Tuesday Tip: Let's talk about pokémon!

[inkstone]

I thought it'd be useful to have a catch-all post for all things pokémon. They are what you're trying to catch in this game, right? And with the release of the in-game appraisal system, I figure some people might have some questions.

Here are the basics:

• Each pokémon is unique. It has visible values for CP and HP, in addition to movesets that can vary from mon to mon within a species.


• Every pokémon also has hidden stats called individual values (IVs) for attack, defense, and stamina. The CP & HP values are visible renderings of these IVs. The new in-game appraisal system gives you the range for these hidden values.


• When you level up as a trainer, you will start seeing pokémon with higher CP but to only a certain extent. The CP of pokémon hatched from eggs stop scaling at level 20 and the CP of pokémon caught in the wild stop scaling at level 30.


• The trainer level cap, though, is level 40. So you can keep powering up your pokémon with stardust and candy past level 30 until you hit the cap.

There are other nuances to be found here, but I find they vary from trainer to trainer. Some people start powering up their pokémon right away. Others wait until they hit level 30. Some people are torn. I thought that in addition to sharing general tips about pokémon, we could also use the comments to ask advice about our mon.

So let's have it!

Comments

[inkstone]

Yeah, it's funny. When I first started playing and was flailing around in confusion, I did power up my mon. Then I realized that was silly because I was catching ones that were higher CP! So I stopped. And I told myself I wouldn't power up again until level 30 when CP scaling stops.

I live in the suburbs and for a while I was just barely competitive (and even then, only because I'm pretty good at dodging), but now that people are settling in the level 20ish stretch, I'm probably mid-tier. Now that the bots are gone, I don't actually see 3000+ CP dragonites in the gyms. I occasionally see high 2000+ CP dragonites, but the range is usually 1600-2300 CP for mons. So I've never felt that pressure to level up my mon that I'm sure I would feel if I lived in Berkeley.

[melannen]

I have (so far) managed to take every gym I wanted to take with dogged persistence and my 1400+ vaporeon, and I am still catching higher-CP Pokemon fast enough that it's always been more efficient to save my candy for evolving them than leveling up (I really regret the powering up I did early on because I could have evolved an Ivysaur by now if I hadn't wasted candy on my starter.)

At some point I will probably start powering up, though. It's good to know level 30 is the ceiling for catches.

(Also I'm level 21 but I still occasionally see pokemon in the wild that are CP ???. Haven't managed to catch any. I figured that would stop once I got to a higher level, but apparently I have a ways to go yet.)

[inkstone]

Vaporeon is a bit of a monster. It's the strongest of the 3 eeveelutions and if you have one with the water gun/hydro pump moveset, you're pretty much set for attacking.

[melannen]

/me checks. It does! I guess I lucked out!