Pokémon: 'Tips for Leveling Up, Evolving, and Battling Sync Pairs in Pokémon Masters'

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Pokémon Masters

Tips for Leveling Up, Evolving, and Battling Sync Pairs in Pokémon Masters

In Pokémon Masters, you’ll explore the artificial island of Pasio, teaming up with famous Trainers to compete in 3-on-3 battles that take place in real time as you work toward becoming the champion of the Pokémon Masters League (PML) tournament. Each Trainer has one trusted Pokémon they compete with—this partnership is known as a sync pair, and it’s the foundation of every Pokémon Masters team. Building a diverse roster of sync pairs, developing their skills, and pairing them in teams that highlight their strengths are the keys to being successful in your journey.

Building a team of sync pairs powerful enough to take on the toughest foes in the Pokémon Masters League can be tricky, so check out our tips on how to develop your sync pairs and navigate battles. We’ll break down the qualities that make each sync pair unique, describe how to improve their strengths, and give some tips on winning battles, too.

Introducing Sync Pairs

Each sync pair has a level and six stats—HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. The stats function similarly to how they do in other Pokémon games—HP represents how healthy a Pokémon is; Attack determines the power of physical moves, which can be guarded against by Defense; Special Attack and Special Defense are the same for special moves; and Speed affects the rate the move gauge fills. Your sync pair’s current strength is denoted by its level, which you can increase by earning Experience Points (XP) for completing battles. Each time a sync pair levels up, its stats will increase.

Each sync pair also has a number of ★s associated with it that indicates its potential and determines its level cap. The first sync pairs to join your team, including the Main Character & Pikachu, are 3★ and max out at Lv. 30 initially. The strongest sync pairs are 5★ and can reach Lv. 40. You’ll gain the ability to increase the level cap of your sync pairs early in the game. You can also increase their ★s using rare items, so eventually any sync pair can become 5★. Only a 5★ sync pair that has had its level cap fully unlocked can reach Lv. 100.

Sync pairs start out with just two moves—usually a Pokémon attack and Trainer move. Using Pokémon moves in battle will deplete your move gauge, which will gradually recover over time. Trainer moves won’t deplete the move gauge, but they can only be used a limited number of times each battle. Sync pairs can learn more moves with the help of certain items.

The usual type matchup chart from Pokémon video games doesn’t apply in Pokémon Masters. Each sync pair instead has one or two type strengths and a single type weakness, and that weakness might be different even between sync pairs of the same type. Taking advantage of the opponent’s weaknesses is key to winning battles in Pokémon Masters, you’ll want to develop sync pairs of each type.

In addition to a type, each sync pair also has a role—strike, support, or tech. Strike sync pairs tend to have high Attack or Special Attack but lower HP. Support sync pairs are on the opposite end of the spectrum—they usually have higher HP, lower offensive stats, and typically learn moves that restore HP or increase their teammates’ stats. Tech sync pairs tend to focus more on impacting the battle indirectly with tricky tactics like inflicting status conditions.

Developing Your Sync Pairs

There are several ways to increase the strength of your sync pairs, and with some effort, you can help any sync pair reach Lv. 100. You’ll get XP each time you clear a battle, but helping your sync pairs reach their initial level caps is just the start of their training. Other training opportunities come when you use items, most of which can be earned by completing battles.

Once you earn your first badge from a PML Leader, you’ll receive special area info that unlocks the ability to extend your sync pair’s level cap. You’ll need to invest some items each time you do this, and the items you need will vary a little depending on the role of the sync pair you’re enhancing. It’ll require progressively more and rarer items each time you unlock a particular sync pair’s level cap.

You can also help your sync pairs learn new moves and passive skills by talking to Trinnia at the café in the Pokémon Center. The first new move your sync pair learns will require only five Training Machines, an item you’ll quickly amass a decent stockpile of. Learning subsequent moves and passive skills requires progressively rarer items in much greater quantities, and you’ll need different items depending on the role of the sync pair you’re enhancing.

To maximize your sync pairs’ strength, you’ll also need to scout more sync pairs. Scouting duplicate sync pairs will increase the strength of the original sync pair’s sync move, and scouting duplicate sync pairs is also the path toward getting the rare items that can increase the ★s of your sync pairs.

Getting Items by Training

One of the ways to develop your sync pairs is to battle in the training area, which you’ll discover early in the story. There are four different types of training areas—Level Up, Strike, Support, and Tech. Level-up courses will net you level-up manuals to immediately give a sync pair XP, while the latter three courses are a great source of the role-specific items that help your sync pairs learn new moves and passive skills. These courses can be done repeatedly to collect lots of items.

