I finally accomplished the biggest goal I've had in Pokemon Go!

I have played a lot of Pokemon Go since I properly started back in the middle of 2022. Since then it's been a rather consistent grind aside from a couple weeks off every now and then. In late 2023, I reached level 44 and I remained at that level until just a couple days ago. You may be wondering how on earth it took me more than a year to level up once while playing consistently - fear not, all will be revealed.

Now before levelling up to level 43,  I was already aware of the tasks required to then progress from level 44. These tasks were mostly involved with completing Team Go Rocket related tasks and were mostly ones that would auto-complete naturally through everyday gameplay. One however, was the crux of my entire plan - purify 100 shadow Pokemon. This task was special since I would theoretically be able to complete it whenever I chose fit, providing I had the Pokemon necessary to do so - I did. I had started collecting shadow Pokemon for this task before I had even reached level 44, and that's also while only saving the ones that cost 1,000 stardust to purify. 

Now I have a friend of mine who also plays Pokemon Go consistently. I would personally argue that he's more committed than me in some regards when it comes to grinding the game. He visits the main place to play in my city on most event days, while I skip them since I'm usually working on the weekends. He also is able to play the game for much longer single periods than I, I can't stand most events for more than an hour. He also refuses to quick-catch which infuriates me to no end when I play with him. I have however, neglected to say the most important part of him though - his genes. He heralds from the Bulkan sub-continent, and with this comes an intense competitiveness. I realised I had the perfect combination of factors here and decided to exploit them for a laugh. 

 

My level in December 2023 - I think I previously leveled up in late October

 

He was level 42 when I reached 44, and I quickly shot past the XP level requirement to progress to level 45. I realised however, that I could really piss him off if I remained at level 44 and continued to accrue XP while slowly waiting for him to reach my level. It was a fun little 'prank' and I enjoyed slowly giving my friends updates. He eventually reached level 43 around mid 2024 by which point I was about 30-40 million XP. He only needed 11 million XP to level up and join me.

 

XP in March 2024

 

Now to subvert your expectations, there wasn't ever a big reveal of my XP amount. One of our other friends actually spoiled the surprise and my Pokemon Go mate was already keeping tabs on me anyways. I did decide to continue to accrue as much XP as possible before he reached level 44 though. I was also still able to wind him up about how much XP I was gaining, and thankfully I had the perfect event to rub it in.

One of the bonuses in Pokemon Go is "Evolve 2x", where in evolving a Pokemon will gain you 2,000XP instead of the usual 1,000. This event usually comes around for an hour once a month, but on extremely rare occasions it's bundled with events that hopefully last a few days. The last time this bonus was around as apart of an event was back before the Hoenn Tour. It finally returned though, with the introduction of the new "Max Out" season and it's first event. Now when I say this method of gaining XP is my main one, I mean it. Every time my storage gets full, I cull enough Pokemon to the point where all that's left is stuff I'll be able to evolve. Given the year and a half since the last proper 2x Evolve event, my storage tagged for evolution had grown to more than 4,000 Pokemon. If I used a lucky egg, I would be able to get 4x Evolve XP - heaven.

This all came to a head with this new event. I spent almost a week slowly spamming evolutions on my two phones whenever I had time. My the end of it, I had gained almost 20 million XP and gone from 50 million overall to 69 - almost double what it required my friend to level up. He understandably was not happy and called me a no-life - an apt description, I can't lie.

Early September 2024, before the 2x Evolve XP event

A single week later!

 

It gets lonely at the top however, and started to get quite stale with no goals or tasks to complete. My friend was making progress so slow, I would be dead by the time he reached my level. I couldn't maintain the goal I originally envisioned, it wasn't fun anymore. I instead decided to change my goal to 100 million XP before I levelled up, no easy task but certainly still obtainable.

I have since spent the last few months playing regularly, but almost perfecting my excellent throughs to maximise XP. I also started piling up friendship level up XP, saving them for a cheeky lucky egg to do all of them at once. I also played slightly more during 3 and 4x catch XP events, but nothing I really went out of my way for except Tynamo Community Day, which had 3x XP and I think I played for an hour and a half - significantly more than I usually do on community days. I kept this grind up for several months, and in the past couple weeks we had the Go Tour Unova, in which I used friendship, raid and 3x catch XP to gain over 10 million more XP, planting me solidly at 98 million. That's what I think anyway, but the numbers might be off either way by a few million. I informed my friend who asked which task was taking me so long...

I started completing more and more friendship XP rewards and catching everything I could with an excellent through. Eventually, another 2x Evolve XP hour came by, and my Dad was home to walk the dog - everything had lined up perfectly. I spent that hour clicking at two different screens and by the end of it, peace. The hour had given me the last 800k or so XP necessary to reach 100 million. I gave it a night to settle before I finally purified my Pokemon and reached level 45. Supposedly becoming a shadow Pokemon causes the Pokemon pain, so I had some of them in an eternal torture for years...

