Took down my first gym - have lots of questions
Level 26, and I've only been playing since Jan 21st.
Decided to take down my first gym - a 52000/L10 Mystic gym - two dragonites, two rhydons, two gyrados, a exeggutor, and three vaporeons. Most of which were higher CP than anything I have. The dragonites were really tough because none of my ice types are over 1400CP.
First question - how long should it take? It took me about two hours! And a ton of potions! (Over 30 max potions gone) Fortunately, my main reason for trying was to burn potions and make room in my bag for more Pokeballs.
Second question is dodging. I got a good sense of when one-bar charge moves were going to come, and got used to dodging and using my charge move after theirs. However, multi-bar charge moves flummox me on both sides (attacker and defender).
When the defender has a multi-bar charge, it appears like they "save up" and then hit you with two or three of them in a row. I'm not sure how to time when I use my charge move against this - I tried to do it after the first defender charge move, which usually meant I ate the second charge.
When I have a multi-bar charge move (my highest CP Vaporeon has Aqua Tail), I also don't know how to time it. Usually, I wait until their charge is done, then hit them with my one-bar charge. However, one aqua tail is too wimpy - should I try to hit them with all three then, in the hopes that I will only have to eat quick moves?
Lastly, why do people do this? I catch pokemon while walking, get a nice walk, and some exercise. This is my main reason for playing Pokemon GO instead of some other game - I can't play it at home, and I have to walk (and I do it with a 40# weight vest on), but I don't see the benefit of sitting in a park for two hours. Not seeing the appeal. I wish you could walk away from the gym while battling. Are there many players who forgo the gym battling thing entirely?
Is it traditional to try to prestige the gym up after taking it over? Is that what "bubblestrat" is for? I could never get "bubblestrat" to work - the attacker always got hit by those first two quick moves. And, if I were to put in some CP20 defender, wouldn't that just mean that I would be booted out of the gym really fast? It's not like you can take out your defender and replace it with another.
Answers
It's questionable whether bubblestrat still works after the Gen 2 update. 2 hours is about twice as long as it should take, but I haven't taken down a L10 since gen 2 launch.
I have met many who are uninterested in gyms.
As for charge moves, you got to get a feel for it. I try to fire the first one as fast as possible, the site back and wait to see what they have. Usually the lower CP Mon can fire first. Once you know what move they have, you get a feel for when they are "due" and can hold back. Other times you get near the end of the battle and just have to roll the dice.
I'll try to give a decent reply to some of your points.
First, dodging takes practice. There really isn't much more to say than that.
With multibar charge moves, they tend to be active quicker. For these, if the opponent uses something like hyper beam, I'll fire off an aqua tail, then dodge the next quick move, then use another aqua tail. This way, I know I won't get hit by a charge move. Even if I get hit by a quick move during that, it's not a big deal.
With regards to defender charge moves, they don't automatically use their charge move once they can. Also, since taking damage gives energy, that is a part. Say you fight a snorlax with body slam. It uses it (which does not automatically mean the energy is empty), so you dodge and hit back with a big single bar move. That damage gives the snorlax more energy, so it uses another body slam or two. That happens. Sometimes you just guess wrong and get hit.
You don't have to take gyms. I am very lax relative to others here with that. Like you, I like walking and catching mons (and talking with friends while I do). My gf rarely fights gyms. She likes collecting. Me too. Absolutely nothing wrong there. Plus, the gym rewards aren't great.
With regards to gyms, you can prestige it a bit. Helps the team aspect. There is little a defender can really do about a gym. Like you proved, if someone wants to take a gym down, they will. Personally, I have never used the bubblestrat.
There's no definitive answer to this first one, but I would say two hours is a very long time to take down a level ten gym, even solo. If your pokes are strong enough it should take around 45 min to an hour from my experience and other players' as well. If you're especially strong, even just half an hour (given you're soloing it)
Charge moves like Hyper Beam are very predictable. Single use, high energy usage. This should always be dodged and followed up by a charge attack.
