Pokémon GO

[QuentinQuonce]

Hurrah hurrah, got an Enamorus - at the very last minute heard that a group was gathering at a 1pm raid about 35 minutes from my house and was able to slip out at lunch to join. There was another not too far away so I ended up with two. Both are crap but they'll suffice for now, or maybe just be better off getting sent to Home and extorted for trades.

 

[R_N]

Meanwhile the Enamorus are starting to flow into Home

I've got some potential trades cooking, so I may be able to just have one of my own instead of needing to do tradebacks.

e: Nice, got one for a spare Galarian Moltres (not the one I caught in Go). That was painless!

 

[pika pal]

Hoping to get a couple in myself, current plan is to walk an Enamorus for XL candy so I can build one up once they get Springtide Storm or some other moveset update. Want to at least Register it as a good filler, and it's not a BAD Fairy mon at the moment, just not a big shake up until then.

Plus I need this to get one for MSG playing without PLA.

 

[R_N]

was kind of interested in the timed research for the legendaries until seeing it's all Win 2/4/6/8 raids

Can't do tier 3 raids solo and I'm not actually sure I've even seen Tier 1 raids spawn any time i've been playing the game, and all the raids near by require either a car or an awkward walk into the neighborhood next to mine. And it's so cold...Rough

 

[pika pal]

was kind of interested in the timed research for the legendaries until seeing it's all Win 2/4/6/8 raids

Can't do tier 3 raids solo and I'm not actually sure I've even seen Tier 1 raids spawn any time i've been playing the game, and all the raids near by require either a car or an awkward walk into the neighborhood next to mine. And it's so cold...Rough

If you can be bothered to install the Campfire App or Pokegenie, it tends to work for finding Remote assistance with Raids. Might have better luck with low-tier Raids for Road to Sinnoh since the Starters in them are one of the only features.

Do hope you get a shot at them, free Legendaries are always a nice bonus.

 

[R_N]

If you can be bothered to install the Campfire App or Pokegenie, it tends to work for finding Remote assistance with Raids. Might have better luck with low-tier Raids for Road to Sinnoh since the Starters in them are one of the only features.

Do hope you get a shot at them, free Legendaries are always a nice bonus.

Doesn't that require remote raid passes to really make use of? I have none of those...I actually did have a remote one ages ago, that I wasted on a Pelipper raid just to trying it out (didnt even beat it...) because I thought you got a free one every time you spun a pokestop (confusing both Gyms AND the regular Free pass with it lmao).

I generally don't like doing more with this game than is needed, but Go-Marked legends (and underleveled ones at that) seem to be solid trade fodder for future purposes.,s o I might look into it depending on what's actually required of me.

 

[Mex]

Doesn't that require remote raid passes to really make use of? I have none of those...I actually did have a remote one ages ago, that I wasted on a Pelipper raid just to trying it out (didnt even beat it...) because I thought you got a free one every time you spun a pokestop (confusing both Gyms AND the regular Free pass with it lmao).

The campfire usage would find people willing to use their remote passes to help you with a raid, doesnt matter which kind of pass you would use on the raid. There are other third party apps that have similar functionality but Campfire is official so its what would be best to recommend

 

[pika pal]

Doesn't that require remote raid passes to really make use of? I have none of those...I actually did have a remote one ages ago, that I wasted on a Pelipper raid just to trying it out (didnt even beat it...) because I thought you got a free one every time you spun a pokestop (confusing both Gyms AND the regular Free pass with it lmao).

I generally don't like doing more with this game than is needed, but Go-Marked legends (and underleveled ones at that) seem to be solid trade fodder for future purposes.,s o I might look into it depending on what's actually required of me.

Research Legendaries are indeed rare for Go, as are any you can get below Level 20 like the Latis from Hoenn Tour Last year and probably the Lake Trio at Sinnoh Tour this time (in case you wanna hunt more fodder since those come from Routes/Wild during the Tour event instead of Raids). If you have any local Parks and can go from 6-7PM, there are a lot of Raid hours for the Tour-lead-up event where you might find a lot of people actively raiding to hop in with.

