I’m writing is to clarify something about the Combat Power (hereafter referred to as CP) measurement and make a suggestion how you make your recommendations on how to improve sub-par pokemon.

Suggestion:

Over the course of the show when there is a “Pick of the WEAK” segment there is inevitably a point at which the suggestion of raising the CP Cap of a pokemon.

My suggestion is that instead of saying:

(INSERT THE NAME OF A TERRIBLY WEAK POKEMON) needs a higher CP Cap.

You would say:

(INSERT THE NAME OF A TERRIBLY WEAK POKEMON) needs a higher (Insert name of Stat/Stats here).

The reason I say this is because CP isn’t a stat. Or really a thing at all.  CP is JUST a combination of all the Stats crunched through a formula.  In order to raise or lower it you have to raise or lower that pokemon’s base stats.

Attack is the stat that impacts CP the most, with Defense and Stamina thrown in with a much lower effect on the final number.

If you’re not up for a Poke-Science Math Lecture, you can pretend this post ended there

Here’s where it get’s Poke-Nerdy!

If you think back to the big CP change up back in Gen 1 there was a lot of Crying/Cheering because X pokemon got nerfed while Y pokemon got a huge buff.

Example:

Early“Pick of the WEAK” pokemon was Alakazam.  It was suggested the species was too weak and should maybe be given sporks instead of spoons.  Niantic listened and POOF, sporks changed the Alakazam’s CP cap from 1813 to a MASSIVE 2887.

One might say

“WOW! They raised it’s CP Cap by over ONE THOUSAND!”

One might more accurately say

“WOW! They raised it’s Base Attack from 186 to 271. It’s Base Defense from 152 to 194. It’s Base Stamina stayed the same at 110. That resulted in a CP Cap increase of 1074!”

Don’t think that the CP Cap increase was separate from the two base stats that increased. Think that the two stats that increased directly resulted in the CP Max increase.

I’ll preface the Maths with a shout out. Much credit to the fine poke-nerds at the /r/TheSilphRoad where I learned all this.

CP is just a number that is determined by pushing Pokemon stats and pokemon level through an arbitrary formula that Niantic came up with.  Here is that formula:

Definitions:

• Floor is a fancy way of saying drop everything after the decimal point.
• Attack/Defense/Stamina represent the base stat for a poke-type plus the IVs for the individual pokemon you are calculating for
• CP Mult… The cheat mode would be to just link you to the chart
  • https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/cp-multiplier
• If you really care about the hard math, check the Silph Road posts
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/4t7r4d/exact_pokemon_cp_formula/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemongodev/comments/4t7xb4/exact_cp_formula_from_stats_and_cpm_and_an_update/

Take for example from this week’s show.

Forretress

Whals mentioned the CP Cap of 2263.  Let’s Poke-Science this thing up to 11!

• Forretress
  • 161 Base Attack + 15 for Perfect IVs = 176
  • 242 Base Defense + 15 for Perfect IVs = 257
  • 150 Base Stamina + 15 for Perfect IVs = 165
  • Level 40 Pokemon = CP Multiplier^2 of 0.624574105806

Plugging that data into the formula above gives you:

Simple, right?

Now take the Tyranitar. Unquestionably a great pokemon with a CP Cap of 3670!

How does it get that great max CP?

• Tyranitar
  • 251 Base Attack + 15 for Perfect IVs = 266
  • 212 Base Defense + 15 for Perfect IVs = 227
  • 200 Base Stamina + 15 for Perfect IVs = 215
  • Level 40 Pokemon = CP Multiplier^2 of 0.624574105806

Trotting out the formula we get:

So that’s how CP is determined.  If you want to increase it, Attack is your biggest bang for the buck.  Defense and Stamina increase it to a MUCH lower extent, because they are in the formula as a square root of their actual value.

One last thing to consider is that an increase to Stamina is an increase to HP.  How it does this is via this formula:

(note that the CP Multiplier in THIS formula is NOT squared)

Using our two previous Poke-examples:

Hope you’re still awake.

Ron Fitzpatrick