Pokérus

[Raven]

Pokerus has been in existence since Gen 2 - the same time as Shiny Pokemon. The chances of encountering a wild Pokemon with Pokerus are 1 in 21,845.3 recurring. What's more, you must capture or defeat the wild Pokemon for your Pokemon to become infected with Pokerus. So if you run from a wild Pokemon with Pokerus, you're not getting Pokerus. So the chances of actually obtaining the virus are even slimmer than the above fraction assuming you often run from wild battles or use Repels.

But just the other week while on my adventure through Pokemon Black 2, Nurse Joy explains how my Pokemon are infected by this virus. After at least 12 years of playing Gen 2 Pokemon and beyond (many, many hundreds of hours. My Sapphire game alone has clocked up over 400 hours of play), I have become infected with this virus for the second time in all of the Pokemon games I've played. The first time was in Pokemon Sapphire many years ago before Gen 4 came out.

Since the release of Gen 2 and thus the existence of both Shiny Pokemon and Pokerus, I have not once encountered a Shiny Pokemon other than the Red Gyarados. Not once in the 12 or so years and the thousands of wild Pokemon I've encountered since Shiny Pokemon have existed.

The chances of seeing a wild Shiny Pokemon are 1 in 8,192 - substantially higher chances than obtaining Pokerus. You'd have thought I'd have seen at least one Shiny Pokemon in my Pokemon game-playing life considering I've contracted Pokerus twice within two different games.

I have the strangest luck.

[BrightBow]

Man, makes me remember my second attempt to catch Ho-Oh. It seemed to have a different color palette then before. I pondered about using a master ball but I restrained from it and restarted since I wondered if this was supposed to happen. Such a waste...

Oh, and I encountered a shiny Meowth once. Looked just like a normal Meowth to me though.

Anyway, during all my attempts in the 2 Generation I obtained eventually Pokerus. Did me no good though, since I always got rid of it asap. After all, the game portrays it as an illness and suggests nothing about it having an positive effect.

It's a dumb mechanic anyway. You try to keep your Pokemon sick? That's just all kinds of awkward.

Edited November 16, 2012 by BrightBow

[Acacia Sgt]

I've never gotten Pokérus. A couple of Shinies, yes, but no Pokérus.

Anyway, even if I were to stumble across it one of these days, I wouldn't have much of a use for it. I don't really train Pokémon that way since I can't really play competitively and can do fine against without against the in-game stuff.

Anyway, during all my attempts in the 2 Generation I obtained eventually Pokerus. Did me no good though, since I always got rid of it asap. After all, the game portrays it as an illness and suggests nothing about it having an positive effect.

It's a dumb mechanic anyway. You try to keep your Pokemon sick? That's just all kinds of awkward.

Really? I think all but Gen II PokéCenter nurses comment that the Pokémon can grow faster when infected. I suppose it doesn't tell a lot, but then again, EV's are never explained in detail within the games either.

[BrightBow]

Really? I think all but Gen II PokéCenter nurses comment that the Pokémon can grow faster when infected. I suppose it doesn't tell a lot, but then again, EV's are never explained in detail within the games either.

Well, I only played up to Gen II. I merely got a call from the doc that a Pokemon is sick but that it doesn't seem to have any harmful effects.

[Dandragon]

I've never had either pokerus or a shiny besides the red gyarados

still, pokerus is an interesting mechanic. A sickness that is beneficial rather than harmful. I wonder why it's still called a sickness?

[Raven]

This video is very useful in explaining the virus:

[SgtSmilies]

I've gotten Pokerus multiple times, I still have a bunch of Pokemon with it safely in my box in Pearl. In terms of shinies, I myself have caught a Starly in Diamond, and I got a shiny Bagon from someone else. It's currently a Salamence.

[RJWalker]

I have Pokerus in Black. The first subject has been quarantined in the PC so I can infect my toher Pokemon anytime I want to.

[Icon of Sin]

I got a Shiny Geodude very recently in my Blaze Black run, but aside of a friend giving me an infected Pokemon, I never had Pokerus.

[ZemZem]

I've had one Emerald run where half my team had Pokerus. I had no idea what it meant then, and I'm surprised on how lucky I was then.

[eclipse]

Caught Pokerus early in my Sapphire, then again sometime in between, then AGAIN in B2. My first "true" shiny was a wild Raticate in Gold, followed many years later by a wild Whismur in a very-postgame Sapphire (same one that I got Pokerus in), followed many years later by a Growlithe in. . .uh, can't remember if it was Platinum or HG. After that, caught a couple here and there, but haven't seen one in B2 yet.

Speaking of, I infected a bunch of random Pokemon in my game with Pokerus, and try to give them out over GTS. It's worth a medal, and I suspect I caught it when someone handed me an infected Frillish for my Swablu.

[Karasz]

Ah, I remember this. I remember that a Pokemon of mine caught Pokerus in my Ruby post-game. I had caught a Claydol at the Sky Tower (of a very good level, mind you), and at one point while I was training it, a Pokemon poisoned it, and I don't remember how. I rushed it to the Pokemon center, but I accidentally derped and put it in the PC without healing it. A little bit later, I took a look at it, and it had contracted Pokerus. However, I was dumb enough at the time to believe that this was a bad thing, so I just decided to leave it alone, and surely enough, it went away.

Some time later, I traded an Electivire (I had more than one) for a Magmortar in the GTS in Diamond, and the Magmortar I received had Pokerus already attached to it. Now knowing what it does, I used it to infect all the Pokemon that I used, though the effect went away soon after, and I didn't get to infect anything else.

Later on, in Pokemon Black, I don't know how this guy got it, but he was willing to trade me an infected Basculin so I could infect my Pokemon with the virus. Utilizing that, I ended up infecting over 60 Pokemon in my Black file with Pokerus, and they're all still infected. Some of them still have the virus in the PC, so if I want, I could always trade one of those over to Black 2 and infect my team over there. XD

[Raven]

Yeah, I think if you keep a Pokemon stored in the PC, the Pokerus sort of 'freezes' until the Pokemon is once again in your party. So right now I have two Pokemon stored in my box (a Psyduck and a Golduck, my old HM slaves) that still have the virus, even though the rest of my main team have now recovered.

[Kon]

I think I've got Pokérus on two of my games and I have a handful of non Red Gyarados shinies, but that's it. I wish I had more shinies of Pokémon I actually liked. ;-;

And yeah, Pokérus goes away in 1-2 days, so storing the infected in the PC essentially pauses time for them.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Kon

[viyut]

After around 3000h of gameplay i got pokerus three times, the irony is that i never got it on the game i played the longest (emerald,700h).

Shinies are sort of common for me, i find at least one every year.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Viyut

[Diortem]

Ah, Pokerus. I honestly wonder sometimes about that "3 times less likely to be received than a shiny" thing. Even so, I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I honestly think I should start trading away Pokes that have it just so more can have Pokerus. It's just SO AWESOME.