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[pinkybo]

I have questions, do you have answers?

Hey everyone,
I've been playing Pokemon Go for a few weeks now and, at level 18, I feel like I still have some basic questions that I should know the answers to but don't. I'm hoping some of ya'll can help.

1. How do you decide when to invest in leveling up your Pokemon? For example, my current highest Pokemon is a level 1082 Snorlax. I keep seeing people in gyms with level +2000. Are these people really high level players or are they evolving their Pokemon? I have tons of candy for Pokemon that are around level 400 CP. Should I be evo'ing these guys or saving my stardust?

2. I know looking for high CP is only part of the equation but how important is it? When comparing two of the same type Pokemon, if one is has 600 CP and the other has 800 CP but the level 600 got a better "appraisal" by the dude in the game, should I invest in leveling up the 600 CP Pokemon or is it better to keep the 800 CP, even if the guy said, "your Pokemon is not likely to make much headway in battle."

3. The way I'm playing now, to avoid my Pokemon bag getting maxed, if I have a duplicate Pokemon that's significantly lower CP than the other, I transfer it. If they are similar CP (like within 50 CP points), whoever has the better "appraisal", gets to stay around and the other gets turned into candy. Strategy good or bad?

4. Do you guys stick with the 6 Pokemon recommended by the game when first entering a gym battle, even if you know you have higher CP Pokemon in your bag?

5. Does the amount of XP you get from beating a gym correlate with the level of Pokemon beaten? If so, anyone know the rate?

6. Has anyone experienced a glitch with the sound in the game (Android user)? When playing, if a notification from another app pops up on my screen, all of a sudden, the sound ingame stops working and I have to restart to get it back.

I'll start with those questions. Thanks ahead of time for the help!
:)

 

[Neltharion83]

1. At level 18, do not power up anything, keep your dust. You will catch pokemon that are much stronger. Its quite a waste when you power something from 1000 to 1300 and then you catch a 1450 in the wild, and then you power that one up, and then you evolve two new pokemon that end up 2000+. That will happen as you progress to level 24 or 25.

One exception: If you know about IV values and know that you have a pokemon with really high IVs, maybe even 100% IVs, and it has a good moveset, you will likely be keeping it forever, so here maybe some dust can be used earlier.

2. Keep strong ones for fighting but do not power them up, and keep the ones with the highest IVs because these might later be candidates for evolving or powering up, especially keep those with 100% perfect IV values. Basically of each pokemon, keep the strongest one, and keep the ones with the best IVs, also keep at leasrt one of each kind, and send away the rest (duplicate and weaker and bad IVs).

3. rather good, except i would also keep all that are 100% IV, i would keep a strong one and the best IV one if those are not the same, and if you get semi-lucky and get a bunch of really strong ones of one kind, keeping 3 or 4 may also be an option.

4. It will auto-select the 6 highest CP ones, except that it excludes pokemon that are injured or dead. Check if you can use those resurrection shards and potions, it should select the highest CP ones. The ones you put in a different gym will also be unavailable.

No, i sometimes exchange pokemon based on strengths and weaknesses, like water is really good at beating up fire. It does more damage against fire pokemon and gets less damage from fire pokemon, so if that is the first pokemon you have to fight, even a weaker water pokemon will be the best choice for the first place in your lineup.

5. Not sure.

6. i play without sound

Now a question for you, to see if you are efficient at gaining XP: How do you use the few lucky eggs you sometimes get? Do you spend money, if yes, what do you buy?

 

[Neltharion83]

If its not supported, i guess you have to get the sourcecode of the game and program a new version. Or petition Niantic.

How would you respond without telling them that you want to use it while driving a vehicle if they ask you why you cannot simply rotate your phone or tablet by 90 degrees?

 

[pinkybo]

Thanks for the reply!

4. It will auto-select the 6 highest CP ones, except that it excludes pokemon that are injured or dead. Check if you can use those resurrection shards and potions, it should select the highest CP ones. The ones you put in a different gym will also be unavailable.

Hmmm....I'm pretty sure I've had fully healed Pokemon that were a higher CP that didn't get selected for a dungeon. Don't know if anyone else can verify this.

Now a question for you, to see if you are efficient at gaining XP: How do you use the few lucky eggs you sometimes get? Do you spend money, if yes, what do you buy?

I haven't spent any real money on the game. I've only used one lucky egg, when I was camped at a spot that had three lures. Otherwise, I've been saving them for no particular reason other than that I don't want to buy any lol.

