There are a lot of useful guides and tools for the experienced player, but a lot of players find things pretty daunting. This series of articles is intended to help the new or interested player begin to understand the mechanics of raid battling, and go beyond using just a crude CP value.
The Properties of a Pokémon.
Once you get past the animations and appearance, what is it about a Pokémon that makes it battle-worthy? Niantic would have you believe that it’s largely about its Combat Power or CP. This is deliberate over-simplification to a ridiculous degree. We will be discussing the following attributes of a Pokémon, some of which Niantic largely hides from players.
1. The power-up level.
2. The aptitude for attacking, doing damage to an opponent.
3. The aptitude for defending, resisting taking damage.
4. The aptitude for being able to absorb damage and continue fighting.
5. The one or two typings.
6. The move types and power.
Pokémon Power-Up Levels.
In this article, we’ll consider the power-up level. Frustratingly, a majority of players do not realise that Pokémon have levels, just as players do. Like players, Pokémon can reach level 50, and even temporarily higher. When you catch a Pokémon from the map, its level can be any whole number from 1 to 35. Every time you power up a Pokémon, it goes up by half a level, its CP increases and it gets stronger in battle.
If you look at a Pokémon’s screen in the game, you will see a semi-circular arc around the Pokémon that’s partly highlighted. This is Niantic’s way of telling you what level your Pokémon has. You’re expected to assess it by eye! It’s thought that one of the principle designers in Japan doesn’t want numbers associated with a Pokémon that make it seem less real. If you think Pokémon are real, this article is not for you.
There are some great tools that will automatically measure the level arc and show the Pokémon’s level, but I won’t name them because Niantic prohibits their use. So what can you do instead? You can look at the cost of powering up, which increases every few levels, and you can consider how you obtained a Pokémon.
Here is a list of significant levels:
Level 1 – Power-up cost 200 stardust, the lowest level that can be caught.
Level 8 – Power up cost 800 stardust. Shadow Pokémon from Grunts start at this level when not weather-boosted.
Level 13 – Power-up cost 1600 stardust. Weather-boosted Shadow Pokémon from Grunts start at this level.
Level 15 – Power-up cost 1900 stardust, the level of reward encounters.
Level 20 – Power-up cost 2500 stardust, the level of egg hatches and raid catches without weather boosting.
Level 25 – Power-up cost 4000 stardust, the starting level for Purified Pokémon, and the level of weather-boosted raid catches.
Level 30 – Power-up cost 5000 stardust, the highest level of wild catches without weather boosting.
Level 35 – Power-up cost 8000 stardust, the highest level of weather-boosted catches.
Level 40 – Power up cost 10,000 stardust, the highest level that can be reached without XL candies.
Level 50 – The highest level that can be permanently reached.
Level 51 – When your buddy is a Best Buddy, it gets a boost of one full level, making this level temporarily achievable.
Level 52 – During certain events, specific Mega evolutions have been boosted to this level.
Wild catches, Shadow catches, and Raid catches can sometimes be boosted by the weather. This adds 5 full levels, or 10 power-ups.
Players who are below level 30 see wild spawns that differ from those seen by other players, and they are capped to their level, before weather boosting is added. The lower a Pokemon’s level, the easier it is to catch. Wild spawns are all limited to level 30 and players of this level and higher all see the same spawns.
The cost of powering up goes steadily upwards. In addition, the boost in strength with each power-up drops significantly above levels 20, 30 and 40. Powering up from level 20 to level 30 boosts each of the three battle strengths by 22%, but 30 to 40 boosts by only 8%, despite being much more costly. Powering up beyond level 40 requires candy XLs, costs even more stardust and gives you, at level 50, only a 6% boost over level 40. Therefore, when you first start powering up Pokémon for battles, with limited stardust, think twice before powering up beyond level 30, when the cost per power-up exceeds 5000 stardust. It’s more effective to power up a whole team to level 30, than to spend the same or more to power up a single Pokémon to level 50.
You should note that the game does not allow you to power up a Pokémon beyond 10 levels higher than your own level. So if you’re level 30, you will be limited to Pokémon of level 40 and lower. This is why players who are below level 31 are not given XL candies.
When a Pokémon is traded, any half level is dropped, but otherwise it retains its level, unless it’s capped by the recipient’s lower level. You will be warned before the trade if the level will be capped. This level determines the CP range that the recipient gets, so this is much more important than its original CP.
Shadow Pokémon cost about 20% extra stardust to power up. Purified Pokémon cost about 10% less stardust than normal to power up.
Pokémon level is a big deal. It is the main factor that varies the combat strengths and CP of a Pokémon. It has a bigger effect on CP than IVs, and IMHO the game developers do a big disservice to players by masking it. The more information you make available to players, the more there is to engage their interest and keep them playing for a long time.
In the next article, I will describe the three battle aptitudes or “stats” of a Pokémon, and “IVs”.
About me.
I am the producer of the Raid Battle Calculator spreadsheet. These articles are intended to give you the basic knowledge you need to make use of it, and to help you to make better use of this site. The spreadsheet is best used on a desktop computer or laptop. The link below won’t work on a mobile browser if it asks Google for a mobile page.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lKnSiPsbewpaKdKHDg0A9D2ZAgJEdXiU_mkBFqZaOWg/copy
I can be contacted on Reddit, u/rtboyce .
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