Dec 1, 2021 17:01:18 GMT Emperor said:

How do you get a Mew?

Complete the Mythical Discovery Special Research.

As you complete each Special Research a new one will unlock granting you access to Celebi, Jirachi and Victini.

I'm stuck on Celebi since I need to trade.

- Encounter wild Pokemon.
- Land excellent curveball on first throw.
- Pokemon kicks out at one.
- Land a normal throw. Not even a nice throw.
- Pokemon is caught.

Dec 2, 2021 21:07:27 GMT Emperor said:

- Encounter wild Pokemon.
- Land excellent curveball on first throw.
- Pokemon kicks out at one.
- Land a normal throw. Not even a nice throw.
- Pokemon is caught.

:lol: it almost feels like the game is taking pity on you. Clutch out an excellent and nothing but barely graze the Pokemon as it moves mid-throw and the game makes you feel guilty for catching it.

It's been a fun couple of days on the app. When I first got back into the game in September, all I wanted to do was catch Squirtles. Not only can I do that now, but the change in spawns has allowed me to catch a bunch of others I've been after and I should be able to complete the Kanto dex after having the game since launch. I just need more Geodude, Abras, Jigglypuff, Grimer spawns and access to a Tauros and I'll be done.

The focus right now is on Sunday and Tuesday with the Swinub Incense on Sunday followed Dragonspiral Tower event and Electabuzz spotlight hour. The Swinub event has a ton of ice pokemon I need to grind for in Sneasal, Snorunt, Snover, Vanillite and Galarian Darumaka. While the ground will be great for Rhyhorn and Larvitar. I do need to start grinding Wooper for Quagsire as well.

One goal I have before the event is to get more Mega Steelix energy for that bonus candy. Not only will it be handy to have before Sunday but when Comm Day takes place in two week's time it'll be extremely useful for farming Gabites. I just have to do 3 more raids before the event finishes on Sunday. If I can host two raids tomorrow and remote the last one I should be right, but it is a tough encounter.

I have a Super Rocket Radar now, but I didn't have to go hunting for Giovanni as he did me a kind service by showing up to my house in a balloon. Looks like he's the one with a radar.

He destroyed me three times in a row then flew away.

His second Pokemon Kingler isn't too bad, can one shot him with an electric charged attack, but don't have a good counter to his Persian, his fast attack messes me up even when it's Not Effective. I tried a Virizion just to charge two Sacred Swords quickly and use up his block shields, but by the time his Persian was dead I was already down to 1.5 Pokemon.

Lugia is a beast as well. I reached him once with a Jolteon but even a Super Effective Discharge barely did any damage.

Dec 4, 2021 11:11:43 GMT Emperor said:

I have a Super Rocket Radar now, but I didn't have to go hunting for Giovanni as he did me a kind service by showing up to my house in a balloon. Looks like he's the one with a radar.

He destroyed me three times in a row then flew away.

His second Pokemon Kingler isn't too bad, can one shot him with an electric charged attack, but don't have a good counter to his Persian, his fast attack messes me up even when it's Not Effective. I tried a Virizion just to charge two Sacred Swords quickly and use up his block shields, but by the time his Persian was dead I was already down to 1.5 Pokemon.

Lugia is a beast as well. I reached him once with a Jolteon but even a Super Effective Discharge barely did any damage.

You may want to wait on challenging Team Rocket trainers. PVE has exploits that benefit the players like being able to get a few free hits after hitting a charged attack, when you block their charged attacks or when they swap in a monster. That's currently not working after they updated the game. Apparently it will be fixed relatively soon but you may want to hold off.

You may not have the team to beat Giovanni. What your highest level CP rock, fighting, grass, water, electric, ice, dark types? You may want to wait until after Tuesday to get Electivire and a Rhyperior before going back. My team was something like Tyranitar, Roserade & Gengar.

Also have you taken advantage of the 60 FPS? If you go into Advanced Settings and select Native Refresh Rate it makes the game so much smoother.

Giovanni was kind enough to pay me another visit, presumably he took some joy out of whipping me earlier.

I had prepared a team in advance, however he surprised me by replacing his Kingler with a Rhyperior which screwed up my electric-heavy team.

No problem. Fooled me once.

