I will get that gyarados!

[inkstone]

Now that I'm level 21, I decided I would slow down with the speed-leveling.

1) It's not as easy to speed-level post-level 20.
2) All the items are unlocked at level 20, so I don't have that incentive anymore & that makes the process of speed-leveling boring and joyless for me.
3) I believe the eggs also stop scaling at level 20 as well.*

I do like gym battling but again, it's not something I must do or feel compelled to do.

So, instead, I'm going to concentrate on completing my pokedex as much as I can! Because, I'm gonna be honest, I have some major holes in my collection. Getting fire-type pokémon seems to be practically impossible for where I live, but I can catch water pokémon. I just need to go toward bodies of water!

So I went to a park that has a very large lake. I lucked out and it turns out there are a few PokeStops as well. As I walked up, I noticed that someone was dropping lures at a few. I looked around and saw this man ahead of me, clearly playing PokeGo. (The finger flick is unmistakable.) A couple other people were circling back and forth, not as clearly playing PokeGo but the walking back and forth is also kind of recognizable if you know where the PokeStops are.

Eventually, we all congegrated together and started chatting as we were farming magikarp, slowpokes, and psyducks. That changed when a couple teenagers asked us if we were playing PokeGo. When we replied yes, they said: There's a gyarados.

We were a little disbelieving at first but then I looked at the tracker and said, "No, there is one!" And the hunt was on! So there we are: two teenagers, a big black guy, a heavily tattooed white guy pushing a stroller with his baby girl in it, and me (a petite Asian woman) all walking down this path. This old guy who'd been walking this beautiful, big shaggy black dog looks at us and asks, "Are you all playing Pokémon Go?" When we said yes, he was like, "Wow, everyone is playing that game! It's so popular!" Meanwhile, heavily tattooed guy says, "HANG ON I HAVE TO PET THIS DOG."

Because of that helpful reddit post, I know how to use the tracker so when the gyarados silhouette vanished and the teenagers said in dismay, "It's gone," I said, "No! It's in the other direction." So I lead them on the path in the opposite direction and ran smack in the gyarados after a few minutes. (There was another path, but it led away from the lake and I figured gyarados would spawn on the path that hugs the lake.)

Alas, the gyarados that spawned for me ran away after one throw. On the other hand, it was also only 192 CP and I have a 143 CP magikarp waiting to be evolved so honestly, I would have stopped trying to catch it anyway. That is some nonsense. In good news, the guys with me all caught their gyarados. I think theirs were in the 700-900 CP range. The teenage boys were super excited and showed their phones to me so I could see their catches. It was very sweet.

Afterwards, we walked back, the teens went their separate ways, and the two guys and I returned to our post between the lured PokeStops and kept farming. A few minutes later, a father and his daughter rode by on their bicycles. The dad goes, "Are you playing Pokémon Go?" When we said yes, he asked, "Catch anything good?"

I pointed up the trail and said, "There's a gyarados further up."

The dad exclaims, "What?!" and speeds off.

Tattooed dude cracks up. "Damn, look at him go."

Meanwhile, I say, "I think...uh...he's leaving his daughter behind...?" Not gonna lie. She looked a little disgruntled. We all burst into laughter. Never underestimate the power of gyarados.

Despite not catching gyarados, it wasn't all in vain for me. I caught 25 magikarp, a slowbro, enough psyducks to get a golduck, and my very first dratini.

In conclusion: I'll definitely be going back! Not only is it a great site for water pokémon, the people were super friendly and fun! I'm going to see if I can organize a PokeParty with my friends because we all have the same problem of needing water pokémon.



* The CP of the pokémon in the eggs you hatch correlate to the level you were when you picked up those eggs. That's why it's in your best interest to hatch eggs as efficiently as you can (I realize there are accessibility issues with this) because otherwise you'll be hatching low CP pokémon when you're, like, level 17.

Comments

[tyger]

Oh man, that sounds like a super fun day! :D Yay insta-community building!

[inkstone]

It was a lot of fun!

[yhlee]

Aww, that sounds like a great PokeGo adventure! There's a park near us with a fishing pond and some Pokestops, but we haven't actually ventured by the water yet so that's on my to-do list for the next time we're there.

[inkstone]

I bet there'll be water pokémon!

[lilacsigil]

That sounds awesome! I'm still low level but I am well-represented in grass pokemon. I will have to check out where in the city are good spots for other types before I go up there for my dad's birthday!

[inkstone]

I'm just sure where to get electric pokémon and fire pokémon here. I don't even know if we can get fire pokémon here! The geography doesn't favor them.

[lurkingcat]

That sounds like a great adventure :)

I've got the same problem with lack of fire-type (and electric-type) Pokémon here. But water Pokémon are all over the place so I'm slowly but steadily working my way towards having enough candies for a MagiKarp evolution and then I will have my very own gyrados. I've seen a lot of those on gyms but none in the wild so far.

I'm definitely in it for the catch-em-all aspect of the game now. Speed levelling is *hard* above level 20.

[inkstone]

I've heard that you can find electric-type pokémon near power plants, but that seems kind of unsafe!

[lurkingcat]

That does sound like a recipe for disaster. Particularly since my mutant superpower is clumsiness :)

[dickgrayson]

That is smart...I made level 20 yesterday and still am driven to be level 40. But that is a much better focuse. :D

I did not know that about eggs. Thank you!

[inkstone]

I was inaccurate. You do get max potions unlocked at 25 and max revives unlocked at 30, but since I'm not a dedicated gym battler, that's not the same incentive as unlocking ultra balls! I do know that pokemon stop scaling their CP at level 30. I was under the impression that the eggs stopped earlier but maybe I'm wrong and that's been revised.

[storme]

We went off to our nearby pokemon-hotspot village after work today and spent 5 and a half hours there catching pokemon in the sunshine. :D Caught 4 Pokemon I didn't have before, my pokedex is now up to 118 and -- like you -- I'm more interested in filling that up than in getting into heavy gym battling or levelling up more.

I think you're right that eggs stop scaling at 20, from what I've read, but catches scale at 30 so there's a little incentive there if you do like having high-CP pokemon.

[inkstone]

I do like high CP pokémon, but I think that's a goal I'll leave for the future. :D

[monanotlisa]

Aw, I love your Gyarados story.

[inkstone]

It was a lot of fun!