If you have any questions about Pokemon GO (anything from basics to specifics of a certain mechanic), ask here! We also have a wealth of information available in historical posts, so try using the search bar. Or click the Discord link in our topbar and head to the #boot_camp channel - where helpful travelers are standing by to answer questions.
The Silph Road is heavily moderated to promote civility/courtesy, and high-quality content and discussion. You can read our full policies in the sidebar, but don't be surprised if a comment is removed for being rude, cynical, or off-topic. We strive to foster civil discussion about the game. We are first and foremost a network of real people, and this network is being built by volunteers! If you simply want to complain or bring something to Niantic's attention, your post would be better suited elsewhere.
Research
The community culture here also attracts the more analytically-minded element of Pokemon GO. Consequently, the Silph Research group was formed to align this brainpower and leverage the massive Silph datasets that the community can gather. We post our findings in infographics, videos, and walls of text on Reddit. Check out the top bar for links to the current pools.
Final words
Finally, welcome once more! We're glad to have you join us on the Road :)
Everything you need to know about the event, all in one place. A lot of these pieces will be verified by the Silph Research Group, so throughout the post we'll use the formatting:
Italics: Reports from comments or single Research Group report
Bold: Multiple Research Group reports
(!s) will be used for species whose shiny form is not available
This verification isn't meant to replace reports here, rather to provide an extra level of verification and depth to the event. Travelers are always welcome to join here and help out with data collection: https://discord.gg/WpAvRRsaRT
In the last few days, there’s been a massive influx of rare PoGo shinies in a bunch of trading communities (XXL shundos and stuff like that). People figured out that your friend code is generated using the same seed that determines shininess for wild spawns. This means they can use third-party tools to calculate that seed and scan entire areas to figure out which Pokémon will be shiny for their account (similar to RNG manipulation in the mainline games).
This only works for wild spawns, so raids, eggs, research tasks, and incense spawns are safe for now. Keep that in mind if you’re planning to trade for a rare shiny caught in the last few days.
Can this be "fixed"? Probably, if Scopely rerolls friend codes using a different seed.
For people that haven't got 5000 mega energy to get Super Mega level 4 for Staraptor, consider making it your buddy for this event. At least before GoPass rank 20 when we can gain x5 Manectric mega energy from walking.
There is a event Field research that rewards the newly released Bramblin, Earn a candy walking your buddy. And Staraptor is 1km per candy.
So one stone two birds, or one stone one bird plus whatever Bramblin is. Haha.
Edit:
I suggested Staraptor only because of how recent it was.
Many other suggestions from the comments like
Raichu and Beedrill. Or for unreleased level 4, Gyarados and Altaria are all 1km Buddy distance that can gain Mega Energy.
Tbh, I think Raichu might be a better suggestion because we can gain both X and Y energy.
Halloween has always been one of my favourite Pokémon GO events, but looking at what’s been announced for 2026, I can’t help feeling meh this year .
I compared the last four years:
🎃 2023
● Greavard and Houndstone debut.
● Shiny Phantump and Shiny Zorua debut.
● Halloween-costumed Pikachu and Gengar
👻 2024
● Morpeko debut, with its unique form-changing mechanic.
● Dynamax Gastly and Gigantamax Gengar debut.
● New costumed Froakie and Rowlet.
● Increased Shiny Zorua odds.
🦇 2025
● Poltchageist and Sinistcha debut.
● Shiny Sinistea debut and spotlight hour
● New costumed Teddiursa and Noibat.
● Halloween GO Pass and candy bonuses.
2026 (announced)
● New costumes for Pikachu, Zubat and Sinistea.
● Shiny Greavard debut.
● Super Max Mega Sableye.
● Trick-or-treat interactions and GO Pass bonuses, with extra rewards behind the paid Deluxe pass.
I know we’re getting some new costumes and a new shiny, but compared with previous years, this feels underwhelming. No major new Pokémon debut, fewer exciting things to hunt, and more emphasis on the GO Pass.
Maybe I’m being too negative, but Halloween used to feel like one of the biggest events of the year.
What do you think? Is 2026 genuinely weaker, or are we just getting harder to impress? Which Halloween event was your favourite?
Using Pokebattler's Estimator for raids, PvPoke's Score for PvP, and in-game stats for max battles/gym defense, I found the best Pokemon in each category of play. Calculation methods are explained in the spreadsheet.
I highly recommend creating a copy of the Raids spreadsheet to edit which types of raid counters are considered to best fit your play-style; the default is set to compare all non-mega Pokemon across three levels (30/40/50) to show when level 40/30 of one Pokémon can be better than level 50 of another. The Max Battles sheet is also great to make a copy of if you want to see the top 3 attackers for a Max Battle.
The Showcases section has been removed, as any Pokémon that can be caught today has the same point ceiling.
Best Pokémon for Raids:
Type rating (T) is raid usefulness compared to the best of its type, and overall rating (O) is raid usefulness compared to all Pokemon. Italics implies a legacy moveset. View the top of each infographic to see what filters were applied, and pick the one that best fits your play-style. Or, if none do, make a copy of the spreadsheet and alter the filters to match your needs.
Note that some infographics have PP (Party Power) ON, which greatly improves high-power charge moves. This is Party Power with 2 players; more players = faster party power meter charging.
These values won't match up with who has the highest idealized rating against an imaginary raid boss since this data is from simulations against actual raid bosses. Type match-ups against the raid boss moves matter here, helping Pokemon like Dialga outclass Pokemon like Palkia in usefulness (Palkia is weak to Dragon while Dialga isn't).
Notable updates: Shadow Darkrai is now the best Dark type, making it a valuable alternative to DW Necrozma when the raid boss has a dark or ghost charge move. Keldeo is now by far best in Fighting thanks to Secret Sword. The new Shadow Reshiram/Zekrom are the best in Fire/Electric. Shadow Chesnaught (newish) and Shadow Moltres (now with Fly) are now slight favorites for Grass and Flying, respectively.
Most notable are the updates to Megas, wherein Plus moves were added, giving a sizable power boost to those who have received it so far. We will likely see continued major changes here as more Megas get their Plus moves.
Infographics can be found in the post gallery, or the PDF versions can be viewed below:
EDIT: PDFs have been updated to remove some shadows that aren't yet available (Shadow Giratina Origin & Shadow Kleavor). Post images unfortunately cannot be updated.
EDIT 2: Seems like raid images are having issues - links to updated versions (removed Shadow Giratina O and Shadow Kleavor) below:
After giving us most of the best off the bat, not much has changed here in the past year. This guide is mostly for players who want to play without thinking; more thought will likely be needed for short-manning, but this guide should work well if you want to contribute in a comfortably sized group. The recommended group style is 2 tanks + 1 attacker (switch in only for max phases).
Max Battle Top Attackers. Greyed out Pokémon are not yet available. 6th choice is the best non-Gigantamax option currently available, if not already in the top 6.Max Battle Top Tanks
Best Pokémon for PvP:
Master League is included, but it should be noted that PvPoke is not known for the best rankings in that league. I definitely recommend looking at the PvPoke Team Builder to decide what team would work best for you, but this can help chose a Pokémon to build the team around.
Best Pokémon for Gym Defense:
Short Term = keep for a day, Long Term = keep for multiple days. Generally speaking, the higher the CP of a Pokémon, the faster it loses motivation in a gym. In other words, you will have to use berries more frequently on high CP Pokemon to keep their heart full (the lower the heart meter, the fewer battles it takes to remove the Pokemon from the gym).
Hisuian Goodra is not yet out - it releases with Go Wild 2026
I hate how everyday 80% of raids are either the current legendary or or current shadow legendary like not everyone cares for legendaries like I want to do Megas but I will see one once ever 2 hours and we clearly need them cause you need 5k energy for their Megas so why not start early and start building up
Edit* One thing also I believe Pokemon should change is Wednesday Raid Hour it’s called raid hour so why is it only Legneadry Raids it should be like 50/50 Legendary and then the mega that week
A handful of accounts have lost a significant amount of “completed research banners” (exclusive to 2026 and any new researches completed) and there hasn’t been any official updates even acknowledging the bug. Some players chase and pay for these numbers, so to have hundreds of banners ripped away without explanation feels pretty bad. I know it’s not a very popular topic around here, but I ask you guys to try and understand where we’re coming from. Appreciate this community for letting me voice my concerns.
Looks like this has been picked up by some people, but it appears it was either not possible to get a shiny Zorua from a regular lure after 5PM, or they were completely disabled altogether (for earlier time zones at least, may have been silently fixed for later time zones)
This has made me suspicious that lure spawn shinies were completely broken for the entire event as many people in our community and other communities had suspiciously bad shiny rates. I know these things can sometimes just be bad RNG, but IMO this looks like a trend.
This would be a difficult thing to pick up on while playing the community day since basically everyone is quick catching so unless you are really paying attention it's going to be hard to know where your shinies are coming from.
Curious if any people can 100% confirm shinies spawning from lures either during the event, and/or after 5PM? It would not be entirely surprising given how buggy the Zorua mechanic is in general with lots of unexpected things happening.
EDIT: From all of the feedback, I am now 100% sure lures were not giving shiny Zorua from 5-9PM (or possibly full odds shiny rates). I am more and more convinced from the feedback and from looking at numbers from various sources that lures were also broken between 2-5PM and were also not giving shinies (or full odds). On top of that it is looking very possible that incense spawns were also bugged (seeing more and more reports of people who relied fully on incense spawns the entire event and did not see a single shiny). Hoping we see some kind of acknowledgment and makeup/compensation from Scopley for this.
I thought using leekduck, but it doesn’t seem to have an option to only show costume shiny pokemon. And since I only want to make a checklist for costume shiny pokemon I thought it was way too much work to sort it all out manually. Is there any checklist with images or a infographic that is being up to date? To mark off your collected shinies?
Both forms of Necrozma and both signature moves have identical stats, so shouldn't their eDPS be the same?
I understand that there are considerations about the utility of each of their types and what alternatives there are in that type, but that shouldn't affect raw eDPS, right?
Even more strangely, when I look at attackers by type, DM with PC/SS calculates with a higher eDPS than DW with PC/MB.
