####*Hello, /u/flapjaxrfun! Thanks for your submission to /r/pokemongo, your post is up and running!*
**Here are a few things to keep in mind:**
* **Rule 3 - No Cheating, suggesting cheating, naming cheating tools and more. Please take a look at this rule [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_three.3A_piracy_and_cheating)**.
* Be civil at all times. This is a place to have a healthy discussion with trainers from all over the world. If you feel someone is misbehaving please use the report button or send us a [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo#mods#button) and move on!
* Check out our [full rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/wiki/rules#).
* Don't know which flair is to use? [Check out our flair guidelines here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/p8vupw/new_flair_system_for_posts/).
* Need friends? Check out r/pokemongofriends. Would you like to chat about the game, participate in raids, share catches, make new friends and more? Check out the [discord server here](https://discord.com/invite/pokemon-go).
If a post and/or comment is violating the rules, please make sure to use the report button or send a modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo#mods#button). While we are trying our best to help users, help from the community is also necessary to maintain a healthy environment for everyone.
Thank you!
- - -
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you’re not sure what to spend stardust on, don’t. It’s a valuable commodity and better to save than spend it wastefully.
Dragonite is a good investment.
For most raids, you will either a) be with a group or easily solo able so it won’t matter what dust you have spent; or b) be impossible. In other words, I would say less than 1% of raids I’ve done or wanted to do weren’t achievable because I didn’t spend dust correctly
For PvP you will need to spend dust on the right mons, but if you’re playing casual you’re not worried about it
And if eventually you want to take the game more seriously, having saved up the dust will have you better prepared.
TLDR: if you’re going to play casual, don’t waste your dust
Even for a casual player I would say you shouldn't be spending a bit of Stardust until you get to LVL. 40. Why? Because you almost guaranteed will always get a better iv pokemon eventually in the future instead of wasting precious Stardust on a pokemon you'll regret. Pretty much the only thing I'll ever power up is a perfect or like a 98.
3rd party app, I use pokegenie and you screenshot the IVs and upload it to get a percentile rank. If the percentile is like 98.5-99.9% it’ll say a number like ours is rank #10 which usually means the 10th strongest pokemon of that species but there’s so many pokemon out there it’s probably pretty common to be tied for 10th
Whenever I get “power up 5 pokemon” or whatever as a research task, I do lucky pokemon since they’re generally good and it’s cheaper to level (50% less star dust).
Not really applicable to the level of casual OP is describing, since he likely does not have a bunch of luckies, but worth noting for people who trade a lot.
My partner and I just trade everything when we get home after we spent some time pokemon-ing and are slowly gathering luckies/better cp Pokémon/working towards our platinum medals. 10/10 recommend to anyone who has a partner/roommate/family member who plays.
Come on man... What are you talking about?! I picked this game up 3 weeks ago after playing in 2016.
What you are suggesting doesn't sound like fun. It sounds like a meticulous grind.
I'm level 31 now and I've got a decent Great and Ultra league team. Win rate just over 50%. If I spent zero stardust yet, I'd have dropped this game, it wouldn't have been fun. I'd also be getting bashed in PvP.
I love trying new pokemon strategies for my teams. I'm currently working on a Master league team.
Just spend it how you want. You can always get more. But check out sites like gamepress to understand what mons are good for raids, defending gyms or PvP.
Sorry, to be clear I wasn’t referring to PvP. I’d argue the opposite in that case. Power up a couple decent mons to 1500 or 2500. Since you’ll gain back that dust and then some because you’re actually winning. My original post was for raiding and attackers. I’m honestly just speaking from my experience. Sucks when you have spent like 250 000 dust to power up a Pokémon (+ up to 75 000 dust for a third move) only to find one with a better IV down the road. But again, you do you. Do what makes you happy. And do what lets you enjoy the game. I’m just sharing my experience and some advice that I wish I was told when I was only lvl 30.
That's fair enough dude. I understand where you're coming from. Getting to level 32 now I can understand how someone could have wasted their Stardust.
Luckily I found the pokegenie overlay and have been quite stingy to say the least with what mons I'm levelling up.
Got an 11 streak win yesterday on PvP which I was super pumped about (more luck vs skill!) and have accrued just under 300k stardust from my battles.
In general this is what I do:
FIRST THINGS FIRST as someone commented - while I comment about IVs (the bars when you appraise a pokemon), they're largely irrelevant as the worst vs best version of a specific pokemon tend to only differ by a few %. They aren't worth worrying about.
If I caught a pokemon with good stats (like when you appraise them and it's a 3 star, not necessarily their CP) and I'm not sure if it's good, I'll look it up on Gamepress. They've got PvE/raid ratings that are pretty easy to see.
If my goal is for general counters to raids, I'll look at Pokebattler for current/upcoming 4 and 5 star raids, and look at the best counters there. They list optimal moves and allow you to check off sliders that disable shadows, megas, and legendaries so you just see the best counters that are regular pokemon. From there I'd look at what ones you have that you could invest in, and start slowly leveling from there.
Imo this is the best way to do it, as you'll develop good raid counters for things you're raiding RIGHT NOW, and over time you'll develop a solid lineup of pokemon for most raids.
If you want to just generally know good pokemon to level, there's a few different posts on r/TheSilphRoad that post infographics of the general best raid attackers by type. Those usually include megas, legends, and shadows though so they might not be as helpful to you right now.
Hope this helps!
I'm another causal player who came back to the game because my kids love it.. When you say IV's mean very little, what makes a pokemon worth investing in?
Species mostly. Legacy moves also.
A perfect IV rattata is not worth investing in. A 10-10-10 Terrakion with Sacred Sword? Enormously useful.
Mostly though if you don’t know what to invest it. You shouldn’t invest in anything.
You shouldn’t probably power anything up til you’re level 35 or so.
Evolving is not that big of an investment, you only spend candies so if you have caught a lot of rattata or whatever trash you don’t need to worry about spending too much to evolve it. The heavy invest is when you spend candies and stardust to power up a pokemon especially past level 40 where you need XL candies. (Pokémon levels are hidden but you can tell using third party apps or by judging the cost of powering them up)
If you pass any gyms that are your color and have an empty spot or a different color but all their hearts are empty, leave pokemon there. You get up to 50 free coins a day when your guy gets kicked out of a gym. I returned recently and space was my #1 issue, both for Pokemon and items. Get those free coins as often as you can.
If you're looking at doing any raiding or battling team rocket, you could do a lot worse than investing in 2 or 3 Machamps to get them to a decent level/moveset.