Moves like Aqua Tail that can be constantly spammed are not so predicable. You should still use your charge move after one has been cast, but use caution. Aqua Tail has three uses, so if the defender spams all three back to back, you can more safely and predictably use a charge move. It's really about developing strategy/good judgement and familiarizing with the battling system. Some players prefer not to dodge. Most non-casuals will have a game plan
Prestiging a gym after takeover isn't necessary, but it does help out your team a ton. Not much I can say for the "bubble strat" as I don't use this method
And finally, I play because I enjoy the gameplay. I like going outside and being active. PoGo compliments this lifestyle. A lot of players need content to stay into it, but I don't need much. I still have Gen 1 pokes to catch! I play because I have a genuine fondness for it that can only be broken by so much. As far as I'm concerned I'll play till it ends
I am currently at lvl 32. I really didn't start taking gyms until I was around 25. I learned like others here have said, how to get a feel for dodging. Once you get a feel for it promise you there will be moves you dodge with ease, and others you can never quite figure(Snorlax body slam is particularly hard). I enjoy both aspects of the game because i like being able to have 2 extra incubators as well as my infinite going at once. Now I usually won't spend time on a level 10 gym unless it is reachable from a building that I am going to be in for a few hours. Then I might spend the time. I also like battling with guys most people don't regularly use. I find it fun.
I'm level 35, and as others have reported, soloing a Level 10 gym usually takes me around 45 minutes, give or take. You are new at battling, so will probably get better, and your pokemon probably aren't that strong yet. Also, you didn't mention whether you paid close attention to choosing favorable matchups when selecting your team, but that is an important part of it. Other variables include the strength of the defending mons in the gym, and the composition of the defending lineup. If there are three or four or five Vaporeons in a row, it's relatively easy to put in a couple of strong grass types in a row as attackers to plow through the Vapes. If you kill one and have a solar beam already half charged up, you have a leg up on the next one. It's trickier if you have to switch your attackers frequently to ensure favorable type matchups.
I like battling because it's fun, and I like trying out as many different mons as possible, and finding that niche where a given mon will excel. I don't solo level 10 gyms very often, though. Ideally, I prefer to prestige reasonably strong friendly gyms. Prestiging allows you to use some of the lower-tier, more obscure mons, and sometimes they will surprise you. I do like to give my "A" attacking team some exercise against enemy gyms once in a while, though. Level 5, 6, or 7 gyms go a whole lot quicker than level 10 gyms. I'd guess it takes me <10 minutes for a level 5 gym, and maybe 20 min. for a level 7 gym. If Niantic would come up with a way to make choosing my team less tedious, it would go a lot quicker.
The other reason I battle gyms is for the free pokecoins. I don't spend any money on in-app pokecoin purchases, and holding gyms has allowed me to max out my item bag capacity, upgrade my pokemon storage to what I need, purchase occasional incubators & lucky eggs, etc.
Don't worry about Bubblestrat for now. It's not essential to the game. I've played around with it, but find it very tedious relative to the benefit. I think it worked better (at least faster) back when you could only use a single mon for prestiging.
I picked my attacker types well (vape v rhydon, eggy v vape, cloyster v Dragonite, jolty vs gyrados) , but my CP was so much lower that it didn't give me a huge advantage.
I only tried to kill one defender for each attacker, then switched or ran. Was fairly successful - only used 15 revives. I also only tried to get 3 defenders before running - I didn't bother setting the last 3 attackers in the queue and would just run after beating 3 defenders.
This may have been clever but also may have been suboptimal - really depends on the gym order.
Let's say the Rhydons were both at the bottom, then Gyarados, then Dragonite, and Vapes at the top. Then this was optimal.
More likely, let's say that Vapes were at the bottom, then Gyarados, then Rhydons and Dragonites. Then this was highly suboptimal.
You would have ended up fighting the 3 Vapes to take down 30K prestige, meaning a total of 30 Vapes defeated. Contrast that with beating 6 mons each time and instead of 30 Vapes for the first 30K prestige you would have done ~10 Vapes in total and 20 more kills on to Gyarados/Rhydon (which are much faster and easier to deal with).
