#spqp

Ok I have to clarify I'm no competitive expert I've only been playing for like 3 weeks BUT. Rundown. Future me here this came out longer than expected Oops

Pokemon Unite is a moba game like league of legends but unlike most mobas there's only 2 lanes with a jungle inbetween, and that jungle is pretty damn small with an open area in the middle for bosses to spawn near the end of the match

You're put in a team of 5 players, where each of you picks a Pokemon and, ideally, if people fucking communicate and set their lanes, what lane they're going

You're intended to go 2 people on each lane 1 person on jungle, bc if you don't you're kinda at a massive disadvantage.

Matches are on a timer, 10 minutes and then whoever has the most score wins. Either that or one of the team surrenders, but that's the only way a match can end early

You score by gathering Aeos Energy from killing mobs, non playable Pokemon that grant xp on kill, and you use that energy on enemy goal zones to score, with each goal zone having a set amount of score it can take before it's destroyed. Once a goal zone is destroyed, the slow effect that applies to players intruding on the enemy team's side (located behind the goal zones, directly on top of the lane) disappears and mobs can now spawn there. Goal zones also provide their team with slow regeneration when standing under them. The first has 80 health, second 100, and then the one at the base (in front of spawn) has no health but also no slow effect attached to it

When the match goes to 2 minutes, scoring now gives you score equal to 2x your Aeos energy, and a boss spawns. In ranked, it's a Rayquaza that upon death gives the team that killed it a shield and the ability to be uninterruptable while scoring

That's also one important aspect! When scoring, you need to charge up for a bit before you can score, and the more Aeos energy you have the longer it takes to do so. Your initial cap is at 30, but that increases as you level up, going from 30, to 40, to 50. If you're hit while scoring, you get interrupted and need to start charging from scratch.

Pokemon get 4 moves, a basic one with no cooldown, based on attack speed, two skills that unlock upon levels 2 and 3, which then can be swapped out for better abilities as you level up (with two different abilities you can choose for each slot), and an ultimate which you get at level 9. The maximum level is 15.

There's other objectives on the map, like a Rotom/Regieleki at the top of the map which once defeated is claimed by your team, gets its health back, and advances towards an enemy goal zone. It aggros onto enemies, and if it touches the goal zone it becomes defenseless for 20 seconds and can be scored onto without charging. On the bottom path the Regis spawn (or Drednaw but that's outside ranked) and each gives a different buff upon death, Registeel gives attack and spatk, registeel gives def and spdef, regirock gives health and shields

And that leads me into my next point, stats.

Every single Pokemon stat has an equivalent in Unite. Mons are split into physical and special attack, regardless of their role. But they do still have stats for both, and they also have def and spdef, as well as speed (which translates into move speed) and ofc HP

This becomes specially relevant with emblems, which are little equipable things you get from an energy gacha capsule (dw it's not a horrendous gacha system, badges are super easy to get) that modify your stats. They each give you one stat up and one stat down, and you can equip 10, repeats allowed. They also have a color attached, and getting a certain number of badges with said colors gives you a different stat boost or effect for each color

They come in bronze, silver and gold; to make silver you need 3 bronze dupes, and to make gold you need 3 silver dupes

... Except sometimes you shouldn't. Bc yes it increases the stat up, but it also increases the stat down. So say you have one that gives you +15 atk and -20 defense on bronze. At gold that'd be like +35 and -50 def or smth like that. So unless you're using badges that reduce the attack stat you don't use and increase a stat you want, which often times you won't get the chance to, you might be best keeping it at bronze

... Yes, the Pokemon moba game has minmaxing.

Lastly, there's held items!! Yes, they're back! And you can hold 3, each with different effects that add to how you might wanna build your mon. Rapid fire scarf benefits mons that spam basic attacks by granting an attack speed and damage boost after 5 basic attacks, with a cooldown after the effect is done. Score shield gives you a shield when you attempt to score equivalent to a percentage of your max health, meaning mons with a lot of HP can benefit from it by spamming goals. Rocky Helmet is Rocky Helmet. Now with AoE!

There's like 20 held items so I'm not gonna list em all but they do lead to a lot of build variety. You can level them up and level up tokens can be a bit of a pain to get but having them be high level isn't exactly that high of a priority, since the effect difference isn't that high, and also it's easy to get them to high level early on. You get 3 tokens that instantly max out a held item of choosing, and Unite Tickets are very easy to get early on, those being how you can purchase upgrade tokens. Just don't be like me and ignore that in favor of getting an expensive Sylveon cosmetic set for your player character bc I probably would have double the amount of max level items rn if I didn't

There's a LOT more to the game, positioning team comp Pokemon specific mechanics events and ofc the fact this game has skins. Pokemon wearing clothes. Which I'm all for. But either way that's my overview of the game . It's pretty damn fun and overall they've balanced it out decently well, and it also looks and runs really really good even on super low end phones

Would I recommend it? Maybe. It's a moba so at the end of the day you can't TRULY win, but if you're gonna play a moba this is probably the one you wanna go for. It has all the appeal of other moba games and a lot of the depth while being much simpler and easier to get into.

Oh yeah they also pump characters out like crazy I'm shocked the game doesn't break in half every single update. They're pretty fun tho you're guaranteed to find at least one you'll like . Or multiple ideally bc latching onto one has the terrible result of not knowing what to do if someone else on ur team takes ur character