September community day chat post

[ephemera]

Ultra Bonus Event continues, and it's September's Community Day, aka Chikorita Day so time for a general chat - how's the world of PoGo been treating you this month? Did you have any luck with the shiny birds? Excited about MewTwo raids and the prospect of Deoxys on the horizon? How's your Celebi research going?

Comments

[catness]

I caught 15 shiny Chikoritas, which is my personal record for a number of shinies! And one 100% IV (following the community shout-out), alas a non-shiny. 1 shiny Articuno, 3 shiny Moltres (traded one away), and zero shiny Zapdos (not for the lack of trying). Celebi research done a long time ago (it was boring anyway, in comparison to Mew research). My Kanto deck is finally complete, thanks to the regional eggs event! And we're officially Best Friends with one of my best PoGo friends :)

Can't say that I'm that excited about MewTwo raids, having scored quite a few them through ex-raids, though I still don't have a *good* one... today caught my best so far, 93% IV with 15 attack, but it will never get the Shadow Ball. Yay for Deoxys raids - want something new already!

[ephemera]

Woot! That's some list of successes!

I'm still 17 days away from my first possible Best Friends status - you're pretty close to the minimum possible time to get to that level, aren't you? Good job you and your friend!

[upanddisappear]

it's hot today, so my goal was to get 3 shiny chiks, one to keep as is and the other two for evolving. and i caught just enough regular chiks for the candy. so now i have a shiny chik, a shiny bayleef and a shiny meg!

i got my celebi!

i hatched a kanga and a mime so i'm all done with kanto!

excited for deoxy, hopefully i'll score a pass at a gym with a big group.

[ephemera]

Hurray for your set of shinies - I think they're a pretty set this time - and congrats on completing your Kanto-dex!

[upanddisappear]

thank you! 💗

[ephemera]

Working backwards: Today's been a good Poke-day, despite the weather (it's been raining steadily *all day*, but fortunately the wind's died down, so umbrellas are a viable option.) netting me six shinies, so I now have a set of 3 + 1 bonus female Meganium, as it's one with a visible gender difference, plus a couple of trading. I also did three Mew Two raids, with two caught (one I begged a friend to help with, and then one on my own, as that seemed to have broken the seal - I was 0/5 before that.) The half-hour immediate-post-CD "release" of the new WTF Pokemon was a really nifty moment. There were probably 80 or so of us sheltering from the rain near an about-to-hatch-raid as the CD ended, and the "Hey, look", "What is that?!" etc reactions were just - really nice to have that as a group experience.

Mew Two raids have been - frustrating, to be honest. They've made it *far* tougher to fight, and the base catch rate is low. It's been neat to see the excitement around it, though, and I'm glad it's available to folks who didn't do well in the Ex-raid lottery.

The new stops and gyms update has been a mixed bag for me - I've gained one stop on my way to work, but we seem to have lost Ex-raid eligibility on most of the nearby gyms. (Although that seems to be a confusing thing, and I kind of like the theory that the new label indicates what's Ex-raid eligible *this cycle*, rather than in the absolute.)

The last hurrah of the legendary birds, however, treated me well - I snagged both a shiny Moltres and a shiny Articuno on Thursday night, in their last hours, so I do have the set of three after all! (Moltres day, I had to skip entirely, because I was working, which was super-frustrating)

I traded for a Taurus a couple of weeks back, which completed my Kanto-dex, but have been hitting the Alolan eggs pretty hard anyway: My current haul is four Farfetch'd, two Kangastan, one precious Tauros, and *five* rasnfrasn Mr Mimes (which have been Ratata-level common around here for months) Also three pretty good Tangella, which is a bonus, as they're vanishingly rare in the wild, and even with the current event I didn't have any solid IVs ready for future evolutions.

Celebi research was kind of fun, but I also wish it had been harder, or gone on for longer. OTOH, I did manage to hustle in order to get her whilst I was at Stonehenge, and got a couple of AR photos I'm pretty proud of, and if it had been longer and harder, that wouldn't have worked out.

Current stats are Caught 370, seen 376 with a 151 / 98 / 121 breakdown. (I'm missing regionals, and Latios whose stint in raids lined up with my being to busy) and I'm 90k XP away from hitting level 40. I'm working on gold badges, and gold gyms, and shiny-hunting, but also starting to get antsy for Gen IV. (I went gold on Research tasks this week, and I think Pilot is likely to be next. As I have barely put a dent in Fisherman with the current event scattering Magicarp everywhere, I'm not sure I'll ever make that one!)

[upanddisappear]

so what is up with that ??? poke? i caught one in my apartment, and there are a ton outside in the nearby. i don't want to go out, but should i get more? oop, it's over now. i wonder what the object is. is it to guarantee dittos to people who still need them for the mew quest?

i'm 356/364. 151/93/112. my last type medal is dragon, so i'm thankful for the dratini raids. 187/200. i have 2 gold badge gyms. and 9 silver. and i'm 225,194 into level 36!

[ephemera]

I have no idea what's going on with ??? - the speculation is rife that it's something to do with the new Switch game, but if nothing else, it's created a ton of buzz (just, what for???) It's all kinds of weird that it's not a recognised Pokemon of any kind.

Dragons are so rare outside events, aren't they? I think that was my last type medal to go gold, and there was a brief period early in the game where a park fairly need me was a Dratini nest...

