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I have been able to dodge a few attacks here and there in different battles, but by and large, the most effective thing to do to win a gym fight seems to be spam tapping my screen as fast as I possibly can. Is dodging effective, and if so, how can I use it effectively (i.e. can I dodge secondary attacks which generally do more damage)?

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    I've heard that the AI always attacks twice at the beginning of a battle, so dodging twice at the start is always a good idea, but I don't recall where I read this and haven't had a chance to test it myself.
    – DaaaahWhoosh
    Commented Jul 19, 2016 at 20:31

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Dodging is definitely effective but hard to do in my experience. You can dodge both the fast/normal attack as well as the special attack. Simply move to the left or right after the screen flashes yellow. It's important to be on a good connection to get the timing right. I'm not too sure what the cue for a special attack dodge is though aside from the text bubble that shows up.

I found a useful video that shows dodging in action:

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    Worth noting that specials function just like basic attacks - you'll get forewarning on them due to the "Vaporeon used Aqua Tail!" or whatever, but it's just like basic attacks - swipe ASAP after the yellow flash. Animations can and DO come much later than the dodging window.
    – Rilgon Arcsinh
    Commented Jul 18, 2016 at 19:38
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    Sometimes the game says "dodged!" when I do this but I still take damage :(
    – Pyritie
    Commented Jul 19, 2016 at 11:04
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    @Pyritie I read somewhere that dodging was nerfed server-side, so that when you dodge an attack you take greatly reduced (but nonzero) damage.
    – Schism
    Commented Jul 19, 2016 at 18:56
  • @Pyritie Dodge has a duration (about 0.5 seconds?). Attacks have a duration (varies by attack). The percent of the attack's duration you dodge determines the percent of damage avoided. (Duration is not the same as cooldown or speed). Some attacks have a very very wide duration which makes them very hard to completely dodge.
    – Yakk
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 19:27
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Yes. In fact, some people would argue it's even "too good". If you're good at it, you can defeat stronger Pokemon (within reason; there is a time limit after all) than yours and expend very few resources.

It's also particularly useful for Training up your own gyms. Prestige gained from training works somewhat like ELO, where it's based on the CP difference of the Pokemon fighting. You can gain a lot of prestige very quickly if you have lower CP Pokemon beat higher CP Pokemon.

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