Think in Dream: Gen II - Catch Them All

last updated on April 6, 2017 (Gen II Complete)

Key Gen 2 Milestones:

Apr 6, 2017: Dragon Scale obtained from a spin right after 7-day streak! Complete!
Mar 30, 2017: Up-Grade obtained via 7-day streak.
Mar 21, 2017: Niantic reinstates gauranteed evolution item at 7-day streaks. Counting down to the completion of Gen 2 Pokedex;.
Mar 4, 2017: Tyrogue Hatched! Balboa Park Totodile nest, earn candies for Feraligatr.
Mar 1, 2017: Unown Found!
Feb 26, 2017: Coronado Island Hunt.
Feb 25, 2017: Girafarig Nest and Hunt in Carlsbad.

What are Gen 2s?

Source here:

Babies: Only from Eggs

They are not in wild, the only way to get babies is to hatch. Even if you got all seven babies during the Christmas event, there is one more baby, Tyrogue, needs to be added to your Pokedex. So buy incubators and start walking. The secrete of hatching has been cracked recently (See my other blog entry), Tyrogue and all other babies are as hard/easy to hatch as Chammander, Bulbasaur, Oddish, or Larvitar (with 1.27% chance). In contrast, Porygon and Lapras are 4 times harder! So hatching a Tyrogue is definitely can be achieved. In addition, hatching is an economic way of getting high IV and high CP pokemons, you will have to catch a lot in wild in order to get such pokemons, wasting lots of gas and eventually probably spending more money. Every 54 eggs give you 50% chance to hatch a Tyrogue, not bad at all.

Tyrogue was finally hatched on Mar 4, 2017. I walked 760km and hatched 489 eggs right before Gen 2 started (see blog entry), which means it took me 100km and 108 eggs to get Tyrogue. Based on the "hatch secrete", 36.5% eggs were 2km eggs, to which I always applied the free incubator, the total cost is 108*0.63.5*$0.50/hatch = $34.29. However, this also covers some other high-IV hatches, such as Mantine, Larvitar, Dratini, Mareep, Gilgar, Aerodactyle, Stander, Phanpy, Wooper, Slugma, etc.

Egg chart here:

Gen 2 starters are not hatchable: Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Tododile, which is actually good news, as they have nests and their removal increases the chance for hatching others.

Rares: Location, Location, Location

Remember our Gen I lesson, some Pokemons only favor coastal areas, so it is important that we visit places such as Coronado Island, La Jolla Cove, Oceanside Pier, etc. in San Diego. Coastal-friendly ones include Lantun, Mareep, Magcargo, Forrestress, Croconaw, Bayleef, Remoraid, Quilfish, etc. However, many of these can be evolved, e.g., Forrestress can be evolved, where Pinco is not hard to get, Croconaw should be evolved from Totodile, Magcargo from Slugma, Lantun from Chinchou (seems to be missing in the egg chart), Bayleef from Chikorita, so do not be lazy here. (The water event starts on Mar 22 certainly is a blessing for those who do not live by the beach, best of all, you get a chance to fill that empty Lapras slot!)

Nests: All Starters Have Nests

Make use of Silph Road Nest Atlas, which is pretty accurate now (link here). I got my Girafarig at the Alga Norte Community Park (maybe 10 spawns per hour), my Sneasel at 4S Ranch Heritage Park (maybe 3 spawns per hour). Balboa park is an extremely strong Totodile nest, it is mostly easier to catch enough candies to evolve Feraligatr yourselve than counting on encountering one in wild (feraligatr seems to be specific to coastal regions).

Girafarig nest at Algo Norte Community Park.

Balboa Park is an extremely strong Totodile nest. You should be able to get enough candies for Feraligatr within two hours (hint: do not forget to use the Pinap Berry on weak CP ones to magnify your candy bonus)! There are 2-3 Totodile within nearby sightings constantly, take advantage of it before nest change. Balboa Park changed into a Gastly nest on the 16th nest change, so when you see a nest of interest, act decisively.

Evolved Forms: Those Require Items are NOT in Wild

My data analysis shows any Gen II that require items (stones, steel case, dragon scale) will not exist in wild. This now has been confirmed by other analyses. So the only way to get the following eight Pokemons is by obtaining items and evolving them yourself: Porygon2, Bellossom, Slowking, Steelix, Kingdra, Scizor, Politoed, as well as Sunflora. Umbreon and Espeon are also not in wild. Blissey and Corbat are in wild, as their evolution does not require items. Items are rare from Pokestop spins, however, it seems the Day-7 Streak always give an item (happened to me as well) (Update: Evolution items from day-7 Streaks were later removed by Niantic and now reintroduced on March 21! Without this bonus feature, it was estimated that one evolution items can be expected for every 250 Poke Stop spins, which was terrible for rural player.) So given enough time, these Pokemons are basically in your pocket, if you have played Gen I well. Make sure get a good IV Eevee, before triggering the Umbreon and Espeon evolution. (I have got a total of nine items so far, including one 7-day streak item, but I still need dragon scale and Up-grade.)

Items requires for Gen 2 evolution: here

Original Post here

Great news came on Mar 21, 2017!

