Massively on the Go: A guide to Pokemon Go’s February events

By
Andrew Ross
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Ah, February: the season of chocolate. Even Splatoon 3 is fighting over it. But remember, the more chocolate you eat, the more calories that you gotta burn off later, and Pokemon GO is… well, not exactly helping at the start of the month with a Rocket Takeover, which is invading the last of January’s Crackling Voltage event, running from February 1st to 5th.

Don’t worry, though, as the rest of the month should keep you moving, even if you’re Hoenn Alone for a holiday or tour.

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In terms of raids, both Regis have PvP use, and both are largely better below Master League (but still have some use there). Tapu Lele’s shiny is new but uh… that’s about it, sadly. Interestingly though, Mega Gardevoire has the same typing and comes out at the same time. As usual, I’d recommend doing the new Mega raid first, as people avoid it more and more the longer it’s out. For those who lack the Mega Energy even from quests, Mega Gengar and Mega Pidgeot are good choices and in the top five of our Best Megas to Invest in Now list.

I’m hoping you heeded last month’s warning and prepped some pokemon for easy TMing by finding your good Shadow Pokemon and giving it a tag. From there, you can simply go to the tag and search “@Frustration” so you can TM the pokemon and have it disappear from the list to get through them all quick. For those who are new or worried about raiding Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon, Electric and Water grunts are your best bet for Shadow Electabuzz, Shadow Shinx, and Shadow Totodile. You can also hold onto your Super Radar and avoid Giovanni for a while to farm his imposter grunts for Shadow Bellsprout. For any other shadow ‘mon you need, you can check Silph Road’s Rocket lineup to help find any other ‘mon you may be looking for too.

While there will be newly released shadow ‘mon, they’re currently by and large collector’s items, including Shadow Registeel. Yes, even for PvP aside from Shadow Alola Ninetails. Strange Eggs aren’t changing much, besides the fact that Inkay will no longer be part of the pool and some ‘mon have swapped tiers. It’s still hard to recommend collecting these for most players, as they gum up your egg storage longer by requiring 12k to be walked. Furthermore, most players seem to want a good or rare pokemon from these, which you probably won’t get. That being said, for an extra 2km walked, you get double the stardust that 10k eggs grant, so if you have lowered expectations, feel free to stock up on Strange Eggs.

February 5th is Noibat Community Day, even though it’s basically just the 2-5 p.m. timeslot followed by Noibat raids that spawn more Noibats. The event move, Boomburst, isn’t looking as if it’ll help the evolved bat at all since it’s a Normal-type attack, but hey, it’s a popular pokemon with a rare shiny that costs a lot of candy to evolve. Double catch-candy, an additional discounted special trade, and triple stardust are all welcome here!

We don’t have details yet, but February 8th through 14th is the Valentine’s Event. Historically, this event involved double-catch candy, but not always. Pink pokemon are often featured, and the big one to always watch for is Chansey, especially since it’s still the definitive gym defender. That being said, it should be noted that Pokemon Contests have been datamined and seem to be attached to Pokestops. We’ve mentioned Contests since Gen 7, particularly as an alternative to the problematic gym system. Releasing contests this month is a possibility since it was a Gen 3 feature and the Hoenn Tour is coming, and it would spice up the Valentine’s Event, but we’ll have to wait and see.

While we don’t have full details, a leaked game update description notes an upcoming February 11th Luvdisc event. Unless there are other bonuses, the event will be largely a shiny hunt, as Luvdisc has absolutely no use as a Raid Attacker or as a PvP pokemon in any league, and it should only be put in a gym if you’re trying to do some kind of theme.

2/1 Update: We now have official information on the Valentine’s Day and Luvdisc events. The event is most similar to 2022’s V-Day, especially with the ability to unlock triple transfer candy, but instead of just doing double candy, players can select double candy, double xp, or double Daily Incense duration via a questline, similar to last month’s Lunar New Year Event. Like before, it seems the Daily Incense duration is probably the least useful and biggest gamble. You also get double stardust for opening gifts, which isn’t terrible.

As Mega Gardevoir is coming out, the event also allows both it and the male form, Gallade, to learn Synchronize during the event. The move is useful for Garde in PvP, particularly the shadow form, but not so much for PvE content. Gallade doesn’t really need it in its current form, but it should be noted that Mega Gallade (and the superior Psychic/Fighting Mega, Medicham) was datamined recently.

Spawns for V-Day are great for collectors. Furfrou (which has a shiny and unique V-Day cut only available during the season), the Flabébés, and Female Frillish (which can now be shiny) will be wild, while 7k eggs can contain the Male Frillish (which can also now be shiny). Both will also be quest rewards, along with other rares like Combee, Audino, Chansey, and Heart Spinda. To note, Combee and Audino give extra stardust, so you may want to hold some for the V-Day spotlight hour.

Flabébé’s final form, Florges, has very limited uses, but as less poké-savvy players may think it’s a Grass type, its true nature as a Fairy can catch Gym attackers by surprise. Those in the know may also avoid the gym, as Fairy-types hit Gym-master-attacker Machamp for increased damage while resisting all of its traditional moves, making the taking of said gym slightly more challenging than the slew of Normal and Rock defenders unthinking players tend to drop in.

Naturally, Chansey (one of the rare event spawns) is still the best for gym defense. Fellow pink defender Alomomola will also be a rare spawn, as will Audino, which you probably shouldn’t use in gyms due to it being yet another Fighting-type-vulnerable ‘mon. That being said, it does get a Normal/Fairy type Mega that could be a good general-type raid buffer thanks to its bulk. Players are advised to use Mega Altaria for the event as it’ll give bonus candy to the rare Flabs and Morelull, plus Tapu Lele in raids, but Mega Pidgeot will help get candy for Chansey, Audino, Furfrou, and Woobat.

The Luvdisc event will luckily be more than just Luvdiscs for three hours. Feebas, Alolamola, plus Luvdisc may pressure you into using a Water-type Mega, but Luvdisc is primarily going to be a research ‘mon, not wild spawn. Slowpoke will also spawn, and while it’s not the best pokemon, it does have two Galarian variants, which are interesting gym defenders, and they all use the same candy, so farming Kanto Slowpoke technically helps four poké-families. However, there’s also Lickitung whose base form is a Great League beast and Miltank for Ultra League play, so PvPers may want to go with Mega Pidgeot.

In short, the V-Day seasonal events are looking like they’ve got a lot for everyone, even if contests won’t be appearing.

PvPers get their last seasonal event on February 12th for Go Battle Day: Vulpix. It’s the usual 4x stardust rewards, 100 battles possible (up from 25), and no IV floor, so you can get those PvP IVs, but also you can evolve Vulpix to Ninetails to have its Elite TM only move Ember without needing an Elite TM. Regular Ninetails isn’t a great PvP ‘mon but may have use in some limited cups.

February 18th and 19th is the in-person-only Vegas Hoenn Tour. You may hear some rumblings about this from those who go, (including me!), but we’ll have separate articles on this event, as usual.

Then we’ve got the February 22nd through 24th Primal Rumblings event. This is a great catch-up event for those who are new or still have specific mega pokemon they’re lacking in terms of Gen 3 starters. Mudkip in particular should be focused on if you lack a good one, as it not only is a powerful Mega in its own right but gives extra XL candy for both Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon. You won’t get any Mega energy for these ‘mon or have time to max out their Mega levels before the Hoenn Tour if you weren’t already working on them, but as the two often come together or on the heels of the other, Mega Swampert is a great investment. I’ve already prepared two myself for the Vegas event, so you know this isn’t just talk! Double xp isn’t bad either.

The big news, though, is for raids. While Rayquaza isn’t getting its Primal form yet, it is getting its second event move: Breaking Swipe, which could make Ray an side-grade to the far less expensive Dragonite in PvP, but it doesn’t do much for it in raids, unless we see a huge surprise to its animation duration.

We’re not done yet, though. Mega Latias and Mega Latios are also returning, though whether or not they’ll have their signature moves (Mist Ball and Lustre Purge respectively) is unknown. While we’ve asked PR to clarify, they rarely do, and admittedly, both these moves are sub-optimal at the moment. Worse, they’ll be completely replaced in terms of bonuses once Primal Rayquaza is available, so while they’re currently reasonable, even good investments, in the long run, they may end up collecting dust. My advice? Make sure you can at least Mega Evolve both so you can walk for energy when/if desired, as I’ve made heavy use of them already, but then immediately switch to raiding Rayquaza, which will remain available until March 1st.

Naturally, this leads to the free Hoenn Tour for the rest of the world on February 25th and 26th. It’s free and runs for two days, though you can purchase special research to get a shiny Jirachi (eventually). While there are online complaints that it seems there will be no paid way to increase the shiny spawns, we’ve previously noted that both the Kanto Tour and Johto Tour were disappointments in this department anyway. My guess is that extending it to a two-day event should bring people to roughly the same shiny count as they were getting before, without having to pay this time. Again, we’ll cover this separately as we get closer to the event, but in the meantime, make some storage space! These are eight-hour events each, 16 in total. You’ll want as much space as possible, and sadly, it doesn’t look like you’ll get a candy transfer bonus this month.

2/1 Update: We predicted it out on social media, and you will have candy bonuses for transferring pokemon during the Valentine’s Day event.

While Mega Pidgeot’s a great utility ‘mon, it doesn’t exactly need to see combat, so February 7th’s spotlight isn’t hugely important. Woobat’s not terribly useful either, but treat yourself to that Valentine’s Day Double Stardust. Jigglypuff’s evolved form Wigglytuff has seen better days in Great League, but it still has some strong wins and is a great, accessible PvP pokemon. February 28th’s double catch candy may not be terribly useful, depending on what else comes out this month around that time. Its second form does have some Great League use, but the final form, Slaking, is useful only for short-term scares on casual gym attackers thanks to its massive CP but incredibly poor damage output thanks to its only quick attack, the 1-damage-per-turn Yawn.

That being said, good or bad, we all may be tired at the end of the month thanks to the new Hoenn Tour event form. As always, though, check in throughout the month for updates.

Massively OP’s Andrew Ross is an admitted Pokemon geek and expert ARG-watcher. Nobody knows Niantic and Nintendo like he does! His Massively on the Go column covers Pokemon Go as well as other mobile MMOs and augmented reality titles!
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