Key Takeaway
Ponyta evolves at level 40. Your best bet to train it quickly is to battle and capture Pokémon that give a lot of experience points—like Chansey and Blissey. Alternatively, feeding Ponyta Exp. Candies can also help you level it up in no time, albeit in an expensive manner.
You can evolve most of the Pokémon you can find in the Obsidian Fieldlands relatively quickly. However, this isn’t the case with everyone’s favorite fiery steed. To evolve Ponyta in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, you’ll need lots of experience points.
Table Of Contents
What Level Does Ponyta Evolve?
Ponyta evolves into Rapidash at level 40. If you think that’s a rather high level to evolve a Pokémon at, you’re correct. This is much higher than other Pokémon that inhabit the same area.
Wild Ponyta can only be found in the Horseshoe Plains area of the Obsidian Fieldlands. And all the Ponyta here are between levels 3 and 17. It will take you 23 levels to evolve even the highest-level Ponyta you can find.
Other common Pokémon of this area, like Wurmple and Buizel, can evolve much quicker. Wurmple evolves into Silcoon or Cascoon at level 10 and Buizel evolves into Floatzel at level 26.
Why Ponyta Evolves at Such a High Level
Ponyta is one of the first Pokémon to appear in the franchise, as it was one of the original 151 pocket monsters that appeared in Pokémon Red and Blue. The only area where this flame-covered foal could be found was in an end-game area known as Cinnabar Island.
Specifically, Ponyta could only be found in the Pokémon Mansion, which was a dungeon on Cinnabar Island. Here, all the Ponyta you could find were between levels 30 and 36. Since these were the only wild Ponyta the player could encounter, the developers needed to make this species evolve at a higher level.
Due to Game Freak wanting to keep things consistent, the level at which Ponyta evolves was kept the same throughout every main series Pokémon game.
It can be argued that placing Ponyta in the Obsidian Fieldlands was a poor choice for Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Especially since there’s a volcano area in a later part of the game (the Cobalt Coastlands) that would be a perfect place to have Ponyta spawns. Thankfully, none of the Ponyta in the Obsidian Fieldlands have set fire to the abundant vegetation in this location…yet.
Tips to Evolve Ponyta Quickly
If you prefer to level up your Pokémon in a traditional way, you can do so easily by farming Chansey and Blissey for experience points. Although rare, there are spots where these pink blob-like pocket monsters spawn frequently.
Where to Find Wild Chansey and Blissey
You can find multiple Chansey and Blissey between the Avalanche Slopes and Arena’s Approach areas of the Alabaster Icelands. Out of these two, Blissey are more common, which is great, as they give you more experience points than Chansey.
There are usually three or four Chansey and Blissey in this icy stretch of land. All of which will be between levels 60 and 65. Your best bet of locating them is to fly over the area by using the Braviary mount you get through completing main missions.
After you spot your egg-like target, you should sneak up on them. This is due to both Chansey and Blissey being prone to run away while in battle. You want to catch them unawares and then knock them out in a single turn.
To do so, it’s recommended to use a Fighting-type Pokémon with a strong physical Fighting-type attack. This is due to Fighting-type moves being the only kind of attack that is super-effective against Normal-type Pokémon like Chansey and Blissey. Furthermore, these Pokémon have much lower Defense than Special Defense in terms of stat point distribution.
When you clear the area of these Pokémon, rest at a camp until the next day before repeating the process. This allows you to encounter many Chansey and Blissey quickly.
How to Level Up Ponyta Quickly With Items
If you have more money than time, you can feed Ponyta lots of Exp. Candies instead of training them the traditional way. To do so, head to Bonn’s merchant stall in Jubilife Village. You can find it near the front of Galaxy Hall—look for the blue umbrella.
Here, you can buy a few kinds of Exp. Candies, which can give your selected Pokémon lots of experience points. There are five types of Exp. Candy in the game. Here’s a breakdown of all Exp Candies and how many experience points they give:
- Exp. Candy XS – 100 exp gained
- Exp. Candy S – 800 exp gained
- Exp. Candy M – 3,000 exp gained
- Exp. Candy L – 10,000 exp gained
- Exp. Candy XL – 30,000 exp gained
Just keep in mind that you’ll need to progress pretty far into the game to unlock Exp. Candy XL. Also, the larger Exp. Candies are pretty expensive, so you’ll need a lot of money to buy large quantities of them.
