How many unique Pokemon are there in Pokemon GO?
I noticed that you can upgrade your Pokemon storage, to hold more Pokemon. The base amount is 250.
This opens 2 questions:
- How many unique Pokemon are there?
- If there is less than 250, is there any point to having more than 1 of any given Pokemon?
How many unique Pokemon are there?
Please see the most up-to-date and continually updated answer to If I start now, can I catch every Pokémon in Pokémon Go?
If there is less than 250, is there any point to having more than 1 of any given Pokemon?
Candy
In order to power up your Pokemon and evolve, you need candy. Candy is one of two main resources involved with powering up, evolving, and gaining a secondary charge move.
Catching provides candy based on the evolution stage:
- 3 candy for base stage
- 5 candy for second stage
- 10 candy for third stage
Raiding
Since the release of Pokemon Go, raiding has become one of the major aspect of the games. While batting the raid boss, having multiple of the same Pokemon can provide a boost when it comes to exploiting type advantage (e.g. 6 Aura-Sphere Lucarios vs Tyranitar)
PvP
Pokemon Go has PvP battle leagues, all of which have different thresholds of allowed CP. There are many top-meta Pokemon, such as Registeel and Swampert, which perform well in various leagues. In PvP, one benefit to having multiple of the same Pokemon is to have a variety of CP ranges to have one in each league.
When you assign a pokemon to a gym, that pokemon stays there until it is unseated; you won't be able to assign it to a different gym, or use it when attacking rival team gyms. As a result it may be useful to have several of the same pokemon just so you have spares you can use in attacks or to assign to multiple gyms.
In addition to the current Pokemon (145 at the time of the question: the original Pokedex of 151 minus Ditto, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mew and Mewtwo), there are other reasons to catch multiple of the same type:
Different Move Sets: with the different moves on each Pokemon of the same type you will run into some that will more effectively counter certain Pokemon. These moves only change when evolved but aren't guaranteed to.
Busy At Gyms: if you leave a Pokemon to defend a gym it is gone to you until it is kicked out. Here depending on movesets having a back up is a good idea. It may not be 100% necessary, depending on the CP and movesets of your other Pokemon
Candy: catching a Pokemon gives 3 candy of the base for a Pokemon I.e. Pidgey gives 3 Pidgey candy pidgeot also will give 3 Pidgey candies. Transferring a Pokemon to the professor will give 1 of base type.
It takes 1 candy to power up the CP and 12-50 to evolve.