What is the fastest way to evolve Budew in BD/SP?

Question

I am currently in a nuzlocke run of Shining Pearl. I'm looking to get a Budew for the Oreburgh Gym, but its BST is worrying and I want to evolve it beforehand. I know that Budew needs friendship to evolve, so what's the fastest way? (If possible, teach me a method that doesn't involve leveling, I do have level caps in play.)

Comments

You might have to just walk around a LOT. I'm not sure if there's many early game methods like vitamins, berries, or soothe bells before the first gym.

Answer 1

For Budew to evolve into Roselia, it needs to get from 50 to 160 Friendship in BDSP, which requires an increase in 110 for its Friendship. For those of you who intend on evolving Budew at a later point of the game, I'd simply recommend catching one in a Luxury Ball, giving it the Soothe Bell, and using an abundance of friendship-raising Berries and Vitamins. Before Oreburgh Gym however, these luxuries don't exist.

Prior to Roark, there is a whopping one Battle Item, which increases Friendship by +1. This Battle Item in question is an X Defense located on Oreburgh Mine which, according to Bulbapedia, is located at,

B1F, to the right of the main entrance

Besides that, the only methods for raising Friendship that you can access are leveling Budew up in battle (+3 0-99 or +2 100-199) or a 50% chance when walking 128 steps (+1). However, Pokémon currently at their met location have any increase to their friendship boosted by 1. Therefore, the fastest way to evolve Budew prior to the first Gym is Leveling Budew up at its met location, using the X Defense sometime during a battle, then going on to run around once gaining EXP becomes too tedious.

Source

Answer 2

The fastest way is by feeding it all the friendship raising berries you have, but that probably won't be enough to get it to evolve, so then you can also feed it any ev boosting vitamins which are the second fastest way, and then if it's not enough to evolve you have to resort to walking around with it.
Hope this helps.

Comments

Friendship berries stop working after a certain amount.

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I've never heard of that, after what amount? It's likely enough to evolve budew anyway.

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https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Grepa_Berry#:~:text=From%20Pok%C3%A9mon%20Emerald

After 25 berries at 200 Friendship, (assuming you started at Budew's base 50 Friendship) it's no longer effective to use berries as they only increase Friendship by 2 per berry. Use massages or wild battles instead

Answer 3

Well, walking with your Pokemon increases friendship so you could try that. If you have a soothe bell, give it to budew to make evolution happen faster. I've also heard that giving it stat boosting items, for example, iron, can increase friendship as well.

Comments

This doesn't say which method is fastest.