Grinding for the Elite Four

[Theund34d]

1)Once you are max level you have no reason to evolve pokemon early. You can avoid the XP penalty for evolving pokemon because you don't need to evolve to beat gyms. You also have access to high level areas so you aren't stuck fighting stuff 10-20 levels below you. Overall it goes much faster once you already finish the story.

 

2) You don't have to go past the first gym to prove this wrong. If you start with pikachu it's useless for brock so you need to catch and level up a Mankey to fight him. I went to Pewter City and talked to new players fighting Brock and most of them needed to get their Manky or Nidoran to about 15 before they could beat him. Before you beat the first gym the best stuff you can grind off is the ~level 5s in Viridian Forest. To get your Mankey from 14 to 15 you need to kill 47 Weedle/Caterpie or 35 Metapod/Kakuna. Assuming it's half and half that means you need to kill 40 pokemon.

If you evolve pokemon early you're playing the game wrong period, that has nothing to do with finishing the story you should never evolve your pokemon before 90, and the assumption is if you caught a mankey to fight brock you would have used it on one of the many trainers between route 22 and Pewter, but even then a level 10 mankey can beat the trainers in the gym before brock which give you enough xp to get above 15 before facing him

 

Your complaints seem to stem from evolving pokemon which is not how you play this game, sorry if that's what you're doing but that's the reason for your problem and it's just because you're trying to play counter to this games design

[Ameer]

[Kirihara]

125871 Don't sit here and tell me, "everyone else did it, start grinding", because that's bad game design and planning.

Don't tell me to "go play another game or stop complaining". I want PRO to be the best that no one ever was.

I care, I've got 50 hours sunk in already and have donated probably $30-$40 USD in my first week.

 

Honestly, finding it hard to care to continue as my Pokemon team ranges from 56-71 I've no choice but to grind on level 40-43 wild Pokemon --70% are Geodudes-- for the Elite Four; which seem to consist of level 80-85.. :n:

 

 

My solution:

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Add a "basement" floor to the Cinnabar Mansion or Seafoam Islands, and the same for Victory Road. And please, for the love of Mew, don't put Geodudes and Gravelers with Sturdy down there. :y:

Give us another spot to train at; level 50-60 wild Pokemon, please. You're going to lock my Pokemon away from me anyways once I go to Johto. Let me go out with a bang. :thanks:

 

 

 

You should be careful about griding i find some admin really meany what i means is, i know a man who helped me at my first time on red server he was kind and helping everybody in the need! and he got banned because he was one of the first trying to xp his pokemon lvl 100 to rush the E4 the ban was about " 10 hours still grinding" they call that a bot well i don't know about stuff like that but be careful don't grind too much you may call for using bot hahahaha.

[Cjlj]

If you evolve pokemon early you're playing the game wrong period, that has nothing to do with finishing the story you should never evolve your pokemon before 90, and the assumption is if you caught a mankey to fight brock you would have used it on one of the many trainers between route 22 and Pewter, but even then a level 10 mankey can beat the trainers in the gym before brock which give you enough xp to get above 15 before facing him

 

Your complaints seem to stem from evolving pokemon which is not how you play this game, sorry if that's what you're doing but that's the reason for your problem and it's just because you're trying to play counter to this games design

 

You can't refight trainers until 1 week passes. Saying the game isn't grindy because you can wait a week for trainers to respawn is a terrible argument. Most people want to play the game once they get in, not wait a week for trainers to reset.

 

You are wrong about not evolving your pokemon for the story as well. Over leveled pokemon recieve less XP for the same kill. The XP curve isn't linear either, it has a power relationship, so being able to level 3 times as fast isn't going to make your pokemon 3 times as strong.

 

Say you have two Bulbasaur. One you evolve to Venusaur at 32, the other you keep as Bulbasaur. You immediately get the benefit of Venusaur's stats so it's already ahead, but let's play the long game and see how they compare after you play for a while and the bulbasaur feels the benefit of the increased leveling speed. Let's pick a completely arbitrary of level 50 for the Venusaur, and see how strong the Bulbasaur would be. I'll even be generous and say they both have perfect IVs and are fully EV trained so the difference in base stats is minimised. In reality you won't have perfect IVs so the difference will be greater.

