I knew about the search bar but did not know about the evolve filter. That's amazing.

Happy the event is extended as I realized I forgot to do a lucky egg session. Have about ~80 evolves currently ready to go. If I do some work I can have another one ready by the end of the event. Won't have a ton of time for Lugia/Articuno raids tho :-/

72 hours would be a whole lot more awesome if MrsWookie weren't about to give birth, but hell, we can at least enjoy some strolls around the neighborhood when she goes into labor.

And yes, the new search feature is awesome.

The only downside is that my ball supply is critically low. Gonna have to make a concerted effort to just get stops, but there are so many critters out there!

There's definitely huge amounts of rng. But there is a skill element involved also. I suspect that a lot of people with long losing streaks are bad throwers. not using curveball. not timing it right so they end up with some misses. etc.

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i REALLY wish blissey and chancy were not default picks.

We failed at a lugia attempt today with a 19 person lobby where nobody errored out and everybody over 25. How is that even possible you ask? chancy.

We were in the yellow at 200s left. WAY ahead of schedule. ez game. but no, as people's teams lose out, they panic to get back in and just use the default team of chanseys. By the time we get in the red, theres only like 3 of us actually attacking anymore and the damage bar is essentially stationary. We were a sliver away, but damn.

Guy made an announcement that there's plenty of time to pick your second team, don't rejoin right away, pick 2-3 pokemon, anything near top of your cp list is fine.

2nd round we won with >100s left.

stupid chancy. stupid default lists.

Probably my most active day ever. Caught 4 Articuno and 4 Lugia. Highlight was getting a 98 IV Lugia and getting 4 TM in a single raid (3 Charge/1 Fast).

For a good portion of the day our group was directing the activity in our local area. Basically we had multiple 35+ level players (like 10) just moving from location to location and taking down raid after raid. We would basically educate at each raid and tell people (usually lower level players) what was best, sometimes advising against trying to tank the whole thing with Blissey. It worked pretty well and I think some otherwise well meaning players learned a few things.

I also now have over 100 rare candy and am into the teens for both charge and fast TMs. Gotta figure out what to do with those sometime tonight.

For your sake, I hope they add the ability to use multiple rare candies at once.

Niantic extending the duration of the event is nice but nice for them as well as us. I wonder how much they have made on raid passes the last two days?

Oof my legs are tired but I guess I should make the most of the bonuses. Should crack level 37 pretty easily, maybe get towards 38.

Just hatched a dratini but only got 32 candy with it, so I'm pumped to get the dratini but I feel like that is just about the least amount of candy I could get with the 2x bonus

Yeah, raid passes are awesome, and their smallest special box is a pretty good deal. I was glad to have had some coins saved up from gymming.

I have a buddy that has 500+ rare candy (I never got that high because I was using them as they came up to beef up Machamps, Heracross, et cetera). He REALLY needs this functionality or he will need to waste a hour just transferring all his rare candy around.

poor guy

Caught a 98% IV artikuno today. Spent about 15 minutes turning my rare candies into artikuno candies to max it but not complaining

Currently at 3/9 (failed the first 6 and succeeded in all 3 after that) for Articuno and 1/3 (critical catch) for Lugia. All have IVs < 90 %, but pretty satisfied overall after the depressing start. Man was I exhausted after Monday: spent about 12 hours playing (total of 9 raids, spinning, catching, couple lucky egg evolve sessions) more or less with only a couple breaks. I was completely out of pokeballs after Monday and only did a single Articuno raid today.

Is it going to be worth maxing out an articuno? I have 42 rare candy taking up space and don't need any for evolutions and things like tyranitar or machamp you can get candy for from battles and hatching fairly easily. Is it better to max out an ampharos? Also thinking I should just save it for future gens.

Articuno seems like a slightly better Lapras, it will kill dragonite pretty well but will be otherwise useless.

I've leveled up my 98% artikuno up to level 30 because it's very useful vs lugia.

If one day they allow you to use it for defense purpose it will be a tank as its defense base is super high and there aren't many great counters

Snagged me an Articuno last night. Still haven't seen a Lugia raid around me.

Also finally done Gen 1 (minus non-US regionals) after evolving Hitmonlee last night.

snagged an articuno too, going for a perfect

Lol 20 minutes after I post this one pops up right up the street from me. Time to take an early lunch...

Per Niantic, Articuno available until the 31st, then Moltres from then to August 7th, and then Zapdos from then to the 14th. Zapdos looks to my eye like the most useful attacker of the legendary critters so far, but we'll have to see how much stardust I can get for doing the 20->30 upgrades. 75000 is a lot.

Boom

Nice, I'm 0/2 on lugia and 3/6 on articuno.

Moltress seems like it will be absurdly easy to beat compared to the rest of the legendaries seeing as how everybody has 836 vaporeons

same with zapdos really. I can put 3 good golems and 3 good rhinos all with stone edge all day and zapdos won't stand a chance. Been powering up golems recently.

Also tyranitar

did 3 lugia raids today, caught it on my last one.

Made a good use of the event today, hatched 3 dratini, caught 5 with pinaps and caught a dragonair with pinaps, so I think in total got 208 dratini candy today.