Zer0's Guide: How to Become Ash Ketchum

If you're reading this, chances are you are one of many people walking around in the middle of nowhere with a phone and a power bank in your hands.

And if you wanted to become a super ultra mega powerful poke master, you've come to the right place as a fellow geek will make a geek out of you too.  But I won't teach you how to plus plus your poke experience using ehem... ehem... hack... ehem.. tools but some more official ones.

I won't go through the basics of the game like how to do this, how to gym and bla bla bla cause there's plenty of other guides teaching you on those kind of stuff.

Number 1: Never underestimate the power of dumb people in large group.
Choosing between teams of different colors is totally up to you.  But please take note that you might want to ask your buddies to decide which color to go for.  Once you have 4 or 5 people on the same color, taking over and holding gyms will be much easier.  Go all out, counter strike style.

I tried going solo, but fighting the same few guys at all the gyms in the vicinity is not that fun.



Number 2: Only hotspots, no camping out in random locations

If you live in an area without poke stops, you can consider moving to another area or just give up the game entirely.  Here's a few super hotspot in Penang.  If you're not in Penang, try checking the local community or just locate campers at your nearest park.

a) Georgetown heritage area.
My favorite spot now.  Lots and lots of poke stops but are scattered around.  Good for hunters who're on the foot all the time.  Here's some locations not to be missed.  Esplanade (Dewan Sri Pinang and Mee Sotong), LGE eating noodle place, boy on chair street art (Lebuh Cannon), Kung Fu minion + all along jetty, kids on bicycle, and many more locations of street arts.  Touristy and fun.

b) Karpal Singh Drive.
Particularly this junction.  I was there during last weekend and had a huge loot.  But words of mouth spreads too quickly and now it's flooded with poke catchers.  Come here if you choose to camp at the junction of 5 poke stops.

c) Shopping malls e.g. Queensbay, Paragon and Sunway Carnival.

Number 3: Use a supplementary map 
There's a lot of mapping service online that provides details on what pokemon are available around you such as pokemonradargo.  But Niantic is actively taking down these sites because it indirectly making the hunt easier. So use it while you still can.

Number 4: Do not ignore Magickarps
Never ignore magickarps.  Penang is blessed with a lot of water and surrounded by sea thus aplenty of magickarps to catch.  Magickarps evolves into Gyarados, one of the stronger, more attainable pokemon.  I caught around 20 karps per day and now I have a 1700+ CP Gyarados (brag!).  Hunting karps are fun and easy.

Number 5: CP is not everything, IV is.
Now the most serious part.  Ever wonder why your 2000+ CP pokemon lost to a 1500+ CP pokemon?  This is where the fine line of casual player vs ultimate geek takes effect.  CP is derived from a complicated formula of pokemon's IV.  To be exact, CP = (Base Atk + Atk IV) * (Base Def + Def IV)^0.5 * (Base Stam + Stam IV)^0.5 * Lvl(CPScalar)^2 / 10.

So what is IV.  IV is the individual value of the pokemon, i.e. the attack, defense and stamina, in the scale of 0 to 15.  IV's can't be changed, just like my IV is very much different from Shaquille O'neal.  IV's are not published in the game and will need a bit of research to find out the IV of a pokemon.

You can use IV calculator from pokeassistant to find out the IV of your pokemon.  Pick a pokemon with the best IV to evolve.  Ideally, all 3 stats should be greater than 10.  Never mind the low CP cause CPs can be built, and a strong foundation is genetic.

I chose the one with highest CP to evolve.  Which is totally wrong and ended up with a 800 CP tofu pokemon with 0 defense and 0 stamina who fainted almost instantly at gym fights.  RTFM bro!

Number 6: Go to gym
Finally, go to gym.  Not poke gym, but the real gym.  Cause a f**king ratatta already weighs 5 f***king KG.