The central area role in Pokémon UNITE is perhaps the most impactful position in ranked play. As such, let’s examine how to properly utilize the role’s many resources to help aid your team.
In Pokémon UNITE, experience is one of if not the most important resources in the game. Leveling up over the course of the game increases your effectiveness in battle dramatically. That said, it stands to reason that the position that receives the most experience in the game would be one of the most volatile and impactful in competitive play. The central area role is just that—a roaming hunter focused on leveraging early experience to assist their lane-bound allies and work toward securing neutral objectives.
Of course, there are a great many ways to handle this responsibility, and many Pokémon utilize their early resources in entirely different ways. As such, let’s examine what types of Pokémon can effectively fill the central area role, how they function in doing so, and how they can influence the map and its inhabitants to efficiently and decisively secure advantages.
First and foremost, to properly utilize the central area and its jungle resources, a Pokémon must be able to defeat wild Pokémon quickly to gather experience. To do so, they must possess either strong single-target damage to burst down the Pokémon, high mobility to move from enemy to enemy quickly, or (ideally) both. Doing so allows the player to gain a hasty level advantage, enabling them to leverage their strength on the map more effectively. How to do this varies by character, but generally speaking there are two approaches depending on a Pokémon’s evolution pattern.
If playing as a Pokémon that does not evolve but is stronger earlier on, such as Absol or Zeraora, the early level lead allows for effective dueling with the opposing players, the threat of which causes passive leverage to be gained as opponents avoid contesting. By threatening a successful fight against enemy players, you can force them to cede resources to you, be it points scored in their goal zones or wild Pokémon from their side of the map. This strategy can also be employed by Pokémon that only evolve once, as their evolution is usually reached by around level four—easily attainable through one rotation of the jungle’s wild Pokémon.
The other option involves Pokémon that evolve to their final forms slowly, such as Gengar and Talonflame. Since these Pokémon are much weaker earlier on in comparison, their level advantage is best utilized by creating a numbers advantages around teammates, utilizing the combined force to pressure objectives and gain more resources to level up with. This way, the roaming player can avoid getting into disadvantageous fights against stronger opponents while still using their experience advantage to levy legitimate pressure even as they try to scale up and evolve.
As mentioned previously, high damage and mobility are fantastic traits for a central area Pokémon. This is why Pokémon in the Speedster role are traditionally recommended for this position, as they often fit the bill quite well on both fronts. Whether as early-game duelists or as late-game assassins, Speedsters tend to excel at dealing large amounts of damage in a short period of time, while moving swiftly around the map as they see fit. These traits allow players to make more efficient paths to and from objectives, increasing the amount of time they can be available to affect the map elsewhere and/or react to enemy maneuvers.
Despite their aptitude for the role, Speedsters are not the only available options for this position. There is a bevy of other characters that can manage in the jungle, especially among All-Rounders and Attackers. Many All-Rounders with high mobility, such as Lucario and Tsareena, can function well in the central area. Meanwhile, many Attackers benefit greatly from the increased experience the role provides—Cinderace and Greninja quickly come to mind as commonly utilized options due to their strong scaling and heavy teamfighting presence later in the game. For the same reason, Gardevoir is often taken into the jungle as well, although the success in doing so is rather heavily dependent on how well one can utilize its limited early and mid-game impact while in the Ralts/Kirlia stage—its final evolution often takes a while to reach, after all.
As a side note, while some Pokémon function naturally well in this role regardless of which moves they take, other more niche options exist when utilizing specific build patterns or strategies. For example, Sylveon can function well in the central area as a duelist when utilizing its Mystical Fire Move to increase its mobility. There are many different Pokémon that can make use of unique mechanics and interactions to have success in alternative roles in a similar manner, so don’t be afraid to experiment and use what works for you!
Getting a level lead and dominating in fights is certainly a large goal while playing in the central area. However, this is certainly not all that the role requires—one often must function as a facilitator for their teammates as well. This includes during the early stages of the game, when players are somewhat restricted to early laning patterns and no major objectives are on the field. Of course, the most noticeably impactful act one can perform in this manner is to enter the lane itself and defeat the opposing players in battle. This not only grants experience and scorable Aeos energy, but also allows for precious time where opponents are out of the arena.
This time can be used in a number of ways, including defeating wild Pokémon from the opposing side of the arena, scoring goals in the now defenseless goal zones, and even taking down Drednaw or Rotom once the game has progressed far enough for them to spawn. Emerging from the central area’s many angles can provide useful setups to ambush and take down your opponents in this manner. Just make sure to communicate with your teammates that you’re coming so they can back you up!
