How to Evolve Sneasel in Pokémon Legends: Arceus

The way to evolve both forms of Sneasel in Pokémon Legends: Arceus is pretty similar. You’ll need the same item for both evolutions, however, the time of day you can do so varies. Thankfully, you can easily change the time.

How to Evolve a Regular Sneasel

To evolve a regular Sneasel, you’ll need to use a Razor Claw on them at night. This will cause them to evolve into a Weavile. You’ll need to have a regular Sneasel in your party and a Razor Claw in your inventory.

At night, when you open your party menu and select a Razor Claw, you’ll see that it is compatible with your regular Sneasel. You cannot use a Razor Claw on a regular Sneasel during the day.

To change the time of day, you can sleep in a camp bed or your bed in Jubilife Village. Select “Until nightfall” from the sleep menu to rest until nighttime.

How to Evolve a Hisuian Sneasel

To evolve your Hisuian Sneasel, you’ll need to take the opposite approach from evolving a regular Sneasel. However, you’ll first need to get a Hisuian Sneasel into your party along with a #how-to-get-a-razor-claw.

The difference comes in the time you’ll need to use the Razor Claw on your Hisuian Sneasel. You can only evolve your Hisuian Sneasel with this item during the day. While the sun is up, a Razor Claw will be compatible with Hisuian Sneasel, however, at night, it isn’t.

When you evolve your Hisuian Sneasel, it will turn into a Sneasler. Thankfully, you can use the same time-changing method mentioned before to shift the time of day into daylight hours.

How to Get a Razor Claw

The best way to get a Razor Claw is from Simona’s shop in Jubilife Village. This vendor will sell you a Razor Claw for 1,400 Merit Points. Keep in mind that Razor Claws (and all evolutionary items) will be consumed upon being used. As such, if you want both a Weavile and Sneasler, you’ll need to buy 2 Razor Claws.

How to Get Merit Points

Thankfully, Merit Points are easy to farm—albeit tedious. You need to seek out lost satchels in the wilderness. Lost satchels appear on your map, so you’ll be able to find them easily. Furthermore, lost satchels respawn infinitely, although they’ll always show up in different places.

When you retrieve a lost satchel, you’ll need to go into the Lost & Found menu to send it back to its owner. To reach this menu, press up on the directional pad and go to the tab marked with a wifi symbol (the second one from the right). Here, you’ll be able to trade in lost satchels for somewhere between 50 to 100 merit points each.

The Differences and Similarities Between Regular Sneasel and Hisuian Sneasel

Despite being similar in physical appearance, regular Sneasel (sometimes called Johtonian Sneasel) and Hisuian Sneasel are vastly different in terms of typing. Regular Sneasel is a Dark and Ice-type Pokémon while Hisuian Sneasel is a Fighting and Poison-type Pokemon. This causes them to have very different strengths and weaknesses.

Additionally, even though their physical traits are very similar, each form has noticeably different color palettes. Regular Sneasel is bluish-gray while Hisuian Sneasel is lilac and violet.

However, with that said, their base stat totals and stat point distributions are identical. For this reason, Sneasels and their evolved forms are all ideal to use offensively.

Furthermore, the moves they can learn through leveling up are relatively similar. Everything is the same in this regard except that regular Sneasel will learn Ice-type moves (Ice Shard at level 6 and Blizzard at level 43) and Hisuian Sneasel will learn Fighting-type moves (Rock Smash at level 6 and Close Combat at level 43).

On the same trend, the moves that each form of Sneasel can learn from the move tutor will vary slightly. Regular Sneasel will be able to learn Ice-type moves and more Dark-type ones. Conversely, Hisuian Sneasel will learn Fighting-type ones and fewer Dark-type moves.

Reasons to Use Weavile On Your Team

Weavile’s stat distribution makes it clear that this Pokémon is all about hitting fast and hard. Weavile’s highest stat is often its Speed—but its Attack stat is very close behind. While Weavile’s Special Defense and HP stats aren’t poor, they certainly won’t allow this agile pocket monster to take many hits. That said, Weavile’s Defense stat is pretty low.

You want to use Weavile in situations where you have the type advantage (even more than with other Pokémon). Furthermore, you’ll want to focus on giving Weavile physical damage-dealing moves, as its Special Attack stat is its weakest trait.

