Scribbled Notes for fellow Trainers

[monanotlisa]

This may replicate some previous tips and tricks from all over the place, but to share with y'all in any case, my

Pokémon Realizations, Occasionally Belated, on PokéStops, Collecting, and Training/Battling

POKÉSTOPS

:: When approaching, you don't need to wait for a Pokéstop to turn into a disc; you can one-click the Stop and start spinning while it still looks like a square.

:: What hatches out of your eggs seems to be related to the location of the Pokéstop that gave you the egg, so it may well be worth trying to spin out eggs at Stops in places desirable to you, e.g. near water (for Magicarp or Dratini) or on a university campus (for Snorlax).

COLLECTING

:: It's worth perfecting your curveball; there may not be an official Niantic statement on capture rates, but anecdata supports that a curveball more often than not means the pokémon stays put.

:: If you'll be battling at a Pokégym or want to keep your Storage small, use the (new) Appraisal function immediately after a catch or a hatch -- just turn all Pokémon that are not the highest category ("Overall, your Pokémon looks like it can really battle with the best of them!" / "Overall, your Pokémon is a wonder! What a breathtaking Pokémon!" / "Overall, your Pokémon simply amazes me. It can accomplish anything!") into candy...except for the ones you want to use for the Lucky Egg pidgey/weedle/caterpie party to gain XP points, of course.

TRAINING AND BATTLING

:: In friendly Pokégyms, you don't need to beat as many friendly Pokémon as you can; beat the first one only and run away -- quickest way to level up the gym. You will get solid Prestige points (and will not need as many revives or healing potions).

:: In any Gym, try beating the opponent with a Pokémon of yours that has (even just slightly) less CP than the opponent mon -- muuuch more rewarding.

:: In any Gym, use the opponent mon's* weaknesses and play to your mon's strengths: Use Electric or Grass against Water types; use Water, Rock, or Ground against Fire types, and so on. (The increase or reduction is supposedly around 25%. Simply check a tool like this.)

:: In any Gym, if you're really competitive? Pokémon GO does give a 25% Same Type Attack Bonus aka STAB; this means if your Golduck (water) has, say, Water Gun as a Water attack, it will yield 1 x 25 of Damage compared to a Golduck with Confusion as a Psychic attack.

* The plural of "Pokémon" is officially "Pokémon".



No TOS-breaking, promise. And feel free to ask questions! :)

Comments

[shanaqui]

I need to get out of this city altogether to quit hatching Drowzees, then. They are... horribly prevalent.

[monanotlisa]

Man, I've only ever caught a handful. The difference of Pokémon spawn between locations has gotten better recently, but it's still not particularly varied.



Like, this? Looks amazing (and is for the free-floating mon attracted to the lures). But it's worth remembering that the majority of eggs from the Pokéstops in central San Francisco will hatch into Zubats and Ratatas.

[inkstone]

Oh, curveballs definitely improve chances of capture. Someone looked at the code. It's written in there.

[soc_puppet]

Only if you can actually aim them properly, unfortunately :P At least 90% of my curveballs curve right off the screen, and any correction I try to do turns right into over-correction. One of these days I'll figure it out, I'm sure.

[untonuggan]

i can only accidentally throw curveballs apparently

[monanotlisa]

Well, it's not just you -- depends on your phone, too: I have an old iPhone the screen of which I cracked once; it never regained 100% sensitivity.

[tyger]

*looks at pokemon* *looks at appraisal phrases* I... am not going to get anything good for a while. OH WELL, saves me the trouble of trying to beat gyms!

What's the lucky egg bug type pokémon party, though? *is maybe a little slow, hasn't heard of it*

[untonuggan]

oh! i know this one! is for levelling!

1) use lucky egg (which is a buff, kinda like incense, doubles your XP for 30 min)
2) take a fuckton of rattata, caterpies, pidgeys, etc. which you have hoarded and evolve them while the lucky egg is running. double XP for the evolution

i was a little bit "oh god but it gets harder to catch pokemon the higher you go idk" but honestly i just hit 20 and like 15-20 was slow and hard but 20 you get ultra balls and also suddenly your pokemon are much better CP so it's overall worth it. there's just this...level gap that was awful. fortunately i had an eager 11 yo to run around catching pokemon with to help me through that period. ymmv.

