Pokemon Go

Yeah, my rare candy goes exclusively to powering up legendaries I've gotten worth using. At the moment, I'm actually working on Articuno - a bit niche, I know, but I got one two weeks ago that had maxed HP and Attack, and it already had the moveset I wanted, so it seemed criminal to not want to use it. My next choice is going to be my shiny Kyogre, because it's a freaking shiny Kyogre; I shouldn't need to explain that one.

But yeah, I also mostly just level my stuff to 30 because of the diminishing returns issue. I do have a couple exceptions, though. My Machamps are basically maxed out because I need them to keep up with the stuff that they're best at taking down. I have a Rock Smash/Stone Edge Rhydon that I keep buffing in part because it's just good and in part because it's my all-purpose Blissey breaker (yes, depending on moveset, I have others that are better at getting through one, but this Rhydon is pretty solid at taking one out regardless of move set). I've been working on my shiny Aggron in part for bragging rights and in part because I have high hopes that he can join Aggron in Blissey breaking (also, he's doing a yeoman's job on Regice, which is nice). Finally, my best Dragonite is also buffed out.

So, how long till gen. 4 comes out?

It hasn't really been that long since Gen 3's basically been completely integrated in the game. I'd guess this winter at the earliest.

Does make me wonder how Lucario is going to end up working since Riolu is a babymon who'll likely only hatch out of eggs like the other ones. Will that be the only way to get a Riolu (and thus a Lucario)?

I think the game is mocking me. My raid chat notified me of a Bagon spawn today, but... it was about a ten-minute drive away when I'd have to duck out of work, run down to my car and then spend time going both ways. All when the spawns were about to change, so there was no guarantee it'd stick around. Life was all, "Hey, buddy, wanna gamble?" I said, "No."

Also got my hands the quest for three Excellents in a row for Larvitar. I needed the candy, so I went for it, but problem is that my quest backlog queue was out of Wailmers. Trying to find targets for it today was miserable. The game wanted to spawn almost nothing but Geodudes, Snubbles, Nidoran males and Mankeys, which are awful for consistency. I can hit Excellents every so often, but they're annoying enough that even my Great curve hits aren't terribly consistent against them. For whatever reason, I'm super proficient at hitting curved Excellents against Ponyta, but I need sunny weather to see a lot of them and my area loves cloudy/partially cloudy. In the end, I got it off of a Furret, then a Tauros, then a quest Slowpoke. And yes, the game decided to troll me and have the throws cap the Furret and Tauros so I couldn't farm off of them breaking out. >.>

Wild Togetic happen. Togetic had the exact same situation as Lucario.

Well, so far, there has been approximately an 8-10 month spacing between generation releases. That said, it was 8 months before Gen 2 and 10 months before Gen 3's general release (though 8 months for its limited release). Based on that (and the release of Gen 3 in December, 2017), the logical conclusion would be that sometime in August (or maybe September) might see a limited release of a very small number of Gen 4 'mons (though probably things that are evolutions or pre-evolutions of things from Gens I-III, so maybe the likes of Rhyperior or Budew), with a wider release in October/November for much of Gen 4.

As for Lucario, it's probably worth noting that, unlike most baby forms, wild Riolu do exist. I wouldn't count on them being common - in fact, I'd expect them to be rather rare - but I could see them as wild spawns.

Okay, so don't panic, but we MAY be getting Squirtle Squad.

I mean, a Squirtle with sunglasses would be easy enough to put in there (we have how many Pikachus in hats now?), but I think people are reading too much into this one.

People have been asking for Squirtle Squad ever since Pikachu started getting hats. If they don't deliver after showing a teaser image of Squirtle picking up a pair of sunglasses, the internet is going to riot.

When is the Internet ever not rioting?

If it ever crashes, that'll stop the Internet from rioting. Okay, maybe it'd result in the rioting being taken to the streets, but the Internet itself won't be rioting.

Given I was never a fan of the anime, though, I honestly couldn't care less. Just let me have my shiny Squirtle and I'm all good.

So, Dortmund Safari Zone is this weekend, as is the Global Research Challenge. Each region that completes the necessary number of research tasks (100K for Dortmund attendees, 5M for each other third of the globe) will unlock a separate global exp bonus. They've also revealed the special prize if all four goals are met: Articuno will return to raids on July 7th for three hours with its shiny form available, and gyms will drop 5 free passes instead of 1 that day.

...so the bonuses are shiny birds. Underwhelming, to say the least.

Oh yeah. Roselia will be more common this weekend, and it's shiny form will be available.

Edited by Anura on Jun 29th 2018 at 10:10:49 AM

The extra raid passes and actually using them is still worth EXP and extra Rare Candy and TMs. Plus, candy specific to the bird. The birds will also come at level 20 (maybe 25 very specific places in the north), which is a significant amount of resources above the ones from the research tasks.

Also, if the other events do Moltres and Zapdos, I wouldn't mind having Moltres, since I missed it entirely. More than one Zapdos might also be cool.

Asia/Pacific has already completed their challenge. Lucky Eggs will last an hour in the week starting July 2nd.

It only took them 7 hours to finish 5,000,000 field research tasks. Japan is overpowered.

Edited by Anura on Jun 30th 2018 at 12:18:04 PM

I heard North America cleared ours fast as well. Not sure about power, but we have numbers. (EDIT: I have since learned that wasn't true, but we did apparently hit the halfway poiny in 5 hours.)

I hadn't heard about shiny Roselia ahead of time, so you can imagine my shock when I encountered (and caught) two consecutively. And shortly after I hatched my first Alolan Grimer (from Anura, no less - thanks!) too. My raid luck was solid (3 for 4) and I found a Chansey research quest. A banner day for me.

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Jun 30th 2018 at 9:00:20 AM

Yeah, Euorpe’s the slow one.

So, Chrales (a notable dataminer) found something interesting about Go Fest. This is pretty heavy spoilers if you’re planning to go. Go Fest will be getting a special set of localised Special Research; attendees will be the first in the world to get Celebi.

All the tasks are done. Next week will be exp madness, with Shiny Articuno on Saturday.

I was out all day yesterday looking for Shiny Roselia, only to find one in my house that night. Turns out they boosted the shiny rate about 12 hours ago.

Edited by Anura on Jul 1st 2018 at 9:09:35 AM

Sunglasses Squirtle confirmed! You won't find them in the wild though; they're a reward for completing Field Research. It's uncertain if it keeps the shades when it evolves like Pikachu's hats, or if they can have shades and be shiny.

Edited by Anura on Jul 2nd 2018 at 10:05:13 AM

So, as an apology for the network issues in Dortmund on Saturday, Corsola will appear all over Europe for the next two days. Some have pointed out that the Dortmund attendees themselves actually lost trade value from this move, since Corsola was one of the main draws to the event and now everyone back home will already have one.

Yeah, that's pretty lame. They should credit a max-IV Corsola to each attendee's account or something. They've got the full list for it, anyway.

So, with bonuses in play today, I went hard with my raid group (though not nearly as hard as some of them...). Highlights of the day:

• 420k XP, which was gained only going about 60% as hard as the main raid group that kept it up all day.
• Booping a pony with an egged, curved Excellent first catch netted me a whopping 1560 XP. Theoretically, this could climb to 2160 with the AR+'s Expert Handler bonus.
• I have a potential out for my dragon quest. If I can find the one for doing a Tier 3 raid with an encounter reward, I can get a Dratini with which to get my Dratini.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention the Pikachu quest coughed up a 100% for me after the game giving me nothing better than 76% for all the wild ones I've caught to date. On top of that, managed to stack two Chansey quests together, which was a little crazy. Too bad the Chansey were both only 80% (I'm less picky if something has high starting level, but since the quest rewards are fixed at 15...) and still didn't give me enough candy for a Blissey, anyhow. Embarrassing to think I forgot such good quest luck.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Jul 2nd 2018 at 12:43:35 PM

Wait, is the extra XP going on right now? I thought it was starting on the 14th?

Nope, the bonuses from Dortmund are July 2, 1PM PT to 9, 1PM PT.

I just earned another 220k over lunch from an egged Regice catch, proccing five Great Friends, catching all incidentals on the way to get food, then doing a mini-mass evolve on a handful of trash 'Mons.

Well, I just suddenly caught a Camerupt that just appeared near my house, with a relatively high IV as well. Its moves are Rock Smash and Solar Beam, which seem bad for Camerupt though.

Camerupt really prefers to run its fire set, yes. Solar Beam is apparently pretty okay just because the move itself is really powerful, but mixed typing between the fast and charged moves is usually not so great.

Caught my self a 100% IV Snorlax through research!