Is this prestige progression observation explainable?

So I watched, in game, a gym being taken by Valor. A level 17 player put in a Pokémon with CP 23. I then watched the prestige of the gym increase to greater then 40000 within 5 minutes. It was definitely in increments divisible by 1000. The gym was soon level 10 and when I looked soon there after there were 10 Pokémon all from level 30 players (one was level 31).

I think I can assume the following.

• A low CP Pokémon was placed for quick and easy fight for a high prestige gain.
• My understanding is that the gain should have been ~500 based on the CP of the competing Pokémon.
• At least 11 people were involved in this venture given the user that put in the first pokemon was not one in the gym after it was a full level 10.

The part I don't understand is how it seemed like the prestige was increasing by exactly 2000 each time I checked. I suppose I could justify it if 8 people were prestiging the gym at the same time with CP 28 Pokémon.

Am I missing something? Is the scenario above explainable with in game mechanics? It happened really fast over the course of ~8 minutes.

Solution 1:

Yes, this is possible, though it had to have been heavily coordinated between all players.

By inserting a CP 23 Pokémon, all other players would have been using CP 10-11 Pokémon, meaning they had to have their lists sorted so that the same 6 always were on top. Next, they would use these 6 Pokémon to defeat the single CP 23 Pokémon in the gym. Each victory would grant 1000 prestige to the gym. This is a prestige-farming strategy known as the Bubblestrat.

The reason the prestige is raised by 1000 each time is from the formula to calculate prestige gains. From the above link to the Bubblestrat page, the formula is as follows:

500 * Defender CP/Attacker CP

(1,000 max)

Thus, by using CP 10-11 Pokémon, the attackers would be earning their gym 1000 prestige each time they defeated the CP 23 Pokémon.

As to the level 17 player being kicked out of the gym at the end, there are a couple of possibilities:

1. These 10 players had a non-Valor friend who, after letting 9 of his friends take a place in the gym, forcing this CP 23 Pokémon to the 10th position, removed enough prestige to kick the CP 23 Pokémon out in order to allow the 10th Valor friend to put their Pokémon in the gym.

2. A non-Valor player was unaware of what was transpiring and removed the CP 23 Pokémon, thinking they were helping take down a gym, but actually were opening up a spot for someone who did not already have a Pokémon in the gym.