 

Early March 2025 - My goal finally accomplished!

 

How do I feel now that I've accomplished this goal? Absolutely the same to be honest. I think the boredom really creeped in once I reached 60 million... I did it though, and now I can enjoy the relatively smooth sailing over to level 49. I need an additional 20 million now to reach level 50, but I'm sure I'll gain that on the way there. I greatly enjoy finally having tasks to complete though, I had almost ran out of special research to do bahahahah. I would highly recommend everyone not try the same thing I did unless you really hate yourself. Anyways, thanks for reading this huge body of text and I hope to see you again soon. Isn't it crazy that this is the first time I've posted twice in a month in years.

My friend is still 2 million XP away from levelling up to 44... 

Extras:

 

My stats while level 44!

 

My shadow army may finally rest in purification!

Pokemon Go Global Unova Tour!

Well, that sucked...

The past weekend held the annual Go Tour, with this year's focusing on the Unova region. Featuring only Pokemon from said region, the events are usually a somewhat easy way to complete your regional pokedex, collect a few shinies, and catch new legendaries - who are usually some of the best.

Shinies are usually the primary reason I play these events, as well as the game in general. I went into this event optimistic due to the lack of a paid ticket, which usually includes boosted shiny odds. I am still a bit burnt from the Go Wild Area Global event which had a paid ticket with boosted odds, except I got significantly less than other paid events... These regional tours have no paid ticket, but instead have several Pokemon that have boosted shiny rates anyways, meaning you end up with less shinies than a paid event, but still usually a decent haul. For context, the last two regional tours I ended up with around 10-12 shinies per day. While the Go Fest events (paid ticket), nets me around 25-34 shinies. So a difference, but still great.

For this event, across one and a half days, I ended up with seven shinies in total... To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement. The only Pokemon that seemed to have boosted rates were the Deerling and Basculin found within field research tasks. There are claims that the starter you chose in the special research gave you increased odds for that particular Pokemon. I believed this since it was certainly the case last year. However, I only claimed that step of the research in the second half of day 1, and I barely saw enough Tepig on the second day to make an apt judgement on the shiny rates. At least in previous years numerous other wild spawns would have increased rates - this event had none.

Day 1 Shinies

Day 2 Shinies

This year also saw the removal of roaming legendaries and their associated snapshot task. This was another source of shinies in previous years, so seeing their removal even with numerous candidates for it, was a huge disappointment.

I also saw people complaining about the catch rate/difficulty for Kyurem, but I found them to be fine and I think I only had one or two flee from me. I also had forgotten to use either form's special moves on day 1. Using it made the overall catching process significantly easier. My group also had atrocious raid luck. Between the four of us we did around 100 raids and got a single shiny from it, but somehow got two perfects. I am a bit annoyed, but I had a hard limit on raids once I got enough candy to max one, so I didn't spend too much.

Anyway, that's an incredible amount of ranting and rambling. Now to reveal my amazing haul! Comprising my seven shinies are: four Deeling, one Basculin, and a Zekrom. I also got a shiny Genesect from my final encounter of the Road to Unova research, but I'm not sure if I really include that. Out of this wide assortment, I am most happy with the shiny Zekrom. The colour green is an obsession of mine and I have wanted a shiny Zekrom ever since I started playing Pokemon with Black 2. I raided an absolute ton of them a couple years back, but the shiny eluded me. I'm elated to finally have it (although the green looks much better in sprite form :p).

I also caught a whopping two perfect Pokemon during the event. I'm not actually serious with my sarcasm for this, since perfect Pokemon are super rare no matter what (except when mighty Pokemon are around). Anyways, the first is a Dunsparce which is something... The second day brought about a beautiful perfect Kyurem, which I immediately maxed once I was able to. I chose White Kyurem for it since I'd rather have the strongest pure ice attacker, and not Black Kyurem which is stronger but only really against other dragons. I still ended up with two of each Kyurem though (I still need 30 candy to fuse my last black one). 

Perfect Dunsparce

Perfect White Kyurem

White Kyurem (was my best before this event)

Will one day become a black Kyurem when I have the candy

Lucky Black Kyurem

Overall, an incredibly disappointing event although not everything is cloudy ahead, the leaks for the next Go Fest have it sounding pretty darn exciting. There's potentially a Volcanion as a part of the ticket, and it's the last thing I need for a full living dex in Pokemon Home! Also, two of my friends have had this event and the Go Wild Area as their first event respectively, and I feel annoyed that these were their first experiences with global events...

 

Pokemon Go - Last Year's Big Events!

Okay look, I may just be writing this post really quick so I can still attempt to write one post a month this year. Last year after my Sinnoh Tour post, Pokemon Go hosted another two major global events: Pokemon Global Go Fest 2024 and Pokemon Go Wild Area 2024 Global. I barely remember anything from these events aside from a couple things, but I did take screenshots of my haul, so I've got that going for me.

