I tested out a little theory on how/when/where wild Pokemon spawn and where the spawn locations are…
Since Niantic reused a large percentage of the data and maps from their earlier title, Ingress, I downloaded Ingress and set up an account, it’s a pretty cool game on its own, but it also showed me what I suspected…
Areas that have “XM” ( eXperimental Matter, not the satellite radio company) match up with areas that Pokemon spawn from, the higher the concentration of XM, the more frequent and/or better the spawned Pokemon, and yes, the pokestops map directly to the Ingress Portals (not related to Aperture Science Portals, and probably not compatible… Better not let Cave Johnson find out about this, he may have to get some Combustible Lemons ready…)
Ahem, back on tangent, sorry…
So, the back roads and houses around home, a light smattering of XM, local store parking lots, much higher, around Portals, lots of XM… out in our hayfield and around the house? Not a speck, not a blip, nothing, complete dead zone
So, it looks like the Ingress map can be used to get a rough idea of the Pokemon spawn density of the area…
Today I managed to get a run of ponytas, enough in fact to finally evolve my best one into a rapidash. Before I left the area where I was having success I caught a rapidash in the wild. Unfortunately it’s cp was 1/10 that of the ponyta I was going to evolve. This is the second time this has happened to me where I save up the candies and just before I use them I catch the evolved form and the evolved form blows. Once the one I caught was awesome so I just went with it.
So does any one know when you catch an evolved form is it better to spend the candy to bring it up to speed or to evolve something to jump to the front of the line?
If a Pokemon is really rare, you may have no choice but to pump up a an evolved version due to the inability to get enough candies (granted nobody has had the game long enough to have a good idea of what “rare” means in the long term). However, generally speaking stardust is more valuable than candies, and the price goes up drastically the closer to the CP cap a pokemon gets, so you really want to save for making your best Pokemon more competitive.
It’s almost always better to evolve a pokemon near its CP cap than to raise an evolved Pokemon. Again, except when you’re severely limited by candies (e.g. pumping up a mediocre Gyrados is probably better for your sanity than getting all 400 candies to evolve a Magikarp).
I got excited and thought I saw a Moltres shadow too, until I came to my senses and realized it was probably actually a Fearow. They have surprisingly similar silhouettes. Are you sure it wasn’t that?
Started playing today. Got Pikachu for my first one, but it only has an 11 CP. My best is a Clefairy with a CP of 84. At least I think it is my best. I’m laboring under the minor handicap of knowing nothing about Pokémon except that Pikachu is special somehow.
Pikachu is Pokemon’s defacto mascot. That’s about all that’s special about it. It’s actually a fairly common Pokemon, and at least in the mainline Pokemon games is fairly lackluster stat-wise.
I read that some hacker group has taken down the servers. It was funny reading the twitter comments I don’t normally see the Internet upset with hackers.
That’s fascinating. I’ve downloaded it for just that reason, both of my boys are ASD to differing degrees and it looked like a great way to help get them exploring the area with me. Just for research purposes (of course :)) I went for a walk with it today along the Murrumbidgee River corridor and hit about 10 stops, bagged 4 critters and got 3 eggs (1 a 10km egg, I understand from reading this is a good thing?).
A lot more fun that I was expecting and I’ll be getting the boys out for a bit of chasing around the neighbourhood this afternoon.
Depends on if you have the relevant candy in plentiful supply, versus having a lot of stardust. Evolving a 'Mon seems to keep its place on the CP curve - so if it’s near the top of its curve, that’s where it will be after evolving - though usually at a higher absolute value due to the evolution. Costs to upgrade CP do not seem to increase after evolution, only with higher positions on the curve.
I’m sure, because Fearow has square-tipped wings and Moltres has fire-tipped wings and this shadow absolutely had a pair of wings with fire coming off it. I have a Fearow right now and the outline of it is not at all like the Moltres shadow I saw.
If I’d been thinking at the time I would have taken a screenshot of it! All I did was mention it to my friends at the time and since they don’t go, “You’re lying, show me proof” I didn’t think to snap it. As mentioned though this is most likely a bug because it was the first two days of the game and it stuck around for two days in a row.
Ok so I did my first gym battle today. What did I do wrong? I got the shit kicked out of me. I heard something about going after lower level Pokemon at the gym but I only got attacked by the top dog who was way out of my league. It didn’t look like I got anything out of it.
Also do your Pokemon revive after time or do you need to use items?
Yes, normally you battle up through the ranks and even if you lose to the top dog pokemon, if you beat a lower pokemon on the way there it still damages the gym prestige and gets you EXP. My guess is that someone was battling the gym at the same time as you, and they had already advanced to the top dog battle and you accidentally jumped in right then, getting yourself smashed. I can’t say for sure as I have not yet participated in any gym fights with multiple attackers yet.
You will need to expend revives and potions/super potions to get your Pokemon back to normal. If you go into the items part of your bag you can tap on them to then bring up the screen for which pokemon you want to use it on.
Also, as an aside, to place a pokemon in a gym it must be 100% healed. So if you used your best to fight the gym you’ll have to heal them up before putting them in the gym.
Thanks. One more question. The ones occupying the gym, after they are defeated do they heal? In other words if someone takes out all the lower levels 30 minutes before me does that mean I can only hit the one that is left?
Eta: can a gym be held by a smaller number of defenders? I’m at a gym right now and all I am seeing is a vaporeon 1409 CP and a Gyarados 1679. Not worth even attempting with my tiny ones.
A gym can be held by as few as one pokemon, although usually not for long, and I’ve seen as many as 6 defenders. From what I’ve seen you battle through a gym little to big and when a gym drops a level it’s the lowest cp pokemon that gets the boot. I’m not sure why you would have started with the biggest one unless someone dropped the gym a level while your attack was loading.
I drove by a couple gyms today over lunch. Two were empty and I tossed a Pokemon into them and one was already Blue and I added a Pokemon. None of them were worth mentioning (cp levels 70-90) but I figured anything is better than nothing and, heck, I might as well get used to how it all works even if my Psyduck gets stomped by some CP 950 beast. Hey, if nothing else, Team Mystic Represent for a little bit.
The fourth gym though, when I went to add a Pokemon, it only gave me the option to fight. And it was a Blue gym again so I was trying to add a defender but the option wasn’t there, only to fight the current Pokemon in the gym. There was only two in the gym as well so I don’t think it hit some ceiling but I don’t know. Can anyone explain it better?
My best is a Clefairy with a CP of 84. At least I think it is my best. I’m laboring under the minor handicap of knowing nothing about Pokémon except that Pikachu is special somehow.