Pokemon Go’s Unova Tour is going global this weekend. While I’ll save my full thoughts on the LA event for later, one big thing to highlight was the lack of major bugs effecting the Tour, though they do exist. Today’s Massively On the Go is mostly going to focus on preparing for the event based on what we saw in LA and what (little) Niantic has said since then.
Road to Unova
As I write this, we’re already in the Road to Unova event mentioned in our monthly event round-up coverage. One thing to note about the raid pass is that while it’s less than last year, it does give extra fusion energy. That ups the value for those looking to use multiple premium passes during the event.
The tour pass is in a similar vein and serves as Niantic’s fumbling attempt at a battle pass. Yes, you can buy it at any time to get the rewards, but it’s basically $15 for Victini, the new lucky trinket (grants a Great Friend+ lucky status for a guaranteed lucky trade), and a hat. It’s not a terrible value, but with the daily restrictions before the event and its very passive way of unlocking rewards, I can say from the LA Tour’s included one that it isn’t fun or even particularly motivating. You’re just paying for very easy bonuses. If you want to send the company a message to try harder, don’t buy this, but otherwise, do as you will.
There are also three redeemable codes for each of the Forces of Nature genies from Unova. They’re not great, but hey, they’re something for new players and an easy source of extra candy for vets.
Finally, make as many storage cuts as possible or (prepare to) trade away what you can. We didn’t get extra storage until Saturday (I believe) for the LA Tour, so Arceus only knows when Niantic will remember to up the limit for the rest of the world. While veteran players, especially with regular trade partners, may find the wild spawns dull, it’s still not fun to have to constantly clear your storage, especially if it may cost you a soon-to-despawn raid catch.
2/27 Update: Niantic has added 500 purchasable storage now for those who didn’t already have the option via the recent LA and Taiwan tours, so that should help my fellow hoarders!
Massively on the Go’s tips
Now, first and foremost, expect everything and anything to go wrong. Again, the LA Tour was functional aside from the fact that unfusing Kyurem with Glaciate causes it to lose Glaciate and lucky trinket trades not always being luck, but those issues shouldn’t affect gameplay for 99.999% of the playerbase. That being said, as I write this there are issues with raids not counting for quests and Spotlight Hour not even working in some regions, which has lead to global auto-completed quest duplications and a make-up event for the effected areas, so again, keep those expectations low.
Also remember that Niantic support is not great, so if things go wrong, I would actually advise you to screenshot major actions (like using your lucky trinket or fusing Kyurem) and submit everything and anything under the event complaints, especially the purchasing section(s), as those tend to get live humans. The raid section is often OK to a point, especially during event hours. Again, the reimbursement I got from previous live-events was not in full and service has gotten worse over they years. I can’t hammer in just how low expectations should be at this point, but it is what it is.
Next is something with minimal information: choosing a side/team. Niantic updated their event info specifically to note that, yes, you will be choosing between Reshi and Zek, and yes, Niantic is still being vague about your choices. So far, the only solid information released is that the version you choose will have that color Kyurem come with Glaciate when you catch its post-raid, Kyurem-only ‘mon.
Until then, you basically want to just choose between the two legendaries. Between the two adventure effects, Zek’s fusion outright stops the ‘mon from moving, while Reshi just slows down the catch ring movement. Reshi’s fusion actually gets an Ice fast move now, so it’s the better raid option, though it’s still good in PvP. Zekrom is higher ranked in PvP, but both are under Origin Palkia who beats them both. For most readers, Reshi is probably the better route to go, especially since you can use multiple Kyurem White fusions for raids but Kyurem Black multiples aren’t terribly useful except against a few dragons who resist Ice.
While the Road to Unova has some good raids, I still recommend saving a daily raid pass for Saturday. Reshi and Zek will be in rotation in the future, but Fusion Energy from raids will be few and far between, so farm these over the weekend as much as possible.
For supplies, you’ll obviously want balls, but raiders in small communities may want to prioritize max revives and max potions to help maximize space. I know gyms are extremely busy with the constant raids right now, so if you have a surplus of berries, especially Nanabs, you may want/need to trash them.
Egg storage for event eggs is something you wanna work on too, as you’ll want to be hatching for regionals unless you regularly travel to places like Egypt for Sigilyph. If you don’t have tons of incubators, I’d walk your non-2k eggs until you’re sitting on only them, so that during the event you can easily burn through those 2ks and hopefully get 10k eggs. Again, though, burn through the lower-kilometer eggs first. The contents will stay in after the event! As I said for the LA event, it’s not like there’s anything great in there beyond Larvesta (which is expensive and came out slightly less powerful than it could have been), but aside from new players benefitting from Timburr, eggs are all about saving you RL flights to get Maractus, Sigilyph, and Bouffalant.
