Shiny Porygon, evolution chart, 100% perfect IV stats and Porygon-Z best moveset in Pokémon Go
How to get the most out of the December Community Day!
Porygon, the Virtual Pokémon is floating in for the December 2024 Community Day – a recurring Pokémon Go event that celebrates a specific Pokémon, bringing them back for another crack at Community Day fame! As with all Community Day events, it brings a bevy of bonuses, including boosted shiny rates and an exclusive move for its final evolution, Porygon-Z!
Since Porygon is a relatively rare spawn in Pokémon Go, outside of the occasional special event, this is a great chance to catch one and add all of its evolutions to your Pokédex - especially if you missed its first Community Day event back in 2020, its Spotlight Hour event in November 2022, or the most recent Porygon Community Day in January 2024.
While Porygon, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z (Porygon’s evolved forms) have seen use in competitive play and raids over the years, they’re now fairly useless in Pokémon Go. However, newer players (and those that missed previous Community Day events) will most likely be missing the shiny. If that’s you, this is your chance to try to find one!
Even if you’re not keen on Porygon, you should still try to catch as many Pokémon as possible during this week’s Spotlight Hour because of the special bonus that runs alongside the event.
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Porygon 100% perfect IV stats in Pokémon Go
This month’s Community Day is a great opportunity to catch a Porygon with perfect IV stats.
'Perfect' means two things in Pokémon Go, depending on how you plan to use a given Pokémon. First, there’s the maxed out, 100% IV version, which is the 15/15/15 you’re looking for your 4* Pokédex, raids and Master League. Yet, because of how CP is calculated using three stats, a perfect IV Pokémon is generally only ever the best version of itself in the Master League.
Of course, you can’t see the IV of a Pokémon without catching it first, but with a little research beforehand, you can quickly spot a perfect Porygon based on the CP alone.
If you’re at Level 30 (or above), you’ll ideally be looking for the following CPs for a perfect 15/15/15 Porygon:
The wild CP value aligns with your Trainer Level until you reach Level 30 and, due to the majority of the player base now being above this level, we’ve kept to these values for the sake of simplicity. These values will, however, be different if you’re currently below Level 30.
What does Porygon evolve into?
Porygon is unique in that both of its evolutions are special evolutions that require specific items. If you don’t have the item, you can’t evolve your Porygon.
Porygon evolves into Porygon2 with 25 Porygon Candy and an Upgrade - 'a transparent device that can make certain species of Pokémon evolve'. Spoiler warning: it only works on Porygon.
Porygon2 evolves into Porygon-Z with a further 100 Porygon Candy and a Sinnoh Stone - an item unique to Pokémon Go that helps certain Pokémon from the Sinnoh region evolve.
This means you need a total of 125 Porygon Candy to fully evolve the Virtual Pokémon.
Although there’s no firm evidence to prove this, we’re 100% convinced that Porygon is a duck – if said duck was made entirely of polygons. As it evolves it looks less a duck, with Porygon2 looking like an inflatable pool toy and Porygon-Z being a floating... weird thing.
It’s pretty difficult to describe - almost as difficult as the missing hyphen in Porygon2 is annoying - but its official Pokédex entry might shed some light on this...
- Porygon - 'State-of-the-art technology was used to create Porygon. It was the first artificial Pokémon to be created via computer programming.'
- Porygon2 - 'This is a Porygon that was updated with special data. Porygon2 develops itself by learning about many different subjects all on its own.'
- Porygon-Z - 'Porygon-Z had a program installed to allow it to move between dimensions, but the program also caused instability in Porygon-Z’s behaviour.'
So, it’s a dimension-shifting AI with behavioural issues? Sounds apocalyptic.
The December Community Day event runs between 2pm and 5pm (local time) on Saturday 21st December 2024 and Sunday 22nd December 2024, with different Pokémon featured on each day. Porygon is only available during the last 10 minutes of each hour the event runs, so you'll have a limited amount of time to catch Porygon and gather as much Porygon Candy as possible to ensure you can fully evolve it.
Remember, having a Normal-type Pokémon Mega Evolved will net you one extra Porygon Candy per catch, so if you think you’re going to be short on candy, bring a Mega Buneary, Mega Pidgeot or Mega Kangaskhan!
Porygon-Z’s moves and best moveset recommendations
Porygon-Z’s best moveset is Lock On, Tri Attack and Zap Cannon. Its full moveset is as follows:
Fast Moves
- Lock On (Normal)
- Charge Beam (Electric)
- Hidden Power (one for each element)
Charged Moves
- Zap Cannon
- Blizzard
- Solar Beam
- Hyper Beam
Legacy Charged Moves
- Tri Attack
- Return
However, no moveset is going to make Porygon-Z good in PVP; its stats all went to attack, rather than bulk, which is the opposite of what you’re looking for in competitive Pokémon Go.
So what about Porygon2, which inverts these stats? Porygon2’s defensive stats are a relative boon, sure, but not enough to make an actual impact. Still, this is one of those rare cases when the middle evolution can actually outperform the final evolution, depending on your league. Let’s go through this league by league.
Porygon2, the middle evolution is the way to go for Great League and Ultra League, though that sentence should be taken with a virtual pinch of salt - in Great League, Porygon2 doesn’t even make the top 500 Pokémon.
If you’re keen on Porygonning these leagues, you want to run Lock On, Tri Attack and Zap Cannon. Lock On, we all know, is phenomenally fast-charging, even if it does next to no damage. This helps you ramp up to Tri Attack, which gives a 50% chance to debuff the opponent’s attack and defence by one stage each. If you need to go big, Zap Cannon offers an Electric-type coverage nuke with a 66% chance to debuff the opponent’s attack by one stage.
