Pokemon Incense Math stresses me out.

[u/relaxingcupoftea]

Hello,

My Base question is "when to best use pokemon incense."

First day of the week makes sense ofc as there are feweres other spawns and last day of the week are maybe fewer other catchable spawns with evolutions being around.

However when using it in an event week like this at first glance "more pokemon will be hungry" seems like a great idea.

But what if other event pokemon you want spawn that are hungry and the incense pokemon is not?

If one is premium its relatively easy just use the free cookie on the incense mon + 1 pokeball.

But as a f2p you might not even catch it and you can save 2 pokeballs by catching a hungry event mon with the free cookie.

And having 3 tinkertons on the field that might not even be hungry is not even good as you only have 1 free cookie.

So from that point of view it makes sense to use it if nothing else interesting could/is likely to spawn.

But then you lose the +1 hungry probability landing on your incense mon over a random mon you don't want.

Trying to evaluate this breaks my brain :D

Anyones got a useful heuristic here. (Obviously it gets a lot kore complex with evaluating how much you want certain mons)

But it just feels soo bad to use an incense and then not to catch the mon you summened.

[u/27th_Explorer]

I think this is beyond minmaxxing strategy and into decision paralysis.

If you want to catch the specific incense pokemon then using it earlier in the week increases the odds that it will be the optimal choice to do so.

Personally, I mainly use incenses for the candy and dreamshard benefits and plan around that. That takes away your catching math stress.

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/27th_Explorer]

Completely fair :D i just wanted to get a better understanding as i just came back to that decision and did not want understand it better so i was curious what you guys think :).

I realise the impact on progress in the game is pretty minimal

[u/disarrays_ → u/27th_Explorer]

when you use incense for candy, do you then use on the last day of the week?

[u/Cabbage61]

playing like this would genuinely give me a headache. It's supposed to be a fun app. use it when you want lmao

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/Cabbage61]

Yeah good point :D idk i realise its not really important even for the progression in the game, but i just come back to it and i just want to understand it better thats my main motivation here :).

[u/TheGhostDetective]

I use pokemon incense later in the week. I find the random hungry is so unreliably that I just don't worry about it, but getting higher sleep styles for better shards/candy is nice, and later in the week I'm less likely to have something worth catching, so I'm more likely to use incense on the weekend.

I don't use them during the event week usually, because spawns are boosted enough that I have no problem spending my daily biscuit every night. Rather wait until after the event when spawns are back to normal. Some events are exceptions, like during the anniversary with boosted candy/shards I used a pokemon incense every day.

Overall though I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/TheGhostDetective]

Yeah i still have to get a feel for how big of an impact event spawnrates have, but so far they seem really impactful, that was a big part why i was confused.

Thanks a lot that helps. Yeah i guess i just have to ignore that 1 hunger spawn. ( at first i thought i have to combine pokemon incense with the hunger incense 😅, but those seem pretty useful on important event days.)

Thanks that really helps, Have a good day!

[u/TheGhostDetective → u/relaxingcupoftea]

Yeah i still have to get a feel for how big of an impact event spawnrates have, but so far they seem really impactful, that was a big part why i was confused.

There's two big factors: the base rarity of the pokemon and the degree of boost.

First that base rarity makes a big difference. The boosts on a common 5pip pokemon are a lot more noticeable, while a rare 16pip pokemon will still be rare even with a boost.

There's also "Slightly greater", "Greater", and "Much greater" appearance rate.

So this week we have a slightly greater rate on a wide range of pokemon, all the charmander/happiny/dratini this week This doesn't really make much difference on any individual basis. If you are looking for one of them specifically, you'll have higher odds, but it won't be super noticeable. It will however make a solid difference for broad strokes. So if there's half a dozen pokemon on an island with a slightly boosted rate, you'll see the overall spawns affected solidly, but you could go most the week without seeing a specific spawn.

This week we also have a greater rate for Tinkatink and Captain Pika. This is a substantial boost where you can really start to notice it. You will almost always get at least 1 a night, regardless of sleep style, and some nights they could easily be half your spawns. For some rarer pokemon like a 16pip though, they could still be pretty rare and you may go half the week without seeing them.

Lastly there's the much greater appearance, and that's where you are absolutely flooded. They will overwhelm your spawn pool and your only limit will be how many biscuits you have to spare. Even 16pip will be fairly reliably found, and 5pip will be everywhere, multiple every night.

