How to use Evolution Items to get Steelix, Scizor, Slowking, and more in Pokémon Go Gen 2

How do you evolve Onix, Porygon, Scyther, Seadra, and other Gen 1 Pokémon into their all-new Gen 2 forms? With Evolution Items!

Updated in March with more recent information on the scarecity of evolution items, average stop amounts, and my tally to date.

In Pokémon Go Gen 1, you could evolve any Pokémon you wanted as long as you had enough Candy. For some Pokémon in Gen 2, though, Candy is no longer enough. Now, if you want to evolve Gloom into Bellosum, Sunkern into Sunflora, Poliwhirl into Politeod, Slowpoke into Slowking, Onix into Steelix, Scyther into Scizor, Seadra into Kingdra, and Porygon into Porygon 2 you need more — You need Evolution Stones. Here's how they work!

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What are Evolution Items in Pokémon Go Gen 2?

Evolution Items are objects that trigger the new evolutions — or new split evolutions — for Gen 1 Pokémon into Gen 2 Pokémon forms. There are five types of Evolution Items in Pokémon Go Gen 2:

Sun Stone: Evolves Gloom into Bellossum (and Gen 2 Sunkern into Sunflora).
King's Rock: Evolves Poliwhirl into Politoed and Slowpoke into Slowking
Metal Coat: Evolves Onix into Steelix and Scyther into Scizor
Dragon Scale: Evolves Seadra into Kingdra
Up Grade: Evolves Porygon into Porygon 2

If and when you get one, it'll show up in your Items list alongside your Poké Balls, Potions, Lucky Eggs, etc.

Can you just buy Evolution Items in the Pokémon Shop?

Sadly, no. Unlike Lucky Eggs, Insense, and Storage upgrades, you can't buy Evolution Stones in the Pokémon Shop no matter how many Poké Coins you have or are willing to spend.

So, how do you get Evolution Items in Pokémon Go Gen 2?

Evolution Items in Pokémon Go Gen 2 are given out by PokéStops, just like Revives, Ultra Balls, and Razz Berries.

Visit a PokéStop, give it a spin, and there's a tiny chance a Sun Stone, King's Rock, Metal Coat, Dragon Scale, or Up Grade, will pop out along with the usual Poké Balls and Potions.

What are the odds of getting an Evolution Item from a PokéStop?

Low. Very low. The lowest.

It's been guessed that any given PokéStop has a 20% chance of giving you a Pokémon Egg. Max Potion and Max Revive might be closer to 1%. Evolution Items seem to have a drop rate even lower than that. Something like 0.3%. Some people get them after a few hundred spins. Others, a few thousand. Yeah. The lowest. There's also five different kinds, which makes the odds of getting any specific Evolution Item even lower.

Random Number Generators — and math — are tricky things, though. At 20%, you'd think you'd get a Lucky Egg every 5 PokéStops, but as anyone who's played Pokémon Go for anything length of time knows, you might go 10 or 15 stops before getting one, then get 6 in a row.

The same has proven true with Evolution Items, only to an even greater extreme. The average seems to be one item every 300 or so spins. But again, that means out of 3000 spins you might get 10 items, but you might also go 2000 spins between getting items.

Here's my current evolution item tally:

My evolution items to date. (Spins are approximate but within 1-3 spins — I sometimes only notes it after spinning a cluster in close proximity.) Biggest drought was between February 18 and February 28, almost 1073 spins of nothing.

Sun Stone: 8:24 p.m. EST, February 16 - spin 8941
King's Rock: 10:58 p.m. EST, February 18 - spin 9066 (7-day streak)
Metal Coat: 10:39 p.m. EST, February 28 - spin 10139
King's Rock: 2:25 p.m. EST, March 1 - spin 10291
Up Grade: 3:24 p.m. EST, March 2 - spin 10382
Sun Stone: 11:41 p.m. EST, March 5 - spin 10668
Sun Stone: 11:21 p.m. EST, March 6 - spin 10721
Sun Stone: 11:27 p.m EST - March 9 - spin 10987
King's Rock: 9:48 p.m. EST, March 11 - 11069
Sun Stone: 11:24 p.m. EST, March 11 - 11149
Metal Coat: 2:29 p.m. EDT, March 12 - 11172

Once you get an Evolution Item, can you just keep on using it or does it burn out?

Evolution Items are single use only. Yeah. Tears. You need one for every evolution you want to make. So, to evolve two Onix into two Steelix, you need two Metal Coats. To evolve a Poliwhirl into Politoed and Slowpoke into Slowking, you need two King's Rocks.

Spin. Spin. Spin. Spin. Sigh. Spin.

When you finally get an Evolution Item, how do you use it?

Using an Evolution Item is the easy part.

Tap on the Poké Ball menu button at the bottom center of the game screen.
Tap on the Pokémon button at the bottom left of the menu screen.
Tap on the Pokémon you want to evolve.
Tap on the second/bottom Evolution button.
Tap on Use This Item on your Pokémon to confirm. (It'll show the specific Evolution Item you'll be consuming.)
Enjoy!

Once the evolution is done, the Evolution Item will be spent.

Help, how do you ditch all the Evolution Items clogging up your bag?

@$$#()!#%. Sigh. Fine.

Tap on the Poké Ball menu button at the bottom center of the game screen.
Tap on the Items button at the bottom right of the menu screen.
Tap on the Delete button (looks like a trash can) to the right of the Evolution Stone you want to discard.
Hit the Plus or Minus buttons to choose the number of items you want to discard.
Hit Yes to confirm.
Burn in—

Sorry. Deep breaths. Wish you could give them to me!

How do you evolve the Pokémon Go in Gen 2 who don't need Evolution Items?

Some of them you can evolve normally simply by hitting the Evolve button. That's true of Chansey and Golbat from Gen 1 and almost all of the Gen 2 Pokémon as well. Getting Eevee to evolve into Espeon and Umbreon is another matter.

Learn how to evolve Gen 2 in Pokémon Go: Candy, Items, and friendship!