I finally got around to watching the post-timeskip arc of Horizons. I avoided it because of time and everyone saying it was terrible, but I wanted to give it a chance. Roy's Lucario annoyed me to no end, but I settled for coming up with my own headcanons and just pretending Lucario had a personality.

But nothing can fix this.

Orla had one of the best reactions to the reformation of the Rising Volt Tacklers. Everybody else was sad, sure. But Orla clearly has a connection to Freide and is the only one who was still mourning his death.

Then she pours her heart out, and for what, a silly joke about Mega Starmie resembling a human? To poke fun at Freide for being inobservant? Or they just wanted some payoff for her grieving without accidentally making a scene that could be considered romantic?

Seriously, was there an actual reason for this other than, "Oh, let's sneak a reference to the Pokédex entry here."

Many people seem curious if they should purify their newly caught Shadow Pokémon. So, here's your one-stop guide to purification and Shadow Pokémon! Let me know if there's anything I missed!

What are Shadow Pokémon?

Shadow Pokémon are obtained from GO Rocket Grunts, GO Rocket Leaders, Giovanni, and Shadow Raids. They have a 20% increase in their damage output, a 20% decrease in their defenses, and cost a lot more to power up compared to their normal counterparts. Shadow Pokémon are obtained with the Charged move Frustration, which is useless in all forms of battle. However, during "Rocket Takeover" events, this move can be removed via a regular Charged TM. No need for an Elite TM.

Shadow Pokémon obtained from Team Rocket fights do not have an IV floor (meaning their IVs can be any value from 0-15). Pokémon obtained from Shadow Raids have a minimum IV floor of 6.

Additionally, Shadow Pokémon cannot mega evolve. Nor can they be traded.

What Does Purification do?

Purification is a mechanic in Pokémon that can be used to make Shadow Pokémon easier to power up, at the expense of hindering their full potential. Upon purification, the Shadow Pokémon will:

1. Instantly jump to level 25 (Its level will not increase if it's already past this stage).
2. Gain +2 in all its IVs (Spoiler: Not as impactful as one may believe)
3. Lose their attack bonus and defense debuff, making them as effective as their normal counterpart.
4. Cost less stardust and candy to power up, evolve, and learn a second charged move compared to their normal counterpart.
5. Gain the ability to Mega Evolve.
6. Replace their first charged move with Return, a more powerful Normal-type Move.

A note about Return: your first charged move will be replaced with Return no matter what. This is also true if your Pokémon has a legacy move like Hydro Cannon.

Purifying a Pokémon will also unlock its purified form in the Pokédex and make it available for trading.

(Note: Neither shadow nor purified Pokémon are incapable of fusion, which is mainly relevant in the case of Reshiram and Zekrom at the time of writing.)

Should You Purify?

Easy answer: 90% of the time, you should not purify your Pokémon. Purification removes the attack bonus for the shadow Pokémon, and most of the time, this is detrimental in raids and even PvP. Essentially, purification makes the Pokémon easier to power up in the moment at the cost of its full potential.

Now, when should you purify your Pokémon? Here are the cases I believe are best:

1. It's the most practical option. Having a high-level purified Pokémon is still more useful than a low-level shadow Pokémon. So, if you're a lower-level trainer and you want a better raid attacker, this may be the best option. HOWEVER, I would caution against purifying any shadow Pokémon that is potentially limited in availability. So, if possible, get two shadow Pokémon and save the better one for later, purifying the other if you need something now.
2. Getting a 100% Pokémon. Using the appraisal function, you can check your Pokémon's IVs, which max out at 15 each. If your Pokémon's IVs are all at or above 13, you can purify them to max out their IVs, getting a purified "hundo" and adding another slot to your dex. Do note that this is a personal decision rather than a practical one in most cases. Having slightly better IVs is a minuscule change compared to the damage bonus from being a Shadow Pokémon. So, if you want to do this, it's best to at least have a second Shadow Pokémon with good attack.
   • On that note, this can be very useful if you want a good Mega Evolved Pokémon! As stated before, Shadow Pokémon cannot Mega Evolve, but purified Pokémon can.
3. Getting the Purification medal. There is a medal you can achieve by purifying Pokémon. However, it is best to purify the weaker Pokémon that you are going to transfer anyway.
   • Check online to see which are the best Shadow Pokémon of every type, as well as those for PvP. Newcomers to the game, especially those used to the main series, may be surprised to find out that some Pokémon are rather powerful in Pokémon Go. Pokémon that surprised me at first were Shadow Toucannon and Shadow Tangrowth.
4. Bulky PvP Pokémon. I won't get into the specifics of this as I am not as experienced in this regard, but there are some cases where a Pokémon may benefit from having greater defenses in PvP specifically. However, most of the time, having a Shadow that deals more damage is still better.
5. Trading. Since only purified Pokémon can be traded, it may be useful to purify spare shinies.
6. Just because! In the end, this is a fun mobile game, and these are your decisions. So if purifying your Pokémon makes you happy, who am I to stop you? Go ahead and make your Pokémon happy again! ❤️

Final Note About Frustration:

I have seen some people ask this, so I would like to clarify. During some events, you will be able to evolve your Pokémon to gain a Legacy Move, such as Hydro Cannon or Blast Burn. If your shadow Pokémon still has Frustration, you will not get this move even if you have a second charged attack slot. You need to use a TM to get rid of Frustration during a Rocket Takeover event, so stock up on those beforehand. You can get TMs regularly from raids and the Go Battle League.

Resources:

Want to find out which Pokémon are the best? Here are some good websites for you to check out!

Dialgadex A useful tier list displaying the effectiveness of every Pokémon in raids. You can filter by type and even see unavailable Pokémon.

Pokémon Go hub Has the same functionality as Dialgadex with a different UI. Though I would caution against their Pokémon-specific analytics. Most are accurate, but others seem outdated (for example, their Corviknight page describes it having access to Drill Peck and Brave Bird, which it does not as of now). Their rankings are all accurate, though, and they provide additional information such as catch rates and Pokédex information.

PvPoke A useful site for PvP specifically. PvP as a whole is a bit more technical, so I would recommend doing some extra research to understand how both it and this site work. For example, you may find that in the general rankings, Shadow Pokémon are ranked as worse, but this is because they fill a specific niche and have a lower general ranking.

I'm getting ads specifically for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music while on Brave now. Specifically at the start of every video (I have yet to encounter one in the middle of a video, but it's possible). I tested this with Firefox + Ublox Origin and did not have any issues, so either Brave does not have the update required to block this, or YouTube is targeting Brave users specifically. Does anyone know more about this?

Edit: turning on and off "ad-blocking only mode" seems to have worked. Must have been a hiccup with the settings or something. I don't fiddle with my computer/browser much, and the only extra filters I have on are the ones disabling YouTube Shorts.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonChampions/s/MLOL5pQAmd

Original post from r/PokemonChampions

Staraptor is getting out of hand 😂

I've already blocked the account but that did nothing. This same app has been flooding my feed and the ads are always so unsettling, sometimes with weird AI generated characters and stuff. I don't want to block all ads, just this one. Is it possible?