New items, Evolution and Power Up mechanics explained with a flowchart.

By Chris Tapsell Published 17/02/2017

Once you've started collecting enough Pokmon, you'll want to turn your attention to evolving and Powering Up to discover new creatures and make them strong enough to defend and capture Gyms. It's a surprisingly complicated decision to make, now that we know more about how complex Pokmon Go can be, so we'll start at the beginning by explaining how the evolution process works and what you should be paying attention to, before talking about when you should evolve and when you should Power Up those Pokmon.

The higher the CP, the more powerful a Pokmon will be in battle. As you play and collect Pokemon, you'll discover that not every capture has the same CP level. You can read on what CP means in Pokemon Go and how to get the highest values for your team, but in short, CP is one of the most important factors when it comes to fighting, and aside from collecting it's likely the driving force behind your desire to Power Up or evolve.

Because of those complexities surrounding your Pokmon's CP, Powering Up and evolving is more than just a case of picking the one with the highest CP and throwing your Stardust and Candy at it until you run dry. As you'll see below, sometimes you should Power Up your Pokmon first, sometimes you should evolve it first, sometimes both, and sometimes you should leave it alone.

Powering up and evolving Pokmon requires in-game resources known as Stardust and Candy. Stardust is a shared resource you receive for each Pokmon you catch, for storing Pokmon at Gyms and leveling up, while Candy is an item specific to that species - so Pikachu Candy, Pidgey Candy and so on. We've assembled some quick tips on how to get Candy in Pokmon Go here, plus how to get Stardust easily to strengthen your Pokmon.

In short, the more Pokmon of one type you catch, the more Candy you get to power up and evolve that species in its family, so it's well worth catching those low level Pidgeys to get that eventual Pidgeot evolution. Remember you can use in-game radar to locate and catch the Pokemon nearby, as well as discover Pokemon Type by location using real-world habitats.

As well as using Candy to evolve creatures, as part of the Gen 2 update certain evolutions - for existing and new Pokemon - also require a special item to evolve into certain forms. These are:

There are several important points worth bearing in mind for when you're looking to Power Up your Pokmon:

As with Powering Up, there are some important things to bear in mind for evolving your Pokmon.

We've decided to put together a flowchart, which should hopefully clear up what is a fairly complicated decision-making process for you! All the information you need is here - such as an IV calculator, CP and IVs explained, and a list of the best Pokmon in Pokmon Go - if you need it. Beneath the chart are the rules we've applied, but in text form.

You should Power Up your Pokmon if:

Want more help with Pokmon Go's Gen 2 update? Our list of new Gen 2 Johto Pokmon can teach you where to find each one, what you need to know about new Pokmon Go Berries, Special Items to evolve Pokmon such as King's Rock, Sun Stone, Up-Grade, Dragon Scale and Metal Coat, and how to get Eevee evolutions Umbreon, Espeon, and updated Egg distances and best Pokmon charts, as well as other Pokmon Go tips, tricks, cheats and guides.

You should evolve your Pokmon if:

You should avoid Powering Up your Pokmon if:

You should avoid evolving your Pokmon if:

Essentially, the Power Up and evolving decisions that you make depend on what you want to achieve. For the collectors it's fairly simple - just evolve the Pokmon whose evolutions are particularly rare - but for those interested in getting the absolute most out of their Pokmon's battling capabilities, it's certainly less so.

Read more:

Pokmon Go - How to evolve, use Special Items, when to evolve or Power Up your Pokmon - Eurogamer.net