How to get Shadow Shards, Purified Gems for Shadow Raids in Pokémon Go

Shadow Shards and Purified Gems are two Team Go Rocket-related items in Pokémon Go.

You will collect these to help you win Shadow Pokémon raids. In short, Shadow Shards drop on encounters with Go Rocket encounters, and once you have enough, you can use them to make Purified Gems, which are used to counter Shadow Pokémon in raids when they reach an “enraged” status.

Here’s how to get Shadow Shards in Pokémon Go, turn them into Purified Gems, and use them in Shadow Raids.

How to get Shadow Shards in Pokémon Go

Shadow Shards are rewards from defeating Team Go Rocket members in Pokémon Go.

You will earn the following number of Shadow Shards by defeating the following:

• Go Rocket Grunts: 1 Shadow Shard per encounter
• Leaders: 3 Shadow Shards per encounter
• Giovanni: 4 Shadow Shards per encounter
• Shadow Raids: Up to 5 per encounter

The above drops won’t replace any other rewards from Team Go Rocket encounters — such as Mysterious Components — and you will get a recap of how many Shadow Shards you have once the battle ends.

When you have gathered enough Shadow Shards, you can then use them to make Purified Gems.

How to get Purified Gems in Pokémon Go

Purified Gems are formed by collecting enough Shadow Shards. To make a Purified Gem, you must have four Shadow Shards. It will then automatically be used to make a Purified Gem using the Shard Refiner — in other words, there’s no need to manually convert one into the other, as the game will do that for you.

You can hold up to 10 Purified Gems at one time. From there, it’s time to use them during Shadow Pokémon Raids…

How to use Purified Gems in Shadow Raids

Purified Gems have a single purpose — to counter the “enraged” status of a Shadow Pokémon during a raid, an effect which makes them stronger and thus harder to defeat.

Once the Pokémon has become enraged (you can tell they are because they will glow purple and have the word “enraged” appear over their health bar) tap the on-screen button in the lower left to use a Purified Gem to help revert the Pokémon back to its non-enraged state.

Image: Niantic

According to Niantic, the effects of a Purified Gem will stack if multiple trainers use one, and each individual trainer can use up to five Purified Gems per battle.

How effective are Purified Gems on ‘enraged’ Shadow Raid Pokémon?

How useful are Purified Gems in Shadow Raids? On the item’s debut, community findings were few and far between, but we wanted to test not using any in a solo Shadow Raid against Croconaw (a Tier 3 raid, which, in theory, we should be able to take down alone using strong counters) to gauge their impact.

The resulting battle saw the “enraged” status kick in around halfway through the Pokémon’s health bar, which slowed down progress enough that we couldn’t finish the encounter before the timer ran out.

It’s possible with a second player (or more) these Tier 3 encounters might be possible without a Purified Gem, but at Tier 5, or going solo with any Shadow Raid, we’d say using one or more is recommended.