Pokemon Go: tips for gaining XP and leveling up fast

Level up your Pokemon Trainer game.

Pokemon Go might be a ‘slimmed down’ version of the Pokemon experience, but when push comes to shove it is still a Pokemon game, and that means there’s a fair slice of levelling up and other RPG-style character progression, built into the way the game advances.
Significantly different for Pokemon Go is the nature of leveling up; rather than strictly gaining experience for your Pokemon, XP/EXP is mainly based around the player, represented in a trainer level that grows across the board as you perform in-game tasks.
Your trainer level is vital for catching better Pokemon and making those you have more powerful. When you level up Pokemon in your possession have a chance to get boosted along with you, and higher level trainers will encounter different Pokemon in the wild.
Location is important, but a level 3 player is likely to encounter Pokemon with CP (Combat Point) levels of 10 or so, while a level 10 player in the same area will encounter the exact same Pokemon with CP levels in the hundreds – so trainer level is important.
On top of all that, higher level players will get access to more in-game equipment with which to battle and train Pokemon – basically, player level is used as a gatekeeper to much of Pokemon Go’s content.
As with any RPG sometimes the level grind can be a little intense – and that’s where we come in. Here’s some tips to try to speed up the grind and keep you from getting too frustrated at capturing Ratatta over and over again outside your house.

Pokemon Go: Experience rewards to level up in short

Every major action in Pokemon Go nets you a certain amount of experience, with by far the most lucrative action being to catch a Pokemon of a kind you’ve never caught before.
There’s also experience bonuses for getting fancy when you throw a Pokeball to catch a Pokemon – you can get a little extra experience for nailing a throw or putting some curve on a throw. These experience bonuses are relatively minor – you’ll get 10 extra XP for throwing a curve ball or nailing a ‘Nice’ throw, while a ‘Great’ or ‘Excellent’ throw earns a little more.
The easiest repeatable experience gain comes in the form of checking in at a Pokestop. Pokestop locations can be checked into again after a short cool-down period, making it an easily repeatable 100 XP task. If you can find an area where several Pokestops are stacked up together you can easily walk a lap of the Pokestops between their cool-downs, earning a fair chunk of experience in the process.
Here’s a table of what each act in Pokemon Go gets you experience-wise:

• 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

The criteria for how the game registers what a throw is ends up being a little fiddly and the Pokestop method is obviously hugely dependent on their placement where you live (I have a great place to ‘run laps’ near my house, but not everyone is so lucky) – and so these methods aren’t actually isn’t anywhere near the best way to earn experience – but instead, let’s talk about Pidgey and Rattata.

Pokemon Go: Using Pidgey, Ratatta and other early Pokemon to level up fast

Once you’ve caught one or two of any given Pokemon the temptation is obviously to not catch any more of them. Don’t listen to that temptation: keep catching stuff! Here’s why: By far the most cost-effective way to earn regularly large drops of experience is by levelling up Pokemon in your possession.
The two highest experience games in the game are when you catch a Pokemon you’ve never owned before (so that’s a one-off bonus of 500XP) or when you evolve a Pokemon – rewarded every time you do so. As such, you can catch a bunch of Pidgey or Ratatta and evolve them – even if you send them to the professor afterwards, you’re rewarded for candy for that action and you keep the experience.
Each Pidgey or Ratatta you catch will reward you 3 candies, and additional candy can be obtained by sending duplicates to the professor. It’ll be impossible to evolve every single one you catch due to the economy of the candies required for the evolution, but if you’re anything like me you’ll find yourself in possession of 20 or 30 of these Pokemon in the early stages of the game.

Abuse that – catch as many as you can and evolve them to enjoy the experience bonus. Some players may want to stockpile and do it all at once as part of the lucky egg trick – but more on that in a moment.

Pokemon Go: Doubling down on your XP gains with Lucky Eggs

As detailed above, if you stockpile Pokemon and their candies in advance, it’s possible to gain thousands of XP in a matter of minutes by evolving many at once. If you want to make the most of that XP there’s one other step however – making use of Lucky Eggs.
Lucky Eggs double all experience gains. You see where this is going, right?
Lucky Eggs are particularly rate items in Pokemon Go, and appear rarely at Pokestops. Lucky Eggs are also rewarded to the player occasionally upon leveling up – you’ll get one from the game at level 9, 10, 15 and two at level 20. You can also buy them fairly cheaply with real cash from the in-game shop if you want.
The strategy is simple – stockpile low-tier Pokemon that have low evolution costs ahead of time, then pop a lucky egg. Your evolving strategy will reward double experience, boosting the most lucrative action in the game even further. The levels should fly by – especially the early ones.
Lucky Eggs boost the experience gains for all actions, so they also work well in tandem with the Pokestop lap-running activity – with incense active you can ensure you encounter a steady stream of Pokemon to catch for XP in between your Pokestop visits, making the most of that 30 minutes.

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