Bellsprout Community Day
No one asked for Bellsprout Community Day. No one. Not anyone. Even people who use it in PvP weren’t really looking for a Bellsprout Community Day. However, Niantic saw that the 20th of the 4th, 4/20 in the US, fell on a Saturday, and they decided that Pokemon number #69 was the perfect choice for a Community Day. Because why not double down with both a 420 meme and a 69 meme? That being said, they could doubled down on the 420 meme twice, since Pokemon number 420 is Cherubi, but its evolution is weather-based and Niantic probably couldn’t be bothered to change how Cherrim worked for a one-off event.
So yeah, Bellsprout Community Day. That’s what we got. I mean, it’s not as bad as Chansey Community Day, but it’s yet another Kanto Pokemon that already has its shiny released. On top of that, it also already has its shiny shadow released. Bellsprout was the reason why I avoided Arlo for an entire month, and Bellsprout is also the Pokemon that Decoy Grunts leave behind. I already had a shiny Bellsprout from the Kanto tour a few years ago.
Victreebell’s Community Day move is a fast move, Magical Leaf. While it doesn’t do huge amounts of damage the same way Razor Leaf does, it does actually generate some energy, meaning you can occasionally actually use a charge move once in a while. Magical Leaf isn’t so much a buff to Victreebell, it more offers an alternate way of using Victreebell. Normally, people use Victreebell to spam massive damage fast attacks and kill opponents before they can get a charge move up, and it absolutely shreds common enemies like Azumarill and the myriad of water types in Great and Ultra League. Magical Leaf allows Victreebell to use the myriad of charge attacks it has, such as Sludge Bomb and Acid Spray within a reasonable amount of time. Like I said, a side-grade. But since Victreebell has lurked around in Great League for a while, it’s probably worth getting one. It does okay in Ultra League but doesn’t get high enough to be used in Master League, capping out at 2.7k CP at level 50 and 100% IVs.
The shadow version of Victreebell is technically better (and it IS better in Great League, where things have generally lower health) but Magical Leaf works better on normal Victreebell since it’ll live longer to use charge moves in the first place.
For PvE, Victreebell is a good budget attacker if you have Razor Leaf, but, honesty, Roserade does way better, and all grass types pale in comparison to Kartana. If you don’t already have 5 high CP Kartanas or Roserades, then you could use a very high CP Victreebell, but at that point, you’re better off using something like Venusaur as well. It’s not a bad poison attacker either, but, again, Roserade does better, as does Nihilego.
However that does mean having to search for PvP IVs. Which means, unless you have something like the Pokegenie app, you have to check every Pokemon manually. Generally, the stats you want are very low attack (0-1) and maxed out health and defense. This is mostly because you want your Pokemon to be as high a level as possible while being low CP, and more attack means a higher CP.
Really though, for non-PvPers, the big reason to do this Community Day was x3 stardust. Especially since Bellsprout is weatherboosted in clear and cloudy weather. For me, it was only cloudy for about half an hour, but getting 500 stardust per catch was really nice. On the flip side though, being weatherboosted makes it impossible to search for good PvP Pokemon, because the weatherboost increases both CP and minimum stats.
Personally, I had a rather quiet Community Day. I did run into one other player, but he stated that he was only playing very briefly and was on his way to see his girlfriend, that he didn’t really care about the event. I got plenty of shinies, but I found my game wasn’t working quite right. I had a lot of Pokemon being unable to be transferred (for an unknown error), my Friends list wouldn’t load and Pokestops sometimes refused to spin. The guy I ran into had similar problems, so it wasn’t just me.
Overall, not an impressive day, but a god chance to make some good stardust.