Let's talk about Lures.

[Neltharion83]

The level cap is 40.

Hitting level 40 is very, very difficult. Pokémon Go's leveling system seriously stretches out the XP needed to climb higher from around level 30 onwards.

Between levels 39 and 40, you need a whopping 5m XP - a tenth of the full amount it takes to go from zero to 40.

Actually its 15 million experience from 1 to 39, and another 5 million from 39 to 40. 20 million total. So its a ridiculous 25% of the total.

By comparison, one million experience gets you to level 26. Two million experience should get you to level 31 or 32 or something. Then it just goes crazy, 18 more million to get from 31 or 32 to 40.

 

[Dissidence]

That is completely wrong. Incense works completely different, and works best when moving.

For lure modules, it makes absolutely no difference if you move or not as long as you are in range.


Lure modules will spawn new pokemon under them, around one every 5 minutes, these are new spawns that every player in range gets. The spawns are related to the pokemon that normally spawn in the area. When the next one spawns, the last one despawns (unless you caught it or it ran away). It is most effective to have 3 or 4 pokestops with lure models in range, and a larger number of players so that only a few people need to use a lure occasionally to keep it going.

Incense attracts nearby pokemon, only you get them, noone else, they have smoke around them. These spawn a pokemon every 5 minutes or every 200 meters, so using incense while not moving gives you the absolute minimum in effectivity, on a bike at the right speed you can get a lot out of it, like one pokemon every 2 minutes.

In short:
So lures are good for hanging out at pokestops with a group, everyone gets the benefits. Incense is good for moving around alone. Noone else gets the benefits, they only work properly when you move.

Do the best of both. Go somewhere with a bunch of Poke stops that have lures on them in close proximity. Activate the incense. Walk between the poke stops and catch the interesting things that appear.

 

[Maserati777]

I haven't used any, I didn't really know how to use them and usually I can find one going somewhere.

Usually the same Pokemon that spawn anytime spawn in lures though. I don't think I've caught any new Pokemon at a lure. To be honest I don't really see a point in them as rarer Pokemon seem to spawn randomly in places without lures or pokestops. For example Clefairy have started to spawn in our complex after not spawning ever.

 

[Juno]

I haven't used any of my lures myself either but there's usually enough around to mooch off of.

I swear one of the malls around here is cursed though - every time I go, the fountain PokéStop is lured, and every time I sit there, only Rattata and Pidgey show up. It's kind of incredible how consistently garbage that area is. :')

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

I haven't used any of my lures myself either but there's usually enough around to mooch off of.

I swear one of the malls around here is cursed though - every time I go, the fountain PokéStop is lured, and every time I sit there, only Rattata and Pidgey show up. It's kind of incredible how consistently garbage that area is. :')

Lures are affected by the surroundings. Maybe that mall only has common Pokemon. Try luring somewhere else~!

 

[Inkblots]

Incense attracts nearby pokemon, only you get them, noone else, they have smoke around them. These spawn a pokemon every 5 minutes or every 200 meters, so using incense while not moving gives you the absolute minimum in effectivity, on a bike at the right speed you can get a lot out of it, like one pokemon every 2 minutes.

Has this actually been verified? Because I've tested this out by walking around in areas where pokemon never spawn naturally, and still only get 1 every five minutes. Also tested it out by walking in areas where I know that pokemon do spawn, and only caught 4 - 6 more pokemon than I did when walking through that area without incense (which, again, works out to 1 pokemon approximately every 5 minutes).

Makes me wonder how many people think they're getting more out of their incense by walking around, when really the extra pokemon are ones that spawned naturally and would have been encountered anyway.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Has this actually been verified? Because I've tested this out by walking around in areas where pokemon never spawn naturally, and still only get 1 every five minutes. Also tested it out by walking in areas where I know that pokemon do spawn, and only caught 4 - 6 more pokemon than I did when walking through that area without incense (which, again, works out to 1 pokemon approximately every 5 minutes).

Makes me wonder how many people think they're getting more out of their incense by walking around, when really the extra pokemon are ones that spawned naturally and would have been encountered anyway.

Same. I haven't tried a bike, but I have tried walking around with Incense on and it only gave me one every 5 minutes.

If this is the case, I don't understand the point of Incense really - what's stopping you from just using all of them at home if it's the exact same effectiveness? Orrr is incense affected by regions too, i.e. you'd get different species sitting at your coffee shop than at home?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Makes me wonder how many people think they're getting more out of their incense by walking around, when really the extra pokemon are ones that spawned naturally and would have been encountered anyway.

It's clear to see which Pokemon are from incense and which ones are natural spawns, the incense ones have a purple ring around them. If you walk around for half an hour then you are unlikely to see much difference because your you will probably just walk the distance required to spawn another Pokemon from incense before the timer would spawn one anyway.
If you try cycling you may accidentally be going over the speed the game will pick up your steps and then you would only get a spawned Pokemon every 5 minutes.
I would recommend running, you will not go over the speed limit for the game and you will hit the distance required every 2-3 minutes so you will encounter a Pokemon

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

I would recommend running, you will not go over the speed limit for the game and you will hit the distance required every 2-3 minutes so you will encounter a Pokemon

It's not really reasonable to ask someone to catch Pokemon while they're running, it's too hard to throw the ball. And I've heard that pausing your movement will throw off the increased spawn frequency associated with moving?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

It's not really reasonable to ask someone to catch Pokemon while they're running, it's too hard to throw the ball. And I've heard that pausing your movement will throw off the increased spawn frequency associated with moving?

I run until a Pokemon spawns then walk while I'm catching it then as soon as its caught go back to running again

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

Hm. Well to be honest I'm not in shape enough to run for as long as an incense lasts, without breaks.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Neither was i before Pokemon go came out, i hadn't done any exercise for years but I always go for an evening run to hit all the pokestops and gyms in my town

 

[Neltharion83]

When i go by bus and there is plenty of traffic, i rarely hit the speed limit, i know the hard number is out there but i guess based on observation that the speed limit is somewhere around 25 kilometers per hour.

This is comfortable bike speed, but quite a ridiculous running speed. Experienced runners can get close to that speed and beat it in a sprint, but for a 30 minute run, unless you really are a skilled athlete, you will stay below it.

Incense will basically grab random pokemon based on your nearby list and based on nearby spawn points. So its perfect for nests. Like when you hear that a nearby park is just crawling with scythers, you go there, and its confirmed, you have 7 pokemon in your nearby list and 4 of them are scyther, then guess what the incense will attract.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

^you may have missed my point, by running you will always be within the speed limit for the game but will cover enough distance to encounter more Pokemon with incense.
If you cycle you are more likely to go over the speed limit (although I've read that they recently upped the limit from 10km/hr so maybe this is less of an issue than it was)

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

When i go by bus and there is plenty of traffic, i rarely hit the speed limit, i know the hard number is out there but i guess based on observation that the speed limit is somewhere around 25 kilometers per hour.

This is comfortable bike speed, but quite a ridiculous running speed. Experienced runners can get close to that speed and beat it in a sprint, but for a 30 minute run, unless you really are a skilled athlete, you will stay below it.

Incense will basically grab random pokemon based on your nearby list and based on nearby spawn points. So its perfect for nests. Like when you hear that a nearby park is just crawling with scythers, you go there, and its confirmed, you have 7 pokemon in your nearby list and 4 of them are scyther, then guess what the incense will attract.

I don't think Incense pulls from the Sightings list. My experience is limited with Incense but so far I've heard that it's independent, and that Pokemon in the pink ring appear when they were not in the Sightings list. However, if you have anything to back you up I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

 

[Neltharion83]

^you may have missed my point, by running you will always be within the speed limit for the game but will cover enough distance to encounter more Pokemon with incense.
If you cycle you are more likely to go over the speed limit (although I've read that they recently upped the limit from 10km/hr so maybe this is less of an issue than it was)

My walking speed is around 7 km/h. It does no damage if you accidently go above the speed limit for a minute or two. Riding a bike just below the speed limit is a comfortable bike speed, like when you are not trying hard to get to an appointment and do not want to start sweating.

10 km/hr is certainly too slow, all runners would be above it all the time, the same for mobility scooters and electric wheelchairs.

I think the truth is somewhere around 25 km/h.

About sightings versus spawn points: Its hard to tell because those two are so closely related. I go to a spot after people tell me its a bisasam nest, and i want some bisasam, i see bisasam in the nearby list, so obviously its true and the bisasam are there because the nearby spawn points have an increased chance to spawn bisasam. Its a nest alright. So i use incense, walk around, catch bisasam both from the incense and from spawns on the map that i run into. It also happened that there was a rare pokemon in the nearby list and then i got it, but with purple smoke, so i got it from the incense.

How can you tell the difference?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

any pokemon that spawn from incense will have purple smoke around them even if you walk away from them. If you want to find a rare pokemon but cant find the spawn point then download the ingress game to see where high concentrations are in that, someone showed me it a few months ago and i learnt where a lot of the rare spawn points in my town are

 

[tjumper78]

lets say i see an aerodactyl on my nearby list. if i activate an incense, will it attract that particular aerodactyl to me?
theres one thats been hounding me for 2 weeks, still comes up as a shadow on my nearby list since ive never faced one. not sure if i should buy an incense and try since im still not convinced of the effectiveness of the incense even when moving constantly.

 

[Afterglow Ampharos]

lets say i see an aerodactyl on my nearby list. if i activate an incense, will it attract that particular aerodactyl to me?
theres one thats been hounding me for 2 weeks, still comes up as a shadow on my nearby list since ive never faced one. not sure if i should buy an incense and try since im still not convinced of the effectiveness of the incense even when moving constantly.

As I understand it, both Lures and Incenses pull species from what tends to spawn in that neighbourhood, NOT the Sightings.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

lets say i see an aerodactyl on my nearby list. if i activate an incense, will it attract that particular aerodactyl to me?
theres one thats been hounding me for 2 weeks, still comes up as a shadow on my nearby list since ive never faced one. not sure if i should buy an incense and try since im still not convinced of the effectiveness of the incense even when moving constantly.

No it won't bring that aerodactyl however if you do use an incense in the area where you see the aerodactyl then there is a very small chance you will get one using incense.
Best advice I can give is if you keep seeing it on nearby then you must be near an aerodactyl nest which is good news for you. Search online for the Venn diagram tracker, it is the best way to track Pokemon that doesn't give you a chance of getting banned. Use the Venn tracker on another Pokemon first to get used to how it works but since using it I've found every Pokemon I've been tracking including a Lapras and snorlax.
In the area where you see the aerodactyl do you know where the spawn points are, if you do that does make it quicker to track as you can aim straight for the spawn points that are within the green area