So! News that probably no one cares about, but I've finally met Pokémon GO's challenge requirements for reaching level 44.
Background
Back when they increased the level cap over the original limit of 40, Niantic also added four special challenges per level that need to be completed before advancing, in addition to increasingly hefty experience requirements. Some of them have been pretty neat, like catching 200 in a single day or evolving Eevee into every possible form. And then there's the challenges for level 44.
- Win 30 Trainer Battles in the Great League
- Win 30 Trainer Battles in the Ultra League
- Win 30 Trainer Battles in the Master League
- Battle in the Go Battle League 20 times
First off, the fourth one makes very little sense. Sure, I guess you could just battle other trainers in person for the first three, but probably most of your battles will come from the battle league, and you can't possibly win 90 times without battling 20 times.
But aside from that, I just don't like PvP. It's tedious and time-consuming, I've never felt like there was any point to it, and it feels luck-based to a significant extent. Yes, strategic party selection is important, but if your opponent happens to have a team yours doesn't match up well against, or if you hit the wrong input at the wrong time, or if the game decides to let their charge attack go through microseconds before you can activate yours, you're pretty much just boned.
And you have to actually win 30 times in each of the three leagues, so a loss is just a further frustrating waste of time. And if you're relying on the battle league for your matches, the available formats keep changing, so whether you even have access to any particular league at any given time might as well be a coin flip.
Honestly, I suspect your best bet is to have another player available who's willing to battle you with teams of pushovers so you can breeze through quick easy win after quick easy win until the requirements are satisfied.
But I did it the hard way, struggling through the battle league like you were probably intended to.
PvP Overview
Anyway, the basic format of trainer battles is that each trainer gets a team of three. Pokémon in GO each have a single fast attack, which is their basic attack and generates energy, and one or (if you spend extra resources) two charge attacks, which cost energy, but hit harder and may have special effects in trainer battles. For maximum flexibility and effectiveness, anything you use in a serious trainer battle all but needs to have two charge moves.
The game tells you what the base power of each move it and what special effects charge moves might have, but only gives a vague idea of how much energy charge moves cost and none at all of how much fast moves charge. You either need to look that up from third-party sites or figure it out yourself through experimentation. Which doesn't do anything to help make PvP more palatable.
Each trainer also gets two shields for use during the match. Shields can block charge attacks, negating their damage, but they don't prevent any additional effects, and once they're gone, they're gone. As such, a major tactic in PvP is shield baiting, where you try to get your opponent to waste their shields against weak low-energy moves so that they're vulnerable to harder-hitting ones later in the fight.
Which means it's sometimes a good idea not to block, if you can get a feel for when. For instance, a Lucario or Kangaskhan that uses a charge move almost immediately is almost certainly using Power-Up Punch, which inflicts a laughable amount of damage but also raises the user's attack power whether you block it or not, so using a shield against it is a waste. And when your current fighter is down to a sliver of health anyway, you might as well let the attack go through. Conversely, if your opponent's fighter is down to a sliver of health, maybe save your charge attack for the next one?
(On a side note, a Lucario with Power-Up Punch tends to obliterate Team GO Rocket leaders. They follow similar rules to PvP battles, but will always use their shields at the first opportunity, and even more importantly, briefly stop attacking whenever anyone switches Pokémon or uses a charge move. Lucario has a wide array of resistances with few weaknesses, and spamming Power-Up Punch means your attacks just keep getting stronger and stronger while they spend half their time not even hitting back.)
Each trainer can also swap out their active Pokémon for one of the other two, but there's a cooldown after doing so before they can swap again. As such, it's to your advantage if you can get your opponent to swap first so they're stuck with their new choice, while you get to see what it is and hopefully send out an appropriate counter.
Charge attacks don't need to be used as soon as they're available, and it's generally possible to save up enough energy to use two in quick succession. Ideally, right when the opponent runs out of shields. Additionally, Pokémon that are swapped out will keep any energy they have saved up, so you can set it up so that one coming off the bench can launch a charge attack immediately.
The difference between the three leagues is the CP cap allowed. Pokémon in GO have a value called CP (combat power?) that gives a rough measure of how strong they are. It favors power over durability, so more defensive Pokémon with similar overall strength will have lower CP than their more offensive counterparts, making them generally preferable in leagues with lower caps.
There's also a metagame that keeps changing and I don't care enough to figure out. The short of it is that certain teams tend to be favored, which makes counters to those teams grow in popularity, which makes counters to those more popular, which...
The Teams
Great League
This league has a fairly low 1500 CP cap, making many Pokémon that just can't bulk up enough for the other leagues not only viable but often preferable.
Blaziken - I'd been leading off with a Zebstrika for a while, but it wasn't surviving very well, and I found that its main utility was turning out to be hitting with an unexpected Flame Charge. So, why not just use an actual fire type? Blaziken has better bulk, charges its moves faster with Counter as its main attack, has Blast Burn from Community Day, and Focus Blast makes a nice secondary move for anything weak against fighting that's not as vulnerable to fire. I found that I ran across a fair number of normal types that don't like getting punched, besides. It may not be ideal, but it worked out well enough.
Galarian Stunfisk - This thing is almost disgustingly tanky. With an unusual ground/steel typing, Mud Shot to charge energy quickly, Rock Slide for a speedy charge attack that can burn through shields and take down ice and especially flying types that would otherwise be more of an issue, and Earthquake to hit hard, I've actually managed to practically solo a few fights with this little imitation bear trap. And besides, it's shiny.
Alolan Ninetails - Bringing another uncommon typing in the form of ice/fairy, this beauty's Powder Snow plus (ice) Weather Ball combination works wonderfully against dragons in particular, and does well against flying, grass, and ground types as well. Since ice already handles dragons, I passed on a fairy move and opted for Psyshock as a second charge attack to strike back at the poison types that would otherwise be more of a threat. This one's shiny, too.
My team's greatest weakness was water types, Swampert in particular. Most of the team is weak against both water and ground, while Alolan Ninetails, though neutral to both, doesn't have the bulk to hold out long enough.
Ultra League
The cap here is 2500 CP, changing what is and isn't viable, but still generally favoring defensive fighters.
Haxorus - Although a bit light on bulk, having a dragon attacker often comes in handy, and with Breaking Swipe as a fast-charging, attack-lowering, moderately powerful move, my shiny Haxorus has done unexpectedly well as a leadoff attacker. Dragon Tail as a fast attack complements its dragon type and builds energy fairly quickly, while Night Slash as a secondary charge move adds some variety and a chance to get an attack bonus.
Blastoise - Plenty of bulk combined with Water Gun and the community day move Hydro Cannon for a great balance of speed and power makes the big turtle perform quite well. Ice Beam as a secondary charge move works especially well against grass types, its main weakness, as well as dragon and flying types.
Jolteon - A pure electric specialist with Thunder Shock, Thunder, and Discharge, Jolteon nonetheless performed surprisingly well against the frequent flying and water types (...except Swampert). Few types resist electric, either. Discharge is deceptively powerful for how quickly it comes out, which led to a number of trainers thinking they could get away with not blocking it, while Thunder hits even harder once those shields are gone. I just wish PoGO Jolteon could learn Pin Missile like in the main games. That was my go-to for taking down psychic types in Gen 1, and would help against dark and grass as well.
Once again, with no grass type attacks, Swampert was a pain, though at least neither Haxorus nor Blastoise are weak against it, and the secondary ground typing leaves Swampert without resistance to Hydro Cannon.
Master League
No cap, no restrictions, anything goes. The higher you can level your team, the better, and heavy hitters are more viable even if they aren't as bulky. Some go overboard with overleveled legendaries, and there's not much you can do about that, but enough have more realistic teams that it's entirely possible to win on a semi-reliable basis.
Garchomp - Mud Slap for energy charge, Sand Storm to burn shields and lower defense, and the community day move Earth Power for raw damage once those shields are gone. All ground, all the time. A different attack type for variety might have helped, but Sand Storm worked too well too often to give it up. Garchomp's dragon/ground mix fares poorly against other dragons, fairies, and especially ice types, but the rest of my team handles those nicely, and it has no other weaknesses. Mine also has perfect stats, which doesn't hurt.
Metagross - A powerful steel/psychic mix, with Bullet Punch and the community day move Meteor Mash for plenty of steel-type damage, especially against the ice and fairy types that counter dragons, and Psychic as a secondary charge move for variety. Fire, dark, ghost, and ground types are problematic matchups, but it boasts a wide range of resistances otherwise and performs well against pretty much everything else.
Mamoswine - Every team needs a dragon slayer, and the big pig fills the role nicely. Not so great when it comes to resistances, but Powder Snow plus Avalanche quickly takes down anything weak against ice, which includes the flying types that ground-only Garchomp is largely useless against, and High Horsepower has some utility as a powerful secondary move. Yet another ground move may be a bit redundant, but it's a generally good offensive type, and after seeing Garchomp, it's the last thing you'd expect from what's obviously in the lineup primarily as an ice type attacker. I tried using Gardevoir in the anti-dragon role for a while, but despite surviving better, I found that charging up energy just took far too long to be viable in a fight.
All in all, I was expecting to struggle a lot more with Master League than ended up happening. Garchomp burns through shields and drops opponent defense to make battles go faster, Mamoswine obliterates flying dragons in particular, and Metagross is fairly tanky and great against the ice and fairy types that best counter Garchomp. There's still no small amount of luck involved, but it's not as bad as I'd feared.
And now I'm free to go back to ignoring PvP!
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