I’m a mom who plays with her husband and we have a toddler. I 100% recommend the go++ as well.
We modified ours (soldering kit needed) to be able to use any type of ball and to auto throw. We also took away the vibrate.
We can play while still paying attention to our toddler and each other. Absolutely essential for playing while parenting.
Fastest way to level up is with friends. If you can time your friend xp to have a lucky egg you will fly through levels.
You'll want pokemon storage at first, but you'll hit a point where it's enough unless you hoard everything. I'd say 1000 is a good goal to start and then work on item storage. I have 6000 of both because I've been playing since launch and I never have to worry about over filling either one.
Some people might find the pokemon storage is never high enough, but those players are hoarding all kinds of things. Especially things to trade for XL candies when the guaranteed xl candy from trading is active.
Also, high item storage allows me to have a high stock of items, which allows me to not worry about running out of balls or healing items if I'm not able to spin stops for a while.
Can confirm, bought a poke auto catcher after playing since release on and off and its a great investment ($50 and the off brand one you can link two accounts at once)
Edit: be sure to check if it's AAA battery operated or can charge. I bought a battery one without knowing it was and wish I had a USB one
Read through this.
This is a copy paste:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/s/PBHjtiJILT
Guides for everything in game.
Read the posts that apply to you.
If you're confused what part you should read/watch please ask.
I'm gunna tag my tips below your comment because this video is a great starting point. Top 16 Value pokemon is a great concept and I like how he focuses on dual type pokemon.
another thing to consider when going for a starter budget build is to trade pokemon to get luckies (luckies cost half dust to power up) AND pokemon don't only cost MORE to power up at higher levels, they also give LESS CP relative to lower level power ups.
I forget the name of the concept, decreasing gains or something.
Basically, to make your stardust stretch to the most amount of power, you can just take pokemon up to level 30-35 to get your strong foot forward in raids. Heck, you can *catch* pokemon at this level and spend nothing but candy evolving them.
Pokemon naturally spawn max level 30, or level 35 with weather boost.
A rule of thumb to tell your Pokemon's level, by looking at the stardust cost to power up. 5000 power up cost means level 29 or 30. 8000 power up cost means level 35
Other commenters mentioned that most raids are going to be easy or impossible. There's a bit of truth there. But going from random Reccomended pokemon to budget raid pokemon is a huge DPS gain and you can accomplish it with very little stardust
Use the PokieGenie app to decide which Pokemons are good.
To quickly build up stardust, do the battles. You don't have to revive or heal the Pokemon used in these battles, it's automatic. Even if you lose, you'll still get stardust.
Make sure to keep your buddy out and increase it's friendship. You can change out buddies 20 times a day so I level up friendship by 3 hearts with every single one almost every day by feeding 3 berries, play: rub their head until they burst with a heart & take a picture. This does require having berries, but even if you're out, you can still play with them and take a picture for 2 hearts.
Put as many Pokemon as you can in as many gyms as possible every day to help increase the chance of getting your free 50 coins that you can use to increase your storages.
Make lots of friends. This will provide you with ample supplies & XP.
Always try and do all of the community days/spotlights/events/etc as it's an easy way to get candy and XP you'll need in the future.
If you really like Go, look into getting a Gotcha which will help you catch Pokemon & spin stops when you can't be actively playing. The investment in totally worth it, even if you're only playing the free aspect of the game.
I like using [Palkiadex](https://palkiadex.com/?strongest&t=any). It lets you filter out all of the megas, shadows and legendaries so you can see the strongest pokemon of each type that spawn in the wild.
I can give you a few tips that I think are helpful to casual players.
Firstly do not invest in high IV Pokemon, just keep saving your dust, instead just evolve the highest cp meta Pokemon that you can find and keep saving the materials that way you will have semi viable Pokemon for raiding, when it comes to PvP I am clueless because I don't play PvP at all, PS: o said don't invest in high IV Pokemon but definitely save them
\[quote\]Firstly do not invest in high IV Pokemon, just keep saving your dust, instead just evolve the highest cp meta Pokemon that you can find and keep saving the materials that way you will have semi viable Pokemon for raiding\[/quote\]
This is great advice right here OP. The appraisal does not matter, those are bonus stats. Each pokemon has base stats that far outweighs the bonus stats.
If you read here many people really care about the appraisal, but that is probably because the IV's matter a whole lot in scarlet/violet and other pokemon games when it comes to raiding. However in Go, they do not matter.
Download and use Pokiegenie. My strategy is I only power up pokemon that are top tier counters to raids. I couldn't care less about PVP except to progress passed level 43 you have to win a certain number of PVP battles in 3 leagues.
I found a high level, 3* Machamp to be a very worthwhile investment early on. Catch a bunch of machops and evolve a 3* one that’s at least 700cp and then invest in that, it will really really help.
I need advice I have been playing since 7/16 I have asked my son Nick, and he knows. Alot about Pokmon and what will beat what. I have 2 quests to do before I can level up to 47. One is a level 3 raid, with pokemon 1500 Cp or less, does this have to be done solo and you have your pokemon ready and some one else jumps in do you get the credit or do you have to do another
Thanks
Starwlker9
Try to at least focus on typing so you have a good balanced team. Have a good fire type, dragon, ice, etc
No point in having a bunch of strong dragon types if you are raiding against an ice or fairy type because you’ll still get destroyed
Something I did in the beginning was look at the next raid coming, see what are some counters for it, and power those up. You don’t need to focus on the #1 counter, even budget ones work. I also set a tag called “power up” so when I get a power up task, I just go to those and power up as needed.
I also suggest focusing on only powering up to level 30 first, then move to 35. It’s hard to tell the level in game, but I highly suggest Pokegenie to help with that. Works both on iPhone and Android. It also shows you the next up raids and counters for them. Ignore Shadow Pokémon for now. Get your staples (core team) set up.
And remember to have fun. If you find a pokemon you think is adorable and want it maxed out because you can, do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. If you love it, do it.
Look for “budget Pokémon’s for pve (player vs environment(gym /team rockets ) “this should help you doing raids and going against team rocket. PvP is a whole world for it self.
Stack up that stardust dad! And when you get to level 40 or 40+ you can choose to go hard on certain Pokémon.
I play the game for shinies and perfect pokemon. Originally I wanted to just get every Pokémon on the list and be done with it til the next Gen comes out.
Max out on friends list and get to best friends with people to level up faster as well.
I am in your same situation. I grew up in the 90's only familiar with the OG 151. My playstyle has always been just leveling up Pokemon I personally like. Sure it's not the most efficient but I am having fun doing it. And I am learning new Pokemon along the way. Just keep playing at your own pace and checking Reddit here and there and just don't stress to much about it and you will have a blast.
One helpful piece of advice is googling up specific Pokemon's best movesets, and use your TM's on your highest CP Pokemon. That helped me tons with PVE and PVP. IV's don't matter much at all compared to move sets!
Look up what the top 20 or so mons are in each type, pick a few that you like, and when you catch them in a raid or their first evolution stage in the wild (if possible) then just level those up. If you catch a lot, then level up the one with the best IV ranking. You can check a mons’ IV in game
Man this sounds exactly like myself posting this.
I’m in the exact same position. 2 kids now but played this game a lot in 2016/17 before this so currently sat at Level 34 but slowly started getting back into Pokémon these last few weeks.
I’m a bit of a stickler as in I’m not willing to invest into any Pokemon unless they are 100% IV so I’ve got plenty that can be evolved but none that I really want to invest in just yet.
Life was much easier when they were just that original 151 aha
Time flies by it’s a weird one man we were at the beginning stages of Pokémon and now 15-20 years has gone by and a lot has changed had to figure a lot of it out myself as well best of luck to you brother great for the family my girlfriend and I have been grinding all the games shiny hunting.
Time keeps going and things keep turning my man congrats on your kid make sure to raise em we’ll keep them on the right path it’s not easy being a parent and you have to wear the mask of a strong parents even though we are all grown kids at the end of the day which only people in our age bracket and older will understand the older you get the more you recognize the fabrics of the psyche extremely delicate and yet complex
Just play it however you want and don't listen to people overanalyzing here. Use your favorite Pokemon and get excited to discover some new faves. In particular there are a lot of new type combinations that make battle strategy a lot more interesting. The meta game goes really deep so just rest assured the info is all out there if you ever become curious on how to squeeze every little drop of efficiency out of this game. Try fighting the Team Rocket grunts to develop teams and discover which of your mons are strongest/most versatile. You can also try doing 1 star raids solo to find out what that's like and which mons perform the best.
There's no wrong way man, have fun!
If you have an Eevee, name it Kira, and it should give you an option to evolve it into Sylveon. I use one as my lead, not too sure it’s good, but it always works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I rarely level Pokemon up from the ground up, rather I find Pokémon that are already high level and invest in marking them the best. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a big stardust supply, that’s going to be your best bet. Once your trainer level is higher, then you’ll have more freedom to do whatever you want and level up Pokémon more (plus by then you’ll have a big variety of Pokémon and maybe a better idea of who is good or bad)
IMO worrying about the competitive side of Pokémon go isn’t worth it. I typically invest in Pokémon that I like
Don't bother with low CP Pokemon. It would take waaay to much stardust to level up so they're good for battles. You'll catch a stronger one eventually.
What i mean is. If you have a cp 150 Machop, wait untill you find a cp 900 Machop and evolve that instead
Use budget raiders. They are usually ranked 10-20 on DPS for raids and their resources are easily grinded in the wild;
Some examples: machamp, all starter Pokémon’s with blast burn, hyrdo cannon, ect. Rampardos, litwick and ralts.
First, the question is… are you PVPing (er, GBLing) or raiding?
If you’re PVPing then much of the optimal mon rotate season by season *and* for most players, aren’t relevant. I’ve gone up to rank 20 plenty of times and you’ll run into people with the optimal this and that’s and timing and it’s definitely a “if you need to ask, you’re not a member” club - you were going to lose regardless of your roster. For the rest, there’s plenty of “I had 3 dual moved, max-ish CP for the league mon” wins to be had. Do take the time to look up ideal move sets (pvpoke is my recommendation) but don’t get twisted on optimals until you’re ready for it.
For PVE - that is, if you’re going to go in to 4 (mega), 5 (legendary) and 6 (primals) star raids… you probably want to look over at palkiadex.
As a vague, hand wavy way of describing them, most types have a large group of pokemon loosely in the 30-33 range (the specific numbers vary by type but when you look over it, you’ll recognize ‘the clump’). These are *generally* your budget counters, give or take ones with an asterisk on their move names (legacy move, that is, only available by elite TM or community day or other special event) and shadows (cost more to level, but for PvE are generally better versions). As a super further vague rule of thumb, if you have 6 maxed budget counters, you and 2 similar friends should be fine for just about any raid. Slight differences (I use 3, or ~8%) in EER won’t matter from a practical standpoint - it’s pretty rare you were 5 seconds away from beating a raid, for example.
Above that you’ll generally have *some* legendaries and other exceptional pokemon. Nice if you can get them. Megas/primals you can only have one active at a time, so great to have but you’re going to usually want a whole team (maxed Mega Rayquaza and the Primals may be worth just revive spamming). Considering the time and effort of getting their candies, personally I don’t fuss as much as some over one as another. For example, Heatran with his legacy move is clearly inferior to Reshiram (but definitely in the same “league”) However, I’ve played every reshiram event since his release and don’t have 5 (plus a primal) maxed, nor am I close; so I’ve got one Heatran who is getting built, too.
If you do raid and have a large group (… depending on their play style, 4 can count as large…) then much of this is irrelevant, which I think all the starters of any generation ending up in the 30-33 range is intentional as that makes raiding fairly comfortable for a group of pals and whatever else anyone says of Niantic, that’s kind of cozy.
There are different things to do in the game so depends on what you are most interested in.
Assuming you are interested in doing most everything, here is my advice.
Level Up: Some people are obsessed with grinding XP and leveling up. Just play the game. Friendship with other players can help a lot with this. Getting good with curve and excellent throws. Grinding during XP events. Use those lucky eggs when you are about to get a lot of XP.
Pokedex: Catch all the pokemon! Use pinap berries for some of the rarer ones. If you are interested in battle then save some of the ones with either high IVs from the appraisal or good pvp ivs. I use an app called Calcy IV to check how good something is for pvp. I transfer the rest.
Raids / Gym Battles: Save pokemon with the highest IVs. For pokemon you like and think are half decent, I would invest in powering them up until they are level 30. I say 30 because the stardust cost isn't too high and because you get diminishing return on your stardust after 30. Calcy IV can tell you which level your pokemon is. Once you know what all is the best, I would consider powering up those to like 40 or 50. Mewtwo for example is the best psychic attacker.
Pvp: Check pvpoke.com/rankings to see what is good for the league you are interested in. Get those pokemon with ideal IV spread. (Great and Ultra League you usually want IVs close to 0/15/15, and Master League you always want 15/15/15 ivs).
