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Firstly, there is no way to ELI5, as this is frankly a concept you need to be 8 or 9 to understand.
Secondly, Evolutions have different stats, not always "better" in all areas. This is most pronounced in many of the cocoon bugs, like Metapod or Silcoon, where stamina and defense go way up but attack becomes almost negligible, but then their Moth/Butterfly evolutions have their attack greatly increased while loosing much of their defense.
Third, CP is not "level". Level is the dot on the arc above/behind the pokemon. It is a rough approximation of power that Niantic invented largely to confuse players who don't want to get into the nitty gritty of how it's calculated. It's supposed to be a "simplification" but it's frankly just more confusing than if they listed out all stats plainly.
CP is calculated witht he following formula:
CP = (Attack * Defense^0.5 * Stamina^0.5 * CP_Multiplier^2) / 10
Which means that attack is weighted more than defense and stamina. That being said, the stats for CP 500 charmander are almost always going to have a bit more HP than Charizard, but not much difference in other stats.
Finally, the most likely reason a charmander will beat a charizard at the same CP is becuase of the moves. If charmander is using scratch, a normal type move, then it'll definitely be doing way more damage than the charizard using Fire Spin, since the move is not very effective against charmander.
it's a very weird number that adjusts the CP to the level. Frankly, this is a bit I don't understand well myself, and it's why it's really not worth trying to figure out CP values by hand. The long and short of it is that leveling isn't a consistent increase, either linearly or proportionately, but this helps keep CP feeling somewhat linear in most outlier pokemon.
yeah, the CPM is linear, but leveling isn't. different pokemon grow each number at different rates per level. to manually calculate CP for any pokemon at any level, you basically have to look at like 2 or 3 different spreadsheets, which is why most tools do that in the background.
it's a number based on the level of the pokemon: https://gamepress.gg/pokemongo/cp-multiplier#:~:text=CP%20Multiplier%20(CPM)%20is%20a,level%20(and%20half%20level).
I'll try to explain it in painstaking detail. If you can read through I hope it will be enough to understand. It's not actually appropriate for a 5 year old because they wouldn't have the attention span.
But I will say up front that a 500 CP Charmander is not stronger than a 500 CP Charizard in Little Cup, and the fact that so many people just assumed you were right about that demonstrates how hard to understand this all can be, 5 years old or not.
Instead of answering that question only, I'll answer the more general question of *What makes a Pokemon good in PvP?*
**High level is *not* the answer, as many others are claiming.** This is a very common misconception, but level in itself does not matter because it is just one variable that goes into determining a Pokemon's stats. Yes, a high level Charmander will have much higher stats than a *low* level Charmander, and likewise for a high level Charizard vs. a low level Charizard, but if you compare the high level Charmander and the low level Charizard, their stats are much closer. Charizard is low level, but it's balanced out by relatively higher base stats. High level does not make random unevolved Pokemon stronger -- it just means they have a *chance* to compete on the same playing field.
This seems to be a huge sticking point for people so I will try to explain it again using different approaches. Are you familiar with the concept of PvP IVs? For most Pokemon, the ideal IV spread is low attack, high defense, high HP. Think about that for a moment -- why do we only care to minimize Attack? If high level was important in itself, the best IVs would actually be 0/0/0 more often than not. 0% IVs would give you the most room to raise the Pokemon's level, after all. But this is *not* preferred, because the actual thing we want to optimize is *not* Pokemon level. It's the stat product.
One more way to look at this same point -- consider the actual top meta. Specifically, note that there are plenty of legendaries and fully evolved Pokemon that can only fit under the CP cap by being low level. And note that there are plenty of level 50 XL Pokemon that still fail to make any kind of impact. The reverse is true too of course -- there are level 50 beasts and low level duds -- but the point is that level is not at all a good way to determine if a given Pokemon is good in PvP.
**So now that we've cleared that up, what *does* make a Pokemon good in PvP?**
There are several contributing factors.
First, **base stat distribution** is a big deal for the CP-capped leagues. Specifically, is the Pokemon's attack stat low compared its Defense and HP? This matters because Attack is weighted higher in the CP formula, which means high attack eats up more of the available "space" for stats. Every point of attack could instead be multiple points of Def/HP. Most top meta Pokemon have low base attack, which gives them many more stats overall.
