Pokemon Go was launched without any directions. It just sort of happened, and boy, did it happen. Slowly and steadily, players have been figuring out tips and tricks to the game including the best ways to level up and the best Pokemon to battle.
Gym battles are not the same as in the regular Pokemon games. It’s not a rock-paper-scissors battle of who has which weakness and what move to use where. Everything in Pokemon Go happens in real time, which means battles are a series of what “retro gamers” (those of us old folks who have a Gameboy or SNES) call button-smashing. It would appear that whoever is the highest level and gets the most hits in will probably win — but that’s not always the case. You can dodge attacks and theorize on which Pokemon to play against which opponents. While it might seem like a special attack is always the most effective, there are some specials that are so dreadfully awful (I’m looking at you bug Pokemon) that it’s not worth it at all unless your opponent has a type weakness.
Certain Pokemon will always be better than others and a group of gamers called The Silph Road have taken it upon themselves to find out which Pokemon will give you the best chance at winning your local gym. There are three categories when it comes to how effective a Pokemon will be — base attack, base defense and base energy. Here’s what you need to know:
Base Attack: This is how strong your Pokemon’s attack is. Basically, some Pokemon will always be better than others. A charizard is always going to pummel a pidgey that’s the same level.
Base Defense: Some Pokemon are better at defending themselves than others. Larger-sized Pokemon like snorlax and blastoise dominate here, whereas something like a measly weedle could be squashed like a bug.
Base Energy: This is how fast your Pokemon’s special attack meter will fill up. The better stamina, the faster you can use your most powerful attacks. This is often the key to winning a battle.
According to Silph road who tested the theory, these 18 Pokemon are the best when it comes to battling. Of course, they’re mostly rare as all get out.
The best Pokemon to use in a battle are (as shown in the image above):
Mewtwo (good luck finding that one)
Mew
Moltres
Articuno
Zapdos
Dragonite
Snorlax
Lapras
Arcanine
Blastoise
Exeggutor
Vaporeon
Gyrados
Slowbro
Venasaur
Muk
Poliwrath
Flareon
And based on rarity, these are your best bets:
Exeggutor
There are plenty of exeggcute around and they require 50 exeggcute candies to evolve.
Poliwrath
Though it takes 50 poliwag candies to evolve into poliwhirl and 100 to evolve into poliwrath, poliwags are hardly considered rare. Just walk around any watery area (a beach, a lake, a bay, outside when it’s raining) and you’ll be sure to find a bunch.
Vaporeon / Flareon
Vaporeon and flareon are the two best Pokemon you can snatch up because they require the most minimal amount of effort. It only takes 25 eevee candies to evolve an eevee (who are hardly rare). This means you’ll have to catch roughly seven eevees to evolve one (if you transfer your extras to the professor).
To get your eevee to evolve into your choice, make sure you give it a nickname. In the original anime the Eevee Brothers were named Rainer, Pyro, Sparky. Using these nicknames can get you your desired evolution. Name your eevee Rainer for vaporeon, Pyro for flareon and Sparky for Jolteon. This only works 100% of the time with your first time evolving an eevee, so choose your first evolution wisely.
What are your go-to battle Pokemon? Tell us in the comments!
