Starly Community Day is slated to take place on 17 July, 2022 in Pokémon GO. This event was first hinted way back in 2020, with Starly being a voting option for a community day Pokémon.
Date and Time
Starly Community Day will take place on Sunday, July 17, 2022 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time.
Featured Pokémon
Starly will be appearing more frequently in the wild, and if you’re lucky you might encounter a shiny one!
Featured Attack
Evolving Staravia into Staraptor during the event or upto 5 hours after the event will teach it the fast attack Gust.
Community Day Special Research
- Field Notes: Starly is a Community Day-exclusive Special Research story
- Tickets cost US$1.00 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency)
- You can gift the ticket to an in-game friend enabling them to access the Field Notes: Starly special research (minimum friendship level of “Great Friends” required to gift tickets)
Event Bonuses
- Evolve Staravia (Starly’s Evolution) during the event or up to five hours afterwards to get a Staraptor that knows the Fast Attack Gust.
- 3x Catch XP
- 2x candy for catching Pokémon
- 2x chance of getting candy XL from catching Starly
- 3 hour Incense and Lure Module duration
- Take snapshots during the community day for a surprise!
- One additional special trade can be made for the duration of the event and upto 5 hours after the event.
- Trades made during the event and upto 5 hours after the event will require 50% lesser stardust.
Group-play Bonuses
Trainers can unlock exciting bonuses from playing as a group!
If enough Pokémon are caught from a single Lure Module at a Pokéstop, the 3x XP bonus per catch will be upgraded to a 4x XP bonus.
Note: 4x catch XP and 3x catch XP bonuses will not stack. The 4x XP bonus will replace the 3x XP bonus.
Tier 4 Staravia Raid Battles
Like Zweilous raids that were available after Deino Community Day, Staravia will appear in 4* raids from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. local time. Defeating these raids will make Starly spawn in a small radius for 30 minutes, with shiny rates same as the community day.
These raids can only be done in person, using either Daily Raid Passes or Premium Battle Passes. You cannot do these raids using a Remote Raid Pass.
From the last community day, Staravia in 4* raids is expected to have 15000 HP (20075 CP). The amount of people required to take down these raids is 2-4, with players getting a time limit of 180 seconds to defeat the raid. However it should be noted that duo-ing these raids is near impossible without using the top counters upgraded to at least level 35 or beyond.
Stickers
You can obtain event related stickers by spinning Pokéstops, opening gifts and purchasing them in the shop.
Staraptor META Analysis
PvE
With Wing Attack and Brave Bird, Shadow Staraptor is the #3 Flying type raid attacker in terms of DPS. While Gust doesn’t allow it to jump up a spot, it is a direct upgrade to Wing Attack both in terms of DPS and DPS*3TDO (generally regarded as the best metric to assess META viability in PvE).
That being said, the difference is very marginal. Staraptor finds itself in the same spot Pidgeot was a few years ago. You can choose your fast move of choice according to your play style. The lower animation duration of Wing Attack makes it ever so slightly more preferable if you are a player seeking to dodge every charged move a raid boss throws. In general though, Gust is the way to go.
Shadow Staraptor is ranked #5 in terms of DPS*3TDO for all Flying attackers. With it’s generally cheap cost, it’s a must have for your Flying type raid arsenal!
Great League
Both the normal and shadow version of Staraptor aren’t too viable in Great League. The low defensive stat product, self-debuffing charged moves, and mediocre typing all contribute to it’s lacklustre contribution to the META. That being said, it is still a very fun Pokémon to try and use. Gust tremendously helps the shadow version, allowing it to fulfill a somewhat niche role, picking up wins against top META choices such as Trevenant, Sableye, Medicham, Swampert and Araquanid to name a few.
Being a complete wall to Ghosts, and being weak to scarcely found GL types such as Rock and Ice may give Staraptor play in restricted formats. Due to how cheap it is to build, definitely worth getting one!
Ultra League
The performance of Staraptor in the open Ultra League is similar to the Great League – a niche pick with the shadow version having wins against META picks like Trevenant, Galarian Stunfisk, Swampert, Venusaur, Escavalier and Meganium. Sadly, it doesn’t do well in the Premier Classic format either.
Being a normal type that loses to Giratina perfectly sums up Staraptor’s performance in this league. Do not use it, unless you want to have fun and do not care too much about wins.
Master League
No, just no. Staraptor’s performance is so bad that it gets only 1 win in both the Open and Classic formats. It’s stats are not enough to compete against the legendary titans that rule the Master League META. Just use Lugia instead.
Conclusion
So – how impactful will this community day be? Should you invest your time playing it? How intensely should you grind for it? The answers to all these questions vary on what type of a player you are. If you are someone that mainly plays the PvE aspect of the game, then yes! Go out and try to get yourself that candy. If you are a more PvP oriented person, this community day will not be as impactful. Regardless, we have some great Event Bonuses, and I would encourage everyone to try and play even if it’s just a little bit!
Thanks for reading!
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Adding to my above analysis for both the Great League and the Ultra League, Return on Staraptor isn’t too shabby! Gust provides a good amount of flying type damage output, which gives you the option to replace the Brave Bird with Return. What’s even better is Staraptor’s part normal typing, meaning that Return benefits from STAB. The access to a largely unresisted nuke, coupled with having a charged move option that doesn’t debuff yourself makes Return Staraptor significantly better if you decide to use the normal version for better bulk!