pokestop | Weekend Free-for-All!

Despite saying I'd wait until I could evolve my growlithe into an arcanine, I did a lucky egg party because I realized I had so many evolutions stocked up. As it was, I barely fit them all in the 30-min period! I didn't take into account the time it would take to register new pokedex entries. But I'm now level 24!

New additions to my pokedex:
- Poliwrath (garbage moveset so back to the drawing board)
- Victreebel (perfect moveset! I need to take her out for a spin, but I think I have my vaporeon killer)
- Graveler
- Rapidash (useless moveset but fire unicorn is really just for show, so I'm not fussed about it)
- Cloyster (so-so moveset)
- Seadra (weird moveset)

At the moment, I'm walking my growlithe. After that, I'll be switching to drowsee. This new buddy system has been great for filling my pokedex!

In exciting news, I took my wigglytuff out for a spin at the local gym and destroyed a couple gyarados several hundred CP higher than her. She is the cutest little tank ever. I love her.

Edited 2016-09-17 16:22 (UTC)

Aw, man, I love Wigglytuffs! <3 Cutest little tank ever, indeed.

And man, I had NOT realized until late what killers the grass Pokémon are! I take down even strong Vaporeons with my Venusaur and my Victreebel (which is not even in the highest range, just got 14 Def and 14 Sta) all the time now.

Congrats on your Victreebell! Mine doesn't even have the best move set, and she's still ferociously effective against Vaporeons, so I imagine you'll do even better with yours.

I hit the item limit for the first time! Pretty exciting, if you're a derp like me. Also, been seeing a lot more caterpie on the radar, maybe because of the nest changes? IDK, it's a nice change from zubat.

I found the servers were SUPER SLOW this morning (something like 12-13 hours before this post), bad enough I had to reset the game a couple of times because it stopped registering things. Not sure if it was the servers or my local network - anyone got any anecdata?

In more personal news, I'm out of my cast and into a walking boot, so FINGERS CROSSED I'll be able to play more and more as I build my leg muscles back up. :3

YAY for getting your cast off and becoming more mobile! \o/

:D Thanks! I was able to go get the stop down the street and not collapse in an untidy heap, so hopefully will be able to do that more than once a day from now on, depending on weather. >3 >3 >3

Also hatch ALL the eggs! *hyperbole and a half.gif*

Congratulations on getting your cast off!

:D Thanks! It's pretty exciting!

I have an iPhone 6 and I've noticed things have been glitchy since I updated to IOS 10. Had to restart several times.

I've been noticing more glitchiness that requires restarts since the PokeGo app update. I'm wondering if it's the update or my connections being bad lately.

Yeah -- my app quit on me about 5 times yesterday. :/

I wonder if that's the reason for this morning's update? Fixing what they broke, maybe?

Huh, that could be it. I should do it before setting out to try the Lure Trick (lierdumoa and I are going to some redwood trails to try lures to catch rare mon).

Given a definition of a nest as where pokémon of a certain species reliably, frequently spawn in multiples (that is, seeing 2 or even more of the same species on your screen at the same time), I've never yet encountered a nest. I've seen people encounter nests on YouTube, but I've never been at one, myself.

(Not counting pidgies, ratattas, and spearows. Because. Obviously. Infestations!)

I've heard that while nests formally migrate, frequent spawn areas (where pokemon of a certain species reliably but not too frequently spawn one at a time) don't. However, a nearby frequent spawn area in a nearby park has switched from bellsprouts to tentacools. I'd always before been able to pick up 2-3 bellsprouts on a walk there; now, no bellsprouts at all, but 3 tentacools.

Hmmmmm.

I'm not a huge fan of Tentacools, so, meh -- Bellsprouts and least grow into Victreebels, which are amazeballs in water areas against all the Vaporeons.

I'm in a tiny rural town so I get to keep a pretty close eye on the frequent spawn areas, of which there are three (along with one gym and one Pokestop). They definitely switch around - we used to have a frequent Eevee spot which switched to Staryu, and a Clefairy spot that switched to Ponyta.

I finally got a chance to evolve my Jigglypuff into a Wigglytuff this morning. Also evolved a Dratini into a Dragonair thanks to a hatched egg. Now I'll probably be walking with my Graveler so I can get a Golem, though this will take considerably longer than the Jigglypuff.

Also saw Geese flying south this morning when I was doing my walk along the river. ^^ I love seeing the signs of fall, especially ones I normally don't see.

