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Interview with Rdash123, highest level Pokémon GO player in Croatia

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Interview with Rdash123, highest level Pokémon GO player in Croatia
Level 38 Pokemon GO

Today we have an unusual honour of interviewing the highest level player in Croatia, Rdash123 of Team Instinct fame! Rdash123 is a valuable member (and mentor!) in our local Pokémon GO community and has been steadily pursuing the end game goals since the launch of the game.

Here’s a few stats he agreed to share with us for the sake of this interview:

  • Level 38 since January 4th 2017
    • Playing since 11th July 2016
  • Pokédex score of 150 (Togetic coming soon)
  • a whooping 1531km (951.3 miles) walked with no GPS drift!
    • 23,877 Pokémon caught
    • 19,269 PokéStop spins
    • 4074 Pokémon evolved
    • 4780 Gym Battles won
    • 1278 Eggs hatched
  • Full suite of Gold medals, missing only
    • Pikachu Fan,
    • Fighting and Ice Type medals

The interview

Hi Rdash! What’s your daily routine like?

I usually play daily for 3:30 hours, walking 15 kilometres every day. I’ve gotten into a habit of timing my walk in accordance to Spawn Timers. There’s a few local clusters I visit while doing my loop, using 30 minute intervals. Honestly, I rarely wastes time training friendly Gyms, I just focus on timing spawns and taking down enemy Gyms if they manage to get them up.

Woah, that’s a lot! What’s your XP gain?

I usually net around 20,000 XP per 30 minutes without evolutions. I catch every Pokémon that appears, every bit of XP count while you’re walking.

Do you have a walking buddy?

Currently it’s Togepi, as I’m unlucky with Egg hatches. I just want that Togetic! Previously I used to walk with Porygon (preparing for PorygonZ) and Pidgey for Candy. I’m really stuck with Togepi, currently I’m at 80 kilometres walked, so that’s about 35 KMs for evolution. Should be happening soon, but the recent drop in temperatures messed up my plan…

What’s your offensive Gym Team?

I always stick with the following team setup:

  • 2 Dragonites (maxed out CP, high, but not perfect, IV both of them)
  • Vaporeon, 100% with 3112 CP
  • Charizard, 100% IV, 2648 CP
  • A few Exegguttors, Seed Bomb and Solar Beam

I never caught a Lapras, only hatched two, and I rarely use them as Attackers, only Defenders.

What drives you to keep playing?

I wanted to be the highest level Pokémon GO player in Croatia, as I don’t play games casually. I’ve been playing this game since the beginning, I want to be the best I can be and show the other players how good they can be when they play legitimately.

After hitting Level 38, I was so disappointed to realise I can no longer power up my Pokémon. I find that odd, as Niantic took out any motivation for levelling after 38. PvP and trading is still not implemented, so staying motivated and passionate is not easy.

How are you preparing for Generation 2?

I farmed up a lot of Porygon, Onyx and Zubat Candy. Still working on Blissey, but overall I’m just aiming to be as prepared as I can for Cross Evolutions. I’m currently at 150 Eevee Candy, down from 1000, but they’re common here, so it’s not a big deal.

I don’t like the way Baby Pokémon were introduced. The event was trashy and an obvious plot to make more money from players buying Incubators. Even the free daily Incubator didn’t help me a lot, as 1 charge is not enough to guarantee you’ll actually hatch Gen 2 Pokémon.

What Gen 2 Pokémon are you looking for?

I’m looking forward to Umbreon and Espeon, as they look amazing. I don’t really care about their place in the meta, I just love the way they look. I’m not a fan of Scizer, they’re just numbers in the Pokédex for me.

Image credits DrPokeLover

What would you recommend to players who are struggling to reach Level 30?

Use Ingress! I use it daily to identify cluster spawns and farm them daily. Don’t waste Lures if you can optimise your XP gain for free. Ingress is a great game in itself, it has more features than Pokémon GO currently!

You can use our How to track Pokémon with Ingress guide to help you out with setting up and researching your Pokémon GO hunting area.

Always aim for Curved Great Ball (at least), save for Lucky Egg Evolution sprees using Pidgey Calc and always, but always, use an online stopwatch to check your time left. You can earn around 5-8% more XP if you don’t have to switch apps on your phone.

Anything else you want to share with the Pokémon GO Hub readers?

Don’t cheat! Anyone can be the very best with scanners, bots and GPS spoofing, don’t be that guy. You can achieve everything you want with time and dedication. I’ve spent around 1000 EUR on in app purchases and I don’t have any regrets – I bought items wisely and honestly didn’t overspend.

That’s all folks! Thank you Rdash for a great interview and see you on Level 40!