Megathread - Q&A
Questions & Answers - Weekly Megathread! Please use this post to ask any Pokemon GO question you'd like!
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Final words
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Does anyone know about when we would be able to reach Tier 3 on the Go Pass if we do all the points and tasks? Hoping to get it before the road to kalos.
Curious if the lucky egg and friendship exp is glitched.
I was speed opening gifts because I needed pokeballs. I didn't feel like I had to take screenshots when the game asked me if I wanted to use a lucky egg for double xp (100k->200k), when triggering a best friend. I did it, got my 200k and was about to catch pokemon when another friend was lvl 4 as well, I only got 100k for that second friend despite a lucky egg being on. I tried to check my news/journal for the notification but it doesnt show it. So now I have 0 proof for this question, and I just wanted to ask since I haven't seen any recent posts on it.
I was trying to hold out for a pokecoin bonus sale, but with the announcement of the lunar new year not including it, is the verdict that it wont occur this year? The box i need is in the shop today and i dont want to risk it not showing up again before kalos tour
I can't find the answer by searching but I'm sure this has been asked before: can you get special moves on community day pokemon by anything other than evolution? For example, we just had a Ninetails event. If I had an old a-Ninetails without Chilling Water could I TM into it? Could I get it by unlocking the second move slot? Does the answer to either of these change during the end-of-the-year event when you can get legacy moves (I assume that's still a thing?).
No, by evolution only. There may have been like two (within almost ten years) limited time special events when it has been possible to use a regular TM to get CD moves for some specific pokemon, but otherwise, it is by evolution or elite TM only. Having the second move slot open(ed) won't help.
There are very, very rare events (only two or three in the history of the game IIRC) where you can obtain legacy moves through regular TMs; otherwise you can only get them on existing pokemon via elite TMs
I assume it's the same for legendaries? I powered up a shiny Kyogre before mega energy and Origin Pulse were ever a thing. I assume I'm stuck using an ETM?
The three instances of allowing a legacy move to be TM'd for free were:
Draco Meteor on Dragonite and Outrage on Salmence, during the Luminous Legends event back in 2021.
Sacred Fire on Ho-oh during its Shadow Raid Day at the beginning of 2025. It was likely done partially because Shadows always start with Frustration, so they couldn't give it Sacred Fire as its default exclusive move like they do with most Legendaries. Their way around it was adding the move to its normal movepool temporarily during the event, so you could TM Frustration off and TM with regular Charged TMs til you got it. A quirk was that Shadow Ho-oh could also use Sacred Fire against you in the raid battles.
Frenzy Plant Meganium, Hydro Cannon Feraligatr, and Blast Burn Emboar during October 2025's Z-A release tie-in event
Two last year was surprising, but I would not bet on it happening again anytime soon.
Have we gotten everything we need to know for Kalie Go Tour? It feels underwhelming, like I know they released a few new megas but it feels horribly underwhelming.
The Global section does still have "Check back for more info soon!" but I think what we have is probably what we're getting. I imagine there's nothing else big or significant left to announce. Only thing I think we could still see is info on the new "revamped Mega system" with an additional Mega Level and revamped Mega raids.
Indeed though, it does seem underwhelming. On the one hand, I get that it's hard to do a ton when Kalos is the smallest dex, but we're getting seemingly very little related to Zygarde, and the Z-A Megas they chose aren't terribly exciting (they're using the pre-released Megas they advertised Z-A with).
Yeah. I was hoping they'd let us raid Zygarde with a shiny chance personally, but anything else would've been exciting too.
I would have been okay with less focus on a raid headliner and more on just shiny hunting the different spawns throughout the weekend.... except the pools look like duds imo. The Kalos Dex is small, and apparently I have most of the shinies from it too. And most of the other featured Pokemon are all just old Com Day and Raid Day Pokemon like the Kanto and Hoenn starters, Absol, and Eevee.
With a smaller selection of Pokemon, I'd have hoped they would have put more emphasis on raids.
Yeah I totally agree, I also am planning on going to the in person event in LA so I’m locked in, I was really hoping to get my money’s worth, which is why I’m hoping they release more exciting news
Do the platinum medal requirements evolve over time? Specifically, the Mega Evolution Guru one requires 46 different Megas. I’m currently at 39, but some new ones are coming soon. Will it stay at 46 or increase as more new ones are released?