From experience, trust me about preparing real-life supplies. This should be part of choosing a known location though. For example, some of my new players want to play in a spot known to attract more raiders than our normal spot. The problem is there aren’t any food options (among other issues), so if we go there, I’ll need not just drinks, but food too. Similarly, I’ll want tissues and napkins since there won’t be any freebies to make use of. Naturally, no matter where you play from, you’ll want water, a spare battery or two, and a spare cord in case the one you bring decides not to work.
For your buddy, again, you want Great Buddies (Rank 2). That bounce-back feature is just very, very useful for those situations where you’re in a hurry or lag spikes. Semi-related is choosing your Mega/Primal. I often suggest making your buddy ‘mon one that can help your Mega energy supply (remember to have already Mega’d a member of that ‘mon family once before) or one you need (XL) Candy for, and since even legendaries are fine if you’re walking the event. My most recommended Buddy/Mega is Rayquaza. It boosts your raid candy for everything relevant this time around, two of the very few interesting spawns get candy off of it, plus it passively increases raid damage when in the back.
If you lack Mega Ray though, Mega Salamence, the Mega Latis, Mega Charizard X, and to a much lesser extent, Mega Abomasnow all work too. While Abomasnow won’t help with dragons, it at least helps with the Kyurems, which are the highest priority ‘mon, plus we have a higher amount of Grass types spawning. Oh, and Vanillites for Ice. Happy?
Now let’s look at the pokemon event pool and its usefulness.
Again, this year’s ‘mons aren’t really meta-relevant. Incense ‘mon are just Unowns, and for raids, just focus on Kyurem Black and Kyurem White. I would focus on raiding these the most as their Fusion energy probably won’t be seen for a while, but Zekrom and Reshiram most likely will come back sooner rather than later. Even if they don’t, other players may have held a few from years past, so if you trade for one and its a dud, you can still fuse it with a Kyurem without hurting its stats.
Wild catches aren’t helping anyone except brand-new players (if that) and shiny collectors. For example, if the starters are getting their CD moves (which Niantic hasn’t mentioned, but we did get those for the LA Tour), they’re OK, but Emboar in particular is outstaged by Reshiram as is, right out of the box, no extra investments needed. Litwick is there but mostly for its Ghost properties. Even in terms of gym defense, Yamask is the highest on here because Audino, which is good for stardust, is just a worse Chansey family member and would only make your gym more vulnerable to Fighting types if you actually deployed it.
So for pokemon to focus on this year, it’s basically down to what you like or any holes missing in your current lineups. For example, I didn’t get any shiny Deerlings at the LA Tour so I’ll be hunting those, and that’s about it. For the new players, I suggest chasing some Timburr, Axew, Deino, Darumaka, and Drillbur. Darumaka is especially interesting since it’s also a new Dynamax raid ‘mon you may want to feed, but we’ll touch on that in a bit.
Semi-related, tagging for trades is easy enough, but for evolution, it’s a toughy since again, Niantic hasn’t mentioned the CD moves. We’ll update this should we learn more, but immediately, the starters, both Dragons that were highlighted, Roggenrola, and possibly for alternative moves, Timburr should be included. Litwick’s CD move doesn’t help it.
For team prep, we’re mostly going to ignore Max Raids unless we hear something specifically from Niantic. Players struggling with Darumaka should probably use this event to find help and get a few, or big-kids like myself may want to be ready to help. For traditional raids though, to make things super simple, just remember a team of Garchomps is best for both Reshi and Zekrom, as it resists both ‘mons elemental types and both are weak to Dragon and Ground, so any moveset you bring that does STAB is fine.
Black Kyurem and White Kyurem are in a similar position, as both are Dragon/Ice types, but they have some different moves. Still, having a single team for both could save you a lot of time, so I’d recommend Mega Rayquaza with Dragon moves, Dusk Mane Necrozma with Steel moves, Origin Palkia with Dragon moves, Origina Dialga with Metal Claw and Roar of Time, and Lucario and/or Terrakion with Fighting moves. White Kyurem for past-event goers isn’t bad, but particularly because of its Fire sub-typing, you can’t count on taking advantage of Ice moves, so leave it at home unless you don’t have anything in the above linked lists.
Budget-wise (or for new players), Metagross with Steel moves, Conkeldurr and/or Machamp with Fighting moves, Garchomp and/or Haxorus and/or Dragonite with Dragon moves, or Excadrill with Steel moves should all work. The above links can help with fine-tuning and optimization, but I’m here to try to streamline that into something more approachable.
As always, check back in the coming days for random updates thanks to Niantic still not dropping full event details. From the LA Tour, I feel like this is mostly a raiding event with some shiny hunting/candy gathering on the side. Don’t feel the need to go (spend) too hard, but enjoy time outside with friends, if possible. 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!
