Let’s Talk About Stardust Part 2: The Struggle Is Real

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As if we didn’t need more stardust to begin with, a new content update for Pokémon GO came out featuring Team Rocket battles. Along with it came Shadow Pokémon that need to be purified, but at a cost. What cost exactly? You guys already know, stardust! This will be an update article going over current ways to gather stardust and all the NEW “costs” associated as well. We will also cover how Niantic can increase our stardust gathering abilities through other methods and so on. If you’d like to read the Part 1 stardust article and the potential fixes stated, you can so here.

Updated: Current Ways to Obtain Stardust

Catching
Single-stage evolution – 100/125*
Second stage evolution – 300/375*
Third stage evolution – 500/625*
*With weather boost
Daily Catch Reward – 600
Weekly Catch Reward – 3000

Hatching Eggs
2k eggs – 400 to 800
5k/7k eggs – 800 to 1600
10k eggs – 1600 to 3200

Daily Quests
100 up to 1500 per Quest

Berrying Gyms
20 per berry

Raids
1000 per raid

PvP
Against AI – 300 (600), 400 (800) or 500 (1000) based on League once per day
Against friends – 500 or 1000 up to 3 times per day

Team Rocket Battles
500 per battle

*Special Research was kept out due to the lack of a constant stardust source.

Team Rocket = More Stardust Costs

It’s funny that Team Rocket are the bad guys because with them brings another added stardust cost! Now granted you get 500 stardust per battle (if you can find a Team Rocket PokeStop), it doesn’t make up for the fact that you have to spend at the very least 2,000 stardust to purify it. That’s only for a single-stage evolution. Below is a small chart showcasing the stardust costs to purify each stage of evolution.

Pokémon Evolution Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3
Purify Cost 2,000 5,000 5,000

 

But wait, there’s more! Depending on the rarity of the Pokémon, the cost to purify will be even higher. For example, a Shadow Snorlax costs 10,000 stardust to purify. That’s worth noting due to the potential of Legendary Pokémon being released this way in the future. We can safely assume that it will probably cost an arm and a leg. The only thing we can do is wait and see what Niantic plans to do moving forward.

To obtain more Premier Balls, we MUST purify Shadow Pokémon. Again, this makes one wonder the potential of Legendary Pokémon being released through Team Rocket battles. To reach the max Premier Ball potential, one thing you must do is purify 500 Pokémon to reach the Gold badge status. If you do the math, that leads to a total of 1 million stardust or more depending on which Pokémon you opted to purify.

Part 2: Stardust Fix

In the last article, I offered many unique solutions to fix our stardust needs. What about some more ideas? Well first off, there shouldn’t be a cap on obtaining stardust from PvP battles. Even if someone wanted to abuse this system, they’d be burning a LOT of time at their disposal. Which honestly, is a good trade-off and why this should be implemented. This also gives us trainers a way to gather stardust when the weather may not be cooperating on certain days (i.e., heat, thunderstorms, snow, etc…). What about a small amount of stardust when we transfer a Pokémon? After all, we get 1 candy so why not 20 to 50 stardust as well? The only other way to fix the stardust issue is for Niantic to reduce all costs in the game. That way, there is no need to implement ways to obtain additional stardust. Reducing costs would mean we’d have more stardust at our disposal to spend it on things we want. Yes, we do have reduced stardust costs for Lucky and Purified Pokémon, but they still cost stardust to power up. There’s no other way around it, unfortunately.

Note: For a causal everyday player, catching 100 Pokémon per day (10,000 stardust) can be a struggle. Which means getting the max of 100,000 stardust in 10 days isn’t always the case. Of course, this is assuming the casual player does not raid at all during these days, but this also doesn’t assume they can catch 100 Pokémon per day either. Remember, people have families, go to school, and/or have jobs! Moral of the story, it is a severe struggle to gather any ample stardust accumulation.

Final Thoughts

Without a doubt, everyone wants more stardust. Some struggle more than others, but anyone with a lot of stardust is one binge away from losing it all. The time it takes to get all of it back, however, is insanely long. At the time of this writing, Team Rocket PokeStops are in full swing, but still not plentiful. This would be another great way to farm 500 stardust per battle, but whether Niantic boosts these encounter rates remains to be seen. Let us know what you think should be done to curb the lack of stardust gathering in the comments below!

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Fitz City
Fitz City
Been playing and following Pokemon ever since I was 10 years old. I'm also a Pokemon GO content creator on YouTube - FitzCity. Outside of Pokemon, I'm an Electrical Engineer who also loves to golf and stream on Twitch - Fitzcity40

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