Being an avid player of "Pokemon Go" definitely means more than being trigger happy in catching Pokemon and upgrading them. In fact, if a player does not know how to do things right, his account might end up worthless later game.
This means all that time playing and going around while hunting and levelling up will go down the drain. In order to end up with a "Pokemon Go" account that will intimidate fellow players, one has to know basic stats and their relevance such as combat points, base stats, IVs and levels.
First is Combat Points or CP. Eurogamer defines this as a measure of how strong a Pokemon will be in battle against another Pokemon and is actually comprised of several hidden stats combined. Every Pokemon has a set of Base Stats for attack, defense and stamina, and a hidden level and modifier for those base stats known as Individual Values of IVs.
IVs have been described as not only referring to hidden game stats, but is actually an unseen mechanic in the main Pokemon franchise. They are basically the individual genetic makeup of Pokemon, which dictate how different a Pokemon's stats are from their typical base values. The discovery of this hidden game mechanic now means that a player can catch a Pokemon and input some of its known stats such as CP and HP into an IV calculator and find out then and there how good a Pokemon actually is.
To put it otherwise, the number that appears on a Pokemon's CP is barely even the stat which dictates the Pokemon's value. It is barely enough to determine how such will fare in battle. An initially strong Raticate might later get vaporized in one blow by Pokemon who are more naturally strong.
Lastly, there is the Pokemon Level, which is indicative of how hard a certain Pokemon has been training. While some Dragonairs are stronger than others, a lot might have caught up with hard training. Raising a Pokemon's Level is very basic and can be done each time a player uses the Power Up function, the Pokemon gets stronger by half a level. It has to be noted however that Level always caps out at 1.5 levels above the Trainer Level at most, but is can still increase alongside the Trainer Level over time.
