How to Get Malicious or Auspicious Armor in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet

Evolve your Charcadet today!

If your team needs a fire Pokemon, there’s a good chance you’re using Charcadet. It’s available early, fares well against the first gyms, and has great edgy evolutions. That said, you might be wondering why it won’t evolve for you.

Like many Pokemon, Charcadet requires a unique item to trigger its evolution. Auspicious Armor allows it to evolve into Armarouge, and Malicious Armor turns it into Ceruledge. These evolutions are exclusive to Violet and Scarlet respectively, since each armor is unique to each version. While these items aren’t hard to obtain, they are well hidden if you don’t know where to look. Here’s what you need to do.

Where to get Malicious and Auspicious Armor

The NPC that gives you these items can be found in Zapapico City, located near the northeast of The Great Crater of Paldea. If you are playing Scarlet, he will ask you for 10 Bronzor fragments. In Violet, he will ask for 10 Sinistea Chips. For Scarlet players, we’ve already covered where to find Bronzor fragments here. Follow our steps to farm these out and you’ll be the proud owner of Auspicious Armor.

For Violet players, you’ll need to farm Sinistea to give this person what they want. The fastest way to grind these is to fast travel to Alfornada. If you haven’t reached this town yet, it’s located in the southwest corner of the world where the Psychic-Type Gym Leader is. The Pokemon here will be around level 45, so underleveled players will need to be careful making this trek. Fortunately, you can skip encounters in this area.

Once you arrive at Alfornada, travel to the southwest of the Pokemon Center. Ghost and Dark-Type Pokemon will be spawning all around this area, presumably to help players preparing for the Psychic Gym. Sinisteas will be abundant in this zone, so keep circling around and picking them off as you see them. To speed along the process, press R to send out a Pokemon to auto battle each Sinistea. Remember that catching a Pokemon will also give one of its unique drops. If you lose track of how many drops you have, check the TM Materials section of your inventory and scroll down until you find it.

Once you have 10 Sinistea Chips, fly back to Zapapico and talk to that NPC again. Agree to the trade and you’ll be the proud owner of your own set of armor to evolve Charcadet. You can farm out multiple copies of this item, so grind out as many evolutions as you need!