Experience

Slow redirects here. For the move whose Japanese name can mean Slow, see Curse (move).

A graph of the experience required for Pokémon to level up, color-coded by experience types. Erratic is black, Fast is green, Medium Fast is yellow, Medium Slow is purple, Slow is brown, and Fluctuating is blue.

File:ExpGraphLv50.png

A graph only to level 50 for the experience required for level up. Colors are the same as above.

The amount of experience (Japanese: けいけんち) an individual Pokémon has is an indication of how much it has battled. In the games, it is quantified as experience points, which a Pokémon can gain in battle by defeating an opponent without fainting first. After a certain amount of experience points have been gained, a Pokémon will grow a level, with each subsequent level requiring more experience to gain, all the way up to level 100, where a Pokémon will no longer gain experience.

In the main series

In the main series games, experience is normally gained by all Pokémon who have been sent out against an opponent's Pokémon, divided evenly among them. Experience is gained upon the opponent Pokémon fainting, and its amount is calculated as a function of the fainted Pokémon's level, as well as species. Certain items can affect the distribution and amount of experience gained, as can other conditions, such as whether or not the Pokémon was caught by another person or in another language of the game.

Relation to level

A graph of the ratio of the cumulative experience required to reach a certain level, to that level's numeral cubed

The amount of experience points a Pokémon has is tied directly to its level. Though the amount varies depending on species, always remaining consistent throughout an evolutionary family, a given amount of experience points will always set a Pokémon at the corresponding level. Wild Pokémon of any level will always have the base amount of experience required to reach that level when caught, as will Pokémon hatched from Eggs.

All Pokémon fall into one of six experience groups, four of which were introduced in Generation I, and two of which were introduced in Generation III. The main difference between these experience groups is the amount of experience points required to reach level 100, and thus, the amount required to reach each level. All those introduced in Generation I are only polynomial functions of the level, while the two introduced in Generation III operate as piecewise functions, changing the equation depending on the level range.

All six functions are cubic functions of the level, but Erratic and Fluctuating are designed to have a constantly changing multiplier of this cube. Erratic has this multiplier go from high (2.0) to low (0.6), while Fluctuating has this multiplier go from low (0.48) to high (1.64).

Though the various experience groups' level-up rates can be calculated using an equation, a lookup table is used in the games after Generation II, to prevent game slowdown and a glitch associated with the Medium Slow formula.

In Generation V, the amount of experience gained is dependent on both Pokémon's levels: the lower the victor's level is compared to the defeated Pokémon, the more experience points the victor will gain.

Erratic

File:Expcalc erratic.png

The equation for the Erratic experience group. At levels 50, 68, and 98, both formulas return equal values.

The Erratic experience group, one of the two groups introduced in Generation III, features the lowest level 100 value for experience, at only 600,000 points. Nearly all Pokémon in this experience group were introduced in Generation III as well, with most of them being Bug or Water types.

Receiving its name due to the highly erratic experience point requirement to reach the next level from level 68 to level 98, Pokémon in this group level up rather slowly in their lower levels, requiring the most experience to grow from level 1 to level 10 (1800 as compared to 1250 for Slow, the next highest requirement), and increase the rate of their growth at higher levels, requiring the least experience to grow from level 90 to level 100 (108654 points as compared to 216800 for Fast, the next lowest requirement).

Due to the erraticness of this function, it actually takes fewer experience points to go from level 99 to 100 than it does to go from level 69 to 70.

For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Erratic experience group.

Fast

File:Expcalc fast.png

The equation for the Fast experience group

The Fast experience group is one of the four experience groups introduced in Generation I, with 800,000 experience points making for a level 100 Pokémon. Many common Normal-type Pokémon are in this group.

For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Fast experience group.

Medium Fast

File:Expcalc mfast.png

The equation for the Medium Fast experience group

Among all Pokémon, the most plentiful experience group is the Medium Fast group, which was also introduced in Generation I. Requiring Pokémon to have an even 1,000,000 experience points to be at level 100, it is by far the most average of the experience groups, and the one with the simplest equation: to be at a given level, any Pokémon in this group requires experience equal to that level cubed. This group is also often called "cubic", due to its function being a simple cube of the level.

This experience group actually grows more slowly than the Medium Slow group up until about level 68 (level 47, if considering amount of experience required to reach the next level).

For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Medium Fast experience group.

Medium Slow

File:Expcalc mslow.png

The equation for the Medium Slow experience group

The Medium Slow experience group, like the Medium Fast group, accounts for many Pokémon, containing the second largest amount of them. All normal starter Pokémon are in this group. Requiring 1,059,860 experience points for a Pokémon to reach level 100, it is the only experience group whose level 100 experience is not evenly divisible by 10,000.

The inflection point for this polynomial function is actually at level 4, not level 0. Thus, it actually takes more experience points to go from level 2 to 3 than it does to go from 4 to 5. In Generations I and II, this mislocation of the inflection point causes the experience underflow glitch. For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Medium Slow experience group.

Slow

File:Expcalc slow.png

The equation for the Slow experience group.

The final of the four Generation I experience groups, the Slow group features the highest amount of experience required for a Pokémon to reach level 100 in Generations I and II, and the second highest amount since then. Containing many rare, powerful, and legendary Pokémon, Pokémon in this group are typically very hard to raise; all pseudo-legendary Pokémon, by definition, are in this experience group. At level 100, a Pokémon in this experience group will have 1,250,000 experience points.

For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Slow experience group.

Fluctuating

File:Expcalc fluctuating.png

The equation for the Fluctuating experience group. At levels 15 and 36, both formulas return equal values.

The second experience group introduced in Generation III, and a direct opposite to the Erratic group, the Fluctuating experience group contains the Pokémon which grow the slowest of all, reaching level 100 with a whopping 1,640,000 experience points. It is also, unsurprisingly, the smallest of the experience groups, containing only 14 species. Pokémon within this group require the least amount of experience to grow from level 1, needing only 540 points to reach level 10, as compared to 560 for Medium Slow, the next lowest requirement. They also require the most experience points to go from level 90 to 100 - 517340 as compared to 338750 for Slow, the next highest. Like the Erratic function, the Fluctuating group's level-up equation is calculated in a piecewise fashion.

Also like the Erratic experience group, the Fluctuating group gets its name from the wildly fluctuating requirement for each level to go to the next level, from Level 36 to Level 100.

For a list of all Pokémon in this group, see Pokémon in the Fluctuating experience group.

Experience at each level

Below is a table; on the left side of the level is the minimum number of experience points required for a Pokémon to be at that level, and the amount of experience points a Pokémon of that level will have when caught from the wild; on the right is the number of experience points required to advance from the respective level to the next level.

