"Guide to Poffins"

Note: This is actually version 2. The main difference is that I took the time to analyze rare berries and provide optimal strategies including them. I'm just pasting over the original post, instead of making a new one, to keep upvotes and because people have already saved this.BasicsSmoothnessSmoothness and sheen represent how many poffins your pokémon can eat. Whenever you eat one, its smoothness gets added to the pokémon's sheen, and once you hit 255 sheen, you can't eat any more poffins. You can "overflow", though, and still eat one last poffin, even if its smoothness would make your sheen go over 255.Every berry has a smoothness, although the vast majority of berries you'll encounter have either 20 or 25 smoothness. The smoothness of a poffin is equal to the average smoothness minus the number of berries used, so it's more efficient to use a lot of berries, although you can never use multiple of the same berry. If there are any repeat berries, it will always result in a foul poffin.Opposed flavorsEach flavor is opposed by another one. Spiciness is cancelled out by dryness, which is cancelled out by sweetness, which is cancelled out by bitterness, which is cancelled out by sourness, which is cancelled out by spiciness. You can remember this, because each flavor cancels out the one just counter-clockwise from it on the tags.Flavor calculationThe main three steps in calculating a poffin's flavor are:Sum the flavors across all the berriesSubtract any opposing flavorsSubtract 1 from all flavors for any flavors which wind up negativeThen as two additional steps, divide by the number of minutes it took to make, and subtract 1 for every burn or spill. Because neither of these steps has anything to do with berry selection, which is the primary focus of this guide, I'm going to assume all poffins take the base 1 minute to make and that there are 0 burns or spills.If you use multiple of the same berry, this is all bypassed, and it produces a foul poffin instead.ExampleUsing an oran, wiki, razz, and kelpsy berry:BerrySpicyDrySweetBitterSourSmoothOran10100101020Wiki01500025Razz101000020Kelpsy0100101020Total204502020Minus weakening flavors-2545-2000-1 per negative-2743-22-2-2Min 0043000Then for the smoothness, the average is 21.25, but we used 4 berries, so it gets reduced to 17. Thus, you can expect to get 4 level 43 dry poffins with 17 smoothness, plus or minus any benefit from time or mistakes.Preferred flavorsSimilarly to how beneficial natures multiply a stat by 1.1 and detrimental natures multiply by 0.9, if a pokémon likes a flavor, the gain is multiplied by 1.1 or 0.9. The five flavors, with their matching stats and contest categories, are:FlavorColorStatCategorySpicyRedAttackCoolDryBlueSpecial AttackBeautySweetPinkSpeedCuteBitterGreenSpecial DefenseSmart/CleverSourYellowDefenseToughGeneral StrategyPick 1 or 2 flavors to focus on, noting that you should never pick two adjacent flavors, because one will cancel the other out. Never pick 3+ flavors to focus on, because there will always be a contradictory pair. Then focus on berries which have those flavors, and none of the opposing flavors. For example, if you want to make a spicy-bitter poffin, you would select berries which have at least one of those flavors, but no dryness or sourness. For the most part, the primary color of the berry will match the dominant flavor, although you should always check the tags, because there are exceptions like razz berries. They're colored red, but because they have equal spiciness and dryness, they actually produce dry poffins. And finally, never use repeat berries.Berry AvailabilityEvery berry through tamato is available growing somewhere in the wild, although qualot berries are only found on route 222 (the one blocked by the power outage) and post-game island. Everything else requires Surf at most. The type-reducing berries, many of which are amazing poffin ingredients, can all be found through walking pokémon, although availability depends on nature. And the 5 god-tier berries, liechi, ganlon, salac, petaya, and apicot, I believe are only available through Ramanas Park. Also, if you want qualot berries without finishing the main plot, you need either a lonely, docile, timid, quiet, bashful, calm, gentle, or careful following pokémon.Advanced StrategiesBerry FamiliesOne useful trick for discussing poffin-making is the concept of berry families. Essentially, every berry except for babiri, chilan, lansat, and starf exists in a quintet based on flavor. For example, the basic five berries, cheri, chesto, pecha, rawst, and aspear all provide 10 points of one flavor and 25 smoothness. Going through all of them, and providing commentary:Cheri, Chesto, Pecha, Rawst, AspearThese are your most basic berries, which provide 10 points of one flavor and 25 smoothness, although I recommend saving them for status conditions. The figy family provides 15 flavor for the same amount of smoothness, which makes them strictly superior.Leppa, Oran, Persim, Lum, SitrusThese are interesting, because they provide 10 points of 4 flavors and 20 smoothness. So taking a leppa berry, for example, the spiciness cancels out the sourness, which cancels out the bitterness, which cancels out the sweetness, ultimately resulting in 10 points of spiciness if used on its own, or 9 points after the negative flavor penalty. However, what makes a leppa berry different from a cheri berry, beyond the lower smoothness, is that the negative flavor is dryness, which is ideal for a spicy poffin.Figy, Wiki, Mago, Aguav, IapapaThese are the actual most basic berries for poffins. 15 points of flavor, instead of 10, and 25 smoothness, and since they're only used for poffins, you don't have to worry about saving them for use as held items.Razz, Bluk, Nanab, Wepear, PinapThese berries are dangerous for amateurs, because they're arguably colored incorrectly. These have 10 points of two flavors and 20 smoothness, but the dominant flavor is not the same as the berry's color. These are useful because they provide the same benefit as the cheri family, but with less smoothness, meaning you can eat more poffins.Pomeg, Kelpsy, Qualot, Hondew, GrepaThese are similar to wedges in MtG, having two adjacent flavors and one opposite them. Like the others, these give 10 points of each flavor and 20 smoothness. They're actually the equivalent of the leppa family for double-flavor poffins, having every flavor except the two opposed ones. For example, a pomeg berry has spiciness, sweetness, and bitterness, making it an excellent base for a spicy-bitter poffin.Tamato, Cornn, Magost, Rabuta, NomelStay away from these berries. They provide 20 points of one flavor and 10 points of the opposed flavor, and have an entire 30 smoothness. There are other ways to gain 10 points of a flavor for much less smoothness.Spelon, Pamtre, Watmel, Durin, BelueThese have dubious usefulness. They're similar to the tamato class, but have 30/10 flavor and 35 smoothness. That might be enough to justify their use if you're going for overall benefit, but at least if you're only focusing on 1-2 flavors, they aren't worth it.Occa, Passho, Wacan, Rindo, YacheThese offer 15 points of one flavor and 10 points of the flavor two steps clockwise, such as spicy-sweet for occa, and 30 smoothness. This is incredibly useful, because those are pairs we like. Testing things, poffins using these berries are even more efficient. But we're also getting into the type reduction berries, so unless you really want to get into berry farming, it's fine to save these for competitive.Chople, Kebia, Shuca, Coba, PayapaEverything I said about the occa family applies to these. They're mostly identical, but go counter-clockwise instead. So for example, occa is 15 spiciness, 10 sweetness, 30 smoothness, while shuca is 10 spiciness, 15 sweetness, 30 smoothness.Tanga, Charti, Kasib, Haban, ColburThese have 20 points of one flavor, 10 points of an adjacent flavor, and 35 smoothness. But unlike the tamato family, the bigger number is in the flavor which doesn't get cancelled out. These still aren't that useful, though, and you'll get more benefit from a nice, basic figy-family berry. Save them for competitive.Babiri, ChilanIf you're curious, these are the start of a 25/10, 30 smoothness class, similar to tamato... which also means you should save them for competitive.Liechi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, ApicotThese berries are weird, but amazing. They give 30 points in two flavors and 10 points in the one in between, with 40 points of smoothness. The fact that they boost a non-opposed pair in such large numbers makes them insanely useful, and unlike the tanga family, they aren't outdone be the figy family. Your choice whether you use them for poffins or competitive.Lansat, StarfThese berries are identical to each other. 30 spiciness, sweetness, and sourness, 10 dryness and bitterness, and 50 smoothness. Potentially useful for specifically a spicy-sweet poffin, but useless otherwise.Micle, Custap, Jacoba, Rowap, Roseli40 points of one flavor, 10 points of the opposed flavor, and 60 smoothness. Save these for competitiveSpecific GoalsSingle-FlavorOptimizing a single flavor is easy. Pick the ones which provide the most net gain for that flavor for the least smoothness. If you have everything available, the best combination will be petaya, figy, spelon, and tanga or equivalent, which will result in a mild poffin with 83 spiciness, 8 dryness, 8 bitterness, and 29 smoothness.Meanwhile, if you want to stick to the basic 25 berries, which I think are the only ones you can find growing wildly, you'd use leppa, figy, pinap, and pomeg, remembering the quirk about the razz family. This will result in a base 45 spiciness and 20 sweetness, bitterness, and sourness, which cancels out to just 45 spiciness with 2 negative flavors for an end result of 43 spiciness and 17 smoothness.Double-FlavorIf you have everything available, a liechi family and a pomeg family berry form an amazing base, such as petaya+pomeg for spicy-bitter. Then add the two occa and chople family berries which correspond to those flavors, which are rindo and chople for spicy-bitter. The combination of petaya, pomeg, rindo, and chople results in 62 spiciness, 52 bitterness, and 26 smoothness. You'll only be able to eat 10 of them, which is 2 of each pair if you're spreading things out evenly, but that's still a solid 228 points in each category.Meanwhile, if you want to stick to the basic 25 berries, start with a razz and pomeg family berry with the same adjacent pair, such as pomeg+nanab for spicy-bitter, then add the two figy family berries which correspond to the flavors. In this case, figy and aguav. Giving a similar analysis, a figy, aguav, pomeg, nanab poffin will have 22 spiciness, 32 bitterness, and 18 smoothness. You'll be able to eat 15 total, or 3 of each pair, for a lower, but still respectable, 162 points of each category.Update: You can swap out the razz family berry for a second pomeg family with the same two pairs. For example, figy, aguav, pomeg, and hondew for spicy-bitter. This won't directly increase either flavor, but it will prevent another flavor (dry, in this case) from going negative, so it'll have 33/23 for the same smoothness3+ FlavorsDon't try optimizing for 3 or more flavors. Although if you want an overripe poffin for the novelty and have a spelon family berry to spare, spelon+razz+bluk+nanab is base 40 spiciness, 30 dryness, 20 sweetness, and 10 bitterness, which results in 9 points of each spiciness, dryness, sweetness, and bitternessMiloticAll you need is 170 points of beautiful / dry. If you combine a wiki, oran, razz, and kelpsy berry, you'll get 4 poffins with 43 dryness and 17 smoothness. Just eat all 4, and you'll be good. And I would very definitely combine the berries to do this, instead of making single-berry poffins, because your sheen will rise too quickly. For example, a single chesto berry results in 9 dryness, which would require 19 poffins, but 24 smoothness, which means you could only eat 11.Show MasterThere's a special sticker available, which is the closest thing BDSP has to achievements, for beating all 5 master rank contests with the same pokémon, which means you'll want to maximize all of your contest stats. I definitely recommend using dual-flavor poffins for this, because they're more efficient in overall boost. If you have access to all the berries, it's possible to get 228 points in each category. But otherwise, we can go for 162 in each. You'll need 2 of each figy, wiki, mago, aguav, and iapapa, and 1 of each razz, bluk, nanab, wepear, pinap, pomeg, kelpsy, qualot, hondew, and grepa. The combinations will be figy+mago+qualot+pinap, wiki+aguav+hondew+razz, mago+iapapa+grepa+bluk, aguav+figy+pomeg+nanab, and iapapa+wiki+kelpsy+wepear, and while they'll produce 4 poffins, only eat 3 of each.Update: You can also use figy+mago+pomeg+qualot, wiki+aguav+kelpsy+hondew, mago+iapapa+qualot+grepa, aguav+figy+hondew+pomeg, and iapapa+wiki+grepa+kelpsy for 6 more points to each conditionAddendumSo I found the other poffin post by u/sadisticmystic1, who just brute forced this. Apparently, liechi+pomeg+watmel+shuca and rotations is even better, giving a total of 238 in each stat if you eat 2 of each, or you can abuse the weird lansat and starf berries to get even higher. But honestly? I'm just impressed that I got so close, only 10 points off, by assuming it was most efficient to focus on two colors, instead of the sum, partly because it let me use a greedy algorithm to speed things up. (Pulling back the curtain a bit, I actually just modified my program to calculate (spicy+bitter-dry-sour)/smooth for every berry and picked the best four)Although I stand by the figy and pomeg based recipes for Show Master, because the god-tier liechi family takes 96 hours to grow, so they're useful for people who don't want to go through the effort of catching legendaries at Ramanas Park to get the berries then wait 4 days to duplicate themEDIT: Added section on availabilityEDIT: Updated with slightly more efficient strategy for double-flavorEDIT: Added addendum via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/315jzQG