Community day, June 16, a tip

In all likelyhood you've already been flooded by tips for the upcoming three hour larvitar bonanza.

So here's another one. Or rather two.

I hope you've taken note of the word 'community'. Do get them chat channels ready if you haven't already done so. Reporting high IV catches vastly increases the chance you get one yourself.


And for the second one.


With lure clusters lit up like a christmas tree you're likely to run into three minute spawns en masse. It really, really really helps if you make it clear that you caught that marvelous larvitar from a lure. Even a moderate distance is enough to make it more or less impossible to get there in time. Not only won't there be anything to catch -- people running to the spot will be confused and keep looking for something that's no longer present instead of collecting much needed larvitar candy.


Well, that's it for community day from me.

Lugia makes a return

So we're getting the defender bird back again. I won't go into if lugia is anything to have or not, but it's the legenadry we'll be stuck with for a couple of weeks.

There are some camel dung -worthy recommendations out there, so I'll run through a shortlist of pokemon to have in a line-up. OK, the content in the linked to article wasn't all bad, but a far cry from good enough.

The extremely short version:

• If it's good enough to bring to a mewtwo raid it's good enough against lugia

That said we have quite a few more options.

Raikou, zapdos and jolteon bring an electric punch which you're not interested in for a mewtwo raid.

Of these raikou is the best pick if you have one. Stick to Thunder Shock / Wild Charge. There was a mild aroma of burning camel dung coming from the article. 

You're working with Wild Charge, which is a two bar attack, so there is absolutely no reason to walz around with a 2.3 second lockdown Volt Switch as a charge attack for an extremely minor increase in primary attack dps at a double cost -- decreased energy gain and stripping yourself from even a theoretical chance of dodging an incoming attack.

Zapdos and jolteon are secondary and tertiary picks.

Tyranitar is the second most attractive attacker after raikou. I personally prefer Crunch over Stone Edge for this fight since Bite quite frankly sucks at building energy and I stand a huge risk of going down with an 80 point energy bar. Still, in theory Stone Edge will do more damage during an infinitely long fight.

As usual start with a glass cannon. A gengar or alakazam configured for mewtwo raids is your best pick. Jynx works as well.

Disregarding the allure of camel dung you're going with Psycho Cut as a primary move both for alakazam and mewtwo. A slow, energyinefficient and not very effective primary attack is a bloody awful recommendation, so steer clear of Confusion. Shadow Ball, however, remains the correct pick.

Don't forget the rocky balls. Golem remains a good attacker if you get party cloudy weather, and so does omastar if you're lucky enough to have one with the rock type legacy primary move.

Kyogre, rayquaza and dragonite are all viable picks if you lack the really good attackers.

While Blizzard is a better pick than Hydro Pump for kyogre I'm not entirely convinced you can count on firing one off before your kyogre takes a dive. Waterfall is awful when it comes to building energy. In other words, it might not be worth it spending your CTM that way since any kyogre you're planning to bring into the fight probably comes with Hydro Pump.

If you're less than eight people I recommend you to check the individual capacity of the present players. Lugia remains a beast to take down. Think kyogre with extra bulk.

And back up

Game back in action when I checked 22.25 pm.

Down hard

As of 9.10 pm (actually a little earlier) Pokemon Go is down hard. I have absolutely no clue when it'll be back online.

Package deal February 2018

And we have yet another package deal, or three of them as usual.

Special Box, 480 coins:

• 3 incence
• 2 incubator
• 6 star piece

Great Box, 780 coins

• 4 incubator
• 3 lucky egg
• 6 premium raid pass
• 8 star piece

Ultra Box, 1480 coins

• 8 incubator
• 6 lucky egg
• 12 premium raid pass
• 20 star piece

The Special Box looks like a piece of junk at a first look, and it does indeed offer the worst discount. It does, however, have one specific kind of user -- a bicycling rural player. 3 incence plays perfectly with three of the six star piece. While you're slowly biking around you're also likely to put the two incubators to good use.

It's a fair deal, nothing more, but it's not the piece of junk it looks like at a first glance. Well, unless you live in the city. Then it's pretty much a waste of coins.

The Great Box and Ultra Box basically mimic each other. Opening your wallet a little wider gives you a 80 coin discount and 4 star pieces as a bonus. Anyway, if the Great Box is a good deal, then that automatically means the Ultra Box is a slightly better deal, so I'll settle for analysing the Great Box.