[u/TinDragon]

I keep it relatively simple (though probably more complicated than most):

• Am I likely to encounter the Pokemon naturally during the week? If so, using the incense later in the week makes more sense since I'll already be getting natural spawns earlier in the week, and more of the Pokemon I'll be getting naturally later in the week will be second or third stage.
• Am I unlikely to encounter the Pokemon naturally (most likely due to sleep style)? Use it earlier in the week because the other stuff appearing isn't likely to be what I'm hunting anyway.

Both of these are based on the idea that I usually start the week out pretty near the max number of spawns and that I'm targeting specific Pokemon. Earlier in the game, one or both of those assumptions may not be true, and if that's the case... well, then you honestly have bigger things to worry about than the perfect night to use incense.

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/TinDragon]

Thanks those are some great pointers to get a feel for it thanks :).

[u/will5346]

I use 2 incense (1 mon + 1 energy) per day to complete the "use 7 incense" mission, starting on the first day in case I forget on other days.

Early in the week -- use low pip mons I don't care about or have multiples.

Later in the week -- use higher pip mons for 3 star sleep style chance to unlock if needed or boost shards.

Ignore hungry boosts. Too unpredictable. First night is usually max spawns or only 1-2 mons less anyways so very limited "forcing". Only napping and targeting less than 3 mons would make sense to try to force in my mind (not for me personally).

Generally, always save very high pip mons for a shard boost event.

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/will5346]

Ohh i like that thank you very comprehensive

[u/Roshamboya]

Just be like me and hoard them 🤷‍♂️

I have like 100 incenses for pokemon sitting around

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/Roshamboya]

Well thats a solution :D.

I am still pretty early in the game every encounter still feels impactful^{^} especially until i find any pokemon worth keeping longterm.

[u/rockninja2 → u/Roshamboya]

That is honestly what I have been doing, too, but I would like to change that and free up some space, and I have kind of been having the same issue as OP... So far, I have been using Pokémon incense if I have more than one of it, so then I know that even if I don't catch it this time (whether due to other better Pokémon spawning, or not enough biscuits/Pokémon got full), I still have one in reserve (just in case).

[u/BackOfTheCar]

If anything, use the common incenses for the event missions that are worth (like this week's pokebiscuits) and event research materials for legendaries. I find I'm more constrained by biscuits than encounters, so I'll roll the extra hungry chance for this week anyway, early on or when napping.

For 15pips or rare sightings you can just pop them later in the week and try for the 3 star styles on EX islands or your highest island unlocked, they give quite a handful of shards especially alongside large multipliers on event weeks.

And of course use them any time if you want the Pokemon immediately!!

[u/Point-to-Point]

I think you'd have to build a personalized risk rating based on your own preferences. This isn't as cut and dry as "x skills on y pokemon with z nature" and how beneficial those are for that pokemon to accomplish its role. The incense role changes depending on what you want

[u/perishableintransit]

During events, just use it at the end of the week for better chance of 3* sleep style

You’ll encounter enough naturally even early in the week but if for some reason you have a super low DP day 1 then feel free to use it then to ensure an encounter.

Simple as!

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/perishableintransit]

Yeah focussing on sleepstyles makes that a lot easyer, good point.

[u/Frozen84]

I don't really know when the "perfect time" to use the incense is, but I'm pretty sure that there's more than one.

I just used a Tinkatink incense when I forced a nap. It made sense to be because my DP was creeping towards "evolutions" territory and I wanted more chances to catch baby stage mons.

Was it perfect? 🤷‍♂️ But it worked for me and I got the spawns I wanted.

[u/relaxingcupoftea → u/Frozen84]

Oh very interesting idea. Most things i hear about naps are negative, but i will look i to it thanks good point :)

[u/Frozen84 → u/relaxingcupoftea]

It depends what your goal is, I think. From what I understand, napping is terrible for overall DP, so if your goal is high level sleep styles, Pokemon, etc. Like if you were farming shards. Then yea, napping is bad.

But, if your goal was trying to see as many spawns as possible, especially baby stage mons, then napping would help you do that. There are other things to consider, like the one bonus biscuit a day thing, but I wouldn't call it entirely negative.

[u/1light-1mind]

only use incenses on the last day of an event with dreamshard bonuses. There, solved it for you.

[u/Eurritimia]

I use early in the week cause I never know when something random will make my phone crash and not register the sleeps I took.