Thankfully, Weavile can learn quite a few strong physical damage-dealing moves. This, in conjunction with Sword Dance (learned at level 34), can potentially let your Weavile one-shot opponents.

Here’s a list of Weavile’s best physical damage-dealing moves:

• Poison Jab [80 base power – Poison-type] (learned at level 25)
• Night Slash [70 base power – Dark-type] (learned at level 38)
• Psycho Cut [70 base power – Psychic-type] (move tutor)
• Shadow Claw [70 base power – Ghost-type] (move tutor)
• Ice Punch [75 base power – Ice-type] (move tutor)
• X-Scissor [80 base power – Bug-type] (move tutor)
• Iron Tail [100 base power – Steel-type] (move tutor)
• Giga Impact [120 base power – Normal-type] (move tutor)

Reasons to Use Sneasler On Your Team

You’ll find that Sneasler holds a similar niche to Weavile in that it is a fast and physically strong Pokémon. For this reason, you’ll want to use them in the same manner: to hit hard and fast. Furthermore, you’ll also want to be very careful when sending them against opponents, as they cannot take much damage before getting knocked out.

Also, like with Weavile, you’ll want to only give Sneasler damage-dealing moves of the physical kind. This is due to Sneasler’s Special Attack stat being much lower than its Attack stat.

Since Sneasler also learns Sword Dance at level 34, you can use a similar strategy to allow them to potentially one-shot foes. In fact, Sneasler is even more likely to knock out enemies quickly due to its access to better Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) moves.

Here’s a list of Sneaslers’s best physical damage-dealing moves:

• Dire Claw [60 base power – Poison-type] (learned at level 11)
• Poison Jab [80 base power – Poison-type] (learned at level 25)
• Close Combat [100 base power – Fighting-type] (learned at level 43)
• Shadow Claw [70 base power – Ghost-type] (move tutor)
• Drain Punch [75 base power – Fighting-type] (move tutor)
• X-Scissor [80 base power – Bug-type] (move tutor)
• Iron Tail [100 base power – Steel-type] (move tutor)
• Giga Impact [120 base power – Normal-type] (move tutor)

Which is Better—Weavile or Sneasler?

When you take a look at their respective base stats, Weavile has slightly better Speed, Defense, and Special Defense while Sneasler has slightly better Attack and HP. Put simply, Weavile is a bit better for out-speeding opponents while Sneasler is a bit better at dealing damage to foes.

However, the stat differences are small enough that the Nature of your Pokémon and giving them proper Effort Values can offset their weaknesses compared to the alternate option.

On top of that, you’ll need to consider which of these is a better fit for your party. Think about each Pokémon’s typing and whether or not it will make your team better rounded or more susceptible to specific threats.

And, let’s not forget, aesthetics are a big deal! In a game where you can pose with your Pokémon in a studio setting and let them out of their Poké Ball at any time, how much you like a pocket monster’s appearance can increase or decrease your happiness with them.

Which Pokémon Has Better Typing

If you observe the number of weaknesses and resistances of Weavile and Sneasler, you’ll see that Sneasler is generally better.

Weavile has 3 resistances and 1 immunity, but 6 weaknesses—including an x4 weakness to Fighting-type moves. Conversely, Sneasler has 6 resistances (no immunities) and only 3 weaknesses—albeit with an x4 weakness to Psychic-type moves.

Due to the above-mentioned data, Sneasler is more likely to have favorable type match-ups than Weavile. What’s more, Sneasler will overall be less vulnerable to incoming attacks.

Which Pokémon Has Better Moves

By far, Sneasler is the Pokémon with the better move pool, as it gets better STAB moves.

Weavile’s best offensive moves are Ice Punch and Night Slash—both of which are below 80 base power. Even though the latter can likely land a critical hit, this is luck-dependent, which makes it unreliable.

However, Sneasler has access to 4 great STAB moves: Dire Claw, Poison Jab, Drain Punch, and Close Combat.

Dire Claw is an interesting signature move in that it has relatively low base power, but can potentially paralyze, poison, or put an opponent to sleep; making it very versatile. Poison Jab is a solid choice for similar reasons (minus the chance to paralyze or put foes to sleep), but with more base power.

Then, you have Drain Punch, which lets Sneasler heal itself while attacking, which, in turn, allows it to last longer in a battle. Finally, there’s Close Combat, which is the ideal move to use if you want to one-shot an enemy due to its high base power.