[tyger]

Oh, I see~ I just hit level 9 today, so I'll just hold on to all my candies for... a while... >>;;;;

[untonuggan]

don't necessarily listen to the appraisal phrases though? like, depending on the CP of your pokemon and how buffed your local gyms tend to be.

if your gym is of an opposing faction, you get 6 pokemon to attack it with. (if you are levelling up the prestige of your own, you can only use one pokemon. it is harder.)

so say someone has an idk 1200 CP pokemon up there and it's a low prestige gym so there's just the one pokemon? and you have several 600-800 CP pokemon? your damage carries over, you can probably take that gym.

benefits of taking a gym:

it's kinda fun
while you are still in charge of a gym/gyms, click the shop and the shield in the upper right, you get free stardust and coins (resets every 20 hours, you can do it for 10 gyms at a time which omg who does that).
if you have a fuckton of potions/revives it's fun to play around and figure out the controls?

[monanotlisa]

don't necessarily listen to the appraisal phrases though? like, depending on the CP of your pokemon and how buffed your local gyms tend to be.

True, true. Your locale will determine whether you need to optimize to that level -- my extended East Bay neighborhood got plenty of Bay Area techies and University of Berkeley students, and these groups are hardcore. I've seen campus gyms stacked with 3,000+ mon, so I think I'm partially joining an arms race...and partially just hella competitive.

(Then again, I went west within the City of San Francisco, and in Cole Valley grabbing gyms was like taking candy from babies. :P)

[tyger]

Oh man, yeah, when I was in Portland and Seattle, it was something like 2K, and this was only a week or two after the game was released! Around here, though, it's not quite so bad yet. :3

[tyger]

Yeah, I still haven't broken 500! Most of my higher-CP pokémon are 1-200, bluh! And things around here are 1200ish at the moment, so I'm still not in winning range yet.

I would love to take a gym! And there are some nearby! Just. Not yet, I don't have the ability to take them, so I might as well not waste my effort trying to get there.

[recessional]

. . . Legit all my high-cp pokemon get that, tho? *amused*

[monanotlisa]

Go you, then!

I, err, optimized my captured Pokémon for a while, so there is a big chunk are near-perfect (they get the Candela perfection!phrase). But my early mon and my late mon are much more mixed (they get Candela's full range of appraisals).

[malnpudl]

:: In any Gym, try beating the opponent with a Pokémon of yours that has (even just slightly) less CP than the opponent mon -- muuuch more rewarding.

:: In any Gym, use the opponent mon's* weaknesses and play to your mon's strengths: Use Electric or Grass against Water types; use Water, Rock, or Ground against Fire types, and so on. (The increase or reduction is supposedly around 25%. Simply check a tool like this.)

Thank you so much for this post, and the above advice in particular. I just took down my local gym's two Gyrados (1700+ and 2000+) with a trio of much lower CP electric mons (Jolteon, Electabuzz, & Mageton in the 1100 to 1400 range). Worked like a charm and paid off handsomely! I was so chuffed!

[monanotlisa]

Yay! That's why I shared with y'all. :)

Sent from my iPhone

[dickgrayson]

Thank you for these!

I keep trying In friendly Pokégyms, you don't need to beat as many friendly Pokémon as you can; beat the first one only and run away -- quickest way to level up the gym. You will get solid Prestige points (and will not need as many revives or healing potions).
and it never works for me? Should I run right after I win or when the next ones shows. I kept trying both and it never seems to work...or at least does not I can tell. Not sure what is wrong.

[monanotlisa]

Huh, that's interesting -- in my (and others') experience it doesn't matter when exactly you run after the VICTORY! flashes across the screen and the opponent mon has fainted. I have taken a hit during the running, and I still got the points; sometimes I dash out just before the second defender is locked and loaded.

I will say that my phone is old, has a cracked screen that was not properly replaced by the Apple "geniuses", and suffers from T-Mobile-itis, so my timing is not good for fleeing. But I've always gotten the points and added Prestige to the gym.

[dickgrayson]

I will try again....cannot hurt! :D

[ephemera]

The way I've seen it work is that the "un" button vanishes as the other pokemon faints, and comes back as the new contender lands, so I tend to lose *some* points to their first hit, but can usually get out with just that, and then you get the "You Lose" screen, but with the Pokemon Beaten: 1 line, and kudos points get added to the gym.

What I haven't figured out with gyms is dodging. The instructions I've read - multiple sets - none of them seem to match what is happening on my screen, and I don't have anyone local who's playing to compare notes with! (Except my 8y/o godson, and he's definitely in the enthusiastic button mashing stage of things)

Tip I figured out only this week - when you hit pokestop when your bag is full, you still get the XP points, including the bonus for n different Pokestops in a row.