pokemon go

The 5 Best Pokemon to use Elite TMs on

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Mewtwo and Mew

Elite TMs are pretty rare. Even if you play every season of the Go Battle League, you won’t get many. You are basically restricted to one per season. As it stands, there are only two reliable ways of getting Elite TMs of any type. The Go Battle League rewards one per season, alternating between Charge and Fast TMs. And Community Day boxes tend to contain a TM, generally based on whatever the Community Day move is. Elite TMs are also very rarely given out in limited or special research tasks, as well as paid events. On the flip side, events… [Continue Reading]

Somehow a Team Rocket-Themed Event is Bad?

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Yveltal flying over a blood moon

Followers of the Daily SPUF will probably recognize two things about me. Firstly, I use a yellow Volt a lot. But secondly, I really like Team Rocket fights in Pokemon GO. There is something cathartic about kicking grunts in the groin and stealing their Pokemon. Wait… that’s what they’re supposed to be doing to us. Either way though, grunt fights are fun, and I always enjoy events that spawn more of them. However, the Luminous Legends Y event has me questioning that. Somehow, this Team Rocket event is bad. Actually, that sentence is wrong in two ways. Firstly, this isn’t… [Continue Reading]

Timed Research Needs Better Rewards

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Shiny Celebi in a jungle. I'm going to assume that it appears in the new Pokemon movie too.

We’ve had a lot of events lately, pretty much one after the other. As of writing, we are in a Luminous Legends event. There was one for Xerneas and one for Yveltal. Both these events and the ones before them came with timed research. This research worked the same way as special research except it’s, well, timed. But despite the rush to complete them, the rewards are always… kinda lame. Let’s look at the Luminous Legends X event as an example. The only good rewards were at the end. Luminous Legends X was a longer event than normal. It ran… [Continue Reading]

Poor Xerneas, a Pokemon with no real usable moves

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Xerneas and its awful fast moves

Xerneas is a cool Pokemon. It’s a massive deer that has rainbow antlers whenever it’s in battle. It’s so stupidly powerful that it kicks the shit out of its fellow Legendaries. On top of being an amazing Fairy type, Xerneas has an ability that makes its fairy powers even stronger. Yeah, sure, Zygarde does have an aura-nullifying ability. But Zygarde is still a dragon type. And Dragon types get their asses handed to them by fairies on the regular. However, with Xerneas’s arrival in Pokemon GO, turns out things aren’t that bright and sunny for the pretty deer. Xerneas’s moves… [Continue Reading]

Swablu Community Day

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A wild Shiny Swablu

Swablu has always kinda annoyed me. People complain about other lazy Pokemon designs all the time. While Trubbish gets dumped on for being rubbish, I feel Swablu is also lazy. It’s literally just a blue ball with some wings made of clouds. However, Swablu is a pain in the butt in other ways. It’s the Magikarp of its generation but it just evolves into a bigger blue ball with wings. And gets the dragon typing. Swablu is still kinda popular though, enough so that it has a Mega Evolution. And here in Pokemon GO, it also got a Community Day.… [Continue Reading]

On Playing Pokemon GO as a Free To Play Player

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Genesect, a mechanical insect Pokemon nearly as good as Scizor

I won’t deny it, I’ve spent money on Pokemon GO. Not much though. For the perhaps thousands of hours of enjoyment, I’ve not spent much at all. I’ve purchased a handful of event tickets and the rare €5 coin bundle. But most of the time, I just use what I have, and if I run out, that’s it. However, I may have mentioned that I started a new account. That account is completely free to play. And mostly separate from what I normally do. It mostly just does community days, raids and the odd event if I can be bothered.… [Continue Reading]

There’s No Reason Why Smeargle Can’t Be Shiny Any More

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A Shiny Smeargle from the limited Pokemon Snap event

The Pokemon Snap event came and went in Pokemon GO. It was nothing special. Yet another timed research and a handful of spawns. Most  of the spawns weren’t particularly interesting. At least, not if you weren’t hunting for shinies. And even then, some of the spawns weren’t shiny-eligible at all, namely Metapod and Dodrio. Annoyingly, we couldn’t have had Caterpie or Doduo spawning as well. The one standout part of this event was the fact that Smeargle could be shiny. “Wait, Smeargle is in Pokemon GO?” Yeah, this seems strange, especially since Kecleon is STILL missing after all these years.… [Continue Reading]

Two Weeks Without Team Rocket

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Team Rocket Balloon MIA

In the middle of April, a Pokemon GO update broke Team Rocket fights. The bug didn’t affect everyone, but it would basically soft-lock the game. So, to keep the game playable, Team Rocket was disabled. Honestly? I thought this would be fine. I’d survive without Team Rocket, even if I was at 5/6 radar components. It’d be fine, right? Well, no. I kinda lost interest in the game. I was actually kinda surprised by this. Originally, I thought I’d be fine. But I quickly stopped opening the game as regularly. Normally, I’d use Team Rocket fights for the stardust and… [Continue Reading]

How I would have done a Sustainability Event in Pokemon GO

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Some Sunkern and a Bulbasaur tut at some Trubbish in an alleyway.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a Sustainability event in Pokemon GO. As part of a sustainability campaign by Niantic, all its games are getting events. Mostly to raise awareness, I think. Now, I don’t play Wizards Unite or Ingress Prime, but I do play Pokemon GO. And I can tell you this: the event was kinda boring. And it didn’t really raise awareness. But it’s not hard to have made this event more interesting. So here’s how we’ll do it. First off, a summary of the actual Sustainability Week. There wasn’t much to it. Some Pokemon in raids.… [Continue Reading]

The Easiest Pokemon to Level Up Past Level 40

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Eevee and its Eeveelutions

Getting a Pokemon to level 40 is kinda tricky. On the last few stages, you’re looking at thousands of stardust and up to 15 candy for half a level. Unless you have a Lucky or Purified Pokemon, the stardust costs become ridiculous. Powering up Pokemon to level 50 however takes that long grind and makes it even harder. For one single power up, from level 40 to level 40.5, you require 10k stardust and 10 Candy XL. One Candy XL is equal to 100 normal candy. the only guaranteed way to get XL Candy is to hatch a Pokemon, which… [Continue Reading]