Grind it baby

[Squirrel]

What's the best grinding session you've done so far in Go? What strategies do you use to grind as efficiently as possible?

I spent the day in town today and found a Subway in between three Pok?Stops - let's just say I made them a lot of money! Me and my friend together put down a lure module on each of the stops at once, and I activated incense with a lucky egg, and boy did it yield results. After an hour of this I went up over two trainer levels, got tons of strong and rare Pok?mon (found a Jynx and a Magmar :D), massed up a bounty of Pok?Stop items and eggs and ate more than my fill of subs. This is by far the most success I've ever had whilst playing Go and was honestly just so much fun to do; going back to village life now feels a bit mediocre though!

 

[VisualJae]

Most EXP I gained in one day was approximately 81,000. In a single sitting, however, it's usually around 40,000 and takes approximately 20 minutes.

I basically save up countless Weedles, Caterpies and Pidgeys, all of which evolve with 12 candies each. I then hoard a few Pok?mon that'll evolve and add new entries to the Pok?Dex. Evolving any Pok?mon grants 500 EXP. Adding a new Dex entry is also 500 EXP. Hatching an egg is also 500 EXP.

With a Lucky Egg, all of those EXP yields are doubled. So if I evolve 10 Pidgeys, that's 10,000 EXP right off the bat. I time the Lucky Egg so I can combine various EXP yields: mass evolving (1,000 EXP each), evolving new Dex entries (2,000 EXP combined), hatching eggs (1,000 EXP each), visiting Pok?Stops (100 EXP each), and catching nearby Pok?mon (200 EXP each without throw bonuses).

So during the Lucky Egg's duration, I did the following:
- Hatched 2 eggs: 2,000 EXP
- Visited 5 Pok?Stops: 500 EXP
- Caught 12 Pok?mon: 2,400 EXP
- Evolved 7 Weedles: 7,000 EXP
- Evolved 5 Caterpies: 5,000 EXP
- Evolved 9 Pidgeys: 9,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Zubat: 1,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Venonat: 1,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Krabby: 1,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Rattata: 1,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Jigglypuff & new Dex entry for Wigglytuff: 2,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Ponyta & new Dex entry for Rapidash: 2,000 EXP
- Evolved 1 Meowth & new Dex entry for Persian: 2,000 EXP

Total gained was actually 36,320 EXP from my previous point, so there were a few throwing bonuses during the captures, but I can't remember what they were. Speaking of which, always try for throwing bonuses. They add up.

Honestly, I should have saved the Lucky Egg for another time because I'm one Bellsprout away from evolving my Weepinbell into a Victreebel. Also should have saved more Pidgeys/Caterpies, etc. since it takes me 125,000 EXP to go from level 23 to 24...

 

[Sirindu]

Most EXP I gained in one day was approximately 81,000. In a single sitting, however, it's usually around 40,000 and takes approximately 20 minutes.

I basically save up countless Weedles, Caterpies and Pidgeys, all of which evolve with 12 candies each. I then hoard a few Pok?mon that'll evolve and add new entries to the Pok?Dex. Evolving any Pok?mon grants 500 EXP. Adding a new Dex entry is also 500 EXP. Hatching an egg is also 500 EXP.

With a Lucky Egg, all of those EXP yields are doubled. So if I evolve 10 Pidgeys, that's 10,000 EXP right off the bat. I time the Lucky Egg so I can combine various EXP yields: mass evolving (1,000 EXP each), evolving new Dex entries (2,000 EXP combined), hatching eggs (1,000 EXP each), visiting Pok?Stops (100 EXP each), and catching nearby Pok?mon (200 EXP each without throw bonuses)...

That's how to do it. I've done the same on just one occasion so far. My primary failing was not setting up between multiple PokeStops. Trying to find a good location for that and next time I will rock it.

 

[Hiidoran]

The best session I've had was a few days ago; I went from level 17 to 19 in matter of 45 minutes or so. I saved up a bunch of Weedle, Pidgey, and even some Drowzee candy (Drowzee are like caterpie to me), activated a lucky egg, evolved a bunch in a row, and hit a long stretch of back-to-back Pok?stops downtown. A few of the stops had lures on them, and I even activated an insence during the final few minutes of the lucky egg to catch as many as I could under double experience.

It was pretty lucrative. I need to do that again...

 

[TheSeattle206]

Today.

Went from 10-14 1/2
Got 1018 CP Vaperon
Took over a gym
Hatched 8 eggs

 

[Bounsweet]

I went from level 16 to halfway through level 18 in one go, I forgot exactly how much EXP it is though.

Basically, this is what I do:

1. Catch a ton of Pidgey, Weedle, and Caterpie
2. Get a ton of extra incubators, begin incubating multiple eggs of the same distance (I usually have tons of 5km eggs)
3. My mall is 1 mi long, so walking three laps around it hatches a 5km egg for me, plus it has tons of PokeStops throughout that I can get along the way
4. When my eggs are about to hatch, I find a PokeStop with a lure up (there's always at least one or two), and activate my Lucky Egg
5. With the Lucky Egg activated, all my eggs hatch for double the exp at the same time, plus being in vicinity of a lure, lots of random spawns occur
6. After the eggs hatch, I proceed to evolve all of the Pidgey, Weedle, Caterpie, and every other Pokemon I have capable of evolution

...then I proceed to rake in massive amounts of exp and stardust lol.

 

[Squirrel]

Turning on Incense and a Lucky Egg to evolve tonight's hoard of Pokémon, let's see what we get...

Starting at: Level 19; 9,380/25,000

Evolved Weedle: 1,000 exp
Evolved Kakuna: 1,000 exp
Evolved Caterpie: 1,000 exp
Evolved Metapod: 2,000 exp
Evolved Pidgey: 1,000 exp
Evolved Spearow: 1,000 exp
Evolved Drowzee: 1,000 exp
Caught Rattata (great throw!): 300 exp

Final exp: Level 19; 17,730/25,000

Not at all crazy but happy with that for a few minutes of work!

 

[FireSnow]

Most I ever did (which was really my only grinding session with all the bugs occurring and all) was a night I went out with some friends to a park that has already become the main hub for catching Pokemon and has three Pokestops all right next each other

Thankfully there were kind sould using lures that night and I spent a good hour and a half catching Pokemon, and evolving (with a Lucky Egg of course), and ballooned up from level 11 to level 14. If I had known about the evolution idea sooner, I definitely would've hoarded more, but I was still happy with that day's work.

 

[Squirrel]

Had a 37,000 exp session today by evolving countless Pokémon saved up from the last couple of days with a Lucky Egg boost active - went from 21 to a decent way into 22 and got a lot of new stuff for the Pokédex which I'm very thrilled with. 9 Pidgey and 8 Weedle evolutions went into this and I'm starting to feel quite bad for the poor helpless immobile Kakuna I'm throwing out onto the street with all of these hungry Pidgeotto I've just abandoned...