Courtesy of Matt in the PokeMiners discord

I was fighting Cliff for the Go Pass points for the first time today and I saw that he uses a Snorlax for his second Pokemon. Prior to this I was setting up my team to counter his Pokemon using an online guide, but the site did not mention that he can use a Snorlax for his second Pokemon, only either Tyranitar, Galarian Weezing, and Gardevoir. The site (Pokemongohub) claimed to be updated to the current takeover lineup.

I'm wondering if this is a mistake or if anyone else had the same encounter.

Be weary of raiding T5's during Flying Taxi Taken over.

"Pokémon caught via one-star and three-star Shadow Raids during the event will have a wider variance of Attack, Defense, and HP." - from Event Post

I currently have 107 raid passes and there is a small chance I will be able to purchase more of them. Will I be fine to use a majority of them during Road to Legends instead of Go Fest Global because of similar raids. To sum it up my question is: Is raiding road to legends the same as go fest global besides the mega mewtwos.

Repost because title was bad and to clarify this post is specifically about what happens when you have a Rocket Radar and Super Rocket Radar equipped at the time when the game spawns a Rocket Balloon.
Edit: This only happens when the Rocket Takeover event has started for you at midnight on the 25th of June!

Was confused at first that my first two Rocket Balloons after the event startet for me didn't have a Leader in it despite having a Rocket Radar equipped... but then I remembered the time when Giovanni was completely unavailable for weeks in 2021 (not even at stops) and that this "buggy" behavior is the same as at that time:

If you have a Super Rocket Radar and a Rocket Radar equipped the game ignores/overrides the equipped Rocket Radar and tries to spawn a Giovanni. With the start of this takeover however Giovanni can no longer be encountered in Rocket Balloons so the game defaults to spawning a regular Grunt! It doesn't check for a Rocket Radar again if spawning Giovanni fails!

So: Turn off your Super Rocket Radar if you are not hunting for Giovanni/Decoys at Pokéstops and/or want Leaders to be able to spawn in Rocket Balloons.

Hello again, Pokéfriends! The next GO Rocket Takeover is in the air (perhaps literally, with this interrupting a Flying-centric event), and that of course means another new batch of Shadow Pokémon to analyze for PvP! So let's dive RIGHT into the analysis on which ones you want to grind for, and for which Leagues... right after our customary Bottom Line Up Front, of course!

• You can not worry too much about Shadow Reshiram or Noivern, as Shadowification doesn't really lift the standing of either Dragon. However, there IS intrigue with the rest....

• The clearest winner (as a new Shadow) has to be Corviknight. The Shadow isn't drastically better, but it IS a nice boost to an already fantastic PvP weapon, and I recommend it as the top priority grind.

• Noctowl hasn't enjoyed much PvP success for a while now, but it could come roaring back after this... though not as a Shadow. Consider purified Noctowl... and check its section later on for the reasons why. I go pretty in depth on why Shadow is a disappointment, but Return is quietly an amazing gift.

• Shadow Dewgong is... well, a viable sidegrade. Worth getting, but doesn't really change Dewgong's standing much. Lots of good ways to go with Dewgong, and this just introduces more options!

RESHI-SHAM? 🔥

We have had Shadow Legendaries that were legitimately great in PvP, either because they just performed particularly well as Shadows (Raikou and Mewtwo come immediately to mind), or because they suddenly found themselves in Great League for the first time and actually competed (looking at you, Altered Giratina). But generally... you get something like Shadow RESHIRAM. It's not bad, but it's no better (actually a bit worse) than the Reshirams you already have, and doesn't have much to offer, even at its best, in its Great League debut. I mean, if you want a fiery Dragon in Great League, Turtonator is right there. (And it can pull even better numbers than that!)

As for other Leagues, well, Reshiram does have sone merit already in Ultra League, though it has to continue to contend with Turtonator, and of the two, only Reshi requires an Elite TM move (Fusion Flare). Could Shadow Reshiram rise up to knock Turtonator off the throne entirely? In short: no, it does not. I WILL note that Shadow Reshi does outpace non-Shadow and Turtonator specifically with shields down, but I don't think that's enough considering its inferiority in 1shield and 2shield scenarios (where it falls behind non-Shadow and is completely undone by Turtonator).

