Arenas in Pokémon GO

No matter what your desires and your background in Pokémon GO, you will have to (once you have reached trainer level 5) fight in the arenas to show everyone your team’s colors.

Although the game doesn’t have much to do with the base license, the arena system does exist. These arenas will be available in notorious locations. You can try to beat an arena if it is not your team’s color or if it has no colors (it will be gray in this case) meaning that no team has control of it.

If you’re unsure how battles work, check out our Pokémon GO battle system guide.

When you control an arena, you will need to choose a Pokémon that will stay there to guard it.
A Pokémon can only be deposited into a gym if its health is full.
Once the Pokémon is deposited, it cannot be used in battles again until it leaves the arena.

Motivation

When you leave a Pokemon on defense, its CP will gradually drop. This corresponds to its decreased motivation to stand up to its enemies again and again. A defending Pokemon’s motivation decreases by 1.6% for each battle experienced.

Finally, it should be noted that motivation also naturally decreases, even if the defender is not attacked. It should also be noted that The higher a Pokemon’s initial CP, the faster its natural demotivation will be.

The best to hold an arena passively is therefore a Pokemon with 2300 CP.

• A Defender’s first and second defeats cause him to lose 28% of his CP.
• The third defeat drops his CP to 0.

However, it is possible to remotivate your Pokémon and those of your allies. In fact, you can give Berries to defending Pokémon to increase their motivations and thus make your Gym or a Gym of your team more difficult to fight.

All Berries restore a little Motivation when you feed them to a Pokémon, except Golden Raspberry Berry and Silver Nanana Berry, which restore the Pokémon’s full motivation.

Arena Rewards

A Pokémon must defend a Gym for at least 60 minutes before its owner receives a reward.
The reward in PokéCoins depends on how long your Pokémon managed to hold out while defending the gym: 1 coin every 10 minutes. Max: 50 coins per day.
Once your defending Pokemon is defeated, it returns to your collection and you receive the reward.

You can also get items by rotating an Arena’s PhotoDisc.
To do this, simply touch the Arena on your screen, select its image, and rotate it, provided that you are within the perimeter of the Arena.
The number of items you receive will depend on your Arena Badge tier and the color of the Arena.

Arena Badges

When you attack or defend a Gym, participate in a Raid, or give a Berry to a Pokémon, you will receive a Gym Badge. There are 3 types of Badges:

	500	1
	4000	2
	30000	3

To increase the XP of an Arena Badge, you simply need to interact with the Arena in question in various ways:

• Defend an Arena: +1XP per minute
• Feeding Berries to a Pokémon: +10XP (+20 Stardust see 1 Candy)
• Depositing a Pokémon in a Gym: +100XP
• Succeed in a Raid: +1000XP
• Defeat a Pokémon: +Number of CP of the Pokémon divided by 10

The more XP you collect, the higher your Badge level will be, and the more items you will obtain by spinning the Arena Photo Disc.
If you would like to view your badge collection, this is possible in your profile menu.
Moreover, a rather interesting feature allows you to see which Badges you have obtained throughout France and the World.

Fight in the Arena

When you see a gym on the map, it will be possible to check the Pokémon guarding it by tapping on it.

Prepare for the fight

Upon entering the arena, you will have to choose 6 Pokemon from those you own to form your team. There is no “cooldown” system between each fight, so it is possible to repeatedly face an arena until your team loses control of it.

The Pokémon you place furthest to the left will be the first one sent into battle.

The battle then begins. You can change Pokémon as many times as you want during the battle. The battle ends if one of your Pokémon is KO’d. If you win and there are no Pokémon in the arena, it will turn gray and you will be able to place a Pokémon there to keep it and change it to your colors.

Attack in Arena

There are 2 types of Attack in Pokémon GO:

• Immediate Attacks: These are the fastest attacks. They do not require an energy cost but are weaker than Charged Attacks. They have a damage window that lasts 0.2s.
• Charged Attacks: These are the most powerful attacks. They require being charged using Immediate Attacks.

To use the Instant Attack, simply tap your screen quickly. Once the power gauge is filled with Instant Attacks, you can use the Charged Attack.
To use the Charged Attack, you will need to tap the circle at the bottom of your screen. You can also save the energy from the Charged Attack to use it 2 times in a row.

(if you want more information about Attacks, you can refer to our guide).

Dodge in Arena

You have certainly noticed, during your first battles in the arena, a yellow indicator appearing before or during an enemy attack. This is the signal telling you that the Pokémon is going to attack you. When this indicator appears, you will have to dodge its attack by swiping left or right on your screen.

Be careful though, you should not dodge too early or too late, otherwise the dodge will not work. To properly dodge an enemy attack, you will need to swipe about 0.5 seconds after the indicator. But be careful, the dodge also has a cooldown of 0.5 seconds.

Each charged attack has a different dodge window (which you can find in our Pokémon GO attack list). Fast attacks have a dodge window of 0.2 seconds.

Blizzard is the only attack in the game that cannot be dodged, as it has a 0 second dodge window.

How does this dodge window work? Your dodge lasts for 0.5 seconds, during which your Pokémon takes no damage. If you manage (for a quick attack) to make all the damage (dealt over 0.2 seconds) happen during your dodge, your Pokémon will only take 75% of the damage (before update 1.5, you could reduce the damage to zero by dodging).

On the other hand, if of the 0.2 seconds of the attack to dodge, only 0.1 seconds are located in your dodge window, then you will suffer approximately 37% of the damage of the attack. For more information on how damage works in Pokémon GO, you can consult our dedicated guide.

Once you learn how to properly dodge enemy attacks (which requires practice of course), you will be able to face and defeat Pokémon with much higher stats than yours. Indeed, the Pokémon defending the gyms have a defined attack pattern:

• Start of the fight: 2 quick attacks spaced 1 second apart
• Every two seconds: 1 quick attack
• As soon as the energy bar is full: 1 charged attack

Once you understand this pattern, you should (in principle) be able to use 1 to 3 quick attacks (or a charged attack) between each attack from your opponent, and therefore each dodge.

Fighting in Raids

When you see a Raid on the map, it will be possible to participate in it by tapping on it.

The principles of a Raid Battle are identical to those in Arena:

• The attack: Perform a Fast Attack by quickly tapping your screen and a Charged Attack by tapping the circle at the bottom of your screen.
• The dodge: Dodge a Pokémon’s Raid Attack by swiping your screen to the right or left. It is recommended to dodge enemy Charged Attacks in Raids, as they can be very powerful.

Unlike Gym battles, if your Pokémon are knocked out, you can heal them or choose other Pokémon to return to the battle before the time runs out.

Which Pokémon to defend an arena?

There are several factors to consider when thinking about which Pokémon to put in an arena. This is how our tier list was created:

Statistics

The endurance (i.e. the life points) of your Pokémon are of course the most important statistic to take into consideration for the arenas. Indeed, the higher the life points of the defending Pokémon, the more likely the AI ​​managing your Pokémon once in the arena will have to “wear down” your opponent.

The movesets

In the best case scenario, a skilled attacking player will be able to dodge most if not all of your attacks. However, with human error (and connection issues) taking their toll, not all attacks can be dodged.

Anyway, based on how combat works in Pokémon GO, the following are preferred:

– Fast attacks with high damage (DPS not being a reliable variable considering the particular attack pattern of defending Pokémon).

– Attacks that are impossible to dodge, like Blizzard (which we talked about above).

– Attacks with a large dodge window, because they will be more difficult to dodge completely, and for some of them impossible to dodge entirely (the dodge lasts 0.5s, an attack with a larger dodge window will not be able to be dodged in its entirety, and some damage will still be able to “pass”).

The resistances

Since the player attacking a Gym always has the type advantage (by choosing their Pokémon), the defending Pokémon will always be in trouble. However, the viability of Pokémon as Gym defenders comes largely from their possible counters.

However, some Pokémon have stronger counters (in terms of their stats and attacks) than others. The best defenders will therefore be the Pokémon with the “weakest” counters.

With all these keys in hand, you should be better able to conquer the arenas! Don’t hesitate to tell us in the comments if these tips helped you!