Community Day May 2020 Guide

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Seedot
• The release of Shiny Seedot
  • Obtainable from catches, hatches, research, and raids
  • An increased Shiny rate (roughly 1 in 23) during Community Day hours
• 3-hour Incense
• 3x Catch XP
• Take a Snapshot during Community Day for a Seedot Photobomb (up to 5 times)
• One-time purchasable Community Day Bundle
  • Likely 1,280 PokeCoins
  • 1 Elite Fast TM
  • 30 Ultra Balls
  • 3 Lucky Eggs
  • 3 Incense
• Exclusive Special Research “Seeing Double”
  • $1 or equivalent in local currency
  • Rewards 3 Incense, 5 Golden Razz Berries, and other rewards.
• Additional gifts from Buddy Pokemon
  • Most be Great Buddy or higher
  • Contains helpful items, such as Pokeballs
• All Nuzleef evolved during Community Day hours learn the exclusive move Bullet Seed (Shiftry Only)
  • Fast TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move
  • Must evolve a Nuzleaf during CD in your region (or up to two hours after)
  • Have a stable internet connection and consider doing a test evolve, as Niantic acknowledges server issues can and do happen during CD, yet refuses to compensate/correct this known issue.

Community Day and Covid-19

This is the second Community Day taking place while a majority of the world is on lockdown from the global pandemic of the Coronavirus. Because of this, Niantic has added additional elements to make the event more enjoyable for those impacted by widespread lockdowns. Please use safety and common sense while playing in this event. For other Community Day related tips, check out February's Community Day Guide. For additional Coronavirus considerations, check out our article on that subject as well.

This Saturday, before Community Day, a poll will be conducted on @PokemonGoApp's Twitter for June and July Community Day’s featured Pokemon. The top two vote getters will be our Pokemon for the next two months so don’t forget to vote for Gastly your favorite!

Check out our article breaking down the met implications of each of the 4 options here;

Where applicable, this section will be updated to include new information as our friendly NZ “beta testers” experience CD before anyone else in the world. On Community Days with new, unpredictable features (and this Community Day has a lot of them!), the only way to know for sure how they’ll function is having others experience it first. Check back here before CD to see if there’s any last-minute tips you need to know!

Playing in NZ? Thanks! We monitor reports on The Silph Road carefully, though you can also submit reports here on GamePress or directly to NoLucksGiven on twitter. Additionally, it is even more recommended you have a stable internet connection and consider doing a test evolve, as Niantic acknowledges server issues can and do happen (especially in your region) during CD, yet refuses to compensate/correct this known issue.

2 Incense

Each Incense lasts 3 hours, meaning 2 will allow you to play the entire event while Incensed, a necessity for those hoping to play while at home.

Turn on vibrate or connect your Pokemon Go+. Incense Pokemon are actually invisible for a few seconds after spawning. Navigating through other menus can help reload the map and make these Pokemon appear quicker.

Star Piece

Community Day can be a great time to Star Piece if you’re not playing a lot otherwise, though this event features no Stardust related bonuses.

Lucky Eggs

This event does offer triple catch XP, though those XP gains are minimal compared to those you can receive from Lucky Egging friendships. Because your friends might also be playing during CD, now may be the perfect time to coordinate friendship level ups.

Plenty of Pokeballs

Make it a priority to open as many gifts as possible each day to restock on Pokeballs before the event. After the event, keep opening to prepare for the next one!

Increase your storage capacity so you can keep opening. This will allow you to stockpile more balls when you’re not playing as much to prepare for events like this.

Here are a few other things to keep in mind right before Community Day starts for making the most of the granted bonuses.

