What is Palkia's Spacial Rend Adventure Effect in Pokemon GO?

Palkia is set to have some significant changes made in the near future for Pokemon GO. Thanks to the upcoming GO Tour: Sinnoh event, Palkia's Origin Forme, the form it takes in its native realm where it is free to create, warp, and destroy space as it pleases, will be introduced. Being a much more powerful version of the Legendary we already know, its moves got some added kick as well.

What some players may want to know is what this new ability is and what impact it has on the world. With world of this year's GO Tour being one of the most intuitive for the game yet, there are bound to be a few questions players have about this particular addition to the beloved Legendary Pokemon.

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What is Spacial Rend in Pokemon GO?

Official artwork for Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)

The new Origin Formes for both Dialga and Palkia aim to redistribute their stats in order to fit them under a more definite role in a team. This remains somewhat consistent in Pokemon GO, giving the two stat boosts rather than having two distinct playstyles like Giratina.

Additionally, these new forms come with their respective signature attacks from the main series: Roar of Time and Spacial Rend. With Palkia, it finally receives Spacial Rend, but it is much more than just a strong attack.

Palkia's Spacial Rend will have the ability to increase the detection range of wild Pokemon, allowing trainers to trigger encounters from farther away. This can be incredibly helpful during events that feature higher spawn rates of rarer monsters, such as Community Days or Spotlight Hours.

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How to use Spacial Rend in Pokemon GO

Official artwork for Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)

Spacial Rend can be activated from Origin Palkia's status screen for a limited time in exchange for Palkia candies and Stardust. The minimum duration players can use it is 10 minutes, with each increment increasing by that amount if players would like to spend more resources to increase its duration.

This effect will only be limited to wild Pokemon slightly farther away from the player, with a new radar indicating the new range.

With this in mind, many players may find that the Adventure Effect in mind for Palkia is a bit underwhelming, especially compared to Dialga's, which pauses the timer on limited effects like Incenses and Star Pieces. An excellent way to balance this before the feature goes live would also be to allow players to interact with Pokestops and Gyms from this increased distance as well.

Nevertheless, Spacial Rend is still a Pokemon move at heart, meaning it can also be used in battles as a charged attack. It is a Dragon-type attack with 95 base power in trainer battles while having a base power of 160 for gyms and Raid Battles. The addition of this move will undoubtedly be a net positive for Origin Palkia, most likely resulting in it being preferred compared to the standard form.

Overall, Spacial Rend in Pokemon GO marks a rare occasion where Niantic intends to innovate some features of the now eight-year-old mobile game. Hopefully, in future updates, we can get more Adventure Effects potentially tied to other Legendary Pokemon, like Groudon temporarily causing sunny weather or Zekrom "super-charing" nearby Pokestops to drop more and rarer items.