Iāve seen a few posts going around, but to add a few things that I havenāt necessarily seen, or to reiterate points that I find extremely important:
-Catch EVERYTHING you come across. Even if itās the 5000th Rattata. Catch them, because maybe one day youāll come across a 500 CP Rattata, and youāll have several hundred Rattata candies saved up, and then itāll evolve into maybe a 1000 CP behemoth Raticate. And all caught Pokemon also give you stardust, so catching that 1000000th Weedle will help you boost up your favās power.
-Once youāre at the level where you know youāre never going to use Pokemon of certain lower levels, transfer them immediately after catching, and when thereās nothing around take the time to clean out your storage. It will save you from a lot of frustration when you find a Pokemon you desperately want to catch but you canāt because you have to make space.
-The higher level you are, the higher level the Pokemon around you will become. Some Pokemon will be new, but most are the same old, but instead of 15 CP Eevees youāre seeing 400 CP Eevees. Depending on how much you play, if youāre seeing Pokemon rapidly level up around you and youāve just managed to get enough candies to evolve a Pokemon that takes a lot of candies (like 50 or 100), consider saving candies until you catch a Pokemon that is high level. It takes the same amount of candies, and evolving a Pokemon with higher CP will create a monster when itās evolved. Therefore, a high level Rattata is much more valuable than a Raticate of the same level.
-The higher level you are, and the higher level the Pokemon around you become, THE HARDER IT WILL BE TO CATCH THEM. Use the berries, they help. If itās a Pokemon you want, use Great Balls, Poke Stops hand them out pretty generously.
-Also, I donāt know if this is a game glitch or if others have experienced this too, but with some Pokemon (mostly high level, but sometimes not), you will toss the balls again and again and theyāll veer completely off course as though blown by a wind. Itās frustrating af because you know youāre throwing right, youāve been catching other Pokemon this way all day. Iāve found that moving your screen so the Pokemon is at the edge of whichever direction the balls are veering towards helps. Then you throw normally towards the centerish, and hopefully the ball will veer to and hit it.
-In addition to veering balls, the higher level the Pokemon, the more important it is to measure the depth correctly. For weaker level Pokemon I just toss the ball and it usually hits, but for higher level ones I need to be more careful to make sure I throw far enough or close enough.
-Youāll notice the circle that shrinks down around the Pokemon when youāre facing it. The following observations are my guesses based on my current experience. The center circle is colored, and that color changes depending on how difficult it will be to catch it. If you can hit the colored circle, you will get a great! or nice! and it will be harder for the Poke to break free. I think the easiest to catch is green, and then there are orange and red circles too. The green circles are wider, shrink slower. The orange and red give you much less wiggle room, they shrink fast and are small and hard to hit. Hitting the white circle will put the Pokemon in the ball, but if theyāre high level thereās a good chance itāll break free.
-Time your pokeball throws. If you put your finger on the ball, youāll see the circles mentioned above, and again, they move, from wide to small. The longer you hold the ball, the smaller the hit range, but again it restarts, so time your throw well if youāre not throwing immediately. But be careful, because sometimes Pokemon run and wonāt wait for you to aim carefully. ALSO if there is no circle and you have your finger on the ball, it means the Pokemon is doing their little motion thingy and will headbutt/bat the ball away, so hold off.
-You see the little Pokemon tracker thing bottom right corner right? That thing works. You tap on it, you see the number of footprints. If youāre going in the right direction, itāll show little pulsing movements. The number of footprints diminishes as you get closer. If itās zero, tap around, donāt move, itās on top of you and will appear. If the Pokemon disappears, turn around, walk in another direction and it should hopefully pop up again. This is how you catch rare Pokemon/multiples of ones youāre trying to evolve. NOTE: They may disappear before you get there. Also, if you find it but it escapes, then it disappears from the map.
-Sometimes, if you close the app, wait a bit, and reopen, a Pokemonāll pop up. Try it if youāre having no luck finding any by just waiting.
-Iāve noticed that if you tap them too early when youāve just come into range and they havenāt loaded the picture yet, sometimes it wonāt turn purple (which shows youāve finished using it) and will give you a ācome back later.ā So wait to poke and spin the thingy until after itās changed shape and youāre as close as you can be to it along your way before spinning. The ācome back laterā will take the same amount of time for it to go away as other Pokestops do to recharge.
-If you see petals spewing, someoneās planted a Lure. Lures attract Pokemon to a specific Pokestop for 30 minutes, and everyone can see it and benefit from it. Pokemon SWARM around those. Iāve found that if you go up to it, sometimes youāll see 3-5 Poke. Then walk a block, come back, more.
