Berries have been a staple of the Pokémon games for many years. At first, they were simple items to be used in battle. Now though, they have a multitude of uses across various games.

Many of them are for cooking only, but quite a few have powerful single-use effects during a battle. Stat changes, HP restoration, and defensive buffs are always welcome.

If you’re looking for berries to stick on your Pokémon, I’ll be going through the 10 best in the game. I bet there’s one or two that will surprise you!

10. Stat Raises

Stat raise berries are consumed when your Pokémon’s health is reduced to 25% or lower. Depending on the berry, your Pokémon will gain a small boost to Attack, Sp. Attack, Speed, Defense or Sp. Defense.

Usually, your Pokémon will be in big trouble by then, so the boost isn’t hugely beneficial. Some strategies such as Pokémon with the Sturdy ability can be useful with Speed or Attack based berries.

9. Oran Berry

Pretty simple, an Oran berry will restore 10HP when your Pokémon falls below 50% of their maximum HP. A fairly tiny health restoration amount but on Pokémon with low HP pools, it can actually be fairly useful.

8. Friendly Berries

If you’re trying to make your Pokémon more friendly without having to bother with a campsite, friendly berries are your go-to. They aren’t used in battle, instead,you feed them to a Pokémon and reduce one of their stats, but make them friendlier.

7. Leppa Berry

Basically, an Ether, when a Pokémon consumes a Leppa berry in battle, it’ll restore 10 PP to a move of your choice.

Ethers are rare items, PP replenishment can be a pain depending on what you’re doing at the time. Having a bunch of Leppa berries in your bag can save you a lot of time!

6. Maranga Berry

Upon being hit by a Sp. Attack based moved, your Pokémon will consume a Maranga berry to increase its Sp. Defense.

Pokémon like Snorlax become a huge nuisance when it has its defenses increased. If you’re struggling for held items, berries like this are ideal.

5. Kee Berry

Similar to the Maranga berry, only it increases Defense when hit by a physical attack. Buffing up powerful defensive Pokémon is pretty awesome, they’re already difficult to kill.

4. Supereffective Damage Reduction

A berry exists for every type in the game, which reduces a super-effective from that type. The Occa berry (pictured) can be held by a Grass-type Pokémon to reduce the damage done by a Fire-type attack.

In general, you don’t want your Pokémon to take a super-effective attack in the first place. Sometimes it’s unavoidable though, being able to retaliate instead of being knocked out is pretty awesome.

3. Lum Berry

Able to cure any status condition, confusion included, right in the middle of battle, the Lum berry is a great choice.

So many Pokémon can prove an annoyance with their antics of putting yours to sleep, or freezing them, having a quick and easy option out is a good idea.

2. Sitrus Berry

When a Pokémon falls beneath 50% HP while holding a Sitrus berry, it’ll consume it to restore a huge 25% of its maximum HP pool. Opponents never expect such a nice boost of HP, just be aware it only works if your Pokémon survives, not if it gets knocked out in one hit.

1. Wiki Berry

A weird one, but the best berry in the game by far if used correctly. Once HP has fallen below 25%, the Wiki berry will restore 50% of the Pokémon’s maximum HP.

However, if the Pokémon doesn’t like the dry taste, it also becomes confused. Such a crazy health boost is well worth looking into, though. Most  Pokémon that don’t have an actual held item should be holding one of these if they can handle the taste!

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