Arriving in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Pawmi is cuteness personified, a fuzzy-wuzzy Pokémon from Paldea who looks perfect to cuddle. But behind the cuteness, Pawmi can be an electrical powerhouse that makes a great addition to your team, similar to a Pikachu with zappy, life-giving paws. It’s also available to play with in Pokémon Go!
There’s just one issue: A lot of first-time players aren’t sure how to find Pawmi or evolve it once the Pokémon becomes available. The games aren’t exactly clear how its evolution works, either. We’ve got all the details in our Pawmi guide you need on how to evolve and use it!
How Do I Capture a Pawmi In Scarlet and Violet? What about Pokémon Go?
Pawmi isn’t as hard to find as some Pokémon, although you may need to wait for a little while before you can get one. The Pokémon is extremely rare in the first areas of Paldea, so we suggest progressing quickly through these parts into spots where the Pokémon becomes more common but still hard to find.
Pawmis are found primarily in the southeast regions of Paldea. By the time you reach Area Three, Area Five, and Los Platos, you should be able to run across them more regularly. Reports indicate they may start showing up on Poco Path during the beginning of the game, but that’s rolling the dice on how lucky your encounters are. If you don’t have a ton of patience, we suggest getting to the southern regions and trying to get as many wild Pokémon encounters as you can.
Once you find Pawmi, traditional capturing rules apply. Carefully whittle down its health and then use a Poke Ball to capture it. Be careful not to do too much damage and cause one to faint, because it may take time to run across another.
In Pokémon Go, capturing works very differently. You’ll have to find spawn locations in your area where others have discovered a Pawmi, which can be influenced by a number of factors. You can use Incense items to improve your spawn rates if you want to invest in a capture. Pawmi are also more likely to show up in rainy weather, so pack your hoodie and watch the rain forecast. However, your best chances will occur during special events. Certain events will increase the spawn rate of different kinds of Pokémon. Watch for an event where Pawmi spawn rates are increased, and get ready to spend some time on the hunt. Keep in mind, Pawmi cannot be shiny in Pokémon Go.
In either case, we recommend finding a strong Pawmi with an excellent stat distribution.
How Do I Evolve Pawmi into Pawmo in games like Scarlet and Violet?
Pawmi’s first evolution form is Pawmo. It becomes a bigger, zappier bear — and more importantly for battling purposes, Pawmo gains both electric and fighting type characteristics. This is a very rare dual type and can help fill an interesting niche in your team, especially when it comes to dealing damage to a wide variety of opponents.
But there’s more good news here: Capturing a Pawmi is the hard part. Once you have one, starting on your evolutionary journey is easy. Play with the Pawmi until it reaches level 18. It will level naturally into Pawmo.
How Do I Evolve Pawmo into Pawmot?
This part gets tricky. First, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet include a new mechanic called Let’s Go. That lets you assign a Pokémon to travel around with you in the real world. If you want your Pawmo to evolve into the powerful Pawmot, you’ll need to get comfortable using it.
Once you have leveled up your Pawmo as much as you want to, pick your Pawmo to follow you in Let’s Go mode. Then, start walking. You want your following Pawmo to walk 1,000 steps behind you. There’s no in-game counter for how many steps it takes, so you’ll have to make a general guess. And if you walk too fast, your Pawmo may pop back into its ball and stop walking altogether, so you have to set a steady speed.
Some players have found ways to speed up the process, like quickly flying up to the roof of a building so that Pawmo scurries all the way to join you, but these aren’t quite as reliable as old-fashioned jogging. Once your Pawmo reaches 1,000 steps, wait for it to level up once more, and it will transform into a Pawmot.
Because Pawmot is such a big upgrade to Pawmo, we highly suggest you take the time to get your steps in. Just don’t take a break: If Pawmi goes back into its ball, you may have to start all over again.
Is Evolving a Pawmi in Pokémon Go Different?
It’s slightly similar, but there are some big, real-world differences for our Pawmi guide. Once you’ve played the small minigame to successfully capture a Pawmi in Pokémon Go, you have the option to evolve it. However, Pawmi’s a bit unique: Methods used to evolve other Pokémon in the game won’t work on it.
Instead, you’ll first want to get Pawmi candies. You can get candies for individual Pokémon by capturing them again and trading extras with the Professor. That’s even more reason to pay attention to Pokémon spawn rates and really put the work in if Pawmis appear more often during special events. Once you have 25 Pawmi candies, you can use them all and Pawmi will level up into Pawmo. Congratualtions, that was the easy part!
