It’s not Community Day, but it might as well be. Today is yet another limited time offering in Pokémon GO, this time the raid reward day for the world completing 15.1 million research tasks during Pokémon GO Fest weekend last week.
As expected, we got a second shiny legendary bird out of it. That would be Zapdos, following in Articuno’s footsteps, and he’s now live in some regions for a three hour raiding window, one which starts at 11 AM PT here in the Americas.
Zapdos will know Thundershock as a fast move if you catch him today, but obviously the real prize is getting your hands on a shiny version, which if you can find one, will have a 100% catch rate.
While shiny Articuno was a bit lighter in color than the original version, shiny Zapdos is simply a slightly darker shade of yellow. It is not a dramatic color transformation like Charizard or Dragonite, which is kind of a shame, but that’s just kind of how these legendary shiny birds are, unfortunately. You’ll have to recognize him from the sparkles.
So, how to get one?
Data is still coming in about how often shiny Zapdos are spawning in Pokemon GO today, but if Niantic mirrors the rates from Articuno day, that means the spawn rate should be about 4%, or roughly the same as what it is for Community Day shinies. But unlike Community Day, it’s a lot harder to farm raids than it is catching infinitely spawning wildPokémon, so these shinies are some of the toughest to land in the game in this short window.
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The good news is that all gyms will be spawning three hour Zapdos raids today, so you can make a nice little circuit if you want as you shiny hunt. Like I recommended last week, if you have the time and ability, it would be a good idea to go to a city or more populated area so you can maximize the number of gyms you can hit in the three hour window. Otherwise, you’re going to be out of luck if you only have a couple of gyms to get to, and none of them give you a shiny.
Again, I am wondering if Niantic may have bumped the shiny spawn rate after Articuno day, given that this is a different situation than Community Day, and it’s much harder to farm raids than wild spawns. But if not, and you care about your shiny collection, you’ll have to go all out today because after this, there is a zero percent chance you can just find a shiny Zapdos in the wild. They only appear in raids (or sometimes research rewards), and only in very select windows. It’s not like Community Day where after it’s over, you can randomly find a shiny version of that Pokémon in the wild. These raid shinies are some of the most elusive out there, so you have to make the most of days like today.
Happy hunting for Zapdos, and get your ground/rock team ready to hammer him into submission as you try to find that shiny version. Best of luck, you’ll need it.
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