Some questions about being level 23

[blahhdude]

Hi,

I have some questions about what you guys think I should do at Level 23...

Here are my top pokemon:

1. Vaporeon - CP 1594
2. Vaporeon - CP 1563
3. Vaporeon - CP 1554 (non Hydro Pump)
4. VilePlume - CP 1533 (Solar Beam)
5. Exeggutor - CP 1519 (bad IV, bad moveset)
6. Slowbro - CP 1487 (bad IV, bad moveset)
7. Vaporeon - CP 1440 (non Hydro Pump)
8. Vaporeon - CP 1429
9. Victreebel - CP 1423 (no Solar Beam)

So here are my questions:

1. Should I start powering them up or saving the candies to keep evolving?
2. As you can see, I have a lot of Vaporeons. Is this really bad for gym battling?

Thanks!

 

[Meganium]

It depends on how Vaporeon's movesets are. If you have one with Hydro Pump, you are pretty much good to go. I would get rid of the others with bad IV/no hydro pump because they won't do much damage/much defense when it comes to gyms.

As you level up, you may get higher leveled CP Pokemon, so I suggest you save the candies and try to keep evolving until you find one that is suitable for battling gyms.

 

[OTheGeneralO]

I guess it depends on what you want to do. If you want to start taking down gyms I would say It would be best for higher CP Pokémon seeing that most gyms I see now have multiple pokemon above 1700. I am lvl 23 also but I have many pokemon above your highest.

 

[Sirindu]

Variety

Personally, I don't intend to ever have more than two or three Vaporeons that I'm using at a given time. (1 Hydro Pump, 1 Water Pulse, and maybe 1 Aqua Tail).

Mostly because I prefer variety.

But keep in mind that Pokemon, historically, encourages variety, too.

Water types are a dime a dozen around my area, so it's really fun (and advantagous) to have some killer grass types in my rotation. But this may be largely affected by your own area and your own personal preference. If you want to spam gyms with Vaporeons I'm sure you can do so.

Stardust

So, I find that if I put in a good 2 hour session or so and then sit down and do all the low-level evolutions I've saved for in a day, I can average 20-30K Stardust in a day. Again, this could largely depend on your area and I realize that since I'm in an urban area I may be getting more stardust than some.

With that context, I waited until I was around lvl 20 (maybe a little after) and started powering up whatever looked to be good targets for my "Six Pokemon, Gym Roster".

For me, this means:
A. the pokemon ranks in the top 20 for either Gym Attacker or Defender (bonus consideration for both)
B. It adds or maintains variety in my six pokemon lineup.
C. It has a good moveset (this should be heavily referenced in A.).
D. If it's a top flight pokemon (top 10) that I'm going to keep for a long time, I'm paying close attention to how good it's IVs are before spending stardust, as well.

How you value most of that is entirely up to you. And I'm being a little general--for instance, I've spent stardust on more than 6 Pokemon and you will, too, since you'll need to tackle more than 6 unique scenarios when attacking gyms and still have good stuff left to use once you're holding down 4 at once.

But if I were you, I'd pick my one or two best Vaporeons, that Vileplume, and maybe the Exeggutor and/or Victreebel (depending on how bad their movesets really are) and power them up. You'll regain the stardust cost. Totally understand if you'd rather not touch the Exeggutor and Victreebel, though, if you think you can farm new ones for a new moveset soon.

 

[Illusionss]

Variety

Personally, I don't intend to ever have more than two or three Vaporeons that I'm using at a given time. (1 Hydro Pump, 1 Water Pulse, and maybe 1 Aqua Tail).

Mostly because I prefer variety.

But keep in mind that Pokemon, historically, encourages variety, too.

Water types are a dime a dozen around my area, so it's really fun (and advantagous) to have some killer grass types in my rotation. But this may be largely affected by your own area and your own personal preference. If you want to spam gyms with Vaporeons I'm sure you can do so.

Stardust

So, I find that if I put in a good 2 hour session or so and then sit down and do all the low-level evolutions I've saved for in a day, I can average 20-30K Stardust in a day. Again, this could largely depend on your area and I realize that since I'm in an urban area I may be getting more stardust than some.