Fortunately I had found the perfect antidote to his Persian. CP1884 Breloom with Counter and Dynamic Punch. Super effective fast attack and a fairly fast charge attack took care of Persian, and gave me enough life to spare to use my second charge attack on Rhyperion. All his shields down. I took out his Rhyperior with my CP2488 Feraligatr's water attack. Onto the big boy, Lugia. Feraligatr was able to do a little bit of damage before he was taken out. Out comes CP 2147 Magneton. It was a close call. Lugia's fast attack was not effective but still whittled me down pretty quickly. It was a race to see if I could charge up Zap Cannon before Lugia killed me. I charged it, fired it off, and fortunately it wiped out the rest of Lugia's health, otherwise I would have been dead. Backup strat would have been to power up Magneton some more as I have a ton of Magnemite candy. Fortunately I didn't need it.

Had no issue with the glitch you mentioned, I still experienced the delay after they blocked my charge attacks. It was essential to victory.

Caught Lugia on the first Pokeball throw which shocked me. Wasn't even a Nice/Great ball, and only had a Nanab berry behind it because he wouldn't stop thrashing around.

That's that quest over, and I almost have enough rare candies to evolve Magikarp which would progress the Mythical Discovery mission.

I forgot to tell you ahead of time that Lugia has a high catch-rate so it's worth putting a pinap berry on for the free candy.

I'd hold those rare candies for legendary/mythicals. Magikarps are a pretty common spawn and they even appear in field research tasks.

So today was the Swinub Incense Day. I did a bit of prep to get a Mega Steelix for bonus ground type candy and even upgraded my Pokemon Storage to hold more monsters to take advantage of the double transfer for Tuesday. I thought I would be swimming in ground and ice types but I found out that it works differently. See incense spawns only pop up one at a time and typically take 30 seconds or so to spawn in.

I still made an afternoon of it and played both hours plus an additional ground hour. In hindsight it was something of a mistake on my part and I really should have focused more on ice since I fell well short on Vanillite, Snorunt and Sneasal candy.

Still I got plenty of Swinub and just got enough Rhyhorn candy to evolve one of my Rhyhorns into a Rhyperior and that was the main goal.

I would have said the event itself was disappointing but I had a lot of luck. I was able to catch two more Kanto Pokemon in the wild in Venasaur and Electrode. I also finally caught a Stantler and Toxicroak so those two can stop hogging the Pokeradar. The best catch of the day was shiny Cubone which I was after about a month ago. It made the 15km+ session that much more worth it.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday and the Dragonspiral Tower event as well as the Electabuzz Spotlight hour. I want to rack up plenty of candy and hopefully get a couple raid attackers out of it.

So what's with the recent activity here... was there some sort of expansion released?

Dec 5, 2021 11:51:19 GMT @ness said:

So what's with the recent activity here... was there some sort of expansion released?

It depends on when you last played. For some of us, we haven't played since around launch and we've gone back to see how the game has changed in five years. It's still the same core game but they've expanded upon it and it does a better job of spiking those dopamine levels. The game constantly runs events as well, so there's usually something to look forward to each week.

When was the last time you played, Ness?

Dec 5, 2021 12:22:36 GMT Big Pete said:

Dec 5, 2021 11:51:19 GMT @ness said:

So what's with the recent activity here... was there some sort of expansion released?

It depends on when you last played. For some of us, we haven't played since around launch and we've gone back to see how the game has changed in five years. It's still the same core game but they've expanded upon it and it does a better job of spiking those dopamine levels. The game constantly runs events as well, so there's usually something to look forward to each week.

When was the last time you played, Ness?

Honestly I never ever got around to playing. I just thought the appeal died off and seemed like there was some PW revival in the last few weeks or so that I thought something was up. I've read the past page or two and wasn't sure if they did something more to the game or if Emp just dusted off the phone.

I decided to fire off an incense during the Swinub raid and used pretty much all the Pokeballs I had accrued yesterday to catch various ice type Pokemon. Got a Pokemon in a cape that was shivering, many Swinubs, an ice cream motherfucker, and some other creatures. Most of these were new to me and I also completed a field mission to catch 5 Ground types which was convenient.

Just caught a Zekrom in a raid. It's pretty badass I must say.