Shiny hunting: Just go and catch pokemon, or tap them and run away of not shiny. Just pay attention to pokemon go news and infographics posted online from groups like leekduck so you are aware of possible shinies.
You should feel free to plow stardust into high IV (think 96 or above) of the following, relatively easy to find species:
- Machop
- Ralts
- Drilbur
- Swinub
- Larvitar
- Ghastly
Pretty much anything that gets a mega is a good shout too.
Your goal is to be able to solo 3 star, and some mega raids as this makes it again easier to raise good teams. You can eventually get to the point where you can solo the ocassional 5 star (sometimes dependent on weather), and duo more of them if you can find another account or someone else who plays.
There’s gotta be a modern Pokédex book right? You could order one of those and flip through it at night looking at which pokemon come later in the regional Pokédexes. That usually related to their rarity at least.
For relevant details (since pokemon go “strength” is rated differently than the main games”) go to PVPoke.com > rankings. That will show you which pokemon in this game are the most competitive.
It depends on your goals, but for PvE play I’d look up good Pokémon of each type and try to get teams going so you can raid whenever you want to get into that. I use gamepress, their format is very easy to read and they have write ups on every Pokémon from a PvE and pvp perspective
A few tips that I wish I had when I started are to
A. Before you fully evolve a very good Pokémon, check gamepress to see if it has a community day move, and if it does wait until evolving will get you that move. Good examples are the starter Pokémon, they get incredibly good moves when evolved during certain events, such as Charizard getting Blast Burn
B. Don’t purify shadows, as a general rule. Because of how the shadow boost works, a 0IV shadow will outperform a 100IV non-shadow once you get rid of the move Frustration on the shadow Pokémon, which can only be done by using a Charged TM during the Rocket Takeover event that occurs once per season
As an addendum to my first 2 points, some Pokémon are both shadow and get special moves, in which case you would remove Frustration from the pre-evolution during the Rocket event, and then evolve them during the appropriate event to give them the move
C. Don’t evolve a Magikarp as soon as you can. There’s a quest that all new players get called A Mythical Discovery that rewards a Mew and unlocks further mythical quests, and one of the steps asks you to evolve a Magikarp
D. Download the Campfire app, it’s invaluable for doing raids that are locked to in-person only such as the upcoming Mega Rayquaza elite raid. I used it last time Shadow Mewtwo was up and managed to find a group, we all drove around and did 20+ raids. You can also use it for regular raids, but for those you can also choose to use a third-party app and remotely join. I use PokéRaid, but have also heard good things about PokéGenie
Do you want to do pve or pvp? Both?
There is a site called pvpoke that has rankings based on stats and moves. The rankings are constantly in flux thanks to new mons, changes to movesets, etc. It's especially helpful on the pvp side if you want to get into competitive battling. I really enjoy slowly building up teams of heavy hitters. I just maxed out a shiny lickitung for great league with XL and he's a blast to play with. For pvp, just focus on a few of the top mons from each type, especially if they have a mega or shadow variant. There are a few metas that are extremely helpful. My go-to's tend to be Groudon, Togekiss, Dialga, Reshiram, etc. It's nice being able to take on 3 star raids by yourself or 5 star raids with one other friend.
Gyarados and Dragonite are still META, good for any battle league. 4 of my 10 strongest Pokémon are Dragonites. Also the newest type, Fairy, is insanely strong. A good Sylveon, Clefable, or Togekiss will be an excellent battler. And the Energy per Second of fast moves matters a ton, being able to charge up your stronger attacks quickly is a game changer.
Welcome back and good luck! I played at launch but got back into it a few years ago while walking our dog. It’s amazing
Generally i would evolve whatever i get then when i try to power up, press the back button to see how high of a cp it can get to, since each pokemon species has a rough estimate of how strong they are in points not level its a good indication on what it might be useful on, then id also take into consideration how often they spawn/ easily u can get their candy. Or generally just whatever pokemon you see as neat, or covering every type youd need for raids or fighting team rocket is my go to if youre fairly casual about the game
You can look for the Pokémon s you have the best statistics, 4 stars preferible or the closest to it and start with those; and the ones you like the most also
There’s a lot of great YouTube videos that show you which are the best to power up. try searching pokedaxi on YouTube and best power up. He updated it a month or two ago.
Just horde your dust. I only have like 7 pokemon I've maxed to level 45 (I'm only level 44) and have 6 million dust. Most are level 40 which are good enough for raids I dropped like 700k dust powering up 2 mewtwos when they were in shadow raids a few months ago. Glad I have a ton stored up for events like that
By the end of month, Mega Tyranitar Raids will be featured at gyms... that's your upcoming priority... If got not trainers with you... post your FC in the Mega Raid Thread and many other trainers will send Friend Request to join the Raid.
Believe me... Mega Tyranitar can be more than 5000 CP... no joke
####*Hello, /u/flapjaxrfun! Thanks for your submission to /r/pokemongo, your post is up and running!* **Here are a few things to keep in mind:** * **Rule 3 - No Cheating, suggesting cheating, naming cheating tools and more. Please take a look at this rule [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_three.3A_piracy_and_cheating)**. * Be civil at all times. This is a place to have a healthy discussion with trainers from all over the world. If you feel someone is misbehaving please use the report button or send us a [modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo#mods#button) and move on! * Check out our [full rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/wiki/rules#). * Don't know which flair is to use? [Check out our flair guidelines here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/comments/p8vupw/new_flair_system_for_posts/). * Need friends? Check out r/pokemongofriends. Would you like to chat about the game, participate in raids, share catches, make new friends and more? Check out the [discord server here](https://discord.com/invite/pokemon-go). If a post and/or comment is violating the rules, please make sure to use the report button or send a modmail [here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo#mods#button). While we are trying our best to help users, help from the community is also necessary to maintain a healthy environment for everyone. Thank you! - - - *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/pokemongo) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If you’re not sure what to spend stardust on, don’t. It’s a valuable commodity and better to save than spend it wastefully. Dragonite is a good investment. For most raids, you will either a) be with a group or easily solo able so it won’t matter what dust you have spent; or b) be impossible. In other words, I would say less than 1% of raids I’ve done or wanted to do weren’t achievable because I didn’t spend dust correctly For PvP you will need to spend dust on the right mons, but if you’re playing casual you’re not worried about it And if eventually you want to take the game more seriously, having saved up the dust will have you better prepared. TLDR: if you’re going to play casual, don’t waste your dust
I play casually (getting a little more into it recently) and have around 6 million stardust saved. Makes it easy to power up things when I need to!
That’s impressive, I’m always so dust poor… also helps if you want to do an instant special trade….
