While Porygon, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z (Porygon’s evolved forms) have seen use in competitive play and raids over the years, they’re now fairly useless in Pokémon Go. Since Porygon is a relatively rare spawn, there’s a good chance that you’re still missing the shiny if you missed its September 2020 community day, and if you still need the 4* perfect Porygon, or perfect Porygon-Z, this is your chance to try to find one. Even if you’re not keen on Porygon, you should still try to catch as many Pokémon as possible during this week’s Spotlight Hour because of the double catch candy bonus that runs alongside the event. On this page:
Porygon 100% perfect IV stats in Pokémon Go
This week’s Spotlight Hour is a great opportunity to catch a Porygon with perfect IV stats. ‘Perfect’ means two things in Pokémon Go, depending on how you plan to use a given Pokémon. First, there’s the maxed out, 100% IV version, which is the 15/15/15 you’re looking for for your 4* Pokédex, raids and Master League. Yet, because of how CP is calcuated using three stats, a perfect IV Pokémon is generally only ever the best version of itself in the Master League. Of course, you can’t see the IV of a Pokémon without catching it first, but with a little research beforehand, you can quickly spot a perfect Porygon based on the CP alone. If you’re at Level 30 (or above), you’ll ideally be looking for the following CPs for a perfect 15/15/15 Porygon: The wild CP value aligns with your Trainer Level until you reach Level 30 and, due to the majority of the player base now being above this level, we’ve kept to these values for the sake of simplicity. These values will, however, be different if you’re currently below Level 30.
Are Porygon2 and Porygon-Z good in PVP?
The short anwer is no – Porygon, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z are all pretty bad in Go Battle League; but, weirdly, this is one of those rare cases when the middle evolution can actually outperform the final evolution, depending on your league. Let’s go through this league by league. Porygon2, the middle evolution is the way to go for Great League and Ultra League, though that sentence should be taken with a virtual pinch of salt – in Great League, Porygon2 is ranked 427th in the meta, while its evolved form, Porygon-Z is ranked 733rd. That is a huge difference. The reason for this is that Porygon2 has more balanced stats, while Porygon-Z skews hard towards stronger attack by sacrificing its defence stat. If you’re keen on Porygonning these leagues, you want to run Lock On, Tri Attack and Zap Cannon. Lock On, we all know, is phenomenally fast-charging, even if it does next to no damage. This helps you ramp up to Tri Attack, which gives a 50% chance to debuff the opponenet’s attack and defence by one stage each. If you need to go big, Zap Cannon offers an electric-type coverage nuke with a 66% chance to debuff the opponent’s attack by one stage. And since nothing is particularly resisitant to normal attacks, you know you can push through decent STAB damage with reasonable shield pressure. Sadly, while Porygon2 is technically only weak to fighting, it has a secret weakness you should be aware of: it’s weak to good Pokémon. Specifically, Galarian Stunfisk, Swampert and even Trevenant – a Pokémon it should resist – all hand it an easy loss. Sure, it can beat Skarmory and Azumarill, but if those are your biggest concerns, there are better answers you can bring out. The same problems stand in the Ultra League, although this chaotic and inconsistent Pokémon does fare slightly better. Tapu Fini, Walrein and Talonflame are all shocking victories, although the losses will have you cringing: Swampert and Nidoqueen are both resistant to electric-type attacks, Trevenant and Giratina don’t care about Porygon2’s resistance and Cresselia just wins in the long game. OK, so what about Master League? Given the unlimited CP cap, the final evolution is always the way to go, and Porygon-Z finally has its chance to shine – as long as you bring the Cmmunity Day-exclusive Tri Attack and Blizzard as a coverage nuke. Be aware that the same issues apply as before, although now you also have the issue of glassiness to contend with — to put that in context, a maxed out Porygon2 having a higher defense stat than Porygon-Z! But, if you’re happy with this tactic, Blizzard really kicks you up a level, with the dragon-type Garchomp, Giratina and Zekrom, and flying-type Togekiss and Yveltal all losing here. Be aware that the flying dragon Dragonite, however, has Superpower, which will wreck you faster than you could imagine. You also lose to Metagross, Gyarados, Lugia and Excadrill, which are fairly common in this meta. If you’re keen to try Porygon in these leagues, you’re looking for the following stats for the respective Pokémon:
0/12/15 for Porygon2 in Great League 1/15/15 for Porygon2 in Ultra League 15/15/15 for Porygon-Z in Master League
The Season of Mythical Wishes continues with the Winter Holiday event, which has brought Mega Glalie to Pokémon Go. Don’t forget to partake in the new Go Battle League season. Elsewhere, be sure to use Daily Adventure Incense for the chance of encountering Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos and Galarian Moltres.
Is there a shiny Porygon in Pokémon Go?
Shiny Porygon in Pokémon Go was released on its Community Day back in September 2020. If luck is on your side, you may find a shiny Porygon in the wild, but be aware that this is not a Community Day and shiny rates are not boosted, so the chances of catching one, let alone a perfect one, are very low. That said, each Porygon you see has the potential to be shiny, so it’s purely a numbers game — tap each and every one of them and see what you get. Good luck finding the Porygon you need! If you want to evolve your Porygon into a Porygon2, you’ll need 25 Porygon Candy and an Upgrade, and you’ll need a further 100 Porygon Candy and a Sinnoh Stone to evolve your Porygon2 into an Porygon-Z.
What does shiny Porygon look like?
As you can see below, shiny Porygon is pretty sweet — in each of the three, the colour palette is flipped and darkened. The red head and torse take on a lovely deep blue, while the blue accents (beak, wings and feet) take on a lilac hue that goes incredibly well together. Thematically linked shinies like this really do look excellent, and shiny Porygon, shiny Porygon2 and Porygon-Z all look fantastic.
Other tips for this Spotlight Hour
Aside from trying to catch a shiny Porygon in Pokémon Go, there are a couple of other good reasons to partake in this week’s Spotlight Hour:
The best reason is, of course, the double catch candy bonus running throughout the hour. This gives you the chance to gather Candy twice as fast as usual, with each Porygon caught giving up to 13 Candy if you use a Pinap/Silver Berry with a Mega-Evolved Pokémon of the same type, instead of the base 3. If you’re a newcomer, this Spotlight Hour is the perfect time to collect enough Porygon Candy to fully evolve this Pokémon and enter all of its evolutions in the Pokédex. Thanks to Porygon being a normal-type, catching a bunch during this Spotlight Hour will add progress to your normal-type catch bonus medal.
Spotlight Hour events only last for an hour – 6pm to 7pm (local time). Next week will be Petilil’s time in the spotlight, giving you the chance to get double transfer candy, so start sorting through your storage and tagging everything you want to transfer on November 22nd!