There are some exceptionally hard to find Pokémon… while others are just causing uneeded headaches.

Despite its exponential growth, Pokémon Go is still in its early days, which means no special events, and no legendary Pokémon for the time being (heck, their data isn’t even included in the app yet, unlike Ditto which is nowhere to be found… except in the game files).

Here, we compile some of the rarer finds for those looking to complete their Pokédex or need to power up their teams to take back those gyms. We’ll first check out the easy-to-get, easy-to-miss ones:

• Pikachu: The most famous monster in the franchise is available as your starter Pokémon!… if you know what to do. As soon as you start a new game and get to choose one of the starters, don’t. Just walk away, and the game will slap you with them about 4 more times before giving up and adding Pikachu to the options.

After that, just tap him and commence this special battle. Note that all starters are rare finds, but Pikachu surpasses by far the elemental trio in terms of difficulty, so this might be your only chance to get one in a long time.

 

• Vaporeon, Jolteon and Flareon: The first throwback to the Anime/Games! All you need to do is change Eevee’s name before it evolves: Rainer for Vaporeon, Sparky for Jolteon and Pyro for Flareon. If memory serves you right, you are recalling the Eevee brothers from way back in the first season of the show.

Note that this will only work once per eeveelution, and make sure the server has saved Eeevee’s name before evolving it (of course if you, say, get a Rainer Flareon you know the server screwed you up and are free to try again).

 

• Porygon: As illogical as it might seems, the virtual Pokemon will often hatch from 5km eggs, and sometimes 10km ones. Porygon also shows up often near casinos – no, really, this makes a lot of sense for those who played the original games.

The next ones will be a pain to get until some other methods are discovered, but for now:

• Dratini, Dragonair, Dragonite: The closest we have to legendary Pokémon yet, this dragon family is unique in that Dratini and Dragonair can be found near water sources, but Dragonite roams wooded and park areas.

Dragonite itself is an absurdly rare find, so you might be better off loading on Dratinis and Dragonairs to evolve him manually (overall it’ll require 100 Dratiny candies).

 

• Snorlax: A ghost of a find in the same tier as Dragonite, it might show up blocking roads and suburb alleys (hey, another game throwback!), but your best bet right now consist of hatching 10km eggs.

 

• Gyarados: The developers really wanted this one to pay tribute to the source material. Just as it was painful to evolve Magikarp in the original games, it is to get the 400 Magikarp candy required to evolve one into Gyarados, and even then, it’s a fairer shot than hunting a wild one near large bodies of water.

 

When hunting for these (or any other Pokémon for the matter), remember to take advantage of the Ingress trick: since Pokémon GO inherited it’s database and algorythms from Ingress, if you have both apps, you can first go to Ingress and hunt for XM (white dots you collect to advance the game).

These mostly appear in highly populated areas, and the exact spots you find XM with are also choke-full of wild Pokémon! XM are easier to pinpoint that the elusive monsters (which can escape you from just steps away), so if get stuck looking for Pokémon, quickly switch to Ingress and check if you should move some steps back or outright outta there.

High XM density spots include crowded areas like shopping malls and parks (which also fits the reports of many trainer’s rarer finds).

Also, most Ingress portals become Pokéspots and Gyms in GO, but if you see a Portal that isn’t, go there fast, for it will be overflowing with XM – and with it, rare Pokémon. Remember to check frequently, as XM, just like Pokémon, need some time to re-spawn after people get a handful of them.

Finally, most, if not all of the rarer Pokémon you see people bragging about can be found in 10km eggs, which has proved the fastest way to get high CP, hard to find ones (no, the guys with the 1000-1500 CP gyms full of Aerodactyls and Vaporeons didn’t just grind their way there… the whole time, at least).