Same. My queue of mons to level is too damn long. I’m so stardust poor.
Same….
Same, occasionally I'll reach 200k if I pop a star piece before a big event
how do you get dust
Just generally play the game; catch everything, poke give you dust. You get it from opening gifts, doing raids etc just play and play
Battle in the go battle League, lots of dust to be found there
I’ve saved up 58,400,000 stardust. I agree
Ok I think you can spend some now
Even for a casual player I would say you shouldn't be spending a bit of Stardust until you get to LVL. 40. Why? Because you almost guaranteed will always get a better iv pokemon eventually in the future instead of wasting precious Stardust on a pokemon you'll regret. Pretty much the only thing I'll ever power up is a perfect or like a 98.
This tbh. Or a top 100 PvP IV or top 20 meta pick you want to play with….
Got a shiny maril today that was 10 cp but had #10 pvp IV, pretty glad I didn’t spend my candy on some mid maril
Nice congrats, I have the same #10 PvP IV Maril but not shiny….
It’s so strange how the pvp IVs work I was sad at first when I saw the normal IVs
I’ve conditioned myself to know good PvP IVs…
I just learned about them this week (back from a 2-3 year break) gonna take a bit to get used to
How do you see what number rank they are?
3rd party app, I use pokegenie and you screenshot the IVs and upload it to get a percentile rank. If the percentile is like 98.5-99.9% it’ll say a number like ours is rank #10 which usually means the 10th strongest pokemon of that species but there’s so many pokemon out there it’s probably pretty common to be tied for 10th
Whenever I get “power up 5 pokemon” or whatever as a research task, I do lucky pokemon since they’re generally good and it’s cheaper to level (50% less star dust). Not really applicable to the level of casual OP is describing, since he likely does not have a bunch of luckies, but worth noting for people who trade a lot. My partner and I just trade everything when we get home after we spent some time pokemon-ing and are slowly gathering luckies/better cp Pokémon/working towards our platinum medals. 10/10 recommend to anyone who has a partner/roommate/family member who plays.
Come on man... What are you talking about?! I picked this game up 3 weeks ago after playing in 2016. What you are suggesting doesn't sound like fun. It sounds like a meticulous grind. I'm level 31 now and I've got a decent Great and Ultra league team. Win rate just over 50%. If I spent zero stardust yet, I'd have dropped this game, it wouldn't have been fun. I'd also be getting bashed in PvP. I love trying new pokemon strategies for my teams. I'm currently working on a Master league team. Just spend it how you want. You can always get more. But check out sites like gamepress to understand what mons are good for raids, defending gyms or PvP.
Sorry, to be clear I wasn’t referring to PvP. I’d argue the opposite in that case. Power up a couple decent mons to 1500 or 2500. Since you’ll gain back that dust and then some because you’re actually winning. My original post was for raiding and attackers. I’m honestly just speaking from my experience. Sucks when you have spent like 250 000 dust to power up a Pokémon (+ up to 75 000 dust for a third move) only to find one with a better IV down the road. But again, you do you. Do what makes you happy. And do what lets you enjoy the game. I’m just sharing my experience and some advice that I wish I was told when I was only lvl 30.
That's fair enough dude. I understand where you're coming from. Getting to level 32 now I can understand how someone could have wasted their Stardust. Luckily I found the pokegenie overlay and have been quite stingy to say the least with what mons I'm levelling up. Got an 11 streak win yesterday on PvP which I was super pumped about (more luck vs skill!) and have accrued just under 300k stardust from my battles.
That's awesome! Good job! PvP is one of the best ways to earn lots of dust. Hope you're having fun!!
I need to start saving dust, I get it, then I spend it 🤦🏻♀️
In general this is what I do: FIRST THINGS FIRST as someone commented - while I comment about IVs (the bars when you appraise a pokemon), they're largely irrelevant as the worst vs best version of a specific pokemon tend to only differ by a few %. They aren't worth worrying about. If I caught a pokemon with good stats (like when you appraise them and it's a 3 star, not necessarily their CP) and I'm not sure if it's good, I'll look it up on Gamepress. They've got PvE/raid ratings that are pretty easy to see. If my goal is for general counters to raids, I'll look at Pokebattler for current/upcoming 4 and 5 star raids, and look at the best counters there. They list optimal moves and allow you to check off sliders that disable shadows, megas, and legendaries so you just see the best counters that are regular pokemon. From there I'd look at what ones you have that you could invest in, and start slowly leveling from there. Imo this is the best way to do it, as you'll develop good raid counters for things you're raiding RIGHT NOW, and over time you'll develop a solid lineup of pokemon for most raids. If you want to just generally know good pokemon to level, there's a few different posts on r/TheSilphRoad that post infographics of the general best raid attackers by type. Those usually include megas, legends, and shadows though so they might not be as helpful to you right now. Hope this helps!
OP definitely doesn’t need to worry about IVs. They mean very little.
True! I meant more of what I tend to do, but you're right. Gonna edit my comment a little
I'm another causal player who came back to the game because my kids love it.. When you say IV's mean very little, what makes a pokemon worth investing in?
Species mostly. Legacy moves also. A perfect IV rattata is not worth investing in. A 10-10-10 Terrakion with Sacred Sword? Enormously useful. Mostly though if you don’t know what to invest it. You shouldn’t invest in anything. You shouldn’t probably power anything up til you’re level 35 or so.
Ok, so how do I know what to look for? As of now I'm only evolving for my pokedex. Are there any useful websites or youtube channels?
Evolving is not that big of an investment, you only spend candies so if you have caught a lot of rattata or whatever trash you don’t need to worry about spending too much to evolve it. The heavy invest is when you spend candies and stardust to power up a pokemon especially past level 40 where you need XL candies. (Pokémon levels are hidden but you can tell using third party apps or by judging the cost of powering them up)
[удалено]
I definitely screwed up and transferred a bunch. I was full, so I had to do something. Thanks for the heads up though!
If you pass any gyms that are your color and have an empty spot or a different color but all their hearts are empty, leave pokemon there. You get up to 50 free coins a day when your guy gets kicked out of a gym. I returned recently and space was my #1 issue, both for Pokemon and items. Get those free coins as often as you can.
I wish this was in at the beginning of pogo release, and now that the game isn’t as popular as release I kinda wish it was the old way
Are the special features you mention about them becoming lucky because they're old?
[удалено]
Gonna have to look up legacy moves then. I'm unfamiliar
Wait...this I didn't know. What special features do older pokes have when you trade them?
Gauranteed lucky trade for the real old ones I forget the cutoff year though
Good to know! I'll have to look into it.