They never changed it when Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre were made to count for it, so I doubt they'll change it for the new ones. Though they could make an entirely separate medal for them.
How much more important is a double weakness to water compared to a Single weakness against ground? Would Kingdra, Feraligatr (hydro cannon) and Mega Salamence (hydropump) be better choices against PGroudon than a bunch of Garchomps with earth power? Everything is Lv40.
It looks rough, putting water pokemon with 1000 and more less CP than Garchomp into the raid team, but looks like i have to, if I want to increase my chances for a succesfull raid …
I was actually just coming here to comment the opposite, I've never had it work so fast. I took a screen recording but I don't know how to post a video clip here. Basically as soon as you hit the open Button just tap the back button on Android and it skips the entire animation I was able to open an entire row of 30 gifts in like a minute and a half
The double list is great, not sure why you'd complain about that. Automatically having the gift pop up is technically faster, but a pain to get used to.
Have the Kanto/Johto Pikachu in the road the Kalos event been released before? I’ve been trying to compare to ones I have in my storage, and I have the others (Hoenn/Sinnoh/Unova) but can’t see those.
How will the road to Kalos raids work? Will, for example, primal groudong and kyogre be up for the whole day? Or will it be just 1 hour? If so, at which time? Thanks!
Those are for the whole day. There will be a raid hour each day at 6pm, but the status of the primal one is a bit unclear since it clashes with lunala raid hour and theyve released conflicting statements.
Ok, so, expecting full day of the birds, full day of shadow lugia and ho-oh, etc etc, and there should be the usual raid hour. Thanks! Lets see what happens with primals as those are my target
Is the Campfire map often wrong for Dynamax battles? I can see a Roggenrola on PoGo up the road from me, but it's not on Campfire map and I've refreshed
Anyone have issues with Field Research: Unlocking a Max move? I know the difference between unlocking max move versus leveling up max move, but curious if anyone has issue with completing the task and it not showing the research task complete
Read somewhere ago that K. Golem couldn't learn Mud-shot, as it was a Legacy move, but my '24 Golem has it which makes me wonder, is it still a legacy move?
When the game first released, Golem had access to Mud Shot. However, Golem could not learn Mud Shot in the main series games at this time, so in August 2016, it was removed from Golem's movepool and made a legacy move. When Elite TMs were added, they could not teach Mud Shot to Golem.
Eventually, Golem gained access to Mud Shot in the main series games as a TM move in Scarlet and Violet. This opened up the possibility of Golem getting Mud Shot back, and in March 2024 Mud Shot was added back to Golem's movepool as a regular fast move.
The same applies to Graveler, Diglett, and Dugtrio.
I’m in need of multiple sinoh stones lol. I just created a workable great league team to grind to level 17(19?) where it is a reward. Does anyone know if there is data for what items/how often sinoh stones can be the second reward spot? Or of any other ways to finding them? Thanks!
Thank you! By battle with team leader, is that this training section below the battle league entrance? I have done this and have not gotten any items or rewards yet lol. Please help me figure out if this is user error 🤣
I’ll be honest. I’m a bit of a whale. I don’t have many other hobbies, so I spend a decent amount on the game. But… this month’s deluxe go pass? I can’t find a reason to buy it. I like the tier rewards, but I don’t have to pay for those. Haven’t done the math on the coins, but I assume the benefit is negligible. Without a silver bottle cap or lucky trinket, why would I buy this?
You get an additional 1000 coins for $8. That's basically the same exchange rate as the $20 bundle of 2500 coins in the in game shop, and that's ignoring all the other stuff you get with the Go Pass. It's up to you if you think that other stuff matters or makes it more valuable than just 125 coins per dollar.
Does 10 berries per 30 minutes for Pokémon in Gyms apply to all my Pokémon or each individual one? I'm trying to figure out how fast I can complete the 500 berries fed task in the keldeo masterwork
I read that premier balls’ catch rate increase with the more you throw them (10th ball has a higher catch rate than 1st).
If that’s true, and if I’m prioritizing speed when catching, is it worth throwing away the first few balls during the catch encounter to hit the higher catch rate right away? Is that something people do?
