Pokemon Sword and Shield may have made almost half of all Pokemon unobtainable, but they added a major feature for collectors in the wake of the Pokemon “Dexit”: the Curry Dex. This cookbook collects the results of every curry you’ve created at your camp, challenging completionists to make one of every single curry in the game. But it’s not the flavor of curry that most players will be seeking — it’s the class. Creating the highest level of curry, called “Charizard Class,” provides major benefits for your Pokemon. Since the games’ release, fans have been struggling to figure out the curry system’s bizarre science in order to perfect a consistent Pokemon Sword and Shield Charizard-class curry. While a definitive recipe has yet to be discovered, some trends have emerged, so we can give you a few tips to increase your odds of becoming a curry master.
Pokemon Sword and Shield best curry | What are the benefits of Charizard Class?
Charizard-class curry (a.k.a. Gold-rank curry) restores your party’s HP, PP, and status conditions, acting like an on-the-go Pokemon center stop. The major benefit of creating this powerful dish, however, is that it gives your party Pokemon “a lot” of experience points and makes them grow “very” friendly toward you. This means cooking Charizard-class curry is a potentially quick way to both level up your Pokemon and make them friendlier (which is necessary for certain Pokemon’s evolutions).
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Pokemon Sword and Shield best curry | What affects curry class?
As mentioned above, there is no known way to guarantee cooking Charizard-class curry on every occasion. It will likely take quite some time before the Pokemon community is able to collectively figure out the logic behind the curry ranking system. However, there already appears to be a few things you can do to help your chances of achieving the highest level of curry cooking. We’ve compiled what seem to be the major factors below.
Use rare berries
When trying to cook Charizard-class curry, berry rarity seems to outweigh every other factor. Most players we’ve found who reported successfully making Gold-rank curry — like Reddit user GenuineDogKnife — said they used mostly rare berries rather than common ones. Rare berries contain specific references to their rarity in their descriptions, so you’ll know it’s a good choice if it says something like “slightly rare” or “rare.” You can also easily find your rarest berries by hitting X to sort “By Type” and selecting berries from the bottom of the list.
Rare berries can usually be found on berry trees in hard-to-reach places, such as on islands in the Wild Area. You’ll need the water-crossing Rotom bike upgrade to reach these. Alternatively, rare berries can be earned as a reward for completing Max Raid Battles.
Cook it just right
Once you’ve chosen your main ingredient and your berries, you’ll begin the actual cooking process. Rather than fanning the flames and stirring the pot as fast as you can, you’ll want to find the sweet spot where you can see multiple sparkles floating up from the curry, just before it begins to burn or spill. During the last step of cooking, where you throw your “heart” into the dish, it seems the goal is to get the shrinking ring to stop when it’s in the dark green circle near the center of the screen. Once you press A to throw the heart, the circle won’t stop shrinking until a few moments later, so you’ll want to time your button press accordingly.
While the game seems to be telling you hitting the sparkly, “just right” spots is the goal, some of those who reported getting Charizard Class were not super careful with their stirring or fanning. This could mean the other factors have more of an impact.
Don’t cook alone
No matter what berries you use or how you stir or fan, cooking by yourself seems to reduce your curry rank. It appears that cooking with more people generally leads to better curry, even if they’re not being very careful. Reddit user AloeRP was able to make Gold-rank curry when cooking with other players in the Wild Area, even though the other players were fanning and stirring carelessly.
If you don’t have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, you can instead cook with others at the NPC campsites found along some the Galar region’s routes. Reddit user Minipa1337 successfully cooked Charizard-class curry at Cam’s campsite on Route 6. You can access Route 6 after completing a few story sequences in Hammerlocke (after getting your third gym badge).
Coordinate berry flavors
Each of Pokemon Sword and Shield’s berries has a particular flavor associated with it: sour, dry, spicy, bitter, neutral, or sweet. Naturally, the flavor of the berries you choose affects the flavor of the curry. It’s possible that selecting berries of only one flavor type could lead to better-ranked curry, but this factor is more unlikely than the rest, given that not all Gold rank-achievers said they aimed for similar flavors among their berry choices. That being said, Reddit user Goldstin was able to make Charizard-class curry using all rare berries with sour flavor.
Use expensive ingredients
As we’ll discuss in the example below, YouTuber Minipa (the same one who posted the Reddit comment above) discovered that the value of the key ingredient used seems to have a big effect on the quality of a curry. Minipa recommended using only ingredients that cost 950 Pokedollars or more, such as Bach’s Food Tin, Packaged Curry, or Fresh Cream. If you’re short on cash, check out our guide on making money fast in Sword and Shield.
Pokemon Sword and Shield best curry | Example Charizard-class recipe
Again, because technique and so many other variables are involved, there doesn’t seem to be any guarantee that a particular recipe will result in Charizard-class curry. Still, one YouTuber has managed to find a strategy that can be used to somewhat consistently get Gold. While all of the steps above still appear to help get higher ranks — especially if you don’t have rare enough berries or key ingredients — the aforementioned Minipa was able to get Charizard Class while cooking alone and only using seven berries. Minipa’s example is as follows. (Be advised: Minipa’s video contains strong language):
- Use Bach’s Food Tin, or any other 950-cost main ingredient.
- Select four berries from the bottom of the list (rare berries) and three from the top (common berries).
- Fan the flames as fast as possible in order to reach the point where it’s just about to start burning. When it you get there, slow your fanning to a more measured pace, and the fire should burst up into a large flame. Stop fanning when this happens to avoid burning.
- Stir at a speed where the curry is about to spill, but avoid spilling.
- Attempt to throw the heart into the curry so that it lands when the shrinking circle turns blue.
We tried to recreate Minipa’s methods with the rarest berries we had on hand, but we were not successful. Much of it comes down to stirring and fanning technique, as well as having rare enough berries, so it will likely take a lot of practice before you’re able to get high ranks on a regular basis.
