Update from Niantic: Zorua rollout paused
Zorua will not appear as a Spotlight Surprise today. The global roll back has been paused due to an issue with Zorua’s CPs. We have been sent the following message by Niantic regarding the problems during the Zorua release.
Trainers, we are aware of a bug where Zorua, a Pokémon with a planned surprise encounter during October 25th’s Shuppet Spotlight Hour, retains stats such as the height, CP, and attacks of the Pokémon it originally took on the form of.
The Zorua surprise that occurred in time zones including and prior to GMT+13 will not occur in time zones after while we fix this. Shuppet Spotlight Hour will still occur. Zorua already caught by Trainers will not be able to be Traded, sent to Pokémon HOME, or allowed in GO Battle League until this issue is resolved.
Please stay tuned for further details. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.
Original Article
Exciting news, we are getting reports of your Buddy Pokémon appearing in mass on the map during the first 5 minutes of Shuppet Spotlight Hour, and the last 5 minutes. When caught, your Buddy Pokémon transforms into the Tricky Fox Pokémon, Zorua! It cannot be shiny, and will only spawn with your Buddy Pokémon out on the map.
Zorua
At the start of October we were informed that on Tuesday 25th October 6pm till 7pm local time we have Shuppet as the featured Pokémon for spotlight hour, along with a 2x XP for evolving Pokémon. Bring your Buddy Pokémon to witness something special at the start and end of this Spotlight hour! At the start and end of the hour, your map suddenly becomes filled with your Buddy Pokémon as below!
It seems that something special is the debut of Zorua, a real fan favourite and adorable Pokémon, that evolves into Zoroark. It is the original version of Zorua spawning, not the new Hisui version. When caught it is a similar transformation screen to Ditto, with your Buddy Pokemon changing into Zorua.
To evolve Zorua into Zoroark you need 50 candies, and currently it seems that you can only evolve them while the Buddy Pokémon phenomenon is happening on the map, so evolve them quickly!
However! Don’t get your hopes up too quickly that this is going to happen in your area, because we are unfortunately getting mass reports of problems with Zorua having incorrect movesets, CP values, weights, heights and more when they are quick caught. It seems Zorua is able to learn moves it shouldn’t be able to, and has been shown on social media with tremendously high CP values, well over 3000CP for some!
If you use the quick catch technique on the Zorua during the spotlight hour, you will end up with Zorua with moves they can’t learn and also wrong weights and heights. pic.twitter.com/L3NLbpD5qP
— Yeah, I bang to Enya. So what? (@Madclown55) October 25, 2022
Unfortunately, this now means we are also getting reports that the Zorua/Buddy Pokémon spawns have been switched off completely in Australia for their Spotlight Hour, and it looks like they didn’t appear at the end of the New Zealand Spotlight Hour.
Aaaaaaand no Zorua Spawns for Australia (East Coast)…. 🙃
— ZoëTwoDots 🎀 (@_ZoeTwoDots) October 25, 2022
Hopefully Niantic is working quickly to correct this error, and will update us soon, as currently they have not mentioned the problem on their various social media pages. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we have any further information.
This could have been a really fun and cool way to surprise us with a new Pokémon, but sadly so far, this debut has been as tricky as Zorua themselves!
