Power up or evolve first.

[Lucy Davies]

I hatched a nice strong Bellsprout today with good IV's but should I power it up before evolving it or just evolve it then power it up? I never no which way round to do it. Also if I powered up a Pokemon then evolved it wouldn't it be a bit stronger coz it would have higher CP then?

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

In my opinion it's best to evolve first.

As far as I'm aware, a Pokemon's CP will be the same no matter what, but the evolved forms gain far more CP per power up than non-evolved forms.

 

[metllicamilitia]

Generally you'll want want to wait until final evolution before powering up, as they evolve they get stronger anyway. So in this case you'll want to wait until Victrebell. You'll need 125 bellsprout candy to get there.

 

[Lucy Davies]

Thanks for the help. Can only evolve my Bellsprout once at the moment. Will just have to catch more.

 

[wwwoodchuck]

I would wait. I went to a park where Magikarp were very prolific, before the last spawn move. I evolved 6 and powered one up before evolving. Now, don’t hold me to these exact numbers, I did not write them down so just going from a faulty old memory here! When I powered up a Karp, it went up 3 CP and 1 HP. The Gyrados evolved at around 11.6 times the CP of the Karp. I was told it would be 12x but mine were close enough to use that as a rough estimate. Powering up a Gyrados, after the evolve would gain ~40+ CP and 1 HP. In ratio it gained a bit more CP by waiting, the HP increase was the same. The candy and stardust cost was the same for powering up right after the evolve. The iv was the same for both but after the evolve you don’t know what powers the Gyrados will have. If the evolved form doesn’t have the move set you liked, you would have to evolve another to see what it ended up with. It is nice to have two strong ones with different move sets also, to choose from for battling whatever is in a Gym.

I have evolved quite a number of Pidgies and such (I call all the 12 & 25 candy common evolves my bread & butter for XP growth) but never checked to see if there was a relation to move sets before and after the evolve. Maybe someone else who did keep track will have an answer for that. It would be nice to know for higher level evolves like a Dratini to Dragonair to Dragonite though! With the Magikarp there is no telling, they all have the same strong moves before the evolve. <--- Poor attempt at humor.

 

[Lucy Davies]

Ok cool so I've done my Pokemon correctly by evolving them then powering them up. I don't really care about moves as that would be hard for me to have a high cp Pokemon, good IV's & a good move set.

 

[Matty]

I hatched a nice strong Bellsprout today with good IV's but should I power it up before evolving it or just evolve it then power it up? I never no which way round to do it. Also if I powered up a Pokemon then evolved it wouldn't it be a bit stronger coz it would have higher CP then?

it seems people all have different opinions, i always say power up first and then evolve. Get the half moon bar right to the bottom right and then evolve. Just my opinion.

 

[dsip]

Countering numbers with an opinion is not a particularly good argument.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Countering numbers with an opinion is not a particularly good argument.

This.

 

[Morty2264]

I've heard pros and cons for both.

If you evolve first, you get that newly-evolved Pokemon into your Pokedex; and then you can simply catch a stronger CP Pokemon later.

However, you can boost up your Pokemon and then evolve it; both of which would make them stronger. But then you will lose Stardust, and it's best to save up on that.

I feel like it can be a gamble either way... There's always a chance that you'll run into a strong Pokemon in the wild; but still, evolving now versus waiting is a shorter-term solution and then your Pokedex is updated.

I don't think there's really a "right" or "wrong" way - it's up to you! Friends have recommended both options to me; so I just do what I think is best at the time.

 

[swish_08]

i've always wondered which one should i do first, good thing i saw this. Thanks guys!

 

[ZKnowN]

Whatever you do just do it after lvl. 20

 

[person13628]

evolve first

 

[kixfan]

I've heard pros and cons for both.

If you evolve first, you get that newly-evolved Pokemon into your Pokedex; and then you can simply catch a stronger CP Pokemon later.

However, you can boost up your Pokemon and then evolve it; both of which would make them stronger. But then you will lose Stardust, and it's best to save up on that.

I feel like it can be a gamble either way... There's always a chance that you'll run into a strong Pokemon in the wild; but still, evolving now versus waiting is a shorter-term solution and then your Pokedex is updated.

I don't think there's really a "right" or "wrong" way - it's up to you! Friends have recommended both options to me; so I just do what I think is best at the time.

I usually evolve first to get it added to my pokedex and worry about raising it's CP later. Usually I end up catching a stronger one first anyway. Seems like once I evolve a pokemon the first time I end up seeing it in the wild more often. Not sure if it is by design or if it just a coincidence though.

 

[projektorboy]

The rule is to always evolve first. Once evolved, you'll get more CP out of every power-up. No sense in wasting valuable Stardust by powering up something that could get transferred in favor of candy.

As you level up you'll encounter stronger wild pokemon. One of those stronger wild pokemon may supersede a Pokemon you already planned to evolve for gyms. No point in burning Stardust because your natural progression will have you encountering a pokemon strong enough to have made the Stardust usage pointless.

 

[swish_08]

I just want to add an info about this, in the case of a magikarp, if you will consider moveset as well, better evolve it first before powering it up, if you want to have the best pokemon better consider IV and moveset.

 

[Channan]

It doesn't really matter based on CP alone. You'll get more CP by powering up a fully evolved Pokémon, but you'll get a much stronger Pokémon after evolving by powering up first. In the end, no matter if you power up before or after an evolution, the final evolution should have around, if not exactly, the same CP either way.

And because of that, it's much better to power up AFTER evolving. The reason being because the moves your Pokémon knows after evolving is random. You don't want to waste your candies powering up a Pokémon first and then it gets a terrible move set after evolving. If you evolve a Pokémon and it has bad moves, save your candies and work on evolving another one.

 

[swish_08]

Yeah that's right, better be patient and save your candies and who knows, you might catch a better one than the one you're planning to power up and evolve.

 

[fury2g]

evolve first. Make sure you have the attacks and defenses you prefer and the powerup.

 

[wwwoodchuck]

While speaking of movesets I’ll add this. Movesets are completely random. Three times I have personally evolved the exact same Mon as two other people. Different levels one time and all over 30 for two evolves. We caught the same one and the appraisal said it was well over 80%, so we decided to see what happened. BTW, all have exactly the same iv’s no matter who captures it.

In the case of a Magikarp: Different levels had different original CP and HP but evolved to a comparative CP and HP. Different movesets.

Over level 30 (two on same level and team) catching the same Mon will have the same CP and HP: Polliwag and Charmander. First evolve was exactly the same CP, HP Length and weight; different attacks. Second evolve, same CP, HP, Length and Weight but different attacks.