'Pokémon Go' Special Items: How to increase your chances of getting an evolutionary drop

Much like in its Game Boy counterpoint, the Gen 2 update of Pokémon Go added an additional wrinkle to evolving certain Pokémon: special evolutionary items like the dragon scale and the metal coat. Sadly, these items are incredibly rare and it's tough to be patient while swiping at PokéStops when you're only one Kingdra or Steelix away from that completed Pokédex. 

If you're looking to try anything in order to increase your chances of getting an evolutionary item, there might be something you can do to increase the chances of that king's rock or sun stone dropping in Pokémon Go. 

Pokémon Go special items linked to certain times of day?

Per a post on Pokémon Go online community The Silph Road by user mojurico, there might be a secret to getting evolutionary items from PokéStops. Mojurico reported getting one metal coat from a seven-day PokéStop streak about three weeks prior to posting before something unusual happened: They received three evolutionary items over the course of two days, and the only constant was that they'd stopped at those PokéStops at exactly 4:50 p.m.

If this proves to be more that just a coincidence, it may be the secret to scoring those hard-to-get special items in Pokémon Go. The report's extremely small sample size of just one was met with skepticism, but hope springs eternal and the Silph Road didn't immediately write it off as a fluke.

"If possible, please go back tomorrow at the same time and see if it works," user mightyheracross wrote. "If not, try it every day. It could be every other day at the same time, or every Monday at the same time." 

"Also, it could give an evolution item out to the 5000th spinner, for example, and that resets every time it drops one," they added.

Although this is still only an observation at this point, there's a chance it could mean the difference between seeing a massive uptick in evolutionary items distributed from PokéStops and the current, low amount that people are reporting.

If you'd like to test it out for yourself, make note of what time it was and which PokéStop you were at when you got an evolutionary item. You can check the timestamp in your journal, but you'll have to remember the PokéStop yourself. Try going back every day at the same time if you're curious.

Although it seems too good to be true, if you'd rather not be dependent on seven-day PokéStop streaks to get evolutionary items, this might be your best chance to find out if you can get them another way.

More Pokémon Go guides, tips and tricks

If you're booting up the game for the first time in a while to get ready for Gen 2, be sure to check out Mic's guides on how to get stardust, how to determine how long it will take you to reach level 40, the kind of Pokémon you get from 10km eggs, how to create new PokéStops, how to maximize your chances of catching Pokémon and how PokéStops distribute Pokémon eggs. Also check out how to catch Gen 2 baby Pokémon, our analysis of post-balance update Chansey and Rhydon and everything you need to know about finding the long-awaited Pokémon Ditto.