Shiny hunting Beldum in Pokémon Ultra Sun or Pokémon Ultra Moon doesn’t take a lot of preparation than any other hunt but does require one to be careful and follow some steps precisely during the hunt to ensure maximum chances of success. Here’s what worked for me in Pokémon Ultra Sun.
Make Sure You Have A LOT of PokéBalls and Leppa Berries
Beldum has one of the worst catch rates so you’ll need to be plenty stocked to ensure you catch it, especially if there’s a specific PokéBall you want it in. And of course, you’ll need Leppa Berries to replenish your own Pokémons’ move points. This should be prep work for any shiny hunt.
Get a Trevanent With Hidden Ability Harvest, Trick, and Skill Swap Moves
This kind of Trevanent with Harvest, Trick, and Skill Swap is, in my opinion, essential to hunting shiny Pokémon in the Generation VII games (Sun/Moon/Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon). The other option that’s been suggested is to get an Exeggutor with Harvest but Trevenant’s natural immunity to Normal-type moves has been an unexpected boon when shiny hunting various Pokémon around the Alola region. It takes a bit of time investment to get the Hidden Ability. Also, you’ll need to hit up the Battle TREE or surf to get enough BP points to teach it Trick and Skill Swap but it’s so worth it at the end. Equip it with a Leppa Berry and go look for a Beldum. Once you find one, immediately cast Trick and then Skill Swap. This will put the Leppa Berry into Beldum’s possession, and it will also gain the Trevanent’s Harvest ability. Again, like having a good supply of Pokéballs and Leppa Berries, you should already have this.
Have A Ghost-Type with False Swipe
The only issue with Trevanent is that it can’t learn False Swipe. So you’ll need another Ghost-type Pokémon in your possession that knows this. I luckily picked Decidueye as my starter, so being able to teach it False Swipe AND be a Ghost-type was serendipitous. If you picked another starter, you’ll need to put in the work to get one like it.
After you’ve Skill Swapped and Tricked the calling Beldum, switch to your Ghost-Type false swiper and swipe. I keep mentioning Ghost-type because it is immune to Normal-type moves, like Take Down.
Take Down is the ONLY move that Beldum knows. Take Down also has recoil damage, so if it ever landed a hit and dealt damage during a turn, Beldum will also take a little damage. This is the worst thing that can happen to it if it’s False Swiped and sitting at 1 HP. But since Ghost-types are immune to the damage caused by Take Down, Beldum will instead take no damage. Once you’ve False Swiped him down, it can use Take Down all the live long day and still stay at 1 HP.
Have A Pokémon That Can Afflict a Status Condition
Once you’ve got your calling Pokémon (I like to call them anchors), use an Adrenaline Orb and start farming. Once the Beldum loses PP points for its Take Down move, it will consume the Leppa Berry it is holding to replenish 10 PP to the move. Harvest has a 50% chance to trigger EVERY TURN to reclaim the Leppa Berry. Rinse and repeat until a shiny Beldum pops.
Once that happens you’ll need to do three things. First, switch back to Trevanent and use Trick to get your Leppa Berry back. Now, cast Trick and Skill Swap on the shiny new Beldum, and that’s it. You don’t want to kill the anchor. Keep them both up. After that, switch to your status condition afflicting Pokémon. For this I have Shiny Pikachu with Thunder Wave which causes Paralysis. The anchor will use Take Down and then kill itself. After that, use the status condition move on your Shiny Beldum. Beldum has a high call rate, one of the highest, so it will constantly be calling for back up and they will show up 9 times out of 10. Afflicting it with a status condition will prevent it from calling for help. Also, Beldum has one of the lowest catch rates, on par with any legendary Pokémon, hence why you want to give it the Harvest ability and a Leppa Berry.
After it’s afflicted with a status, switch back to your Ghost-type False Swiper and use the False Swipe move. Now you have a Shiny Beldum that knows Harvest, holding a Leppa Berry, down to 1 HP with your Normal-type move-ignoring Ghost-type battling Pokémon. Start throwing your balls at it and hope that he stays inside the one you want him in.
I’ve failed this particular hunt a few times. It sucks when you find a Shiny Beldum, False Swipe it, and then substitute in Pikachu for it to feint itself using Take Down immediately after. Four times in a row. But I finally nailed it down and got my three shinies in short order.
Shiny Beldum
This was the third Shiny Beldum I caught and it took the longest at 353 SOS calls.
Shiny Metang
The second one I caught and evolved. It took almost as long at 280 calls.
Shiny Metagross
This was the first Shiny Beldum which I evolved and it only took 32 calls AND it had it’s Hidden Ability Light Metal.
Hopefully, if this will help someone else trying to do this hunt sometime in the future. And that’s fifty-seven down with three hundred thirty-six to go.