[kirin]

I suspect the ??? is killing two birds with one stone - it's *both* helping anyone who didn't have a Ditto yet have a way to hunt one down for sure (even if you missed the post-CD half hour when they were everywhere, they still seem to spawn occasionally, and will show up preferentially on your radar if you haven't caught one yet) - *and* it's a tease of Let'sGo / Gen8 preview.

Speculation I've seen that makes some sense is it may be Ditto attempting to transform into a brand new Gen8 pokemon (likely the bonus one that will debut with Let'sGo and transfer back to Go) but it's only getting halfway there because the new guy doesn't quite exist yet!

[ephemera]

That speculation makes more sense than many!

[ephemera]

[upanddisappear]

pretty!

[ephemera]

Thank you!

[lurkingcat]

Oh, that's lovely!

[ephemera]

Thank you!

[catness]

Wow, what an amazing picture! I thought it was photoshopped, but then read your comment about being at Stonehenge - impressive!

[ephemera]

I was with an organised group (helping *staff* the organised group) so I had a really tight window to make it work, and you can imagine me walking up to Stonehenge with incense loaded, praying for grass-types to popup so I could complete the final research task - I was more than half way around the designated route before I managed it!

[aris_tgd]

Haha, well, I don't have nearly as many successes as everyone else--I've only been playing for a month, and I haven't managed to get any of the birds yet, much yet shiny versions. But I did manage to get Mew and a MewTwo today! I got three shiny Chikorita and evolved two, and I've almost got all of the regional exclusives.

I do have to say the sight of a dude on a bicycle bolting out of our raid group going "100% CHIKORITA! GONNA GET IT!" was amusing. And no, I didn't chase it, my sights were much lower today.

[upanddisappear]

well, you are much more successful than i was at one month! hell, i still don't have a raid group!

that's hilarious!

[aris_tgd]

I definitely don't have a raid group! But enough people were wandering around downtown today that they congregated at a few MewTwo raids in a row, and I was able to reap the benefit. We split into multiple groups and we still had 20 people!

[ephemera]

Mew, MewTwo and most of the regionals in your first month is hella impressive!

[aris_tgd]

Thanks! I had good timing on the regionals, I got one from a friend who grew up in Japan and visited there recently, and another one from eggs, so I'm just missing the one! We'll see how I do on getting more eggs hatched before the end of the month, haha.

[lurkingcat]

I finished my Celebi research and concluded that I really, really need a new phone. The current one is three years old and sadly doesn't like AR mode at all. It took two restarts to get it to run without crashing and even then the display was jerky and time lagged, which made throwing the Pokéball extra specially difficult. But I caught my Celebi in the end!

I'm missing a shiny Articuno but have a shiny for each of the other two. Community Day was extremely soggy but I ended up with nine shinies, which is the most I've ever caught in one day. I'm extra pleased about that as a couple of friends missed the event altogether so I've got spares to trade to them.

The regional eggs event has been kind to me as well and between that and the Entei research month I've finally completed my Kanto dex. Current stats are caught 371, seen 376. The missing 5 are regionals and since I don't know anyone who'll be travelling to any of the right locations they'll be staying as empty slots for a while yet. I'll just have to hope for another regionals event some time.

I made it to Best Friends status with the guy who stopped to say hello and make me feel welcome at my first ever legendary raid. I still don't know his real name and he calls me by my trainer name too but I raid with him several times a week. He was infectiously excited to have a Best Friend as he's not on any of the social media channels that the local players use - he just turns up to raids on hatch and hopes enough other people will show up. We traded a Miltank to celebrate and both got a Lucky Miltank out of it, which was a great way to celebrate.

I'm kind of excited for Deoxys and I'm loving the little tag on gyms that are Ex-Raid eligible too. I'm hoping that the promised invite a friend with your Ex-raid pass feature works well too as I've friends who don't get to raid at eligible gyms and it'd be nice to be able to snag a pass and include them.

[kirin]

For Chikorita day I came away with 7 shinies on my account (plus one non-shiny 100%er), and 4 for a friend who was at sea and whose account I was running on an iPad, which is pretty awkward to wrangle out walking! The birds' return netted me a second shiny Articuno, but still no shiny Moltres (and I missed Moltres day earlier), so I'm trading a set of DragonCon Unown to a friend for one of those. In other shiny news I managed to catch a wild shiny Geodude (cute gold nugget!) and traded more Unown for a Pineco and a Meditite. And I finally managed to evolve a shiny Jolteon, which was the last Eeveelution I was missing.

Got several new Mewtwo from raids; so far all of them have pretty bad stats, but there's still a good bit of time for that. My excitement for Deoxys is a bit muted because we still have no usable EX gyms in our town, meaning if I want it any time soon I'm gonna have to drive to other towns for raids, bleh.

Got Celebi back just before Labor Day. I've also had my Kanto dex complete for a while, but I've still been happy to hatch four(!) more Kanga for potential trading. The Tauros are less useful but it's mildly amusing to have ones "from" Vietnam and Australia. Meanwhile I traded a shiny glasses Hydro Cannon Blastoise to someone at DragonCon for a Torkoal, so my total dex is now at 375 caught - literally the only thing I'm missing that's out yet is Relicanth.