Pokemon Go

I see shines as a nice bonus, but never worth the hassle to try and get one.

Getting all the shinies is a pretty unrealistic goal. I know a couple people who whale pretty hard every time there's a new egg shiny and while they have an insane collection, they're far from 100% on all the events. Hell, I've only seriously gone for about a dozen shinies of my most favourite designs and that's been stupid hard enough to get as is.

I don't specifically go after shinies, mostly because there are very few shiny Pokemon I prefer over original colors. I won't say no to a shiny encounter, but I'm not going out of my way to look for them.

The only time I hope shinies appear are in Legendary raids, and that's mostly because of the boosted catch rate.

I don't hunt shinies, per se. I tend to prioritize trying to catch things that are shiny that I don't have yet, but I don't go out of my way either. If I have an empty slot for an egg at the moment, sure, I'll grab a 7 km, and if a possible shiny spawns near me, I'll prioritize catching it over most other things (unless I really need the candy of the other thing). But beyond that, let what may come.

That's pretty much how I roll in regards to shinies as well.

Ironic that in the middle of this discussion I hatched a shiny Feebas. I've been walking my regular Feebas for months for the candies to evolve it for the Jirachi quest. The egg candies pushed me over the finish line. So, do I evolve my regular Milotic now, or walk 20km more to evolve the shiny, knowing either way that I'll probably never get around to evolving the one I don't pick?

Whichever one has the best stats, evolve that one. If it is the shiny, great! Grind the other for candy. If it is the normal, non-shiny, then hold the shiny Feebas as great trading fodder for someone else to hopefully get what you want in return!

Don’t do much trading, but that’s good advice. Thanks.

Hmm... that's interesting. So, they announced when Safari Zone Philadelphia goes live, and there are two wrinkles that weren't there when I did Safari Zone Montreal.

One, there will be an early access period to do the event an extra two hours, for an extra $6. The price is not bad, although after how rough I ran myself in Montreal in three hours (I nearly walked an entire marathon that day, and damn I felt it), I feel like I'd be torturing myself. On the other hand, it's long enough that I feel like I could afford to pop over to Reading Terminal Market and take a break without major FOMO hitting me.

Two, there's also a weekend-long City Explorer pass (that you can only buy if you also buy the Safari Zone pass... that sucks for locals), that lasts 72 hours and gives access to 10 free raids (as in, no need to spend passes) that include the Legendary Birds, the current 5-star and EX Raid 'mons (obviously not announced yet... and I can't predict, because it seems like the kami trio and Regigigas will have a solid shot of being rotated out completely by then), Braviary (since Rufflet will get its release in conjunction with the event), and a couple other raids, one each of the four difficulty ratings.

It also includes exclusive research, bonuses on incubators, and incense/lure duration increases while in Philly, but that mostly just sounds like "a 72-hour Community Day without a featured 'mon, and only while in Philadelphia." I'm kinda debating it. It's going to be the same price as the "A Colossal Discovery" ticket, and just like that one, it's going to include an EX Raid 'mon, but it includes a bunch of others as well, plus some other minor benefits. At the same time, though, I still feel like it might be a rip-off (particularly for me as I'd only be hanging around about 24 hours, and a chunk of that would be to visit friends/family). Also, going to call it now - one of the City Explorer raids is going to be a four-star Bronzong to be fought at the Liberty Bell, and there will be a three-star Fighting-type (most likely Hitmonchan) at the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

As a minor note, I'm somewhat disappointed at the announced list of featured 'mons for it. I totally get the theme... but getting stuck with Mr. Mime as the foreign regional for the event is kind of lame when American players have already had multiple events to get one (though I guess if Mime Jr. can hatch, maybe it won't be so bad). And Mr. Mime doesn't really fit the theme at all (unless they surprise us by releasing Galarian Mr. Mime). Also, I really hope more than just P Unown is available; after other events I've seen have spawn at least three letters, it'd be a shame if H, I, L, and Y weren't also available (and not just because I lack all of those, whereas I do have a P).

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Feb 21st 2020 at 3:36:42 PM

Surprises me that the early access thing wasn't implemented to Safari Zones earlier, since it was there as an option for the Go Fests (well, "option", since we got drawn late enough that those were all already sold out). I'd personally get it if I was attending the event, since $6 is a drop in a bucket compared to all the other costs of getting there and doing it.

