LogFAQs > #978982982

pokedude900 posted...

They vaguely allude to it. NPCs will say things like "two pokemon of the same level can have different stats" and "a trained pokemon is stronger than a newly caught one of the same level".

Ironically this caused even more confusion in my experience. I remember trying to explain to my friends that there's no benefit in deliberately trying to catch a lower level pokemon. But they heard of the the "stronger if you level it up on your own thing" and took it the wrong way. I remember trying to explain EVs when EVs were still a weird internet only nerd thing to know about and they were like "ok so that proves it's true and I should level them up on my own". And I'm like "NO - if you're going to do 100 battles with a level 5 caterpie or 100 battles with a level 4 caterpie they'll have the same EVs, one will just be a higher level at the end. You're still wasting your time!"

There was a similar misconception I'd heard friends say that Rare Candies are worse than leveling normally. And again, it's like, yes kind of. If you're going to not battle at all ever then the Rare Candy pokemon is worse than one that leveled up with battles. But if you battle the same number of times but one had Rare Candies along the way then it's the same exact thing except one will be a higher level in the end.