 

[pinkybo]

Also, are people getting the +2000 Pokemons through evolution/powering up or just finding them?

 

[Neltharion83]

High level players sometimes just catch real monsters that are outright CP 2000+, or maybe lower but with good IVs so that they can be powered up to go that high, but mostly by selecting good "base material" with high IV that then gets there by evolving and powering up. So its a bit of everything. Mostly evolving and powering up.

I am not that high, level 25 now, i have two pokemon, a gyrados that i evolved from a high IV magikarp and pushed a bit, and a vaporeon that i evolved from a really good eevee that i pushed a bit. EDIT: i mean i have two cp 2000+ pokemon :)

For your lucky egg, the best way to use them is to accumulate 60 or more evolutions, then you start a lucky egg, and just fill the entire 30 minutes with 60 evolutions. You can even get a few more if you click really fast. You will mostly be doing the first evolution of pidgey, weedle, caterpie and rattata, but any other evolutions that you want to do should be added, especially if they give a new pokedex-entry. Thats 60000 xp in 30 minutes, more if you can squeeze in a few more (but then you need to be reeealy fast when selecting the next one), more if there are new pokemon added to the pokedex.

 

[Bazillions]

6. Has anyone experienced a glitch with the sound in the game (Android user)? When playing, if a notification from another app pops up on my screen, all of a sudden, the sound ingame stops working and I have to restart to get it back.
:)

I have this problem. Any time my phone makes a peep I lose all sound in the game. It could be plugging in my charger or getting a text. Any sound will kill the volume.

Just keep reporting it as an issue.

 

[VisualJae]

Also, are people getting the +2000 Pokemons through evolution/powering up or just finding them?

Combination.

Some base level Pokémon have huge multipliers associated with their evolutions, such as Eevee to Vaporeon, Exeggcute to Exeggutor, Growlithe to Arcanine. The biggest jump is Magikarp to Gyarados with a multiplier of roughly 10x (meaning a ~CP200 Magikarp will jump to a ~CP2000 Gyarados).

Meanwhile there are other Pokémon, including many single-stage Pokémon like Snorlax and Lapras, that have high CP ceilings by default. For these, the higher your player level, the higher you raise their ceilings.

I've caught one CP2300+ Lapras and one CP2200+ Snorlax lifetime. The other few Lapras and Snorlax I have in my possession are all lower. I'm powering up one of my other Snorlax, which is currently at CP1980ish. It started around CP1600.

I know looking for high CP is only part of the equation but how important is it? When comparing two of the same type Pokemon, if one is has 600 CP and the other has 800 CP but the level 600 got a better "appraisal" by the dude in the game, should I invest in leveling up the 600 CP Pokemon or is it better to keep the 800 CP, even if the guy said, "your Pokemon is not likely to make much headway in battle."

Just because a Pokémon has high CP in comparison to whatever else you're looking at at surface-value doesn't necessarily make it great. You also have to look at its moveset and its IVs as the latter will determine its final potential stats-wise. The CP1980 Snorlax I'm working on has a better moveset and IVs than my CP2200 one, which is why I'm investing in it and not the currently higher one.

I generally only do this for Pokémon that have a place in the gym meta. I tend to ditch any Pokémon under 80% IV (36/45) rating unless they're exceptionally rare. I don't want to bother wasting my resources on them.

Do you guys stick with the 6 Pokemon recommended by the game when first entering a gym battle, even if you know you have higher CP Pokemon in your bag?

Rarely. I almost always switch up the party. The game tends to try to assign Pokémon that have type advantages against the majority of the Pokémon present in the opposing gym.

Then again, I usually just muscle through with my main Dragonite since it can usually take out at least 2-3 opposing Pokémon before going down.

5. Does the amount of XP you get from beating a gym correlate with the level of Pokemon beaten? If so, anyone know the rate?:)

I don't know the calculations, but yes, it does matter. If your lower CP Pokémon can defeat higher CP Pokémon, you'll gain more experience and the points lost/gained in the gym will also be impacted.

This is why many coordinated groups tend to throw in a high CP Magikarp (say CP200) into a gym and then beat it up with <CP200 Pokémon to drastically increase the gym's prestige every round.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Where is this bonus coming from?

And, no, I did not get an Excellent. I'm not sure WHAT I did differently.

Edit: Nevermind, answered my own question! It was the 100th/200th etc. of its species.

 

[pinkybo]

Thanks for all the input.

