Pokemon GO update: Take me to your leader

The Team Leaders in Pokemon GO have had it pretty easy up until now. They show up when players reach level 5, make their cases for joining their respective teams, and that's pretty much it. Light work, as Floyd Mayweather might say.

Niantic's latest update for the game changes that situation and turns every Team Leader into a consultant of sorts. Can't blame them for that, as there's money to be had in that field, or so I'm told.

They still don't have to commute or work out of an office, but here's what you need to know about the Team Leaders' new duties and the new update in general.

Appraisal time

Not a performance review, mind you, but a way of trying to figure out if a Pokemon is worth training. From the Pokemon menu, simply tap on any monster, then tap on the hamburger icon in the lower right corner. You'll see the new option 'Appraise' has been added.

Tapping that summons your Team Leader, who will give some thoughts on whether the Pokemon in question is worth powering up. He or she will mention a particularly strong stat or two and comment on its size. The phrase, "Whoa, that's the tiniest [fill in Pokemon name here] I've ever seen" is bound to become the innuendo of choice and meme fuel everywhere any minute now.

What about those stats?

Up until now, the worth of any Pokemon in gym battles came strictly from its CP, which is an overall indicator of how tough it is. The update hints at how separate attack and defense values help make up that number, but since you still can't train them to take advantage of their strengths, the insight given by the Team Leaders really doesn't help you all that much for now.

It's a step in the right direction though, and a sign things could get more like the classic 3DS games in updates to come.

Knocked all the way out

Niantic supposedly fixed a bug in this update that would keep defeated Pokemon at 1 HP instead of having them faint, which has long been the Pokemon term for being knocked unconscious. Thanks to the bug, we haven't been using as many Revives as we should have been, since a Pokemon at 1 HP can simply he healed back to full strength using Potions.

No more, which means if you have to discard any items because your bag is getting full, you may want to hold onto more Revives than you have before. Because you're going to need them more.