The Incense Shuffle Event Was a Sentret Event
On April 19th, Pokemon Go had its first genuine stay at home event! It involved the magical Incense and various types of Pokemon. And Sentret. Lots and lots of Sentret. From 11am until 5pm, we would get spawns based on different types, changing every hour. If you are lucky, you’ll get some rare spawns. If you are unlucky, you will see a billion Sentret. Also, there were NO changed spawns. Only Incense Pokemon were affected by the event.
The event is simple: Use Incense, get Pokemon
The type of Pokemon were based on different types. For the first hour, we got water types, with a rare chance of getting Clamperl. Then we had fire types for the next hour, grass after that, and the last three hours being Psychic, Bug and Ground. Each hour had one “if you’re lucky” spawn and lots of Sentret.
To be able to play the whole event from start to finish, you need 6 Incense. But you can get away with the 1 coin box bundle too. With 3 Incense, you could get half an hour of each type’s spawns, by staggering your use. That is kinda what I did, but I wanted to do the whole Fire hour. I need Litwicks and wanted a chance at a shiny Ponyta and Growlithe. And more shiny Houndour wouldn’t have hurt. Not that I got one.
In the 270 Pokemon that I saw via 4 incense, 79 of them were Sentret.
Yeah, the lame person that I am, I sat down and wrote how many of each species I saw. I had hoped to give my information to the Silph Road but apparently they only accept information after you have joined a task force and while the event is happening. So my information, written up in readable form after the event, is worthless to them.
Anyway, here are the results:
Sentret: 77 + 2 Shiny
Water Hour:
Tentacool 5 | Poliwag 2 | Mudkip 2 | Piplup 3 | Spheal 4 | Psyduck 2 | Totodile 2 | Squirtle 1 | Clamperl 3
Fire Hour:
Vulpix 6 | Chimchar 5 | Charmander 5 | Torchic 5 | Cyndaquil 6 | Houndour 6 | Growlithe 7 | Ponyta 1 | Litwik 4
Grass Hour:
Sunkern 5 | Treecko 2 | Oddish 2 | Bulbasaur 3 | Roselia 6 | Lileep 3 | Turtwig 4 | Ferroseed 2
Psychic Hour:
Ralts 2 | Baltoy 4 | Bronzor 6 | Natu 6 | Exeggcute 6 | Slowpoke 2 | Drowzee 4 | Spoink 3 | Gothita 3
Bug Hour:
Spinarak 7 | Skorupi 8 | Anorith 4 | Ledyba 6 | Venonat 3 | Weedle 4 | Wurmple 5 | Caterpie 5 | Joltik 2
Ground Hour:
Sandshrew 4 | Barboach 2 | Diglett (Kanto) 1 | Cubone 3 | Onix 2 | Wooper 3 | Geodude (Kanto) 1 | Drilbur 0
The shiny rates were NOT boosted
Well, aside from Sentret. I got two shiny Sentret. I think a lot of people got a shiny Sentret. But nothing else appeared to be boosted.
Somehow, I didn’t seem to catch anything good at all. Everything was of middling to low IVs and CPs. The weather was Sunny all day, which would have boosted 3 of the 6 types. But even then, still nothing impressive.
I also managed to not get any Drilbur, but that doesn’t bother me. I already have a 100% one and they spawn pretty regularly around here. But honestly, the chances of the “if you’re lucky” spawns were pretty damn low.
So was this event worth it?
If you like Sentret and want a shiny one, yes. Also yes if you still have Incense to burn. The Sentret spawns via Incense were consistent throughout the whole event, but everything else wasn’t.
But otherwise, I don’t think this event was worth it at all, aside from the chance to get Litwick. Whether you are looking for your first Joltik or to finish Gothita’s evolutions, the incense spawns are tedious. More importantly, not everyone has a ton of Pokeballs. Because these Pokemon are all from Incense, they are weirdly harder to catch. This means Pokeballs and berries are a worry as well.
Overall, it was mostly a waste of Incense
Sure, I got two shiny Sentret, but… I already had one. And Sentret isn’t that uncommon. Maybe if we had also had some boosted natural spawns as well, it would have worked better? But incense only means that you’re fighting invisible RNG. And the nature of an Incense means you feel almost forced to catch whatever spawns. Considering people can’t go outside, the event is okay, but I think there were too many spawns. If this event had focused on less spawning Pokemon, perhaps the event would have been better. Especially since we’ve had Torchic in nearly every event this year.
That being said, if you haven’t finished the Genesect special research, then this event would have been worth it. If only because of Spheal spawns in the water hour and fire and normal types in the rest of the hour.
Oh well. At least it was better than the stupid GBL Marill event.