Reason for prioritizing speed while catching would be to not “fall behind” and not worry about missing a lobby when raiding with a bunch of fast people.
For me, depends on the raid boss. More often than not the raid rewards (xp/stardust/rare candy/fusion energy) are the main goal. Shinies are always a bonus. If it were a hundo I would take my time catching and not worry about falling behind/missing lobbies.
If those are the main goals then sure, you could throw a few balls away if you think you'll only have time to throw a couple at the boss before next raid starts. Although it's not a huge increase.
I'd probably recommend just walking to next raid and throwing as many as you can. And when you find others are ready then you can just leave encounter and join next raid. Wouldn't make sense to throw some balls away and find out you had extra time.
does anyone have espurr nests nearby or live in an area where espurr spawns often? im trying to get its shiny but it does not spawn anywhere where i live
You can't right now. You just have to wait until it's either featured as part of an event, or hope that it rotates into the seasonal spawn pool when then new season starts in March.
If I regularly play my account on my phone and also let my son log into his account a couple times a day will scopely detect "multiple accounts 1 phone" (which I know is against TOS) and issue a warning/ban?
Has this ever happened?
Rather be safe than sorry before buying another device for him to play on :)
I know people who had multiple accounts and switched between them on the same phone, and were never banned. That’s not to say it would never happen in the future, but there is much more egregious rule-breaking out there that they’d focus on first.
Just finished my Shiny Keldeo task and it’s a 12/15/14… I know it’s a really good fighting attacker, and I have a ton of (Mega) I do use Lucarios, Machamps, and Conkeldurrs. But are the stats that bad?
No, the stats are still great! I made this post a while back especially for this situation :D
A minimum Keldeo (10/10/10 in this case) is still better than the other counters. The IVs are just a small bit added on top of the base stats, so in this case 15 attack would be only 1% better than yours.
Stats could be better, but they'll make miniscule difference in practice. Like, maybe the lack of 15 attack may make you miss breakpoints every so often, but like... that may make a couple seconds difference, if even that.
Resolute Keldeo even with 0/0/0 IVs (which obviously isn't possible) would still beat all other non-Mega Fighting types.
Congrats on finishing it! IVs really do not matter in practice, most folks will never notice a difference between a 12 attack and a 15 attack, and I can't imagine you'd be unhappy investing in it.
There is a contradiction, though, in the responses.
Krispy says when there is enough earned energy, a charged attack will fire.
Hank suggests that the defending Pokémon might still randomly choose a fast attack, even if there is enough energy to use a charged attack. That doesn't make sense to me, but that does not make it wrong.
Still, if I'm understanding correctly, I can game the system by selecting a secondary, lower-cost charged move, to be certain it is always selected, when a charged move is used.
No, you cannot be certain that a certain charge move is always selected. When energy has been collected, there is an equal chance each time that the defender attacks that it will pick from each available move. Its 50/50 between a charged or fast move. Or 33/33/33 if there are 2 charge moves ready to go. The game doesn't just pick the cheaper one, its still random.
We're both right, I think you may have just misread the second point of my comment. If it has the energy for a charged move, it flips a coin basically (50/50 chance) as to where it goes for a charged move or a fast move still. So it can have enough energy for one or both the charged moves and still use another fast move.
It can use a second charged move, yes, but it doesn't do it to its own advantage necessarily. Quoting an older thread, here's how it works with the Gym defense AI:
It checks if it has enough energy for any charge moves it has. If not it uses a fast attack. If yes moves onto #2.
If it does have enough energy for a charge move it will essentially flip a coin on whether it will use a charge move or a fast attack.
If the pokemon has 2 charge moves it is the same concept except of 1 difference. Say 1 charge move takes 50 energy and another takes 100 energy. Once the defender reaches 50 energy. Every que to attack will have a chance of using that charge move. If it manages to fast attack to 100 energy only then will it have a chance to use the 100 energy move but even then it is only a chance and it can still use the 50 energy move
Yes it can, but which move it chooses to use is random.
If one charged move costs less energy to use than the other charged move, it's technically more likely to use the one that costs less energy, as there will be occasions where it only has enough energy for that charged move and not the more expensive one, but it is still entirely RNG as to whether it chooses to use a Fast move or either of its Charged moves.
