Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s October outlook offers more tricks than treats

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Andrew Ross
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It’s almost October, and that means Halloween in Pokemon Go, where the tricks are expected and the treats come with bugs, no matter how sweet. Given that this will be the first month we have Max Battles, which aren’t going well unless you haven’t played since 2019 or so, plus mystery events and mystery ‘mon dangled in front of us, you may want to curb your expectations.

So keep those eggs and TP at home, folks, as today’s Massively on the Go is here to help predict at least some of the treats and maybe arm you with a trick or two of your own!

So first, the known raids. For Megas, we have some top investment Megas to pick up if you’re new or lacking them. Year round, Mega Blaziken is a good pick, but October 14th-28th is Mega Sabeleye’s time, and you should get at least one, as it’ll be useful for at least the latter half of the month, possibly the start of November too. If you don’t have one at max Mega level, buddy it and evolve it daily once you get it. If you already have one, well, walk it and prep a few more. No joke, I have four of these ready. They really are candy/xp machines at this time of year!

For 5-star raids, we still have Zacian until October 4th when its buddy Zamazenta enters. While not as useful as Zacian, Zama still at least has PvP uses, and we’ll eventually get its improved form. That means you can at least farm candy, maybe even eventually change its form. And Giratina Origine may have fallen behind a bit in some contexts, but it’s still a top pick. Same goes for Dakrai when it comes October 28th to November 4th.

Remember, we have Shadow Entei on weekends this month. While it’s not a bad pokemon, the competition above is pretty stiff. As I suggested last month, I’d do Shadow 5-star raids only if you happen to be in the right place at the right time with nothing better to do.

Similarly, we have new Galar ‘mon coming out in Max Battles starting October 1st. Aside from the Galar Starters, Falinks will be available from 3-star raids, so I guess we now kinda know that Falinks Raid Day was offered so that no one would complain about a new shiny coming from the Max Battles, which aren’t going over so great.

Of the Galar Starters, Sobble and Grookey are the best. Scorbunny isn’t exactly a bad line in terms of stats, but its moves aren’t great, and Charizard is far more flexible. All are monotypes, at least, so maybe be happy if you get one good one.

Falinks is probably the least useful of the new Dynamax-able ‘mons in the long run, but the fact that it’s a 3-star raid is telling. Since the last 3-star Max Battle ‘mon was Beldum, a Psychic/Steel type, it does make me wonder whether the mystery ‘mon coming sometime later this month is a Rock or Ice type, as both are weak to Fighting and Steel. Normal could be a possibility too, as Steel can tank Normal attacks while Fighting is super effective against them. I half wonder if Niantic would release Evee soon, as it gives people more flexible pokemon and it gets a gigantimax form which could be seen as a “trick” this month. However, storage issues are still a thing, so Eevee could really open up the community to negativity.

As for beating Falinks, you can use Charizard with Air Slash (or Wing Attack if you wanna blow a Fast Elite TM) or Metagross with Psychic moves. I’ve heard some players struggle with this battle, so one strategy I’ve learned is you can start the battle with a Charizard and then switch to Metagross when you Dynamax. Again, Beldum was pretty easy with one powered-up Charizard and a freshly evolved, non-powered one, but we never know how Niantic is going to change things (looking at you, Raids).

In terms of events, we start things off with a new event, Galarian Expedition running October 4th-11th. Zamazenta comes back, there’s a paid Masterball research, and Daily Incense is getting some kind of update. Whether it’s just the Galarian birds being shiny (and unable to flee if shiny!) or something else, we’ll have to wait and see as more information (hopefully) comes out from official channels, though as usual, we’ll probably be updating based on community research. But hey, if you’re new, there’s wild Beldums to help build your Dynamax, Chansey for gym defense, Foongus for bonus stardust, and Wooloo for candy/PvP.

During that will be the Galarian Expedition: Taken Over event, which Niantic announced after the rest of the October schedule, so be aware that Niantic may be pulling multiple tricks this month. That means new Shadow ‘mon (of the farmables, Mankey and maybe Roggenola families stand out), TM-ing Frustration off good ‘mon, and a new legendary Shadow to save: Heatran. Remember how I mentioned Entei had competition? This thing blows it out of the water. Unless you do some tricky stuff (like take a Super Radar but don’t use it for that rotation/quest), you get only one per season, so try to cash in when it’s Sunny or Snowy weather (they can be weather boosted).

