Pokemon Go: How to get more Stardust as fast as possible

Pokemon Go has two major currencies, and one of them is Stardust. It’s a very useful resource to players, but how do you get more stardust quickly in Pokemon Go?

Stardust is useful for a handful of things, but primarily it is used for powering up Pokemon with extra CP and unlocking new move slots.

Unfortunately, that use in particular tends to guzzle Stardust by the thousands, and it’s not so easy to build up hundreds of thousands of Stardust to support your strongest Pokemon’s ever-growing addiction to it in Pokémon go.

So with all that in mind, I’m going to go over what you can do to increase the amount of Stardust you earn in Pokemon so you can try to build it up a bit faster than the usual rate. With a little luck, we might even find enough Stardust to stop that angry raid boss Mewtwo of yours from ending the planet because it’s missing the daily dose of star-catnip.

How to get more Stardust in Pokemon Go

You are most likely already familiar with the most basic method of getting more Stardust, which is to say, capturing a wild Pokemon – granting you 100 Stardust a pop.

That isn’t terrible, but over the long term it just simply doesn’t add up fast enough to fuel the Stardust requirements of numerous strong Pokemon levelling up, particularly at the same time, assuming you have the candy to do so. This just isn’t the best way to earn stardust in Pokemon Go, in other words.

So what can we do to earn MORE STARDUST?

A vial of stardust in Pokemon Go — Credit: Niantic, Inc.

Capturing Pokemon during Weather Boost

If you’re not familiar with weather boosts, each type of weather in Pokemon Go makes a few types of Pokemon stronger when encountered during that weather.

Note that weather-boosted Pokemon are highlighted by a blue circle whirling around them to make them easier to notice. Now, Capturing Pokemon during a weather boost is one obvious way to help matters, though it does help in more ways than you might have realized.

First of all, and a way that many people don’t realize – weather boosted Pokemon tend to be found at higher CP’s and with higher stat values, and thus are stronger when caught.

This doesn’t necessarily give you more Stardust to spend, but it does mean spending less Stardust on that Pokemon as you need fewer levels for it to be strong. To follow on from that, as you may well already be aware, capturing a basic unevolved Pokemon with an active weather boost will increase the natural Stardust earned from 100 to 125.

But this bonus isn’t actually +25, it’s +25% – and this matters due to our next topic.

Capturing already evolved Pokemon

A basic level Pokemon such as Caterpie will give 100 Stardust when captured, or 125 if you have an active weather boost effect on it.

But if instead of Caterpie, you caught say, a Pokemon such as Metapod, which has already evolved once, you’d instead be getting 300 Stardust base for capturing it.

Caterpie in Pokemon anime — Credit: The Pokemon Company

And what does that matter for? Well aside from being bonus Stardust, that’s also 300 modified by that 25% from earlier, giving you an +75 extra due to weather boost.

And if we instead found Butterfree rather than Metapod, we’d be talking about 500 Stardust base value. Which is then further increased by a weather boost value of +125 additional Stardust.

Now, that helps a little bit. But are there any other Pokemon to look out for to capture during Weather boosts? Yes, actually.

Pokemon with high capture reward Stardust

While unevolved Pokemon typically grant 100 Stardust, and any evolved Pokemon tend to gain +200 per evolution undergone, some Pokemon simply have higher Stardust reward values right away. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why you got 750 Stardust or more for capturing a Trubbish, this is exactly why.

I’ve compiled a list here of Pokemon who have higher than average Stardust reward values and included how much capture Stardust they grant next to them below. This might not always be complete as Niantic adds more Pokemon to the game, but it should give you a good idea of how many there are.

Paras – 500
Parasect – 700
Meowth – 500
Persian – 700
Alolan Meowth – 750
Alolan Persian – 950
Shellder – 1000
Cloyster – 1200
Staryu – 750
Starmie – 950
Delibird – 500
Shroomish – 500
Breloom – 700
Sableye – 750
Chimecho – 1000
Combee – 750
Vespiquen – 950
Audino – 2100
Trubbish – 750
Garbodor – 950
Foongus – 500
Amoonguss – 700

The Pokemon Audino, Owned by Nurse Joy in the Pokemon Anime, — Credit: The Pokemon Company

And again, try to bear in mind these are all base values of capture reward Stardust. That means all of those can get a +25% modifier if you capture them during a weather boost. Capturing Audino during that boost will mean over 2500 Stardust in a single capture as an example.

So with all of that said, if you see some of these Pokemon spawning frequently near you, make sure to capture plenty of them to top up your Stardust.

Bonus Stardust items and events

Outside of these basic ways of gathering Stardust, we have a few more ways to multiply the amount gained in a similar manner to how a weather boost does it.

First of all, we have Star pieces. These helpful little items increase Stardust gained by 50% for 30 minutes when consumed, though they’re in limited supply for free to play players, and so should only be used when you’re sure you’ll get good value from them.

The consumable item "star piece" from Pokemon Go — Credit: Niantic, Inc.

Following on from that, Pokemon Go hosts events with a constant frequency. Many events will modify the amount of Stardust gained by players in general, or for a specific Pokemon or Pokemon type, and in various other ways.

A list of previous Stardust modifying events can be found here, on the PokemonGo wiki. Even regular events such as Spotlight hours sometimes have a bonus Stardust modifier – so make sure to stay up to date with what’s coming up next on Pokemon Go.

Are there any other activities that give Stardust?

There are also plenty of other miscellaneous ways to gather lump sums of Stardust as a one-off reward.

For example, simply feeding a Pokemon defending a Gym from the same team as you a berry will grant 30 Stardust, and can be repeated 10 times, which is an excellent way to get rid of unwanted berries.

Daily bonus – First Catch

The first catch of the day gives a daily bonus of extra Stardust that shouldn’t be skipped over – even if you just log in for that one capture, it’ll help you build up a lot of reward Stardust per week for low effort.

Hatching Eggs

Hatching Eggs will also give you a one-off Stardust boost, and while it’s pseudo-random, the amount awarded is randomly picked from within a range depending on the tier of the egg that was hatched.

2km eggs give 400 to 800 Stardust
5km eggs give 800 to 1600 Stardust
7km eggs give 800 to 1600 Stardust
10km eggs give 1600-3200 Stardust
and finally, 12km eggs give 3200-6400 Stardust

A selection of Pokemon Eggs shown in a promotional image from Niantic — Credit: Niantic, Inc.

Using the Adventure Sync feature

While on the topic of walking for stardust, the total distance walked in a week is also tracked for rewards at the end of each weekly game cycle – though it is difficult to find precise Stardust values on this on sources like the Wiki.

Regardless, there are 3 standard tiers of adventure sync rewards;

5km walked a week
25km walked a week
50km walked a week

While these distances do reward raw items such as Pokeballs and berries, they do also give a lump sum of Stardust at the start of the reward as well. Additionally, Reddit user /u/Teringglaaijer informed me that an additional Stardust reward is available at 100km walked in a single week.

Winning Battles

Winning battles will also reward the player with additional Stardust, depending on who they defeat.

Raid battles will grant 1000 Stardust on a victory
Participating in the GO Battle league can award the Player with Stardust for victories
For Team Go Rocket Battles – all of which can be triggered from balloons or black pokestops.
- Rocket Grunts will award 500 Stardust
- Rocket Leaders will grant 1000 Stardust
- Beating Giovanni during his rare appearances will give a one-off 5000 Stardust
PVP trainer battles and rewards can also grant some Stardust, though usually in smaller amounts than the lump sum rewards of Team Go Rocket

Opening gifts from friends

While this one is a smaller source than many of the others present here, opening gifts from friends can provide another regular stream of Stardust, and doing so even gives you various other items as well – having a good Pokemon Go friends list can make a world of difference to the game experience.

Friendship level won’t impact the likelihood of this, so any friends you can get to exchange gifts with are useful for gaining that bit of extra Stardust in Pokemon Go.

Field research tasks can also grant you some Stardust depending what reward they end up with, but as this process is random it’s hard to rely on that. Still, doing any research you find with a Stardust reward will also help contribute to your farming efforts in Pokemon Go.

That’s about everything is to know about how to get more Stardust in Pokemon Go – Good luck Trainers, you’ll need it.

Pokemon Go: How to get more Stardust as fast as possible