Why is My Pokémon Dozing Off? It‘s a Sign of High Friendship!

We‘ve all seen it. You‘re battling a tough opponent with your trusted Pikachu by your side. You call out a command only to see…is Pikachu sleeping?! While frustrating, I‘m excited to share that this innocent dozing is actually a sign your Pokémon feels extremely close with you.

The Friendship Mechanics Behind the Napping

To understand why our Pokémon drift into dreamland mid-battle, we have to look at the formula behind friendship ratings in these games. Each Pokémon is assigned a base friendship value between 0 and 255, with higher meaning closer bonding. Certain friendship-boosting activities can increase this value, while other actions may lower it.

Now here‘s where the napping comes in. Once a Pokémon‘s friendship hits 220 or more, there is a chance it may randomly "nap" for a turn in battle rather than execute a command. So in essence, you‘ve built such a strong connection that your Pokémon feels comfortable enough to catch some Zzzs during combat! It‘s quite the achievement as a trainer.

Of course, there is still RNG at play in triggering this. Even with max friendship, napping may not always occur. But use the table below to understand the probabilities tied to the friendship level:

As you can see, building friendship to the highest echelons makes an occasional snooze session much more likely.

Tactics That Can Boost Friendship Over Time

Now that we understand why napping happens, let‘s discuss how you can actively cultivate that close bond to trigger it! Here are some of my top tips for proven friendship boosting activities:

Walking Together

Simply taking your Pokémon out of its ball and having it stroll beside you is an easy passive way to rack up friendship points over hours of playtime. I recommend setting your preferred partner as your buddy to maximize this!

• Average Gain: +1/min

Battling Alongside Each Other

Fighting enemies together in gyms, raids, trainer battles and more is another easy route to bond. Just be sure to give them turns! This helps explains why our main fighters end up napping the most.

• Average Gain: +2/battle

Camping & Playing

During idle moments at camps, try spending time interacting with your Pokémon. I like to throw balls, brush, pet, and feed them treats while there. It may not seem like much but it adds up!

• Gain: +5/min of play

Using Friendship Items

Certain held items like Soothe Bell give a passive boost to all friendship building activities. I recommend my main fighters always hold one! The effort values provided by certain EV items also help raise closeness.

• Gain Boost: Up to +50% on activities

..And More!

Many other niche activities impact friendship as well. Feel free to get creative! Some examples are judicial use of herbal/status-healing medicines, participating in contests/events together, and getting massages in SwSh.

With the tactics above, you‘ll have a squad of napping Pokémon in no time! But while such high bonding can be advantageous, it may become excessive…

When High Friendship Goes Too Far

While I absolutely encourage trainers to build strong player-Pokémon relationships, I would be remiss if I didn‘t mention there can be such a thing as too high of affinity.

You see, once a Pokémon starts napping multiple turns per battle, it can actually be detrimental to your performance by wasting opportunities to attack or dodge. And the constant dozing may signal it‘s grown a bit too relaxed and overconfident in its abilities.

In these cases, you have a couple options:

• Temporarily avoid friendship-building activities – Stop the extra petting/pampering and solely focus on combat until tendencies improve
• Use bitter/foul-tasting herbal medicines – These actually can rapidly lower friendship levels by a significant amount
• Leave them at the Day Care for a while – The day care workers won‘t nurture bonds too much there

Once you‘ve reset things a bit, you can then work back steadily on the relationship. Having balance here is key – aim for around 180-210 friendship that makes them feel cared for while still driven to excel in battle.

And if you ask me, that‘s the mark of a great Pokémon trainer – unlocking strength and discipline in your Pokémon while also showering them with compassion when the moment allows it.

Let‘s Recap!

We‘ve covered quite a lot today! To summarize:

• When your Pokémon dozes off in battle, it demonstrates incredibly high bonding/friendship with its trainer
• At 220+ friendship, napping has a chance to randomly occur as it feels so at ease
• Many activities like walking, battling, and playing together can raise friendship over time
• Make sure affinity doesn‘t get excessive, or combat performance may actually suffer
• There are ways to lower friendship if your Pokémon grows too lackadaisical
• Finding the right balance leads to both a strong bond and a driven battler!

I hope this guide gave you some ideas on how to cultivate the perfect relationship with your own Pokémon! Let me know which of yours end up snoozing the most after. Happy training, friends!