If you want to turn your Pawmo into a Pawmot, get ready for the grind (physically). First, you’ll need to collect 100 Pawmi candies through additional captures or trading, which can take some time. Then, with your Pawmo in tow, you’ll have to walk a total of 25 kilometers, or around 15-16 miles. Unfortunately, the distance you walk while collecting the 100 candies doesn’t seem to count toward the 25 kilometers you need to walk afterward. However, if you can complete all these steps, your Pawmi will reach its final evolution.
What is Pawmi’s Pokémon Type?
Pawmi starts as an electric type when you first capture it, complete with defibrillator-like paws that can charge up and deal powerful blows. As an electric type, Pawmi has access to some electric techniques, and is particularly strong against flying type and water type enemies. They also resist steel and other electric types. However, they are weak against dragon and grass type enemies, and electric attacks can’t harm ground type enemies.
However, things change a bit when Pawmi evolves. Once a Pawmi becomes Pawmo, it switches to a dual type Pokémon, both electric and fighting. A fighting type Pokémon is good at dealing damage in the physical world, and is particularly strong against normal, ice, rock, dark, and steel type opponents. They also resist attacks from bug, rock, and dark types. However, that also means that Pawmo gains some additional weaknesses to balance things out. Fighting type Pokémon struggle against less-substantial enemies, including poison, flying, psychic, bug, and fairy types. And their attacks don’t harm ghost types at all. Certain types, like flying, psychic, and fairy moves, can do extra damage.
This broad mix is an unusual one in Pokémon games, with several vulnerabilities and strengths depending on how you use Pawmi in battle.
Are Pawmi’s Stats Good in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? What Nature Should I Look For?
Pawmi’s stats can vary depending on the one you capture. However, in general they have mid-range stats with a focus on damage. Their attack, speed, and special attack stats tend to be higher, helping them to do damage quickly. When used with electric attacks, this can be a good way to paralyze enemies early on and bring an opponent down easily.
However, Pawmi doesn’t have the highest HP and generally has low defenses against attacks. It struggles with taking damage and can quickly faint under assault. Players need to use their Pawmi carefully to get the most out of it.
That brings us to natures, a concept fleshed out in more recent Pokémon games. A Pokémon can have many different kinds of natures, which primarily influence its stats. If you’re struggling to capture a Pawmi you may be willing to settle for any nature at all, but some natures can lower Pawmi’s innate stat strengths and make for poor choices.
There are several approaches to Pawmi natures that can work. One popular choice is Adamant, which increases attack power and lowers special attack. This combines well with Pawmi’s hidden Iron Fist passive and can be used to deal more reliable damage. The Naughty nature, which raises attack and lower special defense, has a similar benefit. Others prefer to lean into Pawmi’s high speed and look for Naïve nature, which increases speed even more at the cost of special defense. That creates a Pokémon suited for getting in and out quickly. A Jolly nature can accomplish something similar at the cost of special attack power.
Generally, you should avoid natures that decrease speed and, if possible, those that decrease attack power.
How Should I Use Pawmi in Battle?
As you can see from its stats and the best natures, Pawmi is great at fast normal attacks that deal electric damage. It comes with an innate chance to paralyze enemies, so many players try to get a few quick hits in early to see if they can paralyze an opponent. Another passive in Pawmi’s roster, Natural Cure, cures the Pokémon of status ailments when they’re switched out, so it’s a good idea to switch out Pawmi when they start taking damage (their low HP also encourages this).
The same is true for Pokémon Go, where players can rely on Pawmi’s two fast moves to deal damage quickly. Those playing Go should try to battle in rainy conditions when possible, since this gives a boost to electric Pokémon. However, since Pawi’s special attack stats are typically higher in Pokémon Go, players have the option to focus more on special attacks instead, so keep your options open!
These strategies change a bit when Pawmi eventually evolves into Pawmot. Pawmot, gets the ability Revival Blessing, which allows it to revive a Pokémon in the party that’s fainted. This is a rare and powerful ability, so many players keep their Pawmot out of harm’s way and use it to save their most reliable Pokémon if something bad happens.
Is Pawmi Available in Both Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?
Yes, you can get Pawmi in either version of the game. Following tradition, Scarlet and Violet do have some exclusive Pokémon that you can only find in each game, particularly the legendaries Koraidon and Miraidon. However, Pawmi is available to all.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Pokemon.com.