Efficient Held Item Farming with Compoundeyes & Frisk (Pokémon HGSS)

by Larkison

The quickest way to farm held items from wild Pokémon in HG/SS is by utilizing the abilities Compoundeyes and Frisk, as well as the move Thief.

With every wild Pokémon encounter there is a 50% chance that the Pokémon will be holding a common item, and a 5% chance it will be holding a rare item. Farming those held items in bulk can be tedious.

This guide will teach you how to build the best team optimized for quickly identifying and stealing rare held items fast from any wild Pokémon in HeartGold/SoulSilver.

Optimizing Your Team for Item Farming

To build the optimal held item farming team, you’ll need the following:

A Pokémon with the Compoundeyes ability (full list of options below)
A Stantler with the Frisk ability
TM46 Thief, or a Pokémon who has learned the move

We’ll cover each of these things in detail below & outline the whole strategy for you.

Compoundeyes

How Compoundeyes Works

When you have a Pokémon with the ability Compoundeyes leading the party, it will increase the chance of encountering Wild Pokémon with common held items up to 60%, and rare held items up to 20%.

This ability works even if the Pokémon using Compoundeyes has fainted, as long as it is at the head of the team.

Venonat is at the front of the queue to activate Compoundeyes.

List of Pokémon with Compoundeyes

The table below shows which Pokémon have this ability and where you can catch them.

Pokémon	Location
Butterfree	Heart Gold Route 2 (Morning, daytime) Viridian Forest (Morning) National Park (Bug-Catching Contest on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) Route 47 Ilex Forest (Via Headbutting trees) Soul Silver National Park (Bug-Catching Contest on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays)
Venonat	Routes 24, 25 and 43 National Park (Bug-Catching Contest on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) Lake of Rage (Via Headbutting trees)
Yanma	Route 35
Nincada	National Park (Bug-Catching Contest on Thursdays and Saturdays)

A Nincada with the Compoundeyes ability.

Frisk

How Frisk Works

Frisk is an ability that activates the moment the Pokémon enters a battle.

With Frisk, your Pokémon will be able to identify if the opposing Pokémon is holding an item, and if so, they’ll tell you what it is.

Without Frisk, you won’t be able to tell if a wild Pokémon is holding an item until you’ve attempted to steal from them, or have successfully caught them. So Frisk will save you a lot of time when it comes to stealing held items repeatedly.

A Wild Geodude is revealed to be carrying an Everstone.

Where To Find Pokémon with Frisk

The only Pokémon in HGSS who has this ability is Stantler.

Pokémon	Location
Stantler	Routes 36 and 37 Safari Zone (Plains, at night-time)

A Stantler with the ability Frisk.

Thief

How Thief Works

Thief is a Dark-type move that allows the user to deal damage to the opponent, and it has a 99.6% chance of stealing their held item.

This can save you time when stealing from wild Pokémon since you won’t need to catch them to get their held items.

TM46 Thief Move Details
Type	Dark
Category	Physical
Power	60
Accuracy	100%
PP	25

A Stantler using the move Thief to steal an Everstone from a Graveler.

Where To Get the Move Thief

TM46 (Thief) can be found in B2F of Team Rocket’s Hideout in Mahogany Town, but you will need to have first obtained 7 Gym Badges to reach it.

If you’ve already taught a Pokémon TM46, then there is no other way to get another copy of the TM aside from trading with another game.

In that case, the only Pokémon in HGSS who can learn Thief by level up is Mightyena at level 57. And the only way to get a Mightyena is to catch a Poochyena and level it up – but that can’t happen until later in the game, because Poochyena can only be found in a swarm in Kanto.

So if you go after a Poochyena then you will need to have beaten all 8 Gyms and the Elite 4 in Johto first.

Summarizing the Strategy (TL;DR)

A fainted Yanma and a Stantler arranged to most efficiently farm held items.

Once you have everything you need, you can follow the tips below to take advantage of all these strategies at once and optimize your held item farming:

Keep your Compoundeyes Pokémon fainted in the first slot of your party. Doing so will give you the benefits of Compoundeyes, but also ensure that the Pokémon won’t be sent out at the start of a battle.
Keep Stantler in your second slot. This will make sure it always goes into battle first, and it can use Frisk immediately to check for held items quicker.
Teach TM46 Thief to your Stantler, or ensure that a Pokémon who knows Thief is in your party and ready for battle. If Stantler knows Thief then you can steal the item as your first move. If not, then you will need to switch to your Thief Pokémon once you’ve used Frisk and identified that there’s a held item available.
Remove any stolen item immediately after battle. Thief does not steal from your opponent if the Pokémon using Thief is already holding an item. So when you successfully steal an item, remember to remove it from your Thief Pokémon after the battle.

BACK TO THE MAIN GAME Pokémon HGSS Full Strategy Guide

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Larkison

6 articles

Though typically a graphic designer by trade, Larkison has insisted on sticking his nose into every aspect of the video game industry ever since he held his first gamepad. He has virtually saved the world, rescued the princess and become a Pokémon Master. (All far more times than he’d be willing to count!) He Illustrates, animates, codes, streams, slices, dices and blends – and is fuelled entirely by caffeine.

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