Pokemon Go

The Pv P patch's super effectiveness buff now allows for true solos of Absol and Tyranitar.

Ho-oh and Lugia are back for the weekend.

Again? Where's my jet dragon rerun?

I still don't have either one of them, so I'm not complaining. Maybe I'll actually get one of them this weekend.

Speaking of legendaries, I've finally started playing again since my new phone can run the app more effectively than my previous phone. I've gotten two legendaries from the research breakthroughs: a Suicune and a Zapdos.

Do all research breakthroughs give legendaries? I know December is the month of legendary beasts and birds, but I was wondering if previous months also had legendary encounters as breakthrough awards.

They're 7/9 for legendaries from Research Breakthroughs. They did the birds one at a time, then Body Slam Snorlax, then the beasts one at a time, then Shedinja, which brings us to the bird/beast rerun.

Gotcha. Still glad there's another way of getting legendaries other than raid battles. I've never been able to find a big enough group to take on legendary raids where I live.

Heck, the highest level of raids I've beaten is three (a Scyther), and that was because one other person was there at the time.

You may find raids easier down the line. Super effective damage got buffed from x1.4 to x1.6, so as long as people as strategizing, it'll take less to win.

I should probably mention that I've only been in two raids where someone else was also present. The other raid I was in was against a Croconaw that also just happened to have one other person present at the time.

I've solo'd most of my raids outside the handfuls of times where I got lucky and found people also doing a raid or went raiding with my family members who also play Go.

I don't even try to solo four-star plus raids because I know I'll never win. I tried soloing a Alolan Marowak raid recently and only sliced off about a third of his health before I was about out of time and just gave up.

I generally only try to solo a 3-star raid if either it's a fairly low CP (like Alolan Raichu), they have a double weakness (like the Scyther I did the other day), or I have a weather boost for one of my strongest (I'll do Machamp solo if it's windy). That said, the boost to super effective attacks (and subsequent boost to defense for resistance) has me feeling a bit more bold. I may finally get off my butt and finish boosting my Machamps to beyond level 30 and see if I too can solo Tyranitar and Absol (because heaven only knows that spending the candy on a second move for Machamp is going to be useless unless it gets new coverage moves - Heavy Slam is not cutting it).

Hey, I surprised someone in PvP the yesterday. Gengar came out and I exploded it with Heavy Slam. >.>

Alolan Marowak probably isn't possible as a solo. It's simply too tanky and only has a single weakness. A full team of Gengar could probably put a sizable dent in it, but I'd be skeptical of their ability to beat the timer, even given foggy weather.

For Absol and Tyranitar, the Machamaps are going to need to be close to 40, if not 40, with 15 Atk. Cloudy weather is also a requirement. The videos I linked are pretty close battles, with no real serious danger of the Machamps wiping (good dodges are still required to prevent wasting energy), so it's all about the DPS.

Note that those two are only even possible because Absol has trash Def and Tyranitar has a double weakness that completely negates its otherwise good tankiness. Houndoom may actually be harder, or even impossible, compared to Absol, simply because it has a bit more Def and doesn't have the double weakness that Tyranitar does. For comparison, Alolan Marowak has a full 50% more Def than Absol.

Edited by KuroiTsubasaTenshi on Dec 14th 2018 at 10:43:46 AM

Hrm... given that, looking over the past Tier 4 raid list (particularly since raids have a habit of cycling), it looks like the possible solo-capable tier 4s would be Charizard (between the community day Tyranitars and double-rock Rhyperiors, probably the easiest of the ones I can find), Golem, Alolan Exeggutor, maybe Rhydon (despite the two double weaknesses, the state of Grass attackers suggests to me only by Water types like Waterfall/Hydro Pump Kyogre), and maybe Aggron (while not the offensive threat that Tyranitar is, its defensive stats might let it wall out even an army of Machamps and/or Groudons, depending on weather).

That said, looking at tier 3 raids, I want a comeback of Omastar and Kabutops. I was so close to soloing them in the past; the super effective boost (and the possibility of Roserade) has me thinking my time might finally be here against those two in sunny weather.

Got my first couple of Meltans. Those little critters are really adorable, though I burned through pretty much every Pokeball I had catching as many as I could.

Now to wait a week before doing it again. Melmetal is going to take a while, but at least I have a reliable source of Meltans; still a little sore Magikarps and Swablus aren't showing up as often as I would like.

Holiday event announced.