The player behind this key board, ie me, hates lucky eggs. They hold negative value for me as I have to discard the crap when they enter my bag. Other players still want their XP though. So the lucky egg part either runs at negative value or a positive one. For the sake of simplicity I'll assign a zero coin value to lucky eggs.

Four incubators sets you back 600 coins. Most of us do prefer to cycle through our eggs in the hopes of grabbing a good 10 kilometre one. Hence incubators always have a value.

Six premium raid passes also come with a 600 coin price tag. You tell me you avoid boss raiding at all costs and I'll start wondering why you're playing the game in the first place.

This is 1200 coins worth of items for 780 coins, which means the package deal is well worth it. Add eight star pieces for four hours of fun with 50% extra star dust and you have a really nice deal. Those star pieces will see good use during the coming community day if you're buying exactly one Great Box.

If you're doing the Ultra Box, then 20 star pieces can seem a little excessive.

Here's a nice trick. You probably dumped every egg in your inventory into an incubator. Keep watch on them. When you're 'soon' hatching just fire off one star piece and enjoy a few thousand extra star dust for no extra effort.

All in all we're looking at a perfectly good setup of package deals. I've seen better, and discarding lucky eggs was a minor downer for me, but in the end I found them to be of good value.

Kyogre raid boss

Seems there are still some questions about how to handle it.

Basically, if it has Blizzard as a charge move you might want to rethink your lineup.


Raikou is always good, so if you have a good one put it to use.


Jolteon, victrebeel and sceptile are good as a first attacker no matter the moveset of Kyogre.



Non-blizzard:

• Zapdos
• Exeggutor
• Venusaur

Blizzard (if you care about incoming damage):

• Groudon with Solar Beam
• Kyogre with Thunder
• Ho-Oh with Solar Beam

Personally I run with the same lineup no matter what. Jolteon first, then Victrebeel and after that Zapdos and Exeggutor. The cost in potions and revives is massive against Blizzard, so you might not want to do this. My reason is that I prioritise damage done over damage taken, and hence the preferred Blizzard-alternatives are a no-go as far as I'm concerned.

Harder than beating the boss is catching it. Switch AR on and off and it'll reset in the centre for an easier throw.

New package deals

So, with the arrival of Kyogre as a raid boss we also have three new package deals.

Special Box, 480 coins:

• 5 incense
• 6 premium raid pass
• 10 pinab berry

Great box, 780 coins:

• 9 premium raid pass
• 10 pinab berry
• 10 star piece

Ultra box, 1480 coins:

• 6 lucky egg
• 6 max revive
• 15 premium raid pass
• 20 star piece

This time each deal is a great deal for its intended user.

The boss raider on a budget can't go wrong with the Special box. 600 coins' worth of premium raid passes at a 120 coin discount. 5 incense is just icing on the cake.

If you're boss raiding but also spend a lot of time throwing poke balls at pokemon, then the Great box is perfect. 900 coins worth of premium raid passes at a 120 coin discount. Add 10 star pieces and you have five hours' worth of 150% stardust for free.

The Ultra box comes with 6 lucky eggs. That's either a bonus or detracts from the value. If you're totally uninterested in XP then that's 6 units of bag space you need to free up.

15 premium raid passes at a 20 coin discount is fair enough since you also receive a whopping 20 star pieces. I personally value the max revives at exactly zero coins despite the shop selling them for 180 coins. If you're interested in lucky eggs this is the best deal.

Some X-mas news

Some kind of Christmas event has started, and with it a few new things were added to the game.

You've probably already noticed some new pokemon. Filling out the dex is always fun.


Then we also have three new package deals.


Winter Box, 480 coins

• 2 incence
• 2 standard incubators
• 5 star piece

Great Box, 780 coins

• 4 super incubators
• 10 razz berries
• 10 star piece

Ultra Box, 1480 coins

• 8 super incubators
• 10 pinab berries
• 25 star piece
• 10 lure modules

Star piece? According to this piece of news it's a consumable item that lasts for 30 minutes and increases star dust gain by 50% for that period. I'm unclear if it's an in-game shop only item or if they are distributed yb other means as well, like poke stops for example.

For the purpose of this post I'll assume that it's either a shop only, or at least a stupidly rare free item. In any case they are a very welcome addition to the game.

In that case the package deals have to be compared to each other. As usual I'll assign the berries an exactly zero value.

The Winter Box comes with 300 coins' worth of incubators and hence it's a matter if you think that 5 star pieces is worth more than 180 coins. I'd say it is, but I have difficulties assigning a value to them. We're talking two and a half hours with 50% extra star dust.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is indeed a good deal though.

