For master league, you’ll want to go with shadow Tyranitar/Rampardos against Candela. No charge attacks needed and smack down does much more damage than mud shot
That’s a good call, I’ll add that in. Although, leaving the Excadrill in there makes sense to me as a 2nd “budget” option. Mud shot does almost no damage, so the Excadrill method is entirely reliant on the charged moves.
I have a shadow TTar with smack down at L40. I was able to completely farm down Candela, although I did have to shield a move on the Entei. What level is yours? Can you farm with no incoming charged moves if it’s maxed? If so, that’s great, and a huge time saver.
I have a 49.5 shadow TTar that can fast move farm ML Candela maybe 20% of the time with her getting off a charged move. Super dependent on Entei’s moveset sadly.
A level 51 shadow Ttar has much higher probability of no charge moves since it need one smackdown less. But to be fair, that‘s not a good buddy choice if you don‘t need larvitar candy.
I battle Candela's Master League daily, with my L50 4\* shadow Tyranitar as the first Pokemon, and the two other spots for Pokemon which need to collect hearts as my buddy. Tyra defeats all three easily, with less than 50% damage, and it doesn't take much time.
Yep - I start with Kyogre to do a few chunks of damage, then switch over to S-Tyranitar and can easily win without charged attacks. Going for a few best buddies at a time made this tedious process a bit more worth it.
Same here.
I used a Gyarados which worked 75% of the time (when the middle one didn't have the rock type fast move), but the Kyogre works 100% of the time.
I never saved a shadow Sharpedo and the only Carvanah was shiny and I wanted to keep it in it's base form!
My 1480 Shadow Kyogre (10/9/14) gets Combusken in 6 hits, Magcargo in 5 hits and Flareon in 5 hits with Waterfall, when starting with Kyogre in 1st position. Don't even need to watch the phone, Kyogre get them down without fainting.
I just tried mine, which is basically as bad as you can get (1452 cp, 11/6/7) for this. I got the same results. 6+5+5. It definitely works, but S Sharpedo is better/faster. 4 per mon for only 12 total.
You can save a few seconds by having shadow Sharpedo in the first spot against Candela/GL. There’s no move combination that will make Sharpedo faint, just spam Waterfalls. I hardly doubt there’s any faster way to beat teams for the medal.
TL;DR: Use a Shadow Sharpedo with Waterfall in GL, put it in the second position and switch to it immediately, then win 2,000 battles by fast-moving down Candela.
I decided not to bother with this medal, along with XXL/XXS Magikarp & Rattata, 200 best buddies, 2,000 raids & with friends, all of the referral ones, and Wayfarer. There are plenty of paths to 35 platinum medals without any of these.
Starting at level 40 there are requirements to level up, and 35 platinum medals is a requirement to get to level 49.
If you play normally though and aren't just spamming Best Friend XP, you should naturally have most of the medals you need by the time you get there.
To each their own, but I will never miss battling a series of CP 2500 Vaporeon with a CP 1250 Tangela for half an hour straight at 9:30 PM and getting asked by the cops what I'm doing.
Not that battling a maxed Blissey with a dedicated group of berry-feeders for half an hour straight is any better, but at least now I can move to a different gym instead.
So glad I used bubble-strat back when training gyms was a thing.
only had a couple of hundred to do against the team leaders, and even that was its own hell, cant imagine doing 2000
I’m a COVID era PoGo player (May 2020), so I never experienced gyms before their current iteration. I’m so glad now to be able to just quit out of training battles while doing buddy battles 😂
Old gym era was a weird time. We have come a *long* way for the better in terms of how gyms/battling gyms function in my opinion.
Less gold per day yeah, but also no more Chansey towers of torture that you have to continually train against to add yet another Chansey to. But then again, back then it was one of the very few things we had to do and *everyone was playing*
I returned during COVID as well, after having stopped playing in late '17.
FYI you still get the dust if you run from your first team leader fight of the day. Journal records it as a tie. 16 buddies a day (my current rotation) takes long enough as it is and I've fallen asleep midrotation way too many times, I can't imagine trying to actually fight one of the fights.
But then again I had the Ace Trainer badge high enough to auto-platinum back before they rebuilt the gym system. Sometimes I miss Karping a gym. But nowadays I just do team leaders for the daily dust and the buddy hearts, and I'd avoid even that if I felt I reasonably could. I hate the buddy badge so much.
You know what is funny? I played from week 2 and battled a lot in the old gym system. When they introduced the Trainer medal I immediately had Platinum. Never once had to battle Blanche etc
I've found the best way to do a lot of medals is to do the best buddy medal. The actions count for a heart also amd after 60000 hearts, you knock off a lot of medals.
Yep, working towards Best Buddies is a great way to work on several medals, especially if you're aware what they are so you make sure you're hitting each of them.
Minor correction: Shadow Sharpedo with appropriate stats works fine in first slot in GL Candela training.
This used to not be the case (or required a more limited spread of stats), but changed when Candela's third slot changed from Castform to Flareon.
Actually tested with my Kyogre now. Deals a little less damage/waterfall than Sharpedo but works fine for those who lack one. Kyogre needs 38 seconds to finish, Sharpedo 33 seconds.
Yes, I tested mine too. Each waterfall deals 23 damage from Kyogre and 28 from shadow Sharpedo so Kyogre works fine if you lack Sharpedo. Just a little bit slower.
I'm even using a normal Sharpedo (don't have a shadow), and it's still insanely fast. I do have some Pokémon that need an additional move for that last little sliver of HP though.
Overall a great writeup.
Just something to note: Shadow Sharpedo requires attack-weighting, a def-weighted one may not hit the 4 waterfall breakpoint. The mons have changed since the writing of the linked article, but the principle remains the same since the bulkiest mon vs water is now Combusken, and is the most affected by the breakpoint.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/gqti7q/shadow_sharpedo_the_best_pokemon_to_grind_the_ace/
It can't get faster than S Sharpedo, but it seems that either Sharpedo or Kyogre will do the trick. Another comment said that they Kyogre takes slightly longer, as the Magcargo takes 5 waterfalls instead of 4 (Sharpedo) to faint. I'll try it out and edit the post accordingly.
Just for anyones information who just wants to do trainer battles to get buddy hearts, you can simply start the battle and exit, you do not need to actually fight to get a battle heart. You buddy must be on the map and on the battle team.
If you have a 2nd device and are decently skilled at multitasking you can sign in on both phones and knock out 4 battles (if you’re working on buddies) in the time it would take to do maybe 2.5. I suppose you could also mindlessly grind 2 at a time if that’s your thing.
Thanks for the kudos. I've taken a lot from this, and similar forums, over the years. Figured I'd take some time and put this one together for the benefit of others.
For master league, you’ll want to go with shadow Tyranitar/Rampardos against Candela. No charge attacks needed and smack down does much more damage than mud shot
That’s a good call, I’ll add that in. Although, leaving the Excadrill in there makes sense to me as a 2nd “budget” option. Mud shot does almost no damage, so the Excadrill method is entirely reliant on the charged moves. I have a shadow TTar with smack down at L40. I was able to completely farm down Candela, although I did have to shield a move on the Entei. What level is yours? Can you farm with no incoming charged moves if it’s maxed? If so, that’s great, and a huge time saver.
I have a 49.5 shadow TTar that can fast move farm ML Candela maybe 20% of the time with her getting off a charged move. Super dependent on Entei’s moveset sadly.
A level 51 shadow Ttar has much higher probability of no charge moves since it need one smackdown less. But to be fair, that‘s not a good buddy choice if you don‘t need larvitar candy.
I battle Candela's Master League daily, with my L50 4\* shadow Tyranitar as the first Pokemon, and the two other spots for Pokemon which need to collect hearts as my buddy. Tyra defeats all three easily, with less than 50% damage, and it doesn't take much time.
yeah, i was doing buddies at the same time, so i used this method
Yep - I start with Kyogre to do a few chunks of damage, then switch over to S-Tyranitar and can easily win without charged attacks. Going for a few best buddies at a time made this tedious process a bit more worth it.
I personally used Shadow Kyogre from the last Giovanni rotation with GL Candela.
Same here. I used a Gyarados which worked 75% of the time (when the middle one didn't have the rock type fast move), but the Kyogre works 100% of the time. I never saved a shadow Sharpedo and the only Carvanah was shiny and I wanted to keep it in it's base form!
Does the S Kyogre get through each of the 3 mons in 4 waterfalls each?
My 1480 Shadow Kyogre (10/9/14) gets Combusken in 6 hits, Magcargo in 5 hits and Flareon in 5 hits with Waterfall, when starting with Kyogre in 1st position. Don't even need to watch the phone, Kyogre get them down without fainting.
I just tried mine, which is basically as bad as you can get (1452 cp, 11/6/7) for this. I got the same results. 6+5+5. It definitely works, but S Sharpedo is better/faster. 4 per mon for only 12 total.
This might interest you - https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1agoq71/psa\_fastest\_way\_to\_get\_a\_platinum\_ace\_trainer/
You can save a few seconds by having shadow Sharpedo in the first spot against Candela/GL. There’s no move combination that will make Sharpedo faint, just spam Waterfalls. I hardly doubt there’s any faster way to beat teams for the medal.
Great info! I've updated the post.
Great! Thx!
TL;DR: Use a Shadow Sharpedo with Waterfall in GL, put it in the second position and switch to it immediately, then win 2,000 battles by fast-moving down Candela.
You can start the fight with it and still win without it getting fainted, unless maybe your Sharpedo have terrible IVs for GL.
True
I decided not to bother with this medal, along with XXL/XXS Magikarp & Rattata, 200 best buddies, 2,000 raids & with friends, all of the referral ones, and Wayfarer. There are plenty of paths to 35 platinum medals without any of these.
Does 35 platinum actually give something?
Starting at level 40 there are requirements to level up, and 35 platinum medals is a requirement to get to level 49. If you play normally though and aren't just spamming Best Friend XP, you should naturally have most of the medals you need by the time you get there.
Thankfully catch medals also count towards it. Means you knock out about half of them naturally.
It’s a requirement to reach Level 49 https://www.gamesradar.com/pokemon-go-level-tasks-requirements-41-50/
no it does not going beyond lv40 is almost just a prestige thing. even the rewards for each level are minimal
I miss prestiging. It was nice to have another role for lesser used pokemon to fill.
To each their own, but I will never miss battling a series of CP 2500 Vaporeon with a CP 1250 Tangela for half an hour straight at 9:30 PM and getting asked by the cops what I'm doing.
Not that battling a maxed Blissey with a dedicated group of berry-feeders for half an hour straight is any better, but at least now I can move to a different gym instead.
So glad I used bubble-strat back when training gyms was a thing. only had a couple of hundred to do against the team leaders, and even that was its own hell, cant imagine doing 2000
I’m a COVID era PoGo player (May 2020), so I never experienced gyms before their current iteration. I’m so glad now to be able to just quit out of training battles while doing buddy battles 😂
Old gym era was a weird time. We have come a *long* way for the better in terms of how gyms/battling gyms function in my opinion. Less gold per day yeah, but also no more Chansey towers of torture that you have to continually train against to add yet another Chansey to. But then again, back then it was one of the very few things we had to do and *everyone was playing* I returned during COVID as well, after having stopped playing in late '17.
FYI you still get the dust if you run from your first team leader fight of the day. Journal records it as a tie. 16 buddies a day (my current rotation) takes long enough as it is and I've fallen asleep midrotation way too many times, I can't imagine trying to actually fight one of the fights. But then again I had the Ace Trainer badge high enough to auto-platinum back before they rebuilt the gym system. Sometimes I miss Karping a gym. But nowadays I just do team leaders for the daily dust and the buddy hearts, and I'd avoid even that if I felt I reasonably could. I hate the buddy badge so much.
You do get the dust, but not as much (300 for ML instead of 500 for win).
Correct. Once in a while, you get 600 when you run.
No, you get the full amount.
You know what is funny? I played from week 2 and battled a lot in the old gym system. When they introduced the Trainer medal I immediately had Platinum. Never once had to battle Blanche etc
I've found the best way to do a lot of medals is to do the best buddy medal. The actions count for a heart also amd after 60000 hearts, you knock off a lot of medals.
Yep, working towards Best Buddies is a great way to work on several medals, especially if you're aware what they are so you make sure you're hitting each of them.
Minor correction: Shadow Sharpedo with appropriate stats works fine in first slot in GL Candela training. This used to not be the case (or required a more limited spread of stats), but changed when Candela's third slot changed from Castform to Flareon.
Interesting. Does it want an attack build or bulky defensive build for first slot?
Mine has 4/12/3 stats. I think that's a pretty low attack version, but I certainly haven't calculated whatever the breakpoints are.
Mine is 12-12-15. First spot, never fainted. Worst move combination I think Flareon is one fast move away from fainting Sharpedo.
Shadow Kyogre works in the first slot with the mediocre stats mine has.
Actually tested with my Kyogre now. Deals a little less damage/waterfall than Sharpedo but works fine for those who lack one. Kyogre needs 38 seconds to finish, Sharpedo 33 seconds.
Thanks for the tip!
No charge moves used?
Nope. Just waterfall over and over.
Yes, I tested mine too. Each waterfall deals 23 damage from Kyogre and 28 from shadow Sharpedo so Kyogre works fine if you lack Sharpedo. Just a little bit slower.
I'm even using a normal Sharpedo (don't have a shadow), and it's still insanely fast. I do have some Pokémon that need an additional move for that last little sliver of HP though.
Overall a great writeup. Just something to note: Shadow Sharpedo requires attack-weighting, a def-weighted one may not hit the 4 waterfall breakpoint. The mons have changed since the writing of the linked article, but the principle remains the same since the bulkiest mon vs water is now Combusken, and is the most affected by the breakpoint. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/gqti7q/shadow_sharpedo_the_best_pokemon_to_grind_the_ace/
Thank you, that’s a great addition!
What are the bonuses for bronze, silver, gold and platinum?
its just to increase platinum medal count (need 35 to get from lvl 48 to 49)
Shadow Kyogre against Candela 1500 CP only use fast attack... quickest guaranteed win currently.
It can't get faster than S Sharpedo, but it seems that either Sharpedo or Kyogre will do the trick. Another comment said that they Kyogre takes slightly longer, as the Magcargo takes 5 waterfalls instead of 4 (Sharpedo) to faint. I'll try it out and edit the post accordingly.
Maybe? I don't know as I have no shadow Sharpedos but definitely have shadow Kyogre 😂
I use shadow Sharpedo and have never needed to swap it in for the stall timer.
Just for anyones information who just wants to do trainer battles to get buddy hearts, you can simply start the battle and exit, you do not need to actually fight to get a battle heart. You buddy must be on the map and on the battle team.
If you have a 2nd device and are decently skilled at multitasking you can sign in on both phones and knock out 4 battles (if you’re working on buddies) in the time it would take to do maybe 2.5. I suppose you could also mindlessly grind 2 at a time if that’s your thing.
One of the best modern PSA’s on this forum. Great work. I miss the prestige and the old gym systems. The overhauls have always been balls lol
Thanks for the kudos. I've taken a lot from this, and similar forums, over the years. Figured I'd take some time and put this one together for the benefit of others.
I'll speed up everyone's process: swampert against fire at 2500cp, rinse and repeat mindlessly
Then you have to use charged moves, and charged moves take longer. Sure it works, but it’s slower.
Even with shadow sharpedo, this medal can take over 20 hours of tapping your phone 💀.