What to do In Between Pokemon Go Events

By now many of us Pokemon Go players have figured out there are really two ways of playing Pokemon Go.

1. The vanilla experience, the time period between events.
2. The events experience, the times when there is a Pokemon Go event happening.

The recent Adventure Week rock event and the Grass Event before that got me thinking that about what players should be doing during the time periods that are in-between the events. Here is what I do:

#1. Fill in your Pokedex

I hunt specific Pokemon to fill out my Pokedex, usually by going to locations where specific kinds of Pokemon are more likely to appear. So for example if I am hunting water Pokemon, I am hanging around the lakeshore, ponds, rivers, etc. See Pokemon Go Spawn Locations in Toronto for more details.

So for example right now I am hunting Houndours, so I can evolve one and get the evolved version Houndoom. My Pokedex is currently at 222 and I would like to reach 235 before July 1st. To accomplish that I need to be finding spawn nests for certain types of Gen 2 Pokemon (I already have all of the Gen 1 Pokemon that are available in Toronto), and to find those 13 missing Pokemon I need to be spending the time during June to fine them.

#2. Hunt the Ten Biggest Pokemon

Or their lesser evolved counterparts. Your primary goal here is to get big Pokemon that make for good gym defenders. These includes hunting for:

1. Larvitars (Tyranitar Rock/Dark, max CP 3670)
2. Dratinis (Dragonite, Dragon/Flying, max CP 3581)
3. Snorlax (Normal, max CP 3355)
4. Rhydon (Ground/Rock, max CP 3300)
5. Magikarp (Gyarados, Water/Flying, max CP 3281)
6. Chansey (Blissey, Normal, max CP 3219)
7. Eevees (Five different evolutions, Water, Dark, Electric, Fire or Psychic, max CP 3157)
8. Phanpy (Donphan, Ground, max CP 3022)
9. Heracross (Bug/Fighting, max CP 2938)
10. Geodude (Golem, Rock/Ground, max CP 2916)

 Hunting the biggest pokemon are just straight up useful for protecting gyms, which brings me to my next topic.

#3. Hunt Pokemon that are Good Gym Attackers

Being big isn't necessarily good for taking down enemy gyms / bumping up your own gym. In those situations it is better to have several good pokemon of each the 18 types. Certain types are very good at taking down other types. Water beats fire, ice beats dragon, grass beats ground, steel beats rock, fairy beats dark, etc.

Thus since the biggest Pokemon out there are things like Tyranitar (rock/dark) it is useful to have some big fairies or big steel Pokemon to take down the Tyranitars. Fairy attacks are also good versus dragons, so they are also good versus Dragonites. Ice attacks are also great against Dragons, so the fairy/ice Pokemon Jynx is actually surprisingly good at defeating Dragonites. If you get a really good Jynx, you should definitely keep it for the purposes of defeating Dragonites.

Since Dragonites fly, electric Pokemon are also good against them and other types of flying Pokemon like Gyarados.

Fighting Pokemon are good for taking down Snorlaxes, so finding a big Heracross with fighting attacks should also be on your To Do List. While a Heracross does make a good defender, it is arguably best kept as an attacker instead.

#4. Attack Gyms and Defend Them - Get Coins!

Now that you hopefully have some good defenders and a variety of good attackers, you should spend your time taking down gyms and replacing them with your team. Or alternatively, boosting up your team's gyms to level 10 and then defending them.

Your end goal in attacking gyms is to gain coins, so I usually try to time when I go on a series of Gym Attacks so I can attack multiple gyms, place my defenders, and then collect my coins immediately. If I wait too long someone might come along and try to take down any gyms I captured and then I would need to repeat the process to get the amount of coins I was hoping for.

Once you have the coins they are best used to increase your inventory space / Pokemon storage. Otherwise I stockpile my coins until sales that are worthwhile. (The recent sale on Pokeballs was useless to me, as I don't believe on wasting coins or money on Pokeballs that can be gained for free just by walking.)

#5. Stock Up on Pokeballs

I frequently dump healing lesser healing potions, revives and nanab berries to make more room for Pokeballs. I will generally keep the hyper/max potions and the max revives, but even then I usually end up with lots of them.

Nanab berries are annoying to me. I rarely use them because I usually just time my throwing of the Pokeball in the first place. I only keep a few on me in case I run into a particularly annoying Pokemon who keeps dodging or headbutting the ball, but otherwise I routinely dump Nanabs whenever I have more than 10 of them. If I really want more space for Pokeballs I will sometimes reduce my Nanabs to 5 because I so rarely need them.

Pokeballs, Razz/Pinap berries are the truly valuable things to have as you NEED them to catch Pokemon, increase your chances of catching them, or double the candy you get when trying to catch a particularly rare Pokemon. eg. If I see a Larvitar, that is a good time to use an Ultra Ball and a Pinap so I get double the candy and improve my chances of catching it. Combined with a curve ball and excellent aim/timing, that Larvitar is usually as good as caught.

Evolution items are nice to have when it comes time to use them (preferably during a double XP event) but otherwise I don't worry about them. If they start taking up too much space eventually I might dump a few, but at present they have not become an inventory nuisance.

#6. Inventory Maintenance / Waiting for Next Event

Whether you are getting rid of Pokemon you don't need or making sure you keep a full inventory with lots of Pokeballs, you should try to do this regularly.

When doing this I also stockpile candy, stockpile Pokemon ready to be evolved, and get ready for the next double XP event - like the Easter Eggstravaganza event that was in April. I evolved almost 400 Pokemon during the Easter Eggstravaganza that I had been stockpiling, just so when I did evolve them I could use Lucky Eggs in combo with the Double XP to get 4 times the XP.

I also record how much candy I have stockpiled of the various types, and calculate how many Pokemon I will be able to evolve whenever the next event comes around - this way I know to keep big / good stats Pokemon around instead of dumping them, thus keeping the correct number I will need for whenever a double XP event finally happens.

I have a hunch there will be another double XP event sometime in June or July.

Events seem to be happening at a rate of 1 or 2 per month, with Big Events usually accompanied by bigger incentives to get out there and play, but that doesn't mean you should not be out there playing and accomplishing your goals within the game during the downtimes between events. The events add interest to the game and allow you to focus on catching specific types of Pokemon, to hatch more eggs, to get double XP, etc - but there are certain goals like gaining coins, filling in your Pokedex, etc that can be accomplished without any need for an event to currently be happening.

Happy Hunting!