While a lot of the spawns have nothing to do with Dragonspiral Tower, I'm not complaining. I actually need Mareep, Trapinch, Sneasal, Deino and I won't say no to more Darumaka or Dratini candy.

I was bummed to hear Druddigon was locked behind beat 3 raid bosses, but you actually do get an encounter for catching all the live spawns so it's not that big a deal.

They really are just making up Pokemon now huh? LOL

They've been making up Pokemon for years.

There's a keyring Pokemon, an ice cream Pokemon, a cog Pokemon, and an appliance Pokemon that can transform between a lawnmower, a fridge and some other items. It's an absurd world.

Dec 8, 2021 18:36:03 GMT Emperor said:

They've been making up Pokemon for years.

There's a keyring Pokemon, an ice cream Pokemon, a cog Pokemon, and an appliance Pokemon that can transform between a lawnmower, a fridge and some other items. It's an absurd world.

Yeah honestly it's gotten out of hand (for me). Like all these new Pokemon all feel so forced. I'm here for the original 150 (plus Mew/Mewtwo) and that's it. I don't even mind the 2nd generation Pokemon. It's the other BS I do not like.

Dec 8, 2021 20:36:30 GMT KING KID said:

Dec 8, 2021 18:36:03 GMT Emperor said:

They've been making up Pokemon for years.

There's a keyring Pokemon, an ice cream Pokemon, a cog Pokemon, and an appliance Pokemon that can transform between a lawnmower, a fridge and some other items. It's an absurd world.

Yeah honestly it's gotten out of hand (for me). Like all these new Pokemon all feel so forced. I'm here for the original 150 (plus Mew/Mewtwo) and that's it. I don't even mind the 2nd generation Pokemon. It's the other BS I do not like.

Damn I thought you repped some Ho-Oh and Lugia? 

I played GEN 1 and GEN 2 religiously, skipped GEN 3,4,5 but came back for GEN 6, 7 and 8 and while I will never be a diehard Pokemon fan, I can enjoy myself with it. 

I think it's because when the concept was first conceived it was largely two guys who came up with the bulk of designs with just a couple of other pitches for evolved forms and the like. By the time they got to Gen V, it was closer to 17 and the main two were far less attached so they don't seem as aesthetically consistent.

I actually like a lot of Gen V designs and it's actually what got me back into the series.

As far as I can tell, for $12 USD you essentially just get a few perks, better access to shiny Pokemon and Celebi with an exclusive move.

I was considering spending money for the ticket, but if it's essentially pay for shinies and one mythical I'll stick to saving my money.

Apparently there's going to be a few in-person events around the world for Kanto on Sunday. I keep hearing New York as a location, so KING KID keep an eye out for your kid.

Well, I've got myself a Mew. Also got a Zekiram and Reshiram. The legendaries are stacking up!

Some pretty good monsters in that lot. Worth noting that Cubchoo is a costumed Pokemon so if you want to evolve it you will have to catch it's regular form before the event. Currently Cubchoo is available as a 1 star raid so it's something to be mindful of. I'm pretty happy with those spawns, I was worried I wouldn't be able to catch another snorunt or vanillite again so completing those will be handy. Swinub was a pain to catch but they're really handy Pokemon that are right up there as far as ground and ice type attackers go.

The best bonus is the free one use egg incubator. I'll hoard those for the Johto Go Tour.

The Collection Challenge is going to be difficult. I may join a local discord and see if there's any interest in trading on there. THat will help me knock over a few eggs with one stone since I'm currently stuck on a few of those for my special research.

Dec 9, 2021 13:31:37 GMT Emperor said:

Well, I've got myself a Mew. Also got a Zekiram and Reshiram. The legendaries are stacking up!

You're racking them up now! Have you been raiding multiple legendaries or do you just get the dex entry and move on?

How's everyone going with the Dragonspiral event? I've really enjoyed the event and have loaded up on pretty much all the spawns. No shinies just yet but again they're more like a nice bonus than the main reason I play. I was having really strange luck with Sneasal and I think it has to do with my local suburb since I went into town and they were far more common. Before I'd be lucky to see one Sneasal per session whereas Dragonairs and Vibravas would be appearing all the time. Still not a lot of luck with Deino though, I came across one and I had to use the tracker to locate it. I've largely had to rely on field research and I've figured out that I'm better off waiting for a Double Catch candy day so I can get 14 candies per catch. So I'll be farming those up before it ends. I currently have 70+ candy, so if I can farm six that way I'll have enough to get the dex entry. I'm also hoarding them for a double transfer day.

I don't think I'll go especially hard for the upcoming events, but the Community Day weekend is something I'll really go hardcore on. I may even take a trip into town just to grind it out.

I did two Zekiram raids just for lack of options but mostly I do one of each. I can encounter legendaries in Battle League as well once I reach rank 20. Encountered one Zekiram and Reshiram each from Battle League rewards. Much easier to catch than Cresselia who I dreaded facing because it just drained my Ultra Balls and can't move on until it's caught.

I have a 2* Zekiram who I've powered up to 2600CP, but after that I caught a 3* Zekiram at its base level of 2200CP. Not sure whether to start powering up the 3* or just to go with the 2* that I've already invested in.

Caught all the Dragonspiral Pokemon quickly except for Sneasel. Took three days for me to find one but then it popped up when I was playing at my house.

Dec 10, 2021 20:08:18 GMT Emperor said:

I did two Zekiram raids just for lack of options but mostly I do one of each. I can encounter legendaries in Battle League as well once I reach rank 20. Encountered one Zekiram and Reshiram each from Battle League rewards. Much easier to catch than Cresselia who I dreaded facing because it just drained my Ultra Balls and can't move on until it's caught.

I have a 2* Zekiram who I've powered up to 2600CP, but after that I caught a 3* Zekiram at its base level of 2200CP. Not sure whether to start powering up the 3* or just to go with the 2* that I've already invested in.

Caught all the Dragonspiral Pokemon quickly except for Sneasel. Took three days for me to find one but then it popped up when I was playing at my house.

I remember hearing that the Battle League legendaries were notoriously difficult to catch and Niantic recently had to enhance their catch rate because they would become impossible to catch if you didn't have enough resources.

What's the Attack IV on either? If you have max attack on 2* keep going otherwise forget about the sunk cost phallacy and hold off. A weather boosted Zekrom comes in at 2800 so you can catch up relatively quickly if you raid one during wet weather. I made a similar mistake with mine where it's 3 star but it's IVs are 12/11/15. I now have one that's 15/13/13 that would have been a better investment. However with that said, I did need a strong dragon type for the raids and having it has made subsequent raids so much easier.

The 2* I've powered up is 15-14-9. 3* is 14-15-13. Maybe the extra HP isn't such a big deal. Keep the 2*!

All told I really enjoyed the Dragonspiral event. There were plenty of uncommon Pokemon to farm up, I was able to get all the available dex entries and I got a shiny Dratini out of it.

I didn't intend to, but I actually got pretty involved in the Magmar event and managed to catch a shiny while grocery shopping. I actually accidentally exited out of it as well when the screen was absolutely crowded but I was able to find the fairy floss over-sized duck again.

I haven't really played much of the Holidays event. I do enjoy the additional Gift capacity because I've lost track of the amount of times I've reached some Pokestops for the first time but haven't had any room to get the gift. Otherwise I caught all the new Pokemon within 10 minutes and spent the rest of the time hitting up Pokestops for more balls. I should be more active after Community Day especially since Delibird gives 500 Stardust, Swinub is a handy dual type raid attacker and I still need to get Vanilluxe for the Dex.

Speaking of Com Day, Day 1 is in the books and I went crazy. I started first thing which happened to be in the middle of a hot sweaty Brisbane day with the phone struggling to play the game in the heat and the glare coming off the phone. I soldiered through and had a good session where I caught all the shiny forms and farmed plenty of candy for Gible and Machop. I even went to the trouble of Mega Evolving Steelix again for the +1 candy bonus on Gible. Ordinarily, that alone would have been a good session...but this is com day. I treated it like a Test match, after lunch, I had another session where I farmed even more candy for Gible and Machop plus got some egg hatches I was after. I finally got the Elekid dex entry which I wanted in November and hatched a shiny Porygon as well. I wasn't necessarily hunting for shinies, there were a lot of Pokemon I didn't even bother to check but ended up with 29 in total for the day.