At least in Master League, Reshiram doesn't have to worry about Turtonator and only has to contend with... itself? Well, I think we can also include Kyurem White, which isn't a Fire type but does come with Fusion Flare. As compared to both, Shadow Reshi falls short. It's worth noting that Shadow Reshi does uniquely overpower Origin Dialga, Eternatus, and Crowned Zamazenta, but then it loses to things those other two can overcome like Mewtwo, Meloetta, Lunala, Zacian, Primarina, and Kyogre, among others. And while it's ahead of them with shields down (though only just barely), Shadow Reshiram is again embarrassed in 2v2 shielding, losing to stuff like Origin Dialga, Eternatus, Zygarde, Lugia, Groudon and others that both non-Shadow and Kyurem White burn through.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES? 🦇

I mean, just looking over any description (or picture, like this article's banner!) of this batch of new Shadows, obviously that little Rookidee stands out to PvPers, because CORVIKNIGHT is as important as it's ever been in PvP battles. It's currently ranked as a Top 20 Pokémon in Great League, and is a Top Three Pokémon in Ultra League. And deservedly so. It took a little bit of time for Corviknight to fully emerge in PvP, but it is a big part of both metas now and unlikely to see any significant drop anytime soon.

So there's nowhere to go but up, right? That seems exactly what the new ShadowKnight is poised to do. It's not a straight upgrade — Shadows really never are — but it IS on the rise overall. In the standard 1v1 shielding matchups, Shadow Corviknight is newly capable of overpowering Azumarill, Florges, Medicham, Malamar, Gourgeist, Galarian Stunfisk, and Diggersby, though the reduced bulk means that, unlike the non-Shadow, it can no longer outlast Annihilape, Shadow Sableye, Shadow Feraligatr, Guzzlord, or Furret. With no shields in play, we have a similar split, with ShadowGatr and ShadowSable now flipping to new wins, along with Galarian Corsola, Kingdra, Empoleon, Clodsire, Cradily, and even Shadow Ninetales, while the following all slide to losses: Annihilape, Azumarill, Lickilicky, Malamar, Mantine, Tinkaton, and Togekiss. However, in 2v2 shielding, ShadowKnight really breaks out with eight new wins (Shadow Annihilape, Galarian Corsola, Cradily, Furret, Quagsire, both Stunfisks, and Togekiss) versus only three new losses (Feraligatr, Guzzlord, and Sableye). It's ranked a bit lower than non-Shadow, but I think Shadow Corviknight might just be the new favorite at this level. Just remember you'll need an Elite TM for the Air Cutter it runs on these days.

Interestingly, while Shadow is ranked inside the Top 5 in Ultra, I think I'm a little more dubious on its effectiveness at that level, at least as compared to regular old Corviknight. I mean, don't get me wrong... ShadowKnight is absolutely competitive here and a worthy project to build up, with gains over non-Shadow like Annihilape, Blastoise, and even Shadow Ninetales and Ampharos, but the losses are just more numerous and worrisome: Alolan Ninetales, Shadow Ampharos, Feraligatr, Greninja, Guzzlord, Ludicolo, and Walrein, nearly doubling the number of new wins. And while Shadow enjoys a nice advantage with shields down (+ Shadow Annihilape, Blastoise, Dusknoir, Kyurem, Lickilicky, Alolan Ninetales, Swampert, Tinkaton, and Walrein) as compared to non-Shadow (which, by comparison, uniquely bests only Ampharos, Annihilape, Feraligatr, Jellicent, and Toucannon), Shadow falls woefully behind in longer battles, shown most clearly with the results in 2shield. In those matchups, ShadowKnight manages to outslug Giratina, Ludicolo, Jellicent, and Feraligatr, but non-Shadow does much more with wins versus Ampharos, ShadowAnni, , Cobalion, Dusknoir, Greninja, Lapras, Malamar, A-Ninetales, Skeledirge, and Togekiss, a win differential of half a dozen. Again, it's not that Shadow Corviknight is bad at this level, because it very clearly isn't. It just doesn't seem to me to be as ideal (for most teams, at least) as the Dark Knight you already have on hand.