 

Napkin math time:

 

Venusaur: 525*2+31*6+63=1299

Bulbasaur: 318*2+31*6+63=885

 

1299/885=1.47

 

Since stat contribution from base stats, IV and EV are proportional to level, Bulbasaur has to get 1.47x higher level than Venusaur to pull ahead. So Bulbasaur has to reach level 74 to be ahead of the Venasaur using our arbitrary level of 50 for Venusaur.

 

XP for Venusaur to get from 32 to 50 is: 4399*208=914992

 

If Bulbasaur earned 914992 XP it would give a coefficient of: 914992/64=14297

 

Add that to the coefficient to reach 32 (1493) and you get a coefficient of 15790, which means the Bulbasaur would be level 69. That's 5 levels below 74, which is what it would need to break even with Venusaur's stats.

 

However, since this game uses Gen 5's scaled XP formula for calculating XP yield, the Bulbasaur will be earning less XP than the Venusaur for the same kills. It would take too much time to calculate exactly how much XP the Bulbasaur earns in relation to the Venusaur, but assuming they are killing level 30s (which is reasonable for someone still progressing through the story so they don't have access to Victory Road etc.), the Venusaur would be earning 0.534x the normal XP amount and the Bulbasaur 0.331x the base XP amount if they are level 50 and 69 respectively. So Venusaur would be getting 1.61x more XP for a kill at this level. Suffice to say Bulbasaur won't be level 69 by the time Venusaur is 50, so your Bulbasaur is even further behind.

 

Oh, and in case you are going to claim it takes longer for Bulbasaur to pull ahead, a 68 Venusaur equals a 100 Bulbasaur's stats. So using the same method as above, when Venusaur reaches 68 Bulbasaur is only 94. That also ignores XP scaling which is even greater due to the increased level difference, so Bulbasaur would be even further behind that benchmark.

 

Now i'm sure you could find a pokemon where it's better not to evolve after a while, but i think using the starter Pokemon is a fair example given that almost everyone will have one in their party.

 

The optimal way to play is to evolve your pokemon to have an easier time getting through the gyms, then banking them and getting new unevolved pokemon to level 100 once you have the map unlocked and have access to the better farming spots like Seafoam, Dragon's Den and Cerulean Cave.

 

 

EDIT: Here is my table of XP coefficients to reach each level if you want to check my maths. Multiply the coefficient by the pokemon's base xp yield to find how much XP it takes to reach that level.

[Theund34d]

131715

If you evolve pokemon early you're playing the game wrong period, that has nothing to do with finishing the story you should never evolve your pokemon before 90, and the assumption is if you caught a mankey to fight brock you would have used it on one of the many trainers between route 22 and Pewter, but even then a level 10 mankey can beat the trainers in the gym before brock which give you enough xp to get above 15 before facing him

 

Your complaints seem to stem from evolving pokemon which is not how you play this game, sorry if that's what you're doing but that's the reason for your problem and it's just because you're trying to play counter to this games design

 

You can't refight trainers until 1 week passes. Saying the game isn't grindy because you can wait a week for trainers to respawn is a terrible argument. Most people want to play the game once they get in, not wait a week for trainers to reset.

 

You are wrong about not evolving your pokemon for the story as well. Over leveled pokemon recieve less XP for the same kill. The XP curve isn't linear either, it has a power relationship, so being able to level 3 times as fast isn't going to make your pokemon 3 times as strong.

 

Say you have two Bulbasaur. One you evolve to Venusaur at 32, the other you keep as Bulbasaur. You immediately get the benefit of Venusaur's stats so it's already ahead, but let's play the long game and see how they compare after you play for a while and the bulbasaur feels the benefit of the increased leveling speed. Let's pick a completely arbitrary of level 50 for the Venusaur, and see how strong the Bulbasaur would be. I'll even be generous and say they both have perfect IVs and are fully EV trained so the difference in base stats is minimised. In reality you won't have perfect IVs so the difference will be greater.

 

Napkin math time:

 

Venusaur: 525*2+31*6+63=1299

Bulbasaur: 318*2+31*6+63=885

 

1299/885=1.47

 

Since stat contribution from base stats, IV and EV are proportional to level, Bulbasaur has to get 1.47x higher level than Venusaur to pull ahead. So Bulbasaur has to reach level 74 to be ahead of the Venasaur using our arbitrary level of 50 for Venusaur.

 

XP for Venusaur to get from 32 to 50 is: 4399*208=914992

 

If Bulbasaur earned 914992 XP it would give a coefficient of: 914992/64=14297

 

Add that to the coefficient to reach 32 (1493) and you get a coefficient of 15790, which means the Bulbasaur would be level 69. That's 5 levels below 74, which is what it would need to break even with Venusaur's stats.

 

However, since this game uses Gen 5's scaled XP formula for calculating XP yield, the Bulbasaur will be earning less XP than the Venusaur for the same kills. It would take too much time to calculate exactly how much XP the Bulbasaur earns in relation to the Venusaur, but assuming they are killing level 30s (which is reasonable for someone still progressing through the story so they don't have access to Victory Road etc.), the Venusaur would be earning 0.534x the normal XP amount and the Bulbasaur 0.331x the base XP amount if they are level 50 and 69 respectively. So Venusaur would be getting 1.61x more XP for a kill at this level. Suffice to say Bulbasaur won't be level 69 by the time Venusaur is 50, so your Bulbasaur is even further behind.

 

Oh, and in case you are going to claim it takes longer for Bulbasaur to pull ahead, a 68 Venusaur equals a 100 Bulbasaur's stats. So using the same method as above, when Venusaur reaches 68 Bulbasaur is only 94. That also ignores XP scaling which is even greater due to the increased level difference, so Bulbasaur would be even further behind that benchmark.

 

Now i'm sure you could find a pokemon where it's better not to evolve after a while, but i think using the starter Pokemon is a fair example given that almost everyone will have one in their party.

 

The optimal way to play is to evolve your pokemon to have an easier time getting through the gyms, then banking them and getting new unevolved pokemon to level 100 once you have the map unlocked and have access to the better farming spots like Seafoam, Dragon's Den and Cerulean Cave.

 

 

EDIT: Here is my table of XP coefficients to reach each level if you want to check my maths. Multiply the coefficient by the pokemon's base xp yield to find how much XP it takes to reach that level.

Alright first of all you misinterpreted what I said, I said nothing about re-battling trainers, one would assume you would know the first gym is brock and if you chose charmander you would try to get something to beat him early, there are a bunch of trainers before you get to brock that you would have to fight naturally not re-battle, and like I said before if you are evolving your pokemon you are PLAYING THE GAME WRONG it doesn't matter if a level 50 venasaur is better than a level 69 bulbasaur because if you evolve your bulbasaur you're going to be spending way too much time GRINDING for it to be useful, you can easily beat the entire kanto region without evolving any pokemon I know this because I along with everyone else who played the game the way it was designed did this, then I trained my pokemon from the mid 70's and 80's which they will be by the time you beat giovanni if you have just fought every trainer in the region to level 90 in seafoam bf4 which took about 2 hours per pokemon, essentially if you play PRO the efficient way the only grinding you'll be doing is between 8-12 hours and that's just to overlevel them to 90 before evolution which I did most people take a team of 80-85 pokemon to the elite four. Your complaints literally stem from you wanting to play this like a handheld pokemon game when it's designed to be played differently.

 

tl;dr Don't evolve your pokemon until at least level 80 and you'll never be grinding during the story, if you're not doing that you're just playing wrong. Please stop complaining that the game is poorly designed when your issue is ignoring the perfectly fine game design

 

Edit:I realize saying "you're playing the game wrong" sounds mean and I'm not trying to be I'm just trying to express that while there are many ways to play the game there is a way to play that is efficient and would relieve your complaints and it sounds like you're upset because the way you want to play is harder, it is harder but it's a choice you made to not play efficiently and you can't ask for a game mechanic to be changed because you are in the minority and don't want to play the optimal way.

