How to evolve and power up Pokemon in the Pokemon Go game

They are cute and powerful, those Pokemon creatures, and making a full virtual collection of them is an enough entertainment itself. But as usual, Pokemon games propose much more than this – Pokemon Go contains exciting battles in Gyms to make use of the coolest species from our Pokedex. And there are ways to improve abilities of Pocket Monsters, which help to get new creatures in the collection and to become even more successful in Pokemon battles. We can evolve Pokemon and power up them, using unique game resources: candies and stardust. In this Pokemon Go tutorial, we give clear explanations on this topic.

___________________

Of course, before any evolution and power up, we should get Pokemon into the Pokedex – read about the game basis in the tutorial “How to play Pokemon Go. First steps”.

___________________

What is evolution? What is powering up?

Many Pokemon can transform into a mightier form. This process is called evolution.

There are chains of two and three stages of evolution. For example:

• Pikachu evolves into Raichu;
• Mareep evolves into Flaaffy, and Flaaffy evolves into Ampharos.

Every Pokemon in the Pokemon Go game has a specific amount of Combat Power. The higher it is, the more powerful this creature is in Gym battles. Pokemon have different CP from a species to species. But even creatures of one kind can differ from each other by CP – we can meet, for example, a weaker and a stronger Rattata. And we can increase CP of a Pokemon! This process is called powering up in Pokemon Go.

How to evolve Pokemon in Pokemon Go?

A standard method is to give candies to a creature. On a “profile” of every Pokemon, you will find a button for evolution and information about a needed number of candies.

Some Pokemon can evolve only with special objects, called Evolution Items. They are described in the article “All the items in the Pokemon Go game”.

There is a unique style of evolution when Pokemon or transform randomly into one of several creature variants, or take some particular form if you know how to name it. We talk about Eevee, which becomes:

• Vaporeon with nickname “Rainer”;
• Jolteon with nickname “Sparky”;
• Flareon with nickname “Pyro”;
• Espeon with nickname “Sakura”;
• Umbreon with nickname “Tamao”.

___________________

In our full list of Pokemon in the Pokemon Go game, you will find information about evolution chains (who evolves into whom), about needed numbers of candies for this, about needed Evolution Items, and about nicknames of Eevee.

___________________

How to power up Pokemon in Pokemon Go?

To increase CP of Pokemon without evolving, we can power up our creatures. To do so, we need not only candies but also stardust – a special game resource. A button for powering up is situated near the one for evolution, in a profile of every Pokemon. And conditions for this process are also specified there.

By feeding Pokemon candies and stardust we can raise their CP to a max level and make them really powerful creatures for battling.

How to get candies in the Pokemon Go game?

Pokemon are virtual creatures, so they can do not bother about their teeth and eat goodies dangerous for us - sweet candies. 

But there is a thing about candies, we have to understand and remember – this resource is not universal! Every Pokemon family, or an evolution chain, has its own type of candies. 

So we can’t feed Magikarp with candies for Pidgy to get Gyarados. Pidgy candies can be used only for the Pidgy-Pidgeotto-Pidgeot transformation.

We can collect candies in these ways:

• Catching a Pokemon gives candies of this family;
• Hatching a Pokemon from an egg;
• Transfer a Pokemon to Professor by clicking a special button in a profile;
• Walking with a Pokemon as your Buddy.

The information about distances for getting a candy with a Buddy Pokemon and distances for hatching eggs of different Pokemon may be found in the lists of Pokemon in the Pokemon Go game:

All the Pokemon of Generation I in Pokemon Go

All the Pokemon of Generation II in Pokemon Go

How to get stardust in the Pokemon Go game

This resource can be spent for Powering Up any Pokemon – it doesn’t matter how you get that dust.

To collect stardust:

- Catch Pokemon;

- Hatch Pokemon;

- Put your creatures to defend Gyms of your team.

Gyms can have a limited number of defenders. To increase it, we can raise the Gym’s prestige by performing training. 

__________________

"How to play Pokemon Go. Success in battles”.

__________________

Different Pokemon trainers have their own recipes how to get more candies and stardust, or how to spend these recourses efficiently.

Some hints about evolving and Powering Up, along with our recommendations about other aspects of the game, we have written in the tutorial: “How to play Pokemon Go. Tips and Tricks”.