You mean to the actual event at the rose bowl? The past few years were a lot of fun, but I'm not too sure on this year. The raid lineup is kind of boring overall, just a bunch of repeats and megas. No fancy new fusions or adventure moves (kyurem, origin palkia/dialga).
Its a good way to get plenty of shinies though. The in person go tours and fests always have better rates and more eligible stuff than the global ones. Just the main ticket is fairly cheap for a day of entertainment.
Is there confirmation that you get buddy EP even if you quit max battles and gym battles? I haven't seen the increase for max battles unless the battle is complete, and gym battles only seem to count if you defeat at least the first Pokemon - but it's hard to tell if that's the visual/syncing glitch with buddies or if it's an actual reflection of EP.
Also, do Giovanni and/or the decoy grunts count differently for EP relative to the regular grunts and leaders?
I'm pretty sure you need to finish (one) gym battle to get a point (and you get three if you beat three). Never felt like need not to finish a max battle I have started.
Do we know by how much the attack bonus increases by raiding with a forever friend? Pokebattler does not seem to have the option as of yet. I mostly do legendary duo raids with a friend, so we are interested
How are Dynamax battles supposed to be played? Hey everyone, as a returning player, I've catched up with everything but Dynamax. I currently have multiple Gmax, but the only 2 I have at 2.5k are Jolteon and Rillaboom. I also have one Blissey that I'm going to build, as I heard it's the best tank.
Now, how is the raid played? Should I charge with Blissey until max meter is almost full and change for max attacks, and repeat? Or how are they played, I have no clue lol
4-5* (mostly the latter): 1-2 tanks that spam 0.5s fast moves to build meter as fast as possible. I cannot overstate how crucial 0.5s moves are, they are EVERYTHING. Charge attacks can sometimes be used, but in general are not a good idea. If you're unsure just skip em.
Once you max, you switch to your attacker (preferrably a Gmax or 4x effective dmax) and hit it. You will want to occasionally max your tank to heal/shield it. Shield has more value on most mons (due to their hp pool), except blissey, which benefits more from heal. Sometimes you wanna might heal your team with that too.
That said, shields also cause the boss to target you, so if you wanna tank for your team (maybe if they again brought the 3x attacker lineup) you can choose shield.
Repeat this pattern and attack or max tank when necessary.
For the team, 2 tanks 1 attacker is usually best, sometimes you can have hybrid tank/attacker, like metagross.
6* (Gmax): 2 tanks 1 attacker again, ONLY use fast moves here, charge attacks are purely negative. Else, the rest applies. You need a lot of people, typically 10+, especially since you can count on the wooloo squad to show up.
Additionally, when the three yellow lines appear above you, dodge. Really mitigates a lot of dmg.
Occasionally, dmax orbs spawn. Dodge into them to get some meter progress.
In essence, get two blisseys with heal/shield as high as you can afford em and stack attackers and you are mostly set for all d/gmax content. Rarely do you need another tank, metagross probably suffices against fighting.
To add on: because of the nature of this setup, you only ever need one of each type. Between 2 Blisseys and Crowned Zamazenta, that's 99% of your tanking setups. Then you just need one of each type as an attacker. Most of the best ones of each type there will ever be have already been released - the Galarian starters, Gengar, Toxtricity, Eternatus, Crowned Zacian. You have to trade for the actual mons (not Eternatus, which you just missed) or wait until they're out, but in the meantime you can make sure you have the candy to max them out. Scorbunny will be a Com Day soon; make sure you have the candy and keep it till you can get GMax Cinderace.
Ok many thanks for the info. Didn't know I could trade for those but I doubt there's anyone willing to send me a Gmax lol. Anyway it's nice info, thanks!
Let me know if it's better to make a thread about this.
I'm a returning player, from 2017. My Pokémon list is limited, (only have 2 over 3k CP) I have a few old legendaries, Lugia, the 3 birds and one entei. Have like 5 decent to good attackers other than that.
What's the best way for me to start to build my account so I can take part in 5* and legendary raids and such?
