Another Look At Daily Incense

It’s been a while since Daily Incense was added to Pokemon GO, but I think it’s worth looking at it again. After all, it’s a free incense that you get given every day, and it can give some interesting Pokemon. But is the Daily Incense worth it?

Some extra spawns

If you live somewhere rural, the Daily Incense is definitely worth using. It’s a guaranteed bunch of Pokemon for you to catch as you walk. You have to walk, otherwise you’ll get one spawn and that’s basically it. But the walking requirement isn’t too bad, as long as you are moving, you should be fine.

Well, unless you loop back on yourself during your walk. I’ve found that, in order to get all 15 Pokemon from the Daily Incense, I have to make sure I keep on walking in a somewhat straight line. One of my walking routes goes back on itself, and when I walk there, the Daily Incense seems to stop counting for a minute or so., making me lose a spawn. Walking in a straight line is the best way to milk every single spawn from the Daily Incense.

In town though, the spawns tend to get lost among all the other Pokemon around. I’ve used the Daily Incense on community days, but I often find I miss a few because the Pokemon density in an urban area is generally really high.

Same as normal spawns

As to what Pokemon you can get, they mostly mirror whatever the current spawns are. If there’s an event going on, you’ll get Pokemon from the event. If there’s no event, then you get the standard seasonal spawns. There are a few cool things that can spawn though. For some reason, Sealeo is a rare spawn from the Daily Incense, and evolved Pokemon are also a tiny bit more common. I’ve managed to get a whole Venusaur from a Daily Incense. But most of the time, it’s just whatever the event or seasonal spawns are. On most walks, I don’t get anything special from the Daily Incense, it’s about every other day that I get something interesting. Not horrible, but could be better.

Seasonal spawns though do suck. Why spawn a Pidove when there’s already plenty of them around?

Legendary Birds hardly exist

However the biggest draw to the Daily Incense is the chance to catch the Galarian Legendary Birds. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres have a chance to appear from your Daily Incense, but good luck catching them. Their catch rate is basically zero, you just have to hope for a lucky catch, or that the bird in question has a very low CP. But that’s assuming you actually see them. Despite me using the Daily Incense well, daily, I very rarely see any of the birds. At best, I see one once every two weeks, and I haven’t seen Zapdos in at least two months.

Still, I can’t complain too much about something that’s free. It does get me to go out and have a little walk. But since the spawns from a Daily Incense mimic the spawns we already have, most of the time, I just find myself shiny-checking.