2018 or earlier
Yeah this is the thing i wish i knew
If you're looking at doing any raiding or battling team rocket, you could do a lot worse than investing in 2 or 3 Machamps to get them to a decent level/moveset.
Throwing leveled up machamp at rocket bosses FTW
I love my punchy boi
this subreddit will ruin ur experience bro just do your own thing and add friends in real life
This lmao
Buy yourself an auto catcher like Pokémon Go Plus + and invest in storage. You'll fly through the ranks!
Pokemon storage or item storage?
I’m a mom who plays with her husband and we have a toddler. I 100% recommend the go++ as well. We modified ours (soldering kit needed) to be able to use any type of ball and to auto throw. We also took away the vibrate. We can play while still paying attention to our toddler and each other. Absolutely essential for playing while parenting. Fastest way to level up is with friends. If you can time your friend xp to have a lucky egg you will fly through levels.
Mostly the former but you'll need access and storage for lots of poke balls
You'll want pokemon storage at first, but you'll hit a point where it's enough unless you hoard everything. I'd say 1000 is a good goal to start and then work on item storage. I have 6000 of both because I've been playing since launch and I never have to worry about over filling either one. Some people might find the pokemon storage is never high enough, but those players are hoarding all kinds of things. Especially things to trade for XL candies when the guaranteed xl candy from trading is active. Also, high item storage allows me to have a high stock of items, which allows me to not worry about running out of balls or healing items if I'm not able to spin stops for a while.
Can confirm, bought a poke auto catcher after playing since release on and off and its a great investment ($50 and the off brand one you can link two accounts at once) Edit: be sure to check if it's AAA battery operated or can charge. I bought a battery one without knowing it was and wish I had a USB one
Read through this. This is a copy paste: https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongo/s/PBHjtiJILT Guides for everything in game. Read the posts that apply to you. If you're confused what part you should read/watch please ask.
Here is a video on the next budget mons to invest in: https://youtu.be/OQE6NzR4gYg?si=i2NxwOIjgyzalYma
I'm gunna tag my tips below your comment because this video is a great starting point. Top 16 Value pokemon is a great concept and I like how he focuses on dual type pokemon. another thing to consider when going for a starter budget build is to trade pokemon to get luckies (luckies cost half dust to power up) AND pokemon don't only cost MORE to power up at higher levels, they also give LESS CP relative to lower level power ups. I forget the name of the concept, decreasing gains or something. Basically, to make your stardust stretch to the most amount of power, you can just take pokemon up to level 30-35 to get your strong foot forward in raids. Heck, you can *catch* pokemon at this level and spend nothing but candy evolving them. Pokemon naturally spawn max level 30, or level 35 with weather boost. A rule of thumb to tell your Pokemon's level, by looking at the stardust cost to power up. 5000 power up cost means level 29 or 30. 8000 power up cost means level 35 Other commenters mentioned that most raids are going to be easy or impossible. There's a bit of truth there. But going from random Reccomended pokemon to budget raid pokemon is a huge DPS gain and you can accomplish it with very little stardust
Diminishing returns?
Yes thank you! I was blanking
Use the PokieGenie app to decide which Pokemons are good. To quickly build up stardust, do the battles. You don't have to revive or heal the Pokemon used in these battles, it's automatic. Even if you lose, you'll still get stardust. Make sure to keep your buddy out and increase it's friendship. You can change out buddies 20 times a day so I level up friendship by 3 hearts with every single one almost every day by feeding 3 berries, play: rub their head until they burst with a heart & take a picture. This does require having berries, but even if you're out, you can still play with them and take a picture for 2 hearts. Put as many Pokemon as you can in as many gyms as possible every day to help increase the chance of getting your free 50 coins that you can use to increase your storages. Make lots of friends. This will provide you with ample supplies & XP. Always try and do all of the community days/spotlights/events/etc as it's an easy way to get candy and XP you'll need in the future. If you really like Go, look into getting a Gotcha which will help you catch Pokemon & spin stops when you can't be actively playing. The investment in totally worth it, even if you're only playing the free aspect of the game.
I like using [Palkiadex](https://palkiadex.com/?strongest&t=any). It lets you filter out all of the megas, shadows and legendaries so you can see the strongest pokemon of each type that spawn in the wild.
I can give you a few tips that I think are helpful to casual players. Firstly do not invest in high IV Pokemon, just keep saving your dust, instead just evolve the highest cp meta Pokemon that you can find and keep saving the materials that way you will have semi viable Pokemon for raiding, when it comes to PvP I am clueless because I don't play PvP at all, PS: o said don't invest in high IV Pokemon but definitely save them
\[quote\]Firstly do not invest in high IV Pokemon, just keep saving your dust, instead just evolve the highest cp meta Pokemon that you can find and keep saving the materials that way you will have semi viable Pokemon for raiding\[/quote\] This is great advice right here OP. The appraisal does not matter, those are bonus stats. Each pokemon has base stats that far outweighs the bonus stats. If you read here many people really care about the appraisal, but that is probably because the IV's matter a whole lot in scarlet/violet and other pokemon games when it comes to raiding. However in Go, they do not matter.
“My tip is don’t play half of the game” ok buddy
Reading is hard 👌 They said they didn't know anything about PVP because they don't do it
Understanding is hard 🤏 They said just hoard and ignore good pvp Pokemon because they personally don’t like PVP
Download and use Pokiegenie. My strategy is I only power up pokemon that are top tier counters to raids. I couldn't care less about PVP except to progress passed level 43 you have to win a certain number of PVP battles in 3 leagues.
I found a high level, 3* Machamp to be a very worthwhile investment early on. Catch a bunch of machops and evolve a 3* one that’s at least 700cp and then invest in that, it will really really help.
I need advice I have been playing since 7/16 I have asked my son Nick, and he knows. Alot about Pokmon and what will beat what. I have 2 quests to do before I can level up to 47. One is a level 3 raid, with pokemon 1500 Cp or less, does this have to be done solo and you have your pokemon ready and some one else jumps in do you get the credit or do you have to do another Thanks Starwlker9
Nah only you have to use pokemon below 1500. You could even get randos from pokegenie to help you ☺️
Thanks for the help
Haha it’s very much not bedtime here, Ive just finished lunch lol
Try to at least focus on typing so you have a good balanced team. Have a good fire type, dragon, ice, etc No point in having a bunch of strong dragon types if you are raiding against an ice or fairy type because you’ll still get destroyed
Something I did in the beginning was look at the next raid coming, see what are some counters for it, and power those up. You don’t need to focus on the #1 counter, even budget ones work. I also set a tag called “power up” so when I get a power up task, I just go to those and power up as needed. I also suggest focusing on only powering up to level 30 first, then move to 35. It’s hard to tell the level in game, but I highly suggest Pokegenie to help with that. Works both on iPhone and Android. It also shows you the next up raids and counters for them. Ignore Shadow Pokémon for now. Get your staples (core team) set up. And remember to have fun. If you find a pokemon you think is adorable and want it maxed out because you can, do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. If you love it, do it.