Total experience							To next level
Erratic	Fast	Medium Fast	Medium Slow	Slow	Fluctu- ating	Level	Erratic	Fast	Medium Fast	Medium Slow	Slow	Fluctu- ating
0	0	0	0	0	0	1	15	6	8	9	10	4
15	6	8	9	10	4	2	37	15	19	48	23	9
52	21	27	57	33	13	3	70	30	37	39	47	19
122	51	64	96	80	32	4	115	49	61	39	76	33
237	100	125	135	156	65	5	169	72	91	44	114	47
406	172	216	179	270	112	6	231	102	127	57	158	66
637	274	343	236	428	178	7	305	135	169	78	212	98
942	409	512	314	640	276	8	384	174	217	105	271	117
1326	583	729	419	911	393	9	474	217	271	141	339	147
1800	800	1000	560	1250	540	10	569	264	331	182	413	205
2369	1064	1331	742	1663	745	11	672	318	397	231	497	222
3041	1382	1728	973	2160	967	12	781	375	469	288	586	263
3822	1757	2197	1261	2746	1230	13	897	438	547	351	684	361
4719	2195	2744	1612	3430	1591	14	1018	505	631	423	788	366
5737	2700	3375	2035	4218	1957	15	1144	576	721	500	902	500
6881	3276	4096	2535	5120	2457	16	1274	654	817	585	1021	589
8155	3930	4913	3120	6141	3046	17	1409	735	919	678	1149	686
9564	4665	5832	3798	7290	3732	18	1547	822	1027	777	1283	794
11111	5487	6859	4575	8573	4526	19	1689	913	1141	885	1427	914
12800	6400	8000	5460	10000	5440	20	1832	1008	1261	998	1576	1042
14632	7408	9261	6458	11576	6482	21	1978	1110	1387	1119	1734	1184
16610	8518	10648	7577	13310	7666	22	2127	1215	1519	1248	1898	1337
18737	9733	12167	8825	15208	9003	23	2275	1326	1657	1383	2072	1503
21012	11059	13824	10208	17280	10506	24	2425	1441	1801	1527	2251	1681
23437	12500	15625	11735	19531	12187	25	2575	1560	1951	1676	2439	1873
26012	14060	17576	13411	21970	14060	26	2725	1686	2107	1833	2633	2080
28737	15746	19683	15244	24603	16140	27	2873	1815	2269	1998	2837	2299
31610	17561	21952	17242	27440	18439	28	3022	1950	2437	2169	3046	2535
34632	19511	24389	19411	30486	20974	29	3168	2089	2611	2349	3264	2786
37800	21600	27000	21760	33750	23760	30	3311	2232	2791	2534	3488	3051
41111	23832	29791	24294	37238	26811	31	3453	2382	2977	2727	3722	3335
44564	26214	32768	27021	40960	30146	32	3591	2535	3169	2928	3961	3634
48155	28749	35937	29949	44921	33780	33	3726	2694	3367	3135	4209	3951
51881	31443	39304	33084	49130	37731	34	3856	2857	3571	3351	4463	4286
55737	34300	42875	36435	53593	42017	35	3982	3024	3781	3572	4727	4639
59719	37324	46656	40007	58320	46656	36	4103	3198	3997	3801	4996	3997
63822	40522	50653	43808	63316	50653	37	4219	3375	4219	4038	5274	5316
68041	43897	54872	47846	68590	55969	38	4328	3558	4447	4281	5558	4536
72369	47455	59319	52127	74148	60505	39	4431	3745	4681	4533	5852	6055
76800	51200	64000	56660	80000	66560	40	4526	3936	4921	4790	6151	5117
81326	55136	68921	61450	86151	71677	41	4616	4134	5167	5055	6459	6856
85942	59270	74088	66505	92610	78533	42	4695	4335	5419	5328	6773	5744
90637	63605	79507	71833	99383	84277	43	4769	4542	5677	5607	7097	7721
95406	68147	85184	77440	106480	91998	44	4831	4753	5941	5895	7426	6417
100237	72900	91125	83335	113906	98415	45	4885	4968	6211	6188	7764	8654
105122	77868	97336	89523	121670	107069	46	4930	5190	6487	6489	8108	7136
110052	83058	103823	96012	129778	114205	47	4963	5415	6769	6798	8462	9658
115015	88473	110592	102810	138240	123863	48	4986	5646	7057	7113	8821	7903
120001	94119	117649	109923	147061	131766	49	4999	5881	7351	7437	9189	10734
125000	100000	125000	117360	156250	142500	50	6324	6120	7651	7766	9563	8722
131324	106120	132651	125126	165813	151222	51	6471	6366	7957	8103	9947	11883
137795	112486	140608	133229	175760	163105	52	6615	6615	8269	8448	10336	9592
144410	119101	148877	141677	186096	172697	53	6755	6870	8587	8799	10734	13110
151165	125971	157464	150476	196830	185807	54	6891	7129	8911	9159	11138	10515
158056	133100	166375	159635	207968	196322	55	7023	7392	9241	9524	11552	14417
165079	140492	175616	169159	219520	210739	56	7150	7662	9577	9897	11971	11492
172229	148154	185193	179056	231491	222231	57	7274	7935	9919	10278	12399	15805
179503	156089	195112	189334	243890	238036	58	7391	8214	10267	10665	12833	12526
186894	164303	205379	199999	256723	250562	59	7506	8497	10621	11061	13277	17278
194400	172800	216000	211060	270000	267840	60	7613	8784	10981	11462	13726	13616
202013	181584	226981	222522	283726	281456	61	7715	9078	11347	11871	14184	18837
209728	190662	238328	234393	297910	300293	62	7812	9375	11719	12288	14648	14766
217540	200037	250047	246681	312558	315059	63	7903	9678	12097	12711	15122	20485
225443	209715	262144	259392	327680	335544	64	7988	9985	12481	13143	15601	15976
233431	219700	274625	272535	343281	351520	65	8065	10296	12871	13580	16089	22224
241496	229996	287496	286115	359370	373744	66	8137	10614	13267	14025	16583	17247
249633	240610	300763	300140	375953	390991	67	8201	10935	13669	14478	17087	24059
257834	251545	314432	314618	393040	415050	68	9572	11262	14077	14937	17596	18581
267406	262807	328509	329555	410636	433631	69	9052	11593	14491	15405	18114	25989
276458	274400	343000	344960	428750	459620	70	9870	11928	14911	15878	18638	19980
286328	286328	357911	360838	447388	479600	71	10030	12270	15337	16359	19172	28017
296358	298598	373248	377197	466560	507617	72	9409	12615	15769	16848	19711	21446
305767	311213	389017	394045	486271	529063	73	10307	12966	16207	17343	20259	30146
316074	324179	405224	411388	506530	559209	74	10457	13321	16651	17847	20813	22978
326531	337500	421875	429235	527343	582187	75	9724	13680	17101	18356	21377	32379
336255	351180	438976	447591	548720	614566	76	10710	14046	17557	18873	21946	24580
346965	365226	456533	466464	570666	639146	77	10847	14415	18019	19398	22524	34717
357812	379641	474552	485862	593190	673863	78	9995	14790	18487	19929	23108	26252
367807	394431	493039	505791	616298	700115	79	11073	15169	18961	20469	23702	37165
378880	409600	512000	526260	640000	737280	80	11197	15552	19441	21014	24301	27995
390077	425152	531441	547274	664301	765275	81	10216	15942	19927	21567	24909	39722
400293	441094	551368	568841	689210	804997	82	11393	16335	20419	22128	25523	29812
411686	457429	571787	590969	714733	834809	83	11504	16734	20917	22695	26147	42392
423190	474163	592704	613664	740880	877201	84	10382	17137	21421	23271	26776	31704
433572	491300	614125	636935	767656	908905	85	11667	17544	21931	23852	27414	45179
445239	508844	636056	660787	795070	954084	86	11762	17958	22447	24441	28058	33670
457001	526802	658503	685228	823128	987754	87	10488	18375	22969	25038	28712	48083
467489	545177	681472	710266	851840	1035837	88	11889	18798	23497	25641	29371	35715
479378	563975	704969	735907	881211	1071552	89	11968	19225	24031	26253	30039	51108
491346	583200	729000	762160	911250	1122660	90	10532	19656	24571	26870	30713	37839
501878	602856	753571	789030	941963	1160499	91	12056	20094	25117	27495	31397	54254
513934	622950	778688	816525	973360	1214753	92	12115	20535	25669	28128	32086	40043
526049	643485	804357	844653	1005446	1254796	93	10508	20982	26227	28767	32784	57526
536557	664467	830584	873420	1038230	1312322	94	12163	21433	26791	29415	33488	42330
548720	685900	857375	902835	1071718	1354652	95	12202	21888	27361	30068	34202	60925
560922	707788	884736	932903	1105920	1415577	96	10411	22350	27937	30729	34921	44699
571333	730138	912673	963632	1140841	1460276	97	12206	22815	28519	31398	35649	64455
583539	752953	941192	995030	1176490	1524731	98	8343	23286	29107	32073	36383	47153
591882	776239	970299	1027103	1212873	1571884	99	8118	23761	29701	32757	37127	68116
600000	800000	1000000	1059860	1250000	1640000	100	-	-	-	-	-	-

Experience gain in battle

Gaining experience in battle depends on the level and species of the Pokémon that was defeated in battle. The higher the level of a Pokémon is, the more experience points it yields. In Generation V, the amount of experience gained is dependent on both Pokémon's levels: the higher the defeated opponent's level is compared to the user, the more experience points the user will gain.

Several other things can affect the gain of experience. If more than one Pokémon is sent into battle, the gained experience calculated by the above calculation will be divided by how many were sent into battle. Note that in Generation V, the Pokémon's own level is taken into account after dividing experience, meaning lower level Pokémon will get more experience than higher level Pokémon.

The Lucky Egg, Exp. All and Exp. Share can also further affect the gain of experience. If the Exp. All is in the Bag in Generation I, all members of the player's party will gain experience based on how many there are, as if all had been sent into battle. In Generation VI, if the Exp. Share is turned on, the party members who participate earn 100% experience, while the other party members earn 50% experience. The Exp. Share and Lucky Egg, however, activate if held, with the Lucky Egg further multiplying experience gained by 1.5×, and the Exp. Share in Generations II-V automatically giving half of the experience from a battle to the holder, leaving the rest to be distributed among those that actually participated (this can be exploited to give a Pokémon 3/4 of the battle's experience).

Finally, in Generation V, the Pass Powers Exp. Point Power affects the amount of experience earned if it is active, by between 0.5× and 2× depending on the strength of the power.

Pokémon that faint do not gain any experience; however, if they are revived before the Pokémon they fought is defeated or switches out, they will still gain experience.

In Generation VI, experience can also be obtained after catching a wild Pokémon.

Gain formula

This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Check Gen VI. Make an image for the flat formula that fits Gen VI and replace the current image with it.

In the main Pokémon games, only two basic formulas have ever been used: a flat formula, where the opponent's level is not taken into account, and a scaled formula, where the difference between both opponents' levels affects the amount of experience the winner receives. Only Generation V games ever used the scaled formula. All other Generations have used the flat formula, although each Generation generally makes its own additions or tweaks to the previous mechanics.

The basic idea is that the maximum experience a Pokémon may "give" out after being defeated is directly proportional to the product of its level and its base experience (a value dependent on the Pokémon's species), as well as, in Generation V, to the difference in level between the player's Pokémon and the opponent Pokémon. In Generation VI, any Pokémon that participated in battle receives that maximum experience, and if Exp. Share was turned on, then all other Pokémon receive half of that value. Prior to Generation VI, that maximum value is evenly split among all Pokémon that participated in battle; however, (excluding Generation I - see next section) if any Pokémon was holding Exp. Share, then half of the maximum experience is reserved to be split among all Pokémon that were holding an Exp. Share, and the other half is split among those that were participating in battle. Finally, there are numerous experience bonuses that may be applied, such as if the Pokémon receiving experience was not originally owned by its current owner, or if they are holding a Lucky Egg.

The full flat and scaled formulas can be seen below on the right. For Generation VI, the flat formula shown below is further multiplied by factors p and f. Depending on the order of multiplication and where rounding down is done, these formulas may produce slightly different results than are seen in-game. For Generation I, the flat formula may give results that deviate from in-game values by as much as 3.

Note that if a Pokémon both participated in battle and was holding an Exp. Share - or, in Generation I, Exp. All is in the Bag - they actually receive experience both from participating in battle and from Exp. Share/Exp. All. Therefore, to arrive at their total experience, the formula must be evaluated both for a Pokémon that battled and for one that was holding Exp. Share, and those results must be summed. This does not apply in Generation VI, as Exp. Share works differently in those games.

File:ExpGainFormula.png

Flat formula for experience gain from battle (Generation I to IV*)

File:Delta exp gen5.png

Scaled formula for experience gain from battle (Generation V)

The variables in these formulas evaluate as follows (presented in alphabetical order)...

• a is equal to...
  • 1 if the fainted Pokémon is wild
  • 1.5 if the fainted Pokémon is owned by a Trainer
• b is the base experience yield of the fainted Pokémon's species, values for the current Generation listed here.
• e is equal to...
  • 1.5 if the winning Pokémon is holding a Lucky Egg
  • 1 otherwise.
• f is equal to...
  • 1.2 if the Pokémon has an Affection of two hearts or more
  • 1 otherwise
• L is the level of the fainted Pokémon.
• L_p is the level of the victorious Pokémon.
• p is equal to...
  • 1 if no Exp. Point Power (Pass Power^{Gen V} or O Power^{Gen VI}) is active
  • If Exp. Point Power [x] is active...
    • 0.5 for ↓↓↓, 0.66 for ↓↓, 0.8 for ↓, 1.2 for ↑, 1.5 for ↑↑, or 2 for ↑↑↑, S, or MAX
• s is equal to...
  • In Generation I...
    • If Exp. Share is not in the player's Bag...
      • The number of Pokémon that participated in the battle and have not fainted
    • If Exp. Share is in the player's Bag...
      • Twice the number of Pokémon that participated and have not fainted, when calculating the experience of a Pokémon that participated in battle
      • Twice the number of Pokémon that participated and have not fainted times the number of Pokémon in the player's party, when calculating the experience given by Exp. Share
  • In Generations II-V...
    • If no Pokémon in the party is holding an Exp. Share...
      • The number of Pokémon that participated in the battle and have not fainted
    • If at least one Pokémon in the party is holding an Exp. Share...
      • Twice the number of Pokémon that participated and have not fainted, when calculating the experience of a Pokémon that participated in battle
      • Twice the number of Pokémon holding an Exp. Share, when calculating the experience of a Pokémon holding Exp. Share
  • In Generation VI...
    • 1 when calculating the experience of a Pokémon that participated in battle
    • 2 when calculating the experience of a Pokémon that did not participate in battle and if Exp. Share is turned on
• t is equal to...
  • 1 if the winning Pokémon's current owner is its Original Trainer
  • 1.5 if the Pokémon was gained in a domestic trade
  • Generation IV+ only: 1.7 if the Pokémon was gained in an international trade

