Once you’ve caught your pokémon, it’s time to get the pair of you powered up

Trainer

It’s all well and good catching pokémon, but you need to have your trainer hit level five as soon as possible so that you can start training at gyms. You’ll also stumble across more powerful pokémon at higher levels, so don’t invest in any of the little cuties until you’ve started getting a decent team together.

There are a number of ways for your trainer to earn XP. Each level’s full XP requirement corresponds to the level number, so at 1000 XP, you finish level one and move onto level two, then 2000 XP later, you move onto level three which needs 3000 XP before you can hit level four and so on.

100 XP – Pokémon Caught

500 XP – New Pokémon

10 XP – Curve Ball

10 XP – Nice Throw

50 XP – Great Throw

100 XP – Excellent Throw

50 XP – Checking in at a Pokéstop

100 XP – Battling a Pokémon Trainer at a Gym

150 XP – Beating a Pokémon Trainer at a Gym

50 XP – Beat a Pokémon in training at a Gym

200 XP – Hatch a Pokémon

500 XP – Evolve a Pokémon

Using items like Incense and Lure Modules is a good way to boost the frequency of Pokémon popping up on the map. Walking around checking in Pokéstops is also a good way to get both XP and items, particularly as they refresh every five minutes.

And if you’re low on poké balls, don’t waste XP capturing duplicate Pokémon unless you’re particularly enamoured with their CP.

Hitting pokémon inside the capture ring at its smallest will earn you XP for skillful throws. Move the poké ball in a circle before you throw it, and release when it starts to sparkle to get a curve ball. The throw bonuses don’t seem to stack so focusing on precision is the best way to gain XP with throws.

You should hit level five in no time.

Pokémon

When deciding which Pokémon to level up, it’s best to choose the ones with the highest CP. To increase their CP, you need to power them up, and to power them up you need Stardust and Pokémon Candy for that particular variety of Pokémon.

Stardust can be used to power up any kind of Pokémon. You can collect it by capturing Pokémon and hatching eggs.

Pokémon candy is awarded for catching Pokémon, hatching eggs, and transferring Pokémon to the professor. You can’t get them back once you send them away, so if you’ve got a butt ton of Drowzee, get rid of the lower level ones to bump up the candy you need for powering up and evolution.

At the moment it seems that the end stats for your Pokémon will the same regardless of whether you power up to the max or evolve first, and the Pokémon’s size will have a bearing when battling other Pokémon with a similar CP. But if you’re keen on taking over all of the local gyms, CP should be your focus at the start. Because CP represents the Pokémon’s strength, a higher stat means its moves will be more powerful.

Evolving your Pokémon will also give its CP a significant bump. If you want to evolve as soon as possible, then catching the same species of Pokémon is what you should be aiming for, as you can hand them over to the professor for the candy you need to evolve them.

It’s worth noting that your trainer level will affect the available CP of your pokémon, so you may hit a wall with powering them up until your trainer level increases.