Downing a gym defender instantly

I've heard all kinds of strange statements about how to do this, and now I've found the source of the strangeness. It probably works, but it's way more complicated than needed.

If you want to kick out a gym defender without giving the defenders a decent chance to feed it a berry, this is how you do it.

Be at least three players. That much is correct in the linked article. For this example I'll assume exactly three. Skip the crap about 2/9 of full health. The game draws a new combat instance whenever those who drop out of combat reenter as long as the original combat is still running.

And now for the action:


All attackers pick a lineup that will wipe the first and second defender in the gym.

All attackers join combat.

As soon as you verify that you are indeed three attackers in the fight two players give up and drop out of combat.

The remaining attacker inflicts little or no damage to the defender. Dodging is a good way to achieve this.

The two players who dropped out enter combat together, verify that they are indeed both in combat and one drops out.

The remaining one of those two does marginally more damage than the first attacker to remain in combat.

The third attacker enters combat and go all out.

Watch your screens. Make sure all three attackers win at aproximately the same time.

All three attackers enter combat with the next defender and win that fight, or else you'll face the wrath of error 29 and be locked out of the gym for ten minutes.


That's it.


Two players can try this stunt as well. Enter combat and kick the first defender down one notch. The first win won't generate a warning to the player owning the defender,

Leave combat after your win.

Reenter combat, one drops out and joins again. Syncronise the end so that you both win at the same time. Continue into the next defender and kick it down a notch. Rinse and repeat until the gym is cleared.


Is this abusing a bug in the game? I would say so, but, and this is an extremely important but, Niantic support has yet to acknowledge the existence of any bugs in the game. The madness with three percent of the playerbase receiving only two items from pokestops comes to mind.

In a game entirely free from bugs, there are none to abuse. Hence the method above has to be ascribed as a feature.