Haunter 100% perfect IV stats, shiny Haunter in Pokémon Go

This week's Spotlight Hour is all about the Gas Pokémon, making it the perfect time to catch a bunch of shiny Haunter in Pokémon Go.

Haunter is an exciting pick for Spotlight Hour for several reasons, with use in pretty much all aspects of Pokémon Go, both as Haunter and its evolved form, Gengar. And while shiny Gengar is pretty naff, its Mega Evolution, shiny Mega Gengar, is amusingly white as a sheet. And if you still need a perfect 4* perfect Haunter or Gengar, this is your chance to try to find one.

But wait, there's more! If there was ever a time to try to catch as many Pokémon as possible in a Spotlight Hour, it's now, thanks to this week’s double catch Stardust bonus that runs alongside the event. One might even say that this Spotlight Hour, with all its bonuses, is dead good.

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Haunter 100% perfect IV stats in Pokémon Go

This week’s Spotlight Hour is a great opportunity to catch a Haunter with perfect IV stats.

'Perfect' means two things in Pokémon Go, depending on how you plan to use a given Pokémon. First, there’s the maxed out, 100% IV version, which is the 15/15/15 you’re looking for for your 4* Pokédex, raids and Master League. Yet, because of how CP is calcuated using three stats, a perfect IV Pokémon is generally only ever the best version of itself in the Master League.

Of course, you can’t see the IV of a Pokémon without catching it first, but with a little research beforehand, you can quickly spot a perfect Haunter based on the CP alone.

If you’re at Level 30 (or above), you’ll ideally be looking for the following CPs for a perfect 15/15/15 Haunter:

The wild CP value aligns with your Trainer Level until you reach Level 30 and, due to the majority of the player base now being above this level, we’ve kept to these values for the sake of simplicity. These values will, however, be different if you’re currently below Level 30.

Is Gengar good in PVP?

Usually we kick things off looking at the fully evolved form in Go Battle League, but let's not jump the gun – right now we have the Evolution Cup running, in which Haunter is one of our Top 10 picks!

Limited metas aside, Haunter and Gengar are passable in Great League, but as always, the most evolved version eligible is always the strongest. From here on out, we're going to focus on the ghost of the Cheshire Cat, Gengar.

No matter which league you're looking at, Gengar is always swinging from the shadows, specifically: Shadow Claw, Shadow Ball and Shadow Punch second charged move.

Shadow Punch either requires an Elite TM or a literal time machine — as do most of Gengar's Charged Moves (Dark Pulse, Psychic and Sludge Wave). Of the ones that don't require an Elite TM, you're looking at Sludge Bomb and Focus Blast, with the former being a decent move with STAB, and the latter being an ok coverage nuke, but you're probably looking at Sludge Bomb if you absolutely can't stick to mono-Ghost.

From a moves perspective, triple Shadow is decent. It's a combo of spammy Fast Move pressure with Shadow Claw, and shield pressure with Shadow Punch, which is very cheap to fire off. When you've stripped the opponent's shields Shadow Ball is the nuclear option that deals massive damage. Heaven help the psychic-types who are ill-equiped to deal with Ghosts.

The bad news is that while Haunter may be the Gas Pokémon, Gengar is the original glass Pokémon, in that it is barely capable of taking hits. In Great League, Gengar is barely a top-15 pick for its typing.

And yet, come Ultra League it's a top-three pick for Ghosts, third only to Giratina Altered and an XL Trevenant, making it vastly easier to metaphorically get your hands on. In this league, it picks up wins against Cresselia, Nidoqueen, Talonflame, Walrein and even the aforementioned Trevenant, so if these Pokémon are giving you nightmares, try to pick up a good Haunter during this Spotlight Hour, or trade for one afterwards.

A perfect Ultra League Gengar is an 0/15/14, which hits CP 2500 at Level 34.5.

Gengar sings a similar song in Master League, coming in third for its type to Giratina Altered and Giratinga Origin (Trevenant comes in fourth this time). However, it falls down the overall rankings by a huge amount, thanks to the introduction of all of the Mythic and Legendary Pokémon that don't fit into the lower leagues.

That said, Master League Gengar, despite a max CP of just 3254, can still body Metagross, Togekiss, Lugia, Zacian and Giratina Origin. This is thanks in no small part to it terrifying attack stat. Unfortunately, its relatively low defence sees it lose to Dialga, Garchomp, Dragonite, Mewtwo and Gyarados.

The World of Wonders season has come to Pokémon Go, which has brought Sustainability Week, and the World of Wonders quest. Don't forget to try out Routes, Gift Exchange and Party Play while you're hunting down rare Pokémon, fighting in the Go Battle League or competing in PokéStop Showcases.

Is there a shiny Hanuter in Pokémon Go?

Shiny Hanuter in Pokémon Go was released back in November 2018, after the Gengar Special Raid Challenge.

If luck is on your side, you may find a shiny Haunter in the wild, but be aware that this is not a Community Day and shiny rates are not boosted, so the chances of catching one, let alone a perfect one, are very low. That said, each Haunter you see has the potential to be shiny, so it’s purely a numbers game — tap each and every one of them and see what you get. Good luck finding the Haunter you need!

But even if you don't catch the Haunter you need, keep hold of them and trade it with a friend! This is doubly important for Haunter, as a Haunter that has been traded will evolve into a Gengar for free. Of course, if you catch a perfect Haunter, or a Haunter that you don't want to trade, you can still evolve it by spending 100 Gastly candies.

What does shiny Haunter look like?

It genuinely pains to say this about my favourite Pokémon, but shiny Haunter is awful. It get a shiba/giraffe tongue, but otherwise looks much the same — it's just a slightly darker purple. As you can see below, shiny Gastly and shiny Gengar are much the same – Game Freak just tweaked the saturation slightly.

That said, they finally did right by Gengar when they made its Mega Evolution as white as a ghost costume on Halloween — it's certainly an excellent looking Mega shiny.

Other tips for this Spotlight Hour

In the true spirit of burying the lead with the original ghost Pokémon, the best part of Haunter Spotlight Hour is not actually trying to catch a shiny Hanuter in Pokémon Go...

• The best reason is, of course, the double catch Stardust bonus running throughout the hour. This normally gives you the chance to gather Stardust twice as fast as usual, but as Haunter is an evolved Pokémon, you get extra Stardust and a guaranteed XL Candy with each Haunter caught. Normally a first-stage evolution gives 300 Stardust instead of the base 100. If the in-game weather is windy, this adds an additional 75 Stardust (three times the usual 25), and this is stacks with both the bonus and a Star Piece to give a 1.5x multipler to all Stardust gained. This means that each Haunter caught in windy weather while using a Star Piece during this spotlight hour will be worth a staggering 1125 Stardust!
• If you're a newcomer, this Spotlight Hour is the perfect time to collect enough Gastly candy to fully evolve this Pokémon and enter all of its evolutions in the Pokédex.
• Thanks to Haunter being a ghost- and poison-type, catching a bunch during this Spotlight Hour will add progress to your ghost-type and poison-type catch bonus medals.

Spotlight Hour events only last for an hour - 6pm to 7pm (local time). Niantic always leans hard into Halloween, so you can expect to see Misdreavous take the Spotlight next week and Shuppet round out October the week after.