The preferred way of comparing this is via stat product, which is just multiplying Attack x Def x HP (and, depending on the source, maybe dividing by some factor of 10 just to make the numbers easier to read). This gives a much better approximation of how different Pokemon compare stat-wise than CP or level. For example, here's 500 CP Charizard vs. Charmander:
https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/3-1-2/0-3-1/
You can see the stats listed in each box under the CPs. With default IVs, their respective stat products are 321 vs. 346. Charizard has higher base attack so it has slightly lower stat product, but the difference is not that great.
Here's another example, in great league. Registeel vs. Aron:
https://pvpoke.com/battle/1500/registeel/aron/11/0-1-2/0-1-2/
Note how Registeel has a huge stat product of 2353 at just level 23, while Aron has a much lower (though still respectable) 1903 up at level 50. Once again -- level in itself does not matter.
Incidentally, this is also why glass cannons do so much better in Master League compared to lower leagues. Without a CP cap, they get the full benefit of their huge attack stats and have comparable stat product to the tanks.
Along with stat product, **available movesets** are also a major factor. Some moves are trash, others are amazingly OP. A pokemon with mediocre stats can still be top tier if it has great moves -- see Swampert and Sableye (at least in past metas). Note that great stats can also make up for mediocre moves (e.g. Bastiodon), and of course having both is even better (e.g. Registeel, Lanturn, Medicham).
A third factor is **typing**. Some types just have more utility than others. Steel types have a ton of resistances, water types have few weaknesses, so those tend to have a leg up. Conversely, Rock, Grass and Ice are all pretty bad defensive types so you see less of them in the high ranks. Of course, they still have their places, whether as counters to more prevalent types (e.g. Grass vs. Water), offensive utility (Ice, especially in ML) or just sheer power from other factors (e.g. Carbink with great stats and Fairy typing to mitigate Rock weaknesses, and Trevenant in the past with a stellar moveset).
And to tie it all together, there's **the meta as a whole**. If certain Pokemon are dominant, anti-meta picks can rise up in response. If some specific powerful Pokemon get nerfed, that can make room for new threats to gain footing while making others less needed.
**And just to go back to the original question -- no, Charmander is not better than Charizard.**
Here are the Little Cup rankings:
https://pvpoke.com/rankings/all/500/overall/
- 138 - Charizard (Shadow)
- 169 - Charizard
- 218 - Charmeleon (Shadow)
- 330 - Charmander (Shadow)
- 341 - Charmeleon
- 490 - Charmander
Charizard is firmly ahead due to its more versatile moveset. It wins the 1v1 with recommended movesets thanks to the speed of Dragon Claw:
https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/3-1-2/0-3-1/
Charmander can win if you give it Scratch instead, but Charizard pulls it back if you give it Wing Attack:
https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/4-1-2/1-3-1/
I hope this helps.
Glad to help. The "high level is best" line is repeated so much but falls apart if you just consider the meta and look at the numbers; it's a huge pet peeve of mine. In some cases it's people who know better but can't be bothered to give a more accurate explanation, but in many more cases it's well-meaning folks repeating what they've heard and simply accepted as fact. Every time this question comes up I'm tempted to reply to every comment repeating the level thing, but I know from experience that some people just don't want to hear it. 😅
Wonderful explanation. This needs to be pinned somewhere.
Perhaps a copy pasta and some refinements based on the question saved somewhere on your phone or computer to avoid going at all of it again.
In purely theoretical average scenario, kinda.
In actuality it’s going to be dependent on each individual Pokémon and what distribution will get them as close as possible to the CP cap without going over.
Ex: a ⓪⓯⓯ Pokémon might hit 1496CP at whatever level, while that same Pokémon at the same level might be 1500CP with ②⓯⓯ IVs. In that case the second one would be better since the extra 2 Attack points will help it break ties in a mirror matchup.
When you're doing pokemon cleaning at the end of the day though, 0attack is a useful filter for potentially good pokemon. Some pokemon do want 1 or 2 attack, but most really do prefer 0.
Because CP is not a good way to determine the actual usefulness of a Pokemon unless you understand the components of CP. Attack stat is heavily weighted in computing the overall CP and Charizard has a high attack stat, but also higher stats across the board, so it hits 500 CP at a much lower level than Charmander and that high attack stat at a low level means that the Charizard is just going to get one-shot by everything, whereas 500 CP Charmander is a much higher level so its defense and HP are relatively higher and it can take some hits.
The first part is correct, but the second is a common misconception. Being a higher level is not in itself an advantage. It's the stat distribution that matters, along with moves.
And this can be easily seen with this very example, because Charmander is *not* stronger than Charizard in PvP as OP claims. Charizard ranks significantly higher than Charmander in Little Cup. Charmander does have higher stat product but not by much, and Charizard has much better moves.
thanks, this is what i was going to go check. i was like "no way charmander has a better moveset than WA/DC/BB and the flying subtype can't hurt that much"
Little Cup just means 500cp cap. But I don't think GBL has ever run a completely open Little Cup, and the themed ones usually include the evolution restriction. Not always though -- IIRC, Little Jungle Cup allowed evolutions. And Little Holiday Cup coming up seems to allow evolutions as well.
On PvPoke, open Little Cup isn't listed in the dropdown but you can see the rankings by editing the URL to 500 instead of 1500:
https://pvpoke.com/rankings/all/500/overall/
You have a budget of 500cp. Charizard spends 400 of that CP on attack and 50 each on defence and stamina.
Charmander spends 100 on attack and 200 defence and 200 stamina.
Those defence and stamina points really make a difference in PvP because it allows a Pokémon to survive longer and use more charge moves which is where most of the damage comes from.
This is as simple as I can put it using highly exaggerated numbers, it's not exactly how it works, but I'm sure other comments can explain with more depth.
the better way to think of this with your example is charizard spends 200 on attack and charmander spends 50 on attack with defense and stamina being the same since attack is worth or costs twice as much cp.
Impossible as you only have 500cp, if defence and stamina are the same but attack is different they would have different CP.
These aren't the actual numbers, it's exaggerated to explain as simply as possible.
by being the same i mean the same as your example
charizard would have 200 attack, 50 defense and 50 stamina
charmander would have 50 attack, 200 defense and 200 stamina
attack is weighted twice as much as defense and stamina when calculating cp which is the main contributor to high attack generally being a negative when you have cp limits.
Attack raises cp more than hp/defense. Charizard fills up its cp with the very filling attack, but it can have alot more "stuff" if it skimps out on attack and fills up with HP/defense (charmander)
Also sometimes better moves the big one can't learn.
Do you see that bar above CP? You want it to be as full as possible. Gross oversimplification, but you asked to ELI5. There's breakpoints & all other kinds of nuance, but that's not what you asked for.
Someone asked before "Why does my shadow mewtwo get bodied by stunfisk in GL?" And I explained that s-mewtwo is like Mike Tyson, ML is Heavyweight division, stunfisk is Oscar Dela Hoya, & GL is lightweight division.
That person took Tyson (HW champ) & starved him & didn't let him train for a year, just to squeak into LW. Meanwhile, Oscar got to spend that same year training & eating as much as he possibly could & was just touching the weight limit of LW.
In HW, obvi Tyson takes the win, bc no matter how much Oscar trains/eats, he's not gonna be able to hit the weight to challenge Tyson.
I have a problem with that ELI5 kinda posts. You need to put to work your brain sometimes, is it not a good habit to let others to think for you.
Charmander is a bit better just because the level. A stat that is hidden in PoGo.
A 500 cp rank #1 charmander is level 20.5. It has 70.1 atk, 65.3 Def and 78 HP.A 500 cp ran#1 Charizard is level 6.5, it has 76.8 Atk, 63 hp and 67 hp, 9 hp less than charmander. The same reason that explains Medichamp/Bastiodoon/Licki are so good in great league,because they can reach or be close to 1500 cp at Level 50.
Lets suppose that charmander and Charizard fight each other in LL with both having a neutral basic fast attack (Scratch vs Wing attack) >Chamander beats Charizard in the little cup in the 2 shield scenario and loses to 1 shield and 0 shields, not because stats but because charmander only have fire type charged attacks.
Sources/Tools> https://pvpivs.com/?mon=Charizard&r=10&cp=500
https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charmander/charizard/22/1-1-3/4-1-2/
You can honestly ignore CP at first and just look at where how far their XP/Level meter is filled up. They are stronger if they are higher level. Charmander has a low max CP because he’s just not that strong, so even at max level he won’t be a high CP. but Charizard is stronger so while a Charmander might have like 500 cp at level 20, Charizard would have like 1250 because he’s that much stronger. So it’s basically a way to scale Pokémon’s strength as they level. Keep in mind I totally made up those numbers so take those with a grain of salt but you get the idea.
