Do you want to make a “best buddy” out of your Pokémon in Pokémon GO? Here you will learn what steps you need to take.
What are “best buddies”? In Pokémon GO, you can always have a “buddy Pokémon” with you. This brings you various bonuses. You can reach a total of 4 friendship levels with these monsters. The “best buddy” is the highest state.
The levels are:
- Good Buddy – Pokémon goes on adventures with you, has a noticeable mood
- Super Buddy – Pokémon gives you catching assistance, finds gifts
- Hyper Buddy – Finds places and souvenirs
- Best Buddy – Receives a WP boost and a “Best Buddy Band”
Besides the bonuses you receive, you also need “best buddies” for things like the Buddy medal or the masterpiece research with Jirachi.
How to increase the buddy level? To increase the buddy level, you need to earn hearts with the Pokémon you have chosen as your buddy. To reach the “Best Buddy” status, you need a total of 300 hearts.
However, hearts are only earned for specific actions and only in limited quantities per day.
How to quickly become a best buddy?
How to collect hearts for a buddy? There are a total of 6 actions that can earn you hearts. Normally, you can reach twelve hearts per day, but there is the exception of the “Excited” state. More about that below.
Here are the basic actions for which you earn hearts:
- “Walk together”: Earns 1 heart every 2 kilometers, up to 3 times a day.
- Note: Only counts if your buddy is visible on the map. This works by feeding your buddy well so that he appears on the map.
- “Give your buddy a snack”: Always gives 1 heart when you have fed your buddy with 3 berries. Up to 3 times a day.
- “Play together”: You need to call your buddy using the “Play!” button in AR mode. There, you have to pet him to earn a heart. Once a day.
- “Fight together”: Fight with your buddy in gyms, raids, trainer battles, or against Team Rocket. Up to three times a day.
- Tip 1: Your buddy does not have to fight himself. What matters is that he is on the battle team.
- Tip 2: You can simply fight against the AI team leaders. You can find them in the PvP area, all the way down in “Training”.
- “Take a snapshot”: Take a photo of your buddy in AR mode. Once a day.
- “Visit a new place”: Spin at a new gym or an unknown PokéStop when your buddy is following you on the map.
Double heart possibility through “Excited” state: When you put your buddy into the “Excited” mood, you have the chance to earn extra hearts.
In Excited mode, a second set of hearts is unlocked that you can earn. This way, you can earn up to 24 hearts a day.
How do I get my Pokémon into the Excited state? There are two ways to do this.
The simple way is the item “Knursp”. If you feed a Knursp to your buddy, he will immediately be put into the “Excited” mode and you can earn additional hearts.
However, you only get the Knursp rarely, and in the shop, it costs 100 PokéCoins – the same as a raid pass.
Is “Excited” possible without Knursp? Yes, it is possible, but more complicated. You can use the same actions that you need for hearts to improve your buddy Pokémon’s mood. There is a system behind it that is not displayed in the game.
YouTuber PokéDaxi has taken a closer look at this in a video (via YouTube).
Each buddy action is assigned “Emotion Points”, and you need a total of 32 points to reach the Excited status.
- 2 km running together brings 4 points
- Feeding brings 2 points
- Playing brings 2 points
- Fighting together brings 2 points. This applies to multiple types of fights, each bringing 2 points
- Gyms
- Raids
- Rocket fights
- PvP fights
- Team leader fights
- A snapshot brings 2 points
- Visit a new gym or PokéStop: 2 points
- Open a buddy gift: 4 points
- Visit a Stop that your buddy has found: 4 points
Important: At the same time, the actions also have a cooldown time of 30 minutes each – except for the walking task. Therefore, you can only earn points with each action every half hour.
However, by combining these actions, it is possible – depending on your own gameplay – to earn the “Excited” mode without using a Knursp.
As a result, it is possible to earn additional hearts and reach the “Best Buddy” status within a shorter time. If you play without “Excited”, but with the maximum number of hearts per day, it will take longer.
- 12 hearts per day means 25 days until you have collected 300
- With a total of 24 hearts per day, the Best Buddy status would also be possible in 13 days.
Have you already got best buddies? How do you collect the hearts for the status? Let us know in the comments!
For which monsters the buddy status is particularly worthwhile, we show you here in the overview of the monsters in Pokémon GO that you should definitely take as buddies.
