Community Day April 2019 Guide

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Bagon

• The release of Shiny Bagon

  • Obtainable from catches and hatches

  • An increased Shiny rate (roughly 1 in 24.5) during Community Day hours

• Themed Field Research “Catch 3 Bagon” for balls, berries, and Stardust

• 3-hour Lures

• 3x Catch XP

• All Salamence evolved during Community Day hours learn the exclusive move Outrage

  • Charged TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move

  • Must evolve a Shelgon during CD in your region (or up to an hour after)

Prepare for Your Day Accordingly

This guide will cover all of the in-game knowledge you’ll need to make the most out of Bagon Community Day. Information in this guide follows this rough order;

• How to prepare before the event

• Analysis and key technical information to consider during the event,

• Strategies for maximizing your acquired resources after the event

If you're reading this, you're already doing the best thing to prepare for the upcoming day!

Don’t forget to also prepare for the real weather and everything that comes along with that. Keep your real bag “fully upgraded” and, depending on the weather, make sure to bring along a jacket, rain poncho, water, sunscreen, as well as lunch, snacks, water, medical necessities, batteries and battery packs, fully charged devices, other protective gear, and water again, for good measure. Pace yourself and take breaks if needed to not get burnt out. Most importantly, keep it fun!

Bagon spawns will be dramatically increased everywhere during the duration of this event. You aren’t required to play anywhere specifically, but here are some tips for getting the most out of the location you choose.

Time Travel

Since this event is 3-6PM based on local time, By playing near a timezone shift, players in some parts of the world can take advantage by starting an hour earlier or ending an hour later. Start East then make your way West sometime after the first hour. This shouldn’t affect most players but can be a nice bonus to players willing to travel a little more during CD. Remember to stay West as you evolve for the exclusive move.

Exploring the Community

Use Community Day, and Pokemon Go in general, as an excuse to explore local areas. If you’re blessed with multiple, good locations, make use of them throughout various Community Days!

Playing with Friends

Community Day should be about the community, both the area and your local PoGo Players. Get together with friends, find your local group using PokeNav, or be the first in your area to create a group. If you see other trainers in your gyms, that means there’s others out there playing! More trainers means more fun, and Lure Modules appear for all players, so you can all share the increased spawns. Returning and new players- ask around and figure out where established players are planning to play!

Gyms for Raids

Players should be focused on catching this CD, but playing near gyms may lead to easy raid completion before or after the event, while everyone is already out.

Clusters and Lures

If you want to catch the most Bagon, focus on cluster spawns in areas with lots of network traffic such as parking lots and apartment complexes and high Pokestop dense areas that can be easily Lured up.

Weather

Pursuing weather-boosted Bagon will grant you higher CP and IV Bagon so it’s advised to hunt in forecasted Windy areas. This comes with it decreased catch rates and higher aggressive levels of Pokemon but is offset in Stardust gained and saved from catching weather boosted Pokemon. Pay attention to official weather reports as well as other trainers playing in different level 11 S2 cells (in-game weather boundaries).

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Since Swinub Community Day in February, nesting spawns stopped or are at least extremely dulled during CD hours. Every Community Day is slightly different in regards to spawn rates but it is worth noting that players can probably visit nests and not worry about diluted spawns.

6 Incense + Lures

Having 6 Incense will let you crack open one every 30 minutes and make it last the entirety of the event. Keep walking! Incense spawns more Pokémon while you’re moving! Even if you’re stuck at work where nothing spawns during the event window, popping some Incense could help you nab a shiny or two. 25 Incense can be purchased in bulk for 1250 in the Shop (50 each) at any time for those looking at an alternative to various Legacy Special Boxes. 25 Incense is enough for 4 Community Days and an extra to spare.

Bagon is an uncommon spawn and an extremely valuable Pokemon. So you’ll want to maximize your spawns. Remember quick catching your Incense spawns will still make them visible on the map after catch.

1-6 Lucky Egg

Community Day can be a great time to coordinate Friendship level ups for both players to egg and receive double XP. Make sure to coordinate with your friends as it is usually easier to plan for level ups in the minutes before Community Day starts so that the actual event can be spent catching.