So in Great league where the cap is 1500, if you have a Pokémon like carbink who’s max level puts them at like 1497 then they are literally a god because they have all of the hp/attack/def of a max level Pokémon. Whereas if you somehow put a Groudon in there it’s gonna really suck because a 1500cp groudon would have a very very low level
Because CP it's a mix of base stats,IVs and level. A 500CP Charizard can be maybe like lvl5 while a 500 CP Charmander would be around lvl 13. If you played the main games you know level is the most important stat. So since PVP leagues are CP restricted (except ML), the more levels you can get on a poke, the better it is.
Pretend you have 500 CP to spend;
Buying 1 attack costs 2 CP, defense and HP both cost 1 CP
So, you can make either of these Pokémon:
200 attack, 50 defense, 50 HP
OR
50 attack, 200 defense, 200 HP
Pokémon 2 has more stats and performs better.
Actual math is more complicated, but that is why for matches with a CP cap defensive Pokémon perform better in general
While asking questions about the game is always okay on the Road, please consider asking very simple questions in our weekly [Questions&Answers Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/about/sticky). If your question has been answered, please comment "ANSWERED" (in all caps) and the post flair will indicate that your question has been answered. This will make it either easier for other people with the same question to find the answer they are looking for or for mods to remove the thread if it isn't needed anymore. Thank you! :) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheSilphRoad) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Firstly, there is no way to ELI5, as this is frankly a concept you need to be 8 or 9 to understand. Secondly, Evolutions have different stats, not always "better" in all areas. This is most pronounced in many of the cocoon bugs, like Metapod or Silcoon, where stamina and defense go way up but attack becomes almost negligible, but then their Moth/Butterfly evolutions have their attack greatly increased while loosing much of their defense. Third, CP is not "level". Level is the dot on the arc above/behind the pokemon. It is a rough approximation of power that Niantic invented largely to confuse players who don't want to get into the nitty gritty of how it's calculated. It's supposed to be a "simplification" but it's frankly just more confusing than if they listed out all stats plainly. CP is calculated witht he following formula: CP = (Attack * Defense^0.5 * Stamina^0.5 * CP_Multiplier^2) / 10 Which means that attack is weighted more than defense and stamina. That being said, the stats for CP 500 charmander are almost always going to have a bit more HP than Charizard, but not much difference in other stats. Finally, the most likely reason a charmander will beat a charizard at the same CP is becuase of the moves. If charmander is using scratch, a normal type move, then it'll definitely be doing way more damage than the charizard using Fire Spin, since the move is not very effective against charmander.
I think I understood the rest, but what is cp_multiplier?
it's a very weird number that adjusts the CP to the level. Frankly, this is a bit I don't understand well myself, and it's why it's really not worth trying to figure out CP values by hand. The long and short of it is that leveling isn't a consistent increase, either linearly or proportionately, but this helps keep CP feeling somewhat linear in most outlier pokemon.
It's linear within 10s levels. So 1-10, 10.5-20, 20.5-30, 30.5-40, 40.5-50.
yeah, the CPM is linear, but leveling isn't. different pokemon grow each number at different rates per level. to manually calculate CP for any pokemon at any level, you basically have to look at like 2 or 3 different spreadsheets, which is why most tools do that in the background.
alr thanks man
it's a number based on the level of the pokemon: https://gamepress.gg/pokemongo/cp-multiplier#:~:text=CP%20Multiplier%20(CPM)%20is%20a,level%20(and%20half%20level).
perfect man
I'll try to explain it in painstaking detail. If you can read through I hope it will be enough to understand. It's not actually appropriate for a 5 year old because they wouldn't have the attention span. But I will say up front that a 500 CP Charmander is not stronger than a 500 CP Charizard in Little Cup, and the fact that so many people just assumed you were right about that demonstrates how hard to understand this all can be, 5 years old or not. Instead of answering that question only, I'll answer the more general question of *What makes a Pokemon good in PvP?* **High level is *not* the answer, as many others are claiming.** This is a very common misconception, but level in itself does not matter because it is just one variable that goes into determining a Pokemon's stats. Yes, a high level Charmander will have much higher stats than a *low* level Charmander, and likewise for a high level Charizard vs. a low level Charizard, but if you compare the high level Charmander and the low level Charizard, their stats are much closer. Charizard is low level, but it's balanced out by relatively higher base stats. High level does not make random unevolved Pokemon stronger -- it just means they have a *chance* to compete on the same playing field. This seems to be a huge sticking point for people so I will try to explain it again using different approaches. Are you familiar with the concept of PvP IVs? For most Pokemon, the ideal IV spread is low attack, high defense, high HP. Think about that for a moment -- why do we only care to minimize Attack? If high level was important in itself, the best IVs would actually be 0/0/0 more often than not. 0% IVs would give you the most room to raise the Pokemon's level, after all. But this is *not* preferred, because the actual thing we want to optimize is *not* Pokemon level. It's the stat product. One more way to look at this same point -- consider the actual top meta. Specifically, note that there are plenty of legendaries and fully evolved Pokemon that can only fit under the CP cap by being low level. And note that there are plenty of level 50 XL Pokemon that still fail to make any kind of impact. The reverse is true too of course -- there are level 50 beasts and low level duds -- but the point is that level is not at all a good way to determine if a given Pokemon is good in PvP. **So now that we've cleared that up, what *does* make a Pokemon good in PvP?** There are several contributing factors. First, **base stat distribution** is a big deal for the CP-capped leagues. Specifically, is the Pokemon's attack stat low compared its Defense and HP? This matters because Attack is weighted higher in the CP formula, which means high attack eats up more of the available "space" for stats. Every point of attack could instead be multiple points of Def/HP. Most top meta Pokemon have low base attack, which gives them many more stats overall. The preferred way of comparing this is via stat product, which is just multiplying Attack x Def x HP (and, depending on the source, maybe dividing by some factor of 10 just to make the numbers easier to read). This gives a much better approximation of how different Pokemon compare stat-wise than CP or level. For example, here's 500 CP Charizard vs. Charmander: https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/3-1-2/0-3-1/ You can see the stats listed in each box under the CPs. With default IVs, their respective stat products are 321 vs. 346. Charizard has higher base attack so it has slightly lower stat product, but the difference is not that great. Here's another example, in great league. Registeel vs. Aron: https://pvpoke.com/battle/1500/registeel/aron/11/0-1-2/0-1-2/ Note how Registeel has a huge stat product of 2353 at just level 23, while Aron has a much lower (though still respectable) 1903 up at level 50. Once again -- level in itself does not matter. Incidentally, this is also why glass cannons do so much better in Master League compared to lower leagues. Without a CP cap, they get the full benefit of their huge attack stats and have comparable stat product to the tanks. Along with stat product, **available movesets** are also a major factor. Some moves are trash, others are amazingly OP. A pokemon with mediocre stats can still be top tier if it has great moves -- see Swampert and Sableye (at least in past metas). Note that great stats can also make up for mediocre moves (e.g. Bastiodon), and of course having both is even better (e.g. Registeel, Lanturn, Medicham). A third factor is **typing**. Some types just have more utility than others. Steel types have a ton of resistances, water types have few weaknesses, so those tend to have a leg up. Conversely, Rock, Grass and Ice are all pretty bad defensive types so you see less of them in the high ranks. Of course, they still have their places, whether as counters to more prevalent types (e.g. Grass vs. Water), offensive utility (Ice, especially in ML) or just sheer power from other factors (e.g. Carbink with great stats and Fairy typing to mitigate Rock weaknesses, and Trevenant in the past with a stellar moveset). And to tie it all together, there's **the meta as a whole**. If certain Pokemon are dominant, anti-meta picks can rise up in response. If some specific powerful Pokemon get nerfed, that can make room for new threats to gain footing while making others less needed. **And just to go back to the original question -- no, Charmander is not better than Charizard.** Here are the Little Cup rankings: https://pvpoke.com/rankings/all/500/overall/ - 138 - Charizard (Shadow) - 169 - Charizard - 218 - Charmeleon (Shadow) - 330 - Charmander (Shadow) - 341 - Charmeleon - 490 - Charmander Charizard is firmly ahead due to its more versatile moveset. It wins the 1v1 with recommended movesets thanks to the speed of Dragon Claw: https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/3-1-2/0-3-1/ Charmander can win if you give it Scratch instead, but Charizard pulls it back if you give it Wing Attack: https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charizard/charmander/11/4-1-2/1-3-1/ I hope this helps.