And since nothing is particularly resistant to Normal attacks, you know you can push through decent STAB damage with reasonable shield pressure.
Sadly, while Porygon2 is technically only weak to Fighting-types, it has a secret weakness you should be aware of: it’s weak to good Pokémon. Specifically, Galarian Stunfisk, Swampert and even Trevenant - a Pokémon it should resist - all hand it an easy loss. Sure, it can beat Skarmory and Azumarill, but if those are your biggest concerns, there are better answers you can bring out.
The same problems stand in the Ultra League, although this chaotic and inconsistent Pokémon does fare slightly better. Tapu Fini, Walrein and Talonflame are all shocking victories, although the losses will have you cringing: Swampert and Nidoqueen are both resistant to Electric-type attacks, Trevenant and Giratina don’t care about Porygon2’s resistance and Cresselia just wins in the long game.
OK, so what about Master League? Given the unlimited CP cap, the final evolution is always the way to go, and Porygon-Z finally has its chance to shine - as long as you bring the Community Day-exclusive Tri Attack and Blizzard as a coverage nuke. Be aware that the same issues apply as before, although now you also have the issue of glassiness to contend with - to put that in context, a maxed out Porygon2 having a higher defense stat than Porygon-Z!
But, if you’re happy with this tactic, Blizzard really kicks you up a level, with the Dragon-type Garchomp, Giratina and Zekrom, and Flying-type Togekiss and Yveltal all losing here. Be aware that Dragonite has Superpower, which will wreck you faster than you could imagine. You also lose to Metagross, Gyarados, Lugia and Excadrill, which are fairly common in this meta.
If you’re keen to try Porygon in these leagues, you’re looking for the following stats for the respective Pokémon:
- 0/12/15 for Porygon2 in Great League
- 1/15/15 for Porygon2 in Ultra League
- 15/15/15 for Porygon-Z in Master League
The Dual Destiny Season is here! It brings the Holiday Part 1 event with it. You can now catch Dynamax Pokémon through Max Battles. First, however, you need to visit Power Spots to collect Max Particles and complete the To the Max! quest. Don't forget to try out Routes, Gift Exchange and Party Play while you're hunting down rare Pokémon, fighting in the Go Battle League or competing in PokéStop Showcases.
What do shiny Porygon, Porygon2 and Porygon-Z look like?
Shiny Porygon in Pokémon Go was released on its original Community Day back in September 2020.
During Community Day events, the shiny rate is boosted, so catching a shiny Porygon in the wild should be relatively straightforward.
Each Porygon you see has the potential to be shiny, so it’s purely a numbers game - tap each and every one of them and see what you get. Good luck finding the Porygon you need!
If you want to evolve your Porygon into a Porygon2, you’ll need 25 Porygon Candy and an Upgrade, and you’ll need a further 100 Porygon Candy and a Sinnoh Stone to evolve your Porygon2 into an Porygon-Z.
As you can see below, shiny Porygon is pretty sweet - in each of the three, the colour palette is flipped and darkened. The red head and torse take on a lovely deep blue, while the blue accents (beak, wings and feet) take on a lilac hue that goes incredibly well together.
Thematically linked shinies like this really do look excellent, and shiny Porygon, shiny Porygon2 and Porygon-Z all look fantastic.
Other December Community Day bonuses
Community Days in Pokémon Go always come with a string of bonuses, and the December Community Day is no different.
Some of these bonuses are always the same - like increased spawns and shiny rates. There are, however, a rotating set of other bonuses for Community Days, such as double or triple catch Candy, Stardust or XP.
Here’s a full list of the December Community Day bonuses below:
Bonus 1: Double Catch XP
Bonus 2: Double Catch Stardust
Bonus 3: Double Catch Candy
Bonus 4: Double catch Candy XL chance for players Level 31 and above
Bonus 5: Hatch distance halved for any eggs placed in Incubators during event hours
Bonus 5: Lure Modules activated during the event will last three hours
Bonus 6: Incense activated during the event will last three hours (doesn't include Daily Adventure Incense)
Bonus 7: Between 2pm to 10pm (local hours), you can make one additional Special Trade to make it a maximum of three for the day
Bonus 8: Between 2pm to 10pm (local hours), Trades require 50% less Stardust.
Bonus 9: Event-themed stickers earned by spinning PokéStops, opening Gifts or purchased from the in-game store
Bonus 10: Event-exclusive field research tasks with rewards including Pokémon encounters, Stardust and Great Balls. Joining up with your local Pokémon Go community might also lead you to finding rare event-exclusive tasks which reward Pokémon with Special Background encounters
Bonus 11: PokéStop Showcases
Bonus 12: Event-exclusive 2km eggs which can hatch the following Pokémon
- Slowpoke
- Galarian Slowpoke
- Poliwag
- Togepi
- Wooper
- Paldean Wooper
- Timburr
- Axew
- Chespin
- Fennekin
- Froakie
- Grubbin
- Noibat
Bonus 13: Free Timed Research running from 9am (local time) on Saturday 21st December to 9pm (local time) on Sunday 22nd December, which will reward you with a Rainy Lure Module and Unova Stones
Bonus 14: Community Day Continued Timed Research running until Saturday 4th January at 9am (local time), which will reward you with daily encounters with 2024 Community Day Pokémon who have Special Backgrounds. Must log into Pokémon Go during December Community Day event hours to claim
Bonus 15: The Special Background for Pokémon featured during 2024 Community Days
Exclusive move for evolutions: Exclusive moves will be available for the Community Day Pokémon when evolving from 9am (local time) on Saturday 21st December to 9pm (local time) on Sunday 22nd December
Good luck finding a perfect Porygon!