This week’s Spotlight Hour is all about Paras, the Mushroom Pokémon, making it a great opportunity to catch a perfect Paras in Pokémon Go.

While Parasect, Paras’ evolution, is not known as the best fighter in Pokémon Go, you may find it useful in a future Go Battle League special cup. (Possibly… stranger things have happened.) You may even get very lucky and find yourself catching a shiny Paras.

Alongside Paras appearing more frequently in the wild, this Spotlight Hour has a double catch Stardust bonus, which means you’ll earn a little more Stardust with every Pokémon you catch and even more if its a Paras!

Paras 100% perfect IV statsIs Parasect good in PVP?Is there a shiny Paras in Pokémon Go?What does shiny Paras look like?Other tips for this Spotlight HourTo see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings Watch as battle Guzzlord - one of the Ultra Beasts in Pokémon GoWatch on YouTube

Paras 100% perfect IV stats in Pokémon Go

This week’s Spotlight Hour is a great opportunity to catch a Paras with perfect IV stats.

'Perfect' means two things in Pokémon Go, depending on how you plan to use a given Pokémon. First, there’s the maxed out, 100% IV version, which is the 15/15/15 you’re looking for your 4* Pokédex, raids and Master League. Yet, because of how CP is calculated using three stats, a perfect IV Pokémon is generally only ever the best version of itself in the Master League.

Of course, you can’t see the IV of a Pokémon without catching it first, but, with a little research beforehand, you can quickly spot a perfect Paras based on the CP alone.

If you’re at Level 30 (or above), you’ll ideally be looking for the following CPs for a perfect 15/15/15 Paras:

Level 30 (wild CP maximum) - 872 CPLevel 35 (weather-boosted wild CP maximum) - 945 CP

The wild CP value aligns with your Trainer Level until you reach Level 30 and, due to the majority of the player base now being above this level, we’ve kept to these values for the sake of simplicity. These values will, however, be different if you’re currently below Level 30.

The Season of Adventures Abound is here! The Halloween event has returned, bringing with it Greavard and Houndstone.Party Play - Pokémon Go's multiplayer feature - is here, along with the Welcome Party quest.You can also work on the Timed Investigation: Master Ball quest and compete in the Go Battle League.Be sure to compete in Shadow Raids, complete Routes, use Daily Adventure Incense for the chance of encountering Galarian Articuno, Galarian Zapdos and Galarian Moltres. This incense may also give you encounters with other rare Pokémon in Pokémon Go.

Is Parasect good in PVP?

Sadly, the answer is no. Parasect holds no power in the Go Battle League at all and doesn’t really do much better in raids either. While it may on occasion come in handy during one of the special cups in the Go Battle League, this occurrence is rare and even then it’s usually out matched by another Pokémon.

If you do fancy giving Parasect a try then we recommend Struggle Bug as its Fast Move and Solar Beam as its Charged Move.

Bug Bite is a better choice for a Fast Move, but, to learn it, you’ll have to use an Elite Fast TM on Parasect and, considering how this Pokémon doesn’t hold much PVP weight, we don’t recommend using this important item on Parasect.

At the end of the Pokémon Go day, Parasect is only really useful for filling in a Pokédex entry and hunting down its shiny form for your collection.

Is there a shiny Paras in Pokémon Go?

Yes, like all Gen 1 Pokémon, there is shiny Paras and Parasect in Pokémon Go! It was actually amongst the last batch of Gen 1 shiny forms to be released as it came as part of the Go Tour Kanto event, alongside others like shiny Snorlax and Ditto, back in 2021.

Both Paras and Parasect are Bug and Grass-type Pokémon. | Image credit: The Pokémon Company

Keep in mind that since Spotlight Hours do not have a boosted shiny rate, which means the chances of finding a shiny Paras are the same as it would be hunting it down in the wild. Instead, the more frequent spawns simply give you more chances to find shiny Paras for a while.

What does shiny Paras look like?

Both Paras and Parasect are afflicted with the 'Not very interesting shiny form' of Gen 1 Pokémon.

Shiny Paras doesn’t really look that different from its regular form - being a slightly brighter hue of orange and having a lighter red tint for its mushrooms. Shiny Parasect has, however, fared slightly better with its body taking on a golden colour and, like Paras, its mushroom is a lighter shade of red.

Infographic of Kanto tour event shinies to be released Feb 20 from r/The Silph RoadTo see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settings

Thank you to death_lad from reddit for the help with this information.

Other tips for this Spotlight Hour

Aside from trying to catch a perfect IV or shiny Paras in Pokémon Go, there’s a couple of other good reasons to partake in this week’s Spotlight Hour:

The bonus for this Spotlight Hour is double catch Stardust. This bonus allows you to quickly gather a bunch of Stardust, especially if you have a Star Piece active during this hour, which can be used for evolving, powering up, unlocking a second Charged move and purifying Shadow Pokémon. Thanks to all of these uses, Stardust is one of the most important resources in Pokémon Go and it’s always good to have some stocked up. So, whether you’re planning on unlocking a Pokémon’s second Charged move or simply want to restock, it’s worth catching some Paras during this Spotlight Hour for the extra Stardust.Don't forget that, alongside the above bonus, Paras gives 500 Stardust per catch. Using a Star Piece will give you a 50% bonus, so 1500 Stardust. Alongside this, if you're playing in rainy weather, you'll have a 25% bonus granting you 1250 Stardust. By using a Star Piece when catching Paras in the rain, you can earn 1875 Stardust per catch.If you’re a newcomer then it’s worth collecting enough Paras for fully evolving this Pokémon to add Parasect to your Pokédex.Thanks to Paras being a Bug-type Pokémon, catching a load of these little bugs will add progress to the respective catch bonus medal.

Remember - Spotlight Hour events only last an hour, from 6pm to 7pm (local time). Next week sees Stufful and the ever welcome double catch XP, which is always worth turning up for.

Hope you catch a shiny Paras!

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