Category: Videogames

Player-vs.-player (PVP) battles have given Pokemon Go a new dimension. They’ve also added another layer of confusion. Recently, I had conversations with two hardcore Pokemon Go trainers and was surprised to learn that they only use Pokemon with perfect individual values (IVs) in PVP battles. While that makes sense in no-limit Master League, there are several cases where perfect Pokemon are suboptimal in Great League and Ultra League.

The issue is combat power (CP) — a nebulous stat created by Niantic (and a number that too many players focus on). Great League has a CP cap of 1,500, while Ultra League has a CP cap of 2,500. Due to how CP is calculated, there are many Pokemon that would be more effective with a 0 attack IV than a 15 attack IV.

To help you understand this issue, let’s take a look at the formula used to calculate CP.

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With Rayquaza raids coming back to Pokemon Go, some local trainers have been wondering what counters to use. Thankfully, the recent Swinub Community Day gave trainers access to the best Rayquaza counter — Mamoswine with powder snow and avalanche. Having the right Pokemon is essential, but how much should it be powered up? Enter breakpoints.

What Are Pokemon Go Breakpoints?

A breakpoint is the level required for a Pokemon to do additional damage. Damage calculation in Pokemon Go is rounded and doesn’t scale linearly. For example, a 15-attack Mamoswine at level 26 does the same damage against Rayquaza as a 15-attack level 28 Mamoswine. Powering up a 15-attack Mamoswine to level 29 allows it to inflict more damage than its level 26 or level 28 counterparts.

Trainers can optimize a team by seeing the amount of damage their Pokemon will do against a specific boss using handy tools like Dominkzen.com. This allows trainers to efficiently use stardust and candy. To help you understand breakpoints a little bit better, let’s stick with the Mamoswine vs. Rayquaza matchup.

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If you’ve been playing Pokemon Go for a long time then you’ve surely encountered stupid Pokemon Go trainers. Most of the time they’re harmless — village idiots that can easily be ignored. However, when they complain loudly, stupid Pokemon Go trainers can be a genuine nuissance.

Recently, I had to suffer the presence of a stupid Pokemon Go trainer. As part of the Celebi quest, two of the tasks required trainers to evolve an Eevee into an Espeon and an Umbreon. This requires walking Eevee for 10 kilometers and evolving it during the day (Espeon) or night (Umbreon). The important thing is that you have to evolve Eevee while it’s still your buddy. This particular trainer didn’t do that.

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There’s a person in my local Pokemon Go community that complains — loudly and annoyingly — whenever people split into teams for raids. She doesn’t understand why people take the time to set up private raids based on teams. The reasons have been explained to her multiple times by multiple people. Hopefully, you don’t have to suffer similar idiocy in your Pokemon Go community…but just in case you do, here’s some explanation ammo.

It’s All About Bonus Balls

After a successful raid, bonus premiere balls are awarded (partially discussed here). There are three ways to acquire bonus balls. The team that controls the gym gets extra balls. Players that inflict the most damage on a raid boss gets extra balls. And the team that does the most damage gets extra balls. The bonus balls can be anywhere from one to three, depending on the percentage of damage dealt to the raid boss.

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Pokemon Go recommends some truly questionable teams for battles and raids. The suggestions are especially problematic for the latter. The game seems to favor survivability over damage output, which…isn’t the best. Recently, I’ve done a few four-person raids against Latios and have seen fellow trainers achieve suboptimal results thanks to Pokemon Go’s team recommendations.

One trainer I bumped into was perfectly happy with his recommended team, which was full of steel pokemon. He was content to battle Latios with a team full of Aggrons and Steelix. Those pokemon are great for enduring a battle and saving some healing items, but they’re poor at damaging Latios. In fact, I wouldn’t even put them in the top 20 pokemon to use against Latios.

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Pokemon Go is a game full of numbers and stats. Many players overlook important numbers and place too much of an emphasis on certain stats. Two of the most common mistakes I’ve seen from dedicated players (that aren’t quite hardcore trainers) are ignoring energy person second (EPS) and overvaluing combat points (CP). The former is often ignored in favor of damage per second (DPS), while the latter can obscure the value of certain pokemon in some trainers’ eyes.

The Value of EPS

Ignoring EPS is a mistake many Pokemon Go trainers make when choosing a quick move for their pokemon. Some trainers look at the DPS number and assume that the move with the higher DPS is superior, simply because it does more damage. For many pokemon, the point of the fast move isn’t to inflict damage, but to generate energy.

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When Pokemon Go players look for raid help on Discord or Facebook Messenger, two of the most common responses are variations of:

On my way with 4 accounts.

and

I can help. Level 35.

Neither response is terribly helpful. While it’s nice to know the number of players that can help out and what their levels are, there’s more useful information. The person with four accounts could have four level 25s, which isn’t the best help for raids. The level 35 players could be a trainer that doesn’t bother to level up his or her Pokemon. Maybe the players on the way don’t have the right counters or they always use Pokemon Go’s recommended raid counters (which are rarely optimal). You’d be better served raiding with four high-level players that understand the Pokemon Go metagame than nine casual players that simply follow in-game recommendations.

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