My big news for the last 2 weeks (missed last week here due to computer problems):
- I was afraid the journey from Level 28 to 29 would seem eternal, but I'm already 2/3 of the way there. Not bad. Huh. I think I've been focusing on walking (when health permits) and on having fun, and it seems that makes the 300K goalpost seem less like a painful, grim, slow slog. So yay for that, anyway.
- I hatched a Lapras! Lapras Lapras Lapras! His or her name (hasn't informed me of its gender yet) is Lonesome. It was lurrrve at first sight. And it's a good little fighter. It may be my 2nd walking buddy, once I'm done with my Bulbasaur, because I can't imagine how I'd ever power it up otherwise.
- Also hatched a Porygon, another first. Adorable! Its name is K-9.
- I caught a Ninetales late-late last night! First one I'd ever even seen; I didn't even recognize its silhouette on the Sightings screen so all I knew was that I was hunting something new to me. Crappy IV, but who cares. Ninetales! A horse-fox! It's ridiculously pretty.
- I did a looong, slow slog IV check on every single Pokemon I'd collected, and did a lot of culling, some of it really painful. I had wasted a huge and tragic amount of Stardust before I found out about IVs. Some beloved 3rd levels got transferred. Ouch. But I think it'll be worth it as I start accumulating really good ones in their place.
- The first of those was a new-and-improved PomonaSprout, my Victreebell, and she is FIERCE. I took her out to train up a gym and she easily took out a Clefairy not much lower than she and an evenly matched Vaporeon and had HP left over. Several times. I love her. <3
- I found out that I can engage my neighborhood gym from my living room. HAH. Got lots of practice for a week or so, occupying it with (eventually) two other Mystic mons and training it up. Aaaand then I woke up one morning and found it back in the hands of Instinct and at Level 8 (though with only 3 mons in residence, initially). Not so coincidentally, the teenage boys across the street got back from vacation the evening before. They must have stayed up half the night taking the gym back and training it up. Apparently they're possessive. *g*
- Fortunately it turned out that Phluphphy, my Arcanine, was worth keeping, and he's fully powered up and my highest CP mon at 2448. He's great for gym defense and not bad at all on the attack. And TheIceQueen, my 2nd ever Vaporeon is a devastating attacker; same goes for Twitbottom, my Gyrados (named in his fish state and the name tickles me so I kept it).
- I'm walking Fritillaria, my perfect-IV Bulbasaur, and sloooowly accumulating candies. I'm at 102 and waffling about whether to do a staged evolution or save up enough to do it all at once. And then I'll need even more to power her up. Hmmmmmm.
- Yesterday afternoon there were Ponytas everywhere in Eureka, California, especially around Costco where I saw and caught four over the course of an hour and another one later that night when I passed by on my way home. And three or four in other parts of town (all commercial and/or maritime, for what it's worth). Used to be I'd be lucky to see even one any any given trip to town. Riches! Pretties! My inner 12-year-old is giddy. :-D
- My favorite aspect of the game continues to be walking all over town chatting with other players. After it started to get dark last night, I walked some of the less populated areas with a young woman and had a lovely time. We never even exchanged names, not even teams or levels or anything, just enjoyed each other's company and chatted happily about the game.

Also: Although I got the Buddy update earlier this week when everyone else did, I just got another Pokemon Go app update when I started up my phone this morning. Anybody know what that's about?

Edited 2016-09-17 19:21 (UTC)

Twitbottom? That's *priceless*.

And yeah! I've been singing Victreebel's praises all over this post, but FIERCE is right.

A porygon named K-9. Priceless! :-)

My one porygon is also egg-hatched. I haven't seen a wild one yet.

The combination of recently not bothering to catch things I already have decent versions of and a lot of local pokestops on the journey to and from work means I have 320 Great Balls and 65 Ultra Balls in my inventory (I've been tossing the normal balls out as soon as I get them). I think I might need to go catch some pokemon soon, it's getting very silly up in here.

Have they stoppped giving out as many revives? I used to get oodles of them and now I only get a few. It's screwing my gym battling up but good.

Thanks for saying it -- they have, and fuck them. :( I used to take over gyms easily; now I have to employ all kinds of tricks (evolve or find decent but not great Pokémon to take out the first two levels at least, before sending in my heavier and heavier hitters, using the Power-Up trick to revive them BECAUSE I HAVE RUN OUT OF REVIVES NO THANKS TO NIANTIC).

That's an asshole move. Why are they trying to make it harder? Because you can get coins that way?

(Uh, what is the power-up trick? That sounds useful and I don't know it!)

The higher level you are, the less revives you get. It's to balance the game & give lower level players a chance at the gyms (bc they get a ton of revives & potions in comparison) although it's not really working out that way.

Sigh. Thanks for confirming what I had suspected. Grr.

It could also have something to do with the (rumored?) upcoming Pokemon Center Pokestops. In the core games (and the anime), a Pokemon Center was a place you could stop and heal all of your in-party Pokemon at once, for free. I imagine that any Pokemon Center equivalent set up for Go would be similar.

That would be wonderful! It's so, so tedious...partially the game design, too:

If I could heal my mon WITHIN the actual mon screen, and then choose the potion, it'd be easier.

The power-up trick is not really a trick; it's completely legit because oy, it costs you:

If your mon is fainted, two things revive it: the Revive potion, and a Power-Up. After both, you can go on to heal them fully with other potions.

I caught a Sandshrew, Bellsprout and Shellder today from the bus. All are 'mon I need for the candy, but the Shellder was significantly stronger than the one I already had, so bonus!

Solo takedown of a level 9 Mystic gym. I have no more revives left but worth it.

VALOOOOOOOOOR

Hot DAMN, you rock! \o/

Thank you :D! Most of my pokemon above 1000CP are still unconscious, but hey, it was worth the experience XD

Oh, wow. o_o How did you even manage that? Prepared in advance? (I'm not sure if I've ever even seen a gym higher than level 7...)

:D I am pretty happy with finally getting to do that! I live in a coastal town, not exactly a big city, so when gyms hit level 6 or so they tend to stay in that team's hands until you get something like a group all in the same team visiting (my neighborhood Valor lvl8 gym got taken by Instinct the night of a theater performance, hah, and one gym nearby always gets taken over by Mystic when there's a football game on...)

I just had a lot of revives -- over 50 -- and a ton of potions. Looking back on it now, I think I could have played the whole thing a lot better; if I'd tried harder to dodge Solar Beam, for instance, I'd have gotten through lvl 8 to 6 faster, ahah. I can see the gym from home, so I did have time to prepare, in terms of planning my attacking lineup beforehand. Then it was a matter of adapting things once I started fighting since, for instance, one Exeggutor there had a really deadly moveset, another one was much less dangerous than its CP made it appear, etc.

It um took me quite some time, too, so I made sure to bring a bottle of water to stay hydrated XDDD Actually came in super handy since I was there for over an hour.

What do you find effective against Snorlax? The gym here usually has either a Vaporeon (which I can defeat with grass Pokemon) or a Snorlax in it. Every time I try to fight the Snorlax I do minor damage and then it crushes me.

The current gym meta is pretty tough. The best counters against snorlax are fighting types (hard to get high cps where I live though! Don't know about Australia) & wigglytuff. I've also had success with vaporeon. Regardless you must dodge. Especially if the defending snorlax has hyperbeam. That charge attack is too strong & if you get hit, you'll be flattened. I know dodging is difficult on some people's phones but your gym battling goes much better if you can dodge well.

You can use 2-3 Fighting Pokémon, like inkstone said; they do increased damage -- but like her the only ones I have are very low-HP.

Yesterday, taking down that Level 8 Mystic Gym they keep stacking, I gave up on refined fights and just bashed the Snorlax with Vaporeons...and, like inkstone says, I started to use Dodge, with okay results.

[Content warning: Blood/needle mention (related to donating)]

On my Monday appointment to try and donate blood, I discovered that the blood center I go to is a Frequent Spawn Area! While I didn't make iron count (boo), I did catch my first Ponyta while in the waiting area, and had a ridiculous number of Pidgey, Rattata, Weedle, etc pop up as well.

I also turned AR on for the first time in a good while to get a picture of a Weedle while at the center. I plan to post it on their Facebook page with the caption: "Important question at the blood center: Have you ever had an accidental Weedle stick?" And also drop the info about the Frequent Spawn Area. I'm hoping it'll draw more people in to donate, or interest some people who might drop by just to check out whatever shows up :3

In other news, I have been completely unable to find a Pokemon Go Plus for sale in the area. I still have a couple more local game stores to check, but Target didn't have it, Best Buy didn't have it, Kmart didn't have it, and GameStop only had it for people who had preordered it. So I'll possibly call the other couple places, and then will probably just order one online, with a high probability of just ordering one.

I looked around online yesterday for where to buy a Pokemon Go Plus, and I'm damned if I could find anything anywhere except for $100+ scalper resales, and hell no to that. The local game store said they had a reserve list prior to release and didn't get enough inventory to satisfy it, and they have no idea when or even if any more will (ever?) be made available. This whole thing is freaky. Scarcity marketing? Hostile, is what I call it. *grumble*

I'm wondering if they didn't base production in very early - as in, prior to the app's release - pre-orders. With the app itself unreleased, there was very little interest in pre-ordering, IIRC, and I'm not sure how much interest would have gone up after the release, since there wasn't a whole lot of (correct) info about the Plus floating around. It was only just before the Plus was released that I learned it would connect with the app while the phone was asleep, for example, which was the main driving force behind me wanting one in the first place. Not a lot of time to reserve one, and even less for production companies to make more.

I finally caught the Koffing that occasionally spawns at work! :D Just opened the app and it was waiting for me at the door!

This week in PokeGo was... ehhhh.

Positives:
-Hatchd a Lickitung! That's a first.
-Caught a Rhyhorn (Rare in this area)
-Earned enough pokecoins to buy an incubator, yay!

Meh:
-Didn't catch anything exciting, except the aforementioned Rhyhorn
-I'm in desperate need of Revives, but guess what the pokestops are NOT giving me...
-I went 7KM out of my way to finish hatching a 10KM egg, but all I got was a Jynx. :T I have lots of Jynxes! One of the first pokemon I ever caught was a Jynx! I don't need any more! ...On the upside, this Jynx is in the top percentage. But stilllll.

Weekend Free-for-All!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

"nests" and "frequent spawn areas"

Re: "nests" and "frequent spawn areas"

Re: "nests" and "frequent spawn areas"

no subject

no subject

no subject

porygon

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject