An Intro to Competitive Pokemon GO
In today's post I wanted to share everything I've learned and researched about competitive Pokemon GO player vs player (PVP). I hope that this will help you decide if you'd like to play Pokemon GO PVP competitively and if you are newer to the game like me it will help you enjoy the game even more and help you get better. I'm primarily interested in the Great League which as a CP limit of 1500 and is the standard for tournament play. The guide is broken up into the following sections:
- Catching Pokemon
- Team Building
- Battle Tactics
Catching Pokemon
Pokemon used for PVP are different that Pokemon used for normal gameplay. This is because the PVP modes have a limit to how high the CP can get for each Pokémon (Master League is an exception which has no CP limit). If you are going to be competing then you are going to want the best possible Pokémon. Which means you are going to want the highest possible appraisals right? NOPE. You actually high defense and high HP with little to zero attack. This is because of the way that CP is calculated. For whatever reason Attack boosts the CP much higher than defense or HP which means that by using Pokémon with low attack you end up being able to get more stats for the same level of CP.
Man... thats confusing as heck. Luckily there are a lot of websites out there that help you determine if your Pokemon is prime for some PVP action. I've been using https://pvpivs.com/ to help me decide which ones I want to keep. It gives a ranked list of IVs (appraisal) based on which ones give the most overall stats. IVs are the stats that help determine how many stats you gain when you power up your Pokemon. The general rule of thumb like I mentioned is 0/15/15 which is 0 on the attack bar and maxed out 15 on the defense and HP bars.
To get a little math-y this is the damage calculation formula for GO battles.
dmg = Floor( [YourAtk × ShadowMult]/[TheirDef ÷ ShadowMult] × BasePower × STAB × Effectiveness × Shield × Constant)+1
Assuming you aren't a Shadow Pokemon you can see that generally its Attack / Defense * a bunch of of other stuff + 1. This means that Attack and Defense contribute the same to overall to damage taken + damage done and you are better off jamming as much stats as you can for you CP which is how you end up with 0/15/15 stat Pokemon being the ideal or close to it. There is a bit of CP work in getting the right spread to get as close to 1500 CP as possible so it might actually be 0/13/14. Use a Tool like https://pvpivs.com/ to figure out what is best
Is Attack always bad? Definitely NOT! Its actually used to calculate Charge Move Priority which is something we'll discuss later. AND if you wait for the perfect 0/15/15 Pokemon you'll have a really bad time. I'd rather get Pokemon that are usable and go have fun than stress about getting perfect Pokémon. Use https://pvpivs.com/ to see how close you are to "perfect". This is my main team right now and its been doing pretty well 😄
Team Building
Once you've got your Pokemon caught and trained up to your desired CP Level you've got to build a team! Or maybe you want to plan a team and then go out and find those Pokemon. I'm playing Great League which is 1500 CP and is the standard for the competitive circuits. Most of team building is based on covering types and weaknesses. The Pokemon Go types are the same as the normal games except that there are no Immune type match ups that nullify damage (which is great). All of the Pokemon Go specific type charts are kind of doodoo so I just use this one.
From what I've learned there are 3 main types of teams: ABC, ABB, ABA. Yes I know that is gibberish lets talk about it.
ABC - This kind of team has each Pokemon covering the next B covers the weakness of A, C covers the weakness of B and A wraps back around and covers the weakness of C. You'll always have a way out with this kind of team. This team is also the easiest to understand and complete. An example is a team made of Water, Fire, Grass Pokemon. Each of these Pokémon cover each other's weaknesses well.
ABA, ABB - Now that you know what ABC means its pretty obvious what ABA and ABB are. ABA means a team with two pokemon with similar weakness spreads and 1 cover pokemon B. ABB means a team which as 2 Covers for your starting Pokemon. My team is an example of ABA because I use two Water based pokemon, Quagsire and Jellicent. Water is especially Quasire is weak to Grass which is why my last Pokémon is Magmar. Another benefit is that Quagsire is Water/Ground which means it has high resistances vs Electric which helps me cover for my other Water Pokemon Jellicent.
ABD - This is not a real team that I've heard of but something I've theorized. This team would cover Pokemon A's weakness with B as normal but D would cover the weaknesses for BOTH A and B. An example I came up with is. Water, Ground, Fire. Water's weaknesses is Electric/Grass. We cover Electric with Ground which is weak vs Water/Grass/Ice. Lastly Fire is strong vs Grass/Ice which means we the only gap we have is Water which we can use our water Pokémon against. I guess this team is pretty similar to ABB since both Ground and Fire cover Water. So maybe just ignore me on this one 😂
Battle Tactics
Phew, we've caught pokemon and we've built a team. Now we can finally battle! The basics of GO battles is that use fast attacks while you save up energy to use charge moves, you can switch Pokemon once every 60 seconds and you have 2 Protect shields which can nullify an attack completely. When you combine these with the Type match ups you get a surprisingly nuanced battle system full of strategy and reading the opponent's moves. There are 4 main "techniques" we can go over Baiting, Catch, Farm Down and Turn Counting and one concept, Switch Advantage. I'd say these are the most important, the rest are ways to optimize your play or general concepts to keep in mind.
