How veterans avoid wasting resources in POCKET MYTH

1. Resource Categories and Tiers

First, the resources that raise a Pokémon's power are divided into quality, EVs, friendship, star-up, Totem Stones, Dynamax Candy or dungeon Dynamax attempts, Stellar Crystals and held-item upgrade materials. These resources fall into two tiers. Totem Stones, Dynamax Candy and Stellar Crystals are tier-two resources: they are hard to obtain and improve through probability, so free-to-play players should treat them with care and pile them onto the main C only. What matters most are the tier-one resources other than those three.

2. Early Resource-Saving Strategy for Free-to-Play Players

Free-to-play players should not aim too high. Legendary Pokémon are certainly powerful, but nothing is absolute: apart from the 9999 Dark legendary in this game, no legendary is anywhere near invincible. For example, Zacian, a regular on the ladder, can be handled on autopilot by a Skeledirge with 4000 less power. Letting a free-to-play Pokémon with genuinely good effects do its job still earns you a place in PvP. That is exactly where you need to save resources early on. Do not spend diamonds on Pokémon pulls, and let no form of pull consume diamonds. Keep your draw tickets for held-item pulls instead of Pokémon pulls, which are meaningless, unless you already have the budget and plan to raise a legendary, in which case pull one and run its shards.

3. Earning EVs and Building Up Resources

The point of saving diamonds is to obtain tier-one resources and give Pokémon the biggest possible boost. The first is EVs. Players with spare diamonds can buy the full daily Fatigue, but my advice is that it is unnecessary: three purchases for 150 diamonds is enough. If you are not saving Fatigue to farm shinies, spend all of your Fatigue every day, because the Fatigue that auto-caches over a day is a lot, and small amounts add up to a big resource. The monthly card is a must-buy: thirty yuan is not expensive and it saves a great deal of game resources. Every day, open the Pokédex and go to Cloyster's capture location for a one-tap sweep; the SSR refresh rate there is high, which maximizes Mushroom income. Hardcore players can also catch SSRs and release them, trading release points for Mushrooms and Berries. On the ranked ladder you can also fight bots in Silver to farm win-count rewards, which gives 7 Feathers of choice per week.

4. Quality Upgrades and Stamina Management

The second resource is quality, and quality is tied to Stamina. This game has five quality tiers. Tiers one and two are extremely easy to get and the game hands them out in bulk, so no farming is needed. Tier-three Charms can be bought in the Friendly Shop with diamonds: 150 diamonds costs the same as farming with double rewards, so tier-three Charms only need to be bought from the shop. Tier four requires checking the Friendly Shop daily for discounts; any discount is cheaper than farming Charms yourself during double-reward periods. Tier-five Charms come only from events (basically paid) and dungeon farming. Be very careful with Stamina: do not spend it outside double-reward periods (weekends or holidays), do not rush levels, and hoard it normally so you can farm hard during double rewards and advance by leaps and bounds. So cap your Stamina every day but do not use it; save it for the weekend so double rewards are maximized.

5. Star-Up Routes

Star-up is simple: for an ordinary SSR, catch the juvenile form, raise it to two stars, then raise it to its mature form and release it. The same applies to pseudo-legendaries. Primary legendaries can only be obtained through shards and event exchanges.

6. Raising Friendship

For friendship, max out the highest-level Boss Invasion attempts every day and then clear the Trial Grounds.

7. Training Free-to-Play Pokémon and Planning a Team

Be careful not to waste resources, and decide your team from the very beginning instead of spreading resources around. If you cannot decide, raise pseudo-legendaries: Salamence and Tyranitar are both Pokémon you will never regret raising. The early development plan is to push maps with Gyarados; guides for getting a shiny Gyarados exist on every major platform. As for how to train it: max out quality, do not push EVs to the extreme, roughly 200 Attack with the rest spread evenly, and do not give it friendship until the main C that will stay with you appears, then tilt resources toward that main C.

8. Getting Held-Item Upgrade Materials

Held-item upgrade rewards generally come from the Elite Four dungeon and the weekend card-flip event exchange. I suggest never missing the weekly card-flip held-item upgrade exchange, and the Elite Four's daily held-item upgrade materials can also be farmed by spending 250 diamonds on five extra attempts for the tier of held-item upgrade material you need most.

9. PvP Team Analysis

Finally, team composition. There is not much to say: the ceiling of the so-called strongest free-to-play team is quite limited. PvP players have two main paths, the ladder and the Elite Four Cup, and I recommend the Elite Four Cup. In the Elite Four Cup, one full team can already give you a decent result within your own type, which speeds up Plate upgrades, and the power from Plates is considerable. The ladder is different: it badly needs a wide Pokémon pool. Once you reach a certain level you will find that ladder opponents always have at least a few legendaries, and it is not just a question of investment. Your so-called free-to-play ceiling team is simply not a match for legendaries, because free-to-play teams are easy to counter and you will never be more well-rounded than a paying player with a deeper pool. So the Elite Four Cup is the best way out. Even the Dark-type Elite only has five kinds of Dark legendaries, and common popular types such as Ground, Water and Electric have only one or two. Ground, for example, has Groudon as its only damage dealer, and a Fire-immunity ability combined with Tera Flying easily counters it. It is far friendlier to free-to-play players than ranked, so I suggest building your team around the type you actually want to play.