I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!

These are one of the most famous words in the world of Pokemon. Now these words can be said with Pokemon Go PvP!

Before we dive into battling it is a good thing to know the mechanics of PvP and how this will help with strategy.

This post will cover the following topics:

1. Basic PvP mechanics.
2. The use of charged moves.
3. Extended PvP mechanics.
4. Overall Conclusion.

So without further ado, let's get right to it!

Basic PvP mechanics.

This section will explain the key mechanics to PvP.

You choose three Pokemon to battle your opponent's three Pokemon. Beat all three and you win. You can battle Ultra Friends and Best Friends at any time and without having to worry about the physical distance between you two. There are three Leagues, Great League: 1500 CP, Ultra League: 2500 CP and Master League: no limit.

When you battle you cannot dodge. You repeatedly tap the screen to attack and charge up your charged move.

Both trainers are given 2 protective shields to deflect a charged move. Use them wisely. When your opponent uses a charge move then you will be given the option to use a protective shield.

When you use the protective shield then it will negate the damage done with the charged move.

Conclusion

This section covered the key mechanics of Pokemon Go PvP. So now that we know how PvP works, how can we use this knowledge to come up with an effective tactic? Is there a way to plan for PvP? This brings us to the next topic within PvP.

The use of Charged Moves

Solar Beam! Hydro Pump! Hyper Beam! These are all very powerful moves in Pokemon. However I do not believe that these are worth using in PvP. In Pokemon Go when you battle, you use your fast move which in turn charges up your charged move. No doubt you would have seen this when doing Gym battles. Imagine building up your charge to use a very powerful move only for the opponent to use a protective shield.

I will post the same picture again to emphasize the point that protective shield protects against the charge move. Hydro Pump is super effective but it did 0 damage.

So what is a better alternative? In my opinion it is using a charged move that doesn't take as long to charge. The more often you can use charge moves then your opponent will need to decide which two times to use the protective shield. Whereas if you use three powerful charge moves the entire battle then two out of the three will be negated.

Conclusion

Using moves like Hyper Beam and Solar Beam may not be very useful in PvP, especially with the Protective Shield. Using charge moves like Crunch, which can be stored up to three times, may be a better option. This brings us to the next topic, what about fast moves? Does it matter what combination of move sets I use with the charge moves? Let's continue our investigation.

Does it matter which Fast Move I use?

I will be using three of my Tyranitars for my examples. My three Tyranitars all have the same charged move: Crunch. The difference will be their Fast Move. The move Crunch was chosen as it has three bars and so it is much quicker to charge up. The purpose of this example is to compare if there are any fast moves that build up the charge move faster than other fast moves.

My first Tyranitar will have the moves Smackdown and Crunch.

My second Tyranitar will have the moves Iron Tail and Crunch.

My third Tyranitar will have the moves Bite and Crunch.

I would battle the trainers on Master League and count out loud to see if any fast moves built charge faster than the others. Here are the results after battling:

Iron Tail takes roughly 12 seconds to boost the first Crunch move.
Bite takes roughly 12 seconds to boost the first Crunch move.
Smackdown takes roughly 8 seconds to boost the first Crunch move.

Conclusion

Some fast moves boost your charge moves quicker than others. You will need to figure out which moves are faster than others. Type is also important but building up charge moves much quicker may give you the edge you need when battling in PvP. With that in mind, I would use the move Smackdown.

Extended PvP Mechanics

This section will cover a small discovery that may give you an edge in PvP.

If you have a charged move stored up and you switch Pokemon, then when you switch back they'll have the charged move ready to use when they come out again. Let's see this in action.

I have a Tyranitar ready to use Crunch.

I then switch out Tyranitar for Suicine without using Crunch.

When the timer is up I switch back to Tyranitar, ready to use Crunch.

Conclusion

Storing up charge moves and switching Pokemon out could be an invaluable tactic if you want to save up a charge move at a later time. There will almost certainly be situations where you will want to switch out Pokemon with a fully stored charge move.

Overall Conclusion

This post talked about the PvP aspect of Pokemon Go, the mechanics and some useful tactics that may give you an edge in PvP. The most important thing to do is to keep experimenting and see what works for you. For this reason I focused on the Great League.

Building up quicker charged moves is a greater pay off in the long run compared to one long built up charge move. You can store a charge move and switch out the Pokemon to use the charge move at a later time.

So what is the action plan from this post?

1. First and foremost experiment for yourself which combination of moves works for you.
2. Come up with ideas, theories and test them out.
3. Battle!