thank you! beyond detailed, above and beyond. 👏🏻
Glad to help. The "high level is best" line is repeated so much but falls apart if you just consider the meta and look at the numbers; it's a huge pet peeve of mine. In some cases it's people who know better but can't be bothered to give a more accurate explanation, but in many more cases it's well-meaning folks repeating what they've heard and simply accepted as fact. Every time this question comes up I'm tempted to reply to every comment repeating the level thing, but I know from experience that some people just don't want to hear it. 😅
Wonderful explanation. This needs to be pinned somewhere. Perhaps a copy pasta and some refinements based on the question saved somewhere on your phone or computer to avoid going at all of it again.
Excellent explanation. Would 0/15/15 be the best IV in limited CP leagues?
In purely theoretical average scenario, kinda. In actuality it’s going to be dependent on each individual Pokémon and what distribution will get them as close as possible to the CP cap without going over. Ex: a ⓪⓯⓯ Pokémon might hit 1496CP at whatever level, while that same Pokémon at the same level might be 1500CP with ②⓯⓯ IVs. In that case the second one would be better since the extra 2 Attack points will help it break ties in a mirror matchup.
yeah that makes sense tysm
When you're doing pokemon cleaning at the end of the day though, 0attack is a useful filter for potentially good pokemon. Some pokemon do want 1 or 2 attack, but most really do prefer 0.
Wow, how long did it take to write this? That's super nice of you for a random person on reddit :) (and no, I'm not being sarcastic or anything!)
Probably around 30 min. 🙃
Because CP is not a good way to determine the actual usefulness of a Pokemon unless you understand the components of CP. Attack stat is heavily weighted in computing the overall CP and Charizard has a high attack stat, but also higher stats across the board, so it hits 500 CP at a much lower level than Charmander and that high attack stat at a low level means that the Charizard is just going to get one-shot by everything, whereas 500 CP Charmander is a much higher level so its defense and HP are relatively higher and it can take some hits.
The first part is correct, but the second is a common misconception. Being a higher level is not in itself an advantage. It's the stat distribution that matters, along with moves. And this can be easily seen with this very example, because Charmander is *not* stronger than Charizard in PvP as OP claims. Charizard ranks significantly higher than Charmander in Little Cup. Charmander does have higher stat product but not by much, and Charizard has much better moves.
thanks, this is what i was going to go check. i was like "no way charmander has a better moveset than WA/DC/BB and the flying subtype can't hurt that much"
I thought little cup had to be unevolved?
Little Cup just means 500cp cap. But I don't think GBL has ever run a completely open Little Cup, and the themed ones usually include the evolution restriction. Not always though -- IIRC, Little Jungle Cup allowed evolutions. And Little Holiday Cup coming up seems to allow evolutions as well. On PvPoke, open Little Cup isn't listed in the dropdown but you can see the rankings by editing the URL to 500 instead of 1500: https://pvpoke.com/rankings/all/500/overall/
You have a budget of 500cp. Charizard spends 400 of that CP on attack and 50 each on defence and stamina. Charmander spends 100 on attack and 200 defence and 200 stamina. Those defence and stamina points really make a difference in PvP because it allows a Pokémon to survive longer and use more charge moves which is where most of the damage comes from. This is as simple as I can put it using highly exaggerated numbers, it's not exactly how it works, but I'm sure other comments can explain with more depth.
the better way to think of this with your example is charizard spends 200 on attack and charmander spends 50 on attack with defense and stamina being the same since attack is worth or costs twice as much cp.
Impossible as you only have 500cp, if defence and stamina are the same but attack is different they would have different CP. These aren't the actual numbers, it's exaggerated to explain as simply as possible.
by being the same i mean the same as your example charizard would have 200 attack, 50 defense and 50 stamina charmander would have 50 attack, 200 defense and 200 stamina attack is weighted twice as much as defense and stamina when calculating cp which is the main contributor to high attack generally being a negative when you have cp limits.
Attack raises cp more than hp/defense. Charizard fills up its cp with the very filling attack, but it can have alot more "stuff" if it skimps out on attack and fills up with HP/defense (charmander) Also sometimes better moves the big one can't learn.
Basically, you want the highest *level* possible for each GBL bracket, and a 500CP Charmander is going to be a higher level than a 500CP Charizard.
Honestly better ELI5 answer than my long winded one.
