Community Day February 2021 Guide

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Roselia
  • Obtainable from catches, and research
  • Budew will be hatching from 2km Eggs
  • An increased Shiny rate (roughly 1 in 23) during Community Day hours
• 3-hour Incense
• 1/4 hatch distance (for eggs that start incubating during the event)
• NO announced increased trading range
• Take a Snapshot during Community Day for a Roselia Photobomb (up to 5 times)
• One-time purchasable Community Day bundle
  • 1,280 PokeCoins
  • 1 Elite FastTM
  • 30 Ultra Balls
  • 4 Super Incubators
  • 4 Incense
• Event Exclusive Timed Research for Sinnoh Stones
• Special Research story: Stop and Smell the Roselia
  • $1 or equivalent local currency
    • Free if Pokemon GO Tour: Kanto is purchased before Wednesday Feb 3rd at 11:59 pm PST
  • does not include an in-game medal
  • All Roselia evolved into Roserade during Community Day hours learn two exclusive moves
    • Fast Move: Bullet Seed
    • Charge Move: Weather Ball (Fire)
    • TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move
    • Must evolve a Roselia 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

Niantic has altered Community Day events to be more suited to the pandemic allowing them to be fully enjoyed while at home. For additional Coronavirus considerations, check out our article on that subject as well.

Those looking for additional Community Day tips can check out February's guide, our last before worldwide lockdowns. Wear a mask and practice social distancing if you do decide to go out and play.

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, 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.

Stacking Incense will allow you to run additional Incense for 3 hours, past the end of the event. This can be good for finding extra Enigma Week spawns. Even if you only click 1/3 of those incensed spawns, that's as efficient as an normal Incense. Anything after that is bonus!

Maybe Some Lure Modules

While Lure Modules no longer last longer during Community Days, they will still spawn additional Roselia. Roselia isn't particularly rare, so there may be better events to use this item. Community Day can also be a great time to earn the Picnicker Badge for other trainers using your Lure Modules.

Maybe Some Star Pieces

While this event offers no Stardust bonuses, it might still be a great time to use a Star Piece if you don't play as much outside of Community Days. You can also sync up your Star Pieces with your hatching eggs, if you're planning on doing a lot of incubating this event.

Lucky Egg

Because your friends might also be playing during CD, now may be the perfect time to coordinate friendship level ups. 6-hour Community Days are long enough that you don't miss much by cracking an egg, though this also means coordinating level ups might be more difficult to agree on a time for.

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.

Don't forget to check the in-game shop for 30 free Ultra Balls. (not currently announced for this CD)

"Should You Be Incubating?" is a section that often appears during Community Days featuring 1/4 egg distance, and usually, the conclusion is that you shouldn't be tempted by this bonus. You can read the traditional critique in July's CD Guide. However, this Community Day Guide falls under a corner case that many collectors will wish to take advantage of.

Budew will only be obtainable during this event through hatching and likely has its shiny rate increased (though data is too low to confirm this and Niantic does not disclose shiny rates).

While Budew will likely NOT have a 100% hatch-rate, this event will be your best chance to grab one regardless.

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

• If you hatch an egg before CD, consider not incubating, as the 1/4 egg distance only applies to eggs that are started during the event.
• 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 the featured Pokemon starts spawning!
• Existing spawns can change to the featured Pokemon. Clicking on Pokemon to catch or even just to shiny check will prevent them from turning into the featured Pokemon. It’s fine though to check for shinies you don’t yet have. If you want to catch the most of the featured Pokemon, 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.

This month's special research are free for those who purchase Pokemon GO Tour: Kanto early. Purchase on or before Feb 3rd to qualify.

For reference, rewards for October's special research "A Tale of Tails" were

• Charmander encounter
• Charmeleon
• Charizard
• 60 Charmander candy
• 300 Mega Charizard energy
• 15,000 Stardust
• 1 Poffin
• 3 Incense
• 3 Rare Candy
• 5 Golden Razzberry
• 5 Silver Pinaps
• 10 Pokeballs
• 6,000 XP

This has mostly been an over-costed bad buy in the past, but it's only a buck, so many players will purchase it anyway. Also note that "A Tale of Tails" will not award an in-game badge. Research does not need to be completed before the end of Community Day, though it is beneficial to do so for the increased shiny odds and for a the exclusive move. Only Machop encounters can be shiny.

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

• 500 Stardust
• 2 Ultra Balls
• 5 Great Balls
• 2 Pinap Berries
• 1 Golden Razzberry
• Machop encounter (perfect CP = 801)

There will also be a timed research that rewards Sinnoh Stones, so make sure to check out all three research tabs throughout the event!

The featured Community Day Bundle will be a one-time purchase, costing 1280 PokeCoins and containing 1 Elite Fast TM, 30 Ultra Balls, 4 Super Incubators, and 4 Incense

Community Day Bundle boxes are limit 1 per account per month and alternate between Fast and Charge TMs. Elite TMs are priceless items and can save a ton of dust powering up a new Pokemon when an exclusive move is released.

Elite Fast TMs are not as useful since most exclusive moves are Charge moves, so boxes featuring Elite Charge TMs are a better buy. The value lies mostly in how you value an Elite Fast TM, which doesn't have an incredible amount of uses.

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. The featured Pokemon will photobomb up to 5 times during the event! This is only 5 extra spawns in the grand scheme of things, but can be helpful for those that are low. Spawns follow similar rules to Incensed spawns (one on the map at a time and quick catching is funky). It's also an easy way to progress the Photobomb bagde.

Shiny Pokemon do not appear shiny in the Photobomb and on the world map. This is a change to previous Shiny Photobomb encounters. Make sure you click it after taking a pic!

Community Day Raids and Eggs and Rocket Grunts

Recent CDs have not included the featured Pokemon in additional forms of content like Raids and Rocket Battles but past CDs have. Once the event has started in NZ, we’ll update this space. Check back later!

If you're looking for a different type of grind during Community Day, pick up some AR mapping tasks. During the event, these tasks all reward 3 Rare Candy, making them a great way to acquire this premium item.

This Community Day turns Roserade into a glass cannon Cherrim Sunshine with an additional Charge Move!

Cherrim Sunshine has been a pretty sweet Pokemon in the Great League, but it's basically just a Fire-type, as Solar Beam is too expensive to reliably use, making it more like Solar Meme.

Grass Knot is only 50 energy to SB's 80, so it's a reason alone to play Roserade.

There's a lot of competition for competent Grass-types, but Roserade could be a passible one. Because of it's frailty, it does require shields. But with them, it can best most notable Grass-types plus the other things that the typical Grass can take on.

This is a similar story in Ultra League too, so you might want one for that League, thought I don't think Roserade has a home in the Master League, despite being a PvE Pokemon.

Roserade is a great Pokemon in PvE and nothing about that is changing this CD, including its moveset. You'll still want your Roserade to have Razor Leaf, especially considering Grass-types are most commonly used in Clear weather. This makes Razor Leaf even more preferable, as it will get a bigger bonus from the multiplier.

While not useful yet, Roserade is the Premier non-Mega, non-Shadow, Poison-type attacker. You won't need Bullet Seed then either, but it means your Roserade are an even better investment with their dual typing.

The addition of XL candy to Pokemon Go provides an additional incentive to take Community Days seriously. Events that contain a lot of one spawn allow players to stock up on this otherwise rare resource. Candy can also be converted to XL candy at a rate of 100 to 1. While this rate is obviously unreasonable for rare and Legendary Pokemon, Community Days can allow you to take advantage of this rate.

Weather or Not

Weather boost has interesting trade-offs in Pokemon Go that might mean you want to tailor your play towards specific areas and times based on the weather. Roselia is boosted in Clear and Cloudy weather.

Weather boost will result in higher leveled Pokemon with higher IVs, which may be worse for PVP (that isn't Master League). It will also give you higher chances to earn XL candy for each catch and transfer, as the drop rate is tied to Pokemon level. Along with additional stardust, this makes looking for Cloudy weather extremely beneficial this CD.

This Community Day set an interesting precedent, as it was one year ago that Machop, along with Vulpix and Dratini, lost the Feburary 2020 CD vote to Ryhorn. At the time, I joked that it was best to vote for the worst exclusive move, as the other Pokemon may just be given the moves anyways. In the case of Vulpix I was proven right, as it has just received Weather Ball in the Season 6.5 rebalance. However, Machop wasn't as lucky, and Payback is now locked behind the exclusive layer, despite it not currently being seen as the top meta choice.

I think the only thing that this means is that for future Community Days, absolutely everything is fair game. March could be Machop again with a different exclusive charge move and I don't think we would be particularly shocked. "Anything is possible" has never sounded more pessimistic.

There's a balance between appreciating the CDs that we get and being upset that certain Pokemon are being slowrolled, On one hand Machop has never been a boosted shiny outside of paid events, and it's a great Pokemon nonetheless. We're in a global pandemic still believe it or not and a Gible Community Day could be seen as irresponsible even, with many players unable to access it fully on lockdown. For this reason, it's good to have "bad" Community Days.

Some defenders of "bad" CDs harp on it being a free event, and that everyone should be happy with what we get, but this view also minimizes the huge impact that Community Day's exclusive moves have on the game. Machamp Community Day simultaneously allows new players to catch up, while punishing future new players with additional gated content. It is effective for keeping players heavily invested, but the tradeoff there is excessive successive events can lead to burnout and ultimately push more players away. There's no such thing as a free evolution.