The event also has 3x catch XP but you’d have to catch over 150 spawns every half hour to make this even better than Lucky Egging a single Best Friend. An Egg here is better than Egging multiple raids, but those low on Eggs should definitely save them for friendship.

Berries and Great/Ultra Balls

It’s always a good idea to stock up before CD. The themed research “Catch 3 Bagon” can be easily accomplished to help keep the Pokeballs flowing during the event, so it may not be necessary to stock up beforehand in all areas. Players in need of resources should remember to always open 20 daily gifts and to upgrade item bag storage as soon as possible. It is an investment that quickly pays for itself if you’re able to occasionally grind and stock up on items.

Some Star Pieces?

Community Day is a good Star Piece opportunity for many players that don’t otherwise make room for Star Piece grind sessions. If you fall into that category of player, it might be good to use a few Star Piece this event, but for many players it will not be.

Acquiring Bagon: Bagon Back in Raids!

The end of the Bug Out event should bring Bagon back to Tier 1 raids. This is a great opportunity for players hoping to obtain high-IV Bagon to evolve before the event. Players can also incubate more 10km eggs leading up to CD for chances at Bagon and Bagon candy.

Bagon obtained from either of these methods with undesirable IVs should be traded for candy and to reroll IVs (preferably with a Best Friend). Additional Bagon candy can be earned prior to the event by making Bagon your Buddy Pokemon, and by making Bagon a Gym Defender and stuffing it full of candy. If you have limited time to play this CD and are close to the candy needed for another evolution, these tips can put you over the threshold for evolving another Bagon for the exclusive moveset.

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

• Existing spawns can change to Bagon. Clicking on Pokemon to catch or even just to shiny check will prevent them from turning into Bagon. It’s fine to check for shinies you don’t yet have, but you might as well just catch the Pokemon at that point too. If you want to catch the most Bagon, 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.

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.

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.

Set Alarms for Items and Evolving

Before the event, consider setting an alarm on your phone for various CD intervals to remind yourself to reapply premium items if you’re using them. There’s a lot to keep track of during Community Day between quick catching, shiny checking, appraising, and talking and catching up with friends! Setting some alerts the night before could potentially earn you thousands of Stardust you’d lose out on if you forgot to break a Star Piece.

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

• 500 Stardust.

• 2 Ultra Balls.

• 5 Great Balls.

• 2 Pinap Berries.

This allows you to not stress about Research during the event and concentrate on catching. It also means that Trainers can rest easy knowing that Community Day itself will help provide them with additional Pinaps, Ultra Balls, and Great Balls! There are a few additional things to keep in mind as far as how this functioned last Community Day;

• Research from each stop can only be completed once each day. If you complete a task at a given stop, you cannot receive the “Catch 3 Bagon” task from that stop.

• Tasks revert to their pre-CD tasks when CD is over but you cannot receive research from Stops where you completed “Catch 3 Bagon” 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

Legacy Community Day Special Boxes have held a variety of supplies and are available shortly before the start of Community Day. A list of previous and current sales can be found on our Legacy Special Box list (as well as cost analysis breakdowns). June Community Day introduced Great and Ultra Boxes, amazing deals for an extremely limited time- but not all sales are created equal. This section will include a more thorough breakdown upon release of the Special Boxes in the Shop. Expect these boxes to appear around 4PM Friday EST before CD. An analysis will be posted below when available and should disappear shortly after the last region's Community Day.

If there are no pre-existing boxes in the shop, expect 1-3 CD boxes. If there’s already a set of boxes in the shop, expect 0-1 new CD boxes.

The important thing to realize here is that this box is barely a sale. Counting the incubators as 3 @ 150 each and adding in the Lure Module. This is a 4% discount. This is the lowest discount ever offered, tying with 9 other similarly bad boxes.

Anniversary 2018, Friendship Event 2018, August 2018 Community Day, Johto Festival 2018, September 2018 Community Day, Oct CD 2018, Nov CD 2018, Lunar New Year 2019, Equinox Event 2019

• There's also been 7 boxes (not listed) that didn't have a discount.

4% including Lure Modules is terrible. This box is also just not a discount if not including those, so it's quite terrible. I agree Ultra Balls may be the only reason to purchase this but coins are much better spent on item storage. Additionally, check out the section "The Technicals" for advice on how to better conserve those resources!

Salamence is an extremely powerful Pokemon regardless of its exclusive move. With Draco Meteor it ranks among many other Dragon-types as a Tier 2 attacker on our Attackers Tier List. It's limited mostly to 10km eggs meaning you'll want to stock up on Bagon candy regardless.

Salamence (and a few other recent Dragon-types) are very powerful but slightly held back by its main attacking move being a 1-bar Charge Move. Such moves cause energy loss when the Pokemon faints with unspent energy or even kills the defending Pokemon before fully charging the move again.

Outrage closes the gap between our featured Pokemon and the legendary Dragon Rayquaza.

It's noteworthy that Rayquaza still has slightly higher defense and attack (with a minor HP tradeoff). Salamence has worse TDO and DPS with the exact same moveset. The key here, is that Salamence will require 0 Rare Candy, because of the abundance of CD spawns. It's more beneficial to spend your Rare Candy on Ray, but the fact that you don't need to for Salamence will make it the superior Dragon in many trainer's collections.

Put away those Charge TMs, trainers! One great thing about exclusive moves is they're guaranteed. This helps save another resource that you might otherwise have to spend on a Rayquaza. Also note that Charge TMs and unlocking an extra move during the event will not grant Outrage, it will just make you outrage.

Salamence is a "budget" Ray but that's selling it short. That's like calling store-brand Ibuprofen "budget". Plus, a shiny Salamence is going to be just as green. You won't notice a difference. The addition of Outrage to Salamence may even lower Rayquaza's status as a Tier 1 attacker. The competition is so tight that Ray doesn't stand out with Outrage Salamence now standing out from the pack.

Why Not Both?

While Draco Meteor is in practice worse than Outrage, it actually has better stats. What this means is that a combination of the two moves may actually result in the highest DPS. This will cost you 75 Bagon Candy and 75,000 stardust but could be worth it. We'll be crunching the numbers over the next few weeks to determine just how relevant this is, so don't go unlocking that extra move just yet.

The numbers are close enough that this flexibility could make it surpass Rayquaza, though it will only be corner cases where this is relevant. Rayquaza is still on top for now, but this could close the already small gap. Even with both moves, it will still likely perform behind Rayquaza in a few matchups. To make the most out of Salamence will require a trainer's focus in battle and a key understanding of the mechanics behind energy gain. Because of this, unlocking an additional move on Salamence will not be the right call for most players.

Catching a lot of Bagon is the goal. Bagon is not only a formidable attacker, making completing Dragon raids easier all over, but catching a bunch of Bagon will also help progress your Dragon-type Medal, making future Dragon types much easier to catch

Set goals based on previous Community Days as a benchmark. Use this to let you know how aggressively you need to hunt and Pinap, as well as how many high IV options to target.

Each Salamence costs 123 Bagon candy which is 18 catches + transfers or 10 catches w/ Pinaps + transfers. Maxing out a Pokemon will cost between 118-304 candy depending on the level (248 for level 20 Pokemon). Evolving and Powering Up a full team (with average level 20) will cost 2227 candy. This can be accomplished with 195 Pinap catches + transfers or 361 catches + transfers.

As noted in “Looking Forward” evolving extra Shiny Bagon with the exclusive move may make great future trades with Lucky Friends.

Salamence and PvP

Salamence is a very attack-oriented Pokemon, serving it extremely well as a raiding Pokemon but not as much in PvP.

It’s wide movepool alongside Outrage mean there are many possibilities for PvP viability (in random Silph Cups too) but other Dragon types are just better. Consider saving your candy for evolving and powering up Salamence for raids.

Looking for Salamence ready for PvP with no Stardust investment required?