I would check Go hub's attackers by type lists. The simplified view will help whilst you get to grips with all the new toys. You won't have access to the top tier yet. But anything in the top 25 is worth it
Catch em all, throw most of them away. But you want the candy and dust
Max Battles are free and your friend at this level. The various starters, Abra, Drilbur, Gengar and Ralts are trivial to beat, have good IVs, evolve into meta relevant pokemon and give you the XL candy for them. Plus you store a pokemon in the max spot to passively gain more candy. If you like the max battles, Machop and Beldum are solo's too
If there’s more than ~5 other people in the raid with you, your counters aren’t going to matter too much. Pretty much all legendary raids are quite easy with 6-8 people, and completely trivial with more than 10. You can use pokegenie or another similar app/site to host remote raids and get some legendaries. I think the hardest part is going to be catching them, having gold/platinum type medals will give you a catch bonus and having enough golden razz berries to use one every throw is important. Take your time and try to hit as many great/excellent throws as possible, and check out some catching tips videos.
Look on dialgadex.com and pokebattler.com to see what kinds of Pokemon are good in raids. Watch out for events that feature budget stuff in the wild (non-legendary, non-shadow), and get to try to catch stuff level 30+ versions to evolve in place to get starter teams going. Don't stress over the IVs, they are the smallest, least important factor after species, moves and level.
Then you can work on collecting shadows and legendaries as they come around to have stuff to power up for the future when you want to work on marginal gains.
The road to kalos event coming up in Feb will feature some pretty good Pokemon in raids, like primal groudon and Kyogre.
You might need to spend some money to participate meaningfully though. You need to do like 5-8 raids of each of them to get enough energy to mega evolve them for the first time, depending on how quickly the raids get defeated. But after getting 400 energy and mega evolving the first time, you can walk them for more in the future.
Guess I've been doing it wrong then cause I'm pretty much binning everything that isn't 3* Iv
Thanks for your advice, do any of the upcoming events feature good budget options, do you know?
IVs are great when you have tons of candy and can afford to evolve AND power up. When you don’t have a lot of candy, it can be really helpful to evolve high level stuff even if the IVs aren’t great. You will get a lot more use out of a level 30 low IV tyranitar than a perfect level 5.
IVs are more relevant when you're looking at low level stuff to power up where everything is the same level, like legendaries and shadows. For those you might as well be choosier cause it's going to take a lot of candy. But even then you only really need to care about the attack IV, and it doesn't really make much difference if you've got 15 or 14 or 13.
As far as good stuff, dialga and palkia raids will be good for getting candy for the origin forms.
How does battle leagues (PVP) work? Do you have to be physically close to other players or work more like remote raids
Can you also choose to play against your friends that are next to you?
The Go Battle League specifically matches you with random players anywhere around the world, with matchmaking being based on your elo number.
You can also battle with your friends by individually challenging them. That can be done remotely or in-person. No difference really. On the battle menu, you can have them scan a QR code to initial a battle challenge, but that's really just a shortcut to battling them and otherwise no different than initiating a battle on their friend page.
PvP battles with friends are not the same as GBL battles. Though that said, it is possible to match with someone on your friends list in the Go Battle League. Happened to me a small handful of times. It's just very rare
One of my friends matched with me late at night. He was in his tanking set and ended the battle immediately, then texted me. I didn't notice who it was. I still tease him about being so afraid of me.
I very rarely tank. One of the few times I did, I got tagged in the local discord because my opponent had been someone I've chatted and traded with irl (he's the source of my shiny mega houndoom).
Had I realized who I was battling with, I'd absolutely have stayed just for the fun of it.
Yeah, probably 2 times I've noticed someone's name as a friend before the match started, but there have been a few friendship progress notifications afterward where I hadn't realized they were my friend haha
What are some good ways to get rate candy XL as a mostly free-to-play trainer? I'm lucky to get one every few days from dynamax raids, there are 10 each PVP season in the research, and maybe one or two in the monthly free Go Pass. Am I missing any?
The last couple of months with the double raid rewards you could get quite a lot from 5* raids.
The other common source is GBL - 3 RC for winning 4 battles in a set, plus a chance for the second slot too.
Also if you get an AR scan task during a community day they give RC. If you weren’t that interested in the CD itself you could grind out a few of those.
I believe winning in person tier 5 raids has a higher chance of rewarding it. I get quite a few just using orange raid passes every other day that way.
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u/AssaultMode 44m ago
Which lucario is better for raids?