January 2020 Community Day Guide: Piplup

Trainers,

Piplup will be debuting as the first community day Pokemon of 2020 on January 19th. As usual for all community days thus far, its shiny form will be released, and Prinplup evolved during the community day hours in your region (and an hour after) will know the charge move Hydro Cannon.

In this guide, we detail everything you need to know about Piplup, the Penguin Pokémon, leading up to your Community Day, including perfect catch CP, weather influence, catching tips and more.

Community Day Pokémon	Piplup
Featured Bonuses	Increased Piplup spawns 1/4 Egg Hatch Distance 3-hour Lure Modules
Date and Time	Northern Hemisphere—Sunday, January 19, 2020, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in your local time zone Southern Hemisphere—Sunday, January 19, 2020, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in your local time zone
Exclusive Move	Hydro Cannon Water

Shiny Forms

Shiny Piplup, Prinplup, and Empoleon will be released during January Community Day:

Piplup
Prinplup
Empoleon

Catching Piplup

Piplup is a Water type Pokémon boosted by Rainy weather. A Perfect level 30 Piplup has 921 CP, while a perfect weather boosted Piplup has 998 CP at level 35.

Below is a handy table with all possible perfect IV Piplup CP values:

Piplup Piplup Perfect CP per Level

1	15	11	337	21	645	31	936
2	47	12	368	22	675	32	952
3	80	13	399	23	706	33	967
4	112	14	430	24	737	34	982
5	145	15	460	25	767	35	998
6	177	16	491	26	798	36	1013
7	209	17	522	27	829	37	1028
8	242	18	552	28	860	38	1044
9	274	19	583	29	890	39	1059
10	307	20	614	30	921	40	1075

Recommended Items

In order to be ready for Piplup Community Day, we suggest to bring the following items  as a good preparation for the event:

• 6 Star Pieces
• 6 Lucky Eggs
• 150 – 250 Pinap Berries
• 300 Poké Balls (mixed, but Great and Ultra are always welcomed)
• 6 Incense
• Lure Modules
• Infinite/3-use/Super Incubators

Regardless of the Community Day bonus, it is always a good idea to maximize on XP gain and bring some Lucky Eggs. While XP gain is not boosted during the 3-hour window, Piplup is a rather easy catch, especially at lower CP values. Plenty of PokéBalls and berries are necessary for accomplishing this task, and we here at GO Hub recommend a healthy mix of the three types; Standard, Great, and Ultra.

Even more necessary is the use of Star Pieces. Catching all Pokémon for XP is one thing, but Stardust is far more of an important resource overall and should be a priority. Kill two birds with one stone, and turn on a Star Piece for 150 Stardust per catch.

The spotlight of this Community Day’s bonuses is the 1/4 Egg Hatch Distance, which will result in hatching eggs much faster and adding to the abundance of XP and Stardust given the Lucky Eggs and Star Pieces. Below is a handy table to know when you’ll be hatching what egg, with what incubator!

As you can see, the best practice is to clean out your incubators prior to Community Day, and if you have Super Incubators, try to net rarer Pokémon from 10 KM eggs at only 1.67 KM!

Reminder: It is best to set timers on your phone to remember the next Lucky Egg or Star Piece!

Weather Consideration

• Piplup is boosted by Rainy weather.
• Weather boosted Pokémon have an IV floor of 4/4/4 and can be caught up to level 35.
• In-game weather is affected by level 11 S2 cells, which means it is possible you have favorable weather in your vicinity.

Where Can You Encounter Piplup?

• In the wild
• In 2km eggs
• In Tier 1 raids

Piplup Field Research

The rewards for the task “Catch 3 Piplup” are as follows:

• Piplup encounter (CP range 426-460)
• 1x Golden Razz Berry
• 500 Stardust
• 5 Great Balls
• 2 Ultra Balls
• 2 Pinap Berries

Exclusive Move: Hydro Cannon

Piplup evolved during Community Day will know the exclusive charge move Hydro Cannon Water. Hydro Cannon has proved to be a less-than dominant Water-type move, compared to Hydro Pump especially.

Below is a table of Water-type Pokémon with similar STAB movesets to Empoleon with Waterfall Water and Hydro Cannon Water.*

Pokémon	Fast Move	Charge Move	DPS	TDO
Palkia	Dragon Tail	Hydro Pump	17.89	831.78
Kyogre	Waterfall	Surf	16.32	864.88
Kingler	Bubble	Crabhammer	16.30	508.70
Swampert	Water Gun	Hydro Cannon	16.10	727.26
Gyarados	Waterfall	Hydro Pump	15.15	696.97
Empoleon	Waterfall	Hydro Cannon	14.78	623.65

*Table is sorted by highest DPS to lowest DPS, as this is perhaps the most important stat in the current raid and gym battling meta game.

Palkia is leaps and bounds above Empoleon with Hydro Cannon, sporting 18% more DPS, while other Pokemon such as Kyogre and Kingler bridge the gap at 16.32 and 16.30 DPS respectively. Empoleon ranks at the bottom of STAB-based Water-type movesets in terms of DPS, and in TDO outmatches Kingler but ultimately does not stand up to a 10% higher DPS.

Community Day Box

Piplup Community Day Box costs 480 PokéCoins and includes:

• x30 Ultra Ball
• x3 Super Incubator
• x1 Incense
• x1 Lure Module

It is in this author’s opinion that the Adventure Box is a better fit for this Community Day, sporting plenty of incubators and lures to keep going on the 1/4 hatch distance and four lucky eggs to last you through two-thirds of the event.

What to Bring

• A good route! Every community day is different, and with 1/4 egg hatch distance it is important to maximize your total eggs hatched. The best places to go are parks, large shopping centers, or just a place with many spawn points and safe walkways!
  • If you’ll be walking a lot, water and good walking shoes! Don’t hurt yourself!
• BAG SPACE! This writer cannot stress enough the importance of clearing your bag out before a community day, especially when you want to catch as much as possible.
  • The new search terms for 0*, 1*, 2*, 3*, and 4* are handy in this if you care about IVs, as they will search all Pokémon of that star rating rather quickly.
• Items! As stated above, lucky eggs, star pieces, super incubators, and raid passes are vital for this community day, and maximizing your rewards in terms of XP and Stardust. On top of that, don’t forget to stock up on BALLS AND BERRIES! Poké Balls are a must-have, especially for Go-Plus, PokéBall-Plus, or Gotcha users, however a healthy mix of Great/Ultra in there is good for ensuring shiny catches. Berry-wise, doing raids will help to get lots of Golden Razz Berries for the same purpose, and spin stops for Pinap Berries if you don’t already have enough Piplup candy.
• Maximized spawns! Make sure to bring plenty of lures to drop RIGHT AS community day starts, and Incense to maximize personal spawns of Pokémon as well, again towards the goal of maximizing total XP and Stardust.

Parting Words

Piplup Community Day rounds out the Sinnoh starters, meaning that, if the trend continues, March will bring us Snivy Community Day, debuting a starter while the Unova rollout is still ongoing at the time of writing. February is a toss-up as to what Pokemon will take the spotlight, with not many possible candidates in Generation IV after Gible’s shiny was released in December 2019.

As always, remember to stay safe and be aware of your surroundings during community day.