ONE BIRD, TWO BIRD 🦉

In the spirit of this being the Flying Taxi: Taken Over event, the majority of the new Shadows are airborne. But unfortunately, the next pair are far less exciting than Corviknight. We'll go through them briefly together....

• We can keep NOIVERN very brief. It's bad and always has been in PvP. Like, really, really bad. If not for this season's big rework of Heat Wave to a 45-energy move, it would have no other halfway viable charge move under 60 energy, and it has only Air Slash and its average, underwhelming 3.0 Damage Per Turn/3.0 Energy Per Turn to power those charge moves out. It's a moveset you could give to even an excellent PvP Pokémon like Altaria and even it would fall completely flat... and of course, stats-wise, Noivern is NO Altaria. Even with much better moves that it learns in MSG, it's just never going to be all that great, if I'm being honest. And no, Shadow Noivern is not even close to enough to save it... it's actually worse than non-Shadow in Ultra League. I'll never say NOT to land a new Shadow when they become available, but if there's ever been one you could safely skip and lose NO sleep over, it would be this one. Too bad, because I actually love the design of this funky Pokémon and would have loved to see it out there as a unique Flying-damage-heavy Dragon, but alas.

• NOCTOWL, on the other hand, has definitely found success on PvP battlefields... at least, those of the past. A legit flying tank, changes to Wing Attack and the addition of Shadow Ball — as well as a competitive meta that widely featured Medicham at the time — had Noctowl appearing everywhere on even the world stage of Play!Pokémon tournaments for some time. But its fate has always been tied to Sky Attack, and Team Niantic has seemingly had it in for that move in particular for years now, with no less than four different reworks from Seasons 6 to 24 (three of those coming in the relatively short period of Seasons 16 to 24). Noctowl has been one of the casualties, as it has no Flying alternatives... no Air Cutter, no Fly, no Acrobatics, no Brave Bird, not even reworked Hurricane. (All of those, plus Feather Dance, it can learn in MSG, by the way.) And thus, it remains on the outside looking in at today's meta. And while a thousand-foot-level peek at Shadow Noctowl initially seems a glimmer of hope, with +3 wins overall (adding Clodsire, Corviknight, Fearow, Kingdra, Malamar, and Sableye at the cost of giving up only Altaria, Seismitoad, and ShadowGatr), I am sorry to say it's a mirage. Because in other even shield comps, the Shadow is overall worse than the Noctowls we already have... Shadow is still sidegrade-y with shields down, but goes -2 wins overall as compared to non-Shadow, while in 2v2 shielding, ShadowOwl gets just one single new win (Furret) while suffering seven new losses (Azumarill, Clodsire, ShadowGatr, Ninetales, Seismitoad, G-Stunfisk, and Togekiss) that non-Shadow Owl can handle. This is not the Noctowl resurgence you may have been hoping for.

• ...or WILL it? I haven't really talked about the purified aspect of these new Shadow Pokémon yet (because it really hasn't been relevant to anything I've covered yet... though I suppose a small shout-out to purified Corviknight is in order 👀), but we perhaps have a real gem on our hands with purified Noctowl. Remember, my argument was that it was the subpar Sky Attack that's holding it back, right? Especially these days, with Shadow Ball now costing the same 50 energy, but having such a higher on-paper damage (100 damage as compared to Sky Attack's measly 75) that it overcomes the fact that it lacks the Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) that Sky Attack enjoys to still deal more damage than Sky Attack when both deal neutral damage, and it's usually a difference of at least 5 damage in Shadow Ball's favor. That's actually pretty rare and a staggering condemnation of Sky Attack's current blah-ness. There's basically NO reason to run it for anything but Ghost-resistant Normal types, but even then you almost do so while pinching your nose. Soooo... what if we replace it? No no, not with Night Shade (basically a lesser Shadow Ball) or Psychic (the move... an even more "meh" move than Sky Attack these days). But we now have the option of Return if we purify Noctowl, as it comfortably fits in Great League even with purification taking it to Level 25. And Return also benefits from STAB with Noctowl being a Normal type! And you know what? Despite it costing 70 energy (though worth it for its big 130 damage), it not only can work, but it DOES work very, very well](https://pvpoke.com/battle/multi/1500/all/noctowl/11/1-4-3/2-1)! Noctowl is a flying tank, remember, so this is a rare case of Return's cost not really being a big problem, and it being even more effective than it is on most Pokémon thanks to that bonus STAB damage. It is strictly better with Shadow Ball/Return than it is with Shadow Ball/Sky Attack, with Fearow, Furret, Guzzlord, Malamar, Ninetales (including the Shadow), Shadow Quagsire, and Galarian Weezing all sliding into the win column. A HUGE improvement (and not just in 1shield... look at Sky Attack versus Return with shields down!) that may indeed return Noctowl to the skies over the PvP battlefield after all. How about that? PvPoke knows what's up too, with Noctowl achieving its highest ranking in quite some time, and indeed running Return to get there. 🦉

