'Pokémon Go' Gym Guide: Battle To Become The Very Best

So you’re playing Pokémon Go and you’ve caught a bunch of cool Pokémon. Now what? Time to see if you’re strong enough to challenge your local gym! To take on a gym, you’ll need to prepare in multiple ways, so let's walk through how to get ready and take on a gym to become the next gym leader.

Level Up

First things first: you’ll need to be at least Level 5 to fight in a gym. To level up, catch Pokémon and visit PokéStops. Even catching Pokémon you already have will still give you at least 100 extra XP, so don’t skip out on anyone.

Once you are Level 5, the next step is to pick a team. The choices include Team Instinct (the yellow team), Team Mystic (the blue team) and Team Valor (the red team). The team color you pick shows what gyms you need to fight against, and the gyms you can ally with to strengthen. Your team pick doesn’t seem to have any advantages beyond simply picking a color, at least for right now.

Once you’ve teamed up, you can see gyms on your map. They should be large objects with Pokémon on top, and are probably either blue, yellow or red. The color represents the team that currently controls the gym. Silver gyms are currently uninhabited, so go and claim the gym for your team.

Claiming a Gym

Gyms all have a prestige level. The more the gym wins against opponents, the higher the prestige. If opponents come in and beat the gym leaders, the prestige lowers. When prestige for a gym reaches 0, the gym leader is forced out and the winning trainer can set themselves up as the new leader.

Gyms also have levels of their own. The higher level the gym is, the more people on your team can put Pokémon in the gym. The more Pokémon there are in a gym, the harder it is for challengers to take the gym over.

Gym Battles

To claim a gym, you must fight for it. To take on a gym leader, you get to select up to six Pokémon to bring with you.

To attack, simply tap on the enemy Pokémon. This will cause your Pokémon to do its basic move. A second move gets charged up over the course of the fight, unleashing automatically once the charge is full. When the enemy Pokémon attacks, swipe to the side to try and dodge the incoming blows.

Pokémon Go Guides

For all our other Pokémon Go guides, check below to see what else there is to know:

• Beginner's Guide
• Leveling/Evolution Guide
• Healing Guide
• Battery Saver Guide
• Price Guide

So what do you think? Have you taken on your first gym yet in Pokémon Go? What team did you join once you got to Level 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.