Apparent errors in Generation I

In Generation I, Exp. Share appears to be coded wrong. Rather than reserving half of the maximum experience for Pokémon that battled and half for Exp. Share to split among party members, the value that Exp. Share actually uses is the same experience that a Pokémon that participated in battle receives (before any trade bonus is applied). If only one Pokémon participated in battle, then this actually works the same as if half of the maximum experience had been reserved. However, if more than one Pokémon participated in battle, Exp. Share will distribute less experience than it should, such that all of the experience reported to have been gained from the battle will not equal the maximum experience that the defeated Pokémon should have given.

In addition, there are frequent cases when using more than one Pokémon in a battle where the calculated experience deviates by as much as three experience points from the experience received in-game, a deviance which cannot be accounted for by simple rounding errors. Likewise, the experience from Exp. Share may deviate from what is calculated by a similar amount. Whether this is a bug or due to factors that have not been accounted for is unknown.

Example (Generation II to IV)

An originally owned Skitty holding a Lucky Egg and an internationally traded Meowth have just defeated a Level 78 Trainer-owned Garchomp, with an originally owned Salamence in the winner's party holding an Exp. Share.

The base experience yield of a Garchomp is 218, meaning that a Level 78 Garchomp will normally yield 2429 experience points. Because the battle is a Trainer battle, this is multiplied by 1.5 to give 3643.

The Exp. Share will automatically give half the experience points to the Salamence, giving it 1821 experience points. The Skitty gets half of the remaining experience points, with a 1.5 multiplier because of the Lucky Egg. This means that the Skitty earns 1366 experience points.

The Meowth gets half of the remaining experience points, with a 1.7 multiplier because it was internationally traded. This means that the Meowth earns 1548 experience points.

Example (Generation V)

An internationally traded, level 55 Venusaur has just defeated a wild, level 62 Zekrom.

The base experience yield of Zekrom is 306, meaning that a level 62 Zekrom will normally yield 3794 experience points, when defeated by another Pokémon at level 62. However, this Venusaur is at level 55, meaning that it will yield 4338 experience points. The constant of 1 is added, giving 4339, and the international trade multiplies this by 1.7, meaning that this Zekrom will yield a total of 7376 experience points.

Experience underflow glitch

In Generation I and Generation II, level 1 Pokémon in the Medium Slow group were calculated to have -54 experience points. However, due to the use of unsigned integers, the game interpreted this value as 16,777,162 experience points. If a level 1 Pokémon with negative experience points completed a battle without gaining enough experience points to reach 0 or higher, the game, attempting to determine its level based on the number of experience points it had, would consider it to be at level 100 (having gone well over the amount required to reach this level), causing it to instantaneously jump to this level.

It is due to this bug that no level 1 Pokémon could be found in the wild without abusing a glitch or hacking the game in Generation I and Generation II. It is also for this reason that Pokémon hatched from Eggs at level 5 when Eggs were introduced in Generation II (although level 2-4 Pokémon could be found in the wild).