With that context, I waited until I was around lvl 20 (maybe a little after) and started powering up whatever looked to be good targets for my "Six Pokemon, Gym Roster".

For me, this means:
A. the pokemon ranks in the top 20 for either Gym Attacker or Defender (bonus consideration for both)
B. It adds or maintains variety in my six pokemon lineup.
C. It has a good moveset (this should be heavily referenced in A.).
D. If it's a top flight pokemon (top 10) that I'm going to keep for a long time, I'm paying close attention to how good it's IVs are before spending stardust, as well.

How you value most of that is entirely up to you. And I'm being a little general--for instance, I've spent stardust on more than 6 Pokemon and you will, too, since you'll need to tackle more than 6 unique scenarios when attacking gyms and still have good stuff left to use once you're holding down 4 at once.

But if I were you, I'd pick my one or two best Vaporeons, that Vileplume, and maybe the Exeggutor and/or Victreebel (depending on how bad their movesets really are) and power them up. You'll regain the stardust cost. Totally understand if you'd rather not touch the Exeggutor and Victreebel, though, if you think you can farm new ones for a new moveset soon.

I wasn't aware that evolving gave out stardust, is this from one of the newer updates?

 

[blahhdude]

Updated information:

Vaporeon - CP 1594 (Water Gun, Hydro Pump, "breathtaking pokemon", attack)
Vaporeon - CP 1563 (Water Gun, Hydro Pump, "caught my attention", attack)
Vaporeon - CP 1554 (Water Gun, Water Pulse, "caught my attention", attack)
VilePlume - CP 1533 (Razor Leaf, Solar Beam, "breathtaking pokemon", HP)
Exeggutor - CP 1519 (Confusion, Psychic, "above average", attack)
Slowbro - CP 1487 (Confusion, Ice Beam, "no headway in battle", HP)
Vaporeon - CP 1440 (Water Gun, Water Pulse, "breathtaking pokemon", HP/Attack)
Vaporeon - CP 1429 (Water Gun, Hydro Pump, "breathtaking pokemon", Attack/Defense)
Victreebel - CP 1423 (Razor Leaf, Sludge Bomb, "caught my attention", Attack)

 

[Meganium]

Any Pokemon with a "breathtaking" or "caught my attention" rating along with a stat that matches another stat (i.e. attack matches with defense, etc), is probably a pretty good Pokemon to keep and power up.

Also, I would totally keep that Vileplume if I were you. Solarbeam is a pretty good move if you are defending gyms.

 

[Sirindu]

I wasn't aware that evolving gave out stardust, is this from one of the newer updates?

LOL good catch! That is literally just such an ingrained part of my daily routine at this point, it didn't occur to me that it was irrelevant to the stardust question. My bad.

 

[Neltharion83]

At level 25 i have two pokemon over 2000 CP, so i powered those up because they are nice, and i have two more at 1900+ that i also powered up a little bit.

I caught an eevee and a magikarp that were so high that their evolutions into garydos and vaporeon went over 2000 without any power-up. I caught both at level 24.

So i would wait a bit, or maybe only power-up one vaporeon, the one with the highest future potential.

You can afford to power-up a few pokemon each level-up, not too many, you constantly get stardust from catching pokemon and that is also a big source of XP. With each level up, you can push your top pokemon a little bit more, but you also catch and/or evolve better ones. So you want to push just a select few of your very best pokemon each level and be aware that better ones will keep coming in.

 

[blahhdude]

Thanks guys.

I'll power up a Vaporeon and the VilePlume and try to evolve some better pokemon.

A few more questions:

1. What's effective against grass types like VilePlume/Victreebel?
2. What's effective against psychic types like Slowbro/Hypnos/Exeggutor?
3. What's effective against water types like Vaporeon/Lapras/Gyarados/Venusaur/Poliwrath?
4. What's effective against Snorlax?
5. What's effective against poison types like Nidoking/Nidoqueen?
6. What's a good pokemon to put in the gym for defense?
7. I assume all fire types are weak against water types so I shouldn't worry too much about sending in Vaporeons against the likes of Dragonite/Arcanine/Charizard?

