Pokemon GO’s Sword and Shield Paths Explained

Pokemon GO is finally giving the Galar region some much-needed attention. Despite some Galarian forms being added as early as 2019 to celebrate the start of Generation 8, prominent creatures from that generation were skipped over in favor of Alola, Hisui, and even Gen 9’s Paldea long before Scorbunny, Sobble, and Grookey even had a chance to debut in the AR adventure game. After a long wait, Galar is getting its dues in the most recent season, and that gives fans some interesting Timed Research to complete.

Currently in Pokemon GO, an event called Legendary Heroes is available now until October 1 at 8 PM local time. As the title implies, it’s a grouping of tasks designed to celebrate the fact that the Warrior Pokemon Zacian can now be fought in raids, with Zamazenta coming in the Galarian Expedition event on October 4. To match these canine Legendaries, players can go through Timed Research and have two paths to follow to gain different rewards: the Sword path and the Shield path.

How Pokemon GO’s Legendary Heroes Sword Path and Shield Path Work

Due to Zamazenta and Zacian being available in raids, despite the title of the Timed Research, neither hound is available as a reward for completing the research tasks. Instead, choosing the Sword path or the Shield path changes what Pokemon players will get as their encounters through Incense and the research itself. This means that players can pick the Sword or Shield path based on what they might need for their Pokedex with ease.

Players will still earn the usual stardust, XP, and items as they make their way through the Timed Research, but there are no Galar Pokemon offered as a reward for one path over the other. As part of the Legendary Heroes event, Galarian Ponyta, Galarian Darumaka, Grookey, Koffing, Scorbunny, Skwovet, and Sobble will be found more frequently in the wild for those who missed out when the Max Out season started. What critters players can expect out of their Incense and Timed Research tasks can be found below.

Sword Path

• Seedot
• Scraggy
• Gothita
• Deino
• Swirlix
• Passimian
• Rufflet – Timed Research final task reward.

Shield Path

• Larvitar
• Lotad
• Croagunk
• Solosis
• Spritzee
• Oranguru
• Vullaby – Timed Research final task reward.

The choice of path will also influence the bonus Catch Challenge and Trade Challenge players will get. The Catch Challenge will feature Pokemon found on the appropriate list above, such as a Sword player getting Gothita, Seedot, and Scraggy as required catches, while the Trade Challenge will ask for critters from the Shield list. This was likely decided so fans would interact with other players who chose a different path from them.

However, the Trade Challenge has annoyed a lot of solo Pokemon GO players who don’t have anyone nearby they can complete this challenge with. Many of these fans are requesting that Niantic stop offering timed Trade Challenges, so no rewards get missed due to people not having any friends who like Pokemon to play with.

Should Players Complete the Legendary Heroes Timed Research?

Ultimately, it’s up to the player on whether or not they should complete the research, but unless these particular critters are needed for their Pokedex, wanting to gain credit for their Elite Collector Medal, or they want to level up faster, there’s no important reason as to why they should go out of their way to complete the Timed Research. The Timed Research is rather easy, only consisting of two parts, but there are other methods to farm necessary resources in Pokemon GO.

Even though the concept of branching Timed Research in Pokemon GO is rather interesting, the rewards might waste players’ time if they were expecting any unique encounters from their efforts. At any rate, players have until October 1 to complete the seven tasks that the entire journey requires, which can easily be finished within a day if they decide to hop in last minute.