How production works
Your helper Pokémon produce berries, ingredients, and main-skill triggers over time.
Understanding how that production works—and what affects it—helps you build better teams and avoid losing progress when you swap. This guide covers what a "help" is, how energy and subskills change output, and what happens at level breakpoints. We also explain why collecting before you switch teams matters.
What is a help?
A help is one production cycle: your Pokémon either finds berries (for Snorlax), ingredients (for your bag), or triggers its main skill.
The game rolls twice per help—once for berry versus ingredient, and once for whether the main skill triggers. For a concise definition, see Glossary: help.
What production is
On each help, a Pokémon can find berries (feed Snorlax), ingredients (bag for meals), or trigger a main skill. Berries and ingredients are determined by a per-help roll; skill triggers are a separate roll.
How often each happens depends on the species, level, energy, and subskills.
Worth keeping in mind: production is ongoing throughout the day, so energy and team composition have a big impact on your totals.
Helps per day
The number shown on a Pokémon’s profile in-game (e.g. “every 40 min”) is the minimum—what happens at 0 energy. With more energy, your Pokémon help more often than that. So the profile number is the slowest case, not typical.
If your team feels slow, low energy is often the cause; healing skills (Energy for Everyone, Energizing Cheer, Charge Energy S) keep energy high and production strong.
Each species has a base help frequency (e.g. every ~40 minutes). Higher energy means more frequent helps. The game multiplies production by energy tier:
| Energy range | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| 80–150 | 2.2× |
| 60–79 | 1.9× |
| 40–59 | 1.6× |
| 20–39 | 1.4× |
| 0–19 | 1× |
Healing skills (Energy for Everyone, Energizing Cheer, Charge Energy S) keep energy high—so production stays strong.
Subskills that affect production
Some subskills boost helps, berries, ingredients, or skill triggers. These values are confirmed by community datamining:
| Subskill | Effect |
|---|---|
| Helping Speed S | −7% help timer (helps come ~7.5% faster) |
| Helping Speed M | −14% help timer (helps come ~16% faster) |
| Helping Bonus | −5% help timer for the whole team (per teammate who has it) |
| Berry Finding S | +1 berry per help |
| Ingredient Finder S | ×1.18 ingredient rate |
| Ingredient Finder M | ×1.36 ingredient rate |
| Skill Trigger S | ×1.18 skill rate |
| Skill Trigger M | ×1.36 skill rate |
Help speed subskills stack additively on the timer (capped at 35% total reduction). Nature and subskill modifiers for ingredients and skills multiply together (e.g. Ingredient Finder S × nature boost = 1.18 × 1.2 = 1.416).
Inventory Up, Dream Shard Bonus, and similar subskills do not affect production—only helps, berries, ingredients, and skill procs.
Berry vs ingredient vs skill
- Berry specialists find 2 berries per help (3 with Berry Finding S); others find 1 (or 2 with BFS).
- Ingredient specialists get 2× quantity on the first ingredient slot.
- Skill specialists can hold 2 skill procs at once; others hold 1.
- Berry vs ingredient is a per-help roll (ingredient rate ~20–25% for most species). Skill trigger is a separate roll (~3–5% base).
Rate modifiers: Both ingredient and skill rates are modified by nature and subskills. Ingredient Finder S/M and Skill Trigger S/M multiply the base rate (e.g. 1.18× for S, 1.36× for M). Nature can add 0.8× or 1.2×.
Level breakpoints
Production unlocks at specific levels:
- Lv10, 25, 50, 75, 100 — Subskill slots unlock.
- Lv30 (ingredient only) — Second ingredient slot (A or B per spread).
- Lv60 (ingredient only) — Third ingredient slot (A, B, or C per spread).
Berry strength also increases with level. See our Pokemon Sleep production calculator for a table of "what to expect" at each milestone.
Don't lose production
If you remove a Pokémon from your team without collecting first, you lose its berries and ingredients.
And if any Pokémon on your team has a main skill ready to trigger, switching any team member (not just that one) will wipe that ready skill.
Best practice: collect from all Pokémon before swapping. See Glossary: losing production.
Playstyle and check frequency
How often you open the app affects what matters. If you check rarely (1–2 times a day), healers (Energy for Everyone, etc.) keep energy high between checks, and Inventory Up matters more—when a Pokémon's bag fills, berries go to Snorlax ("sneaky snacking") but ingredients stop. If you check often, energy decay is less of an issue and a smaller bag is fine.
See Glossary: sneaky snacking and pity proc. For more detail, Inventory Up and check frequency.
For team switching (berry vs ingredient vs skill teams), see Best subskill combos.
Next: Main skills · Glossary · Pokemon Sleep production calculator · How to tell if a Pokémon is good
Part of Production & skills