Pokémon GO’s two toughest items to find, arguably, are incense and lure modules, yet they are also two of the most important items that you can acquire in the entire game. Incense draws Pokémon to you, personally, and lure modules draw Pokémon to whatever Pokéstop you attach them to. But they are tough to get and they are very often misused. Read on for a guide on how to get and use lures and incense in Pokémon GO!
Incense draws Pokémon to you and Lures draw Pokémon to a Pokéstop that you use it on. If you see a Pokémon pop up and it has a white swirly ring around it, that means it was drawn to the lure and everyone can see it. If it has a pink ring about it, that means it was drawn to the incense and only you can see it – nobody else can see it.
Incense is arguably the toughest item to find and one of the toughest to understand, yet it is completely explained during the tutorials. The way it works is that when you use it, Pokémon come to you. If you stay still they tend to come once every five minutes or so. However, if you walk around, they will tend to show up once every one minute or 200 yards instead. One incense lasts for 30 minutes, making their use a chance to catch a ton of rare Pokémon.
Lure Modules work much differently than incense does. Tap on a Pokéstop that is within your range and you will be Able to equip it with a Lure Module by tapping on the blank white bar at the top of the screen. Pokémon that ware attracted to lures will be visible to anybody at any time, meaning they will all be able to catch them.
Both of these items can be found at Pokéstops, contrary to popular belief, but their drop rates are ASTRONOMICALLY low. It’s not known what their exact drop rates are, but in Ingress, rare items had a drop rate of around 1/6,000, which is far better than what most of the items in Pokémon GO have been so far.
The most common way to get these items is to buy them with coins, and to maximize coins you are going to want to become a gym trainer in as many gyms as possible. Go on your biggest gym hunting spree if it’s your team, or station your Pokémon at gyms that already belong to your team but aren’t maxed out on trainers yet. Load up on Pokecoins and then use the coins to buy Lures and Incense in the store. Alternatively, walk around to high cell-traffic areas or to areas where people have already dropped lures and you will have absolutely no need to purchase more of these.