• For the Great League, target Bagon 423-462 CP and lower.

• For the Ultra League, target Bagon 702-766 CP and lower.

Pokemon in these ranges are not guaranteed to be under the CP cap. Check with an IV calculator before evolving.

Making Trades

You (probably) have until 1 hour after the event ends to IV check, trade, and evolve for the exclusive moveset. Set alarms and keep track of how long different activities take you so you can be better prepared for future CD events.

When picking a trading partner, there are now three different options to consider each with their own benefits.

Play Community Day with your trading partner.

• Carpool

• Catch the same spawns (for even trades) and split the role of IV checking

• Can start trading even before CD ends

Play 10km (6.21 mi) distance from your trading partner.

• 1 additional candy per trade.

Trade with a Lucky Friend!

Obviously this will can a combination of one of the previous two options. Coordinating with a Lucky Friend during CD can allow you to swap a day 1 shiny Bagon to reroll IVs. Coordinating with multiple Lucky friends can allow you to reroll a few for IVs, though you can only do one special trade each day.

Here are some additional features to keep in mind about trading:

• Players are limited to 100 trades + 1 special trade per day. This is resets after your phone goes past midnight.

• Swapping a Shiny will count as a Special Trade and can also be done once daily.

• Pick a trade partner you have high friendship with. IV floor increases with friendship tier.

  Good Friendship - 1/1/1 IV floor

  Great Friendship - 2/2/2 IV floor

  Ultra Friendship - 3/3/3 IV floor

  Best Friendship - 5/5/5 IV floor 

• Pokemon caught farther than 10km (6.21 mi) apart award 2 candy when traded.

• Lucky Pokemon have an IV floor of 12/12/12. Read more about Lucky Pokemon here.

Bagon will likely have its Base Catch Rate changed to 40% as we have seen with previous CD spawns.

Our easy-to-use catch rate calculator can be found here if you’d like to do your own calculations. Here are the breakdowns for players with a Gold Dragon badge. This event is a great time to complete your Gold Dragon badge if you do not yet have it. This will make Bagon and all future Dragon-types much easier to catch! These calculations also assume maximum radius Great! throws. Your ability to reliably throw into smaller bonus radiuses may also increase throughout the day, increasing your catch rate.

• Bagon levels 1-7 have an 89% chance or higher to be caught with a curved Poke Ball Great! Throw. Poke Ball Pinap anything under 178CP and consider up to 225 CP.

• Bagon level 12 and below have a 90% chance or higher to be caught with a curved Great Ball Great! Throw. Great Ball Pinap anything under 313 CP and consider up to 396 CP.

• Bagon level 20 and below have a 90% chance or higher to be caught with a curved Ultra Ball Great! Throw. Ultra Ball Pinap anything under 521 CP and consider up to 660 CP. Even a level 35 Bagon has an 82% chance to be caught per throw using a curved Great! Throw Ultra Ball, allowing for proficient throwers to utilize Pinap berries every throw. Consider not quick-catching Bagon above 652 CP or using a Razz Berry while doing so.

Throwing with no bonus will eat through your resources faster making it worthwhile to learn how to consistently throw Great! Throws (+ video link) The following will result in a 90% catch rate with curveballs and no throw bonus:

• Poke Ball Bagon levels 1-4 (95-121 CP and below)

• Great Ball Bagon levels 8 and below (205-260 CP and below)

• Ultra Ball Bagon levels 13 and below (339-429 CP a652nd below)

• Ultra Ball Razz Berry Bagon levels 25 and below (587 CP and below). Great Ball Golden Razz Berries can be used on higher level Bagon to ensure a 90% catch rate per throw.

The following string can help you quickly check for any perfect IV Bagon;

371&cp16,cp51,cp86,cp121,cp155,cp190,cp225,cp260,cp295,cp330,cp363,cp396,cp429,cp462,cp495,cp528,cp561,cp594,cp627,cp660,cp693,cp726,cp759,cp793,cp826,cp859,cp892,cp925,cp958,cp991,cp1007,cp1024,cp1040,cp1057,cp1073&hp13,hp23,hp30,hp36,hp41,hp45,hp49,hp53,hp57,hp60,hp63,hp66,hp68,hp71,hp73,hp76,hp78,hp81,hp83,hp85,hp87,hp89,hp91,hp93,hp95,hp97,hp99,hp101-102,hp104-108

Pokemon with these CP values are not guaranteed to be 100% IV but this could help you narrow that search.

For mass IV checking, the simplest tip is to sort by CP (or #, which also sorts by CP) and look at one species at a time. From there, scroll through, highest to lowest, looking at Pokemon levels. You can quickly check a Pokemon’s level by how much Star Dust it would cost to power up. This cost is halved for Lucky Pokemon. For example:

35 - 8000

34/33 - 7000

32/31 - 6000

30/29 - 5000

28/27 - 4500

26/25 - 4000

These values can be used to determine high-level Pokemon at a quick glance.

Quick Appraising

As you’re scrolling, IV check Pokemon until you find something with a lower Stardust cost. You can filter out, rename, or transfer any Pokemon with a high level and a low CP found this way. These Pokemon will have lower IVs. That means they may make for battle-ready attackers but will have lower battle potential when powered up. Such options can be great for saving Stardust.

For example, let’s start by scrolling through a species and checking all of our level 30, 5k dust Pokemon. Now, as soon as we scroll to a Pokemon requiring 4500 dust, we know any 5k dust Pokemon will have lower IV. We can skip those and only check 4500 dust options. When we see our first Pokemon that requires 4k dust to power up, we know that any 5k or 4500 dust Pokemon will be lower IV and can skip those again.

It is also worthwhile to develop a naming system that you can easily recognize. Use a symbol, letter, or word to designate Pokemon for trading. Abbreviate key appraisal phrases in a way you can remember so you know which to IV check and don’t appraise the same Pokemon multiple times. After using an IV calculator for key Pokemon, remember to rename (so you can decide what to evolve), transfer, or just evolve the Pokemon.

When Bagon’s Community Day is over, there are still plenty of opportunities to get good Salamence with the exclusive move through trading. Evolving extra Salamence can be a great idea to attempt to trade with friends afterward for high IV rerolls.

Interacting with Best Friends can now create Lucky Friendships! This will make your next trade a guaranteed Lucky! One of the best uses for these trades will be shiny Pokemon, rare Pokemon, and Pokemon with exclusive legacy movesets. CD brings all three! For this reason, evolving extra shiny Bagon gives you the perfect Lucky Trade fodder. Encourage your Best Friends to do the same. If you don't wish to evolve just yet, maybe because you're low on candy, you can still Lucky Trade Bagon before December with plans on evolving them then.

Setting goals and having an idea of how many Bagon you wish to power up also lets you calculate exactly how much candy to save. You’ll want to be able to power those Salamence up to truly make use of this excellent attacker.

It’s not too late to find some high IV Bagon too. Whether it be Bagon in your collection you didn’t notice/have the time to evolve during CD or new ones you catch, December is likely to have another CD weekend where exclusive moves become available again. If you don’t manage to find a good Bagon worthy of your Stardust this weekend, evolve some anyways, attempt some lucky trades (on evolved and unevolved), keep looking, and evolve some in December! Note: This event is not confirmed for December, it's just what happened in 2018.

Bagon Raids should be dulled during Latios' return and pickup again from the 22nd-28th of April. Following that, we may see a later return to Raids as we have with many past CD Pokemon.

Nowhere To Go But Up

Community Day at its heart is about fun with your Community. This event provides a reason to grind for all but the most hardcore of players with teams of maxed Rayquaza- and who are we kidding? Those players will also be out in full force.

Others may be catching their first Bagon, obtaining their Gold Dragon Badge, evolving their first Salamence, or filling out their Dragon team to take on Giratina in Raid Battles.

Those with limited time can still get a lot out of Community Day and those willing to can make use of a grinding hard during this event. Salamence is an extremely powerful Pokemon regardless of its exclusive move meaning it has nowhere to go but up.