 

[VisualJae]

This applies to every single Pokémon game.

For Pokémon GO, the exceptions:
- Quad weakness and 0x effectiveness mechanics don't exist. Example, you can still hit Flying-types with Ground attacks.
- STAB and super effective moves are only 1.25x instead of 1.5x and 2x, respectively. Not very effective moves are 0.75x instead of 0.5x.

There are tiers for Pokémon in Pokémon GO. Even if your Seaking is perfect and has the best offensive moveset, it's not going to defeat even a subpar Arcanine. Despite having a type advantage, you're not going to find a Hitmonlee beating up a Snorlax unless they're of similar CP, and Snorlax will always have a far higher CP ceiling.

Like I literally use a single Dragonite to sweep entire Gyms because it's a combination of having a Pokémon that's in the highest tier and with far superior CP (which tend to go hand in hand). I'll think twice if facing a high CP Lapras because of its Ice attacks and Dragonite doesn't have anything that's super effective against a Lapras.

In the end, if you know how to dodge attacks (especially charge attacks), you can handle most content, even those you're disadvantageous against. Dodging is the only thing that remotely requires skill in this game.

What's effective against grass types like VilePlume/Victreebel?

Look at the chart.

What's effective against psychic types like Slowbro/Hypnos/Exeggutor?

Look at the chart. And also Slowbro is part Water type and Exeggutor is part Grass type.

What's effective against water types like Vaporeon/Lapras/Gyarados/Venusaur/Poliwrath?

Look at the chart. And also Lapras is part Ice type, Gyarados is part Flying type, Venusaur isn't even a Water type (it's Grass), and Poliwrath is part Fighting type.

What's effective against Snorlax?

Snorlax is amongst the highest tier Pokémon and no Fighting-type Pokémon is remotely close. You're going to have to rely on a Pokémon that has superior raw stats and the ability to know when to dodge attacks.

What's effective against poison types like Nidoking/Nidoqueen?

Look at the chart.

What's a good pokemon to put in the gym for defense?

Any high CP, high base stamina (HP) Pokémon with a quick move that generates energy fast for charge moves. Unsurprisingly, many of these also end up being the standard top-tier Pokémon, including Dragonite, Lapras, Vaporeon, Snorlax, Exeggutor, Arcanine, Victreebel, amongst a few others.

I assume all fire types are weak against water types so I shouldn't worry too much about sending in Vaporeons against the likes of Dragonite/Arcanine/Charizard?

Dragonite is dual Dragon-Flying type and will beat up your Vaporeon. Look at the chart. Water is ineffective against Dragon types. The only two Pokémon that can reliably beat up a Dragonite every time are other Dragonites and Lapras.

People really like Arcanine, and yes it's a high-tier Pokémon, but the metagame shows off so many Vaporeon, Dragonite, Gyarados, Snorlax that any of them can easily outmuscle a high CP Arcanine. I never use an Arcanine or really any Fire type in gyms. They get beat up so easily.

 

[blahhdude]

Thank you!

I took down two gyms today and I ran out of revives... I used to throw them away along with potions so I could carry more pokeballs, but now I have to reconsider.

Another question... (Sorry, I have a lot of questions!)

When I'm about to attack a gym, the game auto-populates my lineup. Is that the best lineup I should be attacking with?

 

[Neltharion83]

Thank you!

I took down two gyms today and I ran out of revives... I used to throw them away along with potions so I could carry more pokeballs, but now I have to reconsider.

Another question... (Sorry, I have a lot of questions!)

When I'm about to attack a gym, the game auto-populates my lineup. Is that the best lineup I should be attacking with?

No, it just picks the highest CP pokemon that are fully healed and alive. Weaker pokemon can be better, if they have resistance against the pokemon in the gym or are highly effective against pokemon in the gym.... Like choosing water pokemon against fire pokemon, or fire pokemon against grass pokemon.

 

[blahhdude]

Oh, that's weird... It doesn't pick the highest CP for me. It picks random ones like Venomoth and Raticate... I wasn't sure why it was auto-picking those...