Gen 2 is live! -This post is updating with new info constantly

Greetings Trainers!

Folks weren't expecting the release of Generation 2 until some time later this week, but Niantic surprised us by releasing Generation 2 Pokemon this afternoon at approx. 3pm PST! If you hadn't heard, the Valentine's Day 6-hour Lure event was also extended until Saturday, so you have time to use your Lures to try and lure up some Gen 2 Pokemon! New berries have also been released, which includes Nanab berries, which make a Pokemon less likely to run, and Pinap berries, which grant the trainer double candies upon capture.


Be on the lookout for prevolutions of new powerful Pokemon like Larvitar, Phanpy, Teddiursa, and Mareep! Also be on the lookout for strong Pokemon like Heracross. And if you have candies available, you can now evolve new Pokemon like Blissey, Scizor, Porygon2, and many more! Maybe pop a Lucky Egg before you do and go on an evolving spree while reaping the benefits of all these new Pokedex entries!


UPDATE 3:30pm PST: Apparently moves have also been re-balanced. More on this as we learn the details, but moves like Psychic, Flamethrower, Dazzling Gleam etc... have been given new damage outputs. For now, catch everything you can and try not to transfer too much!


e.g. Confusion now has 20 base damage, and Psychic is a 100-energy 100 base damage move.




How to make the most of the Valentine's Day event

Greetings Trainers!

Pokemon GO's latest event has folks catching pink Pokemon, with a touch of sweetness; yes, it's double-candy season again! This applies to catches, hatches, and buddy candies, making now the prime time to stock up. Lure Modules also last for 6 whole hours while the event is going, to paint the town pink. Today's article will go over some basic tips to let you know how to best take advantage of this event, regardless of your goals. Maximize your EXP, get the most return on your coins, and of course, catch the most relevant seasonal Pokemon available! This includes considerations for the upcoming 2nd generation of Pokemon, which will be releasing some time in the not-so-distant future!

Table of Contents

• Event Details
• Pokemon you should stock up on right now
• Getting the most out of double candy
• Spending coins wisely
• Conclusion

A look at Gamepress' Gym Defender Tier List

Greetings trainers!

We're still waiting on Gen 2, and the gym metagame has settled since the major CP update, so I thought I'd give the current gym metagame a look-over while we wait.

When the CP update came out, the first place I'd recommend anyone look would be Gamepress' tiering system. The guys there do a great job of analyzing things thoroughly, and I always learn a lot about directions I can explore regarding effective attackers and defenders. I don't always 100% agree with their placings, but I mostly agree, and they justify themselves very well.

Their current gym defender tier list looks like this:
(as a reminder, here's our post-update Defenders Tier List)

Link here: https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/gym-defenders-tier-list

How to re-introduce Poke-stop submissions

Greetings trainers,

Table of Contents

1. Pre-amble/explanation
2. Proposal
3. Would this really be all that helpful?
4. Conclusion

1. Pre-amble 

I've been travelling about lately and I've gotten a good bit of perspective regarding the state of Poke-stop diversity in different kinds of communities. I've been in the boonies, I've been in the big city, and I've been in-between. Back when Niantic originally populated Poke-stop submissions (i.e. portals in "Ingress"), they used geo-tagged photos of interesting works of art, culture, and then public buildings like post offices or unique landmarks. This gave them a big base of Poke-stops to work from, and previously Niantic had portal/Poke-stop submission open for Ingress and Pokemon GO. The company shut down portal submissions back in September 2015, and never had the option to submit new Poke-stops in Pokemon GO.

I imagine Niantic has a massive backlog of data about GPS co-ordinates of submitted portals/Poke-stops, and they have more than enough data to filter through already; if they re-opened submissions, I imagine most of the data they would receive would be requests for Poke-stops that are already in their database. Thus, it would be a bit redundant to re-open submissions, and would just increase the strain on human resources figuring out how to best process these requests.

Niantic has said that they wanted to work on a new and more efficient way to process portal submission requests. Given my recent travels, I think the most important thing Niantic could do to re-open submissions would be to allow users to annotate areas in the world that are incredibly sparsely populated by Poke-stops/Gyms. Below is my thought process for how to best make this happen, which hopefully isn't too redundant with what Niantic already has to consider.

2. Proposal

Gym Prestige System Fixed!

Rejoice!

Greeting trainers!

Quick update post. Gym Prestige has been fixed! You still take down enemy gyms by 1000 prestige per Pokemon defeated, +1000 for defeating the whole gym. However, you can now earn up to 1000 prestige for defeating a friendly Pokemon again!

Here's a reminder on how to battle gyms most effectively!

• If the Pokemon with the highest CP in your party has a higher CP than the Defending Pokemon, you will earn 255 prestige minus a multiplier down to a minimum of 100 prestige.
• If the Pokemon with the highest CP in your party has a lower CP than the Defending Pokemon, you will earn 500 prestige plus a multiplier up to a maximum of 1000 prestige.

• The new battle mechanics will level down any Defending Pokemon to match your level (+2). So the Combat Power of the later Pokemon may be reduced from the overview.
• To get the most out of each battle, you should try to beat every Defending Pokemon with an team that's about half their Combat Power.