I don’t normally recommend Shadow raids, but if you need good Fighters, Shadow Machamp is still up there and more accessible than alternatives, like Shadow Timburr line, Lucario, the legendary Terrakion. The 3-star raids also have Mawile (which isn’t a common pokemon and isn’t too useful) and Sableye as shadows, the latter being quite useful as a Mega but also unpurified in Great League PvP. If you can’t get in a 5-star raid, these are good alternatives.

As we mentioned last month, we know that October 5’s Sewaddle Community Day, which seems to be driving less hype than the Ponyta one last month (though I liked it). The 1/4 hatch distance bonus is nice, but otherwise – unless you love its evolution line – even collectors may find themselves playing this one very hard. Egg-hatchers, the day may be yours!

October 12th is Mega Raid Day. This is kind of worrisome as it’s November 2023 all over again: There’s a mystery Mega event but no details. Worse, there’s no “?” indicating this is a new pokemon at all. I’d wager it may be Mega Metagross finally, as we have its Dynamax form, but it could be almost anything else. Maybe Mega Audino to stand against the Ghosts and Dark types this month? Some people think it may be Mega Blaziken, as it’s out during this time, and that this could be the start of a Hoenn cycle, but in that case, we should have Mega Sceptile out first as its Pokedex number comes before Blazi’s. As always, stay tuned for more details.

10/2 Update: Well, we have some good news: the Mega Raid Day is a new pokemon! Mega Mawile is not a great pokemon, in that you probably need 7 or 8 players using good counters to take advantage of its “Team Frag” typing: having one type and a second type that deals super effective damage against it. In this case, Fairy is weak to Steel, Mawile’s two types. Mawile’s damage is pretty low in this game though, so just having it out and dodging means your raid group loses a lot of DPS. City players can probably get the most mileage out of this one, but otherwise, it’s mostly useful for the odd Fairy/Steel events (which we may be getting soon due to the legendary dogs). If you’re desperate for a good one, though, you can also raid Shadow Mawile during the above Galar Expedition: Taken Over, which ends the day before this Mega Raid Day. While the above infograph mentions Primal Groudon, Mega Steelix Team Frags Mawile, so if you want more XL Candy, use that instead.

Perhaps to break things up from all the Halloween/Fall festivities, starting at midnight October 15th-17th is a new event, Magnetic Study. It’s obviously going to have Electric and/or Steel types, so maybe this is when Morepeko, which has been teased, will finally come out. It is a bummer that it’s a super short, weekday-only event.

10/7 Update: And now we have official event details. This is, um… pretty disappointing unless you love these pokemon or want their shiny, as Plusle and Minun are useless and Magnezone has very limited uses as its normal variant. Unless Niantic is shaking things up, October 15th is just good for double xp, the 16th is for whales hitting raid hour hard for Giratina, and the 17th is good for a day of double stardust but remember that the 15th was better during Spotlight hour (see below).

Oddly enough, we have a Research Day on October 19th from 2 to 5 p.m. Perhaps it’s related to the Magnetic Study event? Again, we’ll update as we learn more.

10/9 Update: It’s not, it’s apparently a Yamask Research event and datamining seems to indicate it’s both the normal and Galaran versions.

10/10 Update: Niantic’s confirmed the datamined info, plus fleshed out the event. In all honesty, it’s really just about Yamask hunting, so this may be a skippable event for parts of the community.

We then have Halloween Part 1 from October 22nd-28th, with Halloween Part 2 starting at 10 a.m. on October 28th as Part 1 ends and running until November 3rd. Between the two events, expect a new pokemon, new costume pokemon (especially for Pikachu, storage be damned), and at least double candy.

10/9 Update: We now have official details on Halloween Part 1. As predicted, there’s at least double candy (triple if you pay for an event ticket) and two “new” pokemon: Morpeko (an Electric type that becomes a Dark type when its charged move is used, but only initially in PvP and Rocket battles) and Dynamax Gastly (tier 1). Morpeko is more neat than anything at the moment, but Dynamax Gastly is probably something you’ll want to grab. Other event picks are mostly up to taste aside from Zorua’s increased shinies for collectors plus Yamask and Greavard being more common for the season. Oh, and Bombirdier being in raids again, and yes, it can be shiny as indicated above.

10/21 Update: And now we have official details on Halloween Part 2. New evolvable costume ‘mon are nice, especially since Froakie and Rowlett have gotten their CD moves, so save good ones for that. The release of Gigantimax Gengar is nice in theory but we have yet to experience that level of raids, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how “good” that actually is. Increased Zorua spawns and shiny odds are mostly for collectors but appreciated, as is the return of several costume ‘mon. One thing to note: Umbreon may be standing with costumed pokés but is not wearing a tiny costume that’s hard to see in the picture. It’s just vanilla Umbreon. Enjoy your double candy and increased XL candy from throws Nice and better!

Speaking of mysteries, we have a few more. We have an October 26th-27th Mystery Event. My guess is that this may be when we get the new Max Battle ‘mon. I’ll go further to guess that it may be related to the new November event, Wild Area. Details are scarce, but tickets for the non-global event portion have been out for a while. I also wonder whether the October 31st-November 3rd Mystery Event may also be related to that, or perhaps Niantic is finally making Day of the Dead a truly global event, as normally Latin American countries get bonuses the rest of the world doesn’t.

10/14 Update: We now have the event details and oof. On the one hand, we were kind of write about it being about new “Dynamax ‘mon” but actually they’re Gigantimax ‘mon, the latest addition to the system. While each Gigantimax ‘mon gets a unique attack while in their form, the new event is just the Gigianti forms for the Kanto starters we already raided, making some people feel like there was a bait-and-switch to get them to invest in ‘mon that were rapidly replaced. Again, Max Soup may be a thing in the future so don’t trash any good ones, but it does feel scummy.

As for the event itself, it seems to be simply an introduction to the mechanic- no bonuses, no special spawns. It should also be noted that Niantic is saying these are for up to 40 players in groups of four or less being combined. Whether it’s still local only of it groups will be globally combined is anyone’s guess, but we’ve reached out to The Pokemon Company’s PR to see if they have answers.

10/16 Update: Via Eurogamer, we now know that the October 31st-November 3rd Mystery Event involves Gigantimax Gengar. We also learned that both these and the above Kanto Gigantimax experiences are not active in the same spot for days, but “refresh throughout the day” like regular raids, meaning you won’t be able to plan groups hours/days ahead of time.

10/25 Update: The  Kanto Gigantimax event has started and it’s been confirmed that Niantic actually expects you to gather 30+ people to complete these in person. A major issue thus far is the lack of powered-up counters, which probably is a combination of Niantic treating the game like it’s 2019, using overly complex systems for a game that was supposed to be about exploring and exercising, and insulting players by asking them to raid pokemon that are direct upgrades to ‘mon that are roughly 45 days old. To make matters worse, while the pokemon is strong for Dynamax raids, it’s nothing special in regulars, PvP, lacks its Community Day move to make it debatably decent in those settings, and the item rewards are lacking to say the least.

Now let’s close with this month’s Spotlight Hours, which are actually not bad this round. Starting with double candy transfer is nice since we can make some space for the rest of the month, even if the upcoming Community Day is a bit of a dud. Pidove isn’t anything super special, though collectors should recall the male and female forms are quite different, so you may want to hunt for different gendered shinies.

Galarian Slowpoke and double evolution candy on October 8th isn’t bad, but it’s also already had its Community Day and end of the year roundup, so it’s kind of dated. It’s not a bad defender when evolved, though.

The big “wow” moment arrives October 15th: Shroomish with double stardust. This ‘mon already has a stardust bonus, so this is really when you want to pop a star piece! You also may want to save research ‘mon, like Morelull from the Psychic event.

October 22nd’s catch xp with Gastly, Duskull, and Litwick isn’t bad per se, and it’s a cute way to kick off Halloween Part 1, but they’ve been around with Community Days. It would be great if we can evolve them for their CD moves, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

Closing out with a mystery pokemon and double catch candy on October 29th sounds fun, but I also remember 2022’s Zorua debacle. Keep your expectations low; people have guessed it’s Mimikyu, Sinistea, or even Toxel (a non-Ghost type but is often associated with Dynamaxing, so it’s kiiind of on point). Stay tuned and we’ll let you know who’s right!

And if it wasn’t said enough before, check back throughout the month for updates as they slowly drip in. Stay safe out there, trainers!

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!
Pokemon Go studio Niantic is considered a controversial gaming company owing to multiple scandals and deceptions, starting with the Wi-Spy privacy scandal; over the years, it’s repeatedly failed to secure player data, endangered players during the pandemic, and refused to address documented stalking in POGO. It also rolled back popular accessibility features to incentivize data collection, faked data, and lied about event results. Following 2021’s community-driven Pokemon No boycott, Niantic vowed transparency and communication; it has not delivered.
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