Once your team gets more powerful, you can also do supercourse training. These more challenging courses can only be completed a certain number of times per day, but the rewards will be far greater than their regular equivalents. You can unlock higher difficulties of both supercourses and courses by defeating easier ones, and each difficulty of supercourse can be cleared three times each day.

Supercourses are likely to be your first opportunity to get rare items like Ultra Tech Tonic and Ultra Aid Ade, but your team will need to be pretty powerful to clear these battles. So try to build up your sync pairs enough to clear these battles for their rewards as soon as you can.

You can also exchange common versions of these items for more powerful versions at the shop. You’ll need to trade 50 Great Buff Blends to get the much rarer Ultra Buff Blend, for example.

Evolving Pokémon in Pokémon Masters

You can strengthen certain sync pairs through Evolution! Human Trainers in the game can’t evolve, but some of the Pokémon can evolve to make the sync pair stronger.

The first sync pairs with Pokémon you can help evolve are likely to be those with first-partner Pokémon from past games, such as Barry and Piplup and Rosa and Snivy. Each of these sync pairs will need to be at least Lv. 30 to evolve the first time, at which point you’ll obtain area info related to their Evolution. You’ll also need Evolution materials, which you can purchase in the shop for 1,000 coins. Coins can be earned in the game several different ways.

You’ll then need to complete a special battle unique to that sync pair. Be ready for a tough fight if you run off to battle the moment your sync pair reaches the minimum level required—the opponents in these bouts are no pushovers! If you win the battle, the Pokémon in that sync pair will evolve, becoming more powerful. Note that the sync pair will maintain its previous level even after the Pokémon evolves. You can keep trying until you succeed if you come up short. You’ll need the Pokémon in some sync pairs to evolve fully before the duo can use their most powerful sync move, including both Barry & Piplup and Rosa & Snivy.

Battle Tips

Speaking of Rosa & Snivy (or Servine, or Serperior), the first 5★ sync pair to join your group is a great partner for the initial areas of the game. Many sync pairs learn a second Pokémon attack as their third move, but Rosa can learn Time to Energize! This powerful move immediately fills three slots of the move gauge, allowing you to fire off a quick volley of attacks that will get you launching sync moves in a hurry. Matching Rosa & Snivy with sync pairs that can exploit the weakness of your opponents will get you through the game’s early battles in no time.

Before you start a battle, you’ll get a hint about your opponents’ weaknesses to help you select your team. You can also select the Area Details button to get even more info, which sometimes include the type of strategies your opponents might employ. You’ll have a much easier time if you bring Pokémon that can exploit the opposing side’s weaknesses to each battle.

If you aren’t sure which sync pairs to use—or you just want to get through a fight in a hurry—you can use the Optimize button when you’re selecting your team to automatically use a line-up befitting the type weaknesses of the battle. You can even have your team fight automatically by tapping the Auto button once the battle begins!

There are some cool settings you can tweak when it comes to battles. Consider turning on the handy option to switch automatically to Auto Mode if you’re idle too long—that way your team will be able to fight back if you get a little distracted. We particularly suggest turning on the feature that marks the order of upcoming actions, as this makes it much easier to follow the flow of battle.

Many areas have multiple battle encounters within them. Damage from one fight will carry over to the next, as will the remaining uses of Trainer moves. You’ll only receive XP, coins, and items if you clear the area completely. If you succeed in clearing the encounter, however, those sync pairs that were knocked out along the way will still gain XP.

Parting Shots

There’s a lot to learn about sync pairs and battling on Pasio, but you’ll quickly get the hang of making your sync pairs stronger and stronger. In addition to improving the strength of your roster, there are a few other things to keep in mind as you’re starting out.

Don’t forget to log in each day to get log-in bonuses and to complete daily missions, which will net you some easy items. New days in the game start at 6:00 a.m. UTC, so make sure to get your rewards for daily missions before then! There are also general missions, which can be completed at any time and function as account-wide achievements.

Once you complete chapter 5, you’ll be able to participate in events, which often have their own event missions. You should definitely prioritize developing sync pairs that have an advantage in ongoing events so you don’t miss out on the rewards.

Each sync pair has a sync pair story that gives you some background about your new allies. They’re a lot of fun, and you’ll get some easy rewards for completing them, too. This is also where to go to evolve your Pokémon.

Finally, it’s a good stretch goal to work toward increasing the size of your move gauge. By default, it has four slots, but you can upgrade it twice by exchanging coins in the shop. It costs 30,000 coins for the first upgrade and 100,000 for the second.

Enjoy your journey toward the Pokémon Masters League tournament, Trainers! Have fun, and check back soon to Pokemon.com/Strategy for more tips about Pokémon Masters and other Pokémon video games.

Source: Pokémon.