For 780 coins the Great Box will yield 4 super incubators, which even if valued at 150 coins each is 600 coins worth of incubators. In this scenario the remaining 180 coins yields twice the amount of star pieces. Five hours with 50% extra star dust for 180 coins is a no-brainer.

This is a good deal aimed at the walking player.

The 1480 coin Ultra Box comes with 1200 coins' worth of super incubators, once again if we value them at 150 coins each. Basically anything thrown in after that is likely to push the package deal way above the remaining 280 coins.

In this case 10 lure modules is a little problematic. It's either a sweet 900:ish coins' worth of modules, but at the other hand a lot of players are wading around in those.

25 star pieces, at the other hand, is simply fantastic.

This package deal is also the best designed for long sessions of playing with the package as your only boost since 10 star pieces go hand in hand with 10 lure modules. This assuming that you're not the only one adding lures to poke stops. The remaining 15 star pieces are a perfect boost for consuming those eight super incubators.

I'd argue that this deal is superior to the other two by a very wide margin.

Oh, there are pokemon out there with a christmasy look as well. Just like last year.

New combat interface

The last update came with a few news. Well, generation three among them, but this short post will focus on the new combat interface.


Attack a gym or join a raid boss fight.

Tap tap tap press.

Feel familiar?


It's gone.


From now on the charge attack kicks in when you tap the circle at the very bottom of your screen.


My first impression was that the change was a huge boost to my kamikaze play style, but that it came at a cost for the player who make an attempt at dodging attacks due to the need of split vision.

Thanks to a comment from a fellow player I learned that I was wrong. Just tap that symbol throughout the fight and the charge attack will go off as soon as it's charged. You can concentrate on dodging whatever.


Now, there's never a change without a cost. In this case it's the opportunity cost, but it's simple enough to handle. Sure, it requires you to throw the occasional glance at the bottom of your screen, but only when you would have checked out the energy bar anyway.

Whenever you feel the need to save that charge attack sledgehammer for later, just move your tapping finger higher up on your screen and you can overcharge your energy bar to save that juicy attack for the next target in line. Or for enabling you to dodge that nasty attack if that's what you want.


Overall this is good news for attacking into gyms or cutting down that raid boss to size.

New raid boss, new pokemon level

So something did indeed happen that was worth mentioning.

First of all ho oh is available as a legendary raid boss. This lasts until December 12 and requires no EX raid pass.


Secondly, and in the long run more important, pokemon max level has been increased from 39 to 40.

The last two clicks cost a whopping 10000 stardust and 15 candy each, and they yield the same half-rate increase in CP as every click above level 30.


Lastly it's worth mentioning that we're still receiving double XP and stardust for catching pokemon, and if you had a maxed out line-up, catching pokemon is what you want to do.

Event, update

Since an hour or so ago I'm receiving double stardust for everything. That's an indirect indicator that we've reached 1.5 billion pokemon caught.

So, now we're running the following benefits:

• double XP
• double stardust
• six hour lures
• increased spawns, increment number two

I'm unclear about how much the spawns have increased since the insertion of both spawn-additions during the event, but there are definitely more pokemon to throw balls at disregarding the added number of active lures.

For the high level player this means we've reached the real target. Sure, at 3 billion pokemon caught we get to throw poke balls at a regional pokemon normally not available where we play, but that will get old pretty soon.

Those of you still heading towards level 40, use the coming weekend, and if you're inclined to speed up the XP you gain, then do buy the package deals. It's hard to go wrong with four times the XP gained when you evolve away the crap you'll be getting tons of.

A legendary raid with a lucky egg active is 40k instant XP. Two of those raids close to each other is a no-brainer.

For the rest of us -- just enjoy the stardust bonanza. Six hour lures, increased spawns and double stardust is a huge bonus.

Oh, and this is where you start giving them super incubators a greedy look. Remember, double XP and double stardust. At least slot in ten kilometre eggs inside. You can't go wrong with upwards to 5k dust for walking 6.7 kilometres.


Extra update: If you're worried about the 3500 max pokemon caught during a week -softban, use the added spawns as an opportunity to boss raid and catch pokemon. Normally boss raiding is a huge wrench in your plans to grind stardust during an event like this, but now you should be able to do both.

New event

This one is a  bit odd.

For a week we have to catch as many pokemon as possible. At half a billion, which we have already reached, a double XP bonus for everyone is unlocked as well as more spawn points. Those of you who throw lure modules around you will notice that they stay for six hours.

