Pokémon Go is having a Popplio Community Day event on Saturday, Aug. 31, from 2-5 p.m. in your local time.
As expected with a Community Day event, Popplio will spawn in huge numbers with a high chance for it to appear shiny. There are also several other bonuses and perks, which we’ve list out below.
How do I catch a shiny Popplio?
As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), Shiny rates on Community Days are about 1 in 24, which means that if you keep playing throughout the three-hour window, you should find quite a few shiny Pokémon.
Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Niantic
If you’re short on time or Poké Balls, you can pop an Incense, then quickly tap each Popplio to check for shiny ones, running from any that aren’t shiny. Notably, any Popplio you’ve already tapped will face where your player is standing, so that should help identify which ones you may have already checked.
What Community Day move does Popplio’s evolution learn?
If you evolve Brionne into Primarina from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m. in your local time, it will learn the charged move Hydro Cannon.
If you miss out on evolving it during this period, you will likely be able to evolve it during a Community Day weekend event in December to get Hydro Cannon. If you don’t want to wait, you can use an Elite TM to get the move.
How does Primarina do in the meta?
Primarina is a great PvP pick, according to Silph Road researcher and PvP expert JRE47. It does great with its Community Day move (Hydro Cannon), so you’re definitely going to want to grab one of these seals for PvP, if that’s your thing.
Primarina is also a pretty powerful water-type attacker when set up with Waterfall and Hydro Cannon. Of course, a regular Primarina is outshined by Megas, Legendaries, and Shadow Pokémon, but it’s still very powerful and worth grabbing.
How do I make the most of Popplio Community Day?
The following bonuses will be active during Popplio Community Day:
- Tripled XP for catching Pokémon
- Doubled candy for catching Pokémon
- Doubled chance for level 31+ trainers to get XL candy from catching Pokémon
- Incense lasts three hours
- Lure Modules lasts three hours
- Popplio special photobombs when taking snapshots
- One additional special trade
- Stardust cost halved for trading
That said, you should definitely pop a Lucky Egg and an Incense and try to nab some powerful Popplio.
If you can Mega Evolve Blastoise, Slowbro, Gyarados, Swampert, or Kyogre, you’ll score additional Popplio Candy per catch.
In addition to all this, Niantic is still running special four-star raids from 5-10 p.m., where if you clear the Brionne raid, Popplio will spawn in a 300-meter radius around the gym for 30 minutes. These raids cannot be done remotely. If the usual 2-5 p.m. spawn increase doesn’t get you the Popplio you wanted, you can try raiding for another chance.