What is Shadow in Pokémon GO?
Shadow Pokémon are rescued from Team GO Rocket. They hit 1.2× harder and take 1.2× damage — pure offensive specialists.
Shadow Pokémon are rescued from Team GO Rocket. They hit 1.2× harder and take 1.2× damage — pure offensive specialists.
Shadow Pokémon come from defeating Team GO Rocket grunts, leaders, or Giovanni. They have a purple shadow aura and are marked with a flame icon. In battle they deal 1.2× normal damage but take 1.2× incoming damage too — high-risk, high-reward.
Shadow mons learn the move Frustration by default, which is intentionally weak. You can use a Charged TM during Rocket events to overwrite Frustration with the species' standard move pool.
Purifying a shadow mons removes the offensive bonus + recoil, lowers it by 2 levels worth of stats, and bumps each IV up by +2 (capping at 15). The 1 / 4096 hundo rate triples for shadows because of the IV floor.
See shadow in action with the related Hundo Hunter tool.
In-game antagonist faction. Grunts at PokéStops, Leaders (Cliff, Sierra, Arlo), and the boss Giovann…
Process of converting a Shadow Pokémon to a Purified form. Bumps IVs by +2 and lowers level by 2.
Individual Values — hidden 0-15 stat bonuses on every Pokémon. Three IVs (Attack, Defense, Stamina) …
What does Shadow mean in Pokémon GO?
Shadow Pokémon are rescued from Team GO Rocket. They hit 1.2× harder and take 1.2× damage — pure offensive specialists.
Shadow explained in detail
Shadow Pokémon come from defeating Team GO Rocket grunts, leaders, or Giovanni. They have a purple shadow aura and are marked with a flame icon. In battle they deal 1.2× normal damage but take 1.2× incoming damage too — high-risk, high-reward. Shadow mons learn the move Frustration by default, which is intentionally weak. You can use a Charged TM during Rocket events to overwrite Frustration with the species' standard move pool. Purifying a shadow mons removes the offensive bonus + recoil, lowers it by 2 levels worth of stats, and bumps each IV up by +2 (capping at 15). The 1 / 4096 hundo rate triples for shadows because of the IV floor.
Is Shadow the same as in the main-series Pokémon games?
Mostly yes — but Pokémon GO has unique mechanics around catching, raids, and PvP that change how Shadow works compared to the main-series games. See the full explanation above for GO-specific details.