-One of the most useful tools is the Lucky Egg. What it does is give you double XP for 30 minutes. Double is A LOT. I recommend you use one if youāre in an area that has a lot of Pokestops, has a Lure, youāre using incense, youāre going to evolve a Pokemon, or an egg is about to hatch, or hopefully all of the above. Stopping at a Pokestop gives you 50 xp, I think. With the Lucky Egg, thatās 100 XP for just spinning the thingy. My town has an area that has shittons of Pokestops only a few seconds away from each other. I walk around that area, and Iām gaining several 100 XP every other second. If you catch Pokemon and are using tools that increase your chances, that also gives you 200 XP per Pokemon. Evolving Pokemon givesĀ you a lot of XP, hatching an egg gives you LOTS. If youāre going to be sitting grinding at a gym of your color, I donāt recommend using a Lucky Egg, you donāt get much XP. If youāre going to fight (and know youāll win) against a rival gym, go for it, itāll give you lots of XP ^ ^
-Even if youāre not using a lucky egg, try to do as much of the above as possible. Choose walking routes that have as many Pokestops as possible.
-Leveling up gives you access to a bunch of items, including new ones (great ball, razz berry, hyper potion etc.). It makes the Pokemon you find get stronger, and makes it easier to find Pokemon that were previously rare.
-You will find it A LOT easier dealing with gyms if you visit them with groups of friends the same color team. If youāre like me and donāt have friends, tough luck ;A;
-Basics: The strength of the gym is based on āprestige.ā Gyms of higher levels have more prestige; thatās the difference between the gym levels. When you train at a gym of your color (bottom right boxing glove), what youāre doing is raising that gymās prestige. Putting one of your Pokemon there will also raise prestige (the + symbol bottom left). When you fight at a gym of a different team, youāre chipping away at their prestige. When the prestige drops to zero, the gym loses color and is up for grabs.
-Sometimes you will go to a gym of your color and find that there is no option to add your Pokemon. This means that with that gymās current prestige, it canāt support any more Pokemon. Youāll see the prestige gauge under the gym name, top left, and itāll say 1000/2000 or something. That means it needs to hit 2000 prestige in order to go a level up and become able to host a 2nd, 3rd etc. Pokemon. TRAIN THERE.
-Fighting at gyms gives challengers from other teams the advantage. They can use up to 6 Pokemon (they lose if 2 faint, but they can switch out), whereas in training at your own gym you can only use 1. This means that if there arenāt many Pokemon guarding a gym, itās pretty easy to defeat, even if theyāre super strong Pokemon. One on one, it might be hard to defeat a 1000 CP pokemon with any of yours, but if you can use 6 Pokemon to chip away at it and switch them out smartly, it can go down.
-What the above means: When claiming a gym or adding your Pokemon to it, choose wisely. You must be able to at least defeat the weakest Pokemon, or you will not be able to raise its prestige and another team will easily claim it. If you canāt defeat a single Pokemon at the gym, your gym will gain zero prestige and youāll just have a wounded Pokemon. If there are more than one Pokemon, you gain around 100 xp per Pokemon you defeat, even if you donāt make it to the last one.
-The more time you invest raising the prestige, the more time it will take for rivals to take it. Theyāll have to defeat your gym many times in order for the prestige to go down to zero.
-At the same time, itās best not to have even the lowest Pokemon easily defeated. I think gym prestige can still be lowered by a bit, even if the challenger only defeats a few Pokemon. They can just beat up your lowest again and again until prestige drops.
-When training, DO NOT be discouraged just because you know you wonāt be able to defeat the whole gym with just your one Pokemon. Do it anyway. You get prestige proportional to the number/strength of the Pokemon you do defeat. That being said, it takes much longer to raise prestige than drop it because you can only use the one Pokemon, so again, itās best to do it with friends so a challenger doesnāt swipe the gym away from you in front of your eyes.
-I personally have found it more worthwhile to focus on a small number of gyms that are āyoursā and invest in strengthening them up with other locals rather than spreading your forces thin and having them get taken over again and again. Choose one gym, put a strong Pokemon there, and build it into your fortress, and hopefully others will help you.
-Pokemon GO is currently super glitchy and Iām sure everyone has experienced not being able to get in (server issues, not loading, etc.), getting kicked out of the server, the game freezing etc. When just closing and reopening the app again and again or waiting a bit doesnāt work, iāve found that the following sometimes helps: closing the app, opening and using some other apps while waiting, then try again; turn off your phone entirely, then turn it back on; switch from wifi/data back to the other.
-Sometimes, after you FINALLY get back into the game, you might find that it tells you that youāve caught/seen zero Pokemon, have no items, thereās no Pokestops/gyms nearby when you know there should be, and there are no Pokemon nearby in the tracker. My little avatar in the bottom left also has a turquoise circle instead of usual red. When this happens, I close the app once one more time, and I can usually get in to my actual account next time.
-If thereās a gym/Pokestop suuuper close by but just out of range of wherever you are, sometimes the GPS gets confused immediately after you start the ap and you can take advantage of it. It only lasts for a few seconds/minutes, but sometimes itās enough to do what you want. Iām technically outside the range of my gym, but if I close and open the app (sometimes without actually quitting), Iāve found that I can fight at my gym without leaving bed which is hella useful.
-Doing the above may also have the effect of making the app think youāre moving (Iāve seen my avatar sprint down the block when I havenāt moved lol), which is super handy if youāre just shy of hatching an egg, or perhaps itāll help you encounter a Pokemon.
Iām sure thereāll be more to add later, but this is what Iāve got off the top of my head ^ ^;