• Lasts from the 18th (Tuesday) to the 2nd of January.
• More Ice-type Pokemon, including shiny Snorunt.
• Delibird returns, as does presumably Santa Hat Pikachu. It's been confirmed elsewhere that Delibird can also be shiny this year.
• 7km eggs will contain Azurill, Smoochum and Munchlax (which is new).
• Bonuses:
  • For the entire event, 1-use incubators will drop from stops once per day.
  • From the 18th to the 22nd, catch and transfer candy is doubled.
  • From the 22nd to the 26th, catch stardust is doubled.
  • From the 26th to the 30th, catch XP is doubled.
  • From the 30th to the 2nd, eggs will hatch twice as fast.
• Some more new Gen 4 Pokemon are seen in the picture that aren't mentioned in the text: Croagunk, Snover, Abomasnow, Chingling, and the Legendary trio of Lake Guardians, Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf.

Edited by Anura on Dec 14th 2018 at 2:44:23 PM

Daily incubators is always a welcome bonus. I have a bunch of 7k and 10k eggs right now anyway. Looking forward to finding a Croagunk (though I suspect it's going to end up being Raid/Egg-only like Shinx and Riolu).

>Shiny Snorunt

That's odd. My sister and I saw a shiny Glalie in a Gym about a couple of weeks ago. Have shiny Snorunts always been in and they're just the spotlight Shiny Pokémon for this event? (Or was that a case of monkey business?)

Edited by kablammin45 on Dec 15th 2018 at 11:38:37 AM

I might have seen someone being excited about getting one and assumed they were new. That's on me.

Also, the Chinese news alert has confirmed that Chingling, Mantyke and Riolu will be added to 7km eggs as well.

I have seen shiny Snorunts since last year. I haven't gotten one, but several people put them in gyms for bragging rights locally (we do get plenty of snowy days, so Snorunt in general isn't a rare spawn during the winter). So far, I haven't seen any new spawns, but the event technically hasn't started yet.

Nabbed Lugia from a Raid today. Doesn't have the greatest stats, but whatevs, I'm just happy to get another Legendary outside of Special Research awards.

Speaking of which, I finally landed an Excellent curveball on a Suicune I got as a reward for completing special research and am now one Mew richer as well.

Edited by kablammin45 on Dec 17th 2018 at 3:24:27 PM

Oof, the Excellent Curve quests. So, so frustrating. Outside of research rewards, there are a couple of encounters (most notably, Wailmer) that I beeline for if I have one of those quests.

Unrelated, I'm hearing rumors that one of the special costumes this winter is a Snorlax with a scarf, so look out for that.

I find Tauros works pretty well for those, too.

Ponyta are also really good. Sentrat and Zigzagoon are actually pretty easy targets with a bit of practice. If you can find them, Onix is great and Ursaring is nearly impossible to miss one on.

Oh, right, forgot to post this.Deoxys will be in its Attack Forme from now on.

"Stronger than ever" they say. No. This is soloable. This is a soloable T5. Deoxys-A has less bulk than Caterpie. Hits like the moon, but that doesn't even matter.

Well, it is stronger—just not more durable.

@Herald Yeah, Tauros is pretty easy to hit with an excellent curve, but as not all of us are in North America (Anura, for example, isn't), I don't want to recommend people hunting down regionals.

@Kuroi Those are all fairly solid choices, too. Ponyta seem to be feast-or-famine in terms of spawning (I seldom see them, but when I do, they're everywhere), and honestly, I find Caterpie/Weedle/Wurmple a tad easier than Sentret or Zigzagoon (particularly the latter, which tends to be a bit jumpy in my experience). That might be due to personal style, though. Onix, I honestly find a bit tricky because its hitbox is weird. Also, it's a fairly rare spawn outside of nests. Ursaring is also a bit on the rare side (not surprising, since it's an evolution), and you also have to adapt to its EXTREME CLOSEUP placement. That said, once you do, it's perhaps the easiest target of all (plus, it's so close, you almost never have to worry about it doing the attack animation mid-throw).

Oh, another "rare, but fairly large circle" choice is Sudowoodo. If you have the "3 excellent curves in a row" quest, they're one of the best choices if you can find one, because they have a habit of breaking out.

On the flip side, I probably don't have to say it, but the absolute worst one to try an excellent curve on is Zubat. I once did, but it was such a fluke (it dodged into the throw) that I wish I had a video of it. Another I find particularly tricky is Dunsparce - rare, small, stands a bit far back... for all that I've had luck finding and catching them, I've had the worst aim against them.