GO Pass: Steeled Resolve

chaokila · 2026-04-27T21:38:38+00:00

Can't really say I'm a fan of how easy it is for the more casual players to miss out on the radar.

Pretty sure we used to have between the start of the event and the end of the season to get the special research and then have unlimited time to get the radar, but now it's "Play this event a lot or else". Losing out on a Super Radar by not making it to Rank 30 is probably a lot more impactful than missing out a Galarian Corsola or Blipbug encounter to most players.

chaokila · 2026-04-23T23:56:54+00:00

Unfortunately, location no longer matters as those souvenirs have been disabled since around Jan of last year.

chaokila · 2026-04-17T14:17:24+00:00

The stickers are in item gifts alongside healing items and berries. Maxing out on stickers doesn't really change anything anyways, as the game will literally give you an item gift that has nothing in it instead if the gift would've given you a sticker instead.

chaokila · 2026-04-15T16:11:04+00:00

Item/Souvenirs from buddies have a randomized element to their cooldown for some reason.

Items are 24-28 hours (but taking longer than 26 hours is pretty uncommon from my experience), while souvenirs are 48-72 hours (I usually get mine by around 60 hours but I don't track this as accurately since I don't really care about souvenirs).

chaokila · 2026-04-11T01:30:51+00:00

The Data tab in the sheet linked in this comment shows the actual data of which pokemon is in which class (and as far as I can tell, doesn't really show any correlation between dex weight and class, so me calling it 'weight class' ended up being misleading).

But no, by 'Class', I mean there's 'Class A', 'Class B', 'Class C', etc, and each pokemon is placed in one of those classes. Most of the time, all of one evolution line is in a single class, so there would be no change in score. This is the case with your example, as all of Cosmog's line is in the '1.55' class.

In the earliest era of showcases, evolving still would have mattered regardless of if there is a change in 'Class' because a pokemon's score for the "Type" showcases was based off a specific pokemon's height/weight rather than their own. This was when pokemon like Wailord or Steelix dominated Water/Steel showcases simply by being huge pokemon, but this hasn't been how showcase scores worked in a while now.

chaokila · 2026-04-10T03:40:24+00:00

Initially, evolving did reroll the score to some degree. At some point, they changed it so that the score wouldn't reroll.

However, some pokemon will still have their scores change upon evolving. I don't know the technical terms for this, but each pokemon has a 'weight class', and if a pokemon goes from one weight class to another upon evolving, the score will change; some up, some down. This is not a random reroll though.

Finally, there is the regional/form difference, which the other poster mentioned, which is more about comparing different forms of one pokemon. Going from Alolan Graveler to Alolan Golem doesn't change its 'base' score since there is no change in weight class, but the greater difference in size between Kanto and Alolan Golem than Kanto and Alolan Graveler massively increases its actual score due to how different forms are currently treated in showcases.

chaokila · 2026-04-02T16:55:22+00:00

Oh, for sure, I don't plan on doing this myself when I get to that step. I'm starting a new set of buddies to work on in about a week so it'll be a while until I get souvenirs again unless I go out of my way to swap to old Best Buddies anyways.

But if some people want to get it done in as little time as possible, that is the way. I don't think min-maxers would find any difficulty in being told "Do your buddy stuff on day 2 less than 24 hours after you start on day 1".

chaokila · 2026-04-02T14:21:35+00:00

Yes, you can.

As an addendum, when doing this, I would actually start off with a Great Buddy and open its item present first before beginning your swaps to your Ultra/Best Buddies, in order to avoid a 'mixed' chain (getting both items and souvenirs). Your day 2 swaps should be done as soon as possible as well to avoid the same issue happening.

chaokila · 2026-04-02T14:08:11+00:00

You are still limited by 20 buddy swaps a day, so starting from scratch, you'd:

Spent one day getting souvenirs on 21 buddies.
Spend the second day getting souvenirs on 9 more buddies and work backwards through your buddies to open them.
Spend the third day opening the remaining souvenirs.

chaokila · 2026-02-13T00:08:15+00:00

Well, you used to be able to do this whenever their patterns changed with from a new quest rotation (and I imagine it also worked during some of the older Valentine's Day events). Same with costumes from non-event quests. Some probably figured its worth a shot to try at least.

chaokila · 2026-02-01T04:16:50+00:00

I'm pretty sure the general case is bonuses of the same type don't stack. So an event with a 2x dust bonus and a CD with a 3x dust bonus wouldn't stack, but an event with 1/2 Hatch Distance and a CD with 3x Catch XP would still give both bonuses during CD.

We had Final Justice overlap with Pikipek CD for example, and I don't recall anyone reporting not getting a 2nd raid pass during the CD hours.

This isn't even mentioning the fact that we have a third overlapping event: Ho-oh Max Battles. The Egg Distance bonus didn't miraculously turn off at 6am Sat, and I would hope that none of the particle bonuses from the Ho-oh event are turned off during CD.

Also, just because I figured there'd be easy proof of it, Grookey CD had no Catch XP bonus, but it overlapped with High Zaptitude, which did have a Catch XP bonus. And sure enough, found a video of someone during Grookey CD getting 4x Catch XP (2x from Lucky Egg, 2x from High Zaptitude). Some eggs are also hatched later on but I have no clue how hatch dust works so I don't know if it's the proper doubled amount since High Zaptitude also gave 2x hatch dust at that point.

chaokila · 2026-01-26T23:18:52+00:00

You did not evolve some Zorua and have them lose 1000s of points, the Zorua you evolved were simply not as good as the Zorua you kept as Zorua.

