post about how to do this here, but here’s the process below:

  1. Update your BuzzNav once every 8 hours by simply connecting to the Internet. This allows you to receive more Secret Bases through StreetPass.
  2. After each update, go to the new bases that appeared and collect their flags.
  3. Recruit all of the new Secret Base trainers as your Secret Pals. This may require several trips, as you can only have five Secret Pals at a time.
  4. Go back to your base and talk to each Secret Pal. Each will give you 0 – 30 or more extra flags.
  5. Tell each Secret Pal to leave your base by selecting “Let’s say good-bye”
  6. Repeat steps 1 – 5 every 8 hours.
  7. After the game clock rolls over to midnight, the flags in each Secret Base in your game will respawn. Run around and collect them all. And DON’T try to change your 3DS’s clock to try getting more flags. It won’t work.

PreyingShark managed to get about 400 flags in three days using the above 7 steps. Collecting 1000 flags isn’t anywhere near as time-consuming as it sounds. However, this method means that you won’t have permanent Secret Pals until after you’ve collected 1000 flags. Speaking of Secret Pals…

Which Secret Pals to Invite Back to Base?

Secret Pals

Okay, so now you’ve collected 1000 flags, talked to Aarune in Fortree City to get the Platinum Rank Flag and won a Garchompite from a Flygon trainer (really, GameFreak?). Now it’s time to invite five Secret Pals with the following three skills we talked about earlier back to your Secret Base for a permanent stay. These skills are:

  • Do Some Exercise
  • Do Some Training
  • Massages

However, you can’t just invite anybody. Different Secret Base trainer classes have different combinations of Special Skills. Unfortunately, since many of the Special Skills are useless, this means that many of the trainer classes available (including the ever popular Ace Trainer) come packed with many useless skills. You’ll want to invite only the Secret Base trainers that have all three of the above competitively useful skills. These trainer classes are as follows:

  • Black Belt
  • Battle Girl
  • Expert (male & female)

Not a lot of options, are there? Well, anyways, after you invite your Black Belt, Battle Girl and Expert Secret Pals to stay over at your base permanently, feel free to add those Lv. 100 Blissey bases that have spread like wildfire across the Internet to your Favorites list since you likely won’t be downloading new Secret Bases like crazy anymore. This way, you’ll also ensure you’ll never lose access to your Blissey bases.

Oh and for those of you who don’t know, these “Blissey Bases” are Secret Bases setup by other players that are filled with three Lv. 100 Blissey without any damaging attacks. Together, they allow you to level up your Pokemon at rates unseen before in the franchise. Definitely download as many as you can by scanning their QR codes!

How to Avoid Overwriting Your Secret Base Team

Game Sync

This last section actually has no impact as far as making your base competitively useful. However, many people have accidentally overwritten their Secret Base teams due to the auto-Game Sync that happens whenever you save online, so this section will talk about how to prevent that from happening. After all, once you get 1000 flags, Platinum Rank status and decorate your Secret Base to your heart’s content, you’ll probably want to show off your awesome base to the rest of the world. This includes creating your very own Secret Base team of literally any three Pokémon in the game. This means you can use that Mega Rayquaza you used to clear the Elite Four or whatever.

However, there’s a few things you need to be careful about. Your Secret Base team of three Pokémon is determined by the order of the first three Pokémon in your party. Every time you Game Sync, your Secret Base team is updated to whatever three Pokémon you have leading your party. Most players automatically Game Sync their games by saving while connected to the Internet. This means that if you’re not careful, that Secret Base dream team of Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza will turn into a Talonflame and two random baby Pokémon you just hatched just before you traded with somebody by going online. It’d be a pain to have to lead with your Secret Base team every time you go online, so how do you save your Secret Base team without a ton of hassle?

It turns out all you have to do is turn AutoSync off. Here’s how you do it:

  1. Go to the Player Search System
  2. Click on Game Sync
  3. Click on Settings
  4. Click on Turn off AutoSync

And that’s it. This makes it so that the game doesn’t automatically Game Sync whenever you save while connected to the Internet. Therefore, your Secret Base team won’t be overwritten every time you save while playing online. Now, whenever you want to GameSync, you’ll have to do it manually using Steps 1, 2 and the prompts on the screen while having your Secret Base team occupying the first three slots in your party in your desired order.

On a sidenote, it’s recommended to raise your Secret Base team to Lv. 100 so that people will be more inclined to download and battle against it. Your non-Blissey team may not give as much experience, but it would still give a lot and make things a little more refreshing to other players who’re used to bashing a bunch of Blisseys.

Conclusion

Well, that’s pretty much all I got as far as making your Secret Base competitively useful. Personally, I had a blast decorating and customizing my Secret Base as I unlocked more decorations by collecting more flags, and I hope you will too. Setting up these competitive Secret Bases isn’t hard and it certainly isn’t as time-consuming as it may seem at first. And the reward of being able to EV train an individual Pokémon and/or drastically raise a Pokémon’s happiness just by talking to a few NPCs in minutes is worth it.


About the Author

started playing competitive Pokemon in the VGC 2012 season. He finished 2nd place at 2014 US Nationals, 10th place at 2013 US Nationals, 7th place at the Fall 2013 Ft. Wayne regionals, and 7th at APEX 2014.



6 Responses to Competitive Secret Base Training: A Setup Guide

  1. Acierknight says:

    This is simply amazing. Thanks for the post!

  2. Aza9 says:

    I think you forgot to mention that its possible for your secret base pals to pick up
    Master Balls and PPUps both of which are extremely valuable to the competitive player
    The secret skill is pick up something and the guys that can do it are swimmer, school kid
    and guitarist when you get past the bronze rank.

    I’ve been doing this daily for a while and got a whole bunch of rare candies and PPUps
    so its definitely worth doing.

    This is Mr.Mi

  3. Adib says:

    I think you forgot to mention that its possible for your secret base pals to pick up
    Master Balls and PPUps both of which are extremely valuable to the competitive player
    The secret skill is pick up something and the guys that can do it are swimmer, school kid
    and guitarist when you get past the bronze rank.

    I’ve been doing this daily for a while and got a whole bunch of rare candies and PPUps
    so its definitely worth doing.

    This is Mr.Mi

     
    I covered those in the table, but then described Picking up as one of the skills that’s inferior to other methods available in the game. You can get many more PP Ups in a much shorter time by just spamming Wondertrade for a few nights, transferring all your Pokemiles and then buying a bunch of PP Ups that way. As for Master Balls, it’s easier to just ask someone to trade one to you. The Rare Candies thing isn’t really useful when Do Some Training (which raises a level by 1) and Blissey Bases exist.

  4. Thowra says:

    Awesome article! I had no idea you could turn off game sync haha.

  5. Aza9 says:

    I guess your right the inner child in me is just drawn to Rare Candies there so cool
     
    This is Mr.Mi

  6. Zekira Drake says:

    and won a Garchompite from a Flygon trainer (really, GameFreak?)

     
    omg my tears are flowing again and GameFreak finds it delicious ._.

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