Adding prestige to a gym

Solo player's guide to adding prestige


Empty gym


Either drop and walk or bubble-strat (or similar).

Drop and walk has been covered in an earlier post.


Bubble-strat

Bubble-strat, or similar approaches, is best used to prestige an empty gym to one out of two numbers -- 20000 or 50000 prestige.

Now pushing the gym to 10000 prestige should enable the gym to become level seven and 22000 prestige. It is, however an invitation for drive by shooting as it only takes five exceptionally short battles to kick it down to zero again.

Besides, it looks better at level seven, even if empty. Players dropping pokemon inside shoud be able to push it to level eight.

50000 prestige hardly requires an explanation. It's level ten and looks both inviting (for your team members) and intimidating. It's the same thing here, 34000 would be enough, but invites rival players to kick it down.

If at all possible, have a second pokemon dropped inside when you're done, or if that pokemon is one with a slow primary attack, drop it inside from the beginning. In the best of worlds it's a chansey.

This is to plug the gym to prevent drive by shooting dropping the gym 2000 prestige every time the microscopic defender is downed.

If people take pot shots at the gym, drop that defender inside at once if you have one available. Even if it means adding a snorlax with lick that kills your attacker after every damned fight. If you're still set at building the gym you just have to accept the added cost in potions and revives. Or walk away.

The main drawback is that you're leaving the gym with a tiny pokemon inside. On top of that you're leaving your bubble-strat defender in the gym, so this only works for one gym.

I'd advice using this strategy close to home when you can check the gym to see when you get kicked out, walk outside and prestige it back up a level the hard way and drop a real defender inside.



High cp squishy

A slower alternative is to drop a high cp squishy into the gym. Dragonite, rhydon and gyarados would be primary candidates, but flareon does the job as well.

You want something that goes down like a ton of bricks and still leaves you a good position inside the gym after friendly players have dropped their pokemon inside.

The main drawback with this strategy is that you're permanently compromising the defendability of the gym.

I'd use this strategy on a gym I can't easily reach if I get kicked out. In the end, if I build the gym from scratch I'm entitled to leave a high cp squishy inside.



Populated gym

There's no silver bullet for adding prestige to a populated gym. It all depends on how it's populated.

I'll define a few archetypical gyms below:

• High cp squishy
• Roadbump
• Defender
• Multicluster

High cp squishy

Lowest pokemon in the gym is, for example, a gyardos. Just get to work and build the gym.

Roadbump

Lowest pokemon in the gym is by a wide margin of lower cp than the lowest cp pokemon you really want to prestige against. For example a 1600 cp lapras and second lowest is a cp 2600 cp flareon.

I'd aim at the flareon. You get prestige for the pokemon you're currently fighting anyway, so water-attack pokemon at some 1800 cp would be my pick. Just roll over the bottom most pokemon and cash in those extra 100 cp.

Defender

Sometimes you're just out of luck. Lowest cp pokemon is a 2700 snorlax just below a 2750 lapras. On top of that another three snorlax. There's just no way to easily get to that juicy 3000 cp gyarados on top of the meatwalls.

Either walk away or start preparing for a tedious 500 cp per downed pokemon fight. You just have to slug it out with the best lineup you have below 2700.

Multicluster

Very common with roadbumps at the bottom. One or two pokemon above you notice three or four pokemon at almost identical cp.

Aim at that cluster and slug through it. You'll collect 100 cp each for the roadbumps and probably around 500 cp per member of the cluster.

Never do this

You came up to that gym, and it's level 10. At the bottom sits a cp 800 magmar. You have access to a friends rival account, and it's pretty easy to kick out the bottom-most pokemon and prestige back up to 50 and insert one of your own.

Just. Don't! You're being an arsehole. That gym is already level 10, so you don't get to have a say about how it should be populated because ten other players already did.