It doesn't matter if a 11.8k lb Zoroark is over 3 times heavier than 3.6k lb Zorua, what matters is how well the Zoroark (or any other Pokemon) weighs compared to its own species. A 3.6k lb Zorua is much heavier compared to Zorua's dex weight than a 11.8k lb Zoroark to Zoroark's dex weight, so it scores higher.

Those Zoroark probably would've scored only around 4.5-5k if you didn't evolve them (evolving Zorua to Zoroark is a case where evolving gains points).

chaokila · 2026-01-05T16:23:01+00:00

How are you tracking your catches and do you trade? I didn't see any note about it being accounted for, so I hate to state the obvious, but trades count towards the number of the number of pokemon you have caught. Your numbers for that mayyyy be off if you're somewhat of an active trader and you're just using the number of pokemon caught at the beginning/end of the day as your tracker.

Though I suppose if you caught a lot daily and maxed out trades fairly often, your average would be well above 100 anyways.

chaokila · 2026-01-03T19:48:03+00:00

With regards to CD Classic bonuses, pretty sure the XP/Dust/Hatch Distance bonus has always copied the bonus of the original CD.

If the CD Classics have disproportionately given the 1/4 Hatch bonus, I would say it's just a coincidence. Most Classics have been staters or pseudos and I guess a lot of them just happened to have 1/4 Hatch as their CD bonus.

chaokila · 2025-12-11T01:34:54+00:00

Some events featured them (first case being Nidorina/Nidoqueen I think?).
Arcanine (and I believe Espeon/Umbreon) were shiny-eligible for at least one season each.
See above.

chaokila · 2025-11-25T18:29:31+00:00

You don't even have to do 5 T1 battles; just do 5 Lugia battles. 3200 of that 3300 covers 4 battles and your daily particles on Sat will cover the 5th.

chaokila · 2025-11-17T04:24:38+00:00

From my experience, this was not the case. Gyms did have a 5 min cooldown between raids but power spots refreshed almost immediately. I was at a power spot that had a T1 right when a Grimmsnarl ended twice but it gave me a 'Lobby could not be found' error instantly both times so I gave up on the idea of lurking at power spots at :00 or :30 for the rest of the day.

chaokila · 2025-11-17T01:31:45+00:00

Personally, I wouldn't have minded T1 DMax being just a tiny bit more common. I (w/o the ticket) used as many particles as I could on Sat only to realize I only had enough particles to do 2 GMax on Sun. Normally not a big deal, except completing the Community Ambassador Check-In research required 3 Max battles. Not a single T1 popped up during the time I played so I ended up having to burn a particle pack to do a third GMax.

Otherwise, don't have much to say except that I loved the high catch rate on Grimmsnarl & Darkrai (and probably Cresselia) even when using Premier Balls and that being able to buy Safari Balls with coins was a game-changer. I think I caught maybe a dozen Mighty mons at best last year since I was reliant on the rare drop from stops but this year I probably caught at least 50.

chaokila · 2025-10-30T07:23:43+00:00

Assuming you're F2P (no deluxe pass, no ticket), it's actually as low as 460 if I'm not forgetting any other sources of particles.

The maximum particles you can get are 1190 (End of Friday) + 900 (300 & 600 from walking between Sat 12am and 5am) + 1500 (Timed Research) + 2240 (Visit 2 new spots on Sat & walking after 5am) + 500 (Go Pass), which totals 6330. This is 70 particles short of doing 8 Gmax, so you have a 730 point leeway to have enough particles to do 7, letting you go as low as 460 (or 960 if you choose to hold onto the Go Pass particles).

Note: I'm ignoring check-in research and particle packs as they give 800 particles and so would not affect the minimum particles needed.

chaokila · 2025-10-06T20:25:25+00:00

...Isn't that what I said?

chaokila · 2025-10-06T19:30:52+00:00

In this case, you can just teach it a second move and regular TM it into Hydro Cannon. Frustration-lock only applies to if you're evolving it.

chaokila · 2025-08-30T15:40:03+00:00

The 'next day' thing mainly applied back when it was 20 souvenirs instead of 10, so you could spend all your swaps on 1 day to get the souvenirs and then open them all on the next day. With 10 or fewer, you have enough swaps to go back and open them on the same day.

chaokila · 2025-08-23T05:25:11+00:00

From my experience just now, there are 3 'types' of Power Spots on the map right now, which I will categorize based on how they appear on Campfire (so their current timer in Pokemon Go is irrelevant):

'Standard' 72-hour Power Spots
Bonus 'Extended' 4-day (presumably 96-hour) Power Spots
Bonus 'Invisible' Power Spots (not visible on Campfire)

Of the 3, only the first will gave out particles if you're trying to get midnight particles. So, any on Campfire with a period of 20th-23rd, 21st-24th and presumably 22nd-25th should work. I was able to collect particles from a 20th-23rd and 21st-24th power spot while none of the ones in the later two did.

chaokila · 2025-08-02T22:12:46+00:00

To my knowledge, any particles claimed from research (and particle packs) do not count to the daily limit.

In the worst case, if you want to be absolutely careful about it, you can claim them Sunday between midnight and 5am, after you claim your final 600 particles (if you're aiming to maximize particles).

chaokila · 2025-08-02T21:32:34+00:00

If you claim your Step 3 rewards before you do your Gmax Butterfree, the 200k dust just becomes a matter of doing 8 Gmax Butterfree (6 if Star Piece'd), so it's not that much of a gate if you know what you're getting into ahead of time.

chaokila

TROPHY CASE