Glossary

Breakpoints

Each Pokemon has a series of breakpoints against other bosses or defenders, or a point at which their level allows them to do one extra damage per attack, or a higher DPS, than the previous level. Most important breakpoints are attack breakpoints but there can also be important defensive breakpoints that allow your Pokemon to survive longer. These can make a big difference in high level when the clock is trying to run out.

Raid

An exciting feature for Pokemon Go is the raids. Raids happen at gyms at random times during the day. Each time a gym will turn into a raid, an egg will appear on top of it with an hour timer. At the end of the timer, the gym will no longer be accessible for 45 minutes will the actual raid takes place. Each tier has a different color egg. Check out the picture under Raid Tiers for different raid eggs. Once the raid begins, the boss appears. You must use a raid pass to enter a raid. Each trainer, or player,  gets one raid pass per day by spinning a gym. Some raids are solo-able, meaning you can do them yourself. Others take anywhere from 2 – 10 players to defeat a boss, depending on the level and quality of each player’s Pokemon. It can be tough finding other players to help you take down a raid boss sometimes. Try joining apps like Discord or Slack to find players in your area.

Raid Boss

This is the Pokemon that you will be fighting in the raid. If you defeat that boss, you will have a chance to catch them. Depending on how much damage you caused, whether the gym was owned by your trainer team (Mystic/Blue, Instinct/Yellow, Valor/Red). If your team owned the gym and you caused more damage than the other players, you will get more balls. The maximum ball count for one boss is  14 balls. You can improve catch rates by using curve balls and golden raspberries. Check out this link on tips for throwing curve balls.

Raid Counter

These are the Pokemon you will use to attack and hopefully beat a raid boss. You get to choose up to 6 counters per raid. Although the game offers suggestions for counters, Pokebattler offers much more accurate, effective and customizable results. If all six counters feint and there is still time on the clock, you may re-enter the battle. If you choose to heal your same six that you used the first time you can by clicking the backpack icon, but it does eat up time. You may want to choose 6 news one, so make sure you know what your top 12 counters are in our raid simulator before entering a tough raid.

Raid Tiers

Current raid tiers range from 1-5. Raid 1 tiers are low level, less rare Pokemon that are easily solo-able (meaning you can do them by yourself). Tier 2 are usually solo-able depending on level. Tier 3 are sometimes solo-able. Tier 4 are general fully evolved Pokemon that can be more rare, and are generally more useful as raid counters. They are never solo-able and rarely durable. Tier 5 need at least 3-5 players and are very rare. Currently Tier 5’s are only available for a limited time and rotate. Tier 5 also includes ex-raids. You must be invited to an ex-raid 2 which will be at a specific time. Currently invites are based on whether you completed a raid at a specific gym during the previous week, best that we can tell. It’s unpredictable what gyms will be chosen, but raiding at more popular gyms in areas like parks, and tourist destinations, and sponsored gyms at Phone carriers and Starbucks, seems to be a safer bet right now.  

Attacker

This is Pokemon you use to attack a gym.

Defender

These are the Pokemon used to defend a gym. They are the ones that you add to a gym. Each defender will lose health by getting attacked, or gradually over time. You can feed defenders berries to temporarily revive their health. You can get up to 50 coins for leaving a defenders in gyms depending on how long they survive in a gym.

Gym Battle (Or just ‘Battle’) 

Each gym has Pokemon defending it (unless it’s somehow empty which is rather unusual). You can win experience and take down a gym to add your own Pokemon go by engaging in a gym battle. Pokebattler helps you figure out which of your Pokemon will perform best against different gym defenders with its battle tool.