Baiting - The most simple but incredibly effective technique. When you really get underway you'll want your Pokemon to have access to 2 moves. One of these moves is typically one that costs less energy meaning it can be used more often/more quickly. You can pull off a bait by using a low energy cost charge move instead of a more expensive one which may draw out a Protect from the opponent. To add insult to injury try doing this with a move that applies a stat bonus since the Protect will not counter that effect!
Catch - This is one of the most exciting skills in the game which is why I started with it! Charged moves are the biggest source of damage in battles but you only have limited amount of Protects, so what can you do? CATCH! By predicting your opponents charge move you can switch into a Pokemon that it will not be effective against just before. This saves you a ton of HP and give you a HUGE advantage! In longer battles you can use this technique to turn a low HP Pokemon into an additional Protect! Mastering the catch will give you the most back for your buck.
Farm Down/Energy Farming - A term used to reference when you defeat a Pokemon by using fast moves and save up energy for a charge move. This can be a little dangerous as you don't want to give your opponent a chance to get another attack off on you. Using a farm down tactic can be the difference between only having 1 charge move or having 2 charge moves for the opponent's next Pokemon. Just like a Catch a well timed farm down can be the difference between winning and losing.
Turn Counting - Counting turns or generally how many fast attacks your opponent has used is a skill that will take your Catch and Farm Down tactics to the next level. You'll be able to know when the opponent has their charge move ready perfectly timed Catch. Will your opponent be able to make it to another move if you try to go for a Farm Down? What's more valuable using up a protect or farming that extra energy? If you don't know if the opponent will be able to fire off another move you can't make that decision. Every Fast Move takes a certain amount of moves and a builds a certain amount of energy. Since you only get energy when you use a move counting moves will do just fine and is way easier. To see how many turns it take for a Pokemon to reach their charged moves you can check this site, find the Pokemon you want and go to the moves section and click "Show Stats". If you click different Fast Moves you can see how many moves it will take to reach each charge move. So useful!
Switch Advantage - If you can only switch once every 30 seconds it makes switches super valuable. Switching before your opponent does means they will have the ability to swap into a favorable match up! YIKES! This means that when you can its in your best interest not to swap first. This adds some risk to going for a Catch since you give up switch advantage and if your opponent has a counter then you could end up in an even worse position.
Reads - Once you understand and have started to implement the 5 techniques/strategies above you are on your way to becoming a Pokemon Master! And it also is where we get to start implementing reading the opponent. This is like expanding upon the concept of Baiting. One example of this is using a charge move that is super effective into a Pokemon you think your opponent will try to catch with! When you are right you will win big! Another example of this is thinking about why an opponent is playing the way they are. Did they not switch into a type advantage for your lead Pokemon? Maybe they don't have one? or maybe they have a Pokemon in the back that is weak against your lead? Can you play into that possibility? Reading your opponent is all about making educated guesses that will improve your chances of winning. Some times you guess wrong but does that mean you should never guess?
Switch Stall - The switch timer in GO battles is 30 seconds but it has one key attribute. It is ALWAYS ticking down. Found yourself in an unfavorable match up? its possible to buy some time by spamming charge moves. In fact the opponent throwing out a charge move can give you some extra time to squeeze in a swap to get you back in a favorable position.
Charge Move Priority (CMP) - Why is it that some Pokemon use their charge move before you even if its up at the same time??? This is what we call Charge Move Priority and it is determined by comparing the ATTACK stat of each Pokemon. Not to be confused with the attack IVs of a Pokemon. Some Pokemon just have more base attack than others and will therefore get priority when doing charge attacks. This also means that if you catch enough Pokemon you'll have the option to cook up a special stat spread to beat the mirror match or other common Pokemon they might lose to otherwise.
Perfect Charge Moves - Ever wonder why you die before getting your charge move activates? This is why. The author mentions that this is a tiny minmax and that focusing on switching, typing and energy farming are the highest reward skills to learn. Also, I actually just found this out while trying doing some extra research writing this and I think it gives more weight to CMP and is a reason not to totally ignore attack IVs. There are ideal timings for getting out charged moves which add up BIG TIME. I'll just link to the post I found because its a bit much to discuss here and I've only just found it.
Charge Move Timing -- Yes, it *really* does matter.
by u/FlarkeFiasco in TheSilphArena
Final Thoughts
Dang... that was a lot to take in wasn't it. Who knew Pokemon GO PVP could be so interesting! I'm loving the combination of strategy that goes into team preparation combined with the nuance and tactics within each battle! If you got this far I hope I could make you as excited about Pokemon GO PVP as I am and that you can use this article as a resource to comeback to or to share with your friends.
Thanks for reading,
Chris Gardner