In Pokémon GO, your buddy isn’t just a cute companion; it’s a valuable part of your adventure. Exciting your buddy can unlock several in-game benefits, such as halving the walking distance for earning candy, making it easier to find souvenirs, and speeding up your buddy’s mood. Many trainers wonder how to excite their buddy quickly and efficiently to take full advantage of these perks. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about how to excite your buddy in Pokémon GO, helping you form a stronger bond and optimize your daily gameplay.
Understanding the Buddy System in Pokémon GO
What Is the Buddy System?
The Buddy system allows players to choose one Pokémon to accompany them on their journey. This Pokémon appears on the map when it reaches the excited mood and provides several benefits as you interact with it. These include:
- Finding buddy candy faster
- Earning hearts for activities
- Helping catch Pokémon
- Bringing souvenirs
Raising your buddy’s mood from normal to excited is the key to maximizing these advantages. However, excitement doesn’t just happen on its own you’ll need to take action to achieve it.
What Does It Mean to Excite Your Buddy?
The Excited Mood Explained
When your buddy reaches the excited state, indicated by a bouncing mood meter and sparkling animation, the number of daily affection hearts you can earn doubles. This means you can earn up to 20 hearts in one day instead of the usual 10. Additionally, walking distance to earn candy is halved, making it much faster to gain valuable resources.
There are two primary ways to excite your buddy: naturally by earning affection or instantly by using a Poffin.
Exciting Your Buddy with a Poffin
Using Poffin for Instant Results
A Poffin is a special item in Pokémon GO that instantly excites your buddy when fed. It also keeps your buddy on the map for the entire day, even without additional interactions. Here’s how to use it:
- Go to the Buddy menu
- Tap on your buddy
- Select the Berry icon
- Choose the Poffin from your bag and feed it
Using a Poffin is the fastest and most direct way to excite your buddy. However, since Poffins cost PokéCoins, many players prefer to use the free method of earning excitement naturally.
How to Excite Buddy Naturally
Building Excitement Through Interactions
If you don’t want to spend coins, you can still excite your buddy by completing enough daily interactions. Each interaction contributes to your buddy’s hidden affection score. When this score reaches a certain threshold, the buddy becomes excited.
Daily Activities That Earn Hearts
Here are the standard activities that grant hearts and increase your buddy’s mood:
- Walking Together Earn a heart for walking 2 km
- Give a Treat Feed your buddy berries or poffins
- Play Together Pet your buddy by rubbing the screen
- Battle Together Battle in gyms, raids, or PvP with your buddy on your team
- Take a Snapshot Snap a photo of your buddy using AR
- Visit a New Place Spin a PokéStop that your buddy hasn’t visited before
You can earn up to 10 hearts daily through these activities. Performing multiple actions and spacing them out throughout the day helps increase your buddy’s mood steadily until it reaches the excited state.
Bonus Hearts
Once your buddy reaches the Good Buddy level or higher, you can earn bonus hearts by keeping your buddy on the map and interacting with it often. Bonus hearts also count toward the excitement threshold and can help you reach the excited state faster.
Tips to Excite Your Buddy More Efficiently
Time Your Activities
Performing all interactions in a short time frame does not raise excitement as effectively. Try spreading out activities across a few hours instead of doing them all at once. This makes each interaction more likely to count toward excitement.
Switching Buddies Strategy
If you’ve done all possible interactions with one buddy, consider switching to a new buddy and repeating the process. Later in the day, you can switch back to your original buddy and may find that it has become excited due to the cumulative affection points you’ve earned.
Use Souvenir and Present Mechanics
As your buddy level increases, your Pokémon may start bringing you gifts and souvenirs. Though they don’t directly trigger excitement, they indicate increasing affection, which contributes to overall buddy bonding and faster excitement potential in future interactions.
How Long Does Excitement Last?
Once your buddy reaches the excited state, it remains excited for a limited time roughly six hours. During this time, all benefits are active, and the number of hearts you can earn resets, allowing you to double your progress for the day. After this period, your buddy’s mood returns to normal unless you feed another Poffin or build excitement again through interactions.
Benefits of an Excited Buddy in Pokémon GO
Getting your buddy excited isn’t just about gaining more hearts it’s about improving your overall efficiency in the game. Here are the key advantages of an excited buddy:
- Earn buddy candy faster by halving the walking distance
- Gain extra affection hearts to evolve to higher buddy levels
- Unlock bonuses such as CP boosts, assistance in catching Pokémon, and more frequent souvenirs
- Progress faster toward Best Buddy status
These perks can be game-changers, especially when working with rare Pokémon that require a lot of candy or when aiming to maximize friendship for combat bonuses.
Best Pokémon to Use as a Buddy
Choosing the right buddy makes your efforts to excite it more rewarding. Some good options include:
- Legendary Pokémon Typically require large amounts of candy, making faster earning crucial
- Rare Pokémon Difficult to find in the wild or hatch
- Pokémon with Evolutions Working on evolving Eevee forms or other species that need extra steps
- Combat Pokémon Those you use in battles that benefit from CP boosts as Best Buddies
Learning how to excite your buddy in Pokémon GO can significantly improve your gameplay experience. Whether through the use of Poffins or by steadily earning affection through daily interactions, excitement unlocks powerful bonuses that make progressing easier and more fun. With thoughtful planning, timing, and the right Pokémon choice, you can take full advantage of the buddy system and build stronger connections with your favorite companions. Make it part of your daily routine, and you’ll see your progress speed up in more ways than one.