Pokemon Go Strategies

I started playing Pokemon Go on July 31, 2016. In that short amount of time, I have made numerous mistakes and wanted to write an article to illustrate a few shortcut techniques that will help you avoid the pitfalls I hit and bring a lot of extra enjoyment to your gaming experience.

Half of the fun is experimenting and trying out new ideas you might have about the game. I've done a lot of boneheaded things and if you read this article and it saves you time on your pursuit of Pokemon, then my job is done.

Please note that this article is simply my opinion, based on experiences I've had in the game and are meant to be helpful and just suggestions towards more fruitful gameplay for you and your friends.

As you catch different Pokemon, you earn that monsters candy, as well as stardust. You will visit Pokestops and Pokegyms over the course of each session. Temptation will grow for you to strengthen your best Pokemon. Stardust is a main ingredient towards improving the CP (so is candies). If you are not careful, you will burn through the stardust and be left scrambling trying to find more.

As much as you would like to always be evolving your collection, take a deep breathe and don't touch the candies OR the stardust. Instead, focus on catching more Pokemon and saving those for a rainy day. The earlier levels take fewer experience points to advance and in the beginning, it's really pointless to fight in the gyms because the other trainers that are controlling the gym are more advanced and have much stronger CP Pokemon's than you. It's pointless to even try to grow them at this point.

Your experience point accumulation and strength (CP) of Pokemon's will grow organically, if you just focus on catching pokemon and loading up on pokeballs at the pokestop.

Going to the gym and fighting other beast trainers is a foolish proposition. You need the space in your backpack and your best bet is to load up on Pokeballs. You can discard all of your Revive and Potions by hitting the trash can symbol next to the item and then selecting how many you want to discard.

After 5 or 6 levels, your bag will start to get full and you'll need that space to load up on balls so you can catch longer durations. It gets frustrating when you go to a pokestop that has a lure activated and you can't take advantage because you don't have room for enough balls. Free up that space and get more balls at the pokestop before a big campout in front of a lured pokestop. This will give you more chances at catching them all and not cause you a break in the action because you ran out.

In my opinion, Lucky Eggs are the most important item in your backpack. When you activate this egg, everything you do is worth double experience points. Don't waste your eggs on lower levels. As you gain experience and advance levels, it takes much longer to jump up. There's no need to waste those eggs on the first 10 levels because you can advance fairly easily.

I wouldn't go crazy on the Incense or Lure activations either. It's ok to test them out because your curious, but don't blow through them quickly. More advanced players have lures and you will typically see pokegyms throwing their virtual confetti in high traffic destinations (ie. popular parks, amusement parks, shopping malls, game shops). Smart business owners will make sure they have a lure going multiple times in a day because it attracts new customers to their shop.

Save your Lucky Eggs for the later rounds.

It's cool to see how strong the pokemon's are that reside in the gyms, but to actually go in there and fight, if you are a lower level, is just a complete waste of your time. If you follow Tip #2, you won't have very many items to refresh your best creatures. The task at hand is to catch every single Pokemon you cross. Keep the candies and stardust and just keep grinding away at the experience points.

In the earlier levels of the game, the gyms just serve as yet another distraction that will prevent you from gaining levels faster. The lure to the PokeGyms is to get your daily coins. My strategy to achieve this is to hangout near my local PokeGym and wait for someone to take it over. (alternate idea : ride along with someone that is much advanced, let them defeat the gym, then sneak in there to get your coins).

While the trainer that just defeated the last creature in the gym is searching for the right one to put as the "king" of that gym, you sneak in there to grab those coins. I always throw in my lowest CP Pokemon, so that they can easily defeat it and get the gym back. After all, I'm not out to be the king of that gym, I just want those coins!

In my opinion, there is always going to be another trainer out there that has a bigger and badder Pokemon than yours. Rather than fight to keep the gym, I see no incentive in doing that and would rather get the coins and keep hunting for Pokemon.

Fighting games or the battle component aren't really my cup of tea, so I understand if I'm in the minority on this train of thought. I don't play enough every day to be a supreme beast in the gyms, so I let the other guys/gals battle and I go about finding more Pokemon.

I know, I know. You think this idea is crazy, but hear me out.

I utilize the favorite feature to indicate which of my captured creatures have enough candies to be evolved. I only use Lucky Eggs, when I get my screen full of golden starred (favorite) Pokemon. What's the point in that, you ask? Simple! By activating the Lucky Egg, you get double the points, right?

So instead of evolving a regular Pokemon, you can get twice the points AND if it's evolving to a new Pokemon, not already in your Pokedex, you get double points on top of that! Lucky Eggs are your secret weapon towards monster levelling up and getting strong, as a trainer.

When you evolve your Pokemon, the CP level grows a little less than twice as strong. By saving your candies and stardust (tip #1), you will be able to grow only the best Pokemon's in your Pokedex and not waste them on lower level common creatures. You want to reserve the goodies for only your best creatures, if you want to be able to win Gym Battles, once you are at a higher level.

If you think you know another trainer that might find this article useful, feel free to share/retweet or send over a link to them. I'd also love to hear how your game is going. What are some of your issues? What's good? What's not working? Do you have any pet peeves with the game? Share them below! Let's chat!

I hope you've found this article informative and something useful for your everyday Pokemon Go Hunting! Catch 'Em All!