With my score from last night of 17,212 I'm in 7,491th place right now out of 144,070 folks.

Seven hours and ten minutes left to go. I feel pretty confident since I gotta figure many people already used their coins if they're going to and go the Complexity-1 route. I think more people do that from the start now too.

@DrFinkelstein

Why would you think people do that at the start?

My way of thinking is that I'll try for a high score, and then spend coins on items if I absolutely need to. This way I also have my team built up for the complexity run at the end. It also gives me more time to bank coins. Anyone in say, Jargon's position would *have* to wait until near the end because they didn't have the coins at the start,

I've watched my position deteriorate massively over the last 24 hours, much like it did in the last competition. I'm now ranked about 9,000 with under 4 hours to go. At this rate, I won't be holding on, and will be forced into playing my items.

I have to assume most people are thinking like me. It makes no sense to play your items at the start unless you just want to fire and forget, instead of playing constantly during the week.

@Shadowlink

Exactly why I think that.

Imagine nabbing a score clearly higher than any reasonable score.. and then not giving a shit for a week. We all keep grinding and hoping and stressing about it. But I would bet people who have a lot of coins or pay for them, would have no problem doing this. That and within the first day someone in Canada scored over 100,000 points on this round... so of course they used the item.

Obviously some people use items right at the beginning (and probably many times throughout the competition period) trying to get scores high enough to show up on the leaderboards. But I think it's pretty clear that other people wait until the end. My score always drops in a big way right at the end and desperate people using Complexity -1s seems like the obvious explanation.

Right now I'm at 12,000 with less than 3 hours left though, so I think I can rest easy.

@Jargon

Of course it's both kinds of people. I'm not foolish to think nobody tries like us now. There are less overall people now which is cool.

I just tried it one last time for the hell of it and to my surprise I knocked it out the park! A new record! My old record put me at like 8,774th place or something but now....

04/30/2015 - High Score: 12,182 - Ranking: 1,311th out of 12,591 participants
05/03/2015 - High Score: 14,662 - Ranking: 6,676th out of 122,492 participants.
05/03/2015 - High Score: 15,477 - Ranking: 5,916th out of 125,172 participants.
05/04/2015 - High Score: 17,212 - Ranking: 6,151th out of 140,566 participants.
05/06/2015 - High Score: 19,503 - Ranking: 4,896th out of 145,840 participants.

I can sleep well (unlike last time when it was getting uncomfortable for sure).

@DrFinkelstein

I think the point is there's likely to be far more people waiting until the last minute to use items than there are people who use them at the start. The sudden ranking drops at the end are evidence of that. Given that, I can't see any reason to be complacent near the end. Even if some people use their coins at the start, there's plenty more waiting until the end.

Heh. Competition closes 3 PM my time. I’ve been watching my slide down the rankings, wondering if I should use items or not:

1.00 PM- 9128
1.25.PM- 9139 (-11)
2.10 PM- 9189 (-50)
2.30 PM -9221 (-32)
2.37 PM- 9231 (-10)

At the current rate I should be safe *just*, but who knows what’s going to happen right near the end.

If I drop to 9900 in the last 5 minutes, I’ll bust out the complexity. If not….We gamble that there isn’t a last minute rush…

@Shadowlink

I was in a similar situation last time and I managed to hang on. There didn't seem to be as much movement at the very last second as there was leading up to it.

9269, 3 mins left...

Let's see this game of Chicken through to the end

#9279! 9000 coins saved!

Shadowlink- 3, Europe- Zero.

@Shadowlink

Congrats! You did it! Yatta!

I nabbed the 5,526th slot.

Banettite received!

Locked down Pinsir too. It says only once per day you can try? And after finishing in only six moves, leaving 10 moves remaining, there's only a 23% chance? Well when that failed I most certainly used a Great Ball and nabbed him with 46%. Phew.

@DrFinkelstein

Got the Mega Stone and Pinsir as well. Kind of disappointed there's no new Main stages today though.

@DrFinkelstein

Yeah that's shitty. I let him go today, but looks like I'm going to have to spend coins on great balls. Uncool Nintendo.

@Jargon

Probably Monday. That's when the big update usually is.

I ranked something like 126,000. Go me!

@Shadowlink

Same. I beat him in 8 moves, and only had a 19% chance to catch him... I'd rather try again tomorrow when I think I can do better.

Does anyone remember how long the Pinsir event lasts? It's not even showing up in the notifications menu any more.

@V_s

It's only the next couple of days

@V_s

Problem is, there's not much scope for doing better. If say for example the stars aligned and you beat it in a single move, the maximum catch rate would be 33%. The odds of that happening are of course, low.

The event is clearly designed to make you use Great balls, and thus, use coins.

@Shadowlink

Yeah, you're right.

I had another swing and miss today. Even used a Great Ball to no avail... I might use more than just one Great Ball tomorrow, but I didn't want to use another since I had an even lower percentage this time around than yesterday (it took me two additional moves to beat him today even though I leveled up two of my Pokemon an additional level or two since yesterday!).

I've not gotten S-ranks in all Expert matches but the last four. Very happy to be done with those annoying 15 second ones. Not going to be easy to S-rank the remaining four though, given how much trouble I had just beating them and catching the Pokemon.

Still plenty of main mode Pokemon for me to S-rank as well, particularly the Mega Evolution battles.

I was able to beat Pinsir on my first try. Also S'ed him. I caught him but I had to use a great ball to get to 40something percent.

I wasn't able to get the new stone, though. My first miss. It does feel a bit liberating,though. The failure somewhat decreased the effect of Pokemon Crack on me.