Dratini Community Day Classic Guide

It's that time again! Niantic has reached back in time, and pulled forward one of the original Community Day subjects: Dratini! This little dragon and its final evolution played a big part in Pokemon Go back when it first started, and has managed to stay relevant to this day to varying degrees thanks to its high power. It's nice to be able to relive this event, so here are our suggestions as to how to best take advantage of the proceedings.

• Drastically increased spawns for the Pokemon Dratini with increased shiny rate
• 3x Catch Stardust
• 3 hour Lure Modules and Incense
• A limited number of snapshots will grant Dratini Photobomb

• Themed Field Research “Catch 3 Dratini” for balls, berries, and Stardust
• 3-hour Lures
• 3x Catch XP

• All Dragonair evolved during Community Day hours learn the exclusive move Draco Meteor!
  • Charged TMs and learning a New Move will not give you this exclusive move
  • Must evolve a Dragonair 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.

Don’t forget to also prepare for your local real-world weather and everything that comes along with that. Make sure that you and anyone with you is ready with appropriate/comfortable clothing, snacks, drinks, and everything else that you will need to keep going for as long as you feel is needed. Community Day is a full 3 hours, so pace yourself and take breaks to not get burnt out.

Most importantly, keep it fun!

This guide will cover all of the in-game knowledge you’ll need to make the most out of Dratini Community Day.

Should I Buy The Ticket?

The ticket for this event will grant players access to a few bonuses via the Special Research Line, but arguably the most valuable bonus is the ability to encounter a few Dratini via research with a 10/10/10 IV floor. In general it's best to make this purchase if you're scouring for a high-IV individual.

Before the Event

• Decide where to play
• Get your items ready
• Set reminder alarms

During the Event

• Check out key reminders for CD mechanics
• Review additional ways to acquire the Community Day Pokemon (Raids, Research, Eggs, and Rocket Battles)
• Research the Exclusive Move to see how valuable it is
• Set goals accordingly
• Determine if you need Candy for the Community Day Pokemon, and use Pinap Berries accordingly.
  • Remember; low-CP Pokemon are easier to catch, so using Pinap Berries on any lightweights that you may encounter may be a good idea.

After the Event

• Appraise everything
• Find a trading partner
• Evolve your Pokemon
• Start preparing for the next event!

Dratini 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 2PM-5PM based on local time, those lucky enough to be near a timezone shift 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 Campfire, or be the first in your area to create a group. If you see other trainers in your gyms, that means that others are out 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!

Clusters and Lures

If you want to catch the most Pokemon, 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. The recent spawn-area change may throw this off a bit, so be ready to move if your planned area doesn’t pan out.

Weather

Pursuing weather-boosted Community Day Pokemon grant you higher CP, so it’s advised to hunt in areas forecasted to have a weather that will result in a boost if possible, unless your goal happens to be PvP IVs. This comes with decreased catch rates, 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).

Weather boosted Pokemon have an IV floor of 4/4/4. This means their IV spreads are more likely to be better for PvE, but less likely/impossible to result in good PvP IVs.

0-6 Star Pieces

For Stardust-Boosting Community Days, a Starpiece is an absolute must. For non-boosting Community Days, the additional gains may still be worth the price for sheer volume of catches alone.

1 Incense

Incense lasts for 3 hours for this event, so packing 1 will suffice for the duration.

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. Remember that “quick catching” your Incense spawns will still make them visible on the map after the catch.

Lure Modules

Lure modules placed during Community Day hours will last 3-hours long. Playing in an area with a lot of stops will allow you access to a lot more spawns too.

This Silph Road study concludes that Glacial, Mossy, and Magnetic lures double the amount of lured spawns, with half of the spawns coming from a specific list and half coming from the biome, which should be taken over during Community Day. Because of this, using a new, upgraded Lure Module quickly becomes worthwhile, during CD’s 3-hour lure bonus.

These lures can bring rarer catches including some evolved forms with bonus Stardust, but you may want to still focus on the feature Pokemon spawns with their limited window exclusive moveset and increased shiny chance. Sadly, Dratini is not attracted to any of the unique lures as a pure Dragon Type, so sticking with normal lures is just fine.

PRO-TIP: Use a new Lure at 5:59. It will still last 3 hours and you can catch a few Pokemon while you evolve and trade Dratini. You won’t be able to lure anything Lured during Community Day, but there's usually a few unlured Pokestops, hopefully ones in air conditioning or with comfortable seating. This may not be possible in urban and extreme rural playing without a lot of communication.

0-6 Lucky Eggs

Community Day can be a great time to coordinate Friendship level ups for both players to egg and receive double XP as it’s likely you’ll both be playing. Even for events that don’t sport an XP bonus, it still may be worth using an egg or two due to the sheer volume of catches.

Berries and Great/Ultra Balls

It’s always a good idea to stock up before CD. The themed research “Catch 3 Dratini” 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. Active Pokemon from Lures and Incense can also deplete your resources. Players low on 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, especially if you’re able to occasionally grind and stock up on items.

Saving Incubators

One of the best uses in the game for paid Incubators is Community Day events featuring 10km hatchable Pokemon.  During some CDs, the featured Pokemon was obtainable via eggs at an increased rate. Because of this, it’s generally best to save Incubators for events that feature reduced hatch distance.

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

• 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 start 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 focus heavily on the featured Pokemon, avoid clicking on spawns as Community Day is about to begin. Catch them for triple dust instead!
• 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. Likewise, you may not find it necessary to fill your inventory with Community Day eggs.

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 Dratini” with the following rewards;

• 500 Stardust.
• 2 Ultra Balls.
• 5 Great Balls.
• 2 Pinap Berries.
• Dratini encounter
• 1 Golden Razzberry

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” 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” 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

Draco Meteor is definitely a powerful move, but its high energy cost gives it an average performance below Outrage in Raids, while in PvP it's generally not the first pick due to the power/coverage of Dragonite's other moves combined with its fairly harsh Attack dropping drawback.

This isn't to say that Draco meteor is bad; quite the contrary! In theory it can out-pace Outrage in raids, and the two can even be used in tandem in order to have the best of both worlds. However, don't feel too bad if you already have a good Dragonite that lacks Draco Meteor.

Determine how many of the featured Pokemon you want this Community Day and plan accordingly as far as resources and acquiring high IV individuals goes. Set goals and pay attention to how much candy you earn. Keeping track can help you determine play patterns for future CDs.

As mentioned previously, especially if your CD availability is low, try to score some trades with local players leading up to CD and make use of the Lucky friend feature to help maximize your odds of getting a high-IV individual.

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.

Trade Advice

Coordinating with a Lucky Friend during CD can allow you to swap a day 1 shiny Pokemon 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:

• Swapping a Shiny will count as a Special Trade 
• 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

The featured Pokemon 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 Grass badge. 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.

Throwing with no bonus will eat through your resources faster making it worthwhile to utilize Great and Excellent throws. This will also result in bonus XP, which is definitely worthwhile for most players.

Searching “4*” will display all perfect Pokemon. Searching “4*&Dratini”  will display all perfect Dratini. 4* and sorting by recent should also suffice.

Draco Meteor isn't the best move, and Dragonite isn't the best dragon, but this is definitely still a Community Day worth hitting up. Players who lack a strong set of Dragon raiders or those that want to give Dragonite a try in PvP should definitely get in on this, as should those who want to take advantage of the Stardust bonus. 

Using the tips above, hopefully this will turn out to be a great Community Day for all who join in the festivities. As always, it’s important to be prepared, but a bit of spontaneity and making quick changes to your plans can result in new adventures and experiences. Don’t forget to be aware of the world around you not just for your safety, but also for the sake of creating memories this Community Day, and we hope that everything goes perfectly for all of our readers!