The makers of Pokemon Go have not given trainers any manual about playing their game. We hear and we see random articles from other trainers about how the game should be played. Well, here is my slightly different perspective about how to play Pokemon Go.

Strategies For Attacking Gyms

Ok, there are lots of information out there about how to attack a gym. I am going to give you something a little different kind of strategy to take over gyms. I, like many of you, do not have some of premier pokemon which many other trainers have. We all know that there are guys out there with pokedex just full of Dragonites, Lapras, Arcanines, Vapereons, Exeggutors, Gyarados, and Snorlaxs. So what do you do if you are NOT one of these guys? Well, you have to think a little differently because you can’t beat them at their game when they got all the aces.

A. The Kamikazes

In World War II, the Japanese came up with a weapon where they used their expendables as human weapons as they put them into planes to crash them into the US Navy ships in an attempt to do crippling damage to the Americans.

Well, I am sure if you looked through your pokedex and look at your RECENT pokemons, you will find quite a few pokemon which you are going to transfer to the professor. Here is a little known rule. The professor will give you one candy for a pokemon, DEAD or alive. Hmm. So if I take my 400CP pidgey, and throw him into a gym and let him get beat up and killed. I can then take that dead body and recycle him to the professor and he will still give me that same one candy as if it was alive. I have tried it many times, but four pigeottos in the 600CP range can take down a 2500 CP Snorlax. You are saying SO WHAT! Well, think this way, what else were you going do with those Pigeottos? Nothing… You were gonna give them to the professor for the candy. So, this way, you still get that candy, and you get XP for the combat kill. The other great thing about this is, you didn’t need to waste any revives or potions to heal your guys because, as you already guessed, the kamakazes were never expected to come back alive.

If you are using A-Z sorting method to filter your attack teams, I recommend naming your Kamikaze teams with !!! so they will sort to the top of the list.

Now, if you don’t like the term Kamikaze then you can use “suicide bomber”, or “Uni-bomber”, or “Death From Above”. I just figured that Pokemon is a Japanese Anime, we should stick to the Japanese theme and pick something more fitting.

B. GP-02’s

About half of the people out there are going what the heck? And probably 90% of you millennials have no idea what this model number is for. In the anime Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory, the second experimental Gundam was named the GP-02. What was so special about this unit? Well, it was designed to carry and launch a nuclear warhead. If you haven’t watched this anime and you would rather use another name, you can try “Enola Gay”. Older anime references could be things like “VF-1s Strike Valkyrie”, “Yamato”, “100-shiki”, or even the “Gunbuster”; these all one thing in common, they all have “MEGA BEAM” weapon.

This strategy was to use a small transport vehicle rather than using a mother ship or an armada to go into the enemy territory to attack it. This method uses a small unit to bring a big punch into combat and then let if go off doing lots of damage.

You’re sitting there saying, I don’t have a Dragonite with the Mega Beam weapon. Well, this is where those tag words “move set” gets thrown around. A “move set” is a fancy word for “weapons” or “attacks”. For example, a Dragonite can have a “Metal Wing” for his regular attack and has “Hyper Beam” for his special attack. Have a look through your pokedex. You will be surprised that many creatures have high damage one shot weapons. Now, the reason I say one shot, because most of these pokemon won’t have the same kind of hit points that a Dragonite does, however, they will have enough to power up their weapon and let it go.

I have in my personal arsenal, an Electrode with a 120 point Hyper beam, 2 Pidgeots with 80 point Hurricanes, 2 Seakings with 80 point Mega Horns, a Nidoqueen with a 100 point Earthquake, 3 Tauros with 100 point Earthquakes, a Licktung with a 120 point Hyper Beam, a Paras with a 120 point Solar Beam, 3 Raticates with 120 point Hyper Beams, and a Rhydon with a 100 hit point Earthquake. I am only level 26, so I am sure you probably got the same kind of creatures in your pokedex too.

So as you guessed, you bring these guys into a gym, power them up quickly and just let their special attack go. Then swap them out to your next guy. Repeat. This will quickly whack your opponent down so you can finish them off using your regular favourites, but now your opponent is quite soft/weak after eating a few big blows…

If you are using the A-Z sorting method, I recommend using a “.” Period as the first prefix to their name so it will sort it separately from their defensive groups.

For example, I named my Electrode = .&electod83! Which means “.” = contains a mega beam weapon, “&” = the symbol I chose to represent has an Electricial attack, 83 is the percent of a perfect IV’s, and the suffix “!” means that 83% is a unique locked IV combination.

C. Phoenixs

Well, I am sure most of us know what the legendary bird the Phoenix is and what it does. It is the bird that got killed but it came back to life through the fire and ashes to fight again!

Now, you are probably thinking.. I don’t have any Phoenix pokemons. Wrong, you probably have a hand full of them awaiting to get evolved.

That’s right, that big stack of Pokemon you are storing up for the day you are going to take a lucky egg and throw it down and go through and evolve all those pokemon.

Here is rule for you. When you evolve a pokemon, it changes into a new form with more hit points. The hidden mechanic behind this rule is that the new form will have FULL hit points. Yes, original pokemon can have been damaged even DEAD, but after you evolve it, the new pokemon will be at 100%.

So, think about all those pokemon you got sitting in your pokedex just sitting around waiting for you to evolve them. Well, why not make them useful by putting them into a gym to defend it while you cash in on your 10 coins and 500 stardust. That way, when they get killed off, you don’t have to waste a revive or any potions to re-heal them. Just evolve them, and they will rise up from the dead and fly again!

I would use the favourites method to sort your evolves. This way, you will know which pokemon are ready to be evolved and can easily be sorted when you have the lucky egg ready. It also will show which ones are ready to be sacrificed.

Well, I hope these tips help you with some different techniques to attack gyms. Good luck and I hope you catch them all!

King Of Smut ‘95

Godfather of Fan Anime in North America

D.