Team GO Rocket take-over

Today a Team GO Rocket take-over took place from 2 pm to 5 pm local time. This is part of the current ongoing event where Pokémon considered to be typically used by Team Rocket are spawning more in the wild, the release of Shiny Skorupi and where we get 2 Mysterious Components instead of 1 from defeating a Team GO Rocket Grunt.

During the 3 hour event today Team GO Rocket really took over and could be seen at almost every Pokéstop. Some Pokéstops that were already Giovanni hideouts or leader hideouts may not have had any spawn though. You could beat one Rocket Grunt on every Pokéstop that had one, they would not respawn though as I never saw one show up again. Except if you defeated a Rocket Leader at a Pokéstop that one would have a Grunt a few minutes later that you could fight.

You could also find a Rocket take-over field research task to defeat 3 Grunts which would give either Skorupi or Purrloin as a spawn, or it could give Stardust. There was also one to defeat 1 Grunt from which I received Meowth and Koffing, so I assume Ekans was a possible reward too. You could also find one to defeat a Rocket Leader which gave 3 Rare Candy as a reward.

I started off with already having a Rocket Radar that I completed the day before, so I went straight for a Rocket Leader which was Sierra. All 3 of the Rocket Leaders could have their previous Pokémon with them. So for Sierra it could be Absol, Sneasel or Beldum, for Arlo it could be Scyther, Bagon or Mawile and for Cliff it could be Meowth, Stantler or Pinsir.

The first Sierra I fought had Absol with her which was a fight that I could win pretty easily. After fighting her a Rocket Grunt showed up on the nearby Pokéstop and on the one that Sierra was at. So I defeated them both and then did one other Rocket Grunt so I could make another Radar and go to another nearby Rocket Leader. That one turned out to be Sierra as well.

This time she had Beldum with her. After defeating her I was extremely surprised and happy as I saw a Shiny Shadow Beldum!! :D The one I had already been looking for by fighting Sierra whenever I had a spare Rocket Radar.

After that I went to a Darkrai Raid because one friend was gonna be a bit later than the start and he and some others wanted to do that Darkrai. Once we did that one we went to the shopping street for another Darkrai Raid. Then that friend and I went to the market square to defeat Grunts and then to the local park for another Leader. This one turned out to be Arlo with a Scyther as his first Pokémon.

Then we walked around the local park to defeat those Rocket Grunts to make a new Radar and walk back through the shopping street as a Pokéstop further down that road showed a Leader. Which turned out to be Cliff, the last one I was looking for to be able to get the Super Radar to be able to encounter Giovanni this month! This Cliff had a Pinsir with him and it turned out to be a really tough fight. His Tyranitar almost took out my Kyogre before I could use my charged attack. I should've probably brought a Machamp with me too alongside my Lucario. My Kyogre's Hydro Pump takes too long to charge up for using it in PvP battles so I might have to switch it to Surf if I'm not using it for Raids.

When I defeated Cliff there we went to some nearby Pokéstops in the area there. We would likely not be able to get back to the city center for another Leader we had seen there. So we decided to just do the Grunts in this area which were like 6 Rocket Grunts. Before we returned back. Once we got back it was just past 5 pm so the event was over but some Pokéstops still showed the Rocket discolouring on them and that Leader was still there. It turned out to be another Sierra who also had a Beldum with her.

So I defeated 5 Team GO Rocket Leaders today and around 15 Rocket Grunts, could be slightly higher. From the Rocket Leaders I caught Shadow Absol, Shiny Shadow Beldum, Shadow Scyther, Pinsir and Beldum today. Those can be seen in this picture.

Shadow Pokémon from Rocket Leaders.jpg