Don’t be alarmed if you find a sparkly Bulbasaur today during Pokemon Go‘s Community Day.
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Players in Asia and Europe have reported that they’ve caught a Shiny Bulbasaur as part of today’s Community Day festivities. This follows our report that Pokemon Go developers added the 3D assets for the Shiny Bulbasaur line to the game, which was a strong sign that the Shiny Pokemon would be available in the game.
Shiny Pokemon have variant coloration than their non-Shiny counterparts and are usually quite rare. While they don’t have better stats than non-Shiny Pokemon, most players want to get their hands on Shiny Pokemon because of their extreme rarity.
As part of today’s Community Day events, it appears that Pokemon Go has greatly increased the odds of finding a Shiny Bulbasaur. Current estimates puts the odds of finding a Shiny Bulbasaur at about 1 in 20, so you have about a 5% chance of seeing a Shiny Bulbasaur every time you go to catch one today.
If you live in North or South America and you want to catch a Shiny Bulbasaur, you’ll have a great chance to catch a Shiny Dratini today between 11 AM and 2 PM PT. Here’s a couple of tips to help you snag one for yourself.
Find High Density Pokemon Areas
Bulbasaur will be spawning everywhere as part of today’s event, but you’ll want to hedge your bets by going to a place where Pokemon already spawn in high numbers. Parks, malls, and other public areas typically have multiple spawn points, so they’ll likely be flooded with Bulbasaur during the event.
You can also increase your odds by dropping a Lure Module on a PokeStop. Bulbasaur will start popping up at the PokeStop, so you can cycle through those to try to grab a Shiny Bulbasaur.
Please note that a Shiny Bulbasaur doesn’t look any different on the overworld map, so you’ll need to tap on each Bulbasaur and trigger the catch screen to see if its Shiny. A Shiny Bulbasaur looks pretty similar to a non-Shiny Bulbasaur (Shiny Bulbasaur have distinctly greener skin and a lighter colored bulb), so be sure to look for the sparkles around a Bulbasaur to make sure that it’s a Shiny Pokemon.
General Catching Tips
Once you find a Shiny Bulbasaur, you’ll want to do everything you can to make sure it doesn’t get away. Dratini has a base capture rate of just 20%, which means that you might have to use a few PokeBalls to catch it. Bulbasaur also has a flee rate of 10% – which means there’s a decent chance it will run away if you don’t catch it on the first couple of throws. [Note: We’ve seen reports that Bulbasaur are MUCH easier to catch during the event, but that’s purely anecdotal and isn’t backed by any server data.]
Luckily, Golden Razz Berries, Ultra Balls, curved throws, and well-aimed throws will all increase your odds of catching Dratini on the first throw. For example, hitting a Dratini with a curved Ultra Ball throw while using a Golden Razz Berry will jump your odds up from 20% all the way up to 78% even if you don’t hit him with the most accurate throw.
Players who have caught lots of Grass-Type and Poison-Type Pokemon in the past will also have an advantage. Under the same circumstances as above, players can increase their catch rate all the way up to 86% if they have a Gold medal for catching both Grass-Type and Poison-Type Pokemon.
Hopefully, you can find plenty of Shiny Bulbasaur during the event. We’ve seen reports of players coming away with ten or more Shiny Bulbasaur just for playing during the full 3 hour event. Good luck and get catching!
