The Master's Guide To Pokemon Go: Everything You Need To Know!

Get it? PreFACE? Ha!

There are three things you'll need to understand while reading this.

1. This is not a step-by-step guide, I suggest playing the game for at least a week then coming back here to get some special skills.

2. I'm in Northeast America in a highly populated area, this means my experience to level 30 may be different than yours, keep that in mind.

3. Depending on how far you walk, how often you play, if you use Pokecoins, etc - your experience could be totally different and not mix with that this guide notes, and that's what makes the game so fun!

So let's get to it!

Each Pokemon in Pokemon Go has an IV. An IV is an "Individual Value" associated with a Pokemon, it basically notes how "perfect" it is.

Your Pokemon's IV, along with i's Stamina - determines its CP. Fun fact, though, a Pokemon with 100 CP could have a perfect IV, you'll have to do a bit of math to check.

There are plenty of IV checkers online, and even better ones in your app store. Experiment with a few and see which one's layout you like the most. There is an "Appraise" button in your pop-up menu when viewing a Pokemon, then MIX that with an IV checker.

Once you get a perfect IV Pokemon, KEEP THEM! They'll be worth something when trading gets added to the game!

It's a very simple mechanism, but it'll make a huge difference if you get it right. It's simple - HIT IN THE MIDDLE!

The smaller the circle when you hit in the middle, the better the chance of catching the Pokemon and the better experience you'll get.

If you get an Excellent, you've basically caught it. That's when the circle is at it's smallest and you it the Pokeball in the middle. It's fairly difficult to do, in all my throws to level 30 I've only gotten 3.

The curveball is okay alone, but what makes it really special is mixing it in with nice and great throws, it'll make your chances much MUCH higher.

The trick is, they're not that easy to throw since the new update - here is a video to help you out.

When it sparkles, you've got it. Hopefully your aim is better than this guy's... >_>

One thing you must remember, there is POWER in NUMBERS.

Taking down a gym is straightforward, attack it. Press the button, time some good side steps, and heal your Pokemon to attack again. It doesn't matter how weak your Pokemon are, quite often, it just takes a long amount of time (strong Pokemon, of course, help a lot.)

Defending a gym and making it worth all your time and effort is a whole other story.

Once you get the gym down, make sure you are with a group of friends, the more the better - if you could pull together 8 people (from the same color, of course) you'll be able to keep that GYM for WEEKS!

Add your Pokemon and have all your friends train their Pokemon there to level it up quickly, then, the same way you'd assembly a team within the handheld game - do it with your friends. The Pokemon with the highest CP, not matter when added, will be at the top.

Have an assortment of Pokemon with different types in there, a great team is Dragonite, Lapras, Arcanine, Exeggutor, Gengar, and Venasaur. If you add in a Muk and Machamp, ANYONE will have a very difficult time taking each of you down.

Two easy things:

Go to new places.
Go at different times.

The higher the population, the better. Famous landmarks tend to be huge.
It's THAT simple.

There are some wonderful things called Lucky Eggs that you get at certain levels. The trick is, catch all those pesky Rattata, Pidgey, Caterpie, and Weedles - then evolve them once you save some up with a lucky egg!

You can get 50-60 pokemon evolved in 30 minutes, and that's a good bit of exp!

Here are some dos and do-nots of what to spend your Pokecoins on to get a bang for your buck. Whether you buy them or work really hard to get them from a gym - they're important.

1. DO NOT buy Pokeballs unless you ABSOLUTELY need them. This means you see a rare Pokemon you don't have and you're out of all Pokeballs. Normal Pokeballs are not strong and not worth the coin.

2. DO buy incubators. They're the best way to spend your Pokecoins. They help you hatch eggs, get strong pokemon, a lot of stardust, and many candies at once.

We already told you how to use the Lucky Egg right, the following are other crafty ways to use the other cash items.

INCUBATOR - use them on 5km and 10km eggs. Using them on 2km eggs is only useful if you have A LOT of coins and want to hatch eggs as quickly as possible, which isn't insane if you're looking for a particular 2km Pokemon.

INCENSE - use them when you're regularly walking, Pokemon come up more often when you're moving. If you're standing still, you're not getting the most out of the item.

LURE MODULE - The way I've found these to be the most useful is when used with friends in areas with many Pokestops that are close together. Each of you should use one, but all of you get the benefits of 3-5.

POKEMON STORAGE UPGRADE - Is it worth it? There are around 150 Pokemon to catch, you get 200 for free. It wouldn't hurt to at least be able to hold 400 Pokemon, anything more than that can be a bit superfluous.

BAG UPGRADE - I couldn't imagine needing more than 800-1000 item spots, and even that's a lot. Let's be real, NO - you don't need 100 revives and 100 potions, but 200 great/ultra balls surely wouldn't hurt~ It takes some time to be worth it, but you won't regret it once you get there.

If you're Team Instinct, you suck.

If you're Team Valor, it's okay - you already barely exist.

Thanks for reading!

#WinterIsHERE!

Tell us your team in the comment section!