Incense = useless?
Just used an incense. Whilst walking for 30 minutes. Here's what appeared....
2 ledyba
2 sentret
3 spinarak
1 slugma
2 murkrow
2 hoothoot
1 teddiursa
1 rattata
1 pidgey
1 paras
1 poliwag
1 aipom
Nothing and not in a greater quantity than what i would have encountered without an incense. Am i just unlucky? Hope noones spending coins or real money on these things with the hopes of catching something useful.
Answers
I took about an 8 month break from the game. Before the break if i used an incense here id see charmanders doduos bellsprouts mankeys geodudes growlithes sandshrews etc. Nothing extraordinary but things i wouldnt see otherwise. After the break (i picked it up again about a month before the gym rework) i dont see anything i wouldnt see without an incense and not in a greater quantity either. FOR ME it seems as if the incense does nothing but put a purple ring around me. I dont know. Pretty disappointedto be honest. Seems like the only thing to do in this game anymore is raids. And through raids everyone eventually (depending on location) has the same pokemon. No personalisation or anything. Just "you need this pokemon with this moveset for this boss.raid that until you have x amount of y pokemon for z boss then raid that" ...... and then? This game has become a typical carrot in front of the nose mmorpg wow type thing. Without factoring in all the bugs and errors in the game. I dont know. Maybe time for me to call it quits again. A shame because with a bit of depth this game could be an absolute monster and masterpiece of gaming. I dont know. Someonegive me a bit of hope
Both Incense and Lures are a waste of money. My Clan did a community event for my town the weekend Zapados was set to leave and we lured up the entire park 14 pokestops for 2 straight hours. Nothing rare just the normal stuff. Only 1 2nd evolution appeared and it was a Pidgeotto we all screamed "PIDGEOTO" and everyone rushed over thats how bad and pathetic those lures were.
Lures are not that great. I have had one good experience with then outside of 6 hour lure events.
The nearby Hilton is known for lots and lots of Magikarps. Three of us went over for a few hours and collectively dropped about 50lures. We all caught a 100%, 97%, & 95% magikarp and one of us was luck my enough to walk away with 3 shinies. That said we only had good luck because it's a karp heavy location anyway, the lures magnified it. Probably 200-300 karps in a few hours plus some other stuff. We were also lucky enough to pick up a low level high IV Starmie.
So that's what 50 lures might get you if you were in the right spot. We only had so many because of the raid box sales.
Maybe for those of you who get spawns anyway it's useless - for us rurals it's essential, i.e., if you ever want to catch mon at the house. Even better, when I ride my bike I get one after another - and let the Plus catch them for me (unless it's something really good, I'll stop and catch it myself). And yes, I have gotten good stuff, including a Snorlax and larvitar in my own driveway (where absolutely NOTHING ever spawns otherwise). During special events, you also get event mon.
I don't use lures as much, rarely stay in one place long enough - except in one recent event, when it was raining buckets and the XP catch bonus was just too good to ignore - parked at a double stop, used incense and lures, and just raked in the XP.
So they have their usefulness (just not for everyone, I guess).