Why you should never power up Pokemon in Pokemon GO

There's no question that candy is dandy in Pokemon GO. You need big quantities of it to evolve your Pokemon, and when combined with stardust, it can be used to power up your favorite pocket monsters as well, making them more formidable for the gym battles that await you.

But the dilemma facing many players is which of those purposes is best suited for your candy. Since it only takes a single piece to power up any Pokemon, using it that way doesn't seem too wasteful.

As it turns out, the consensus from people who have been playing Pokemon GO nonstop since launch is that even a single piece of candy devoted to powering up Pokemon is probably a piece of candy wasted. Here are some compelling arguments for why you should rarely, if ever, power up your Pokemon.

Evolving helps you level up much faster

Numerous tasks in Pokemon GO grant you XP, but most of them give you amounts too small to help you level up fast. The more you play, the more true this becomes, as catching a Pokemon you've already nabbed before is worth only 100 XP in most cases, and you'll be doing that constantly.

That makes evolution, particularly when paired with the XP doubling magic of a Lucky Egg, your ticket to leveling faster. And that means you need all the candy you get to put toward that end.

Common Pokemon like Pidgey, Weedle and Caterpie are great to evolve since only 12 pieces of candy are needed. Obviously, that means you'll want to save every candy you can for leveling, so using any to power up the commoners is never a good idea.

The Pokemon you find are tougher as your Trainer Level increases

You may have noticed this on your own, but any Pokemon you find at a higher Trainer Level has a chance to be much stronger than the same one caught while you were just starting out. That's by design, as it provides an impetus for people to keep playing and advancing.

With that in mind, it simply doesn't make sense to power up the Pokemon you captured during the early stages of play since you will find ones with more CP before too long anyway, especially if you play regularly. Again, save your candy for evolving and simply swap in a tougher member of the same species once you locate one.

The lone exception

Every rule has an exception, and the "never power up Pokemon" mantra does as well. Some Pokemon don't evolve, so there's no real reason to sit on hoards of their candy, and they can be powered up if you don't mind parting with the stardust -- and you shouldn't, since you won't be powering up most of the monsters in your collection.

Take Jynx, for example. She has no evolved form, so once you catch one, you can power it up without taking anything away from your overall strategy.

Considering that every Pokemon game prior to Pokemon GO drilled into gamers' heads that they should be training their Pokemon to be tougher, it can be difficult to resist powering up what you've got. Just trust us and resist the temptation, and you'll be better equipped for the battles that lie ahead.