Items requires for future generations: here (basically only 3 extra sun stones are needed)

April 6 is my 7-day streak day. With great hope, I spinned and got a King Stone (8:33AM), how disappointing. This is my 16th items. I immediately did the math, the probability of an item is either Up-Grade or Dragon Scale is 1/8, the other three items are twice more likely, 1/4 each (based on some statistics on SilphRoad). So the chance for not getting Dragon Scale 16 times on a roll is $\left(\frac{7}{8}\right)^{16}=0.12$. I was not super unlucky, but definitely disappointed. As I clicked my Pogo+ on my way to work to collect some XP points, the first PokeStop I spin after getting off the highway (this is the spin right after my 7-day spin) was a Dragon Scale! What a nice way to end my Gen II collection.

The last wanted item - Dragon Scale was obtained with a drama.

Super Rares: Social Media & Crowd Sourcing

The chance of encountering super rares is very low by your own, so you need to read social media and find spawn information shared by other players or other sources to maximize your chance. Still remember how hard it was to catch a Lapras, this will apply to some Pokemons in Gen II.

Here is a tentative list of super rares: Meganium (like Venusaur), Typhlosion (like Charizard), Feraligatr (like Blastoise), Togetic (as hard to capture as Dragonite), you might have a better chance to hatch its baby Togepi and walk the candies (well, I have not hatched Togepi after 100 Gen 2 eggs, so not easy either), Ampharos, Jumpluff, Forrestress (better evolve it from Pinco), Hitmontop, Tyranitar (like Dragonite, very rare, seems to favor coastal region, but Lavitar spawns universally, unlike Dratinit.). [hint: Feraligatr can only be found in coast. Tyranitar can be found in inland.]

Again, I would really recommend evolve Meganium, Typhlosion, Feraligatr, Jumpluff and Tyranitar yourselves, instead of hoping to catch a one in wild. Not only the chance is low, but also the likelihood of catching both a good IV and high CP one is much more rare and requires many many rare catches. Is it not too hard to evolve one for them. Ampharos may be hard given how rare Mareep is, some buddy-walking may be required. You may have a better chance to catch a Hitmontop than hatch two Tyrogue (save one, and use one for evolve).

Region Exclusives: Corsola and Heracross. Tropical and South American, respectively. Just visit enough gyms to collect them their silhouette. The best strategy is to not let them bother you.

Corsola and Heracross were met in gyms.

Unown: Too Hard to Catch

Unowns (a-z) 26 alphabet. After one week of Gen 2, we finally see two spawns in Coronado. It is much more rare than Lapras, so I would say forget about them, unless you live close to Coronado. Unown is so rare that there is no point in visiting Coronado just to hit the jackpot, you most likely won't be able to. We can only hope Niantic will increase its spawn rate or introduce future Unown events.

PS: Unown is super super rare, but there is always someone who wins the lottery. There have been four Unowns reported so far, one in La Jolla Shores, two in Coronado Island, one in Strand (also Coronado Island).

An Unown was repored at La Jolla Shores on Mar 1, 2017. Nearly had to get into water to catch.

Enough Unowns have been reported and there is absolutely no pattern in where they spawn. They show up in places where normally no player would be around! I do know a guy in Houston, who had an Unown encounter purely by lucky (without using any trackers), the majority of Unown encounters were assisted by trackers (how likely it is you happen to be at a small street at 9:30pm, and that success repeated several times?) If you really want Unown, the only feasible way is to use your local Tracker, particularly those channels that are specifically created for Unown, so that you get alerts the moment it is broadcast. Due to the wide spread of possible Unown spwan spots, every second counts in order to arrive at the spot on time. Even with trackers, Unown hunting is so difficult that every Unown caught will be an unforgettable memory. People who caught multiple Unowns in multiple cities/continents are very likely doing GPS spoofing, and they use a global Unown tracker (I do not want to name it), just don't let that bother you (sicne not all trackers report Unown letter, even you do not spoof, this tracker is useful to find out what Unown letter is spawned. Usually spoofers will report the letter minutes after its detection, so that it may save you an unnecessary full trip.). I forgot to mention that there are 28 Unowns (26 letters plus "!" and "?", only the 26 letters are released in Gen 2).

The Unown family. Although Unown is only counted as one Pokedex entry, it has 28 difference manifestations. While most players were praying for just one, some are hunting for all 26 alphabets using a global tracker and GPS spoofing tricks.

A minute after the super super-rare Unown Y was spawn in London, multiple players celebrated their completion of the Unown Gold Medal for collecting all 26 letters! Do you want to go that far for Unown?

More than a dozen Unown-hunting vehicles showed up at a small street for Unown (I). Residents were probably shocked!

San Diego Unown map based on 23 spawns. Except Coronado island is an Unown hot spot, Unown spawn has been spreaded all over San Diego.

Good Candies to Save:

According to a Silph Road post: Togetic, Murkrow, Misdreavus, Aipom, Yanma, Gilgar, Sneasel and Piloswine will have evolutions in Gen IV, so we do need to stock their candies, instead of using all of them for their power-ups. The same post also mention Porygon2 will have its evolution in Gen IV, so Porygon candies are still needed.

See post here: Pokemons for Gen 4