The glitch was fixed in Generation III, which uses a lookup table, rather than a formula, to determine experience requirements (this is also why the two new functions introduced in that generation are able to be piecewise functions). Despite this, Eggs still hatched at level 5, and the lowest level that Pokémon could be found at in the wild was still level 2. Generation IV finally featured the first instance of legitimate level 1 Pokémon, where Eggs hatch at level 1 and level 1 Pokémon can be found in the wild.

In Generation I

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In Generation II

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In the spin-off games

In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series

This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it.

Pokémon may also gain experience in the Mystery Dungeon series. After a Pokémon is defeated, each member of the team will gain the full share of experience points. The base amount of experience earned is floor((Base Experience) * (Level - 1) / 10) + (Base Experience).

If a Pokémon with experience is defeated using only regular attacks, the experience gain is only 50% (rounded down) of the base value. If at least one move was used against the foe (and, if it is an attack that deals damage, must deal at least 1 damage), or if the foe uses a move that targets itself or other enemy Pokémon, the experience gain is the full base value. If the qualifying attack is part of a linked move, the experience gain is 150% of the base value.

As with the main series of games, Pokémon acquiring enough experience points will level up. The amount needed differs from the main series games, and is defined differently for each Pokémon. It is not known if Pokémon can be grouped by experience growth as in the main games.

Unlike in the main games, Pokémon cannot evolve upon level up (or while in a dungeon in general), although level is a factor in determining whether or not they can evolve.

In the Pokémon Ranger series

In the Pokémon Ranger games, experience is acquired in an entirely different way from in the main Pokémon games. When a Pokémon is successfully captured using the Styler, the Styler will gain experience points, and a certain number of experience points will cause the Styler to level up. However, each Pokémon of the same species will yield exactly the same amount of experience points, as there is no concept of level in the Ranger games.

In Shadows of Almia, certain bonuses can be applied to the experience points gained under certain conditions, such as if the capture was made using only one line, or multiple Pokémon were captured at once.

Trivia

• The Pokémon with the highest base experience yield is Blissey, with a base yield of 608. The Pokémon with the lowest base experience yield are Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott, with a base yield of 28.
  • Before Generation V, the Pokémon with the lowest base experience yield was Magikarp with a yield of 20, and the Pokémon with the highest base experience yields were Arceus, Happiny, Chansey, and Blissey, with a yield of 255.
• The highest possible number of experience points that can be gained in a Single Battle is 457,970. This can be done by defeating a level 100 Blissey in a Trainer battle, using an internationally traded Pokémon at level 1 that is holding a Lucky Egg, with Exp. Point Power ↑↑↑, S or MAX active. This means that given these conditions, a Pokémon could technically advance from level 1 all the way to level 87 in a Single Battle, provided that it was in the Erratic experience group.
  • A Pokémon in the Fast experience group would advance to level 83.
  • A Pokémon in the Medium Fast experience group would advance to level 77.
  • A Pokémon in the Medium Slow experience group would advance to level 76.
  • A Pokémon in the Slow experience group would advance to level 71.
  • A Pokémon in the Fluctuating experience group would advance to level 69.
  • Before Generation V, the highest number of experience points it was possible to gain was 13,933. This could be done by defeating a level 100 Arceus, Happiny, Chansey, or Blissey in a Trainer battle, using an internationally traded Pokémon that is holding a Lucky Egg. This means that the most levels that a Pokémon could advance in a Single Battle is 25, if a level 1 Pokémon in the Medium Slow experience group defeated the level 100 Pokémon as mentioned above.
• The lowest possible number of experience points for a single Pokémon to obtain in a Single Battle is one. This can be done by defeating a wild level 1 Patrat, Purrloin, or any other Pokémon with a base experience yield lower than 100, using a level 99 Pokémon.
  • Before Generation V, this could be done by defeating a wild level 1 Magikarp and splitting the experience points between three battling Pokémon.
• The Medium Fast experience group is the only group not to have either the highest or the lowest total experience requirement at any level, being bounded by the Slow and Fast functions. The Medium Slow group is the only one to have both the highest and the lowest total experience requirement in at least one level before level 50.
• The Tao trio member the player has to catch—Reshiram^B or Zekrom^W—does not yield experience points, even if it is knocked out at Dragonspiral Tower due to having a full party and boxes upon initial encounter.
  • The same applies to Xerneas^X and Yveltal^Y.

This game mechanic article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.