Look for “budget Pokémon’s for pve (player vs environment(gym /team rockets ) “this should help you doing raids and going against team rocket. PvP is a whole world for it self.
Stack up that stardust dad! And when you get to level 40 or 40+ you can choose to go hard on certain Pokémon. I play the game for shinies and perfect pokemon. Originally I wanted to just get every Pokémon on the list and be done with it til the next Gen comes out. Max out on friends list and get to best friends with people to level up faster as well.
I am in your same situation. I grew up in the 90's only familiar with the OG 151. My playstyle has always been just leveling up Pokemon I personally like. Sure it's not the most efficient but I am having fun doing it. And I am learning new Pokemon along the way. Just keep playing at your own pace and checking Reddit here and there and just don't stress to much about it and you will have a blast. One helpful piece of advice is googling up specific Pokemon's best movesets, and use your TM's on your highest CP Pokemon. That helped me tons with PVE and PVP. IV's don't matter much at all compared to move sets!
Look up what the top 20 or so mons are in each type, pick a few that you like, and when you catch them in a raid or their first evolution stage in the wild (if possible) then just level those up. If you catch a lot, then level up the one with the best IV ranking. You can check a mons’ IV in game
Man this sounds exactly like myself posting this. I’m in the exact same position. 2 kids now but played this game a lot in 2016/17 before this so currently sat at Level 34 but slowly started getting back into Pokémon these last few weeks. I’m a bit of a stickler as in I’m not willing to invest into any Pokemon unless they are 100% IV so I’ve got plenty that can be evolved but none that I really want to invest in just yet. Life was much easier when they were just that original 151 aha
Time flies by it’s a weird one man we were at the beginning stages of Pokémon and now 15-20 years has gone by and a lot has changed had to figure a lot of it out myself as well best of luck to you brother great for the family my girlfriend and I have been grinding all the games shiny hunting. Time keeps going and things keep turning my man congrats on your kid make sure to raise em we’ll keep them on the right path it’s not easy being a parent and you have to wear the mask of a strong parents even though we are all grown kids at the end of the day which only people in our age bracket and older will understand the older you get the more you recognize the fabrics of the psyche extremely delicate and yet complex
Just play it however you want and don't listen to people overanalyzing here. Use your favorite Pokemon and get excited to discover some new faves. In particular there are a lot of new type combinations that make battle strategy a lot more interesting. The meta game goes really deep so just rest assured the info is all out there if you ever become curious on how to squeeze every little drop of efficiency out of this game. Try fighting the Team Rocket grunts to develop teams and discover which of your mons are strongest/most versatile. You can also try doing 1 star raids solo to find out what that's like and which mons perform the best. There's no wrong way man, have fun!
If you have an Eevee, name it Kira, and it should give you an option to evolve it into Sylveon. I use one as my lead, not too sure it’s good, but it always works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thats exactly what I'm looking for
So all the new Pokemon are pretty fun (giraffe, zebra, mosquito!) but there are some weird outer space/alternate dimension Pokemon that are wtf.
The ultra beasts are functionally Pokémon, not worth getting hung up on lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/s/7xwOOknsqE Here is a list of top pve Mons 3/24. I would try to focuse on these mons
Vons sells a manual in their magazine racks~ its a interesting read
I rarely level Pokemon up from the ground up, rather I find Pokémon that are already high level and invest in marking them the best. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a big stardust supply, that’s going to be your best bet. Once your trainer level is higher, then you’ll have more freedom to do whatever you want and level up Pokémon more (plus by then you’ll have a big variety of Pokémon and maybe a better idea of who is good or bad) IMO worrying about the competitive side of Pokémon go isn’t worth it. I typically invest in Pokémon that I like
Don't bother with low CP Pokemon. It would take waaay to much stardust to level up so they're good for battles. You'll catch a stronger one eventually. What i mean is. If you have a cp 150 Machop, wait untill you find a cp 900 Machop and evolve that instead
I’d recommend getting a couple teams built to use for battling. Battling is the easiest and best way to gain stardust
Use budget raiders. They are usually ranked 10-20 on DPS for raids and their resources are easily grinded in the wild; Some examples: machamp, all starter Pokémon’s with blast burn, hyrdo cannon, ect. Rampardos, litwick and ralts.
First, the question is… are you PVPing (er, GBLing) or raiding? If you’re PVPing then much of the optimal mon rotate season by season *and* for most players, aren’t relevant. I’ve gone up to rank 20 plenty of times and you’ll run into people with the optimal this and that’s and timing and it’s definitely a “if you need to ask, you’re not a member” club - you were going to lose regardless of your roster. For the rest, there’s plenty of “I had 3 dual moved, max-ish CP for the league mon” wins to be had. Do take the time to look up ideal move sets (pvpoke is my recommendation) but don’t get twisted on optimals until you’re ready for it. For PVE - that is, if you’re going to go in to 4 (mega), 5 (legendary) and 6 (primals) star raids… you probably want to look over at palkiadex. As a vague, hand wavy way of describing them, most types have a large group of pokemon loosely in the 30-33 range (the specific numbers vary by type but when you look over it, you’ll recognize ‘the clump’). These are *generally* your budget counters, give or take ones with an asterisk on their move names (legacy move, that is, only available by elite TM or community day or other special event) and shadows (cost more to level, but for PvE are generally better versions). As a super further vague rule of thumb, if you have 6 maxed budget counters, you and 2 similar friends should be fine for just about any raid. Slight differences (I use 3, or ~8%) in EER won’t matter from a practical standpoint - it’s pretty rare you were 5 seconds away from beating a raid, for example. Above that you’ll generally have *some* legendaries and other exceptional pokemon. Nice if you can get them. Megas/primals you can only have one active at a time, so great to have but you’re going to usually want a whole team (maxed Mega Rayquaza and the Primals may be worth just revive spamming). Considering the time and effort of getting their candies, personally I don’t fuss as much as some over one as another. For example, Heatran with his legacy move is clearly inferior to Reshiram (but definitely in the same “league”) However, I’ve played every reshiram event since his release and don’t have 5 (plus a primal) maxed, nor am I close; so I’ve got one Heatran who is getting built, too. If you do raid and have a large group (… depending on their play style, 4 can count as large…) then much of this is irrelevant, which I think all the starters of any generation ending up in the 30-33 range is intentional as that makes raiding fairly comfortable for a group of pals and whatever else anyone says of Niantic, that’s kind of cozy.
