How to earn experience in Pokemon GO
Last update: 19 August 2016
During the tutorial, you can easily reach level 1, maybe 2. But soon, reaching higher levels will become a very time consuming task. The most important thing is to get to level 5 as fast as possible, to be able to use the mechanics of the Gym. Below, you will find advice on getting more levels more quickly in Pokemon GO.
- Catching Pokemons
- Getting to Pokestops
- Fighting other Pokemons in Gyms
- Evolving the Pokemons
- Awards for experience levels
- How to gain experience fast
Catching Pokemons
The most obvious way is to catch Pokemons, and it's the most certain and generally main source of XP in the game. For each Pokemon you will get 100XP. But there's more: a Pokemon caught for the first time is worth an additional 500XP (600 total). Remember that a good throw with a Pokeball will give you some XP too - "Nice Throw" gives 10XP, "Great" -50, and "Excellent" - 100. The kind of throw is determined by a Pokemon, so it's not always possible to get this bonus.
Getting to Pokestops
One of the easiest ways of getting experience at the first few hours of the game, especially if you live in a big city, or at least have access to the main square of one, where there usually is a lot of Pokestops. Every time you get to a Pokestop and "toss a coin" (i.e. slide the finger from left to right on the icon of the building), you will get 50 experience.
It's not an exorbitant amount of experience, but bear in mind a few things: one - Pokestop can be used every 5 minutes. Two - There might be even 10 Pokestops in your vicinity. Third - along with the experience, you will get many different items, including the Lucky Egg, which will boos the experience you get by 100% for 30 minutes after activation. Hence, you can get couple of thousand of XP just by sauntering from one Pokestop to another
Fighting other Pokemons in Gyms
Available for players with 5 level of experience or higher. Every fight you complete in a Gym will grant you 100 points. This can be combined with visiting Pokestops, and catching Pokemons on the way - it will make sure that you don't stand before a church with people in it like an idiot, grinding the experience (although there's nothing stopping you).
Evolving the Pokemons
Apart from fighting, the Pokemons can be used to gain experience for their trainer. Every time a Pokemon evolves to its higher form, the player will get 500XP. While the evolvements aren't widely available at the beginning of the game, in time you will be able to launch a "chain" of evolutions, getting thousands of XP.
In order to be able to evolve a Pokemon, you need Candies appropriate for a given Pokemon. 3 Candies are awarded for catching a Pokemon, and one more can be obtained for giving a Pokemon to the professor. Hence, it's a good idea to catch every Pokemon you find, and then send the weaker ones (with lower CP) to the Professor. Remember that every Pokemon has it's own, unique Candy ascribed to it (for example Charmander Candy for Charmander, and so on).
Awards for experience levels
Getting experience means getting many awards. The first levels give only Pokeballs, but the process soon becomes more profitable - higher levels allow you to save a lot of time (and money, if he doesn't have the time). Below, you'll find a table containing the bonuses for each level. Since getting the highest levels requires a lot of time, the table will be updated regularly. For now, we've prepared 25 levels.
Level | XP for the level | Total XP | Award | Unlocked item |
1 | 0 | 0 | none | |
2 | 1,000 | 1,000 | Poke Ball x10 | |
3 | 2,000 | 3,000 | Poke Ball x15 | |
4 | 3,000 | 6,000 | Poke Ball x15 | |
5 | 4,000 | 10,000 | Poke Ball x20, Potion x10, Revive x10, Incense | Gym, Potion, Revive |
6 | 5,000 | 15,000 | Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Incubator | |
7 | 6,000 | 21,000 | Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Incense | |
8 | 7,000 | 28,000 | Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x10, Lure Module | Razz Berry |
9 | 8,000 | 36,000 | Poke Ball x15, Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x3, Lucky Egg | |
10 | 9,000 | 45,000 | Poke Ball x20, Super Potion x20, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module | |
11 | 10,000 | 55,000 | Poke Ball x15, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3 | |
12 | 10,000 | 65,000 | Great Ball x20, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3 | Great Ball |
13 | 10,000 | 75,000 | Great Ball x10, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3 | |
14 | 10,000 | 85,000 | Great Ball x10, Super Potion x10, Revive x3, Razz Berry x3 | |
15 | 15,000 | 100,000 | Great Ball x15, Hyper Potion x20, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module | Hyper Potion |
16 | 20,000 | 120,000 | Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5 | |
17 | 20,000 | 140,000 | Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5 | |
18 | 20,000 | 160,000 | Great Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5 | |
19 | 25,000 | 185,000 | Great Ball x15, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x5, Razz Berry x5 | |
20 | 25,000 | 210,000 | Ultra Ball x20, Hyper Potion x20, Revive x20, Razz Berry x20, Incense x2, Lucky Egg x2, Egg Incubator x2, Lure Module x2 | Ultra Ball |
21 | 50,000 | 260,000 | Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10 | |
22 | 75,000 | 335,000 | Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10 | |
23 | 100,000 | 435,000 | Ultra Ball x10, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10 | |
24 | 125,000 | 560,000 | Ultra Ball x15, Hyper Potion x10, Revive x10, Razz Berry x10 | |
25 | 150,000 | 710,000 | Ultra Ball x25, Max Potion x20, Revive x15, Razz Berry x15, Incense, Lucky Egg, Egg Incubator, Lure Module | Max Potion |
How to gain experience fast
Since experience (and the level of his trainer player) has a direct effect on the strength of Pokemons that you may have (maximum CP statistics that a creature can achieve goes up alongside the trainer's level), achieving sufficiently high level is a priority. In several chapters of this guide, you may learn that for virtually any activity that you perform, you receive experience points. However, this chapter focuses on the fastest, and (to the extent possible) free way to gain experience.
This method focuses on evolving your Pokemons. You may already know that each evolution (regardless of whether you are evolving Pidgey into Pigeotto, or Pikachu into Raichu) rewards you with 500 experience points. Although this may not be a dizzying amount, you can double it by using Lucky Egg. You can obtain them as a reward (see the table in this chapter), or buy them at a shop for Pokecoins (this option is for the less patient that do not shirk from spending real cash in F2P games, or for those who have already gathered enough Pokecoins). Each Lucky Egg doubles experience that you receive from any source, for the duration of 30 minutes - instead of 100 points, you receive 200, instead of 500 - 1000 and so on.
Since Lucky Eggs are items that you ill quite rarely come by, it is a good idea to get prepared before you use it - there is not much point in using it, if you will not be able to take advantage of the bonus for the next 30 minutes. With the Lucky Egg active, it is possible to perform as many as 40, or even 60 evolutions - it all depends on the server workload (although this problem is not that severe anymore). Performance of 40 evolutions, for which you receive 1000 EXP (thanks to the Lucky Egg), will provide you with a total of 40.000 EXP, which translates into several additional experience levels.
However, to perform that many evolutions, you require enough Candy and Pokemons. Therefore, it is a good idea to spend several (or more) hours of real time on catching all of the Pokemons that you can. In this case, the "weak" Pokemons are the best, such as Pidgey or Caterpie, because they require the least Candy (12) to evolve. Also, remember that catching each Pokemon provides you with 3 Candy of a given type, and for sending it away to the professor, you receive another Candy. Therefore, catching, and sending away, e.g. 3 will allow you to evolve that Pokemon (and after the evolution itself, you receive another Candy). Other Pokemons can also be used for that, so do not ignore them when you meet them.
After you have collected enough Candy and Pokemons to perform, at least, 30 evolutions, use Lucky Egg and get to work. Activate evolutions of Pokemons, one after another and your EXP will skyrocket. After that, your character should receive several experience levels (probably, this will provide you with another Lucky Egg that you can use in the same way).
Remember that evolutions are not the only way to gain experience. While preparing for the above method, you will also receive lots of experience (and a chance of catching a rare Pokemon). A good thing to do is find a spot, where there are more than one Pokestop within close distance of each other and place Lure Module in them. This way, Pokemons will start flocking your way. Each one of the creatures that you catch provides you with experience, increases the strength of your team and also speeds up the abovementioned process of evolving. As you can see, there is a simple (and completely free of charge) way to gain a lot of experience - you only have to spend some more time and you will soon see the results.