If you’re reading this chances are that you have Pokemon Go downloaded and are trying to evolve your skills.
This article is all the best tricks, tips, and cheats you need to know if you want to be the next Ash Ketchum.
The Best Pokemon Go Tricks,Tips, And Cheats You Must Know
1. Save your battery – More time = more Pokemon!
It’s no surprise that Pokemon Go soaks up your battery’s life like Spongebob can when he’s out of the water. Here are several ways to tone down the battery usage.
- Turn on Pokemon Go Battery Saver & turn off Music, Sound Effects, and Vibration: Battery Saver makes your screen get very dim when your phone is literally flipped upside down. The game thinks your phone is in your pocket so while you are walking around you can choose when you want to be actually active in the game or just get all the other bonuses from walking around while using less battery.
Open App > Tap the Pokeball in the bottom center of the screen > Settings > Turn on Battery Saver > Turn off Music, Sound Effects, and Vibrations.
- Turn off Augmented Reality:
AR basically makes your phone work a little harder. Turn it off to save your phone battery.
You’ll get the option to turn off (AR) when you come across a Pokemon in the game.
- Turn on your Phone’s Battery Saver Mode:
iPhone: Settings > Battery > Low Power Mode
Android: Device Settings > Battery > More > Tap Battery Saver > On
2. Incubate eggs faster
Eggs incubate and hatch Pokemon based on how much you physically walk while you are on the game. So if we turn Battery Saver Mode on and set our phones screen to never turn off we can walk on doing regular daily activities and greatly increase the rate our eggs hatch while not using a tonne of battery.
The game can tell how fast you are moving and won’t give you credit say when you are in a car, but a bus with frequent stops could work. Also if you hop on a bike it may work too but you can’t go too fast. Don’t actually be playing the app while on a bike just have it on in your pocket to get the walking credit.
How the screen looks with Battery Save Mode on
3. Go to the leaves on your map
Pokemon will randomly be where leaves seem to be sputtering around. You will see green leaves mainly but if you see a Pokestop that looks like it has pink leaves raining down on it go there because Pokemon are attracted to it. The pink leaves indicated that someone has tied a Pokemon “Lure” to the Pokestop. So go snatch up some Pokemon while your there.
4. Tracking and finding Pokemon 101
When you pull up the Pokemon Tracker Tab, the Pokemon that are closest to you won’t have any footprints beneath them and will appear at the top of the tracker list. The ones that are furthest away will have more footprints and be at the bottom of the tracker list. (read the list from left to right, top to bottom)
As you walk around Pokemon will appear and disappear from your tracker. If one disappears from your tracker and you want that Pokemon then turn around and walk towards the location when it was on the tracker and try different directions till the Pokemon moves up the list till you find it.
If you want to keep an eye on a specific Pokemon in the tracker, tap the Pokemon and it will let you see how close or far away you are from it in main map.
Click on the ones without footprints below them and their location will be revealed.
6. Powering up and evolving your Pokemon
Stardust and Candy are what you need to get to allow your Pokemon to power up and evolve.
Candy: Candy is acquired by catching Pokemon and also by trading them to the Professor. Each Pokemon evolution chain has specific candy they need. The candy will work on all stages of the Pokemon evolution chain. For example, Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charzard will all need Charmander Candy to evolve and power up. If you were to catch or trade a Charmeleon you would still be getting candy that will work on your Charizard or Charmander.
Stardust: Stardust is acquired by catching Pokemon, hatching, eggs, and defending gyms. Stardust is used in conjunction with Candy to power up your Pokemon. Stardust applies to all Pokemon as opposed to Candy which is specific to Pokemon evolution chains.
7. Use power ups on evolved Pokemon
Don’t waste your Candy’s and Stardust to power up Pokemon that haven’t evolved yet. You will be able to evolve Pokemon faster to their final stage if you don’t spend your Candies on Power Ups but save them up for Evolving.
More importantly, using power ups on final stage Pokemon will get you powerful Pokemon the fastest. Also if you wait till you’re trainer is a higher level you may catch an already evolved version of the Pokemon.
8. Collect all the low level Pokemon you can
Every time you catch a Pokemon, the game rewards you with experience but can also reward you with candy. If you have already caught a higher-level Rattata and you catch another lower-level Rattata, transfer the lower level one to the Professor, he will give you candy for the transfer. Then use that candy to evolve your main Rattata.
Eventually you will get to a point where powering up you main will cost a significant amount of Stardust and only one Candy. So with all the extra candy you will have from not having to evolve your main anymore. Use the candy to evolve the lower Pokemon from that evolution chain. When you evolve them you will get 500 XP.
9. Catching Pokemon
To increase your chances of catch a Pokemon, the first thing you want to do is throw the ball and get it in the circle that is collapsing on the Pokemon. The smaller the circle is when you throw it the greater chances of catching the Pokemon is.
A green circle means that you have a pretty good chance of capturing the Pokemon, yellow means that they will be somewhat of a challenge, and red means will be very hard to capture.
When you encounter a difficult Pokemon to capture you can use a Great Ball or Ultra Ball, which are unlocked at level 12 and 20, and if you give Pokemon a treat like a Razz Berry it will greatly increase your chances of capturing them. As mentioned previously, turning of AR will make catching Pokemon easier because the Pokemon will move around less.
If you get the Pokeball into the circle right on target, you’ll gain extra XP for “nice” and “great” throws.
10. Recover Misthrown Pokeballs
Every time you miss a throw with a Pokeball if you tap the Pokeball while it is still on the screen sometimes you can get it back.
11. Play during off hours
If you play at times other than at lunch there will be different Pokemon out and about.
12. Curveball throw when catching Pokemon for extra XP
When catching Pokemon with Pokeballs rather than ordinarily throwing them, curveball throw it to get extra XP. It will also lower the chances of the Pokemon breaking out.
Tap and grab the Pokeball and move it around in circle. You will see the Pokeball start to spiral and glimmer with spark like graphics when you circle it. Flick the Pokeball at the Pokemon and expect the ball to curve while it’s in the air so aim accordingly to the left or right. It might take you a few times to get the hang of it but once you do it’s fairly easy.
13. How to get a Pikachu
If you haven’t started your game yet you can still get a Pikachu. Right when you make an account and start playing there will appear around you a Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtlle. If you walk away from them rather than catch them the game will eventually spawn a Pikachu after you walk away from the starting Pokemon about 2 to 4 times.
14. Evolve Eevee into Vaporeon, Jolteon, or Flareon
Eevee has the potential to evolve into three separate elemental Pokemon. You can evolve one by into Vaporeon a water type Pokemon, Jolteon an electric type Pokemon, or Flareon a fire type Pokemon. Vaporeon is the most powerful though.
If you want your Eevee to evolve into Vaporeon then name it “Rainer”.
If you want your Eevee to evolve into Jolteon then name it “Sparky”.
If you want your Eevee to evolve in Flareon then name it “Pyro”.
15. Use a Lure or Incense with a Lucky Egg at the same time and evolve Pokemon
Lures attract Pokemon to Pokestops and Incense attracts Pokemon to you. Lucky eggs allow you to gain double XP for 30 minutes. So if you use a Lucky Egg combined with a Lure or Incense you will maximize your time because you are getting the most XP from all the Pokemon coming to you and getting double XP from them.
16. Evolve Pokemon while using a Lucky Egg
If you wait to evolve Pokemon while using a Lucky Egg you will get double XP. So rather than getting 500 XP you will get 1000XP. If you can try to save up and evolve multiple Pokemon when you have a Lucky Egg.
17. Always dodge first in battles
While in battle it’s almost always better to dodge first, even if your Pokemon is stronger. You dodge by swiping left or right. This is because your Pokemon will almost always dodge the first attack and be ready for a counter attack before the other Pokemon in the centre of the ring can catch up.
18. Stay in control of a gym even if you’re loosing it
So lets say that you have been in control of a gym and you start to see someone else take it over. The second you see your gym’s colour go from your teams colour to plain white, you can recapture it by placing in one of your better and healed Pokemon in right when it is white.
When you recapture the gym prestige will immediately jump up causing your opponent at least another two battles to get it back down. You can repeat this over and over and can maybe make the opponent move on and find another gym.
19. Level up faster by playing with players on opposite teams
Playing with players of your same team may seem like an ideal way to conquer and level up but it’s really not. The best way to level up in this game is to have a group of people working together from each faction. This way you can all take turns taking over and setting up gyms making everyone level up much more quickly.
20. Try hunting for Pokemon in parking lots
For whatever reason Pokemon seem to love spawning in Parking lots. Check the game next time you’re in one.
21. Battle Gyms using opposing Pokemon Type.
Battle a gym Pokemon with an opposing type because it is their weakness. For example if someone is dominating a gym with all fire Pokemon, use a water Pokemon.
- Fire: Water, Ground, Rock
- Water: Electric, Grass
- Electric: Ground
- Normal: Fighting
- Grass: Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, Bug
- Ice: Fire, Fighting, Rock, Steel
- Fighting: Flying, Psychic, Fairy
- Poison: Ground, Psychic
- Ground: Water, Grass, Ice
- Flying: Electric, Ice, Rock
- Psychic: Bug, Ghost
- Bug: Fire, Flying, Rock
- Rock: Water, Grass, Fighting, Ground, Steel
- Ghost: Ghost
- Dragon: Ice, Dragon, Fairy
- Steel: Fire, Fighting, Ground
- Fairy: Poison, Steel
22. Experience Explained
- 500 XP – Capture a New Pokemon
- 500 XP – Evolve a Pokemon
- 200 XP – Hatch a Pokemon
- 150 XP – Defeat a trainer at a Gym
- 100 XP – Capture a Pokemon
- 100 XP – Excellent Throw
- 100 XP – Batteling a Pokemon trainer at a Gym
- 50 XP – Beat a Pokemon in training at a Gym
- 50 XP – Checking in at a Pokestop
- 50 XP – Great Throw
- 10 XP – Nice Throw
- 10 XP – Curve Ball
23. Download KillBiller
Playing Pokemon Go can really use up your data plan quickly. Find out the best phone plan for you by downloading KillBiller. KillBiller is a free app that examines your mobile phone usage and tells you exactly how much you would pay on every mobile phone plan in The United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada.