So back on April 24th (linking to the tweet since the blog post originally posted that day has since been re-timestamped with May 1st instead), the Instinctive Hero event was announced, and hey, it sounded a lot more interesting than the Mystic Hero Event and its single, hairband-adorned Lapras.
An Unexpected Instinctive Hero
Assuming we’d only be getting a costumed Elekid during the Instinct event, it was a pleasant surprise to read that there was actually quite a bit more in store! From the original announcement:
Spark is busy running around with his Elekid, so the Team Instinct leader could use some research support! Get ready to enjoy an all-new event focused on hatching Pokémon—An Instinctive Hero!
Also, for the first time in Pokémon GO, Larvesta will be available to hatch from Eggs! You’ll also be able to hatch Shiny Mantyke—if you’re lucky!.
Larvesta, the Torch Pokémon, and Volcarona, the Sun Pokémon, will make their Pokémon GO debuts! Starting with this event, Larvesta will be available to hatch from 2 km, 5 km, and 10 km Eggs.
Event Bonuses
- Increased chance of hatching Shiny Pokémon from 2 km, 5 km, and 10 km Eggs.
- 2× XP for hatching Pokémon.
- 2× Stardust for hatching Pokémon.
Very exciting! Some nice bonuses for hatching and a brand new Pokémon we’ve been waiting on for over three years since it was originally added to the game’s backend files. It may have limited usage in GO, but Volcarona is a fan favorite that’s been a LONG time coming.
News of the event sort of tailed off after the initial announcement, as Swinub Community Day Classic and the arrival of the month of May and all of its changes took over the news cycle… oh, and the announcement of a little thing called GO Fest.
So needless to say, players were surprised and a bit perplexed when this happened after the event had started in parts of the world:
Seemed harmless enough at first. Admittedly, the initial announcement did have a little confusion, as it mentioned Larvesta being in eggs, but didn’t specifically call out other Pokémon that would be in eggs to take advantage of the “Increased chance of hatching Shiny Pokémon” (as Larvesta is not yet available as a shiny).
Unexpected Changes
However, there was another change that came with the blog update that had nothing to do with the Pokémon available to hatch. Here are the differences between the original blog post on April 24th and the update that took place as the event actually started a week later. Note especially the portion I put in bold.
Updated to:
The last sentence meets the intent of the Support account Tweet above, making it clear that the usual things found in eggs during this Season would still be in eggs, just with boosted shiny odds. All fine and good.
What was NOT specifically announced was the addition to Larvesta’s description of “if you’re very lucky“. Niantic has used similar language in many past blog posts, usually as a warning of something that is possible but by no means a guarantee, such as finding a shiny version of our favorite Pokémon. (Heck, they tend to say that every Community Day, for example.)
Unusual, however, is the “very” part, which as far as I can recall has rarely if ever been used in blog posts before. Naturally, one would assume this denotes rather extreme rarity, above and beyond the standard “we make no guarantees” warning.
And lo and behold, that was borne out right away as people collected their first 2k, 5k, and 10k event eggs. We have gone entire rotations without anything being in the 5th tier of rarity in eggs, but here’s where Larvesta slots in.
For all three egg types, Larvesta is in that ultra rare 5th tier.
And as extensive research by Silph Road Science has concluded multiple times over, that 5th tier equates to a hatch rate of… well, see for yourself.
Yeah… somewhere around 1%. That’s a single digit. Numero uno.
Ouch.
Implications Of The Change
I’m a writer, not a mathematician, so I’ll spare you my attempts to bumble through all the implications of that in terms of time and hard numbers, but I do know this much: you could hatch 100 eggs during this event, get only ONE Larvesta from them, and be perfectly in line with expectations. Heck, you could also hatch 100 or even more eggs and walk away with ZERO Larvesta and still be well within the margin of error.
And again, none of this was known or even hinted at until the blog post was updated, after the event had started in several communities and after many of your fellow players had already stocked up on Incubators and their first batch of event eggs to hatch with them. I’ll let you make your own judgements on the implications of that, but uh… I think I can safely say that was probably NOT people’s expectations going into this event.
Yes, Larvesta is a rare Pokémon in at least its first appearances in mainline Pokémon games, with only one being possible in its earliest appearances, and having to be pushed to Level 59 to evolve, the highest of all unevolved Pokémon that evolve by a set level. But that sounds to me like perhaps something we could get from a special research (like as part of the Instinctive Hero Special Event Research, perhaps?) to at least get the ‘dex entry and then walk/invest in from there, no? Much better that, still keeping it rare, without being potentially impossible to hatch at all.
This Moth Is Made For Walking 🥾
And speaking of walking and investing, Larvesta happens to be a Pokémon that requires walking 5 kilometers for a chance at getting a candy… and as you likely already know, requires 400 candy to evolve.
At last check, 10k eggs can give anywhere between 16 and 32 candy per hatch, but 5ks give only 10 to 21, and 2k eggs only 5 to 10 candy per hatch. So even if you got extraordinarily fortunate and hatched, say, one Larvesta per batch of 9 eggs, and managed to go through ten rounds of egg hatching (90 eggs total) during the event, that’s still an absolute best case scenario of only 160 to 320 candy, IF they all hatched from 10ks, and IF you can manage that much hatching.
More than likely, you’re looking at some of those being 5k and 2k eggs, and likely NOT hatching them at that kind of rate from any kind of egg, all of which drastically reduces that candy intake. But let’s go with at least the low end of that best case and say you’re sitting at 150ish candy.
That means that, at minimum, you’d have to walk 1250 km to get the other 250ish candy needed to evolve, plus of course another three hundred and seventy five kilometers to get the 75 candy needed to second move, and of course any additional candy/mileage necessary to power the resulting Volcarona up.
As a reminder, it’s another 248 candy to built up from Level 20 (hatch level) to Level 40, and then another 248 (plus 296 Candy XL) to get it to Level 50. Oh, and of course, candy is not guaranteed every time you hit 5k walked, so at least some of them will come up empty.
In Conclusion
Very long story short: without spending a LOT of rare candy, burning through a daunting number of Incubators and kilometers trekked, and of course spending real-world resources to GET those candies and Incubators, it’s basically impossible to get a maxed out Volcarona right now, or likely for many players, to get any Volcarona at all!
Draw from all that your own conclusions. We just wanted to make sure, as this event is still young, that you, dear reader, know what you’re getting into if you decide to make a push for Larvesta in the here and now. Surely it will be back in other capacities down the line, but for now… this is it. Worth the attempt to grind? That’s up to you, my friend. But at least now you are forewarned and forearmed.
…unlike all those brave souls who sacrificed their Incubators to science before they were told they would have to “very lucky”, to use Niantic’s words, to get any Larvesta at all. Not all heroes wear capes.
Whether you decide to go for it anyway, or take this opportunity to try and get that Mime Jr. Pokédex entry (available worldwide during this same event from 7k eggs), or just not bother playing the hatching game at all, best of luck to you, Pokéfriends.
What do YOU think of this? Sound off your thoughts below!
Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter with near-daily analysis nuggets. (Usually on PvP, but as you can see by this, not always!)
Good luck, Pokéfriends… catch you next time!
