Gyms and gym battles have received a number of significant changes in the latest 0.39.0 and 0.39.1 Pokemon GO update. In summary, Gym Battles are now more responsive, there is no lag before using a Charged move and your Attacks get queued.
Attack Buffer has been introduced
Previous to this update, you were forced to spam Quick Attack as much as possible, as your taps were not queued – missing a tap meant missing an attack. That’s now solved, as the game queues your moves if you spam tap.
The queue can hold up to one future attack and will prevent you from dodging if it’s full, but it’s a fair system overall. It’s not possible to override the buffer: if you buffered a quick attack, your next battle action will be that quick attack. As one reddit user explained perfectly:
“This means that if you use Hyper Beam and immediately tap after that, your pokemon will do a quick attack as soon as he can after the Hyper Beam even if you input the move 4 seconds ago.” – Lunaroh
We’ve also noticed that Pokemon like Vaporeon, who have really fast attacks, can now deal anywhere from 10% to 15% more damage, as less moves get lost/skipped.
Essentially, this change means two things:
- Dodging is a bit more difficult now, as your queued Attack can prevent you from dodging fast
- Network latency and lag are no longer that influential to Gym Battles – bad network will still hurt you, but not as much as it used to
Gym Battle Performance has improved
We’ve also observed that Gym battles feel a lot smoother and snappier, with less lag spikes and random damage spikes. It’s rumored that Niantic has streamlined the entire gym code in order to improve performance and stability. This is yet to be verified, but given that the latest GAME MASTER file showed no changes, it’s a very likely option.
We were quite surprised to see how well the new Gym system worked – fighting a gym with several people was a breeze, with almost zero freezes and drops.
Thinking of testing out the new Gym battle system tonight? Take a look at our gym battle guides: