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Pokémon GO Complete Guide To Get Started Catching, Battling and Winning

CATCH ‘EM, CATCH ‘EM, GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL!

Pokémon GO is available in Australia and other places that weren’t formerly filled with monsters. If you’re looking to go from an Ash Ketchum to an Ash Caughtem then you’re in the right place.

Here’s all the information you need to know about the game if you’re a new player just getting started.

Pokemon GO is available on both (select) Android and iOS devices.

In The Pokémon GO Guide:

  1. Getting started and choosing your starter Pokémon
  2. Pokéstops
  3. Character XP and levels
  4. Rewards for levelling up
  5. Your Pokédex
  6. The shop
  7. Your Pokémon — powering up and evolving
  8. Eggs
  9. Items
  10. Pokémon Gyms

Getting Started and Choosing your Starter Pokémon

Once you’ve created and account and begun, you start as a level one male or female trainer.

After customising and naming your character, you’ll very quickly be shown 3 Pokémon on the world map. Tap one of the Pokémon on the screen to attempt to catch it!

Pro Tip #1 – If you reject the three starter Pokémon and want leave the area a few times there’s a chance to catch a Pikachu as your starter instead.

To catch a Pokémon, you’ll need to use your finger to throw a Pokéball at your target. You’ll notice it has a large red ring around it; inside that ring is a smaller green ring. Aim for the green ring, as it provides some nifty bonuses like extra XP and Stardust, both used to power up Pokémon.

At least initially, you won’t have to worry about a Pokémon escaping from a Pokéball once inside. It’s yours — though, the more you level up, and the more Pokémon you catch, get ready for harder catch attempts.

On the catch screen, you can also hit the camera button to the bottom left to take a photo first, or the items button to head to your stash of goodies.

Congrats, you now have your first Pokémon.

Pokemon GO Charmander
You chose Charmander right?

What’s that? you want more? Great! But you’ll need to complete the tutorial and spin a Pokéstop first. Then you’ll start seeing wild Pokémon show up as you wander around.

POKÉSTOPS

Pokéstops are as important for gaining XP as they are for getting gear. They are represented on your map as a blue point with two squares. When you’re close enough to a Pokéstop in the real world, it will expand, also showing a Pokéball symbol.

Pokemon Go Point of Interest

Clicking on the Pokéstop will tell you more about it, but most importantly, spinning the stop’s circular icon will offer up new Pokéballs, eggs and potentially other items. You’ll need those Pokéballs to keep catching Pokémon!

Pokéstops that you’ve recently accessed will appear purple on the map; that means they won’t offer up new items. Once they go back to blue, it’s ready to give you more items.

You need to stay in range of the Pokéstop while you spin it to get the items.

Character XP and Levels

Your character will start out as a level one trainer, but you can very quickly level him or her up. You do so by catching Pokémon — of course — but also by checking into (or spinning) Pokéstops. We’ll get into those in a minute.

Pokemon GO XP For leveling up

Here’s what each action is worth. You’ll receive:

  • 10 XP – Curve ball
  • 10 XP – Nice throw
  • 50 XP – Great Throw
  • 100 XP – Pokémon caught
  • 500 XP – New Pokémon
  • 100 XP – Excellent throw
  • 50 XP – Checking in at a Pokéstop
  • 100 XP – Battling an opposing team’s Pokémon trainer at a gym
  • 150 XP – Beating an opposing team’s Pokémon trainer at a gym
  • 50 XP – Beat a Pokémon in training (a gym already your team’s color) at a gym
  • 10-30 XP – Battling a friendly Gym and beating some but not all the Pokemon there.
  • 200 XP – Hatch a Pokémon
  • 500 XP – Evolve a Pokémon

Rewards for Levelling Up and XP Required

Here’s the XP required for each level along with the rewards received for reaching that level.

Level

XP required

Total XP

Unlocked items

Rewards

1

0

0

2

1,000

1,000

Poke Ball x10

3

2,000

3,000

Poke Ball x15

4

3,000

6,000

Poke Ball x15

5

4,000

10,000

Gyms, Potions, Revives

Poke Ball x20, Potion x10, Revive x10, Incense

6

5,000

15,000

Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Incubator

7

6,000

21,000

Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Incense

8

7,000

28,000

Razz Berry

Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x10, Lure Module

9

8,000

36,000

Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x3, Lucky Egg

10

9,000

45,000

Super Potions

Poke Ball x20, Super Potion x20, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module

11

10,000

55,000

Poke Ball x15, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3

12

10,000

65,000

Great Balls

Great Ball x20, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3

13

10,000

75,000

Great Ball x10, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3

14

10,000

85,000

Great Ball x10, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3

15

15,000

100,000

Hyper Potions

Great Ball x15, Hyper Potion x20, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module

16

20,000

120,000

Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5

17

20,000

140,000

Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5

18

20,000

160,000

Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5

19

25,000

185,000

Great Ball x15, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5

20

25,000

210,000

Ultra Balls

Ultra Ball x20, Hyper Potion x20, Revive x20, Razz Berry x20, Incense x2, Lucky Egg x2, Egg Incubator x2, Lure Module x2

21

50,000

260,000

Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10

22

75,000

335,000

Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10

23

100,000

435,000

Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10

24

125,000

560,000

Ultra Ball x15, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10

25

150,000

710,000

Max Potions

Ultra Ball x25, Max Potion x20, Revive x15, Razz Berry x15, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module

26

190,000

900,000

Ultra Ball x10, Max Potion x15, Revive x10, Razz Berry x15

27

200,000

1,100,000

Ultra Ball x10, Max Potion x15, Revive x10, Razz Berry x15

28

250,000

1,350,000

Ultra Ball x10, Max Potion x15, Revive x10, Razz Berry x15

29

300,000

1,650,000

???

30

350,000

2,000,000

Max Revive

Ultra Ball x30, Max Potion x20, Max Revive x20, Razz Berry x20, Incense x3, Lucky Egg x3, Egg Incubator x3, Lure Module x3

You can click on your trainer’s photo on the bottom left of the game’s main screen to see how you’re progressing, check your journal and also check your medal progress.

Once your trainer hits level five, he or she can begin using Pokémon Gyms and choosing a Team to join.

Your Pokédex

You can access a wealth of content by clicking on the center Pokéball icon on the main map screen. From there you can open your Pokédex, showing all the Pokémon you’ve caught so far.

Pokemon Go Pokedex

THE SHOP

The center Pokéball icon on the main map screen also leads to the store. From there you can exchange Pokécoins for Pokéballs, incense, eggs and more.

You can earn Pokécoins from holding Pokémon Gyms and claiming a daily bonus, but you can certainly use real world money to buy them if you like.

Pokemon Go Microtransactions

Aussie prices for Pokécoins are as follows:

  • $1.49 AUD for 100 Pokécoins;
  • $7.99 AUD for 550 Pokécoins;
  • $14.99 AUD for 1,200 Pokécoins;
  • $30.99 for 2,500 Pokécoins;
  • $62.99 AUD for 5,200 Pokécoins;
  • $159.99 AUD for 14,500 Pokécoins.

Your Pokémon — Power Up and Evolve with Candy

The center Pokéball icon on the main map screen also leads to your Pokémon.

Clicking on a Pokémon lets you do a variety of things:

Pokemon Go Jigglypuff

You can rename your Pokémon by clicking the pencil icon to the right of its current name.

You can power up the Pokémon by clicking on “Power Up” — this requires Stardust and Candy.

You can also evolve your Pokémon by clicking on “Evolve” — this requires a lot of Candy, you’ll need to catch a lot of that Pokémon before you can do this.

Pokemon Go evolution guide
Evolving that Pidgey like a champion!

Pro Tip# 2 – Save up your candy and spare Pokémon until you receive a lucky egg for levelling up (around lv 9). Use the Lucky Egg to double all XP earned and evolve as many Pokémon as you can in the 30min. Each evolution will reward you with 1000XP

Scrolling down will show you the Pokémon’s attacks and where you caught it.

Scrolling further will show the option to ‘Transfer’ your Pokémon to the professor. Transferring will permanently remove the Pokémon from your possession and provide you with 1 Candy of that Pokémon’s type.

Transfer Pokemon
If Rick and Morty were in Pokemon Go

Use this to get rid of any duplicates you don’t want.

Eggs

The Pokémon area also provides access to eggs that you’ve uncovered at Pokéstops.

You can incubate and eventually hatch the eggs as follows:

  • Click on an egg. It will show you how far you’ll have to walk to hatch it.
  • Click on “Start Incubation” to put the egg in an incubator. You’ll then have to get walking!

You start the game with only one incubator that has unlimited uses (though you can only use it on one egg at a time).

Pokemon Go Eggs guide
Walking to hatch Pokemon Eggs

More incubators are available through the in-game shop, levelling up. These extra incubators have limited number of uses before they break.

Items

The centre Pokéball icon on the main map screen also leads to your Items.

From here, you can check on and use a number of items.

Here are the items we’ve come across so far:

  • Poké Ball: How many you have to catch more Pokémon.
  • Great Ball: A higher performance Poke Ball. Provides a higher catch rate.
  • Potions: Can be used to restore 20HP to a Pokémon that’s taken a beating at a gym.
  • Super Potion: Can be used to restore 50HP to a Pokémon that’s injured.
  • Revive: Can be used to revive a fainted Pokémon. It will restore half the Pokémon’s XP.
  • Razz Berry: Feeding this to a wild Pokémon is supposed to make it easier to catch on your next throw.
  • Lure Module: Can be placed on a Pokéstop to attract wild Pokémon to the area for 30min. Other trainers can benefit from this.
  • Incense: Can be used to lure wild Pokémon to your location for 30 minutes.
  • Lucky Egg: Doubles all XP gains for 30 minutes.
  • Egg Incubator: Used to incubate an egg until it’s ready to hatch. Walking with the App open will add distance to the Incubated eggs.

Pokémon Gyms

Once you hit level five, you can head to Pokémon Gyms.

Pokemon Go Gym Map

Before you battle, you’ll be able to choose from one of three teams:

If you find a gym that’s empty, you can install yourself as the gym’s Leader. That’ll pit your best Pokémon against other real life players’.

Pokemon Go Gym tangela

If you go to an occupied gym, you’ll be able to fight that Leader. To do so, click on the punching glove to the right. It’ll auto-select your strongest Pokémon to fight with.

Gyms that are owned by your colour team may still let you place your Pokémon in there to bolster the gym’s defense.

Having your Pokémon in a gym means you cannot use that Pokémon for anything else until it is defeated and returned to you.

Once a day you can claim a bonus depending on how many Pokémon Gyms you currently have Pokémon in. You’ll receive 10 PokéCoins and some dust.

More Pro Tips for becoming a Pokémon Master

Do you have any tips for new or returning players? Let us know in the comments below!

Pokémon GO is available on both (select) Android and iOS devices.

Daniel Ryan
Daniel Ryanhttps://www.nonfictiongaming.com/author/nfgdan/
Daniel 'Sheriff Dan' Ryan is a long time Dungeon Master who has worked in Esports, Marketing, and writes about Gaming when the sun goes down.
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