The 3 most important tips for improving at Pokemon GO Battles. TUBA Method.
That's right! More Pokemon GO! Last month I finished my first ranked season of GO Battle League in the Ace trainer rank with 2162 points! Really happy with this placing since I've only been playing the game again for 3 weeks and never played PvP before that. These are the 3 things that got me there. And I'll put my team at the end.
- TYPES
Its Pokémon, you GOTTA learn your types. This is the most important thing that dictates you match ups. You can be a little lazy and see if your fast moves are super effective before deciding on which charge move to use but knowing your types is something you'll need to do anyway. The faster you can swap out of bad match ups into good/even ones the more benefit you'll get! Its also important for knowing how you need to set up your late game. - Understanding Team Strategy
If you want to do well in competitive Pokemon battles you won't be able to slap 3 random mons together. You have to have a team strategy, I covered this briefly in my last strategy but also got a few things wrong. The team I'd recommend is an ABC lineup, its safe, its flexible and its easy to use. A&B pokemon cover each other's weaknesses the example people always give is Swampert + Skarmory. I wish it were easier to figure out these pairs to be honest. Your C pokemon is called a Safe Swap which you go into when your lead pokemon has a really bad match up. These Pokemon don't have a lot of situations where they super hard lose and even if they do they are going to apply a lot of pressure. My Safe Swap of choice right now is Vigoroth. If you run an ABC line up your strategy is simple. Stay in with A unless its BAD, if its is swap to B. Then depending on how the opponent swaps you need to decide if you need fight for supremacy with B. Its all about aligning your two remaining Pokemon to close out the game. - Basic Move Counting
Move Counting is important because it lets you know when the opponent will have their strongest moves available, what you need to shield and if you can go for a catch. But learning EVERY POKEMONS move count is a pain in the ass. Instead I just count my own Pokémon's moves. Ex: Jellicent has a 2 turn fast move and takes 5 turns to get to my first surf. I know some move charge faster which means it takes 4-5 of Jelli's attacks for them to charge up. So if I'm expecting an electric quick attack I could do 4 attacks and then swap to my Vigoroth to try to catch expecting them to throw it as soon as they can. This also lets you know when the opponent hasn't had enough time to charge up a big nuke move that you HAVE to shield. Counting helps a ton and by knowing the average counts it'll give you the most bang for your buck and save you the hassle of tons of memorization. - Advantages/ Alignment
Lastly you need to understand the different types of advantages in GO Battles. I use these advantages to obtain "Alignment" basically making sure that I get my best match ups with my Pokémon.- Shield Advantage
- Energy Advantage
- Swap Advantage
These 3 types of advantages are pretty much always traded for each other. one example of this is. Shield a move so you can fast attack down the opponent for extra energy? -shield + energy. I value Swap advantage the HIGHEST. Having the proper alignment onto your opponent's team can more than make up for being down shields or energy. This is why I think ABC teams are so strong as well. If you win the lead match up then the opponent will probably swap. Which means you have swap advantage now. You can go into your B or C Pokémon knowing that they are locked in and retain your alignment for your A pokemon. If you lose your A match up you can go into your safe swap and either take out their A Pokémon (your A is now safe) or try to win vs their swap with your energy advantage you got for coming in a little bit earlier (they will have to come in with one of their 2 remaining pokemon first which lets you line up your best match up and be able to swap if the opponent does keeping that strong matchup for the finale.