• If coordinating Lucky Egg friendships, encourage your friends to egg and advance friendships before the event starts. This allows you to focus on catching once Seedot start spawning!
• Before you catch anything before CD starts, consult Breaking the Bank's tips on maximizing your Stardust.
• Existing spawns can change to Seedot. Clicking on Pokemon to catch or even just to shiny check will prevent them from turning into Seedot. It’s fine though to check for shinies you don’t yet have. If you want to catch the most Seedot, avoid clicking on spawns as Community Day is about to begin.
• You can only complete research from each stop once daily.  If you complete a task at a given stop, you cannot receive the “Catch 3” task from that stop during Community Day. Occasionally, receiving the task from a stop will lock it into its non-CD task.
  • Tasks revert to their pre-CD tasks when CD is over but you cannot receive research from Stops where you completed “Catch 3” or the original research.
  • Because of this, you may decide to skip over stops during CD that you know give desirable research (from Discord, Facebook, etc.) or complete them before CD starts.
  • Many players may do the opposite, choosing not to complete Research in areas they know they will be during CD for easy rewards.
  • Check to see if you have completed the Research Task of a given Pokestop by the indicator in the top right corner of a Pokestop

Now, with those in mind, there is still room for choice. If you’ll be playing all Community Day then you might not care about one spawn point here and there, and catching weather boosted Machop or shiny checking a Wailmer may be worth it to you. Likewise, you may not find it necessary to fill your inventory with Community Day eggs.

Use this time before the event starts to prep; spin stops, transfer Pokemon, open gifts (and level up friendships), Raid, check-in, and obtain/give out Meltan boxes.

You can unlock the Special Research seeing double for $1 or equivalent local currency. The only promised rewards are 3 Incense and 5 Golden Razz Berries. As someone who already believed the previous Special Research was a bad buy, this one particularly seems like an exercise from Niantic in how bad you can make the Special Research before people stop buying it. It’s only a buck but that honestly seems better spent on Pokecoins.

During Community Day, Field Research Tasks are changed to “Catch 3 Seedot” with the following rewards;

• 500 Stardust
• 2 Ultra Balls
• 5 Great Balls
• 2 Pinap Berries
• 1 Golden Razzberry
• Seedot encounter (CP range 230-256)

The featured May Community Day Bundle will be a one-time purchase, likely costing 1280 PokeCoins and containing 1 Elite Fast TM, 30 Ultra Balls, 3 Lucky Eggs, and 3 Incense.

The two things to note about this box are firstly that it replaces Super Incubators with Lucky Eggs compared to last month’s box. This means that yes, this box is certainly considered worse.

The 2nd thing to note is that it is a Fast TM being offered, not a Charge TM. This is considerably worse as well, as most Exclusive moves are Charge moves. Obviously Shiftry is receiving a Fast Move, as did Alakazam last month, but that is not the norm. There are elite Fast moves with TMing for, but by and large this might not be worth your coins as much as last month’s Charge TM.

Some of the other points from last month’s guide discussing the Elite CTM will still be relevant though and can be read here.

Taking a snapshot of one of your Pokemon will trigger a special Photobomb during this event. This occurs during the first picture in any photo shoot. Seedot will photobomb up to 5 times during the event! This is only 5 extra Seedot spawns in the grand scheme of things, but can be helpful for those that are low. Spawns follow similar rules to Incensed spawns. It's also an easy way to progress the Photobomb bagde.

Shiny Seedot will appear shiny in the Photobomb and on the world map.

Community Day Raids and Eggs and Rocket Grunts

It’s a coinflip whether or not this CD will feature these elements, though April did not. Once the event has started in NZ, we’ll update this space. Check back later!

In celebration of Seedot Community Day, and because I’ve been doing so well personally with Shiftry in the Go Battle League, I’ve dedicated my Youtube Channel to Shiftry this week, releasing a new video of some of my favorite battles each day!

Monday : Welcome to Shiftry Week & An Intro to Winning with Shiftry

Welcome to Shiftry Week is a look at Shiftry’s place in the Meta with discussion on Raids and Go Battle League. This is pretty similar to the exclusive move analysis below.

Intro to Winning with Shiftry takes a simple look at Shiftry’s place in the Great League meta as a counter to Azumaril and a surprisingly good generalist with a look at 10 battles from season 1.

Tuesday : Season 1 Highlights

Season 1 Highlights looks at my 10 best battles from season one against a variety of different teams of Pokemon. Turns out a lot of Pokemon are weak to Shiftry and a few otherwise well-rounded teams have no good answer for the Grass/Dark-type.

Wednesday : Shiftry Destroys Haunter

Shiftry Destroys Haunter showcases 8 battles against teams featuring Haunter… obviously. As the title would imply, lining up a Shiftry against an opposing Haunter is basically GG. Providing free wins against an otherwise problematic Pokemon contributes to Shiftry being the full package.

Thursday : Shiftry in Season 2

Shiftry in Season 2 showcases 10 highlighted battles as I climb from Rank 1 to Rank 8. Alolan Riachu has picked up a lot of steam in Season 2 and that’s one of Shiftry’s best matchups, resisting all of its moves, while dealing Super Effective Damage back!

Friday : Leading with Shiftry

Leading with Shiftry is great because Shiftry lines up well in Season 2 against a lot of common leading Pokemon including everything mentioned above and more. This video includes 9 highlighted battles including some against trickier leads like Skarmory and Melmetal.

While these 6 videos conclude Shiftry week, I’ll be sure to have additional Shiftry content in the future as well!

Bullet Seed is an interesting choice for Shiftry. Razor Leaf is a better Fast move for Raids and Snarl is largely better for Go Battle League. Information in this section is also explored in Welcome to Shiftry Week, for those that prefer audio/video content.

Raids

Shiftry even in its Shadow forme isn’t a great raiding Pokemon as a Grass or a Dark type. Both types are extremely competitive with the latter also competing against Ghost types in most scenarios. It’s the 6th and 5th best Grass and Dark Shadow Pokemon respectively by DPS with considerably worse TDO than most of the options that out rank it. When looking at non-Shadow Pokemon, it’s nowhere near the best.

PvP

Shiftry has access to the amazingly powerful Leaf Blade, allowing it to deal a lot of Grass-type damage quickly. Because of this, the coverage from Snarl as a fast move is generally preferred over Bullet Seed. The two moves are identical except typing. The moves also deal little damage and are mostly focused on generating energy, mitigating the differences ever further. 

Ultra League

Shiftry is an Ultra League all-star, where it is a counter to the format’s three best performing Pokemon; Giratina, Swampert, and now Cresselia too! Notably, Shiftry really appreciates having Snarl here to deal extra damage to Tina and Cress.

You’ll need to max out and potentially even best buddy a Shiftry for the Ultra League, so look for a Lucky one this Community Day if you’re planning on using one in that league. Additionally, it’s worth noting that non-Shadow Shiftry seems to perform the best in this league.

Great League

To see Shiftry in action in the Great League, check out Shiftry Week on my YouTube channel, uploading new Shiftry battle videos each day this week!

Shiftry is a great Great League Pokemon too and it’s Shadow forme performs even better, as it’s able to pressure shields quickly with Leaf Blade. While Snarl is generally considered better as a whole, Bullet Seed does allow it to beat some Pokemon, like Umbreon, and allows Shiftry to more easily farm down mudbois like Swampert and Whishcash.

PvP Ready CPs

Finding Pokemon that can be evolved to be near the CP-cap in PvP leagues can save a lot of Stardust. Before evolving, consult a CP/IV calculator to confirm your Seedot will stay below the CP thresholds. Looking for Seedot with CP around or below these thresholds can be great for trainers interested in PvP with limited resources;

For Great League Shiftry, look for Seedot with CP 324-380 and below. Nuzleaf will have CP 736-782 in this range.

For this article, let’s skip those sections on setting goals, making trades, etc. Just do the best you can. Now is a crazy time, not just for Pokemon Go, but for the world at large. Make the most of what you can, and have fun with the event. Don’t stress out, and know that Niantic will find ways to recycle these events in the future in ways that allow players that were stuck home another chance to participate.

Catch trade and evolve what you can. If Elite TMs and Remote Raiding are any indicator, Pokemon Go is changing. We’ll be here walking you through these exciting new features, and we’ll be here when everything is back to normal.

Keep the journey fun, and happy hunting