And yeah like Mex mentioned, those Apps let you invite people using Remotes to assist, and in Campfire's Case you log in with the same Account you have your PoGo one linked to and it even handles stuff like Adding them as friends automatically. It might be good for you if you have Gyms that don't get much traffic for raid assists.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Saved my pass from Sunday - only got to do a couple extra raids, then. I'm not turning down a bunch of free legendaries. It's annoying that it ends on Friday because I want to do an absolute ton of Dialga/Palkia raids on Saturday. But oh well.

I'm not so crazy about Cresselia (and it's a pain to raid) so I might skip that; I have a hundo Mesprit though so would like to gather some more XL candy for that - hopefully if I spray invites to any Americans/Asians on my friend list they'll want to join any Mesprit raids I do. Azelf happens to be the only one of the lake trio I'm yet to get the shiny for so if anyone in an Azelf zone wants to shoot me a couple of invites, please do!

If not, though, Heatran is a pitifully easy duo. I'll forgo Giratina to save Friday's pass for an extra Dialga/Palkia.

 

[pika pal]

Saved my pass from Sunday - only got to do a couple extra raids, then. I'm not turning down a bunch of free legendaries. It's annoying that it ends on Friday because I want to do an absolute ton of Dialga/Palkia raids on Saturday. But oh well.

I'm not so crazy about Cresselia (and it's a pain to raid) so I might skip that; I have a hundo Mesprit though so would like to gather some more XL candy for that - hopefully if I spray invites to any Americans/Asians on my friend list they'll want to join any Mesprit raids I do. Azelf happens to be the only one of the lake trio I'm yet to get the shiny for so if anyone in an Azelf zone wants to shoot me a couple of invites, please do!

If not, though, Heatran is a pitifully easy duo. I'll forgo Giratina to save Friday's pass for an extra Dialga/Palkia.

DM me your FC. I have the Raid Ticket since I want to hit a couple of these guys plus the extra passes carry to Tour itself for Palkia/Dialga, meaning I have no reason to totally Skip any day and Azelf is in my region. I can do more than half of it by myself so I can bring you along with maybe some other regional friends seeking it and the clear shouldn't be too hard. I might do other raids using Pokegenie or such since Regionals are often in high demand for that reason.

Cresselia's value depends on if you play PvP or have friends who do, since Grass Knot makes it pretty useful there and people like to trade for it since the Raid 10/10/10 floor makes it too strong to get in without trading (Research will always be able to). It can be good as a Trade offer if you know people who play the game and meet up with them for something like Tour or certain events. Giratina-Origin is also really popular in Master League for the same reason.

Otherwise yeah, Heatran's a decent Raider with Magma Storm that should be easy to find assists for.

 

[R_N]

Seems like the sinnoh starters became pretty common raids. I was able to do 3 raids over the past 2 days since , but it really is quite the hike to get to them. Always feels a little awkward walking into there and then waiting out the 2 minute timer... Today there's been no doable spawns there, just being a single shadow raid, hoping one shows up in the afternoon.

But to my surprise, I got a remote raid pass out of the research breakthrough. Means I'll definitely be able to get Heatran, Giratina will be a bit tighter but ideally at least 2 more raids can show up before Friday; I don't think Darkrai's necessarily in the cards. But that's comparatively ok, I can't trade that one on Home's GTS anyway and have a surplus of older event Darkrais.

I did have a question about teaming up in raids though, since I plan to probably use campfire to remote into someone else's raid: is it possible to get knocked out entirely out of it and not have the win count? I know you can revive up and jump right back in if there's still time, but I'd be worried about remoting into a 4+ raid, getting smoked and then I'm out my one remote for nothing.

 

[pika pal]

Seems like the sinnoh starters became pretty common raids. I was able to do 3 raids over the past 2 days since , but it really is quite the hike to get to them. Always feels a little awkward walking into there and then waiting out the 2 minute timer... Today there's been no doable spawns there, just being a single shadow raid, hoping one shows up in the afternoon.

But to my surprise, I got a remote raid pass out of the research breakthrough. Means I'll definitely be able to get Heatran, Giratina will be a bit tighter but ideally at least 2 more raids can show up before Friday; I don't think Darkrai's necessarily in the cards. But that's comparatively ok, I can't trade that one on Home's GTS anyway and have a surplus of older event Darkrais.

I did have a question about teaming up in raids though, since I plan to probably use campfire to remote into someone else's raid: is it possible to get knocked out entirely out of it and not have the win count? I know you can revive up and jump right back in if there's still time, but I'd be worried about remoting into a 4+ raid, getting smoked and then I'm out my one remote for nothing.

The main concerns on your last point are if the errors and you have to reboot the app. Once a lobby you’re in starts you can get kicked from it if you explicitly leave, though you have to see the invite or the gym itself to go back in if you crash and reload the app.

I usually reboot the app before joining a raid in case of memory, but that’s probably Placebo on my part. Should be fine for Heatran raids since the double weakness makes that a fairly comfortable win for the 5-6 off Campfire.

 

[R_N]

There's potentially years of milking it to come. It makes me wonder which shiny mythical they'll do for the Unova Tour, since Genesect's already been done and there's no precedent for a Pokemon having its shiny debuted via Go (well, except Meltan, but that's a special case). I'm inclined to think they won't and they'll just hang on until then to release Keldeo for everyone.

For a hypothetical Kalos Tour: duh, Diancie, easy. That one's already done. Alola Tour? Uh... Marshadow. Just release it normally, say it's the shiny form and hope most people don't notice.

Thought I'd drag this out of the Presents thread.
Alola Tour I think has 2 options:
Zeraora. It had a really public release for SWSH! It's also a really vibrant, eye catching shiny so that's always a plus.

But I think the more interesting one is Magearna, because the shiny is in a weird spot. It's not been released in the games but was extremely present in the anime. The one Lillie's family owns is Shiny; or rather they retconned the shiny to match. I think if any Pokemon gets around "they want it in the MSG first" it's probably this one just because it's a "publicly known" one and the anime's always so close anyway.

 

[pika pal]

Thought I'd drag this out of the Presents thread.
Alola Tour I think has 2 options:
Zeraora. It had a really public release for SWSH! It's also a really vibrant, eye catching shiny so that's always a plus.

But I think the more interesting one is Magearna, because the shiny is in a weird spot. It's not been released in the games but was extremely present in the anime. The one Lillie's family owns is Shiny; or rather they retconned the shiny to match. I think if any Pokemon gets around "they want it in the MSG first" it's probably this one just because it's a "publicly known" one and the anime's always so close anyway.

One I'd extend: If Shiny remains unavailable they could double dip Magearna with the Pokeball Color scheme, unless that's too rare because of the Home Natdex demand (which could still theoretically be re-rolled if one gets a Living Dex across Home Compatible games)

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Thought I'd drag this out of the Presents thread.
Alola Tour I think has 2 options:
Zeraora. It had a really public release for SWSH! It's also a really vibrant, eye catching shiny so that's always a plus.

But I think the more interesting one is Magearna, because the shiny is in a weird spot. It's not been released in the games but was extremely present in the anime. The one Lillie's family owns is Shiny; or rather they retconned the shiny to match. I think if any Pokemon gets around "they want it in the MSG first" it's probably this one just because it's a "publicly known" one and the anime's always so close anyway.

Ugh totally forgot Zeraora was an Alola mythical! Which, tbh, isn't totally surprising because Zeraora has literally nothing to do with Alola

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Would still appreciate invites to a couple of Azelf raids from any kind Americans out there before it goes, please and thanks. It can be duoed and I've got a couple of accounts so feel free to invite me and then jump out

 

[pika pal]

Would still appreciate invites to a couple of Azelf raids from any kind Americans out there before it goes, please and thanks. It can be duoed and I've got a couple of accounts so feel free to invite me and then jump out

Trying for the shiny? If I see any before I get into work I can give it a shot for ya in that small window.

EDIT: Unfortunately none encountered before the 10 AM swap for me, maybe someone in a further timezone has better luck.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Trying for the shiny? If I see any before I get into work I can give it a shot for ya in that small window.

EDIT: Unfortunately none encountered before the 10 AM swap for me, maybe someone in a further timezone has better luck.

Don't worry, it was a short window. Luckily I have a friend in Seattle who managed to send one before it left but still no shiny. I'll get it eventually, I'm sure.

Did get a hundo Heatran, though. Happy with that!

 

[Expert Evan]

To this date I still don't yet have a shundo (shiny hundo) though I have an alt with a shiny lucky hundo Zekrom at least. In this week I did get a shiny Mantyke from eggs, my alt got a shiny riolu though I still wish it were a shundo oh well.