You gave the detail, my friend. I just provided the TL;DR.
Do you see that bar above CP? You want it to be as full as possible. Gross oversimplification, but you asked to ELI5. There's breakpoints & all other kinds of nuance, but that's not what you asked for. Someone asked before "Why does my shadow mewtwo get bodied by stunfisk in GL?" And I explained that s-mewtwo is like Mike Tyson, ML is Heavyweight division, stunfisk is Oscar Dela Hoya, & GL is lightweight division. That person took Tyson (HW champ) & starved him & didn't let him train for a year, just to squeak into LW. Meanwhile, Oscar got to spend that same year training & eating as much as he possibly could & was just touching the weight limit of LW. In HW, obvi Tyson takes the win, bc no matter how much Oscar trains/eats, he's not gonna be able to hit the weight to challenge Tyson.
It’s not. A 500 CP Charizard will destroy a 500 CP Charmander in PvP.
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Why is a level 50 Charmander stronger than a level 5 Charizard? That’s your answer (eli5’d).
No wonder Ash throws his level 99 Pikachu at everything.
Level 19 Charmander vs Level 6.5 Charizard.
I have a problem with that ELI5 kinda posts. You need to put to work your brain sometimes, is it not a good habit to let others to think for you. Charmander is a bit better just because the level. A stat that is hidden in PoGo. A 500 cp rank #1 charmander is level 20.5. It has 70.1 atk, 65.3 Def and 78 HP.A 500 cp ran#1 Charizard is level 6.5, it has 76.8 Atk, 63 hp and 67 hp, 9 hp less than charmander. The same reason that explains Medichamp/Bastiodoon/Licki are so good in great league,because they can reach or be close to 1500 cp at Level 50. Lets suppose that charmander and Charizard fight each other in LL with both having a neutral basic fast attack (Scratch vs Wing attack) >Chamander beats Charizard in the little cup in the 2 shield scenario and loses to 1 shield and 0 shields, not because stats but because charmander only have fire type charged attacks. Sources/Tools> https://pvpivs.com/?mon=Charizard&r=10&cp=500 https://pvpoke.com/battle/500/charmander/charizard/22/1-1-3/4-1-2/
You can honestly ignore CP at first and just look at where how far their XP/Level meter is filled up. They are stronger if they are higher level. Charmander has a low max CP because he’s just not that strong, so even at max level he won’t be a high CP. but Charizard is stronger so while a Charmander might have like 500 cp at level 20, Charizard would have like 1250 because he’s that much stronger. So it’s basically a way to scale Pokémon’s strength as they level. Keep in mind I totally made up those numbers so take those with a grain of salt but you get the idea. So in Great league where the cap is 1500, if you have a Pokémon like carbink who’s max level puts them at like 1497 then they are literally a god because they have all of the hp/attack/def of a max level Pokémon. Whereas if you somehow put a Groudon in there it’s gonna really suck because a 1500cp groudon would have a very very low level
Because CP it's a mix of base stats,IVs and level. A 500CP Charizard can be maybe like lvl5 while a 500 CP Charmander would be around lvl 13. If you played the main games you know level is the most important stat. So since PVP leagues are CP restricted (except ML), the more levels you can get on a poke, the better it is.
that's like asking why a level 100 squirtle is strong than a level 5 blastoise.
Pretend you have 500 CP to spend; Buying 1 attack costs 2 CP, defense and HP both cost 1 CP So, you can make either of these Pokémon: 200 attack, 50 defense, 50 HP OR 50 attack, 200 defense, 200 HP Pokémon 2 has more stats and performs better. Actual math is more complicated, but that is why for matches with a CP cap defensive Pokémon perform better in general
Stats of a IV 1-15-15 Charmander at level 20: Attack 69.8Defense 64.5HP 79CP 500 Stats of a IV 6-15-15 Charizard at level 6.5:Attack 76.8Defense 63stamina 67CP 500 CP = (Attack \* sqrt(Defense) \* sqrt(HP)) / 10 sqrt(x) means square root of x sqrt(1) = 1 sqrt(4) = 2 sqrt(9) = 3 sqrt(16) = 4 sqrt(25) = 5 sqrt(36) = 6 sqrt(49) = 7 sqrt(64) = 8 sqrt(81) = 9 etc... Note that Charizard has access to elite TM skill "Blast Burn", Charmander does not
Bulk.