If you want a full-length article, feel free to check out the Let's GO guide to using the new gym battle system!

And be sure to check out our new Gym Defender's Tier List to know what Pokemon are top defenders in the new metagame!

Cheers,

Let's GO!

Let's GO's Updated Gym Defender Tier List

Vaporeons. Vaporeons everywhere!

Greetings Trainers!

The new CP update has really thrown a wrench in the gears of "Let's GO." I was all ready for Generation 2 to come out, and then out of nowhere this CP update changed everything I knew about the gym metagame. I wasn't going to write anything about this new metagame, but I decided I could do a lazy-formatted article to at least give my thoughts about the new gym defender tiers.

These rankings do not only factor in the performance of the defender, but they also take into account a Pokemon's maximum CP. This is the new age of Pokemon GO, where gyms go down much faster. The CP update also promoted a bunch of new high CP Pokemon that players will slot into gyms to avoid being the first to drop out (e.g. Rhydon, Gyarados). Due to the new gym Prestige mechanics, combined with the numerous high-CP Pokemon in the game, having high CP is that much more important for a Gym Defender. Why? Well:

In order for a gym defender to make a difference in a gym, it actually has to stay in the gym long enough to be battled a few times. A Pokemon like Chansey is beastly with its new buff, and I don't have a max-level Chansey to test against to see if it's even possible to beat it before timing out using most available attackers; I suspect it is possible. If it is possible to beat Chansey, then it's not a very good defender. The reason being that players will only ever have to battle Chansey once in order to knock it out of the gym, as it's virtually guaranteed to be at the front. This same principle can be applied to other strong defenders like Wigglytuff, that will simply get dropped from a gym too quickly to be relevant anymore. If you filled a gym with Chanseys, or Wigglytuffs, that's another story. But as general defenders... they're just not up to snuff anymore.

With that said, here's a rough prospective Tier list with some explanations/speculation. Generation 2 will totally revamp this, so I won't be putting tons of work into making this article look pretty. The new Base Stats come from a formula derived by Peter Hatch, commenter on Gamepress. As such, they are calculated approximations, and may not reflect true stats. I've always rounded down, as that's how Pokemon tends to do things. So even if a stat calcs to 200.99, I'd still say the base stat is 200. I think this is how Niantic and Pokemon treat things...

Tier Summary

For recommended movesets, see the original Gym Defender Tier List article!

S Tier

• Snorlax
• Lapras

Tier 1

• Dragonite
• Exeggutor
• Vaporeon

Tier 2

• Omastar
• Poliwrath
• Slowbro
• Venusaur
• Kangaskhan

Tier 3

• Rhydon
• Gyarados
• Muk

Tier 4

• Golem
• Tentacruel
• Clefable
• Vileplume
• Cloyster
• Alakazam
• Tauros

Tier 5

• Arcanine
• Machamp
• Pinsir

Likely "Best" Pokemon from Generation 2

Meet Tyranitar, the new Dragonite. It's a Rock/Dark type,
and effectively the Godzilla of Pokemon - instantly cool.

Greetings trainers!

Generation 2 sprites have been found in datamines of the game, which means it's no longer ridiculous to speculate on Generation 2 Pokemon. There are also rumoured leaks about corporate sponsorships with Starbucks and others, but these are just rumours for now. Hilariously (not), I had already written up most of this article and was ready to put the finishing touches on it when the new CP update hit. This new CP update has now been worked out to some extent (thanks to Peter Hatch and the folks at Gamepress), though it's still a tiny bit off for some Pokemon's true Max CP.

With that said, the metagame still hasn't settled since the update, and most intriguing to me is that Pokemon with high CP stats are no longer necessarily decent gym defenders.

Previously, Max CP was very strongly correlated with gym performance. But now, Pokemon with terrible Stamina can have very high CP (e.g. Alakazam, Kingler, Gengar), but these Pokemon do not make good gym defenders; a reminder that gym defenders receive a 2x boost to HP, making Stamina the most important stat for gym defenders. Once Gen 2 is released and we know movesets, I'll look into updating the Gym Defender's Tier List.

Summary (TL;DR): 

An interesting side effect that Gen 2 will likely have is making it relevant to have a good attacking Machamp. Snorlax having Zen Headbutt really put a damper in Machamp's metagame relevance, but with four Pokemon coming up that are all Fighting-weak, Machamp my finally gets it chance to shine. Most importantly, one of these four is the new Dragonite-equivalent, Tyranitar. Tyranitar is doubly weak to Fighting (ho yeah), and Machamp will resist whatever attacks TTar throws out, be they Rock or Dark (ho baby).

So while you'll want to save up your candies for whatever Gen 2 mons you're excited for, it might be a good idea to try and get yourself a good attacking Machamp in the meantime! Hitmonlee also received a major buff, and should be capable of tackling Tyranitar. Rock/Ground types like Rhydon and Golem should also be highly relevant to tackling the upcoming Rock and Normal types, as they resist their Rock and Normal STAB moves and can hit back with high-damage Ground moves.

Introduction to the actual meat of the article: