Battle question

saragd012

Hey everyone! So, I finally decided to try to battle at a gym (I'm level 12 now) and I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. I was able to beat the first guy by rapidly taping on the opponent but then it immediately paired my poor injured pokemon against the next guy without an opportunity to give him a potion or swap him out. Obviously this full-strength pokemon easily defeated my 1/2 health one. I feel like I am probably doing this incorrectly. Any tips, fellow trainers?

ginaDDDD

I would like to know this too! I went into battle and had no clue on what I was supposed to be doing. Please if someone can give a step by step instruction guide I would appreciate!

shadow2soul

http://www.dailydot.com/parsec/pokemon-go-gym-battle-guide/

saragd012

Thanks @shadow2soul but I did google instructions as well, unfortunately I havent been able to find anything on my own. I understand tapping like mad will work, but I know there is more to the game. For instance, how can I swap out pokemon during battle? The tutorial you linked only mentions it briefly "If the Pokémon you are battling with dies, you can quickly swap in another one". Cool, but how?

Maybe I just need to suck it up and go find a stranger at the park (also a gym) and ask them to let me watch them battle.

geminiswede

As far as I've found, you can only swap out pokemon when you're battling another team's gym. There will be a little up and down arrow on the right side of the screen. If you're training at your own team's gym, it seems you only get to pick one pokemon.

Also you can swipe right and left to dodge attacks, and press and hold when the little blue bar on the top left fills up to use your pokemon's special ability.

shadow2soul

saragreen012 wrote: »

Thanks @shadow2soul but I did google instructions as well, unfortunately I havent been able to find anything on my own. I understand tapping like mad will work, but I know there is more to the game. For instance, how can I swap out pokemon during battle? The tutorial you linked only mentions it briefly "If the Pokémon you are battling with dies, you can quickly swap in another one". Cool, but how?

Maybe I just need to suck it up and go find a stranger at the park (also a gym) and ask them to let me watch them battle.

There is a button under the run away action on the bottom right hand corner that allows you to switch (circle with an arrow pointing up and an arrow pointing down). However, you can only switch between the 6 pokemon you started the gym battle with and any that died during battle will not be an option. This only applies when trying to take over an opposing team gym. If you are trying to level your team's gym you only get to pick one pokemon at the start of the battle and no switching is allowed.

I also noticed that when I battle an opposing gym at the same time as another member of my team, not only do I see their pokemon on my screen, but we will both be bringing down the defending pokemon's health (so it's less work and you still get the same xp).

saragd012

Awesome, thank you both. I have only tried battling at my teams gym, that must be why I haven't seen anything. I appreciate the tips!

Intrinsicat

Here is another that I read today that is helping immensely. When battling what for the yellow flash around the screen - that indicates the opponent is about to attack and that is the time to swipe the screen in order to dodge. Generally when the battle starts I wait for that flash and my first action is a dodge - then it's usually tap tap, wait for the flash and swipe. Tap tap flash swipe... Depending on how slow the other character is, say a strong but sluggish Snorlax, you might even get three attacks in before you need to swipe defend. You will take significantly less damage that way which comes in handy when you only have the one training in your same colored gym versus six to fight en mass.

Also, have the Pokemon you want to take over that gym ready to place, even if that means he doesn't fight. Because while you are using potions to get him back up to speed' that gym is sitting there in gray. I can't tell you how many times I waited for someone to defeat my gym only to jump right back into it when it turned gray... I'm sure my opponent thought it was a glitch but it was just that they were too slow. Maybe that's not playing fair...

Intrinsicat

My last paragraph got deleted somehow - last tip - gyms are for experience but also for collecting poke coins and dust. A timer is located in the upper right of the shop window indicating number of gyms you are in, a max of ten I think. After 21 hours you can push that button and get dust and ten poke coins per gym. So when the timer is close to or hits zero go join a bunch of gyms and then collect. Hard to get too many because people take over gyms so quickly, but poke coins are the one thing you have to buy with real cash so it's very valuable. Good luck!