Still have Day 2 tomorrow. I'll see how I pull up, but I'll try to get in an afternoon session before calling it.

How did everyone else go with the December Community Day?

It wrapped here a couple of hours ago and after waiting months for it, I'm pretty satisfied with my haul. I got all the shiny forms, farmed around 1300 Gible candy, got a couple of event day exclusive moves and got some really nice hatches as well. The shiny Porygon obviously tops the lot, but Elekid was the one I was holding out for so I was really glad to get that after missing out during the Festival of Lights.

I had 39 shinies for the weekend, but right as I was coming home, a shiny event Pikachu spawned to make it 40.

All in all it was a good event and for me a nice way to cap off my return. I can see myself taking it a little easier especially since the next couple of events seem to be fairly forgettable.

I don't know how many Pokemon you must catch to get the shiny forms for everything, but it must be a lot. 1300 Gible candies means you caught what, 300 Gibles? I only have three shinies in total but didn't get any yesterday.

I spent maybe 45 minutes walking around for Community Day. Didn't have any specific goals, just catching whatever spawned. Lots of Swablus appearing, I'm trying to get an Altaria now so it was nice to get some of those candies.

Starting to lose interest in Pokemon Go to be honest. It's getting to the point where it's not all that fun and it's starting to take over my life in a negative way. I'm trying to think of how often I actually enjoy playing Pokemon Go, and how much I'm playing because of some dopamine-hit compulsion. Gotta admit Pokemon Go is extremely good at that. At first it was good at getting me out of the house when I otherwise wouldn't have, which is a benefit, but recently it is taking over too much.

The only thing I really enjoy is Battle League. On the surface it seems like an exercise in mashing but the strategy is surprisingly deep. It's limited how much you can play in a day, but that's a good thing.

The conclusion to my ramblings is that I'm getting closer and closer to quitting again.

Dec 19, 2021 10:07:43 GMT Emperor said:

I don't know how many Pokemon you must catch to get the shiny forms for everything, but it must be a lot. 1300 Gible candies means you caught what, 300 Gibles? I only have three shinies in total but didn't get any yesterday.

I spent maybe 45 minutes walking around for Community Day. Didn't have any specific goals, just catching whatever spawned. Lots of Swablus appearing, I'm trying to get an Altaria now so it was nice to get some of those candies.

Starting to lose interest in Pokemon Go to be honest. It's getting to the point where it's not all that fun and it's starting to take over my life in a negative way. I'm trying to think of how often I actually enjoy playing Pokemon Go, and how much I'm playing because of some dopamine-hit compulsion. Gotta admit Pokemon Go is extremely good at that. At first it was good at getting me out of the house when I otherwise wouldn't have, which is a benefit, but recently it is taking over too much.

The only thing I really enjoy is Battle League. On the surface it seems like an exercise in mashing but the strategy is surprisingly deep. It's limited how much you can play in a day, but that's a good thing.

The conclusion to my ramblings is that I'm getting closer and closer to quitting again.

I had a look at the Pokedex and apparently I've caught 194. I think I started off with 20 or so candy so I'm prepared to say it was mid-high 180s. The trick is that I used the mega evolve bonus candy trick and fed a lot of pinaps, so each Gible was potentially worth 8 candy per catch (7 on catch + 1 on release).

I'm surprised you stuck around as long as you did. I'm glad you gave it another go because the game is in a better state than what it was in 2016 and deserved a second look but ultimately it's a free to play mobile game so there is an emptiness to it. I can see myself winding down on the game as well and only checking in on select events. If the game reverts to it's previous states and it makes remote raids less effective I can see definitely see myself going weeks without playing.

How often are you mega evolving? I've literally only been able to mega evolve once since I started playing. Getting that energy is nearly impossible.

I am more able to understand how you caught so many shinies. I've caught three today, doubling the number of shinies I've ever got before. Two of them are the same Pokemon (Oshawott), and a shiny Swablu. It's kinda cool, but serves little purpose besides being a collectible. Just like the event Pokemon. At least shinies have a cool appearance. Well except Oshawott whose shiny form looks almost the same as normal. Maybe it will get better if I evolve it.