I started playing 09JULY2016, took almost 7 years off from 2017-2024, and came back to the game when a friend at work told me they played. I was level 26 last June when I started back, and loved all the changes, trading, battling, routes, everything was new and fun.
I was content slowly chipping away to level 50, over presumably, the next couple years. I like raiding and have used an auto catcher to and from everywhere, but quickly realized making best friends during 1.5x bonuses combined with lucky eggs is really the easiest, although boring, way to get XP. So, I set aside a couple times everyday to send and open gifts and prioritize friends I haven’t interacted with to maximize the amount of friends interact with each day, and have for the majority of the past 15 months.
I was pretty bummed to hear that they were going to update the max level and get rid of the level 50 rewards I had been excited to one day obtain at my own pace, so I was bound and determined to be as efficient as possible with my remaining time to still get the Leather Jacket. I was at level 48, with 11,713,881 XP and fortunately had already knocked out all of the extra level requirements like 35 platinum medals etc.
The 2x XP for excellent throws was a huge boost, and netted a couple million XP at each community day and spotlight hour pretty easily, then maxing out evolutions for the 2x evolution bonus spotlight hour, and hosting as many raids as I could on lunch breaks or before and after work.
But the real kicker was hoarding Best Friend level ups and popping a lucky egg to combine hosting raids and these level ups during the same 30-min interval. I also tried to couple this with the 7-day bonuses for first catch, first poke-stop spin, and first route of the day. Made for a hectic start of the day but became a challenge in itself to get almost a million XP before even starting work for the day.
I also found sending gifts and feeding my Pokémon in gyms to be a fun way to get a little bit extra XP while waiting for a raid to fire off, and saved research that I could turn in for XP or field research for easy excellent throws to also complete during the lucky eggs timer and while waiting for another raid to start.
I live in a relatively urban area so easy to get between 6-7 gyms within a few min of each other.
But overall once I hit level 50 this morning I was sort of left with the feeling like an old tv show trope of a kid getting caught smoking a cigarette and then the parents force them to smoke an entire pack to teach them a lesson that it’s not good for them. I just feel tired of the game now and think I’ll take a break, although I’m pumped to have the level 50 emblem and special items, I know there’s still more FOMO waiting for me around the corner.
I’d probably still do it again, but I finished with a lot of time to spare so I might have taken it a little slower.
Good luck for anyone else attempting this final push. Highly recommend saving up evolutions for the coming 2x bonus, maximizing excellent throws and Friendship level ups. Happy to answer any questions anyone might have about their final push to help maximize their efforts.
by CouloirlessBlunder
33 Comments
Congrats on the grind!
congrats! i’ve been grinding hard myself and am down to 2,739,487 OR 124,583 xp/day for the next three weeks to get there.
If anyone was wondering: 90 best friends, 122 ultra friends, 164 great friends, 22 lucky friends (excited about remote trading!). So a little over 50 million XP using eggs and waiting for 1.5x bonus for friendship level ups,which is about a third of the total XP needed for lvl 50 (176mil XP) I was lucky to already have a bunch of friends ready to level up prior to this level 50 bump announcement, but I do think if you have friends close to leveling up you should prioritize it if you’re crunched for time.
Wow! Congrats! I am still on lvl 47 trying to get the 200 km with buddy finished.
Nice, I am in a similar position but can’t bring myself to do the friend grind just for XP, it’s so boring and monotonous and really has nothing to do with the game.
Congrats! After your hiatus, you really did an omega grind. Much respect.
I’d need just over 70 mill to get there so honestly I know it’s not gonna happen for me lol
Congratulations
Same boat as you. I reached level 49 the day before they announced the level increase. I grinded hard every day and hit level 50 this last weekend. I definitely feel burnt out.
Congratulations! I have 774 excellent throws now I’m way to 50. That’s all I need now. Started playing March 23 2024. Hit 49 day before announcements came out.
I’m grinding out the last fifth of level 48 and hoping to grind level 49 over the next few weeks. How did you find level 49 challenges? Particularly worried about the 999 excellent throws. I have gotten better at it as I’m trying to hit those more with the double xp right now.
Congrats! I was also level 48 with about 11 million XP and I just hit level 50 a few days ago. I definitely felt burned out for a few days and basically didn’t interact with the Psychic event at all…but now I’m looking forward to my Dudunsparce when the event starts for me tomorrow.
only need like 6.4 million xp left until level 50 should make it there by the end of the month
I’m still clinging to the hope that they lower the trade requirement. I’m like 60 million above where I need to be…
I am closing in on 50 also. With 50 days to go I needed 27.5M XP. I also needed the 50 lucky trades, then 999 excellent throws. It took me two weeks to get the trades then eleven more days to get the 999 throws (plus the other, easier tasks). I’m down to the XP and need about 5.5M. I think I’ll finish by the end of September give or take a day or two.
