Guide on Albino and Melan Hunting

Hello hello and welcome to my guide for Albino and Melan hunting! I can't believe nobody has written one, yet. Does anything qualify me for writing this? Uh well, I successfully finished one (1) melan hunt. Yay. And have given up on another one. Yay... I uh, should probably talk to people who know more about this. I also wrote like 3 other guides and someone should probably stop me. No seriously, please stop me. I'm terrible at keeping these things up to date.

Table of content

First post (you are here!): Introduction - What are Melans/Albinos? Second post: Albino Hunting - Gain IP - Powering your Albino Radar - How much IP should I invest? - Übercharm Third post: Melan hunting - How do I hunt for a melan? - What boosts are available? - What chain can I expect? - Don't forget about the Eggs - How do I sell off those Shinies/Albinos? - How do I get through this?

What are Albinos/Melans?

The heading is a lie, I will explain all differently coloured Pokémon. There are 3 alternate colouration your Pokémon can take: Shiny (), Albino () and Melanistic (). Shinies are official colourations, while Albino and Melan Pokémon were added and sprited by the PFQ team. Albino Pokémon are pale and Melans are dark. Here's a handy table for them, in a weird format to be mobile friendly:

Normal
Sprite
Timeline	"Egg hatched [...]"
Shiny
Sprite
Timeline	"Shiny hatched [...]"
Albino
Sprite
Timeline	"Albino hatched [...]"
Melanistic
Sprite
Timeline	"Shiny hatched [...]" "Albino hatched [...]"

(All linked so you can visit them to see it for yourself.) Now, you might have noticed that the melan one doesn't say "Melanistic hatched [...]" but instead both Shiny and Albino hatched. This is exactly what it is: When your Egg hatches and it gets determined both as Albino and as Shiny, it will result in an Melanistic Pokémon. And now guess how rare that is.

Albino Hunting

There's only two things you absolutely need to start hunting Albinos:

• An Albino Radar
• Interaction points (IP)

You can buy an Albino Radar from the Albino Hunting page, which also contains some information on it. It costs 750,000 IP, buying multiple radars won't give any additional boosts.

Gain IP

You can earn IP by interacting! Each interaction gives you a certain amount of IP, the numbers can be found in the wiki. Giving a preferred berry gives the most IP, Garthic days give additional IPs and interacting with New Farmers grant extra IP. Interacting while having Pokérus doubles your IP gain! One way to gain IP would be to go to the Users online page and change the settings to "New Farmers first" and then to interact with them. However, new users often don't have that many Pokémon, but you would interact with lots of people who might click you back! (It also helps out new people. c:) On the Statistics page is also a section called Biggest Pokémon Hoard. Users with a big hoard often have their Pokémon sorted by preferred berries, which gives you more IP! The disadvantage is that you'd be clicking less users (so less people who might click back), and not everyone who gets mass-clicked has the time to mass-click back. You can also mass-click the Pokérus host whenever they change, this way you have a chance of getting Pokérus yourself which boosts your IP gain (and your EXP gain). But a lot of people will click you during Pokérus, so it's possible you won't get to use the IP boost because you're busy keeping your party stocked. I usually use the first two methods and don't bother too much with Pokérus. I hate mass-clicking too much to invest enough time into getting Pokérus, so I just mass-click 2-3 people with a massive amount of fields when necessary.

Powering your Albino Radar

You need IP to power your Albino Radar, if it isn't powered, then your chance of getting an Albino is exactly 0. The Albino Radar doesn't work with chains, like the Pokéradar, but with different levels. The boost you get from the AR changes based on what level you power the radar to. Powering an AR is only active for the current day, based on server time. You shouldn't put 100,000 IP at 23:55:00 Server Time, because the power will be gone in 5 minutes.

How much IP should I invest?

The Albino Radar is what makes Albinos hatch. And you need the highest chance you can get to also imrove your Melan chances. Not counting Garthic days or interacting with New Farmers, you would need to interact with 14,286 Pokémon to get 100,000 IP, and you would need to give all of them their preferred berry. ("Any" preference gives less IP.) This is like completing one and a half MCWs on one day. I'm gonna assume that most people who read this aren't able to do that. So my suggestion for you is: 1. Use Garthic days to mass-click. Obviously to get more IP. 2. Only invest the 100,000 IP on days where you can actually use up the full potential. Unfortunately, I can't give proper first-hand experience advice because the system worked differently while I was melan hunting. So I have to go off the numbers alone. A lvl 6 boost costs 36,000 IP, which is about 5,200 preferred Berries. If you can keep that up, then it would be a good way to constantly keep up the boost while not stressing too much about IP. Lvl 5 boost is only a third of the max. boost you can have, but it's also pretty cheap. You should be able to have that boost running on regular-hatching days, and try to get a higher boost for very active hatching days. Sorry for the vague advice!

Z-Crystals

Z-Crystals can be won once a month by participating in the Type Race. They allow you to power your AR one level higher than you should be, possibly to the 8th, therefore greatly increasing your chance of an Albino of the corresponding type. They are rather rare and therefore should be used for special occasions, for example bonus days or events when a lot of people are actively clicking. You get the most value out of them if you're on a shiny/melan hunt and therefore have a bigger chance of hatching a melan if you activate them. Or when you hatch Legendaries and get the chance to hatch an Albino Legendary. Though, the Legendaries need to fit your type of Z-Crystal, so a Legendary Shiny Hunt would be the most optimal.

Übercharm

An Übercharm is the only way to further boost your chances of an Albino. If you can't afford the 200 ZC a month, then you can look in the Market or see if anyone as them UFT in the trade forums. Honestly, they double your chances of an Albino and Shiny for a month, it's worth it.

That's it?

Honestly, yeah. Just hatch as many Eggs as you can, they don't even have to be from the same species, and you can get an Albino. Some advice on egg hatching can be taken from my Shiny Hunting guide. I would advise Albino Hunting to honestly everyone who hatches Eggs. You can Albino Hunt while completing your Eggdex, while Shiny hunting and while hunting for specific Gems. Just go for it, if you can afford the IP. Just be aware that they're rarer than Shinies. Good luck!

Melan Hunting

A.k.a. pray to our SYSTEM Sally that she loves you. She probably doesn't. Disclaimer: I only once hunted successfully for a melan, hatched 2 random melans (bless my heart, I'm still crying), and had to cancel one melan hunt because no. Just no. This whole guide will be laced in despair because there's no room for optimism in melan hunting. I may be a little dramatic, but you would be too if you went 5,322 Eggs without a melan and then hatched one with the wrong gender. (And then another 3 melans with the wrong gender). Only at a chain of 8,156 I finally got my female melan. "1 Male to 1 Female", Sure. This isn't even the worst melan hunt I've heard of.

How do I hunt for a melan?

If you paid attention during the introduction of this guide, then you know that a Melan is a Pokémon that hatched Shiny and Albino at the same time, so during a melan hunt you actually hunt for a Shiny and Albino at the same time. So please know how to Shiny Hunt before you try melan hunting. My suggestion is to try to use as many boosts as you can afford. The good thing while melan hunting is that you hatch a lot of Shinies and Albinos, you can sell those to fund the hunt. But don't depend too much on the profits you make from the Shinies/Albinos. Make sure that you have enough Hypermode to last your hunt... for a few thousand eggs. It's possible to melan hunt without Hypermode using the PokéRadar+, but you will have lower chances to hatch a melan so you need to expect that your hunt might take a lot longer than those that use Hypermode. If you can't buy ZC yourself, you can trade for it or try getting HM vouchers from the Market.

What boosts are available?

I have to admit that I hunt most of those active while hunting normally, but this is especially important for melan hunting. Bare minimum:

• Albino Radar + Interaction Points to power it
• PokéRadar + either Hypermode or PokéRadar+ to power it

Most effective/efficient: Übercharm You're hunting for something that is Shiny and Albino at the same time, and guess what? An Übercharm boosts your chances of a Shiny Pokémon and an Albino Pokémon for 200 ZC a month. Try getting this. "Optional":

• Arceus Rank: Getting to Arceus rank boosts your chances of a melan for long chains. I can't give out any numbers, but "long chains" refers to chains over 1,000 Eggs. Try to get to Arceus before you start your melan hunt.
• Shiny Charms + Shiny Charm Box: Extremely expensive as a first-time investment, but I've been hunting with them for 2 years now and ~2,750 ZC and way too much GP for 2 years of improved Shiny Chances has been worth it for me. (Well, a bit more ZC because I actually own 7 Shiny Charms, but you only need 5 for cost efficiency.)
• Sei Days: Okay, not really something you can buy, but something to look out for.
• Z-Crystal: A Z-Crystal greatly improves your chances for an Albino and therefore a Melan for a day.
• A high Shelter Pass is also very useful for efficient use of the IP you invest in the Albino Radar.

What chain can I expect?

Don't expect any chain if you want to remain sane. I expected to get a melan by 2,000 and getting to over 4,000 was very frustrating after that. It is possible to get a melan early on, I hatched 2 melans before the chain reached 1,000, but that also wasn't a melan hunt. It was just a random melan that appeared while I hunted (remember, I always hunt with as many boosts as I can, so there's not much difference to a melan hunt besides the chain length). "Oh, so I'll just get a random one, no problem!" Uzumi: 18,864 Eggs hatched Yeah uh, good luck with that random one.

