As any experienced Pokemon Go player attests, there’s much more complexity and depth to the game, catching Pokemon and spinning Pokestops. While those are core mechanics, Niantic has many advanced strategies and tactics for dedicated trainers looking to take their gameplay to the next level.
Advanced catching techniques
Catching Pokemon is the backbone of Pokemon Go, so it makes sense to start by mastering advanced methods for maximizing this pivotal skill. Every Pokemon encounter has a predetermined base catch rate modified by factors like razz berries, curveballs, nice/great/excellent throws, medal counters, and more. The most crucial advanced catching technique is applying curveballs consistently on every throw. Curveballs provide a 1.7x bonus to your catch chance versus a standard Poké Ball. To throw a curveball, give the ball a lateral spin on the release so it starts curving to the side before impacting the Pokemon. With practice, you get to the point where you’re racking up that bonus multiple on virtually 100% of your throws.
Strategic powering up and evolving
The choices in powering up, evolving, and transferring pokemon go account represent an equally critical area to master advanced techniques. Every species has an associated base potential for combat and provides varying amounts of candy/dust returns if transferred—so it’s critical to manage your inventory intelligently. For any Pokemon you’re considering powering up substantially, running an IV appraisal is a must to analyze its stats. An IV checker tool will rate each creature’s hidden attack, defence, and stamina values on a percentile basis. Investing stardust into anything less than 90% IV at higher levels becomes inefficient. The goal is identifying Pokemon to be maxed out for battle/raid duty.
Pokemon evolve with low or high stats to optimize your candy spend. For example, it’s worthwhile to precede the evolution of a Pokemon like Magikarp, which starts with very high stats in the Gyarado evolution. Instead, wait to evolve a Magikarp until you find one with ideal IVs so you don’t waste dust on a sub-par final form. Check online rankings of which Pokemon start with high/low stats at the base level to manage evolution timing properly. What about transferring Pokemon? This is where paying attention to base candy payouts from each species can be hugely beneficial. Pokemon like Caterpie, Weedle, and Pidgey award comparatively more candy upon transfer, so hoarding those while transferring other types that provide fewer bonuses makes sense. Maximize your stash of rare candies with the universal power-up resource intelligent transfer decisions.
Mastering battle and raid mechanics
Pokemon Go is a combat-driven game where individual monsters battle in Raid environments. It’s critical for advanced players to intimately understand battle mechanics like damage calculations, type advantages and resistances, moveset damage outputs, energy gain rates, and more.
Every Pokemon has its unique base stats and maximum potential in combat. For example, Slaking has the highest attack but pitiful defensive stats. Cross-referencing a Pokemon’s base stats versus how they might max out in your current collection is pivotal for choosing which ones merit investing stardust from a CP perspective. Poke Battery Saver mode is an instrumental advanced technique for raids where you must re-lobby or swap out attackers partway through the battle. By enabling Battery Saver, your app will delay framerate processing when the phone is upside-down, buying valuable extra time when the struggle is still occurring.