Fantastic! I’m close but not so dedicated.
7.5M/25M on 48
would this still be feasible to reach 50?
Also, I think I should just yeet “XP ~~burnout~~ Celebration” out of my mind since it’s so much pain both mentally and physically.
Edit:, typo
Good job. Related topic, I caught my mewtwo today as I don’t trust them to not erase the level researches.
I’m stuck in level requirements. I don’t think I can get 35 platinum medals before the countdown.
Must have a great team and places, here i tried playing again on my level 47, the lack of mons is horrid. I gave up after a week
congrats!!! you get 7mxp from completeing the timed research too.
https://preview.redd.it/lecuilot4vqf1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18328e7bd0e3a4f799cfebaf7ba4a9a273c209ff
Im like under 25 mill to get to 50 and know I cant make it. Also on step 24 of 50 of the timed research and pretty much burnt now.
With other commitments as got life outside of the game ive just resorted to, its only a jacket 😂
Wish we had more time though
God damn man good on ya, bet you’re burnt out though lol. I’m in a similar boat, I was mid 48 when the announcement hit, playing hard when I can and down to ~7 million exp left (though I’m upset, I have 8 friends who have been sitting one day from best friend for 2 weeks now). Started week 2 in 2016, played a year-ish, came back from late 2018 to early 2019 VERY casually, then finally came back this time round in late 2023.
On a side note, do you think you’ll actually finish the xp celebration research completely? I looked through all the pages and it seems like it’s not really feasible unless you walk around literally all day every day; the last 10 pages alone require: 100 km, 19 buddy candy, 16 routes, 356 field researches, and 55 eggs, all spread out across 10 pages. If it was all one one I could see, but having to walk 25 km, then earn 9 candy (even with switching to a 1km Pokémon), then 8 routes, then repeat, with all those field researches mixed in? It seems infeasible to me unless you literally dedicate the last month before the update to literally only playing the game and walking everywhere all day every day.
I have well over enough xp to go from 45-50 but these tasks are just absolutely impossible
Congrats! Friend was starting with level 47 and 28 millions exp left to reach amount needed for level 50 and it seemed unobtainable but through sheer willpower and forcing 200 kms in 2 weeks (to make both walking tasks for level 48 be done in same 2 weeks and start lucky trades asap to make room for 999 excellent throws later) she is now 4,8 millions away from 50 and we feel safe with 3rd and 4th friend hearts coming soon. Meanwhile other friend, who didn’t play that much before and was like 12 millions exp left till 50, went absolutely crazy and is now on like 47/50 page of XP research, level 50 reached some days ago.
Nice work! I unfortunately did not have so many friends stacked, so I’m only getting about 10 best friends before the deadline. Other than that, I’ve been doing the same strategy as you, plus doing all the T1 DMax (but hitting 600k a day lol). I’ve still got 13 million to go till 50. Did you do any of the XP research?
Yeah I’m on page 23, but I don’t plan on finishing it. I thought it was going to be a one page per day type task throughout. Had I known they would get so much more difficult/time consuming I would have tried to knock more pages out per day in the first few days. Now it’s taking me a couple days to easily complete each page with my typical play routine, so it’s less exciting to me to try and pursue. Like trying to hunt down 10 max battles or 10 Rocket grunts, if I casually come along those I do them but I don’t want to have to hunt them out. Don’t sleep on the double evolution bonus coming up though too! Could be some easy filler XP if you have cheap to evolve Pokemon or free evolve Pokemon you’ve traded for in the past. Still faster to excellent throw, but if you don’t have a way to get easy spawns might fill the gaps.
Good luck!!
Welcome to the Elite Tier:)
congrats its a v frustrating grind i know, it took me yrs to Lv up to 50 but at leasts u get some Lucky eggs back haha
Why do they give you lucky eggs at max level?
How does one earn that much exp per day? What can I do?
Any tips for reaching rank 10 in GBL without throwing your phone out the window?
it’s not much but using the mystery box lucky egg for the duration ice burn adventure effect if you have it enough razz berry or sliver berries to keep hitting excellent throws on meltan using ar+ I haven’t done this yet but plan to soon. I am level 50 at 230 million xp but grinding away got 200 saved up for evolution and I highly recommend using sun steel strike or moon giest beam adventure effect lucky eggs then start mass evolving get auto catcher setup those two adventur effects spawn decent amount to manual catcher with my plus plus while evolving and transferring right away right after every evolution best to have a lot of balls for this. get some dynamic Pokemon in your mass evolve tag list and upgrade max move you get 6,000 xp doubled during mass evolving a little extra to squeeze out when I did pidgey hour earlier this month I was about 430k something about 70k from reaching 500k xp off one mass evolve session.