"Guide To Hit 40 By December 31st"

#PokemonGO: I'm seeing a lot of people asking "can I make it to 40 in time?" around here. Just a few weeks ago, I was also one of those people. I was only lv 35 (~6.6 mil total xp) as of November 20, and was seriously doubting that I could reach lv 40 by the end of the year. I decided to try anyway, and as I did, I learned a lot of things that could be useful to others who are also on the grind. As of December 3, I'm currently 1/2 way through lv 38 (13,651,379xp), so I'm on pace to hit my goal even though many people told me it was impossible.​Just to start with, please above all else stay safe. There's a global pandemic going on and as much as we all love this game, it isn't worth risking the health of yourself or others if you are unable to play safely. Please follow your local health guidelines and wear a mask. Also, for those of us who live in colder areas, be sure to stay warm. :)​Now on to the tips I have to share (in no particular order):1) Quantify Your GoalDo the math. Hitting level 40 requires a total of 20 million xp. Take a look at how much you still need, how many days you have, and figure out how much you need to average per day to accomplish that goal. Once you have that daily quota, decide if you think that is feasible for you. If so, you can use it to motivate yourself. Try to not give up for the day until you hit at least that amount, and if you feel up to it, surpass that goal as often as possible to make things easier for your future self. That said, don't be discouraged if you fall short of your quota sometimes. Daily xp totals can fluctuate. I've had days during this grind where I've earned less than 200,000xp, and a day where I earned over 1 million xp. It's all about the average.2a) Mass EvolvingWith the recent xp rebalance, evolving a pokemon is now worth 1,000xp. That means it can be quite lucrative to stockpile pokemon and then evolve them all at once with a lucky egg active. Pidgey, Weedle, Whismur, and other pokemon that cost 12 candy to evolve are ideal, but every evolution is worth the same amount of xp. With a lucky egg going, you'll get 2,000xp every time you evolve something. You'd be surprised how much xp you can earn in half an hour this way. I typically spend most of my time grinding catching pokemon, then at the end of the day, (sometimes more or less often depending on how many pokemon I've got sitting around waiting to evolve) I pop a lucky egg, evolve as many as I can, then go home and clean my storage to prepare for tomorrow. If you do this, it's VERY important that you make sure to save enough pokemon for...2b) December 29th Spotlight HourDuring this event (6pm to 7pm local time), you'll earn double xp for evolutions, which stacks with lucky eggs. That's 4,000xp per evolution for a whole hour. Stock up on pokemon to evolve beforehand so that you can squeeze every drop of value out of this hour as possible. Don't bother with evolutions that lead to new dex entries during the spotlight hour, since the new entry xp won't be quadrupled. Time spent on the animation of a pokemon being added to your dex is better spent evolving something else. With 2 evolutions per minute, you'll earn 480,000xp over the course of the hour. If you can manage 3/min, then you'll get a whopping 720,000xp.3) FriendsAs of a few days ago, it's too late to get to ultra or best friend with anybody who isn't already on your friends list with some degree of progress already made. It is not, however, too late to earn a massive amount of xp from friends. There are various sites, discord groups, and subreddits with people looking to exchange friend codes, utilize those to expand your friends list. Getting a friend to good friend status only takes one interaction and is worth 3,000xp (6,000xp with a lucky egg), and getting to great friend takes 7 days and is worth an additional 10,000 (20,000 with an egg). You're going to be limited to sending 100 gifts per day, but that's a LOT of potential for xp. Also keep in mind that just sending a gift is worth 200xp by itself. If you add 100 new friends, and send them all gifts every day for 7 days (assuming they open those gifts), you'll earn 1,440,000xp without even using a lucky egg. After getting them all to great friend, it's your choice if you want to keep them around, or delete them and add a new batch of 100 and try to get them to great friend as well.4) RaidsYour daily free raid pass is valuable, don't waste it. The best use for it is hosting a legendary raid for remote players. Just like exchanging friend codes, there are sites, discord groups, and subreddits where people go to join/host remote raids. Hosting a raid means you'll be locating a gym with the raid you want to host, friending 5 other people, joining the raid, and then inviting them to join you via remote raid passes. A legendary raid awards you with 10,000xp for completing it. Even better, doing a raid with friends increases your friendship level, so those 5 random people you invited will all immediately reach good friend status, giving you 3,000xp each. That, plus the 10k you got from the raid itself, adds up to a potential 25,000xp per raid (not to mention giving you an encounter with the raid boss). Now just because you get one raid pass each day, that doesn't mean you necessarily have to do a raid every day. You can leave your pass in your bag, then the next day you can use the pass you have, get your new pass for the day, and then immediately use that pass as well. This strategy is particularly effective if you find a place with multiple gyms with legendary raids active, since you might be able to activate a lucky egg and then host 2 back-to-back raids before it expires. If you pull that off, that's 100,000xp and 2 legendary encounters. The easiest way to make that happen is to play during the weekly raid hour, which takes place from 6pm to 7pm local time on Wednesdays.5) ThrowsCurveballs are hard to master, but if you can get to the point where you reliably throw them, then you earn an extra 40xp per catch. That doesn't sound like much, but over the course of thousands of catches, it adds up. That said, don't waste time with curveballs if they're causing you to miss throws you otherwise could've hit and you don't feel like you could get the hang of them relatively quickly.The other type of throw that you should be thinking about is an excellent. Excellent throws recently got increased 10x to be worth 1,000xp now, doubled to 2,000xp thanks to the event. That's MASSIVE amounts of xp to be earned from a single catch. Now, not every pokemon is equal when it comes to landing an excellent. Some are pretty easy, while others are nearly impossible. Learn which ones you have an easier time landing an excellent on, and which ones you should just stick to great throws with. Keep in mind, it's always a gamble to go for an excellent, since you're risking the 200xp you could've got for a great throw in exchange for the chance to instead get 2,000xp. If you can get to the point where that gamble pays off more than 10% of the time, then it's worth it, otherwise just go for the great throw.6) Daily CoinsYou need to try your absolute best to get your 50 coins every single day. Find gyms and get yourself in there. You get 1 coin for every 10 minutes spent defending a gym, so you need a total of just over 8 hours of defense per day to get the 50 coin max. That time doesn't need to be consecutive, nor does it need to be earned by a single pokemon. The best strategy is to grab a spot in a gym in the evening/night when people are less likely to be playing. A great way to earn the full 50 is to get 2 defenders into gyms at 8pm, then if they can hang in there until at least a little after midnight, they'll get you your 50 coins before you even wake up. Every 500 coins you get is 8 more lucky eggs. Be careful of gyms that might be too remote though, as you only earn the coins after the pokemon is knocked out. If you've got a defender sitting in a gym for a week, you'll still only get 50 coins when it gets knocked out, and those 50 will count towards the daily limit for the day it was defeated, not the day it was put into the gym.7) Lucky EggsThe value of a lucky egg is directly tied to what you do while it's active. Don't waste an egg if you aren't going to be earning a lot of xp in the next 30 minutes. But also don't confuse "earning a lot of xp" with "doing a lot of things". For example, let's say you activate a lucky egg, and over the next 30 minutes, you catch 50 pokemon, all with great throws and all on the first try. Each of your 50 catches was worth 500xp, so in total, the 50 of them are worth 25,000xp. Using a lucky egg there would double that to 50,000, meaning the egg provided you with an additional 25,000xp. By comparison, if you activated a lucky egg just before reaching best friend status with one of your friends, you'd double the 100,000xp that gives you, meaning that even if you immediately closed the game and wasted the remaining 29 minutes and change left on your egg, that egg would still be worth 4x as much as the previous example. Not every egg can be that valuable, but just think carefully about the raw amount of xp you'll be earning when you decide when and where to use your eggs. Decide how many eggs you have/can afford, and what's the minimum value you're comfortable getting out of them.Generally speaking, I'd say the most valuable times to use a lucky egg (in descending order) are:High-Tier/Mass Friendship Increases > Evolution Sprees > Raids > Captures** If you feel confident with your excellent throws, captures are easily one of the best uses of a lucky egg. Each excellent throw is worth over 4,000xp with a lucky egg active, meaning 25 of them will earn you over 100,000xp.8) DevicesIf you have a go plus, pokeball plus, gotcha, etc... make sure to use it effectively. That means if you're evolving, raiding, sending/receiving gifts, etc... you should have it catching and spinning stops in the background. If you're manually catching, have it spin stops for you in the meantime. This is especially true for when you have a lucky egg active, since by completing two xp-earning tasks at once, you're getting even more value out of the egg.9) Feeding Gym DefendersAnother source of xp that's often overlooked is the xp you get when feeding a berry to a pokemon defending an allied gym. The xp rebalance made it so that every single berry you feed to a gym defender gives you 50xp. You can feed each pokemon up to 10 berries before it becomes full. If a gym is maxed out with 6 defenders and you've got enough berries to feed all of them, that's 3,000xp. A drop in the bucket compared to other methods, but if you're like me and often find yourself needing to make space in your bag, berries are often the first thing you get rid of to make room. Better to turn each berry into 50xp than to just throw it away. Tossing 100 berries is flushing 5,000xp down the drain. Also keep in mind that if you've got a pokemon defending a gym, you can use it to inspect the gym remotely, which allows you to feed the defenders regardless of how far away you happen to be. That means you can use your berries to feed defenders while you're at home, so you can use all the time you spend out and about focusing on the more rewarding sources of xp.10) Making the Most of PurchasesIf you choose to spend money on the game, you should at least make your dollar go as far as it can. Be honest with yourself about how much money you think you're going to end up spending, and then rather than buying a small amount of coins here and there, buy them all at once to maximize the bulk purchase bonus. Be on the lookout for any discounts or promos on Google Play or Apple gift cards that may be out there (they're rare, but they do happen). Also, if you're on Android, make sure to sign up for Google Play Points (not an advertisement). You earn play points every time you make a purchase on the play store, as well as from various offers such as installing featured apps (for those, you can click install and then immediately cancel the download. You were given the points the moment you clicked install.) Those points can be redeemed for $3 coupons for pokemon go. You can buy as many coupons as you like, but you can only have 1 at a time. Every coupon you get allows you to grab the 550 pokecoin package (which normally costs $5) for $2.​If anybody else has any useful tips or tricks to share, feel free. I hope this helps anybody looking to get that legacy title and encourages those who are doubting if it's possible. via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/33InBNi