20+ Pokemon GO Tips & Tricks to Become a Pokemaster

With Pokefever in the air all around the world, it’s easier to come across a wild Pokemon than to meet a person who isn’t playing this addictive game. Catching those wild Pokemons, however, can be challenging, especially due to the lack of a clear guide.

To shorten the learning curve and help you level up along with catching Pokemons, hatching eggs, battling in gyms and doing other cool things, we’ve compiled below the list of best battle-tested tips, tricks and cheats to become a Pokemaster and "catch ’em all.

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Catch Pikachu as Your First Pokemon

You don’t have to settle with Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle as your starter. You can get Pikachu as your first Pokemon (but only if you have not caught any other Pokemon yet).

To do this, when any of the other Pokemons appear, don’t catch them and just walk away. Do this 3 or 4 times and by the 5th time, Pikachu will appear for a visit. With the AR off, tap on Pikachu and catch it.

Simple Tips to Play Pokemon GO Effectively

Visit PokeStops Regularly

Visiting a PokeStop gives you few goodies (depending on your trainer’s level) and you can visit the nearest one every half an hour to receive more goodies (like balls, eggs, potions, etc.)

Pokemon Box

When you’re walking down the road, keep checking the rectangular grey box in right-bottom. When clicked, it shows the nearby pokemons by proximity (the top-left being nearest and the bottom-right being farthest). There’s no longer a way to measure the distance.

Keep the Game Opened

You need to keep the app opened on your phone. Otherwise, it won’t show your nearby Pokemons, hatch your eggs or track your walking distance.

Catch All Pokemons

Follow the vision of "gotta catch ’em all" because it gives you more XP and helps you jump levels to be a strong trainer quickly. The idea is to not discriminate when it comes to Pokemons, strong or not.

Turn off AR Mode

Though the game’s AR play is one of the most talked-about feature, it’s better to turn it off when you’re serious about hunting more Pokemons quickly, especially when you wish to increase your levels.

Keep High-CP Pokemon

If you’re planning to transfer your Pokemons back to Professor Willow to get your reward of candy and star dust, then remember to check your Pokemons’ Combat Power (CP) and transfer only the Pokemon with the lowest CP.

Throw Pokeball in Smaller Circles

While catching Pokemons, you’d see a glowing circle getting smaller as you hold on to the ball. Try to throw the Pokeball when the circle is small; throwing in smaller circles gives you higher throw bonus.

Simple Tips to Find & Catch Pokemons

Rustling Leaves

Keep track of rustling leaves on the map because these places could be the living ground of wild Pokemons… or it could be a false alarm. Who knows? Stay alert.

Populated Areas

Look for Pokemons in highly populated areas because such areas have more Pokemons and will increase your chances of catching one. Understandably, this means urban areas have higher Pokemon density per area than in the subrubs or less populated areas.

Important Places

Take a walk at important places in your city or vicinity to find more wild Pokemons. For instance, shopping malls, office spaces/complexes, parking lots, public monuments, etc. tend to support more Pokemon ecosystems.

Hunt in Pair/Group

It is better to go for a Pokemon hunt in pairs or groups, rather than going at it solo, to increase your chances of catching Pokemons. A visible Pokemon can be caught by all nearby players, so even if one of your team members notices it, everyone else in the team can still catch it.

Hunt at Dusk/Night

Start your hunt at dawn or in night because it’s a more "suitable time" for Pokemons to roam in the wild. This increases your chances of finding and catching the Pokemons and if you are lucky enough, you can also see the rare ones.

Items to Find, Catch and Train Pokemons

The items players can use to find, catch and train Pokemons are gifted at Pokestops and can be bought there as well.

Incense

Enchants Pokemons to your location for 30 minutes. If you stay up, you can find a Pokemon every 5 minutes. But if you move around more, you can get one every 200 meters.

Lure Module

A Pokemon charmer that pulls Pokemons to a PokeStop for 30 minutes – you could use it to catch more Pokemons quickly (as it attracts lot more Pokemons than Incense does).

Egg Incubator

An incubator for Pokemon eggs that helps hatching eggs by walking, for example, a 2 km egg hatches after a 2 km walk — don’t run or drive. Different km eggs hatch into different Pokemons (check the full list here).

Lucky Egg

A special egg filled with happiness that earns you double XP for 30 minutes. Use this before catching new Pokemon, evolving Pokemons or any other XP-increasing activity to get double XP.

