Pokemon-go – a pokemon’s “Level” and its purpose

pokemon-go

I am using this IV calculator by the SilphRoad Community to compute IV values. Recently, I managed to have two Pinsirs with the same Perfect Percentage, as shown here:

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As you can see, both Pinsirs have 95.6% Perfect Value, and comparing their IV Values, they have 15-15 ATK, 14-15 DEF and 14-13 STA – not much of a difference I think? But I noticed the difference on the Pokemons' Level it is 26 to 20.5. The tooltip says:

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From that I assume that a Pokemon's level is proportion to how many times it takes to power up that Pokemon to reach its current CP. So is it just another description of a Pokemon with no application in battling them?

What is a pokemon's "Level" and it's purpose? I hope you can also explain the difference in my example – why is it 20.526?

Best Answer

This level indeed indicates the Combat Power of your Pokemon. Higher level means higher CP. Each "Power Up" of your Pokemon increases this level with 0.5, but it cannot be higher then 1.5 of your current trainer level. If you catch a Pokemon, the level is random, that is why there is a difference between the two.

For this particular example, take the Pinsir with the higher level, as it will cost you less Stardust and candy to power it up. The lower one will have the same Combat Power if the IV completely match. Keep in mind that the moveset does not have to be the same, and can be a big influence. Thanks @Aequitas for this contribution