What Level Does Electrike Evolve?
With a lightning-strewn coat, epic move progression, and three-type resistances, Electrike is by far one of the coolest gen III Pokémon, and it’s only made better by an absolutely ace evolution!
You can also typically pick one of these little thunder pooches up pretty early in most games, giving you a really strong squad member for tackling tougher opponents.
However, if you’re hoping for some swift evolutions to galvanize your team ASAP, we’re afraid you’re out of luck with Electrike. Before you bag one of these mint green power pups, here’s everything you need to know and add it to your top 6.
When Will Electrike Evolve?
Across all games since the introduction of gen III in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (some of our favorites), Elektrike evolves the moment it reaches level 26, so, as we were saying, if you were gunning for a quick, early-game evolution, Electrike isn’t the best option.
What Does Electrike Evolve Into?
Electrike evolves into the amazing Manectric, a much larger, much bluer electric dog Pokémon capable of dishing out some heavy special attack damage and being the third fastest non-legendary electric. You’re almost guaranteed the first swing!
Why Does Electrike Evolve At Level 26?
The important thing to note about Electrike is that it has a two-stage evolution line after the first evolution… that’s it. There will be no third evolution a la the three OG amigos Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.
When a Pokémon does have a three-stage evolutionary line, the first typically occurs around level 16, which is more attainable during the opening stages of your Pokémon adventure, but more importantly, this bridging evolution spaces progression out nice and evenly.
You won’t reach the third and final evolution until level 36, meaning the power level of your Pokémon scales with progression through the game. Regarding two-stage evolutionary lines, things are a little more complex.
Firstly, as it will be the only evolution, the jump in power and ability will be significantly greater than the shift when a 3-stage Pokémon hits the middle evolution stage.
So, to scale team power with progression, the evolution has to occur, later on, hence Electrike’s level 26 evolution.
But get this… although evolution is a great way to strengthen your Electrike and take your team to the next level, you may want to push back its already late evolution a little further.
The Merits Of Delaying Evolution
There used to be rumors a while back (we’re talking gen 1 era) that went a little like this… If you continuously canceled a Pokémon’s evolution, it would end up with much better stats when you finally did evolve it — The Pokémon equivalent of edging.
This concept was likely drawn from the anime series where unevolved Pokémon beat their corresponding evolutions numerous times. Still, sadly, the idea of pushing evolution back in the games didn’t have any beneficial effect when evolution did occur.
Stats always rise the same way regardless of when the evolution takes place in terms of level. That being said, there are some benefits to holding off a little while, especially in the case of Electrike:
- Easy EXP — As your Pokémon levels up, the impact of EXP rapidly dwindles, and when a Pokémon evolves, they need even more experience to reach higher levels. As such, it makes sense to preserve them in their current form to reach higher levels with less effort before finally making the change.
- Move Sets — Sometimes, Pokémon change significantly during evolution, so much so that they no longer have the same move sets. In other words, moves that your first-stage Pokémon would have learned had you delayed evolution may not be learned by the evolved form at any stage.
If said moves are crucial to your strategy (or you just like them), you’ll need to maintain your 1st-stage Pokémon until it learns them.
- Move Levels — A more common scenario is that the evolved Pokémon will have the same move set but won’t be able to learn more powerful moves until a much later level. For example, Bulbasaur can learn Solar Beam at level 36, but if you allow the natural evolutionary progression, you’ll wait until level 58 for Venusaur to learn the same move.
Rattata learning Super Fang way before Raticate is another prime example of this discrepancy in action.
How Will Delaying Evolution Impact My Electrike?
The primary benefit of keeping Electrike, well… Electrike, is that you’ll end up with a more diverse move set. Although Elektrike does learn a handful of purely electric moves, later on, it develops a pretty impressive roster of more physical attacks too.
Some of these attacks cannot be learned by Manectric, while others will be learned much later.
Does Manectric Have A Mega Evolution?
Remember when we said that Electrike follows a two-stage evolutionary line? While that is technically correct, when gen VI came around, certain Pokémon were granted the ability to Mega Evolve, and Manectric was one of them.
Mega Manectric was considered one of the very best mega evolutions of the generation!
What’s more, you don’t have to wait to mega-evolve Manectric. As soon as your Electrike evolves at level 26, as long as you have the Manectite handy, you can summon Mega Manectric immediately!
As mega evolutions are generationally specific and do not apply to subsequent games, we can’t categorize Electrike as a 3-stage Pokémon. Still, if you’re playing one of the older titles, Magnetic can assume this advanced third form momentarily.
Final Thoughts
Besides your starting Pokémon, no matter the game you’re playing, Electrike will likely be one of your best options when you grab some Poke balls and head into the tall grass. Still, you’ll have to spend some serious game hours evolving it into Manectric.
You may be willing to do so, but bear in mind that Manectric will appear in the wild later, saving you the hassle of training your Electrike up; however, as established earlier, there are some major benefits to sticking with Elektrike, even beyond level 26.
