Hatching: Eek the most out of Eggs
There are two kinds of eggs in Pokémon Go: Pokémon Eggs that hatch Pokémon and Lucky Eggs that double the XP you get for catching and hatching Pokémon and performing other in-game actions. Pokémon Eggs are free, and you can only get them from spinning PokéStops. You can buy Lucky Eggs, but you also get them as rewards for hitting some levels.
Regardless of the kind of egg you have, you want to get the most out of it.
Incubators are one of the very few things I'll pay for if I need to. Sure, you'll get a lot of common Pokémon, but you'll also get some rare Pokémon that would take you a long time to catch in the wild, and it's currently the only way to get the Gen II and Gen III Pokémon babies.
How to hatch Pokémon Go eggs faster
If you have a Lucky Egg, a bunch of Pidgey, Caterpie, Weedle, and Rattata, you want to mass-evolve for leveling, and a slew of Pokémon Eggs available to hatch, start your ten KM eggs incubating. When you get to 5 KM on them, start your five KM eggs incubating. When you get to eight KM or three KM, start your two KM eggs incubating.
When they're about to hatch, drop your Lucky Egg and start your mass evolution. You can do one evolution every 20 seconds, so if you have enough Pokémon and enough candy, you can really make an XP dent. (Some people like force-quitting each evolution to speed up the process — your mileage may vary.)
If you can time your daily PokéStop spin bonus (see below) — or better, your weekly spin bonus — all the better. And if you happen to hatch something new, your Pokédex bonus will get doubled as well!
If you go to a new part of town or a new town, you can also hit a ton of new PokéStops in a row. Each one of those will net you 250 XP — 500 XP with a Lucky Egg. City centers can have dozens of PokéStops down a single street, which can mean massive XP hauls.
When everything comes together, you can not only get some new Pokémon, candy, and Stardust to evolve more great Pokémon and a considerable amount of XP towards your next level.
How to get XP and level up faster in Pokémon Go
Evolving: Measure twice, tap once
I know the feeling. You finally have the 25 candies you need to evolve Larvitar to Pupitar or Dratini to Dragonair. But then those 25 candies are gone, and you need to hatch, catch, or Buddy walk another 100 candy to evolve Tyranitar or Dragonite.
And during that long, long period, you might just hatch or catch a better Larvitar or Dragonair. Or get one from a Raid Battle!
If all you care about is finishing your Pokédex, it may not matter to you. But if you care about getting the best Pokémon possible, ones with the highest stats (IV) and HP (Hit Points) to attack in Raids or defend Gyms — or just show off! — then you'll need the best base levels to evolve from.
Hard as it may be, wait until you have the full 125 candies to evolve completely before doing any evolutions at all. Then, if you get a higher IV base Pokémon, you can evolve that one instead. Or, if you get a third evolution by capturing a Raid Boss, and it's perfect or near-perfect, you can save yourself evolving and spend those 125 Candies powering up.
Here are the best Pokémon to evolve and power up for Raid Battles!
Special cases for evolution
Not all Pokémon evolve in such a straightforward manner. For some Pokémon, there are multiple possible evolutions. For some, theit evolution is gender specific or requires an evolution item.
Eevee is one of the most versatile examples of special cases for evolution. With seven possible results (and one more on the way,) getting the Eevee you want can be tricky.
While it only works once, you can get each eevolution by renaming your Eevee before evolving. The following names work one time each:
- Pyro for Flareon
- Sparky for Jolteon
- Rainer for Vaporeon
- Sakura for Espeon
- Tamao for Umbreon
- Linnea for Leafeon
- Rea for Glaceon
If you want more Espeon or Umbreon, you have to make an Eevee your Buddy, walk 10 KM with it, then evolve during the day (Espeon) or at night (Umbreon) while it's still your Buddy.
And if you want more Leafeon or Glaceon, you'll need a Mossy Lure or a Glacial Lure (respectively). Use whichever one you want on a Pokéstop, and you'll be prompted to evolve your Eevee. You still need 25 Eevee candy, or the prompt won't appear.
Pokémon Go: How to get Leafeon, Glaceon, and all the Eevee Evolutions!
Another special case for evolution is that of Tyrogue. Tyrogue is one of the baby Pokémon introduced in Gen II and can evolve into three different Pokémon, the Gen I Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan or the Gen II Hitmontop. The type of Hitmon you get from evolving Tyrogue depends on your Tyrogue's stats:
- Hitmonlee when Attack is the highest stat.
- Hitmonchan when Defense is the highest stat.
- Hitmontop when HP is the highest stat.
How to evolve Tyrogue into Hitmontop in Pokémon Go
Evolution Items are items that trigger new or newly split evolutions. You collect them from PokéStops, like you do Pokémon Eggs, and use them to unlock the new Gen 2 evolutions and splits.
- Sun Stone: Evolve Gloom to Bellossum (and Gen 2 Sunkern into Sunflora).
- Kings Rock: Evolve Poliwhirl to Politoed, Slowpoke to Slowking
- Metal Coat: Evolve Onix to Steelix, Scyther to Scizor
- Dragon Scale: Evolve Seadra to Kingdra
- Up Grade: Evolve Porygon to Porygon 2
- Sinnoh Stone Evolves several Gen IV Pokémon
- Unova Stone Evolves several Gen V Pokémon
They're less common than Pokémon Eggs, so you'll have to hit a lot of PokéStops to get them. They're also single-use only, which means you'll need to get one for each evolution you want to perform. Yeah.
Right now, you get one — and very rarely more than one — during your 7-day streak spin. You can get them randomly from other spins at any time, but the odds seem to be around 1/300. So spin. A lot.
How to get evolution items in Pokémon Go
Another special case, evolving Wurple into Silcoon or Cascoon is completely up to chance. No trick or easter egg has yet been found to force the evolution one way or another.
Similar to Espeon and Umbreon, to evolve a Feebas into a Milotic, you need to make it your Buddy Pokémon and walk it for 20 KM. Oh, and you need 100 Feebas candy as well.
How to evolve Milotic, Dustox, Beautifly
Trade Evolution
Yet another unique evolution mechanic, Trade Evolution was recently introduced to Pokémon Go. Now, Pokémon who originally evolved by trading in the core games can be traded to evolve for free! That's right - zero Candies! the following Pokémon benefit from Trade Evolution:
- Kadabra
- Machoke
- Graveler
- Haunter
- Boldore
- Gurdurr
- Karrablast
- Shelmet
