Sometimes your friends will be luckier than you Pokémon GO, or they will live in another part of the world, giving them access to Pokémon you wouldn't meet. To help make encountering these Pokémon potentially rarer, Niantic allowed friends to trade with each other. There are some steps you need to know about trading when doing it with other trainers.
How to chat with friends
The first thing you need to do before negotiating with another trainer is to add them to your friends list. You will need to send them your 12-digit code, or receive theirs, and become friends. After that, there is no more recharging period. You can start trading with them immediately. You must also be Trainer level 10 to start trading as well.
After that, you need to click on your avatar icon in the lower left part of the screen and visit your friends list. From there, click on the trainer you want to chat with and open their profile. On the right side of this section you should have the option to trade. Click on it and the other trainer will get a notification that you want to chat with them. They have to accept it to start trading.
You can choose a Pokémon from your list to send with them and wait for them to make their selection. Trade should be fast and be sure to consult the other trainer as to what you want in trade.
You can only interact with trainers when you are close enough to them. You will not be able to interact with trainers who are too far away.
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Stardust costs for trading
Unfortunately, you cannot trade on a whim. You must gift Stardust to trade with friends, and the values vary depending on your friendship levels. The higher the friendship level with a trainer, the less stardust you need to spend. These values vary for Unowned Pokémon, Possessed Pokémon, and Shiny Pokémon of both categories.
Pokémon without owner
- Good friend - Brilliant is 1000000, and regular is 20000
- Great Friend - Brilliant is 800 and Regular is 000
- Ultra Fiend - Shiny is 80 and Regular is 000
- Best friend - brilliant is 40 and regular is 000
Owned pokemon
- Good friend - bright is 20 and regular is 000
- Great Friend - Brilliant is 16 and regular is 000
- Ultra Friend - Bright is 1600 and Regular is 8
- Best friend - bright is 800 and regular is 4
Changing individual values
When you trade a Pokémon with another trainer, there is a good chance that its Individual Values (IV) will change. There is a random chance that these IVs will increase or decrease. If they increase, the Pokémon becomes stronger than it originally could have been, but if it decreases, it becomes weaker.
Trading Pokémon can become a gamble, and if you mess up, you could come away with a weaker Pokémon than you initially thought. You can see the range of potential stat changes for each Pokémon, giving you a decent idea of the outcome. Unfortunately, you can only trade a Pokemon once, and you can't trade them continuously to try and get perfect IVs.