Razz Berry

A fruit that makes Pokemons easy to catch. It calms/weakens them and helps you catch them easily in your next Pokeball throw (available at level 8+).

Using Lure Module to Catch Pokemons (Guide)

Upon reaching a PokeStop, click it on the map and you’d see a pill-shaped white icon just above the PokeStop’s circular photo. Once you click that white pill, you can activate the Lure module that you own.

Use Incubator to Hatch Eggs for More Pokemons

Pokemon GO players can hatch eggs to get more Pokemons – even rare and ‘hard to catch‘ ones using the Egg Incubator. To do so, you should:

1. Click on Pokeball and choose a Pokemon
2. Select the Eggs tab and choose one egg (if you have one)
3. Click ‘Start Incubation button’ and choose an available Incubator
4. Finally, you must walk for a given distance to hatch the incubated egg

Do remember to walk in a straight path otherwise your eggs won’t hatch. It’s because Pokemon GO calculates distance from start to end point rather than tracking your every step, unlike the smart wristbands or fitness tracking apps.

Recommended Reading: 10 best fitness apps for Android Wear smartwatches

Use Ingress to Find Rare Pokemons and Spawn Locations

Ingress (Android, iOS) is another popular game by Niantic Labs, the awesome team behind Pokemon GO. The team has utilized data from its other game in developing Pokemon GO and some data is directly taken from Ingress, like Portals in Ingress are Pokestops in the Pokemon GO.

Using Ingress helps players find rare Pokemons and their spawn locations easily.

1. Upon opening that game, you’d find white spots (called XM) on the map
2. Search for XM-concentrated areas in Ingress and head over there
3. Open Pokemon GO after reaching that location and catch ’em all

Simple Tips to Evolve Pokemons and Boost their Power

Have Patience

You obviously wish to evolve your first Pokemon as early as possible but it’s suggested to keep waiting because as you level up, you will find stronger Pokemons which, when evolved, will certainly become even more powerful.

Evolve High-CP Pokemon

Evolving Pokemons into their next level increases their combat power (CP) but do mind to avoid evolving each and every Pokemon. Find the powerful ones among the captured and evolve them to reap higher benefits.

Check its Moveset

Evolving Pokemons based on their CP is good but that’s not all there is to it. You should check and compare two Pokemons’ moves before deciding which of them is better.

For example, a Staryu with 90CP (less combat power) can be better than another Pokemon with 110CP (more power) if the former has Water Gun and Psybeam moves while the latter one only knows Tackle and Body Slam.

Simple Tips to Win Battles at Gyms Strategically

Once you’re a level 5 trainer, you’re allowed to go to Gyms and fight in battles using your Pokemons. Though the concept of fighting is always the same – stronger (or smarter) wins, but proper planning, and knowing your enemy always help.

Know Strong Pokemons

You must know and understand which Pokemons and which of their moves are the strongest to use in a battle. Check out this sheet for whole list of Pokemons and rank damage (check its first tab).

Understand the Opponent

You can’t win until you know your opponent and use a Pokemon that can fight and win against opponent’s power and moves. Read this to learn about Pokemons and their moves (check the second tab).

Battle your Own Gyms Too

You can also battle with your own gyms to level them up, giving the gym more Pokemon slots to defend it. When your gym becomes impenetrable, you can enjoy the defender’s bonus.

Use Items to Heal Pokemons and Restore their Health

Once you have reached level 5 and have started fighting at the gyms, you’d notice your Pokemons lose health after a battle with other Pokemons. Fortunately, Pokemon GO does provide potions to heal and restore the health of Pokemons. You must visit PokeStops to collect them.

• Simple Potions – From level 5 onwards, heal a single Pokemon by 20 health pts per use
• Super Potions – From level 10 onwards, heal one Pokemon by 50 health pts per single use
• Hyper Potions – From level 15 onwards, heal a single Pokemon by 200 health pts per single use
• Max Potions – From level 25 onwards, these restore the full health (100% health points) of a single Pokemon
• Max Revives – From level 30 onwards, these revive your Pokemon after it loses a gym battle and will fully restore its health too

That was all about Pokemon GO tips, tricks and cheats to play the game effectively and catch ’em all. What’s your trainer’s level? Do you know any more trick or cheat? Don’t forget to share your Pokemon GO journey with us (using comments below).