 

Pokemon Global Go Fest 2024

As usual, Go Fest was a blast and I ended up with a significant amount of shinies throughout the day. I didn't do too many raids on the first day due to it being comprised of mainly Ultra Beasts. The second day however, I primarily focused on completing Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings raids for fusion energy.

My main goal was a shiny Corsola, which I thankfully eventually got on the second day. Most of my other shinies are also great, and thankfully ones I mostly don't already have. My annoying shiny pikachu luck persists though, with another four to add to my collection... :) In terms of Necrozmas, I got a solid 94% one I fully upgraded and fused to Dusk Mane, and another high 80s that I used my remaining candy on and fused into Dawn Wings. I also got a shadow shiny Trapinch after the event which is pretty snazzy! 

That first shiny rattata I named Michael, we both caught the same shiny. It wasn't even a perfect but were both shiny and had the same CP and IVs somehow. I think the height might've been slightly different though. I also really love the shiny Espeon colour and I am slightly triggered that I can't trade them to home...

Day 1 Shinies

Day 1 Shinies

 

Day 2 Shinies

Day 2 Shinies

Day 2 Shinies

Shadow Shiny Trapinch!

My best Necrozma

My second best Necrozma

 

Pokemon Go Wild Area 2024 Global

I did not like this event. The thing that really bothered me was the shiny rate. It was around $20 for the event ticket here in Australia and that supposedly brought 'increased shiny odds' with it. Unfortunately said increased rates seem to be barely better than the regional tours, which are free events. I didn't move as much as I usually would have, but even so the rates were atrocious and left a sour taste in my mouth both days.

The Pokemon selection was also kind of meh, but that's to be expected given it was a poison and electric event. I'm mixed on the raids, on one hand I didn't really care for them since they were all previously featured in these big events. On the other hand, I do like candy XL, so I grinded a ton of them. I even finally got enough XL candy to max out my perfect Kyogre, which I think became my first maxed perfect!

The one thing I did enjoy about this event were the mighty Pokemon. I didn't play this game at it's peak in 2016, so I never got to experience everyone running over to check out particular Pokemon. Thankfully this feature recreated that craze. The Pokemon selection was also pretty good, and I wouldn't ever say no to easy candy for them. The only downside was everyone having the same stats, so there was no excitement if the first person didn't get a perfect. My only notable catch is a perfect Dragonite though - there was a perfect Poliwrath, but unfortunately it ran away from me. :( 

EDIT: I also got a perfect Scolipede which is something I suppose.

I don't know for certain what I traded for the Terrakion - I'm pretty sure it was a shiny Palkia though.

Day 1 Shinies

Day 2 Shinies

Day 2 Shinies

My fully maxed perfect best-buddy Kyogre!

 

Perfect Dragonite

Perfect Scolipede

Thanks for reading yet another post. I might as well continue to try to write at least one post a month at this rate. I am still working on my food blog website - currently writing reviews and compressing photos. After that I've got to clean and finish up a few parts of the website. Hopefully I'll be able to give this blog a cleanup as well after! Until next time!

 

Delukatio's 2024 Year in Review!

I swear I want to use this blog more 😂. Welcome to the Delukatio 2024 year-in-review. Over the past year this blog has had a whole two posts (one of which was the previous year-in-review), while the YouTube channel had around 60 short videos posted and a few livestreams. 

 

Blog Stats:

I don't really trust the statistics part of the Blogger software I use for this blog. Supposedly I had 7.32K views on the blog this year which I guess it somewhat believable except for the fact 95% of the views has 'Other' as the source; so I would assume it's a majority of bots making up these 'views'. In terms of blog posts though, most of them have gone up a significant amount, with both the 100 and 200 view barrier being broken. The most viewed individual post is... last year's year-in-review. See what I mean about bots, there is no way real humans would find that more interesting than my other more focused posts.

 

 

Youtube Stats:

The YouTube channel seems about right though. I didn't really upload anything of note and my releases consisted primarily of old clips that I uploaded in both short and clip form. I don't really know what caused the overall dip in the final third of the year but I'm not too bothered. The channel is basically just going to be a dumping ground for playthroughs of games as well as clips I still haven't uploaded over the past five years... The livestreams were fun although they had effectively zero audience. Going back to Minecraft with my Generations series was great though!

 

This Year's Plans:

As usual I would like to use this blog significantly more than I do. I was preoccupied with university studies last year and recently I've been focusing on developing/adding content to my blog focusing on my home city of Perth, Western Australia. I'm currently sorting through 380 venues that I have taken photos of the past 5 years and after that I've got to write a couple posts for it. After I finally release that (the idea is two years old at this point), I will hopefully have time to continually update this barring university studies overwhelming me. Anyways, hopefully I see you again soon!