What does the semi-circular bar behind a Pokemon mean?

Question

When inspecting a Pokemon I've captured, some have "progress" made on the bar behind the Pokemon's portrait, however some do not. For example, I have four Drowzee - at 12, 13, 14 and 72 CP. The one with 72 CP has over half of the bar filled, while the other three do not have any of the bar filled.

Now I also have a Rattata at 35 CP, who has a similar amount of progress made on the bar - even though it as it a significantly lower CP.

Since the bar does not appear to be proportionate to a Pokemon's CP (contrary to comments), what does this bar mean, how do I fill it, and what happens when it fills up?

Answer 1

The bar above a Pokemon represents their CP in a relative range, for that specific species.

The lower end of this bar represents some (still unknown) minimum value for a single species. The higher end of this bar represents the maximum CP this Pokemon can have at your current Trainer level.

For example, Rattatas are rather weak, therefore their CP range is a lot smaller than that of a Drowzee, which explains the bar difference you are seeing.

You may fill the bar up by training your Pokemon. Note that absolutely nothing happens to the Pokemon when you fill the bar -- you've just reached the Pokemon's current CP cap.

Answer 2

The bar behind the Pokemon represents the Pokemons CP out of the total available CP for that Pokemon.

Increasing the CP level of a pokemon will make it stronger.

From the following page http://gameranx.com/features/id/63505/article/pokemon-go-essential-tips-tricks-answers-to-your-questions/

Once you’ve got a Pokemon, you’ll want to power them up or evolve them, right? Pokemon evolve based on their CP level. CP level is the most important stat for a Pokemon — weight doesn’t seem to affect things at all — and there’s only one way to get more CP. Feeding Pokemon Candy or Stardust is how you’re going to raise their CP, and there are a few ways to get these valuable items:

• Transferring duplicate Pokemon to the Professor
• Rewards at Pokestops
• In-App purchases

CP isn’t raised through fighting in Pokemon GO. This game is all about getting those items — grabbing identical Pokemon to your favorites will provide Poke-specific candies.

Answer 3

Though the other answers may be correct in terms of the info they provide, they miss out on the part that causes your confusion. The bar's 'progress' does indeed represent a percentage, when a pokemon's CP is maxed out (for that level), the bar will be full. But, for some reason, below a certain percentage (I think it's 15% or so), the bar does not fill at all, misleading the player about the max CP the pokemon would have. So, because three Drowzees have 12, 13 and 14 CP, the bar doesn't bother to fill up, making it seem as if they're still at a very low percentage.

In short, it's a bug.

Answer 4

Its most likey a cap of the cp the pokemon can have, so some pokemon could be better then others on there max potential. Seems to be your lvl effects max cp.

Answer 5

I think that bar isn't exactly what everyone thinks it is. I caught two magikarps at level 19 both were 10 cp, one had no percent of the bar full, the other had I'd say 15 percent of the bar full. I think a higher cp with a lower bar percentage means you have a better Pokemon as opposed to what everyone says which is you want both a higher bar percentage and cp. if I level the Pokemon that has no percent of his bar filled by the time he gets to the Pokemon with 15% of his bar already filled he's going to have something like 20-25 cp. and more health ( both the 0% and 15% have 10 hp) new to this forum thing so don't know how to post screens guess I can email them if someone wants verification I'll wait to level just in case.

Answer 6

@adam S That arching bar over their heads, means that it's max potential when leveling. Like if you had two exact pokemon. Like two ratata's at the same CP, but then one has an arch mostly full, compared to one that is half full. Then you can upgrade the one with more room on the bar, better. So at the end of leveling up both of them, the one with the half bar should have a higher CP. If I am understanding the game correctly.

Answer 7

Essentially, to gain the most power out of a Pokemon, you want to fill the cp bar before evolving. The bar represents that max cp for that Pokemon in that stage of the evolution process. When evolved the "maximum cp" range will change but the current cp amount will stay the same. So, power up Pokemon as much as possible before evolving in order to reach maximum cp. this tactic was used in many of the previous Pokemon games as prolonging a pokemons evolution as much as possible.

Answer 8

Just want to say that it can't be the max cp for your trainer level. I had an ekans I was leveling, and before the bar was maxed, the game told me I couldn't continue leveling at my current level.