First off, how good is this Halloween event? Waking up to a back garden full of Gastly and Cubone was a very welcome change compared to the usual Pidgey and Drowzee.

This is just a quick post regarding the temporary bonuses you will get this weekend and how to use them for maximum xp, as this event only comes round once a year it is critical to make the most of it.

The first change you will notice is your buddy only needs a quarter of the distance to walk to receive a candy, this means instead of walking 3km for a Bulbasaur candy you will only need to walk 0.75km.

There are two different methods to make the most of this drop in candy distance. The first is to buddy up anything you do not have the fully evolved forms for yet ie. Pokedex completion method. The second is what I will call the ‘gym domination method’. This is for those who have completed the Pokedex and are looking to start retaining gyms for long periods of time and would involve buddying up with the best gym defenders such as Lapras or Dragonite so candy can be rapidly attained then used for powering them up to the maximum.

Another difference for the weekend is the awarding of double candies for every catch, hatch and transfer. For catching, I would advise you catch absolutely everything and anything as you never know when you will need the candy, even catch the bloody annoying Zubats! Further bonus to this is you will need the stardust to over power all the Gengars and Marowaks you are going to be seeing over the next few days.

Any Pokemon you are not going to be using I would advise to transfer, that includes the usual Lucky Egg fodder of Pidgey, Weedle and Caterpie as they will also get double candy on the transfer. This it means the next time you use a Lucky Egg you will have double the amount of candy and could maybe manage to get enough for using a second Lucky Egg immediately after that which could result in a gain of over 150,000 xp in an hour (even the bot accounts struggle to get this amount).

Now onto a controversial point, Incubators, BUY THEM!!!

Only for this weekend though, as every hatch you get will give double candy also, it is more than worth buying some incubators for hatches. During this weekend you want to hatch as much as possible. If you get lucky enough to hatch some 10km eggs containing Snorlax, Lapras or Dratini the rewards will be ridiculous and you will be able to over power them and hold gyms for a much longer time, in turn holding these gyms for a longer time will allow you to basically print coins out of them. Therefore, for a small investment in real money you will be able to possibly treble the amount of coins you are getting from it.

Also, it goes without saying that during this weekend, you should visit known nests that you need Pokemon from to complete the Pokedex. Do this as you will only need to spend half the time catching the ones you need, or if you stay the same amount of time it will give enough candies to power up the fully evolved form.

During this event, I personally won’t be attacking or training any gyms at all and I won’t be using a Lucky Egg. The reason for this is these take up quite a bit of time and it is a waste to do these as by the time the 2nd November comes you can go back to them as normal whereas this event is a one off so the focus should be on covering distance and catching Pokemon.

I hope this helps, if you have any feedback or suggestions including stuff I may have missed, don’t hesitate to comment below. Good Luck and Happy Halloween!