When we hit 1.5 billion pokemon caught double stardust will unlock as well as even more spawn points.

At 3 billion farfetched will start spawning outside the East Asia region, and they in turn will see kangashkan pop up.


As it is an event, there's the usual package deals.

The smallest one is just one item. At 200 coins you can shop one of the super incubators. If you're wading in coins, go bonkers. For the rest of us this one is a little iffy. While it certainly pops its content quicker than the regular incubator, do you collect enough 10 km eggs to merit the extra 50 coins for faster hatching?


Then there is a Special Box

• 380 coins
• 20 great ball
• 6 lucky egg
• 1 premium raid pass
• 4 lure module

If you've yet to hit 40 and want them XP at a limited budget. Go for it! You're getting 8 lucky eggs at standard price. The extra raid and lure modules are for free. The great balls? Well, I guess you can throw them after something that pops up at a lure near you.

And we have an Ultra Box

• 880 coins
• 16 lucky egg
• 4 premium raid pass
• 8 lure modules
• 30 ultra ball

Once again a deal geared towards players hunting XP. You're basically getting 16 lucky eggs at standard price without having to give up 25 slots, ie the cost should be compared to the 25 lucky egg bundle. This yields you 4 raid passes and 8 lure modules free.

It's a better deal but not a fantastically much better deal.

For players like me? The package deals are utter crap. Not only do I have to shell out coins, but after than I'm forced to manually discard the lucky eggs. So, once again -- if you don't need the lucky eggs, the package deals are shite.

Well, maybe with the exception for the super incubator, possibly.

New event, Halloween

And another event is upon us.

I'll just refer to Pokemon Go Hub as reference.


October 20 to November 2. That's a pretty brutal stretch. And, yeah, it starts tomorrow.

What's the hype? Let's start with the big news.

We're getting a taste of Gen3. Five new ghost type pokemon to be hunted down. Good mons or not, they're at least new.


Then there's the usual fringe benefits. In this case:

• Buddy distance cut in half
• Double candy for catching pokeomn
• Double candy for hatching eggs
• Double candy from transferring pokemon

Halloween special pikachu, a new hat for your avatar and some kind package deals in the shop containing raid passes and super incubators.

Pokemon Go up

And we're live again.

Pokemon Go down

You've probably read it by now, but anyway.

Pokemon Go is down hard.

EX raid testing, Sweden

Seems field testing has gone live in Sweden as well.

That most likely means it's gone live elsewhere in Europe as well.

This is unconfirmed as of yet.

Boss raids, raid eggs are back

Since this morning the one hour heads up raid eggs are back. Raids have been shortened to one hour as well.

With this reversal come a number of changes:

• Tiers one through four have a one hour speculation window
• It'll be harder to get people together for the unsoloable boss raids
• The time during which gyms are raid locked is cut in half
• It's possible to flip a gym and defend it in order to get the gym control bonus

Since entei is the only legendary raid boss available in Europe (and obviously other doggies elsewhere) the tier five gyms have no window of speculation at all. You know your local dog will pop into place.

In cities with a huge amount of gyms the speculation window part matters less. However, cutting the raid lock time in half does matter. It means it's a lot easier to take over gyms during day time compared to the last month or so. We should expect a greater gym turnover from now on.

In areas with fewer gyms it's worth taking over a gym with a legendary raid egg to ensure you get the gym control bous. It's after all a full item pack extra. Two extra balls doesn't hurt, but by now players have probably collected the dogs.

In regions where raikou spawns those extra balls might be more interesting, but entei and suicune are inferior to other options when attacking into gyms, and thus the need to actually catch the raid boss is lessened.

Boss raids, mewtwo confirmed

So the exclusve raids are confirmed to be mewtwo.

Boss raids, exclusive raids and mewtwo

Seems that things are moving forward on the exclusive raids front.

The first passes hae been distributed for a few gyms in what's obviously a beta testing period.

Also mewtwo have received updated information, more specifically a six percent base capture rate.

All in all this hints that mewtwo will be the first raid boss for exclusive raids. Within a few days we'll know for certain.

Boss raids, new legendaries

August 31 or September 1, depending on where you live one out of three legendaries will be released.

This according to an official Niantic message.

Entei, Raikou and Suicune will be released one at at time for a month each. Note, however, that all three will be out from September, but depending on where you live you'll only have access to one of them at a time.

For trainers in Europe we'll see Entei first, so keep your golems and vaporeon in good shape. Omastar and Rhydon also work perfectly well.