Friendship in Pokérogue gives you candies for your starter when you reach a certain threshold, and I know that fighting gives you friendship, but is there any other way to gain friendship? We’ll go into more detail below.
Starter Candies, Cost Reductions, and Passives Get
In PokéRogue, catching (except for already owned Pokémon in Daily Runs), hatching and raising friendship with Pokémon provides candies for each individual species of Pokémon. These can be currently used on the starter select screen to do three things:
- Unlock that starter’s Passive Ability, these are base game Abilities that you can toggle on and off that function on your starter in addition to their regular ability, passives are only available on new runs after you unlock them, they are not retroactively activated.
- Reduce the starting cost of your various starters permanently, twice. For Example, reducing your Cyndaquil’s starting cost from 3 to 2, and then 1. Or your Rattata from 1 to 0.5, and then 0.25.
- Once the Passive Ability has been unlocked, buying eggs for the species is unlocked as an option. These eggs have increased odds on IV, shiny chance, hidden ability, and egg move unlock.
Information about how to earn these candies, and how many candies each tier of starter costs for their improvements can be found Here on the wiki’s Starters page.
Candy Friendship Get
Candy Friendship is a mechanic that allows Candies to be obtained by increasing a Pokémon’s Friendship.
Each time a Pokémon gains or loses points in Friendship, it will gain or lose an equal number of points in Candy Friendship (double the amount of points are gained in Classic Mode and Challenge Mode). Candy Friendship points will accumulate until they reach a certain threshold, at which point a Candy for that Pokémon will be received and the Candy Friendship points for that Pokémon will be reset to zero. This process can be repeated indefinitely. A Pokémon’s Candy Friendship points are accumulated and shared across all runs where that Pokémon is used.
You will never lose a candy from losing Candy Friendship, you will stop losing points when you hit 0 progress towards your next Candy.
If a Pokémon gains more Candy Friendship points than are needed to meet their threshold, the extra points will not carry over when the Candy Friendship points are reset to zero.
The number of Candy Friendship points can be seen in the Summary screen located in the top left, as well as in the starter select screen. When hovering a mouse cursor over the Candy icon, a pop-up will display the number of points currently accumulated along with the total number of points needed to reach that Pokémon’s Candy Friendship threshold.
Candy Friendship Thresholds
A Pokémon’s Candy Friendship threshold is dependent on that Pokémon’s original starter cost.
| Pokémon Cost | Candy Friendship Threshold |
|---|---|
| 1 | 20 |
| 2 | 40 |
| 3 | 60 |
| 4 | 100 |
| 5 | 140 |
| 6 | 180 |
| 7 | 280 |
| 8 | 450 |
| 9 | 450 |
| 10 | 600 |
| Note that cost reductions do not change where your Pokémon falls on this table. | |
Earning Candy
Below is a table for the required number of Pokémon to defeat before earning 1 candy. The number in parenthesis is the number required in classic mode to earn 1 candy.
| Starter Cost | No Soothe Bells | 1 Soothe Bell | 2 Soothe Bells | 3 Soothe Bells |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 (5) | ~7 (~4) | 5 (~3) | 4 (2) |
| 2 | 20 (10) | ~14 (~7) | 10 (5) | 8 (4) |
| 3 | 30 (15) | 20 (10) | 15 (~8) | 12 (6) |
| 4 | 50 (25) | ~34 (~17) | 25 (~13) | 20 (10) |
| 5 | 70 (35) | ~47 (~24) | 35 (~18) | 28 (14) |
| 6 | 90 (45) | 60 (30) | 45 (~23) | 36 (18) |
| 7 | 140 (70) | ~94 (~47) | 70 (35) | 56 (28) |
| 8 | 225 (~113) | 150 (75) | ~113 (~57) | 90 (45) |
| 9 | 225 (~113) | 150 (75) | ~113 (~57) | 90 (45) |
| 10 | 300 (150) | 200 (100) | 150 (75) | 120 (60) |
Standard Friendship
A Pokémon’s Friendship is mechanically similar to its usage in the mainline games. Increasing your Friendship high enough with certain Pokémon will cause them to evolve (such as with Pichu evolving into Pikachu). Friendship also affects the power of certain moves (such as with Pika Papow).
Currently in PokéRogue, Friendship is increased through two different events: Battling and Rare Candies. Conversely, Friendship is decreased whenever your Pokémon faints. Battling in this instance refers to:
- Participating in a successful battle (switching out a Pokémon mid-battle still rewards Friendship to that Pokémon if the opposing Pokémon is defeated or caught)
- Defeating a Pokémon
- Catching a Pokémon
Pokémon will receive a set amount of Friendship when given a Rare Candy. Candy Jars will not increase the amount of Friendship received, just the number of levels gained per Rare Candy.
Rarer Candies offers the same amount of Friendship increase as a standard Rare Candy, but will increase the Friendship of all Pokémon in a trainer’s party.
If a Pokémon revives via a held Reviver Seed, Friendship will not be lost as the Pokémon does not faint due to the Reviver Seed activation.
| Friendship Event | Friendship Gained or Lost |
|---|---|
| Battling | +2 |
| Rare Candy | +5 |
| Fainting | -10 |
Rare Candy
Rare Candy shows up in the common pool with a weight of 2, Rarer Candy shows up in the Ultra pool with a weight of 4.
| Item | Effect | |
|---|---|---|
 | Rare Candy | Increases level of a Pokémon by 1. |
 | Rarer Candy | Increases all party members’ level by 1. |
