It's been a couple weeks since our last free chat, so I'm trying to remember what's changed among my crew since then...
Caught: A venusaur! (This guy was cranky as shit & I used up my ultraballs to catch him but he's in my pokedex. Pretty crappy IVs -- seems to be a running problem with non-hatched starters -- but I got him!)
Evolved: A nidoqueen and a wigglytuff! (So excited about the wigglytuff, you don't even understand!)
In other news, I've finally begun powering up the mon I decided I'd be keeping. I decided that waiting until level 30 was kind of silly. Even if I find mon with better IVs, how do I know I'll get the ideal moveset when I evolve them? *side eyes her gyarados with fucking twister* I have a 88.9% vaporeon with the perfect attacking moveset (water gun/hydro pump). Why not power her up? I also decided to power up my 97.8% vileplume and 86.7% nidoqueen. Their movesets aren't ideal like my vaporeon's, but they're decent. I've been using my vileplume as a defender and surprisingly, my nidoqueen's charge attack (Earthquake) does decent enough damage to dragonites twice as strong as her that I can finish them off with a vaporeon.
(Since I'm used to attacking with vaporeons, it's taking me a while to get used to the attacking rhythm of my nidoqueen, but I'm definitely getting better at the attack-dodge-attack attack-dodge beat.)
At the moment, I've set my powering up limits to 85% IVs with at least a decent moveset. It doesn't have to be perfect but it can't be freaking garbage like bite/twister. (I basically use that gyarados as cannon fodder.) I'm wondering if I'm being too stringent given my playing habits. I have two 80% exeggcutors, one with the perfect attacking moveset (zen headbutt/solar beam) and the other with a decent defensive moveset (confusion/seed bomb). I have an exeggcute to evolve -- bad IVs but high enough CP that I can use it in gyms right away -- but in terms of the long game, I'm wondering if I should invest in these other exeggcutors. Even if I get an exeggcute with better IVs down the road, there's never a guarantee that I'll get a good moveset while I know I have these that do.
Hee! Yes, I managed to catch a Venusaur in New York City; it just turned out to be 100 CP, so I ground him into candy. (I evolved one; that's one's in the 82%+ range.) Surprising amount of Bulbasaurs in NYC, actually -- I have 113 candy now, so the next GOOD Bulby will be on its slow way to evolution...
In happy news, a wild jolteon was waiting for me in my kitchen one morning this week! It came along quietly with just one razz berry and one ultraball. I also caught my first hitmonlee and second hitmonchan (poor IVs, but they're pretty rare here).
In less happy news, a fellow trainer frustrated me by what I felt was essentially swiping a gym spot out from under me. (Is that a totally okay thing to do, and I'm just being ridiculously overly sensitive? That's possible! I don't know the etiquette.) After errands this Saturday morning, I stopped by an out-of-the-way 7th-level gym at an office park. I spent half an hour training it up to open an 8th spot (lots of potions). About halfway through, a minivan pulled up in the mostly empty parking lot; I didn't think anything of it. As soon as I finally leveled up the gym, though, someone popped in a rapidash. As my jaw dropped at the sight of the rapidash in "my" slot... the minivan drove away. ~sigh~
So while gym sniping is totally possible by the mechanics of the game, it's pretty rude, yeah. I think what makes your situation more terrible is that it was a fellow team member. Where I live, I pretty much always expect Team Instinct to snipe from Valor or Mystic. (It's kind of what they're known for here.)
I think sniping conquered gyms is usually not a big deal. I don't set out to do it, but if I see a gym go grey and I could place something, why not? After all, it's usually not *that* much more work to conquer one more pokemon. And I only do it if I want the stardust reward immediately, or if I think it's funny (mainly if it's being conquered from my team). I don't have time or inclination to sit around all day re-placing a pokemon as soon as an attacker defeats the gym.
But sniping a gym that someone else has levelled *up* feels really nasty. You know that's a LOT of work. And they're supposed to be on the same side as you. I wouldn't always notice -- if I just walk up and there's an empty slot already there, it might just be bad luck I assumed it was free but someone had just made it. But if I saw it just appeared, I'd known someone else had worked for it. Or if I saw someone working and they looked to be my team, I'd let them have the space they'd made. It'd be nicer if that were enforced mechanically -- if you level the gym up, you get first dibs on the spot for N minutes. But I guess it doesn't come up often enough to be a bit priority.
In brightknightie's case, it strikes me a particularly mean because the person in minivan saw that it was being levelled up and then specifically drove over to camp out and wait for that slot to open. And then drove away when they snagged it. Yikes!
Yes! Thanks. It was definitely the "laying in wait" aspect that felt unkind. In a crowd or at a busy location, you can't always tell what's happening, or what people are trying to accomplish.
Thanks. Yes, a system-enforced default minute or two would be nice!
:-) Can multiple people level up a gym, the way multiple people can battle a gym? If so, ideally, it would have been cool if the minivan person had disembarked, walked up and said, "Hey! Playing Pokemon Go Team Valor? Me, too? Let's level up this gym together and make two places!" :-)
I know that you can't always tell whether a gym slot has just now opened up, or whether someone opened one on purpose to help stock up the gym to hold on to it longer. I think that it's the perceived "laying in wait" that... lacked team spirit? :-)
Aw, Jolteons are my favorite eevielutions! I have a small batallion of them.
(Is that a totally okay thing to do, and I'm just being ridiculously overly sensitive?
No, you're not overly sensitive. With high-level gyms, the resources required to level up and open a slot are significant, and so is your interest.
That said, for the same reason, I don't think it's a particular problem with low-level gyms (say, Level 1-3 at a public transit station); I have had those swiped and swiped them myself many times.
I feel like sniping a gym from an opposing team is fair game in *battle*, it's pretty shitty to do that to your own team with training levels! (My other sop to my conscience when I snipe gyms is to land something with low CP in the slot, so that it's easy for my team to level up a spot, and relatively easy for an opposing team to take it back. (My context is that all the gyms near me change hands multiple times an hour, and I've lost the gym in the time between battling-to-zero and getting the menu to post a #mon multiple times, so - in my context this seems ok *for battle*)
I've gotten some sudden weirdness lately around this that seems like it might (maybe?) be interference from certain power lines, and also some major gps glitchiness when my phone gets quite warm.
Does it happen everywhere for you? That's frustrating...
This week I decided that a) I felt good enough about the game and their development of it that I was willing to spend some money on coins, and b) that I was going to, this once, absolutely and definitely clear out my egg inventory so that I would no longer periodically get surprised with a lowbie mon out of a 5k egg. I'm almost level 25, and I felt like this was a good point from where I wouldn't be quite as *fists of rage* about finally hatching an older egg many levels later.
So, I spent some coins, and bought enough incubators to pop each of my 5k eggs into one. (On reflection, later, I realized I had enough coins from gyms saved up that I could probably have done this without the $$ in two batches, starting the incubation on the remainder before hitting a pokestop, but oh well.)
I also engaged in some very anecdotal research about whether egg origin has anything to do with what hatches. My conclusion: maybe? nothing hatched from my not-local egg pick up that I haven't encountered in the wild near my home, but the wild populations in each are fairly distinct.
I'm also 0/4 or 0/5 getting a 10k egg on the 10th pokestop spin when I have a spot open. I continue to watch with envy the threads of those on reddit who believe otherwise.
We also had a food festival here that brought a bunch of new trainers through amongst the hordes, so I was gently laughing at the constant flipping of the gym in that park, until it was the end of the day, and I was left with a level two gym, my team, both spots occupied with 2400+cp snorlaxes. Really, people?
Thankfully one of the locals swung by and flipped it an hour or two later, so it's accessible to our relatively lowbie population again.
I think I've mostly been evolving for XP, other than my first gyarados this week. Nothing else exciting evolved or captured on that front, but I've finally got a solid exeggcute lined up ready to go, with a handful more candy.
Yeah, the receipt of an egg on a 10th pokestop spin has been debunked but you'll never stop the confirmation bias on Reddit. So many people still think the eeveelution naming trick works multiple times, even though it's been said multiple times that it's not guaranteed to work beyond the first time.
I'm level 11 now. Since I commented here last, I had my first successful gym battle, then later on helped take down a gym and very briefly occupied it. I'm pretty proud of that, particularly since I only have three pokemons over 500CP: a Starmie (516), a Golbat (608), and a Golduck (609), and neither the Golduck nor the Starmie are what Candela would describe as great in battle. All my other pokemon are lower than 400CP.
A supermarket near me seems to be spawning Ninetails, but I haven't caught one yet -- I keep seeing what I think is their silhouette. They are giving great Evees, though. I haven't caught enough for an evolution yet, but I'm working on it.
I love to have my phone out on PokeGo while I'm shopping in supermarkets! :-) The concentration of cellular and wi-fi activity seems to make markets decent spawn areas (in total numbers; the diversity seems to be the same as the area around).
I do sometimes worry that I'm liable to do something foolish in the midst of this, though, like absentmindedly set down my phone in my cart while I pick up a grocery item, and end up with my phone vanishing...
Oh jealous! I've hatched 2 ponyta but they didn't give me quite enough candy to get a rapidash. I'm hoping to use the buddy feature to finally be able to knock out that pokedex entry.
Yeah, I'd hatched one aaaaages ago (one of my first 5 km eggs) and then caught exactly one in the wild. So the two more hatches gave me juuuuuuuuust barely enough.
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Caught: A venusaur! (This guy was cranky as shit & I used up my ultraballs to catch him but he's in my pokedex. Pretty crappy IVs -- seems to be a running problem with non-hatched starters -- but I got him!)
Evolved: A nidoqueen and a wigglytuff! (So excited about the wigglytuff, you don't even understand!)
In other news, I've finally begun powering up the mon I decided I'd be keeping. I decided that waiting until level 30 was kind of silly. Even if I find mon with better IVs, how do I know I'll get the ideal moveset when I evolve them? *side eyes her gyarados with fucking twister* I have a 88.9% vaporeon with the perfect attacking moveset (water gun/hydro pump). Why not power her up? I also decided to power up my 97.8% vileplume and 86.7% nidoqueen. Their movesets aren't ideal like my vaporeon's, but they're decent. I've been using my vileplume as a defender and surprisingly, my nidoqueen's charge attack (Earthquake) does decent enough damage to dragonites twice as strong as her that I can finish them off with a vaporeon.
(Since I'm used to attacking with vaporeons, it's taking me a while to get used to the attacking rhythm of my nidoqueen, but I'm definitely getting better at the attack-dodge-attack attack-dodge beat.)
At the moment, I've set my powering up limits to 85% IVs with at least a decent moveset. It doesn't have to be perfect but it can't be freaking garbage like bite/twister. (I basically use that gyarados as cannon fodder.) I'm wondering if I'm being too stringent given my playing habits. I have two 80% exeggcutors, one with the perfect attacking moveset (zen headbutt/solar beam) and the other with a decent defensive moveset (confusion/seed bomb). I have an exeggcute to evolve -- bad IVs but high enough CP that I can use it in gyms right away -- but in terms of the long game, I'm wondering if I should invest in these other exeggcutors. Even if I get an exeggcute with better IVs down the road, there's never a guarantee that I'll get a good moveset while I know I have these that do.
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Hee! Yes, I managed to catch a Venusaur in New York City; it just turned out to be 100 CP, so I ground him into candy. (I evolved one; that's one's in the 82%+ range.) Surprising amount of Bulbasaurs in NYC, actually -- I have 113 candy now, so the next GOOD Bulby will be on its slow way to evolution...
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In less happy news, a fellow trainer frustrated me by what I felt was essentially swiping a gym spot out from under me. (Is that a totally okay thing to do, and I'm just being ridiculously overly sensitive? That's possible! I don't know the etiquette.) After errands this Saturday morning, I stopped by an out-of-the-way 7th-level gym at an office park. I spent half an hour training it up to open an 8th spot (lots of potions). About halfway through, a minivan pulled up in the mostly empty parking lot; I didn't think anything of it. As soon as I finally leveled up the gym, though, someone popped in a rapidash. As my jaw dropped at the sight of the rapidash in "my" slot... the minivan drove away. ~sigh~
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I think sniping conquered gyms is usually not a big deal. I don't set out to do it, but if I see a gym go grey and I could place something, why not? After all, it's usually not *that* much more work to conquer one more pokemon. And I only do it if I want the stardust reward immediately, or if I think it's funny (mainly if it's being conquered from my team). I don't have time or inclination to sit around all day re-placing a pokemon as soon as an attacker defeats the gym.
But sniping a gym that someone else has levelled *up* feels really nasty. You know that's a LOT of work. And they're supposed to be on the same side as you. I wouldn't always notice -- if I just walk up and there's an empty slot already there, it might just be bad luck I assumed it was free but someone had just made it. But if I saw it just appeared, I'd known someone else had worked for it. Or if I saw someone working and they looked to be my team, I'd let them have the space they'd made. It'd be nicer if that were enforced mechanically -- if you level the gym up, you get first dibs on the spot for N minutes. But I guess it doesn't come up often enough to be a bit priority.
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Oh, well. :-)
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:-) Can multiple people level up a gym, the way multiple people can battle a gym? If so, ideally, it would have been cool if the minivan person had disembarked, walked up and said, "Hey! Playing Pokemon Go Team Valor? Me, too? Let's level up this gym together and make two places!" :-)
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I know that you can't always tell whether a gym slot has just now opened up, or whether someone opened one on purpose to help stock up the gym to hold on to it longer. I think that it's the perceived "laying in wait" that... lacked team spirit? :-)
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No, you're not overly sensitive. With high-level gyms, the resources required to level up and open a slot are significant, and so is your interest.
That said, for the same reason, I don't think it's a particular problem with low-level gyms (say, Level 1-3 at a public transit station); I have had those swiped and swiped them myself many times.
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Nothing much else, still mostly housebound. But am going out for a little bit today, so maybe I'll find something fun! :D
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So many cool things!
And yeah, I'm on crutches, so hatching anything is a celebration. |D;;;
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Does it happen everywhere for you? That's frustrating...
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So, I spent some coins, and bought enough incubators to pop each of my 5k eggs into one. (On reflection, later, I realized I had enough coins from gyms saved up that I could probably have done this without the $$ in two batches, starting the incubation on the remainder before hitting a pokestop, but oh well.)
I also engaged in some very anecdotal research about whether egg origin has anything to do with what hatches. My conclusion: maybe? nothing hatched from my not-local egg pick up that I haven't encountered in the wild near my home, but the wild populations in each are fairly distinct.
I'm also 0/4 or 0/5 getting a 10k egg on the 10th pokestop spin when I have a spot open. I continue to watch with envy the threads of those on reddit who believe otherwise.
We also had a food festival here that brought a bunch of new trainers through amongst the hordes, so I was gently laughing at the constant flipping of the gym in that park, until it was the end of the day, and I was left with a level two gym, my team, both spots occupied with 2400+cp snorlaxes. Really, people?
Thankfully one of the locals swung by and flipped it an hour or two later, so it's accessible to our relatively lowbie population again.
I think I've mostly been evolving for XP, other than my first gyarados this week. Nothing else exciting evolved or captured on that front, but I've finally got a solid exeggcute lined up ready to go, with a handful more candy.
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A supermarket near me seems to be spawning Ninetails, but I haven't caught one yet -- I keep seeing what I think is their silhouette. They are giving great Evees, though. I haven't caught enough for an evolution yet, but I'm working on it.
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I do sometimes worry that I'm liable to do something foolish in the midst of this, though, like absentmindedly set down my phone in my cart while I pick up a grocery item, and end up with my phone vanishing...
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Yeah, I'd hatched one aaaaages ago (one of my first 5 km eggs) and then caught exactly one in the wild. So the two more hatches gave me juuuuuuuuust barely enough.