Pokémon Go May 2021 Community Day guide: Shiny Swablu and best movesets

Pokémon Go’s May’s Community Day is celebrating Swablu, the cloudy flying-type Pokémon.

Swablu Community Day takes place on May 15, from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. in your local time. During the event period, Swablu will spawn in huge numbers, making it easy to find and catch. Since Swablu needs 400 Swablu Candy to evolve into Altaria, this is a great chance to grab that candy to evolve it.

In addition to the increased Swablu spawns, the Community Day will also have a bonus that cuts egg hatch distance down to ¹⁄₄ when it’s put into an Incubator during the event.

How to find a Shiny Swablu on Community Day

Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Image: The Pokémon Company/Niantic

Community Day events have a heightened Shiny rate for the featured Pokémon, so if you’re playing, you should be able to find several Shiny Swablu. If you don’t have time to play all day, you can find a Shiny Swablu by popping an Incense, and tapping each Swablu that pops up. The Shiny rate on Community Days is approximately 1 in 25, according to The Silph Road’s research, so you should find a Shiny Swablu quickly.

How to teach Altaria Moonblast in Pokémon Go

To get the exclusive Community Day move, Moonblast, you’ll need to evolve your Swablu on May 15 from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m in your local time. (There’s two extra hours after the Community Day ends for the evolution window.)

If you miss the Community Day period, you’ll likely be able to evolve your Swablu during the December Community Weekend event to get Moonblast, based on past years. You can also use an Elite TM to teach legacy Community Day-only moves.

How good is Altaria in raids and PvP?

In PvE content like gyms and raids, Altaria isn’t very good. It’s outclassed in both its flying- and dragon-typing, and its random assortment of fairy-type moves don’t really help it. When turned into Mega Altaria, that changes a bit, as it can resist dragon-type moves with its newly gained fairy-typing. It will also boost other dragon- and fairy-type moves while raiding. It’s still not the best, but it can fill a niche if you have the Mega Energy to spare.

In PvP content, Altaria is pretty good in Great League, according to GamePress. Its use of Dragon Breath makes it a terror to match up against, since that move is so particularly strong.

What’s the best moveset for Altaria?

For PvE, set it up with Dragon Breath and Dragon Pulse if you don’t plan on using Mega Altaria. If you do plan on using Mega Altaria in raids, give it Dragon Breath and Dazzling Gleam.

There’s a bit of debate on where Moonbeam sits in the PvP meta, since it helps in certain matchups, but the conventional wisdom is about running Dragon Breath, Sky Attack, and Dazzling Gleam for PvP Altaria.