How to farm tons of EXP in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Leveling in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet isn’t a problem throughout the main story, but if you’re trying to power up your Pokémon for endgame Tera Raids, you’ll hit a wall at around level 70.

The strongest trainers in the game that you can battle repeatedly range from level 65-70, and while you can totally spam fights against them (see one of our methods below), you’ll want an easy way to quickly increase your team’s EXP.

Below we list a few EXP farming methods that we used. There may be more in the game, but we found reliable success with the ones below.

Chansey hunting

Head to the northern part of Paldea, near the Fairy Team Star base and eat a sandwich that has normal encounter power. (We used regular ol’ Ham Sandwiches, #80.)

Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

This type of sandwich will cause tons of Chansey to spawn in the region; the entire flower field will just become flush with Chansey. Battle these Chansey and reap in thousands of EXP per fight. (If you’re lucky, a Blissey or two might show up, which reward even more EXP.) Give a specific Pokémon a Lucky Egg for even more EXP.

Note that auto-battling the Chansey does not give nearly as much EXP, so you’ll want to actually battle them.

Tera Raids

Taking on Tera Raid battles reward lots of EXP Candy, with harder raids dropping bigger candy sizes. Just from joining random online raids, we were able to amass a ton of candy to quickly level up our Pokémon.

However, this isn’t a foolproof plan. If you don’t have a team of strong Pokémon that utilize type advantages and the like, you won’t stand a chance in five- and six-star raids. (First rule of raiding: Don’t expect your other online team members to carry you to victory.)

Stick to the lower-leveled raids if you’re struggling in the higher-leveled raids and use the winnings from those raids to power up your Pokémon until they’re strong enough to participate in the higher-tier ones.

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

Raiding will also give valuable items to sell or use, like mints, Bottle Caps, and (if you’re lucky) Herba Mystica, making them one of the best ways to amass both money and powerful Pokémon.

The Academy Ace Tournament

This is just a repeat of the good ol’ Elite Four trick from older games, where you’d repeatedly grind against the Elite Four to amass a ton of EXP. (You can’t do this in Scarlet and Violet.) Give whatever Pokémon you are focusing on leveling the Lucky Egg, and take down the Academy Ace Tournament.

This will also net you some money, but honestly, the other methods above are better for EXP farming.

This method can be more mindless, as if you have one or two strong Pokémon that can sweep the entire tournament, you can tune out and just spam the A button while you watch a show or something to get that sweet EXP.

You can get some good additional rewards from the Academy Ace Tournament, like Apricorn Balls or Bottle Caps, so if you’re hunting for those and EXP, this might be the best use of your time.