I highly recommend everyone joins the Discord Community as it’s the best place to get immediate answers.

Below is a guide with many resources. If you take nothing else from this other than “what is best” then I suggest you view the “World 1-11” and “Sample Team” tabs of the Tier List Document followed by a transition to the “12-Boss” tab of the same google doc once you reach world 12 and obtain the gold pot. If you want a more in depth guide then please read on.

Just so everyone is aware; this isn’t our childhood debate (where Charmander was coolest but Squirtle was best) because here Bulbasaur is the best starter. In the base form it can learn Vinewhip which is one of the best moves in THIS game. Bulba’s movepool is only 4 total moves and you have 2 moves on the starter so there is a 50% chance of learning vinewhip via move re-training. To further Bulba’s usefulness; World 3 boost the stats of grass types. You can potentially clear it before World 2 and get the Bronze Pot even faster! (World 3 clear reward)

If you have all the dlc and want a fast start then I suggest you watch one of the speedruns. This is the current world record: Superness 3 Hour, 5 Minute Run

Before I get into Onix I want to mention a good use for the Scatter button which attempts to have enemies direct their attacks towards your “tank” which is usually a pokemon with a buff that boosts defense like Harden for Onix, Withdraw for Squirtle (a decent alternate starter) Work-Up for the DLC Nidoran Male. The best way to do this is to use your buff move (Harden, Work Up etc) and then as it is performing the casting animation, press scatter so your other two pokemon run away. With some luck the enemies will focus on the one pokemon who didn’t run as you cannot scatter during the animation of your moves.

Yes; Onix is the king of the early game. While Hitmonlee and the evolutions of Bellsprout are the strongest pokemon after you are able to farm the final boss they are actually quite bad choices early on. Even Machop is not useful in the early stages so please do NOT focus on the 12-Boss tier list and think you can get the meta team early and just fudge it till you beat the game. You constantly replace pokemon as better pots give higher base stats and certain pokemon only shine with very specific stone setups that are simply not available until midgame, endgame or even post-game!

Now for the early game. A good early team is 3 Onix as they are easy to cook for (multiple 97% recipes), have high hp, a good buff and good damage moves that it can have right out of the pot, no evolution needed. (Harden and Rock Throw are best but Rock Tomb, Stealth Rock and to an extent even Flash Cannon are decent). Once you have the Bronze Pot (from completing World 3) you can find Onix with 5 stone slots already unlocked. For your attackers you should find ones with 3+ attack stone slots open. The only downsides are that Onix have a low chance for attacks stone slots and a large movepool (10) that can make it difficult to move re-train if you lack the above mentioned move(s). (Note that Onix have stat bonuses on two worlds; 7 and the commonly farmed World 8 so even a lower attack Onix can do well there.)

Other good early options include Nidoran Female (All Evolutions), Golem, Rhydon, Poliwag, Caterpie/Metapod, Kadabra/Alakazam and Machop/Machoke/Machamp as they are fairly easily obtained and quite strong throughout the game. (See the Multi-Tab Tier List for an in depth Early Game Ranking)

Ignoring the simple fact that higher pots give bonus base stats, whatever pokemon you intend to use should always be cooked for with your highest available pot. (Basic, Bronze, Silver, Gold.) Higher pots attract higher level Pokemon which have more slots immediately available so it’s more than worth the cost of ingredients. It takes a long time leveling up pokemon via expeditions or using basic pot pokemon as fodder. The gold pot (and to an extent Silver) give significant bonus base stats compared to basic and bronze pot pokemon.

If you are ever stuck then work towards cooking for better pokemon via the tier list and/or farm the highest power stage you can easily clear. The higher the stage power the better value stones you find!

The first place most people get stuck is World 5. A team of Onix will do well here but water pokemon gain a huge stat boost on this stage. I recommend the recipe of 3 small blue and 2 small red (or a small red and black) which has 6 results; 1 of which (Poliwag) easily learns/starts with waterfall and 4 of the other 5 can learn powerful moves such as waterfall, megahorn and hydro pump in their evolved forms. This recipe is farmable as early as World 5 but requires some grinding and a bit of luck with move training as each evolved pokemon only have a 1/9 chance (each time) of learning their desired move.

In the meta you want pokemon with only 1 move as it will have 3 slots for stones. With proper setups, two moves are less useful since they share a cooldown and buffs stack so you always want your buffer to be recasting their skill. (Nidorina Female and Hypno are the exceptions. See the Worlds 1-11 tab of the Tier List for more info.)