 

[R_N]

Despite the odds stacked against me, everything aligned: I got the 8 raids needed for all 4 of the legends. I'm picking up Giratina during its raidhour; may as well get its signature move. I did the same with Cresselia but messed up with Heatran...I did use my remote raid on a Heatran raid and got that though. It was a carry by the 5 other people, but I didn't have to go to the bag screen so it was nice to not be dead weight. It had Bug Bite which helped.

Honestly, if I wasn't motivated and the neighborhood right there with lucky egg spawns...I think a lot about how wildly this game's experiences will differ based on your location. For a long time my neighborhood didnt even have a Pokestop, and I'm not sure how long the neighborhood next to me had gyms. If I wanted to use ANY gyms I would have to actively drive out for like at least a 15 minute drive.
And even with the neighborhood, it's still quite the walk to schedule around, especially on a time crunch to get 8 raids in 5 days (& I was lucky I had premium raid passes + a remote). And Raids themselves aren't really on a schedule, if you're trying to be on the look out for them you constantly have to pull up the game or campfire and sometimes the raids are just too far away to be worth going towards.
I mentioned before that I can't do 3* raids solo and that I had basically never seen 1* raids; that only changed with this event and I think its because they really really wanted to push the sinnoh starters. If you don't have a raid group things get very slim; and even if you DO have a raid group you're probably not in an area where there's a bunch of raids you can all do at once.
Remote raids are an option, but you get very few free ones. I think you get one guaranteed free one from level ups and I happened to get one out of the field research 7-day bonus. The only F2P way to get Pokecoins requires having gyms and maintaining time in them and if you dont spend a lot of time in a gym you're not getting very many Pokecoins.
And all that also just gets you back in the app again and again and again...the mobile game special to keep you hooked, so to speak.


I've said before I don't particularly like this game and mostly just keep up with it as prep work for possible stuff for my actual goal (the Home's Go dex), but playing it does at least let me chew on "interesting" game design quirks and blind spots.




Anyway since that finished up Step 6 of the Mew research, I was able to go directly into Step 7 and immediately got the Excellent curve ball on a Carnivine. Once I finish using up berries I'll finally have that stupid Mew that's been taunting me for months. So glad to be done with raids, I would rather not hike out to that neighborhood again and again; it starts getting awkward. Celebi's research wants it but I'm not going back there for a while so it can just sit there.

 

[Expert Evan]

Only one shiny it's an Origin Dialga so since I'm literally out of coins and remote raid passes I'm essentially out of this for now.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

Well, that was a pretty underwhelming event all things considered.

Didn't get any shinies except one Gible, which is hardly world-shaking. At pretty much every event whether I had a ticket or not I've ended up getting a shiny hat Pikachu, but this is the year where that streak finally ended (I am in no way complaining about this fact).

It was kind of a weird day in terms of motivation. The sheer amount of crappy spawns which weren't Sinnoh Pokemon kind of killed my enthusiasm to spend time catching stuff, especially given the lack of a collection challenge. I know Sinnoh has a vast amount of cross-generational evolutions, but Johto Tour managed to make things interesting with the addition of shiny-eligible Gloom, Seadra, and Golbat and the way in which species like Kingdra, Bellossom, and Crobat spawned with a low chance too. It would have been cool to have had the same thing here and to have had Electivire, Magmortar, and Rhyperior et al as possible spawns. I'm still missing a few Sinnoh shinies so was hoping for a shiny Shellos, Stunky, Cherubi, Finneon, or Skorupi (or a female Combee), but no joy. Did start a route at one point but it didn't seem to generate any spawns so I wasn't able to get a white Basculin. Annoying.

The best I can say is that the drop rate for 10km eggs was excellent, so I'm really hoping I get at least one shiny regional out of them. Got a shiny Torkoal last year which was a nice belated surprise 3 or 4 days after the fact. Shadow Pokemon in research rewards was nice too, wish they'd do that more often.

More broadly it's just really disappointing that we had a Sinnoh Tour which didn't actually include all the Sinnoh Pokemon. Part of the appeal of previous tours was that you had the chance to finally complete that region's Pokedex, but Manaphy, Phione, and Arceus are still MIA. Hell, we've still got half the Hisui forms missing though I suppose Hisuian Lilligant/Goodra are Unova/Kalos Pokemon so maybe that's why. It just felt really half-assed overall. I'm not able to play today but from what I've seen there's nothing new on Sunday so I don't really feel like I'm missing out.

But it basically ended up being a glorified raid day. Did a load of raids for both Origin Dialga and Palkia during their respective hours (was a bit perplexed as to why anyone would want to do the standard forms, but to each their own) but had quite underwhelming results. It felt a bit pointless doing party challenges for a Regigigas and then battling Giovanni for another Regigigas - but whatever, I'm not going to complain about getting two of them.

For me personally the most enjoyable aspect was finding the lake trio in the wild. They were actually decently common and I was surprised at how many I was able to catch. And that was the undisputed high point - towards the end of the day, someone reported a hundo Azelf was nearby and a massive column of people went walking off in search of it. Managed to get it - at a nicely high CP - and yes, yes I used the Master Ball on it because frankly I ain't leaving that up to chance.

Pretty pretty. I also caught a 40 CP Mesprit which I'll treasure.

As I said, not playing IRL today but if anyone sees my accounts online please feel free to send invites to Origin raids on the off-chance.

 

[pika pal]

But it basically ended up being a glorified raid day. Did a load of raids for both Origin Dialga and Palkia during their respective hours (was a bit perplexed as to why anyone would want to do the standard forms, but to each their own) but had quite underwhelming results. It felt a bit pointless doing party challenges for a Regigigas and then battling Giovanni for another Regigigas - but whatever, I'm not going to complain about getting two of them.


As I said, not playing IRL today but if anyone sees my accounts online please feel free to send invites to Origin raids on the off-chance.

On the regulars, I would guess the idea is a breather to focus on stuff like Basculin or Incense-Unown hunting and such, but ironically the Biome with my preferred Spawns was an Origin one. Some people also did both for Shiny collection overall and to get XL Candy I suppose since those are shared.

I got close to 45 Raids without any luck on Shiny or Hundo of any Legendary, so hoping Day 2 goes better. Will invite the two accounts if I see them online just in case as well, always nice if the run can go faster too.

 

[R_N]

My thoughts on the Sinnoh Tour were:

• The spawn rate was really jacked up. Even without incense there was a ton of spawns like all the time. This would probably have been really great had I the balls to throw willy nilly, so I kind of had to stake my claim on going for specific things.
• However, it was funny how just due to how Sinnoh works most of the encounters were other region's Pokemon. All the babies are tucked away in eggs, all the Legends are (lake spirits aside) in Raids or Research....The LA version actually did occasionally spawn the final evolutions, even Ursalunas. Wasn't surprised to not see it show up
• I think this event needed a x2 EXP Candy bonus. I've got enough issues with how this game's gameplay loop generally goes, but when you start looking at all the Gen 4 cross-evolution costs it gets really stupid. Just about all of them require 100 candy (& often a Sinnoh Stone) even if they're only a 2 stage line. And because of how the releases were rolled out, stuff like Magmar or Tangela only give 3 candies at base...AND because they were designated as "strong single staged Pokemon" that means they have high CP and low catch rates. You can burn through a ton of balls and berries. For an event focused on Sinnoh, and catching a bunch of Pokemon in one place to presumably fill in the dex, it just felt disheartening.
• Not that some of the unevolved Pokemon were much better. Wanting the starters was, even with the Road to Sinnoh, such a huge ball sink. I wound up dipping into my stash of Rare candies to finish off Monferno & Prinplup so I could get their special moves.
• Related: I finally reached level 31 during this whole ordeal and XL Candies started rolling in and mannnn I wish I could just convert these to regular candies. You can only use them once your Pokemon reach level 40 right? I dont think anyone is close to that, so c'mon let me just revert them.
• Access to the regionals were nice. iirc the other "global" tours/fests locked that behind tickets. I even evolved the East Shellos.
• The egg rates were pretty good, too. Most of it was on the Road to Sinnoh, but the 10K eggs were very kind and I was glad that I had finished up incubator research ahead of time. I got everyone! Even Mime Jr, Pachirisu and Chatot. These will be very handy to have in Home.
• In fact, a lot of Chatot. And every time one of those hatched I'd get a downpour of its candies....I really wish you could turn these into Rare candies. Somehow I don't think I'm going to be sweeping raids with a Chatot.
• I was pretty surprised the Photo Safari thing came over from the LA version of the tour. I figured they'd just excise that entire bit. I found the full set and even captured an extra Azelf and 2 Mesprit, in addition to all 3 of the research ones. Predictably these ate up a sizable amount of my Balls and Berries. I'll transfer the spares to my main game later, one of the Mesprit was super weak too like 660 CP so that'll be really novel to have.
• I was pleasantly surprised to see the Tour research! A shot at Regigigas and Spiritomb and some extra candies was nice.
• LIVE REACTION from when I saw "Capture Palkia" and "Use Spacial Rend":
  
  
• However, since I was out & about this weekend, I happened to be near both a Palkia-O & Dialga-O raid (to this event's credit, they were EXTREMELY prevelant) so....I tried the campfire and did indeed get the pair of them anyway. Yes i AM aware of the irony of doing this after my big long post commenting on the Raid economy in this game. Like Go itself was smirking at me. I almost DIDN'T Get them, they kept falling out of the ball and gotta say I'm grateful they jacked up the rate of balls on Raids and Rockets. The Dialga DID have Roar Of Time, too. It's kind of nice having 2 big beat sticks.
• Ah speaking of, I obviously couldn't do party play, but I did finish the research and capture the Shadow Regigigas. I'm, uh, not going to be purifying this any time soon. Or the Shadow Kyogre...I actually got that a bit ago since I had a radar in the pocket; was a bit surprised I beat him both times tbh.
• Spacial Rend's effect is pretty cute but I probably wont use it much. The extra radius would probably be nicer in a big city, and it's pretty costly for someone who didnt want to spend all day raiding to grind up candies. I'd rather put those to powering it up. I can't ever transfer this to Home so may as well make the most of it
• I took inventory and if I dedicated myself to a lot of walking (a lot of walking....) I can fully complete the Sinnoh Dex (bar Phione, Manaphy, Arceus lol). I've got all the regionals, the babies, the legends, Darkrai, Shaymin off that old Gratitude research and anyone not evolved I at least have their pre-evolved form and can eventually evolve.
• Taking inventory made me releaize that they had Eevee, Nosepass & Magnezone show up but did not offer any of the lure modules? Seems like a big oversight, I know you get a free set just from level ups but seems there'd be a very real chance of someone working up the candies to evolve them but no longer having the Lures to pop them.
• All the field research that wanted you to Power up Pokemon and then throw a Bidoof at you: why

The other upshot of actually interacting with this was, aside from getting good trade fodder for emergencies, I now have enough general power and knowledge of Raids that future non-EX releases (Paradoxes and other Paldean legends loom ominously on the horizon...) can be done with campfire usage. You CAN find the hard carrie

 

[pika pal]

This event seemed to be test driving a new Raid-event Format with the instant 30-minute hatches instead of Egg -> 45 minute spawn. Made it very convenient to quickly cycle through raids with a party and everyone. I must have done close to 100 raids between the two, Shiny rate about matches but funnily I think were all from Remotes I did in between my local time Origin Raids.

I will say my main criticism of the event, having played last Year's Hoenn Tour and Fest, this event feels like it leaned a bit too heavily on the raids relative to how significant the Raid Bosses are to people who want "Power" events. They did that for the previous events because the Primals and Ray were absolute monsters both base form AND with their Mega benefits; by comparison Origin Palkia and Dialga are great but "just" strong Dragon types, given the Adventure effects are pretty underwhelming value for their cost. I also dislike that their method of encouraging repeat raids was "you only have a chance at one move" instead of the usual encouragement to hunt IVs or Shiny in a limited availability window.

The Wild spawns were okay at best outside of the 4th Biome with Sneasel and Qwilfish, and I didn't like the fact ALL the research was the same "Power up 5 times" task outside of the rare "Win 3 Raids" with coveted Hisui Mons. Hoenn spawns were a little less mundane and there were other tidbits like Carbink dropping Diancie energy to also contribute to objectives. Hoenn Tour was a bit like that too so I think it does primarily rest on the Origin forms being less exciting Raid attractions for the same format.