I also recently took down a level 10 mystic gym solo - which had 3 Snorlax, 3 Rhydon, 3 Vapes, and a Gyarados in it (due to the Snorlax, likely much harder than your gym). All at 2800+ CP. It took me 1 hour total, but I stopped after the first 30K prestige and spent about 10-15min of that replenishing on nearby pokestops (so only 45-50min actually fighting the gym).
Two Snorlax were near the bottom so unfortunately I couldn't just spam everything before the Snorlax to get rid of them quickly - instead I beat as much of the gym as possible to fight them as few times as possible (which unfortunately meant having to struggle through the third high CP Snorlax a few more times than optimal). Nonetheless was still a much faster gym takedown, in part due to probably a stronger attacking team (level 29, used 2758 Rhydon, 2709 Vaporeon, 2194 Vaporeon, 2037 Exeggutor, 1975 Vaporeon, 1957 Venusaur, 1839 Jolteon - selections depending on which part of the gym I was facing). Typically beat 8 pokemon per attempt (avoided the finishing Snorlax-Vaporeon combo until I could reliably clear the whole gym).
I also started later, September, as opposed to mid July release in my country and I remember also now my first 10 lvl gym :). It took me a bit over 2 hours and 30 minutes and emptied almost all my potion and revives; I was lower level, 22 I think, the gym had several lvl 30 mons and my strongest mon was a WP Vape; and I did not had a grass attacker other then a Gloom :). It was nightmare vs Slowbro and Exe, but I felt like the king of the PoGo world when I did it.
Now taking down a gym is almost like rutine work, the current satisfaction is to take Blissey as fast as possible or with as diverse mons as possible. Today Espeon was the chosen one. Or to prestige with the new mons (yesterday cough a Sneasel around 1300 CP with Feinth and Avalanshe, should be fun).
Yay, it took someone 2 hours to tear down a level 10! :)
Had to say that since I feel a lot of people sorta exaggerate how fast it can take to tear down level 10 gyms...I'd guess for most high level folks with top attackers, it'd take 30-60 minutes...Most of the time seems to be wasted on crashes and reboots since I notice after 5 or so fights, I gotta restart the app normally...very annoying if you are in a rush to prestige a spot and put in a mon.
Honestly, unless you live in Tokyo or Singapore or very dense urban settings where people live next to a gym, most gyms are normally left alone since as you noticed, it takes time to tear them down and the rewards are pretty pathetic.
This is why most people won't bother wasting their time attacking level 10 gyms since if they needed to collect 10-30 coins/stardust, they will just find some other gym and not waste the time/potions/revives.
If you are also attacking a gym in a heavy valor/mystic/instinct area, it will pretty much instantly get rebuilt the next day to level 10 as there are actually very few gym spots, but too many players with too many mons to put them in gyms for so if you want to "own" a gym, that could be pretty futile as you noticed since any player can tear them down currently as long as they have time/potions/revives.
I do gyms daily since I have a limited number of defenders and can't just wake up and press collect currently...
That said, people do gyms to get free pokecoins and stardust. You can pay for the coins, but you can't buy stardust and having 5000/day extra (10 gyms) is pretty huge actually (that's catching another 50 pokemon EVERY day).
The stardust is very important at the higher levels since you'll start noticing that you have a lot more mons to powerup now given your level and your mons would actually sit higher in gyms...
I originally had a goal to save up to 1.2 mil dust, but this looks pretty doubtful now (over 600k now) due to more things I can power up which can actually sit fairly high in gyms in my area (like 2 Blisseys recently)...
It's hard to find bubblestrat defenders honestly...I've been looking since I started playing and never got a nice horsea (need to live in water biomes)...
You don't need it and it's not really useful since your bubbler would be on the bottom of any gym.
Good luck and don't give up fighting gyms, will be easier soon with more experience and better/stronger mons. And fun, at least for a while :). Sometimes one player can make the difference between a stagnant or a vivid area.
It happens that first 10 lvl gym I took never reached that lvl again (more than 4 month later) and switches hands daily now. Before that was like a rock.
Congratulation on your first victory.
I will try to answer all your questions to help you enjoy the game more.
So easy first :D. For bubbletrat, I assume it doesn't work any more as it's really hard to acquire a suitable pair of bubbletrat 3.0 now. But you don't really need to prestige a gym if you already have your pokemon in that gym and you don't have much time.
- For taking down a level 10 gym, it depends on the gym's mix of defenders and on your squad's power. It usually takes me at least 40' to take down a level 10 gym - I'm level 35 now.
- For dodging. Against multi bar charge move defenders, I think they usually save up energy at the beginning of the fight then release their chargemoves simultanously (2 moves, 3 moves in a row) then they will release their charge moves whenever the first bar is filled up. For some defenders with 3 bar chargemoves and a really quick charge fast move, it seems like they can release charge moves all the time. Try to battle more and you will gain a lot of experience.
Regarding your last question, I think battling is the core of Pokemon series, you collect Pokemon, evolving, powering up, all is for battling. Of course, Pokemon Go motivate players to go out, excercise, interact with other trainers but the core is remained the same.
Hope this will help you. Cheers.
Even if it took you 2 hours, that's a decent achievement taking down your first gym, and at level 10 too! Well done! :)
DODGING:
When a Gym defender is about to throw a charge move, there is normally a short pause in quick attacks before the flash.
I sometimes start to dodge when I see this pause, even if its just a quick move, better safe than sorry, especially with 1 bar charge moves. (yes you can dodge all they way around the arena if you have to)
Depending on your network coverage, quality of data connection, etc sometimes you can get a bit of lag which can cause the normal flow of the battle to change a little bit, but you will normally see the loading circle spinning to indicate this. This can be disruptive, but not much you can do about that except keep dodging if you have time.
You should try to build up your own charge moves and unleash once your opponent has released their charge move, but you can normally get a 1 bar in or two, 2 bar moves before their first charge.
Practice and experience help.
I would also mention, and I'm sure you already know this, typing is important. There are lots of decent ice options VS Dragonites now, Swinub -> Pilsoswine with Powder snow and Avalanche is a beauty for slaying those dragons.
Happy Battling!
Thanks all,
Mystic already took over the gym again - no surprise there. I wasn't planning to go after another until my bag was overflowing with potions but...
It started raining, and there was a L3 Mystic gym in range of the covered courtyard I was using to wait out the rain... Took it over with no potions - just letting my pokemon feint. I'll heal them later as I get potions...
Made a mistake on retrospect though - since my highest CP pokemon were injured, I installed a LV20 CP1791 ZH/Psychic Blissey. Nobody is going to want to prestige against that, and I'm sure Mystic will take it out in a few hours (if they haven't already).
I don't have time to read all the responses right now but at level 26 you are probably battling against a good amount of mons 33+ in the gym. So it will take you a lot of time. 2 hrs is a lot but you don't have a lot of experience battling gyms.
1) I battle gyms everyday. I used to be happy with getting 3 gyms a day for the coins. Now I hold about 15-17 gyms each night. Have to take back a few the next day.
2) Practice practice practice. It is the only way you will get better at dodging. You also have to focus and concentrate.
3) 2-3 charge bar moves can come quickly sometimes. Have to be ready for it. Have to decide if you want to let loose your long charge move and if you can take a hit if they are going to blast you with a 2nd move right away. I generally try to get my one charge move off before they have theirs. Then once mine is done I know to get ready to dodge theirs. But it does depend on the charge move.
4) Each charge move is different. Some still cause me problems and I've been battling gyms everyday for months. Again have to practice and concentrate.
5) As you level up your mons will get stronger and your battles will become better.
6) If you are serious about gym battling you will need a good attack team. Once things get settled out with the newest changes this site will have a good run down of what the good attackers are.
7) With your attack team you will want to exploit the other 'mons weakness or attack with a mon that doesn't get punished and resists what the other pokemon is attacking with. For example, you would be very surprised how effective a Parasect with Solar Beam is against a Vaporeon. I can easily slay a 2800+ Vaporeon with a 1200 Parasect with Solar Beam and have lots of HPs left. He attacks quick and easy to dodge with him. Great prestiger too.
8) Don't fret about taking down gyms but maybe start with something a little easier than a level 10 next time! Also see if there is an area of your town/city that is dominated by your team and try to get some mons in there to collect coins. Or battle gyms on the boarders that are in contention that your team might help out with.
