Leveling up isn’t something that happens to Pokemon in Pokemon Go– it only happens to you, the Trainer, and it’s the main thing that gates off features and mechanics in this game. Every action gets you XP, so Trainer level, not Pokemon strength, is really the best measure of how far you’ve progressed in the game.
Trainer level also affects the CP of the Pokemon that you see and the frequency of high CP Pokemon in your game. Players haven’t yet completely figured out how Trainer level affects Pokemon spawning, Pokemon strength, and other game features– but as a community, Pokemon Go players are beginning to figure out what systems are affected by Trainer level and how they change over the course of the game. Here’s an overview of the things we know so far about what leveling up does, how it can impact your game, and what people are saying about the leveling system right now:
Unlocks
Pokemon Go gates a few items and game mechanics behind specific Trainer levels.
The biggest unlock comes at level 5, when the entire Gym battling mechanic unlocks. At the same time, Potions and Revives– items necessary to get your defeated Pokemon back to battle strength– also unlock, and they will begin dropping from Pokestops.
At level 8, you’ll unlock Razz Berries. Razz Berries reduce a Pokemon’s chance to escape from the Pokeball the next time you hit it with a Pokeball. You can only use them during the Pokemon catching minigame, and there’s a chance the Pokemon could escape the ball anyway, so you may have to use Razz Berries multiple times during a fight.
At level 10, you’ll unlock Super Potions. They’ll also start dropping from Pokestops. Super Potions heal 50HP.
At level 12, you’ll unlock Great Balls. Great Balls can make it easier to catch high-difficulty Pokemon. Using a Great Ball instead of a regular Pokeball could, for example, change the shrinking ring in the catching minigame from yellow to green, and reduce the Pokemon’s chance to jump out of the ball. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of specific data about how exactly it changes the rates at which Pokemon escape the ball.
At level 15, you’ll unlock Hyper Potions. Hyper Potions heal Pokemon by 200HP and start getting useful once you start owning a lot of extremely powerful, high-CP pokemon.
At level 20, you’ll unlock Ultra Balls. Like Great Balls, they make it easier to catch difficult-to-catch Pokemon.
Pokemon CP
As you level up, you’ll see higher-CP Pokemon around you in the wild, and a higher percentage of the Pokemon you see will be difficult to catch– they’ll have yellow, orange, and red circles in the catching minigame.
There isn’t a lot of hard data yet about how likely various Pokemon are to escape the ball once you catch them, or how this changes with Trainer level. A lot of players are sharing their experiences about this, however, and consensus seems to show that the more you level up, the more you’re likely to see difficult-to-catch Pokemon. Even mundane Pokemon like Ekans, Pidgey, and Rattata start to very frequently escape from even Great Balls..
On Reddit, a lot of people are already discussing whether it’s detrimental to their experience that so many boring Pokemon get so tough at high Trainer levels.
The fact that Trainer level increases the CP of the Pokemon you see in the wild means that the Pokemon you catch and evolve at low levels will be very quickly outclassed. You may even come across regular Pokemon like Pidgey or Spearow who are more powerful than Pidgeots or Fearows you evolved when you first started playing. And since the CP of evolved Pokemon increase by a constant multiplier per species, It’s possible for you to eventually catch and then evolve much, much stronger versions of the same Pokemon you battled with at lower levels. If you didn’t spend a lot of stardust Powering Up your starter, evolving a CP375 Bulbasaur you caught later in the game will result in a much higher-CP Ivysaur.
Although these early-caught Pokemon aren’t ultimately weaker– you can still power them up to very high levels by spending a lot of candies and stardust– Trainers who are trying to maximize candy efficiency should probably wait to evolve some of their Pokemon until they get to around level 12 and start seeing extremely powerful base-evolution Pokemon. I saved up a Ponyta that was around CP150 for a few days, but once I hit level 15 I started seeing Ponyta well above CP300. My current banked Ponyta– waiting for me to get enough candies to evolve it to Rapidash– is 554. That’s exactly the CP it was when I caught it in the wild at level 16. If I’d evolved the first Ponyta I caught and tried to maintain its strength for Gym battling, I’d be stuck feeding it tons and tons of Stardust to get it to the max CP allowed by my current level.
For trainers who have access to huge amounts of the candies they need to Power Up their favorite Pokemon, and huge amounts of banked stardust, it doesn’t matter when they evolve. As explained at the above link, when you evolve a Pokemon, the multiplier that affects its post-evolution CP also affects the amount of CP you get every time you Power Up after the evolution. So no matter when you evolve it, it will eventually climb to the same max CP allowed by your level. Still: Trainer level definitely affects whether or not it’s economical for you to continue Powering Up the same Pokemon over and over again. Sometimes, it feels like it’s a lesser strain on stardust to just re-evolve base-evolution Pokemon that you find at a higher level. The economics of Pokemon evolution will be different for every player, though.
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Pokemon Go does not seem to be aiming at the same long-term Pokemon relationships that were common in the games and part of the dramatic flavor of the TV show. The core progression loop defined by your Trainer level, the items you unlock, and the CP of the Pokemon you see may make it hard for some players to keep their original starter Pokemon up to max strength throughout their time with the game.
Personally, I’ve been swapping my Pokemon out whenever a stronger duplicate comes along. I once caught a Pidgeotto stronger than the Pidgeot I’d evolved in my early days with the game; I swapped that Pidgeot out, too, since there’s no evidence that anything but CP affects effectiveness in battle.
If battling isn’t your thing, most of the item unlocks and mechanics changes associated with Trainer level won’t affect you. Catching Pokemon at high levels will still get a lot harder and more resource-intensive, though. I’m interested to see whether Niantic ends up tweaking the balance around these mechanics– right now, spending several Razz Berries and Great Balls to catch average Rattatas seems a little odd.