Had nothing to do so I gave PVP another try. A LOT of close ones. Won 4 out 5. Got a bunch of charged TMs and a Snorlax.

For locals, even, the cost might be negligible. It's effectively $4 per hour for the main ticket, but only an additional $3/hour for the extra two hours. The costs are comparatively negligible for me accounting for travel, but that's partly because a) it's not that far from me, and b) I have family in the area, so I go there not-infrequently as-is. I think it might boil down to when I get my ticket for - particularly on days off, I tend to sleep late, so if my "early bird" access would run from, say, 8-10 am, I'd probably prefer to skip it.

Well, if it's anything like Go Fest, regular tickets would get in at 11, so your early access would run 9-11.

While you're there, you should play the Safari Zone theme the whole time

Might not have a choice on that one. Go Fest had the sound system blasting a Let's Go play list the entire time. As much as I like the track, Cerulean City's theme was always jarring because it was roughly twice as loud as any other given track.

Why did they move community day this month to a Saturday?

Because fucked if we know. And on the subject of community days, I gotten a nearly perfect IV Ryhorn and a few shiny ones. Now I got a Ryperion and a shiny second one.

Pretty good community day, lot of Rhyhorns. Four shinies - what do people actually do with the spares? It's not as if they're rare, everyone seems to get a few. I Vs not amazing, no actual three stars. Still don't have a perfect IV anything though, beggars can't be chosers.

Community Day is typically on Saturdays. It's always the enigma when they're on a Sunday. Not sure why they change them around, though.

Most of my shinies came late with only one dropping in the first hour. I evolved something dumb like 10 Rhyperiors (2 shiny), in part because I'm drowning in Sinnoh Stones. One of them was a 100% I'd been holding for... something like eight months now. I'd gotten it when I already had a full team of Ground Rhyperiors and really didn't want to spend any additional dust for a marginal IV upgrade, so it just kinda sat there.

For those who don't trash them, I usually see people do Lucky Trade shiny swaps.

Originally, CD would alternate between Saturday twice then Sunday twice. That was the pattern for most of 2018, the first year to have CDs. 2019 had Saturdays for the first four months, than alternated Saturday and Sunday. Both times the pattern broke near the year's end (not counting December, which has been the entire weekend both times). Too early to tell what they're doing now. But yeah, it's been Saturday almost twice as often as Sunday.

Edited by Anura on Feb 22nd 2020 at 12:32:40 PM

I forgot to mention that during my walk in the park, I actually ran into a group of people that were farming Ryhorns. The (I'm assuming) dad in the group told me about a near perfect IV Ryhron that he just caught and where it was. Sure enough, he was right when I caught it.

Got Scraggy. Man power up punch Lucario is good for fishing early barriers.

I've been using scizor for farming the shields, until it was just too squishy. Currently running hariyama, ampharos, and snorlax because people are throwing giratinas and the occasional rayquaza that I can't really handle with other setups.

I went rhyhorn hunting in the last thirty minutes of the event and managed to nab three shinies plus a couple of good IV ones.

And then I forgot to evolve them after the event because I was playing Total War: Three Kingdoms.

I ended up evolving out four Rhyperiors - one shiny, one 14-15-15, one for Great League use, and one for Ultra League use (though that one, I have to level up more before it's usable). I also got just a ton of stardust, which was greatly helped out by the fact that it was sunny for all of CD locally, so popping a few star pieces really let me rake in the dust. As for my pull... uh... ten shiny Rhyhorn. This is appropriate, because the Rhyhorn line has long been one of my faves (I even used one in a Nintendo-run R/B/Y tourney!).

I also had perhaps my worst run (and hopefully, what will remain the worst run) in trying to find Giovanni. Just before CD started, I finally found/beat Sierra to open up the "find Giovanni" portion of the monthly Rocket quests. I then proceeded to find eighteen Decoy Rockets (stretching to both Saturday and Sunday) before finding Gio. And when I did, I had to fight that awful, evil Hippowdon he can carry around. Ah well, shadow Raikou liberated.

Also, I know I'm unlikely to see anyone from this forum there, but I got my ticket to Philly. They opened it up twice as long as Montreal - this one is going to be six hours long instead of three (thus, I decided not to get the early bird access... heck, I'm not 100% sure I'll make six hours of play). I also decided to skip the City Explorer pass; I want to have time to be social with family and friends in the area.

Welp, they're up to Master League now.

Mewtwos, Mewtwos everywhere!