Pokemon Go players are always on the hunt for ways to quickly level up their character and increase their gyms’ prestige. Now, a brand new method for doing so has emerged online.
It’s called the BubbleStrat method, and it was discovered by the folks over at Game Press. It essentially involves training at friendly gyms using very specific combinations of attackers and defenders. Certain attacks like “Bubble” have such slow animations that if the player keeps spamming the same move over and over again, assuming their attack is fast enough, specific Pokemon can actually defeat the defender before being hit a single time.
In an example from the GamePress video above, a Diglett is used to fight a Krabby. The moment the match starts, the player immediately begins spamming their attack, and they’re able to get five hits in on Krabby all while Krabby’s bubble animation is happening. The bubbles seemingly hit and kill Diglett, but the player was fast enough with their moves at the beginning of the match that Krabby actually dies first, resulting in a victory.
So the idea, then, is that you’ll be able to place a defender that users the “bubble” attack like Krabby in a friendly gym, and then use an attacker like Diglett to do this method over and over and keep getting XP. It doesn’t matter if you end up being defeated by other Pokemon in the gym, because even if you lose, you still get the prestige and XP from the earlier fights. To earn the most XP possible, the defender should have double the CP of your attacker Pokemon. That’s because when you defeat a Pokemon with double the CP as your attacker, you gain 1000 gym prestige and 100 personal XP. If the CP of the defender is lower, you’ll get 500 gym prestige and 50 personal XP.
The combination of Diglett as an attacker and Krabby as a defender seems to work pretty well. But Game Press has also put out some more combinations of attackers and defenders, with Horsea also serving as a solid defender. Head over to their page to see a full breakdown of what attackers and defenders can be used with this method.
But the basic idea is that the defender needs to have a quick move that has a long animation, such as Bubble, Confusion, Razor Leaf, Mud Slap, Ice Shard, Rock Throw, Quick Attack, or Splash. And the attacker needs a quick move that does at least 20 damage in three seconds. This creates a situation where you can spam several attacks and defeat the defender before their first move even has a chance to do its thing.
For more information about the XP needed to level up, check out our chart laying out what is required to reach each level: