Typing

All Pokemons are categorized into types and a pokemon can have 2 types at the same time (So they don’t form an Equivalence Class)

Effectiveness

All typings take reduced damage from moves of some particular types, and are exceptionally vulnerable to moves of some other types.

For example, Fairy typed Pokemons takes 0.39x damage from dragon type moves, while fairy type moves themselves deal 1.60x damage to dragon typed pokemons

Note that this stacks up, if a Pokemon has two types at the same time. Plenty of Pokemons have two types, for example Dragonite as Dragonite/Flying types.

STAB

STAB stands for Same Type Attack Bonus, if the pokemon is of same type as the moves itself, the moves will deal 1.2x damage. For example, Salamence’s Outrage is a dragon-typed move, while Fire Blast is a fire-typed move, but salamence isn’t a fire-typed pokemon.

Base Stats

Base Stats are converted from the main series, and the formula is quite simple (but unfortunately too long to be listed here). There are only 3 stats in Pokemon Go: Attack, Defence and Stamina. The meaning of “Attack” is trivial, “Defence” measures the amount of damage a pokemon takes from a particular move, while “Stamina” is the amount of HP a Pokemon has (quite trivial also)

CP (Combat Power) is calculated using the three stats, with an emphasis on attack

IV

IV stands for Individual Value, and it’s a randomized value to distinguish the “Potential” of each pokemon. It consists of 3 integers from 0 to 15 corresponding to the three base stats, so (15/15/15) is perfect while (0/0/0) means the pokemon has little potential! The IV stats are added to the base stats to caluclate the final CP, so a perfect IV pokemon will have a higher (potentially a few hundred higher) CP than pokemons with 0 IV

PVE vs PVP

PVE only concerns raiding. Raiding is a group event where several trainers co-operate and defeat a “raid boss”, which is a pokemon with buffed HP stat, within a certain limited time. “Attack” is the most important stat, as speed is key in raiding (can get you more balls to catch and allows you to solo raid bosses). Certain types are more competitive than others, especially psychic and dragon, so unless your pokemon has incredible moves, an attack stat below 240 is unviable.

Check out my article on Pokemon Moves

PVP is quite complicated, but it’s important as it allows more pokemons to shine, such as Azumaril. There are numerous formats and numerous cups, but the most notable ones should be Great League, Ultra League, with a CP Cap of 1500, 2500 respectively, and of course the Master League, wih no CP restrictions. Lower IV can be a lot better in Great Leauge and Ultra Leauge, as CP formula favours attack, a lower attack stats means more defense and HP can be “packed” within the 1500/2500 cp limit. In Master Leagues you want Pokemons with max IV.

I’ll write an article regarding PVPs. It’s quite complicated and I don’t want to make an introductory page that long.

Mega Evolutions

Those are Strong Pokemons (Usually) that stay in the form for a few hours only (Usually 8 as I remember). You need to gain energy from raids to mega evolve once. Mega Evolutions also boosts certain attacks, so it’s beneficial to your raid-mates.