Starly Community Day and Staravia Raids

I’ll be honest. I barely bothered with the Starly Community Day. It just wasn’t particularly interesting. We got one of the many bird-like Pokemon, and the day just was… boring, even if I did have nearby spawns. Somehow though, Starly Community Day was boring enough that I’m actually writing an article about it.

Not even bothering to try and live up to Deino day

Okay, sure, not every Community Day can be as good as the Deino Community Day. That event was a ton of fun, we got a cool Pokemon and it got a good move. We also had the chance to get tons of XL candy, since Zweilous was also spawning in the wild, although they did kinda clog up spawns. Either way, good Pokemon, good move, good evolution, good bonus item. And at the end of last month’s article, I naively hoped that July’s event would be just as good.

Guess not.

It’s barely noticeable as a shiny

What makes matters worse is that the shinies kinda suck. Not just one of the evolutions, like Slakoth or Dratini, where one evolution looks great and another looks crap. Some Pokemon have bad-looking shiny starters but their evolutions are pretty cool, like Abra. Others are the other way round, e.g. Gible looking awesome compared to Garchomp. Nope, Starly, Staravia and Staraptor are all barely noticeable, as if they had been dunked in hot chocolate. Sure, shiny Staraptor has a blue bit on its nose instead of red, but both parts are simply small accents, not massively noticeable colours.

As for the move? Well, this month, it was a fast move, and Staraptor learns Gust. The same way Pidgeott has Gust as its special (or rather, Elite-TM-based) move. Gust is a good fast attack, but the problem is that there aren’t many Pokemon that are weak to flying more than anything else. For example, the Swords of Justice are all fighting types, which means they are weak to Flying, but they are all also weak to Psychic. It’s better to use a Mewtwo for more damage. But even among Flying types, Staraptor isn’t that amazing. Moltres and Rayquaza are better flyers. It’s kinda best used in PvP, where Flying is more dominant.

The raid event afterwards was pointless

NO ONE WANTS TO RAID NON-SHINY POKEMON. Let me say that again: People don’t like raiding a Pokemon that lacks a shiny. Especially if said Pokemon was spawning in the wild for three hours before the raid event. Heck, the raid event on Deino day was pretty pointless too. Everyone in our party was tired and on low battery, and we’d spent ages catching wild Zweilous alongside all the Deinos. If it wasn’t successful for Deino Community Day, I have no idea why it was added to Starly day as well.

And on top of all that? The Zweilous raids were in-person only. And the Staravia raids were no different. You couldn’t use remote passes on these 4-star raids at all and had to be there in person.

At least next Community Day will be cute. I don’t know how useful Galarian Zigzagoon will be, but at least it has an awesome shiny…