Some X-mas news

Some kind of Christmas event has started, and with it a few new things were added to the game.

You've probably already noticed some new pokemon. Filling out the dex is always fun.


Then we also have three new package deals.


Winter Box, 480 coins

• 2 incence
• 2 standard incubators
• 5 star piece

Great Box, 780 coins

• 4 super incubators
• 10 razz berries
• 10 star piece

Ultra Box, 1480 coins

• 8 super incubators
• 10 pinab berries
• 25 star piece
• 10 lure modules

Star piece? According to this piece of news it's a consumable item that lasts for 30 minutes and increases star dust gain by 50% for that period. I'm unclear if it's an in-game shop only item or if they are distributed yb other means as well, like poke stops for example.

For the purpose of this post I'll assume that it's either a shop only, or at least a stupidly rare free item. In any case they are a very welcome addition to the game.

In that case the package deals have to be compared to each other. As usual I'll assign the berries an exactly zero value.

The Winter Box comes with 300 coins' worth of incubators and hence it's a matter if you think that 5 star pieces is worth more than 180 coins. I'd say it is, but I have difficulties assigning a value to them. We're talking two and a half hours with 50% extra star dust.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is indeed a good deal though.

For 780 coins the Great Box will yield 4 super incubators, which even if valued at 150 coins each is 600 coins worth of incubators. In this scenario the remaining 180 coins yields twice the amount of star pieces. Five hours with 50% extra star dust for 180 coins is a no-brainer.

This is a good deal aimed at the walking player.

The 1480 coin Ultra Box comes with 1200 coins' worth of super incubators, once again if we value them at 150 coins each. Basically anything thrown in after that is likely to push the package deal way above the remaining 280 coins.

In this case 10 lure modules is a little problematic. It's either a sweet 900:ish coins' worth of modules, but at the other hand a lot of players are wading around in those.

25 star pieces, at the other hand, is simply fantastic.

This package deal is also the best designed for long sessions of playing with the package as your only boost since 10 star pieces go hand in hand with 10 lure modules. This assuming that you're not the only one adding lures to poke stops. The remaining 15 star pieces are a perfect boost for consuming those eight super incubators.

I'd argue that this deal is superior to the other two by a very wide margin.

Oh, there are pokemon out there with a christmasy look as well. Just like last year.

Groudon, raid boss

A little late I'll have a look at the groudon raid boss.

There's already a perfectly good write-up on CP-stats even though it seems likely the real version is somewhat nerfed from those stats.

I'll stick to a quick analysis.


Beating the crap out of it

There are basically two answers -- gyarados and exeggutor. They come with comparable base attack stats, but gyardos wins out on better effective bulk due to a higher base defence stat which translates into its staying in the battle a little longer, all else equal.

You're running either a Waterfall / Hydro Pump or Bullet Seed / Solar Beam combo.


As groudon is ill suited to be a gym defender (had it been allowed to) you can more or less disregard its primary attacks. Mud Shot, while benefiting from a type bonus, is an offensive move, and Dragon Tail lacks the type bonus.

Mud Shot is ineffective against gyarados and exeggutor, while Dragon Tail at least deals neutral damage.

The charge attacks, however, are a totally different beast. Paradoxally enough the type bonused Earthquake is immediately neutered by being inefficient against both preferred attackers. This leaves us with two off-type attacks.

Fire Blast, which slaughters exeggutor, and Solar Beam, which slaughters, well, everything... Of these two attacks you'll still be happier if faced with Solar Beam. The sledgehammer is at least inefficient against both attackers despite gyarados being a water/flying type pokemon, and it takes until next month to finish casting.


Don't have enough gyarados and exeggutor? You can always fill out your line-up with vaporeon. However, Solar Beam is to vaporeon what Fire Blast is to exeggutor -- insta kill.


Why would I want a groudon?

It's a pure ground type pokemon, so let's run a quick matchup versus rhydon.

Both pokemon come with Earthquake as the preferred charge attack, so we're comparing Mud Shot with Mud Slap. Mud Shot deals substantially less damage, is faster to cast and pumps up Earthquake faster.

The word 'best' is hard to define here since Earthquake is a single bar attack. If you can guarantee that you'll fire off more Earthquake due to the better energy handling from Mud Shot, then this is the better attack, but if the fight ends just prior to Earthquake going off, then the opposite stands true.


Remains to have a look at base attack. The non-nerfed version comes with 297 base attack versus rhydon's 222. It takes a lot of nerfing to bridge the 75 point gap, a lot more than what has been applied given the 2300:ish CP your level 20 raid boss comes with when it's caught.

In the end this indicates that groudon is a better rhydon than rhydon, and sine it's pure ground suffers from a much smaller range of super effective attacks against it. A minor added bonus is that nothing is doubly super effective against groudon, but to be honest, if you attack with ground or rock into grass or water you deserve to deplete your potions and revives.

It's all about cloudy weather

The current meta makes cloudy weather your best friend. Both because your machamps hack through gyms at a higher speed, but also because machops spawn at a brutal rate.

This is your chance to get three top tier machamps to use against gyms, because machamps rule the offensive game right now.

Out of the preferred gym defenders the following are weak against machamp:

• blissey
• chansey
• snorlax
• lapras
• steelix
• umbreon

So get out there and build your line-up with the game's mst important attacker.

Gyarados is king

At least as a water type attacker.

If the info provided here can be trusted we can compare gyarados to vaporeon or other water type attackers.


Gyarados suffered badly from lacking a water type primary attack. With gen3 comes Waterfall. The 16 power corresponds with what the game says, and 16 dps implies the attack goes off once per second.

That's quite simply brutal.


To mitigate this the rather monstrous primary comes with an eps that is rather atrocious. You're doing fifteen rather attacks before you get to fire off that Hydro Pump. Fifteen seconds versus vaporeon's ten seconds with Water Gun.


So it boils down to 10 (Water Gun) dps or 16 (Waterfall).


In a hypothetical battle vaporeon fires off three Water Gun every half a minute versus gyarados' two. Well, almost. You have to add the 9.9 seconds to cast those three charge attacks and reduce the 6.6 seconds for the gyardos, which allows your gyarados to squeeze in another three Waterfall attacks and a tiny bit of energy.


It also takes 40 seconds, and if you're fighting anything for 40 seconds with a surviving gyarados you're doing something seriosusly wrong. But anyway, just to compare numbers.


Our hypothetical vaporeon fired off a bonus Hydro Pump for 130 power. Deduct 32 for the two extra Waterfall. Let's call it 100 power in favour of vaporeon.


After that we compare six dps difference for thirty seconds (16 versus 10). That's 180 power in favour of gyarados.


80 extra power for the gyarados. If gyarados and vaporeon shared the same base attack stat. They don't. Vaporeon comes with 205 base attack stat and gyarados with 237. 32 base attack difference is a fifteen percent difference.


As an attacker gyarados wins out both in terms of the attacks available and the base attack stat. The only remaining advantage that vaporeon retains is that it's not a reliant on dodging a big incoming attack as the gyarados. After fourteen tedious Waterfall you really, really, really want to fire off that Hydro Pump.


Eh, blogging guy, didn't you just forget to compare with other water type attackers?

Yeah, I did. Show me one with more than 237 base attack stat and I'll rerun my numbers.


Conclusion: Have fun out there. Fast TM your gyarados and don't forget to Charge TM your old Hydro Pump vaporeon attackers -- they're perfectly good as gym defenders with either of the two other charge attacks.

Battle parties

It took me a while, with not so little help from people around me, to understand how the new battle parties work.

Clicking up the pokemon interface you now have three headers instead of two. The uppermost left gives you the opportunity to predefine up to five parties.

Just test it out. There are a few interface glitches, but after some swearing you'll have yourself a party or two.

Nota bene, you can't add a fainted pokemon into a party.


Now what? I have my nifty party for attacking gyms and another for ho oh raids.


I haven't tried this for boss raids, but I've tested it for normal gym combat. After you decide to fight the gym you're faced with the usual inane pick that the game makes of you. Swipe to the left and your predefined parties will turn up in the reverse order you created them in.


No more digging up the fighting type pokemon you want for almost every gym you encounter.

New combat interface

The last update came with a few news. Well, generation three among them, but this short post will focus on the new combat interface.


Attack a gym or join a raid boss fight.

Tap tap tap press.

Feel familiar?


It's gone.


From now on the charge attack kicks in when you tap the circle at the very bottom of your screen.


My first impression was that the change was a huge boost to my kamikaze play style, but that it came at a cost for the player who make an attempt at dodging attacks due to the need of split vision.

Thanks to a comment from a fellow player I learned that I was wrong. Just tap that symbol throughout the fight and the charge attack will go off as soon as it's charged. You can concentrate on dodging whatever.


Now, there's never a change without a cost. In this case it's the opportunity cost, but it's simple enough to handle. Sure, it requires you to throw the occasional glance at the bottom of your screen, but only when you would have checked out the energy bar anyway.

Whenever you feel the need to save that charge attack sledgehammer for later, just move your tapping finger higher up on your screen and you can overcharge your energy bar to save that juicy attack for the next target in line. Or for enabling you to dodge that nasty attack if that's what you want.


Overall this is good news for attacking into gyms or cutting down that raid boss to size.