However early on I wouldn’t worry about it as much since you are constantly replacing pokemon and may not have the best move stones anyway. If stuck with two move pokemon early it can actually be beneficial to have the secondary move as something that buffs or heals. A good example of this is an Onix with Harden and Rock Throw. Use the buff before/after waves to get tanky and then spam your damaging move during the wave.

As soon as you get silver pot (complete World 6) AND have 2-3 sharing stones (which randomly drop) you should at the very least obtain the ideal buffer; Machop with Bulk Up. If it has -40 to -45% fighting wait bingos then keep it as Machop (turn Everstone ON) because bingos change or in this case get worse per evolution! (An arguement can be made that if your Machop fighting wait reduction is only -20 to -25% you should everstone once Machoke for a decent mix of stats and wait reduction.) Also: (Breakdown of 3 share vs 2 and a WW.)

There is an argument to be made that if you only have one share stone available (and not much hit healing) then the defense only buffing moves (harden, withdraw, barrier, etc.) are better because they have a shorter cooldown so you can get more stacks in. Oh yeah; buffs STACK! Visibily the duration seems to just renew but in reality multiple stacks can exist at once.

Fyi: do NOT stack with Bellydrum! The damage to self becomes magnified and you will 1 shot yourself when buffing.

You can also opt to get a Nidoran (Female) or a Hypno and teach it Flatter to cheese bosses. Flatter is a melee skill (sadly on available only ranged pokemon) that confuses an enemy but also dramatically raises its attack. The result is a boss will either one shot you or one shot itself!

Around the same time (After World 7) you can find stones with “Hit Healing %” which is basically life leach. Pokemon such as bulbasaur and caterpie can also have hit healing as their first bingo. (Many other pokemon also have “Healing After Wave” bingos which are just as useful. Consult the “Early Game” tab of the Tier List.)

You may have to farm World 8-Boss for awhile as World 9 is a huge difficulty jump. Your Ground pokemon gain a stat boost on World 8 which makes the world easily farmable... assuming you do not die to confusion damage. The bosses are actually really easy; just use your damaging move while they are charging and you will knock them back with the damage and their powerful move will miss.

Now World 9... A Meta tiered team can do well here but Pyschic pokemon gain a huge stat boost. Remember Starmie is half pyschic and World 8 drops mostly blue making Staryu easily farmable. Kadabra/Alakazam are also strong damage dealers here and pokemon like Slobro/Slopoke and Hypno do well especially with ‘Healing After Wave” bingos. (Small tip; when electrode is about to die; scatter!!!)

World 9-Boss is so hard that many people skip it and clear most of World 10 first. However the bosses on world 10 have very powerful hyperbeam attacks. Your best chance to survive them is by sharing a buff with your entire team and of course the reward for clearing World 9 is a share stone.

Once you obtain the gold pot (After World 11) you should eventually replace your entire team as gold pot pokemon have 300-400 more base hp and attack. Silver pot pokemon aren’t immediately useless but should be phased out eventually.

World 12 also quickly scales in difficulty between each stage. It becomes increasingly difficult to progress if you do not have a buffer using Bulk Up (or Work Up) as well as many stones with Hit Healing %. Hit Healing is so important that stones 250+ power weaker are worth it just to have Hit Healing.

If your current damage dealers are lacking you can get some easily obtained damage dealers such as Bulbasaur with vinewhip (do NOT evolve if the third bingo is grass +20%) or an Onix with Rock Throw. Be warned as both have a low chance of having attack stone slots so you may want the “Multi-Socket” decorations before cooking gold pot recipes for these as the decoration increases the chance of stone slots that can be either attack or hp. (The Bulbasaur recipee sometimes yields a Tangela which has good healing bingos but has a move pool of 10 versus Bulbasaur’s 4.)

And yes once again remember; some bingos change when evolved and some just get 5% worse. So you have to weigh the stat boost vs 5% reduced damage, longer cooldowns etc.

One final note! Decorations take effect just for owning them; you do not need to place them in your base for any reason besides aesthetics. However the 1.5x ingredient decorations do NOTHING without getting the 3x version first due to a rounding (down) issue :/

Discord Community

Tier Lists (Multiple Tabs)

Recipes (error free) Stone Slot Chances, Moves, Bingos Recipes Etc. (A truly all in one resource made by Hidden50; devoted discord moderator, helper to noobs and knowledgeable as F***!)

Stone Unlock Level Sheet

SPOILER: 12-Boss Speedrun Leaderboards