Pokemon Unite has a lot of mechanical depth, with a surprising number of systems that people who thought this was "a MOBA for kids" might be surprised by. Players need to worry about rotating lanes, getting buffs from specific jungle Pokemon, incoming ganks from enemies, status effects, and more, all in a 10-minute span of time.
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That said, all of these systems are easy enough to learn, given enough playtime, but what's difficult to learn are all the little things the game just doesn’t tell you (or poorly explains). So, let’s go through the map mechanics specifically, from the Remoat Stadium to Shivre City, and shine a spotlight on all the little tricks and gimmicks you might be missing.
When The Vespiquen & Combee Swarm Spawns
Let’s start things off with one of the early game spawns that people are constantly fighting over — the swarm of Combee surrounding their Vespiquen. These four Pokemon are a fantastic source of EXP in the early game, as well as a great method for tricking your opponents into overextending.
That said, it would be helpful if the game had a small timer to let players know when they would be appearing as they do 30 seconds before Rotom/Drenaw spawn. Thankfully, this swarm reliably spawns at the exact same moment every game ( 1 minute 10 seconds in), so as long as you keep an eye out for 8 minutes and 50 seconds, it’s pretty easy to capitalize on this group of personified EXP.
When Specifically The Two Big Jungle Mobs Appear
Speaking of Rotom and Drednaw: while it is nice the game lets you know when they’re 30 seconds away from spawning or re-spawning, it can take a bit longer in than that in many instances to rotate to the bottom lane, or set up the right opportunity to grab them. But, if you keep it in your mind that both of these big spawns drop for the first time right at 3 minutes into the game (7 minutes left), then it becomes a lot easier to set up for these confrontations ahead of time. For example, knowing this spawn time early lets you
- Finish destroying the top-lane Goal so that Rotom lets you instant-score on their second top Goal.
- Gather a big pile of points to instant-score with Rotom.
- Push your opponents back to their gate (or KO them) in bottom lane so that they can’t reliably fight you on Drednaw.
The Hidden Damage Debuff For Zapdos
So far, all of these mechanics we’ve talked about are things you can sort of figure out easily after playing a few matches. But, this next one is something that you might never have figured out on your own.
It turns out the last Drednaw spawn before Zapdos is actually detrimental. Doing this gives your entire team a debuff that reduces the damage you do to Zapdos by 55 percent for 90 seconds (which would leave only 30 seconds to kill Zapdos once it runs out). So, only grab the last Drednaw spawn when your team plans on defending Zapdos from the other team rather than attacking it. All that said, this debuff doesn't seem to be widely known by the casual Unite community, so you'll likely have to deal with others killing Drednaw before Zapdos anyway.
How Instant-Scoring Works In Shivre City
Moving on from Remoat Stadium to some of the Quick Match maps, each one of these smaller arenas has some little gimmick to it that many Pokemon Unite players have no idea even exists. For example, while the Shivre City map might seem like you could get by just grinding out random mobs instead of fighting the enemy team like you can in Auroma Park, that isn’t actually the case.
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It turns out this map has a “charging” mechanic for your Unite Ball where kills and assists fill up the bar underneath it on your HUD. And, once this bar is full, this allows you to instant-score once in the goal on the enemy's side. At first, it was strange to many that players seemed so much more aggressive on this map, but now it all makes sense.
How Double Points Work In Auroma Park
Compared to the Shivre City map, Auroma Park is so much less aggressive with its larger size, easy escape route moving walkways, and the ability to score Goals on both sides. In Auroma Park, you can easily just run around the map avoiding non-AI encounters and grinding out Jungle Pokemon to gather points and do just fine.
But, did you know that the Double Points that you get for 15 seconds from scoring sometimes doesn’t have a point minimum? Even scoring 1 point starts or restarts the 15-second timer, meaning you can start the Double Point timer for your teammate with a single point, then run to the other side to disrupt the enemies. You can also use this system to ruin your enemy’s point potential as well, since scoring on an enemy goal with Double Points active ends it immediately.
Is Rotom Immovable Like Drednaw?
One of the biggest differences between top lane’s big spawn Rotom and bottom lane’s Drednaw is their susceptibility to crowd control. Dreadnaw’s basically unmovable and has a knock-up slam move that can be pretty annoying, while Rotom is honestly a lot easier to fight overall.
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But, the best thing about Rotom, in general, is that grab and push abilities like Machamp’s Submission or Mr. Mime’s Confusion-into-Barrier combo work on it. With this info in mind, you can easily nuke Rotom’s health or slowly move it more toward your side of the lane, making it harder for an enemy who respawned way too fast to come and snipe the last hit.
In-Depth Mechanics Of Tall Grass
It's probably the case that those of you already familiar with MOBAs like League of Legends, Dota, or Smite, integrated this mechanic into your playstyle without even thinking about it. But, for the Pokemon Unite players new to the MOBA genre, it might not be immediately clear that the bushes/brush/tall grass are there to help you.
Basically, when you walk into the tall grass, you’re fully invisible to any enemies outside the bush, even when you’re attacking (which actually makes it better than bushes in LoL). Additionally, entering tall grass breaks the auto-targeting for an enemy's moves. They can, of course, still hit you, but because they can't "aim" their basic attacks like they can their moves. It severely limits both their information and their potential damage.
So, if you ever end up in a disadvantageous 1-v-1 scenario, try using tall grass to even the odds by:
- Running in and out of it repeatedly while fighting them to interrupt their targeting.
- Hiding in it long enough for the Recall bar to fill
- Or, hiding in it while your cooldowns refresh and burst them down.
What The “Attention" Text Actually Means
Pokemon Unite has a lot in common with the most popular MOBAs out there, but its hidden score mechanic is reminiscent of something like Splatoon more than it is DOTA. You don’t get to see the point difference between your team and the enemy team at any point during a match! You can use visual clues to estimate the difference, such as counting whenever an ally scores, keeping track of how many Goals you and the enemy team have, or just guessing, but the best tool is actually the "Attention" call-outs that pop up five, seven, eight, and nine minutes into the game.
How are these helpful? Well, these call-outs actually tell you the rough point difference between the two teams. To be more specific:
- “We’re REALLY struggling!” means you’re behind by 100+ points.
- “We’re struggling to keep up!” is a hopeful yet foreboding message that says your team is only losing by 22-99 points.
- “It’s a close battle!" means that there’s about a slim 0-20 point difference.
- “We’re in the lead!” tells you that you’re beating the enemy team by a minor amount of 21-99 points.
- And, “We have a huge lead!” informs your team that you’re ahead by a whopping 100+ points
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