Pokemon Go Holding Gyms For 5 Days Guide

Pokemon Go Holding Gyms For 5 Days Guide by ASOT550

TLDR: Find gyms that aren’t accessible by car, and train them up to level 7. If the total CP of the gym is 10,000+ it should last on average for 5+ days.

My current trainer level: 26, but most of my research was done while levels 24 and 25

Optional prework:

1. Find your 6 best gym attackers, name your best with “01” appended at the beginning of their name. The second best should have “02”, and continue on through “06”.
2. Find your next 15 best gym defenders. Name them with a01 through a15 as in step one.
3. Find your best low CP gym attackers. Name them with “Bxxxx” where xxxx is their CP rounded to the nearest 100. For example, a 673 vaporeon would be “B0700”.
4. Once you’ve done this, sorting by name will then make finding your best pokemon for each task very easy.

OK, now on to the guide:

1. Head on over to www.pokemongomap.info
   • Make note of gyms that are out of the way. They should usually be single gyms by themselves, however if there is a group of gyms that are in a location that is closed at night (parks & cemeteries are good candidates) those are OK too.
   • You also want gyms that aren’t by any form of parking, ones that you need to get out of your car and walk to.
   • Look in areas where there are fewer people, so farther out from the city and into suburban areas. I find that gyms bordering on suburban/rural areas are the best.
2. Go out and fight the gyms on your list!
   • While you’re out, only fight/train at gyms that are on your team, or level 3 or lower from an opposing team.
   • Gyms from an opposing team that are higher than level 3 aren’t worth the potions/revives/time it takes to bring them down. Especially if you are by yourself, because then even if you train up your newly acquired gym there will only be one guaranteed pokemon to defend (yours) which makes it an easy target to take back.
   • When you train up a friendly gym, always train it up to level 7 (accounting for the extra 2,000 prestige from new pokemon being dropped in. This requires 20,000 total prestige. The reason you don’t go above 7 is because level 8 requires 30,000 prestige and is generally not worth the extra time to train up.
   • If you come upon a friendly gym that is already level 7 or higher, it is worth your time to train it up by one level (7 to 8, 8 to 9, or 9 to 10) to make a spot for you. These gyms tend to last much longer so it is worth your time to train at them.
   • Optional step: Once you take a gym, take a screenshot of all of the pokemon in the gym and to make note of the time. This will help you to track which gyms are “worth” your time training at in the future. When your pokemon is returned to you, make note of the time. In my area, a gym meeting the criteria from above and with at least 10,000 total CP lasts around 5 days. These are the gyms you want to be a part of.
   • Once a pokemon is in a gym I generally add in a “.” At the beginning of their name to keep them at the top of my list. This makes it easy to see when they are returned to me.
3. Some general tips and notes to make things easier:
   • When training, always use pokemon that are lower CP than the first defender. Take advantage of the prestige gain formula, you need 8,000 prestige to get from level 3 to level 7 (including the 2,000 prestige gain when other people drop in defenders). That means at most you will need to fight a friendly gym 16 times, but you should be aiming for ~730+ prestige per fight to get that total down to 11 or fewer fights.
   • Learn to dodge! This was the thing that got me the most benefit. A 75% reduction in damage is crucial to using low CP mon. Dodge every incoming attack, not just the specials. This will help save you potions and depending on the gym, will sometimes allow you to beat more than one pokemon which will generally get you 1,000+ prestige.
   • If you have a fast quick move, the correct sequence is attack, attack, dodge, dodge, attack, attack, dodge, attack, attack, attack, dodge, attack, attack, attack, etc.
   • If you can only fit two quick attacks per opponent quick attack, the sequence is dodge, dodge, attack, dodge, attack, attack, dodge, attack attack, etc.
   • If you can only fit one quick attack per opponent quick attack, the sequence is dodge, dodge, attack, dodge, attack, dodge, attack, etc.
   • Only use your charge moves after an opponent charge move. It is more important to dodge their charge and reduce the damage by 75% than to use your charge move more often.
   • Use type advantages to your benefit. With type advantage and dodging, even top tier defenders can be taken down with low CP pokemon.
   • If you have a Samsung phone, use GameTuner to reduce the render size to 50%. I play on a Note 4, and the game is noticeably smoother (making dodging easier) with 60fps and 50% render on.
   • If you aren’t on a Samsung device but are rooted on Android, you can do the same 50% render to get better frame rates.

Imgur album with some screenshots and other supporting info including a plot of Total CP vs. Time Held for the gyms I’ve taken over the last two weeks.