There are different things to do in the game so depends on what you are most interested in. Assuming you are interested in doing most everything, here is my advice. Level Up: Some people are obsessed with grinding XP and leveling up. Just play the game. Friendship with other players can help a lot with this. Getting good with curve and excellent throws. Grinding during XP events. Use those lucky eggs when you are about to get a lot of XP. Pokedex: Catch all the pokemon! Use pinap berries for some of the rarer ones. If you are interested in battle then save some of the ones with either high IVs from the appraisal or good pvp ivs. I use an app called Calcy IV to check how good something is for pvp. I transfer the rest. Raids / Gym Battles: Save pokemon with the highest IVs. For pokemon you like and think are half decent, I would invest in powering them up until they are level 30. I say 30 because the stardust cost isn't too high and because you get diminishing return on your stardust after 30. Calcy IV can tell you which level your pokemon is. Once you know what all is the best, I would consider powering up those to like 40 or 50. Mewtwo for example is the best psychic attacker. Pvp: Check pvpoke.com/rankings to see what is good for the league you are interested in. Get those pokemon with ideal IV spread. (Great and Ultra League you usually want IVs close to 0/15/15, and Master League you always want 15/15/15 ivs). Shiny hunting: Just go and catch pokemon, or tap them and run away of not shiny. Just pay attention to pokemon go news and infographics posted online from groups like leekduck so you are aware of possible shinies.
You should feel free to plow stardust into high IV (think 96 or above) of the following, relatively easy to find species: - Machop - Ralts - Drilbur - Swinub - Larvitar - Ghastly Pretty much anything that gets a mega is a good shout too. Your goal is to be able to solo 3 star, and some mega raids as this makes it again easier to raise good teams. You can eventually get to the point where you can solo the ocassional 5 star (sometimes dependent on weather), and duo more of them if you can find another account or someone else who plays.
> Larvitar I would recommend 2, one for dark and one for rock.
There’s gotta be a modern Pokédex book right? You could order one of those and flip through it at night looking at which pokemon come later in the regional Pokédexes. That usually related to their rarity at least. For relevant details (since pokemon go “strength” is rated differently than the main games”) go to PVPoke.com > rankings. That will show you which pokemon in this game are the most competitive.
It depends on your goals, but for PvE play I’d look up good Pokémon of each type and try to get teams going so you can raid whenever you want to get into that. I use gamepress, their format is very easy to read and they have write ups on every Pokémon from a PvE and pvp perspective A few tips that I wish I had when I started are to A. Before you fully evolve a very good Pokémon, check gamepress to see if it has a community day move, and if it does wait until evolving will get you that move. Good examples are the starter Pokémon, they get incredibly good moves when evolved during certain events, such as Charizard getting Blast Burn B. Don’t purify shadows, as a general rule. Because of how the shadow boost works, a 0IV shadow will outperform a 100IV non-shadow once you get rid of the move Frustration on the shadow Pokémon, which can only be done by using a Charged TM during the Rocket Takeover event that occurs once per season As an addendum to my first 2 points, some Pokémon are both shadow and get special moves, in which case you would remove Frustration from the pre-evolution during the Rocket event, and then evolve them during the appropriate event to give them the move C. Don’t evolve a Magikarp as soon as you can. There’s a quest that all new players get called A Mythical Discovery that rewards a Mew and unlocks further mythical quests, and one of the steps asks you to evolve a Magikarp D. Download the Campfire app, it’s invaluable for doing raids that are locked to in-person only such as the upcoming Mega Rayquaza elite raid. I used it last time Shadow Mewtwo was up and managed to find a group, we all drove around and did 20+ raids. You can also use it for regular raids, but for those you can also choose to use a third-party app and remotely join. I use PokéRaid, but have also heard good things about PokéGenie
Do you want to do pve or pvp? Both? There is a site called pvpoke that has rankings based on stats and moves. The rankings are constantly in flux thanks to new mons, changes to movesets, etc. It's especially helpful on the pvp side if you want to get into competitive battling. I really enjoy slowly building up teams of heavy hitters. I just maxed out a shiny lickitung for great league with XL and he's a blast to play with. For pvp, just focus on a few of the top mons from each type, especially if they have a mega or shadow variant. There are a few metas that are extremely helpful. My go-to's tend to be Groudon, Togekiss, Dialga, Reshiram, etc. It's nice being able to take on 3 star raids by yourself or 5 star raids with one other friend.
You should power up Pokemon you like: your first shiny, favorite pokemon, a hundo, anything like that
Gyarados and Dragonite are still META, good for any battle league. 4 of my 10 strongest Pokémon are Dragonites. Also the newest type, Fairy, is insanely strong. A good Sylveon, Clefable, or Togekiss will be an excellent battler. And the Energy per Second of fast moves matters a ton, being able to charge up your stronger attacks quickly is a game changer. Welcome back and good luck! I played at launch but got back into it a few years ago while walking our dog. It’s amazing
Generally i would evolve whatever i get then when i try to power up, press the back button to see how high of a cp it can get to, since each pokemon species has a rough estimate of how strong they are in points not level its a good indication on what it might be useful on, then id also take into consideration how often they spawn/ easily u can get their candy. Or generally just whatever pokemon you see as neat, or covering every type youd need for raids or fighting team rocket is my go to if youre fairly casual about the game
You can look for the Pokémon s you have the best statistics, 4 stars preferible or the closest to it and start with those; and the ones you like the most also
There’s a lot of great YouTube videos that show you which are the best to power up. try searching pokedaxi on YouTube and best power up. He updated it a month or two ago.
Legendaries or perfects or favourites or whatever you like. If you want to PvP then you will need to do some research
Just horde your dust. I only have like 7 pokemon I've maxed to level 45 (I'm only level 44) and have 6 million dust. Most are level 40 which are good enough for raids I dropped like 700k dust powering up 2 mewtwos when they were in shadow raids a few months ago. Glad I have a ton stored up for events like that
By the end of month, Mega Tyranitar Raids will be featured at gyms... that's your upcoming priority... If got not trainers with you... post your FC in the Mega Raid Thread and many other trainers will send Friend Request to join the Raid. Believe me... Mega Tyranitar can be more than 5000 CP... no joke