I've played around with a few IV calculators but I'm not always sure how to interpret the findings. I like the one from the Silph Road because it does an overall summary for people like me but I've noticed that sometimes the "appraisal" given by the NPC in game doesn't always match what the IV calculator seems to be saying, as in, they sometimes disagree on how good a Pokemon is.

Also, I've read that it's possible to take a low CP Pokemon into a gym and defeat much higher CP Pokemons if you time the dodges correctly. I've tried this quite a bit, watched tutorials on Youtube, but no matter how hard I try, I still take damage. Does anyone know if this has been changed in the game? Is it no longer possible to avoid damage completely, or say, bring a level 100 CP Pidgey and take out a 2000 Dragonite?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

1. Im currently only investing in pokemon with 95%+ IV's, ive spent too much stardust on pokemon with 80-90% IVs but now caught a better IV one but with 95%+ then im unlikely to get a better one for a long time.
Anyone with 2000+ CP is either using stardust or evolving a maxed out basic pokemon, unless you are a much higher level than i am (level 26) then seeing a wild pokemon that high CP would be extremely rare. although best to ask visualjae since he might be catching them that high

2. i used to think CP was important, i dont anymore, think of the long game with this one, it may take a lot of stardust and candies to level up a low CP High IV pokemon but eventually it will be stronger. If you want high CP quickly and its a massive difference then keep both and save the high IV one until later in the game

3. if you are maxing out your bag you are holding on to too many pokemon, appraise them all and you could probably easily get rid of loads

4. only if their suggestions are silly, if the gym holds mostly water but a fire type up first the game will often recommend a grass type so in that case i would put a vaporeon first and move the grass type to 2nd

5. if your pokemon is lower CP you will get more exp, there is a bit of a sliding scale (although i could be getting mixed up with prestige)

6. i dont use sound, it was cool and nostalgic at first but quickly got annoying

 

[pinkybo]

1. Im currently only investing in pokemon with 95%+ IV's, ive spent too much stardust on pokemon with 80-90% IVs but now caught a better IV one but with 95%+ then im unlikely to get a better one for a long time.
Anyone with 2000+ CP is either using stardust or evolving a maxed out basic pokemon, unless you are a much higher level than i am (level 26) then seeing a wild pokemon that high CP would be extremely rare. although best to ask visualjae since he might be catching them that high

Thanks for the advice. When you say, a 95% IV, what program are you guys using to figure out that IV percentage? When I use, say, the Silph Road IV calculator, it's shows percentages for attack/defense, CP rating, and HP rating. I don't see an overall percentage score though.

Also, how low of a CP are you willing to level up? For example, would you level up a Bulbasaur from say 50 CP if it's IV's were perfect?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I use pokeassistant, if you combine that with what the appraisals tell you then you can usually get the IVs to within 2%. If it had perfect IVs then I would upgrade that bulbasaur, in the long term it will pay off. But before spending any stardust on it evolve it to Venusaur and make sure it gets the right moveset. If it doesn't then keep it in the hope that they eventually put in TMs (I'm sure they will eventually but they haven't announced anything about them yet)

 

[pinkybo]

Can someone explain what this means:

Possible combinations: 6, perfection:
Maximum : 77.8%
Average: 74.8%
Minimum : 71.1%
Max level: 16.5

Why are there maximum and minimum results after entering my Pokemon's values. Also, how do I tell what level my Pokemon is?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Have you powered up the Pokemon? If you have then it usually gives more possibilities as it could be.

 

[AstroTenor]

Which Eevee to Evolve???

Should I evolve an Evee with CP633, with a lukewarm appraisal, or an Eevee with CP476 and an appraisal of "your Eevee amazes me..." Top Appraisal???
Or is it all chance???

 

[xShibbyx]

try an online iv calculator to get a better grade on those. What level are you?
I would wait until i would get a 650cp + eevee with atleast 85% or higher... i mean if you want a keeper youre going to keep throwing stardust at.
Eevees are everywhere so youd get one in no time

 

[AstroTenor]

Level 28. gotta bunch already. Different types and astoundingly different strengths.

 

[xShibbyx]

Then trash both of those and evolve your astounding eevees?
I usually Transfer the low CP ones unless they are perfect, and keep the high CP ones with atleast 85% IVs
i save all my Eevees with 85%or higher IV, have a few perfect eevees that im saving for Umbreon and Espeon
Heres what my eevee list looks like:

 

[AstroTenor]

WOW!! Now THAT'S a collection!! You're my new role-model. Thanks for the well-informed answers. What does "perfect" refer to and what is % IV???