Pokemon Go Shiny Pokemon: Shiny Odds, List of Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go

The list of shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go just keeps getting longer, and there’s no chance of a slowdown settling in any time soon. Pokemon Go shiny odds aren’t official, but the community has worked together over the years to discover the odds based on thousands of encounters. But what are shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go?

Pokemon Go Shiny Pokemon: What Are Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go?

Pokemon Go shiny Pokemon

There’s a common misconception across Pokemon Go communities that Niantic create shiny Pokemon. Shiny Pokemon have been a recurring feature of the Pokemon series since the Gen 2 days in the early 2000s. Pokemon from Gen 1 were treated to alternate color palettes, with every new Pokemon from then on having the slim chance of appearing with an astonishingly rare alternate color scheme, too.

Shiny Pokemon can obviously be differentiated by color alone in most cases, but the more subtle shade differences of some can make it difficult. To confirm a shiny Pokemon, look out for a sparkle animation at the start of an encounter, check for the multi-star icon above their name in an encounter, or check for sparkles around the Pokemon model on the stat page. Shiny Pokemon don’t appear shiny on the overworld screen, so you’ll need to tap into a wild encounter to check for shiny Pokemon. This is commonly referred to simply as a “shiny check”.

Despite the name “shiny”, shiny Pokemon aren’t necessarily made of gold, silver, or any other color likely to catch glare from the sun, but are merely a different shade of their usual color, or a different color altogether. It depends entirely on the Pokemon. Niantic literally pulls these Pokemon models from Game Freak’s library with each shiny variant having existed for a long time before appearing in Pokemon Go.

Any frustration stemming from a lazy choice of alternate color has nothing to do with Niantic and can’t simply be changed if enough people complain.

Pokemon Go Shiny Pokemon: How To Farm Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go

Shiny Pokemon are little more than bonuses for collectors. They offer no stat differences whatsoever. The rare appearance rates of these alternate color Pokemon have been getting increasingly easier to farm for in mainline Pokemon games, but Pokemon Go offers next to nothing when it comes to farm potential thanks to sporadic spawns outside of nest areas.

Simply put, there’s no definitive way to farm for shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go. Mainline games benefit from things like the Masuda method (breeding Pokemon from different countries), the Shiny Charm (obtained by completing the Pokedex), and chaining random encounters to boost shiny rates. None of these systems exist in Pokemon Go at this time.

On the other hand, shiny Pokemon rates change depending on how a Pokemon is encountered. Unlike other Pokemon games where every creature has a fixed chance of being shiny, only a growing list of Pokemon in Pokemon Go have their shiny form available in Pokemon Go. The shiny encounter rates are slim through random spawns, but can be boosted by raid bosses, egg hatches, or special community day spawns.

Pokemon Go Shiny Pokemon: Pokemon Go Shiny Odds

Pokemon Go Shiny Odds

Pokemon Go shiny odds make this whole thing sound like some kind of betting scandal. It isn’t. Pokemon Go shiny odds have been a major mystery for players since Pokemon Go‘s first potential shiny Pokemon, Magikarp, was introduced in March 2017. A year later and while the list keeps getting larger, Niantic refuses to publish an official Pokemon Go shiny odds guide.

Thankfully, the Pokemon Go community came together through sites like The Silph Road to collectively deduce Pokemon Go shiny odds through sheer determination of data collected through thousands of reported encounters. Made available through a handy publication in June 2018, the unofficial Pokemon Go shiny odds look a little something like this

Wild encounters – 1:450 (0.2%)
Legendary Raids – 1:19
Raid-exclusive Pokemon – 1:50 (varies by species)
Community Day Pokemon – 1:24
Egg Hatch (baby Pokemon only) – 1:50
Research Reward Encounter – Boosted over wild encounters, but varies by species

Without official numbers from Niantic or the game code itself, all of these Pokemon Go shiny odds are approximations based on data obtained through play and collected by The Silph Road.

Weather and special events (like the Water Festival) have no noticeable benefit on shiny Pokemon rates, but technically boost the likelihood of encountering one by increasing the spawn rate of the Pokemon in question.

Data from regular egg hatches provided no noticeable increase, but baby Pokemon hatched exclusively from eggs did have a drastically increased shiny chance over wild encounters of other Pokemon.

As for raids, while legendary Pokemon shiny rates seemed fixed at 1:19, raid-exclusive Pokemon like Absol and Mawhile appear to have individual shiny rates. The same appears to apply to Pokemon encountered through Field Research tasks.

Pokemon Go Shiny Pokemon: List of Shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go

List of shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go

The list of shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go grows larger with each new event, making a complete list difficult to come by. Pokemon retain their shiny status after evolution, with evolution, in most cases, being the only way to obtain the shiny form of an evolved Pokemon.

This list of shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Go included wild encounters, raids, egg hatches, and field research rewards. This list was last updated on September 26, 2018;