Don't forget about the Eggs

It's very possible that your chain ends up being over 1,000 and you need to remember that you need to find that many Eggs. A 90%+ breeding pair is recommended. I won't go too much into detail, because I expect you to know this from Shiny Hunting. This section is just a general reminder so that you're aware of how many Eggs you will need to breed. (This is actually why my second melan hunt failed, breeding while also hatching all those Eggs was too time intensive for me.)

How do I sell off those Shinies/Albinos?

So remember how I said that the melan hunt kind of funds itself with all the Shinies/Albinos you hatch? Yeah, that was partially a lie. If what you're hunting isn't 1. very popular 2. rare on the market then you probably end up gifting as many of them away as you can. My melan hunt that went on for forever produced 364 Shinies. How do you sell 364 Shinies without lowering the value to a ridiculous degree? My advice for you is:

1. Offer different payment options, even if it isn't necessarily what you want. Maybe you can sell it off somewhere else.
2. Add those options gradually so you can sell the first few for things you actually want.
3. You know how diamonds got so expensive? People think they're rare (they aren't). Do the same thing, make people think that you don't actually have 40 Shinies hidden in your fields that you desperately want to get rid of.
4. Be patient and try to keep them as long as you can without going down with the value. Please don't crash the market.
5. Crash the market and offer them way too cheaply.
6. Offer deals, sell enough shinies for the whole evo line for a discount. Or make Shinies + Albino deals.
7. Make a flash sale to sell some Shinies/Albinos cheaply, then go back to your normal price for a few weeks, then do another flash sale.
8. Make some melan hunter friends and trade with each other all of your hunt rejects.
9. Make a contest.
10. Wondertrade them or release some into the Shelter.
11. Your advice here?

How do I get through this?

Melan hunting is definitely a tedious task, so what's the best way to get through this monotony? A collection of advice:

• Hunt a Pokémon you absolutely love. It's a lot easier to hatch something over and over again, if you love hatching it.
• Hoard the Pokémon you love. Or at least some of them. For example, I hoarded female Ralts, so even if I didn't hatch anything valuable, it was still nice to hatch a female one!
• Pick a melan you like, here's an overview that links to all discovered sprites. You can also try to be the first one to hatch a particular melan!
• Try reaching a higher Gemwish Badge. You need 56,154 Gems to go from not having a badge to Master 4. There should be a melan there somewhere. (Pro tip: hunt a Pokémon with two types, suddenly the amount of Eggs you need doubled.)
• Set yourself goals that aren't necessary related to the melan itself. I aimed for a Shiny chain of 9,001 and surprisingly enough there were some melans along the way.
• Take a break if it gets too much, remember that this is a game and it shouldn't make you physically sick.
• Get friends who motivate you or hunt together with them.
• Stop counting. Counting made me sick and lose motivation so fast.
• Your advice here?

I don't have anything more to say, so good luck with your hunts!

I'm gonna reserve this post in case this actually gets any longer.

So your not suppost to crash the market and crash the market. Makes perfect sense!

That was kinda a joke, but yes. If you have fields of Shinies that seemingly nobody has interest in, you can either: Not crash the market for that particular Shiny and keep them for months, slowly selling all of them for a fair price. Or just crash the market and sell them cheaply. I usually do the first one, but I'm also a slow hunter. I know that very active people often resort to the second option, because field space can be expensive and they get more Shinies over time than they sell.

"Please don't crash the market. Crash the market and offer them way too cheaply."

What i would do is 'temp' crash the market like : one day only liquidation sale! Then hide what remains put the price back up and wait a few weeks for another blow out sale. Speaking as a melan hunter (or i like to think myself as one ...still on the same hunt lol) This guide is hitting it pretty much on the dot. I must say that getting that Arceus rank really does help not go crazy when melan hunting, i would almost say it's a must have.

^ That's what I've been wondering, actually. I'm a Champion right now, pretty close to Arceus but I don't feel like breaking my chain of 300. Unless, of course, Arceus is really worth it. I thought Niet said somewhere that the bonus would go up to 300% (but it would never reach 300), that doesn't really seem like that much to me? Would you suggest breaking my chain and getting Arceus and then try again?

The blow our sale is a great idea, thanks! I'll add it to the list. This guide also made me want to melan hunt even though I spent the whole guide complaining oops. I think your number is slightly off, the Arceus rank boost maxes out at a x5 multiplier to your melan chances. (I have a screenshot of Niet saying this. xD) So if the max chance would be 1 in 100 (which it obviously isn't), the max chance with Arceus-rank would be 1 in 20. In your place, I would probably break the chain. 300 isn't extremely high (depending on Pokémon hunted and own activity, of course), but you need to consider that Alola isn't completely released, yet. There are still some Eggs left, which in return could cause a delay on when you will be able to continue the hunt. Or it will force you to use Egg Passes.