How to Get a Metal Coat in Pokémon GO

When it comes to evolving, most Pokémon don’t need any particularly special treatment. Use ‘em in some fights, make ‘em strong, and eventually they’ll turn bigger and their eyes get scarier. Some Pokémon, though, need a little extra coaxing to evolve, usually in the form of a special item such as the Metal Coat. No, I don’t know why holding a lump of metal makes a Pokémon evolve, stop asking questions. Anyway, here’s how to get a Metal Coat in Pokémon GO.

Metal Coats are evolutionary items that allow Scyther to evolve into Scizor, as well as Onix into Steelix. These are two pretty cool Pokémon with some pretty good stats, so they’re worth getting your hands on, though you’ll need to get them anyway for the sake of your PokéDex. However, while Scizors and Steelixes can be found in the wild, their spawn rates are incredibly low, and even if you find them, they won’t go down without a worrying number of Ultra Balls. As such, it’s a little simpler to just evolve them, which is what you’ll need a Metal Coat for. 

How to Get a Metal Coat in Pokémon GO

All consumable items in Pokémon GO can be obtained in one definitive way: spinning PokéStops. Just walk up to any of your local stops, spin the sign a few times, and you’ll get some random junk. That’s the good news. The bad news is that evolutionary consumables have extremely low drop rates. The odds of getting a Metal Coat from a PokéStop are around 1 in 500, which means you could theoretically be spinning signs for over a year and still not get one.

Of course, that’s assuming you only spin the sign once. Through the game’s daily login bonus, you can receive more items at once from PokéStop spins before the sign is tapped for the day. If you log in seven days in a row and spin the sign to capacity each time, your odds will definitely improve (though it’ll still be a bit of a slog). 

You can also try entering the Go Battle League to compete for a mystery prize, which very well could be the Metal Coat you’re hoping for, though as far as anyone knows, the odds of evolutionary consumables being awarded in the Go Battle League aren’t any better or worse than spinning signs, so I guess it’s just a matter of how you prefer to spend your time.

If you’re lucky enough to get that Metal Coat, you can use it along with 50 Pokémon Candy to evolve a Scyther into a Scizor or an Onix into a Steelix. I just hope you didn’t want to do both, ‘cause then you’re gonna have to go fishing for a second Metal Coat.