While defeating your opponents in the lane itself is blatantly advantageous, this is not always possible when enemies are playing cautiously so as to not overextend themselves. As such, one must learn how to acquire smaller advantages as well. To this end, you do not have to defeat enemy players to secure minor victories. Showing up to a lane and providing a healthy numbers imbalance in itself forces opponents to have to retreat or risk being taken down. While this does not provide the sort of uncontested free-reign of the lane that defeating them outright entails, it does allow for a brief few seconds of pressure that can be translated into resources or favorable positioning on the map. A small, quickly scored goal here or a few stolen wild Pokémon there may not seem like much but securing these types of advantages multiple times efficiently can significantly increase your team’s chances of victory over time.
Another way to impact the lanes directly is to respond to (or even counter) an opposing central area player’s ambush attempt. If your counterpart attempts to pressure one of your team’s lanes, it provides you an opportunity to put pressure on the opposite lane to garner resources in exchange. Alternatively, if you anticipate that the opponent will set up an ambush in one of the lanes to attack your team, you can attempt to counter their engage by setting up your own ambush. Once your opponents jump in to attack your teammates, you can dash in behind them, cutting off their escape while your teammates return fire. If concocted correctly, this maneuver can net your team up to three takedowns, allowing for a substantial burst of experience and points. Try to track your counterpart’s movements on the mini-map when they show themselves, and take advantage of when they leave themselves and their team vulnerable.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the central area role is deciding when to exert pressure on certain areas of the map. This is especially pertinent when major objectives spawn on the map in the form of Drednaw, Rotom, and Zapdos. Drednaw and Rotom specifically spawn early on and multiple times per game, so tracking when they appear and making your way to their areas efficiently is pivotal to your team’s ability to secure their powerful effects. Keep an eye on the mini-map; shortly before these neutral objectives spawn, a timer will become visible over their area to signify when they’ll inevitably appear.
The first time Drednaw and Rotom spawn, they do so simultaneously exactly three minutes into the game at hand. After being defeated, each one will inevitably spawn again exactly two minutes later. If they are defeated again, the process will repeat as many times as necessary until the game reaches its final two minutes, at which point Drednaw and Rotom vanish, Zapdos then spawning in the center of the arena to take their place. Once the giant lightning bird has been taken down it won’t come back, so take care not to let it fall into opposing hands!
Setting up for an objective can be incredibly tricky. Making your way over to the objective you wish to take before the enemy team allows for favorable positioning and possible ambushes but arriving drastically in advance can allow your opponents additional time to gather a resource advantage before heading over to contest you.
Oftentimes, arriving fifteen or twenty seconds early before an objective spawns can grant ample time to set up battle lines for your team, as well as to identify which of your opponents have made the trip themselves. From there, you can utilize nearby tall grass to set up an ambush for when enemy damage-dealers approach, striking before they have the chance to react. If you can manage to secure a favorable position and either pressure the opponents away or defeat one or more of their members as a result, then the objective will be far and away more safely secured.
As the player who (barring extraneous circumstances) gains the most experience on the team, the central area player tries to gather as many resources as possible to gain an advantage over the opposing team. However, Pokémon UNITE is a team game, definitively so. As the game goes on and reaches its end, over time these advantages diminish as everyone reaches the higher levels. If the central area player hogs all of the resources throughout the game, over time their advantage will diminish, while their teammates will remain behind the curve for longer than usual. This results in the opposing team being stronger on average per member, making the end-game fights incredibly difficult to maneuver.
To prevent this outcome, one must exercise restraint at times from the central area. If no one from your team is occupying a certain area of the map, then experience is fair game. However, stealing wild Pokémon from teammates and forcing them to share their already limited resources puts a strain on their growth throughout the game—and is likely to anger them in the process. Especially in the case of Pokémon that need time and resources to evolve and reach their full usefulness, providing them with resources to do so more quickly is an important concept for accelerating your team’s development through a game. As such, try to refrain from defeating wild Pokémon that such allies have close immediate access to, and focus on scoring goals, stealing from enemy areas, and securing major objectives to accrue your own advantages so they aren’t left wanting!
All in all, Pokémon UNITE’s central area role is complex, difficult to master, and heavily dependent on understanding the game and its functions. Mistakes can easily lead to perishing during the early stages of the game and doing so even once or twice can lead to menacing gaps in power level throughout the game if your opponents capitalize. As such, communication and careful planning are pivotal to your success. Every action taken by a player exerts pressure on one area of the map, for better or for worse. This is especially true for players in this role, as they usually have the highest experience total—and therefore presence—throughout much of the game.
While compiling resources to impact the lanes and secure objectives helps to expand this presence even further, remember that other players on your team need resources too, and your actions in this role directly affect how quickly or slowly they can acquire them. The best players can acquire their own leads while also providing for others in the process, so don’t let the power get to your head! Plan out your pathing throughout the central area, keep track of major objective timers, and exploit weak points in your opponents’ defenses to maximize success—both your own and that of your teammates.
