Do you even Prestige Bro?

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Do you even Prestige Bro?

USER GUIDE | ? ADVANCED GUIDE | Submitted by Chateranga on January 14th 2017When it comes to gym battles, powering up, or raising the “Prestige” of a gym can be confusing, time consuming, or just flat out frustrating. Many players understand type advantage when attacking an enemy teams gym, but struggle with getting maximum prestige when training their own gyms.

Since the gym battle system is really based on the resources needed to battle, more than the use of Pokemon to control or hold a gym, many players do not see the value of powering up gyms in general.

In this guide I will attempt to better explain the Prestige system and provide you with some Pokemon that will help you power up your teams gyms faster with less resources.

Prestige 101

The prestige of a gym determines how many Pokemon can be placed in a gym, Level 2 is actually the lowest level because once you place a Defender in a Level 1 gym it gets 2000 Prestige points and automatically becomes a “Level 2” gym, and at full prestige a gym will be Level 10, where you can place up to 10 defenders inside. Always remember that adding a Pokemon to a gym will add 2000 prestige to a gym. This means if you defeat a gym and place a Pokemon in it, two other players can also add to the gym immediately (Refer to Prestige Table 1.A)

Table 1.A

Level Prestige Requirement Number of Defenders
Level 1 0 1 Pokemon
Level 2 2000 2 Pokemon
Level 3 4000 3 Pokemon
Level 4 8000 4 Pokemon
Level 5 12000 5 Pokemon
Level 6 16000 6 Pokemon
Level 7 20000 7 Pokemon
Level 8 30000 8 Pokemon
Level 9 40000 9 Pokemon
Level 10 50000 10 Pokemon

 

Because the first three levels are relatively easy to fill, most players will be powering up gyms from Level 4 to 10. The best way to get maximum Prestige is to make sure your training team is half the CP of all the Defenders you plan on training against. Even if you only use 3 or 4 of your training team to power up a Level 3 gym, if your 6th Pokemon has a higher CP than one of the Defending Pokemon and it enters the gym, you will not receive full Prestige for that training session. (If you want more information checkout Gamepress pokemongo.gamepress.gg/gyms for a more in depth look about this mechanic) To get a better understanding of how all this works, we will look at an example gym with attacking (training) Pokemon and how the specific “CP” ranges matter when choosing your Pokemon.

Example 1.A

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
Flareon Vaporeon Rhydon Exeggutor Snorlax Dragonite
1876 2132 2256 2334 2596 2702

 

Using Example 1.A we will determine the best “CP” Pokemon to bring for powering up a gym. Starting with the lowest, or first Pokemon, you have to figure out what half the “CP” is of that Defender. (938 CP against Flareon) Then proceed to the next defender and so on until you get an average “CP”. (1158 CP is the total combined average of all the Defenders) You can roughly figure this out and still get a good amount of Prestige, but to ensure the maximum prestige you need to know the overall average.

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
Flareon Vaporeon Rhydon Exeggutor Snorlax Dragonite
1876 2132 2256 2334 2596 2702
(938) (1066) (1128) (1167) (1298) (1351)

 

When you determine an average “CP” for the Gym, then you start to select your matchups (Attacking/Training Pokemon versus the Defenders) while trying to stay under the overall average “CP” (In this Example it is 1158 CP). Because you will be using lower CP, or lower level Pokemon, try to use Pokemon that have multiple counters to the gym defenders, this way if you have an unlucky dodge, or lag in the battle, you will not have to give up prematurely. (It is important to defeat as many defenders as possible as the prestige stacks)

An example of the possible Pokemon you could use would be:

Pokemon (CP) Quick Attack / Charge Move
Wartortle (838) Water gun / Hydro Pump
Parasect (934) Bug Bite / Solar Beam
Ivysaur (1010) Vine Whip / Solar Beam
Parasect (1034) Bug Bite / X-Scissor
Dewgong (1154) Frost Breath / Blizzard
Wigglytuff (1157) Pound / Hyper Beam

 

Wartortle against Flareon should be an obvious type advantage, then the next three defenders (Vaporeon, Rhydon, and Execcutor) have weaknesses to Grass or Bug Types, so Parasect is a great Prestige Pokemon choice. If you get unlucky and have all your grass types faint, Dewgong will still do effective damage to both Rhydon and Exeggutor. Having a Wigglytuff with “Pound/Hyper Beam” is a great Prestige Pokemon to use against Snorlax and is pretty good in general. Some players use six of them regardless of the matchups. Because you will not get the full prestige against the first Defender (Flareon) if your Wartortle faints, it is difficult to say exactly how much prestige you would get from this training on average, but if you won each match up, without any problems, you would receive roughly 6000 Prestige to your gym and 600 XP for yourself. Even if you had some problems and only received 4000, it would be enough to place a new defender in the gym in one training session.

Prestige Pokemon

Most trainers want Pokemon with the highest CP they can get. However, when it comes to powering up gyms, having a collection of good mid range Pokemon is crucial for making the most of your time and effort. For many trainers who seem to struggle with powering up gyms, not having these Pokemon seems to be the biggest problem. In the previous example, the Pokemon used to prestige the gym were mostly common Pokemon that trainers do not rush to find while playing the game. However, after reviewing the previous example hopefully you now understand the benefit of having these Pokemon. The following list of Pokemon is a good start to what you should try and have in your storage for training purposes, the movesets matter so you may have to gather and evolve some Pokemon a couple times before you get the right one. But the candies to evolve these Pokemon is much lower than the high CP max evolves of say Gyarados, or the hard to find candies like Lapras, Snorlax or Dragonite, so it should be a lot easier and worth the effort.

Pokemon CP Range (800 – 1300)

  • Ivysaur or (Venusaur) – Vine Whip/Solar Beam
  • Wartortle or (Blastoise) – Water gun or Bite/Hydro Pump [Ice Beam for Dragonite defenders]
  • Butterfree – Bug Bite/Bug Buzz (Fighting and Ground Counter; Machamp specifically)
  • Beedrill – Bug Bite/Sludge Bomb (Grass Counter)
  • Pidgeot – Wing Attack/Hurricane (works well against Snorlax, must dodge Special attacks though)
  • Raticate – Bite/Hyper Beam
  • Raichu – Thunder Shock/Thunder (Gyarados counter)
  • Sandslash – Mud Shot/Earthquake (Fire types)
  • Nidoqueen – Poison Jab/Earthquake [or Stone Edge] (Lapras counter, close matchup but effective)
  • Wigglytuff – Pound/Hyper Beam [or Play rough] (Snorlax and most common Defenders)
  • Parasect – Bug Bite [or Fury Cutter]/Solar Beam [X-Scissor for Grass types] (works well against top defenders like Vaporeon, Exeggutor, Golem, and Rhydon. Must dodge well and avoid Rock attacks)
  • Golduck – Water gun/Hydro Pump (Ground/Rock counter)
  • Primape – Low Kick/Cross Chop (Lapras specific, no other moveset works well)
  • Graveler – Mud Slap/Stone Edge [Most movesets work well] (Fire, Electric, Poison and Flying Counter)
  • Slowbro – Water gun/Psychic [or Ice Beam for Dragonite defenders]
  • Dewgong – Frost Breath [or Ice Shard]/Blizzard (Dragonite counter)
  • Hypno – Any moveset (Muk counter)
  • Tangela – Vine Whip/Solar Beam [or Power Whip] (Water, Ground, and Electric counter)
  • Tauros – Tackle/Earthquake (Normal counter and can train against Gengar)
  • Omastar – Water Gun/Hydro Pump

* There are some trainers who prefer Scyther or Pinsir over other Bug types, but being that they are more rare than say Parasect, Beedrill, or Butterfree, they are not included in the list. Furthermore, low CP Eevee evolutions can also work as substitutes for any matching types on this list. As always, when Generation 2 Pokemon are released this list will change, so stay tuned!

Utilizing the CP ranges, and the proper movesets, these Pokemon should provide you with an easier method of powering up your gyms, while reducing the overall cost of resources for increasing the prestige or level of those gyms. I hope this guide has provided you with a better understanding on how to Prestige a gym and the Pokemon that make it easier to accomplish, Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

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Zeroghan
Zeroghanhttps://pokemongohub.net/
Zeroghan started the Hub in July 2016 and hasn't had much sleep since. A lover of all things Pokémon, web development, and writing.

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