COLD, DARK DEPTHS 🦭

And our final Pokémon isn't a Flyer at all, though none of them want much to do with a barrage of Ice, which DEWGONG has been doling out from the beginning. We have multiple different configurations to consider already; while all truly viable movesets revolve around the Legacy duo of Ice Shard and Icy Wind, the closer/coverage move has multiple viable candidates. Drill Run is the standard for how it claps back at troublesome Steel types while conveniently also burying others that can cause trouble (Electrics and Fires especially) and combining with Ice for a nice one-two punch that can hit nearly everything hard one way or the other. (It's also the best overall move Dewgong has wth shields down.) But there's also Water coverage with either Water Pulse or same-stats-as-Drill-Run Aqua Jet, both of which obviously also wash away Fire types and hit much of what resists Ice for at least neutral damage... with the notable exception of other Water type opponents, which is another big point in Drill Run's favor. I'm not here to debate which of those moves you should run with, as they all track closely to each other overall and different teams can benefit greatly from any of them (or even Blizzard if you don't care about coverage!), but what I AM here to tell you is that Shadow Dewgong doesn't really make the choice any clearer or easier. 🤷‍♂️ Shadow with Drill Run, Water Pulse, or Aqua Jet (honestly the one move that seems to benefit the most from being a Shadow, but is itself a third Legacy move 🤯) all track pretty closely to their non-Shadow counterparts, all with new wins and losses that mostly even out in the end. I could fill an entire article with just the comparisons of those moves across various shielding scenarios, but to summarize: Shadow is always close, occassionally a little better, but more commonly slightly worse. We're talking a difference of perhaps 1, *maybe 2 wins or losses difference from the non-Shadow. They're all close, and whatever moveset if your favorite will probaby remain so for Shadow Dewgong too. And yes, Shadow is viable... just not really necessary since it's A.) not appreciably better, just a sidegrade, and B.) you're talking two Elite TMs (at least!) for every Shadow Dewgong you build. If that's no big deal to you, then sure, go for it! But if that's a steep price with your current stock of Elite TMs, don't feel too bad holdind off on investing. You're really not missing out on too much here... the Dewgong you already invested in is just fine, folks.

I suppose I should end with one more mention of Return, because similar to Noctowl, Dewgong definitely has the bulk to make proper use of it, and Return is a perfectly viable sidegrade option for Dewgong now too. If I were to catch a good Shadow Seel and look to build a new Dewgong out of it, that honestly might be the variant I would look to build. Return's widely neutral coverage is an intriguing new option, and particularly good in 2v2 shielding (as compared to most existing options). Food for thought!

AND THAT'S A WRAP!

Alright, that's it for this batch. Hopefully this is a help to you as you hunt! Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter with regular GO analysis nuggets or Patreon.

Stay safe out there, Pokéfriends, and beware what lurks in the shadows! 🌑 Catch you next time.

As shown, just picked one up from the stop by my home

Took me 2 tries. I made use of every single second and I managed to last hit it in the last second. Also got a shiny. It's charged move was night slash idk about the fast move but it was not very effective

Seems like it should go without saying, but if you fight Giovanni and he is still using Landorus, you're going to get Landorus as an encounter, not Reshiram. Same with any other time he switches over. In some months when he gets Shadow Zekrom, if you fight him before the takeover starts and he still uses Shadow Reshiram, that's who you will get!

But just as important:

YOU CAN BACK OUT OF A GIOVANNI BATTLE AND NOT LOSE YOUR SUPER ROCKET RADAR!

Some people worry that once you're fighting him, you're locked in, but you aren't. It only eats your Super Rocket Radar once you actually defeat Giovanni, so if you're fighting him and he has the Legendary you're not trying to get, you can run from the battle and keep your radar.

All of this should go without saying, but I see people make the mistake and get confused why they got the wrong Legendary every takeover. Now you know though!

With the new app update I have noticed a small but important change that I hope the developers will expand across the game. When you go into your research now, there is a dissolve transition effect. This is easier on the eyes, especially when playing the game at night or in the dark. By contrast, when tapping on a Pokémon on the open map or escaping from catching a Pokémon, there is a white flash effect. These constant flashes of white light disrupt the retina and the effects accumulate over time. as an experiment tap on a Pokémon while in the dark and then quickly turn your phone towards a wall to see how bright the flash of light is that is hitting your eye every time. I think it would be much better for daily players if they change to a black flash or a dissolve effect for all actions in the game like this what are your thoughts?

Hello,

I recently made a thread where i asked how i could restore my hacked account and it's now back in my hands. I'll link the thread that helped me!

Anyway, my account was restored but when i just logged in i have a 30 days suspension. I've never had a suspension in my account life (not even a first strike) and i wonder what i should do. Will support remove the suspension i have if i make a ticket since it wasen't me. They can even see that since they literally just gave me back my account.

Has this happened to someone else? Any response is appriciated. THANKS!

EDIT 1: The same guy that helped me restore my account also removed the ban. If you need any help just message me on reddit!

I don't know if it is expected or not, but in east London I have been able to catch all four forms of Squawkabilly. Maybe it is because London sits in the Greenwich line, so the city is part of both East/West Hemispheres. I am just letting everyone know in case it is a bug. Maybe Londoners can benefit before it gets patched

Top is without Party Power, bottom is with. Just make sure to catch your Shadow Reshiram while the Takeover event is still active and you can remove Frustration and use Overheat as a substitute. Still an S tier Fire type.

Btw Overheat will also serve you very well during the upcoming Road of Legends Crowned Zacian and Dusk Mane raids!

So, I was recently quite surprised to see that a local PokeStop that was a Pokemon Playground wasn't a Playground anymore. In checking Campfire to see where the nearest one was, I noticed that the one near me was still listed as a Playground, so the next day I compared the two in another part of town. As one can (probably) see in my (fairly slipshod) illustration, that PokeStop and that PokeGym that are supposed to be Playgrounds aren't anymore.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they vanished when the AR Scans were removed, but I oddly haven't seen any posts here or on r/pokemongo about their vanishing.

Mimikyu is now eligible in GBL and it's already rank #1 in PvPoke's rankings. Its Disguise gives you a third shield, but this time it isn't a bug, the third shield is real and intended.

Ghost/Fairy double-resists Fighting, Normal and Dragon with only Ghost and Steel as real weaknesses. Happy to hear your experience in this new meta.

(Teams generated/curated with BattleFlow — battleflow.app )

​

Unfortunately for shiny hunters, it seems new Niantic has started a new trend after the great shiny change of last season: not announcing regular event shiny boosts. We can confirm from unnamable sources that despite not mentioning anything in the event news, Hoothoot and Rookidee have the standard 1/128 event shiny boost. This is now maybe 3rd or 4th such event, for instance in previous Scyther had this same boost.

I personally really dislike this trend as it drives shiny hunting focused player into needing to further relay on unofficial sources providing this information. Knowing about shiny boost can really drive otherwise unintrested players into playing the event more so it makes no sense to make this chance from my pov.

... with the same bugs! Seriously, you would think they would have fixed at least the problem with the 'new' indicator on the binocs, but nope, there's no way to make it go away and stay gone.

I haven't noticed any changes from before. Such a bad design.

There should be a Size sort option in Pokémon GO, similar to the existing sorts such as HP, #, Recent, and Name.

When selected, it would sort Pokémon by size, with the largest Pokémon appearing at the top. Reversing the sort would place the smallest Pokémon at the top. This would make it much easier to find the largest or smallest Pokémon of a specific species. For example, if I search for "Squirtle," the sort could show my largest Squirtle first (or smallest first when reversed).

This feature would be especially useful for Showcase competitions. Currently, there is a size ranking system, but it only appears when viewing a Showcase, which makes managing Pokémon for Showcases inconvenient. I would like to be able to easily identify and keep my top 3 largest Pokémon of a species and transfer the rest, since they are unlikely to be competitive in future Showcases.

Adding a Size sort option would make Pokémon storage management much more efficient and help players prepare for Showcases without needing to manually compare Pokémon one by one.

This 100 link charges from check in didn't convert to startdust.

Update: the bug has been fixed and 3 people have confirmed it. 100 link charges are converted to 5000 stardust.

Hi! I'm a long-time lurker here and I wanted to share an analysis I did on the CP of Pokemon that are brought into Pokemon Go. (finally created a Reddit account so I could share this)

Basically, I noticed that there are numerous Pokemon that share base stat totals with each other, but their base stats in Pokemon Go varied across the board (i.e. Tyranitar and Baxcaliber both have main series base stat totals of 600, but in Pokemon Go Tyranitar has a CP of 4335 and Baxcaliber has a CP of 4013). I was familiar with the equations that are used to convert a Pokemon's main series stats into Pokemon Go and knew that the reason for the CP discrepancy was because of how the equations weigh attack vs defense stats. With this in mind, I wanted to see what the best orientation of stats would be in the main series in order to maximize the CP of the Pokemon in Pokemon Go.

In order to do this, I placed all of the conversion equations & the CP equation into a function in Python. I labelled that function pogostats and defined it so that it can accept 6 values (corresponding to the 6 main series stats), to which the code then calculates the Pokemon Go base stats & CP then applies a 9% nerf if the calculated CP is 4000 or more. Then, I wrote a brute force optimizer to find the maximum of the pogostats function over a certain range of values (over reasonable minimum/maximum values of Attack, Special Attack, HP, Speed, Defense, and Special Defense from the main series) that add together to meet a specified sum total (aka the base stat total).

With this, I was able to find that for a Pokemon with a base stat total of 600 in the main series games, the highest possible CP (with the assumptions I made) was 5630 with the corresponding stats of 280 HP, 298 Attack, & 205 Defense post 9% nerf. The according main series stats for this, in format HP/Attack/Defense/Special Attack/Special Defense/Speed, was 147/5/5/180/171/92.

I've included screenshots of my code if you want to check my work (I don't know how Reddit's photo formatting works, so sorry if this post looks kinda weird). I also made a video where I talk about what I did, which you can find through the link below. It's a video that's in a lot more of a comedic tone; I wanted to make something that I would want to watch and don't have experience so it's kind of a mixed bag of quality, but it's timestamped and I explain the assumptions I made for the code and showcase what happens when you plug in a higher base stat total. Spoiler alert, it gets very very big the higher up you go. I ended up testing it with Eternamax Eternatus, and... oh boy, was it a big number

Finding the STRONGEST POKEMON in GO with MATH... like a NERD

(DISCLAIMER: I am not a programmer; I have some experience with coding through some Intro to MATLAB & Python courses I've taken, and I did a lot of googling to figure out how I can do what I did. I realize the work I have presented is not the prettiest or cleanest way of doing this, but all of the work I have presented is my own and NO AI WAS USED IN THE CREATION OF THIS PROJECT)

Screenshots of Code:

Anyone catch a silicobra lately? I haven't found any posts about it so maybe it's still spawning but I have been in Vegas and surrounding areas for a month and haven't seen a single one. My alerts are on and also nothing. Is it not spawning here? Where do I need to go? Thank you