What Is the Best Level to Evolve Your Nidorino to Nidoking?

Nidorino can be evolved to Nidoking with a Moon Stone, but the question naturally arises as to at what level this should be done. Generally, you’ll have a few spare Moonstones, so what is the best level to pull the trigger and evolve your Nidorino to Nidoking in Pokémon?

If you want any of Nidoran’s moves on Nidoking, a Moonstone will prevent the Nidoking from learning any natural moves and so get Nidoran to learn that move first. However Nidokings benefit from TMs best so you can evolve it immediately.

We’ll look at some reasons for and against evolving Nidorino early, as well as consider the best moves for Nidoran that he has to learn before becoming Nidoking.

Is There Any Reason Not To Evolve Nidorino?

To get your Nidorino to Nidoking, you need to use a Moon Stone on a Nidorino. This can be done outside battle at your convenience. If you use it during the battle or inside a dungeon it will be conusmed and disappear but no effect will be gained. Moonstone is so called “evolution stone” introduced in Generation II. In this case it can be used to evolve either Nidorina to Nidoqueen or Nidorino to Nidoqueen.

As usual, deciding when to evolve a Pokémon, you have to consider what you want out of the Pokémon. If you’re doing battle against other human players, you need to make sure you  have a strategy and design for what you want and build towards it.

In the case of when to evolve Nidorino, it is important to consider what moves it learns at levels before forcing the evolution using the Moon Stone.

Once you evolve Nidorino, he’ll stop learning moves by leveling up, so you’re trading off better moves for higher stats by evolving early. It is important to realize that Nidoking is much better off with TM moves rather than naturally-learned moves.

In Pokémon Sword and Shield, for example, there is no difference with move sets so you can evolve it with the Moon Stone immediately with no bad side-effects.

However, Pokémon that are evolved using a Moon Stone or other similar item immediately get stronger and so the sooner you evolve them the better.

What Level Should I Evolve Nidorino in Red?

Nidorino gets Focus Energy at 23, Fury Attack at 32, Horn Drill at 41 and Double Kick at 50.

None of these attacks are very good, so you don’t have to stick with a Nidorino for many levels just to get these.

However, if you evolve Nidorino before level 23, Nidoking will learn Thrash. Thrash is an incredibly good move that comes with a base power of 90, being one of the biggest damage dealers. It was later buffed to 120 but not in Red.

You can then swap Nidoking out to reset the confusion status that results from Thrash.

Otherwise, the strategy for using Nidorino in Red is much the same as other Pokémon titles, evolve it as soon as you get a Moonstone and then focus on tracking down the TMs that you need to build your ultimate Nidoking.

What Level Should I Evolve Nidorino to Nidoking?

It will depend heavily on what version of Pokémon you’re playing and what type of Pokémon you ultimately want to produce.

Most versions of Nidoking optimized for battling are going to use a combination of TMs and other moves learnt through the various NPCs, so it is not necessary to consider what moves you want your Nidoking to have while still leveling your Nidoran.

That means you can evolve it immediately once you’ve got a Nidorino in order to get the immediate stat boost and then teach it the moves you want it to have.

When Should I Evolve Nidorino BDSP?

Nidorino can learn many powerful moves at very high levels, so if you can’t get your hands on the appropriate moves or TMs, it’s important to not evolve it into Nidoking straight away. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

The only good moves worth considering at the higher levels for Nidoran are Toxic at level 50, Poison Jab at 64, and Earth Power at 71. The first is a status change move, Poison Jab is a physical attack with an aftereffect chance of poison, and Earth Power is a special attack.

Keep in mind that the hidden ability, Hustle, increases physical attacks by 50%, but drops accuracy to 80%. This can give a huge damage boost for moves like Dig, Facade, Shadow Claw and a wide range of moves into one hit kills.

And there you have a complete guide on how to manage your Nidorin and how to utilize everything at your disposal to turn it into Nidoking as as soon as possible.