[Cjlj]

You can't rebattle trainers. Saying you can just level up from trainers is wrong because a lot of people will lose to Brock before realising they need to level up a Mankey. I literally see people complaining about this every day in help chat, it isn't some hypothetical i made up.

 

You can't say Venusaur takes too much grinding to be useful. I literally just posted the maths to show that Venusaur will always be more powerful than Bulbasaur when they kill the same things. If you disagree you need to post evidence. "Because i say so" isn't a valid argument.

 

The way i am playing isn't harder, it's easier because my pokemon are more powerful (see above post). My complaint is that making a game where it's optimal to never evolve your pokemon, or to evolve your pokemon then ditch them and level new pokemon to 100 once you beat the gyms, is STUPID.

[Amoxicil]

Well i tried to complete the game with evolving my pokemon on the right levels (aka starter on 16 and 36(squirtle))

but after i finished blaine and i battled all the trainers before him on every route. my team consisted of Victreebel 53, Luxray 56, slowbro 60 blastoise 64 ninetales 55 Alakazam 54 and Golem 53 i was never going to beat the 8th gym with those pokemons or the E4 with level 60 near pokemon. so i had to find new pokemon ev train them all and then level them up to 71-72 and evolve them to their latest evolutions this is how i won from the E4. the battles where tough i almost lost a few times but due to sturdy Magnezone i came through. so yeah storyline (till E4) you could evolve them on regular levels, but when you want to do the E4 you have to overclass 10+ levels mostly and thats pretty hard with pokemon that need 150K+ exp and a not evolved one needs like 40k :) so storyline till 8th badge i think every pokemon can surface but letting pokemon evolve later has some more advantages for later.

 

Amoxi's conclusion

[Metapod]

Mewtwo in the gym. Take a sturdy magnemite with thunder wave. send it out first and paralyze it. Gee gee Mewtwo. When your training your pokemon, do not evolve them or it takes 2 3 4 times longer to level them up, and they still receive the same stats when you do finally evolve them. And actually Seafoam B4 is REALLY good for training(15-30k exp a kill depending on the level of my pokemon). constant level 35-40 Golducks/Golbats (if I remember rightly). If there were same level (80-100) wild pokemon to train on. We'd all be visiting the pokemon centre more often then training and people would complain they have to travel back to the training spots over and over? Meh?

[Amoxicil]

133255 Mewtwo in the gym. Take a sturdy magnemite with thunder wave. send it out first and paralyze it. Gee gee Mewtwo. When your training your pokemon, do not evolve them or it takes 2 3 4 times longer to level them up, and they still receive the same stats when you do finally evolve them. And actually Seafoam B4 is REALLY good for training. constant level 35-40 Golducks/Golbats (if I remember rightly). If there were same level (80-100) wild pokemon to train on. We'd all be visiting the pokemon centre more often then training and people would complain they have to travel back to the training spots over and over? Meh?

 

 

yeah i did the 8th gym and E4 with the same team all level 72 - 75 poke's :) mewto was easy E4 was pretty hard :D

[Metapod]

133257

133255 Mewtwo in the gym. Take a sturdy magnemite with thunder wave. send it out first and paralyze it. Gee gee Mewtwo. When your training your pokemon, do not evolve them or it takes 2 3 4 times longer to level them up, and they still receive the same stats when you do finally evolve them. And actually Seafoam B4 is REALLY good for training. constant level 35-40 Golducks/Golbats (if I remember rightly). If there were same level (80-100) wild pokemon to train on. We'd all be visiting the pokemon centre more often then training and people would complain they have to travel back to the training spots over and over? Meh?

 

 

yeah i did the 8th gym and E4 with the same team all level 72 - 75 poke's :) mewto was easy E4 was pretty hard :D

 

 

Ye I found the first 8 badges rather easy, apart from Sabrina, she was HORRIBLE. I could not beat her for like 10 tries until someone said to take a dark move/pokemon. And then she so easy. Ye they would be with those levels but good job. I had 90s when I done it so was really easy. Johto E4 was SO hard for me. :( only done it yesterday. Just.