Before we answer the question, let?s take a look at the all powerful CP (combat power) stat.
All pokemon have a max CP value which is determined by your species and trainer level. When you capture a wild pokemon, it gets a random CP value somewhere between 10 and this max value.
The semi circle above the pokemon shows how close it is to its current max CP potential. If you catch a wild pokemon that?s already near its max CP potential (like this Rhydon example), then the cost of powering up the pokemon to its max CP is relatively low.
Key Definitions:
- Powering Up a pokemon consumes increasing amounts of stardust and a small amount of candy. The pokemon gets a small boost to CP and HP. The amount of CP gained is intrinsic to the pokemon species CP tier.
- Evolving a pokemon consumes a large amount of candies (typically 25, 50 or 100). This transforms your pokemon to its next stage and is typically accompanied with a large increase in CP. An evolved pokemon will have the same % CP Progress as before it was evolved. Check the evolution chart to see all the possible evolution stages.
General strategy
Keep your highest CP pokemon of that species and trade in the rest for candy, but there are a couple of other important considerations:
- Evolving can change your pokemon?s attack skills. Opt to evolve your pokemon to its final stage before investing Stardust into powering up.
- Every time you level up, you increase the max CP of all your pokemon. This means in a few levels from now, you?ll likely find a wild pokemon with a much higher CP, precluding the need to power up your current pokemon. I recommend waiting until you?re higher level and focused on competing in gyms before spending your hard earned Stardust on powering up.
- Every trainer level adds 2 new potential ?power up? levels to all your pokemon.
To paraphrase it simply:
- Don?t power up or evolve your pokemon until you?re ready to get serious about gym competition
- Otherwise, evolve first before powering up.
Conflicting Theories
There?s a couple of conflicting theories out there I was interested in testing out:
- Powering up a pokemon before evolving it will lead to a higher max CP. This appears to be false. My experiment consisted of 2 sets of identical pokemon: Geodude and Machop. The first pokemon in the set was evolved first then powered up, the 2nd pokeman was evolved after power up.
Geodude 1 ? CP: 54, HP: 19 Geodude 2 ? CP: 56, HP: 20
Machop 1 ? CP: 72, HP: 27 Machop 2 ? CP: 71, HP: 27
- The data shows negligible differences in CP or HP. It also shows CP increased by 2 in one experiment and decreased by 1 in another leading me to believe it?s just caused by small randomization.
- Larger XL sized pokemon have greater CP potential and HP. This also appears to be false. I have powered up 2 arcanines to approximately the same CP. They have the same health and are at the same point on the CP progress meter, yet one if much heavier than the other.
My small sample size isn?t definitive and there?s a randomization factor in play as well making it hard to determine correlation. Please share your results in the comments too!
You might also find my power leveling guide helpful.
Originally published at www.pokemongoprotips.com on July 14, 2016.
