Do you often take advantage of the mass outbreaks in the game?

Mass outbreaks have been a feature since Generation II, where registering the number of certain trainers could result in them calling you to inform you that a mass outbreak occurred in their location, allowing you to capture rare Pokémon that would otherwise be impossible or incredibly difficult to obtain. This feature existed from Generation II-V, was skipped in Generation VI and VII, but returned in Generation VIII and, of course, in Generation IX. In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the game alerts the player of mass outbreaks that occur throughout the region as he or she explores, and the Pokémon's picture appears on the map in said locations. A large number of Pokémon would then spawn in the overworld upon reaching the location in question. Do you often take advantage of these mass outbreaks, or do you usually ignore them?

Generally no. Favors the same ~10 Pokemon so hard (Gastly, Haunter, Drifloon, Magneton, Flittle, Varoom, Revavroom, Magikarp, and Noibat, to name a few). Recently tried to shiny hunt Sandygast through outbreaks. Reset the game to refresh outbreaks, rather than fiddle with the clock. Spent hours without seeing a Sandygast outbreak, despite being on beaches where it spawns. (Ups your odds of seeing the Pokemon you want, supposedly.)

Decided to try eating an Encounter Power: Ghost sandwich. Spotted a shiny Sandygast in 20 minutes. Met less success with Smoliv trying that, admittedly. (Tried a few resets to see if it was common enough. Nope. Burned through two Encounter Power sandwiches before resorting to Herba Mystica.)

Occasionally visits them to easily farm materials. Might take a while to find some otherwise. Does not want most of their shinies, though.

I pay little attention to them usually. Only if they feature a Pokemon not normally available like with the daily Swarms in BDSP.

However, in Scarlet/Violet, beating a Mass Outbreak down completely will boost your shiny odds, which paired with a sparkling power sandwich seems to have pretty broken shiny odds. Got 3 shinies in 1 sandwich when I did this. When I did just the sparkling power sandwich, without also beating a Mass Outbreak, I only got 1.
Granted I haven't tried it that often, but I'll definitely use it a couple more times when I go back to Violet.

I didn't even know this feature was in Gens 2/5! I guess they tried to mix it up in Gen 6 with the 1v5 wild encounters? Maybe? I don't know enough about Gen 7 to say if there was anything even close to this concept in those games.
That being said, I have used one exactly once + a sandwich to help me find a shiny Magnemite. They can also make a nice place to farm XP for Pokemon with specific Typings. (i.e. Grass outbreak = good farming area for Fire etc)

I do if the shiny is something I'm interested in or its a rare outbreak.

But overall they are stale. The same 10-15 Pokemon are featured everyday. Swablu, Noibat, Flittle, Chewtle, the engine Pokemon, psyduck. That one fish that is impossible to tell if its shiny because its under the water and doesn't change much.


I've been hoping for a pink or yellow Tatugiri outbreak but its rare and is always the orange one.
I'm currently hunting Maschiff in the orange leaves section. I had a Masbosstiff outbreak once since launch. No Maschiff outbreaks. So I'm just using an encounter sandwich and knocking out 60.

Yes, primarily for shiny hunting. I do feel like mass outbreaks are not diverse enough as I'm often seeing the same thing in them but when it's something I want a shiny of I do appreciate it and try to put in the effort. Got 3 shinies from a single outbreak once, which was nice. \o/

Just discovered something really stupid in the game with outbreaks. Apparently only one form of Flabebe and Tatsugiri can be in outbreaks. Even if the picture shows a different form. 🙄