Loot and drops
Items no longer drop loose on the ground: everything arrives sealed inside chests. This is the player summary of how it works.
The chest drop
Every kill has a chance to drop a chest, about 0.44% per kill on a level 50 map.
| Quantity | Value |
|---|---|
| Base chance per kill | 0.44% (~1 chest every ~227 kills, on a level 50 map) |
| Region strength | stronger maps drop more chests and better ones |
| Monster strength | within a map, the weaker monster drops fewer |
Map strength rules the chest
Hunting deep pays off. The map you are on multiplies the chance of a chest dropping, and at the same time pushes its rarity up:
| Map level | 1 chest every | Legendary chance |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | ~227 kills | 0.56% |
| 25 | ~227 kills | 1.1% |
| 50 | ~227 kills | 2.4% |
| 75 | ~208 kills | 3.9% |
| 100 | ~185 kills | 6.2% |
| above 155 | ~120 kills | 12% |
Frequency climbs from the first map to the last, and quality climbs alongside it: from 100 to the bottom of the map the kills per chest fall from 185 to 120. A Legendary is rare early on and becomes part of the routine deep in the map. From level 3 to 65 the frequency does not change at all: down there only quality climbs.
Inside the same map there is still a difference per monster: the weaker ones in the group drop chests less often (down to ×0.6) and the stronger ones more often (up to ×1.4). In many maps the group is even and this barely changes anything.
Hunting below your level cuts the chest
On top of map strength, the gap between your level and the map's counts. The further below your level you hunt, the fewer chests drop:
| how far below you hunt | how much of the chest you keep |
|---|---|
| at your level (or above) | all of it |
| 5 levels below | 75% |
| 10 levels below | 57% |
| 15 levels below | 43% |
| 20 levels below | 32% |
| 25 levels below | 24% |
| 29 levels or more | 20% (the minimum) |
Hunting at your level or above is never penalised.
The chest's type is the element of the monster that dropped it (fire mon becomes a fire chest), which decides the type-themed items inside. Dual-type species have a 30% chance of theming the chest by their secondary type: hunting Ralts, for example, can yield a fairy chest.
Only evolution stones that some evolution actually consumes can drop: an unused stone never takes the chest's jackpot slot.
Each rarity has its own queue of 5 slots, so a flood of Commons can never push a Legendary out. A chest that drops while that rarity's queue is full is lost. When that happens, the drop line on the battle screen warns you in red.
Chest rarity
Four rarities. As a chest climbs in rarity, batches get bigger and the good prizes get more likely:
| Rarity | On a level 3 map | On a level 50 map | On a level 100 map | Count mult |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | ~82% | ~69% | ~56% | 1 |
| Rare | ~15% | ~22% | ~26% | 1.5 |
| Epic | ~2.6% | ~6.6% | ~12% | 2 |
| Legendary | ~0.56% | ~2.4% | ~6.2% | 3 |
The count multiplier is what fattens the batches: balls and potions come in bigger packs from better chests (tables below).
What comes out of each chest
Every chest yields one prize: on open, the game rolls which table line came out. The prize can be a single item (a stone, a TM) or a batch (balls and potions come in packs). Each line's chance depends on the chest's rarity: a Common chest almost always turns into balls, potions or candy; a Legendary competes between the jackpots. TM discs never come from a Common chest: they start at Rare.
| Prize | Common | Rare | Epic | Legendary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poké Balls (batch) | 24.5% | 20.9% | 17.3% | 0% |
| Potions (batch) | 10% | 8.4% | 4.9% | 0% |
| Exp Candy | 51% | 23.6% | 10.2% | 2.3% |
| Gem (damage buff) | 6% | 19% | 13.2% | 6.5% |
| Dust (Box currency) | 8.5% | 5.8% | 5.6% | 6.2% |
| TM disc (by type) | 0% | 8% | 5% | 8% |
| Evolution stone (by type) | 0% | 8% | 11% | 12% |
| Held item (passive) | 0% | 3% | 4% | 17.7% |
| Fossil | 0% | 1.2% | 2.2% | 3% |
| Arena Ticket (+1 PvP attack) | 0% | 0.8% | 1.8% | 3% |
| Vitamin (+EVs) | 0% | 0% | 13% | 13% |
| Seal (move socket) | 0% | 0% | 4% | 14.3% |
| Rare Candy (10% of a level) | 0% | 0% | 3% | 5.5% |
| Fusion Core (Lab) | 0% | 1.3% | 4% | 5.4% |
| Mega Stone Fragment | 0% | 0% | 0.8% | 2.3% |
| Essence of Life (breeding) | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0.8% |
Prize details:
- Exp candy: Common = 1 small; Rare = 60% (1–2 small) / 40% (1 medium); Epic = 1 medium; Legendary = 1 large.
- Revives no longer come from chests: they come from the daily gift, tasks and the shop.
- Dust: 10 at Common, 20 at Rare, 40 at Epic, 90 at Legendary.
- Potions: Common = 2 Potions; Rare = 3 Super Potions; Epic = 4 Hyper Potions. The Legendary chest has no potions and no balls.
- Held: on Legendary it is always a named one (Choice Band, Leftovers, Lucky Egg, Eviolite and friends); on Rare and Epic it is the chest's type booster.
- Arena Ticket: grants +1 attack in the PvP Arena today (up to 3 a day). Chests are its only source.
- If the rolled line has no possible item for that chest (a stone for an element with no stone, for example), exp candy comes out instead. A chest never opens empty.
Balls sealed in the chest
When the ball line is rolled, balls come out in a batch, and both the batch size and the ball type climb with rarity:
| Rarity | Batch | Ball |
|---|---|---|
| Common | 10 | Poké Ball |
| Rare | 15 | Great Ball |
| Epic | 20 | 40% Ultra Ball, 60% Great Ball |
Rare-ball details:
- The Master Ball is the rarest drop in the game, and it does not drop from hunting: the Legendary chest has no balls. The chest that gives one is the Campeão (1%), the prize for finishing the Arena season or the Cup of the Week in 1st. There is no guaranteed source: in the Battle Pass, the Ball Chest (free and Gold tracks) can give one, but only in 1 of every 1,000 openings. It can also come from the gold drawer of the Sortuda.
- The Astral Ball is an extra bonus from Arena and Campeão chests: when the ball line comes out, 1 Astral can come along, without taking anything's place. It is the raid item.
Tiers that exist but don't drop from the wild
Some individual rarity tiers (not chest tiers) never appear from hunting:
- Divine: the top of the stat axis; weight 0 in the wild, only from the Lab fusion.
- Master Ball: as above, only from Campeão chests, the Battle Pass Ball Chest, the Sortuda and the Founders and Genesis packs.
The full individual-rarity scale is in Shiny.