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Co-op Tier List and Guide

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Update Notes

  • 1/5/2020 - S-Striker Co-op Tier List has been updated! An upcoming broader update from the GamePress Emma Discord Team will be coming in the next week.

Overview

Hey everyone, Emma here! Having experienced our first Pokemon Masters event with the Reach for the Top event, as well as taken out the EX Challenges and all the remaining Very Hard Co-op story modes, we can finally present you a general strategy as well as a “Tier List” for Co-op play.


To begin with, I would like to express that the nature of Co-op definitely requires you to focus on Type Advantage, especially now that we also have access to Team Equipment, or “Gear”, which efficiently increases your team’s overall strength. There is, of course, the drawback of Gear stat boosts being half as efficient if the Pokemon type and Gear type don’t match. For example, an Electric Bracelet would give the Main Character and Hau +6 Attack, as Pikachu and Raichu are both Electric-type. On the other hand, Brendan & Treecko would only receive +3 Attack for being a different type.

In short, for Co-op:

  • Focus on Strikers with Type Advantage

  • Utilize type-matching Gear whenever available

Previous Tier List and our team recommendations

In solo gameplay we recommended using 2x Support 1x Striker compositions. Recently, we have had a lot of people asking why we even made a Solo Tier List. Keep in mind that the majority of content in the Beta version that came out at the end of July was Solo Content. However, with the full release, DeNA has decided that Co-op is the “true” endgame. Whether that will continue to be the case, or change in the future is still unclear.

Co-op Strategy and Recommendations

Our newest recommendation consists of 1x S-Striker 1x M-Striker 1x Any/Other.  These terms are defined below.

Keep in mind, exceptions exist and there may be an encounter where you are required to use a specific team.

S-Striker

It has become clear to us that we now can split all Strikers into two groups. Those who are self-sufficient DPS Pairs, I decided to call S-Striker, which stands for “Self-Strikers”, just to make it easier. These units are Sync Pairs like Brendan & Treecko, Olivia & Lycanroc and Kris & Feraligatr. They tend to follow an aggressive playstyle where you usually use them to begin battles, and simply go all-out offensively until the enemies drop.

M-Striker

Next up are the M-Strikers, which stands for “Mega-Strikers”. It is true that a lot of people are pitchforking Mega Evolutions because “it takes time to set them up”, and we have no disagreement there. It feels very slow to send out Karen & Houndoom early on in fights, where spamming Snarl will see very low damage output. However, a Mega Evolved Pokemon comes with a huge stat boost. Blue and Mega Pidgeot’s Hurricane has an absurd Base Power of 126, and when combined with his 403 Sp.Atk it will deal tremendous amounts of damage. 

  • “Yeah Emma, but...is Mega evolution really practical? This is good in theory but it still takes time.” 

The answer is simple: start out with your S-Striker - let Olivia & Lycanroc and co. do all the heavy lifting early on, and when your Sync Move Gauge is full, swap to your M-Striker to pop their Sync Move and unleash their Mega form.

Other

This is where it gets strategical. Facing Cheren’s Rock Slide? Since many of you have already experienced this move, I felt it would be a good idea to point it out. Send out that Nosepass with Wide Guard. “Other” is basically an encounter-specific Sync Pair that will make it easier for the upcoming battle depending on their unique utility. There are cases where you can pick up another super-effective Striker Sync Pair instead. It all just depends on the encounter.

Co-op Tier List: S-Strikers

These are Self-Sufficient Strikers, who are fielded first and deal the bulk of the damage.

Tier Type Sync Pairs
S+
S
/
A
B
C
D
S-Strikers: Featured Sync Pairs

Co-op Tier List: M-Strikers

These are Mega-Strikers, who have a Mega form and are switched in after the S-Striker once the Sync Gauge is full.

Tier Type Sync Pairs
S
A
B
M-Strikers: Featured Sync Pairs