Pokémon GO has been heavy on events recently, and with its annual Halloween event having just finished, Niantic shows no signs of slowing down. Instead of taking a break, it’s bringing back a special event to conclude GO‘s”The Season of Mischief” in a welcoming way for new players and veterans alike.
Team GO Rocket, the mobile game’s iteration of the famous enemy organization originally seen in Pokémon‘s first generation games have taken over the world of Pokémon GO. The villainous organization is, as expected, capturing Pokémon and forcing them to do their dirty work, turning them into shadow Pokémon in the process. Distinguishable by their red eyes and purple aura, these pocket monsters possess a substantial 20 percent increase to their attack power, which can give the Pokémon a defining edge in battles.
During a takeover event, Team Rocket grunts appear much more frequently on the game’s map and quite literally take over PokéStops. This takeover is shown by the change in a stop’s animation to a dark blue and twitching animation, as if the stop has been corrupted. To free it, players must challenge the grunt to a battle. The grunt will always give a hint as to what type of Pokémon they will use, so pay attention to what they say. After emerging victorious, players will be given the opportunity to catch either the first or second Pokémon the grunt used, meaning there’s quite a variety in the number of shadows a player can obtain. Grunts will also drop a Mysterious Component, which when combines with five others forms a Rocket Radar.
With this radar equipped, players will start encountering the three Team GO Rocket leaders, Cliff, Arlo and Sierra. Be warned though, as the radar breaks after the encounter, meaning players will have to collect more components to create another. Fighting one of the leaders will lead to encounter with a specific Pokémon, dependent on which are in the current rotation. Defeating them is also the only way to obtain shiny shadow Pokémon. During the event, players are also able to challenge the Team Rocket boss Giovanni and claim a coveted legendary shadow Pokémon. With the increased frequency of grunts, players can obtain way more shadows than usual and build their arsenal of powerful monsters.
Shadow Pokémon’s great power comes with a catch: By default, the only charged move a shadow Pokémon knows is Frustration. This does a measly 12 damage, and as it’s a Normal-type move, it isn’t super effective against any other type, making it one of the most worthless moves in the game. Normally, the only way to give the shadow Pokémon a different move is to buy it with Stardust. Be warned though, the cost for a second move is 10 percent more than that of regular Pokémon. Thankfully, what makes these events shine is that they allow players to use Charged TMs to remove Frustration.
This gives the Pokémon permanent access to its regular move pool, which is a complete game-changer for meta-relevant Pokémon like Swampert, Metagross and Mewtwo. With the use of the Elite Charged TM, a premium item available as a GO Battle League reward or through special event boxes, players can give the aforementioned Pokémon their most powerful moves, which are usually unobtainable outside of specific events.
Team GO Rocket will tremble before the might of any player that confronts them with a shadow Mewtwo that knows both Psystrike and Shadow Ball. Players should change the moves of any and all Pokémon with Frustration to make the most of the event’s limited time-window. Once it’s over, they will have to wait until the next one to do so — and their own frustration may be double.
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