You might feel accomplished and excited to get your favourite legendary Pokemon after a sweaty 5 star raid. You feel a tad disappointed that the CP might be low and want to power it up, but you realize you don’t have a lot of candy to do so. We’ve all been there.
Walking your Rayquaza for 20 KM for a single candy doesn’t feel very efficient either, or maybe farming Rayquaza raids just isn’t feasible for you all the time. This guide is put together to help you get started on finding the most efficient ways to level up your legendary Pokemon in Pokemon Go.
Farming rare candies

Not everyone realizes how important rare candy stacks are when it ends up sitting buried in your item bag for ages. Rare candy can be applied for any Pokemon of your choosing. You don’t have to worry about your Pokemon being consumed to make the candy. Always save up your rare candies so you can buff up your favourite legendaries.
Rare candies can be obtained in a few ways. You can earn them from raids as rewards and sometimes can get them from event research. If you are lucky, you might be able to earn through scanned field research at Pokestops too.
My personal favourite method to get rare candies is trying my luck in the Go Battle League. Finding your team (meta picks or what works for you) might take some experimentation for each league entered. However, it is a reliable way of earning rare candies from regular and premium rewards once you get a feel for PvP with enough wins. Just remember that there is a cap for 5 tries a day.
Raids

You can earn candy by completing raids that feature your legendary Pokemon you are after. This might not be the most efficient way but it still a dependable especially if you stacked up remote raid passes and have usable raid passes.
Catching any Pokemon will always net you candies and it is the same for legendaries. Just one helpful tip: if you are lucky to find a shiny Pokemon in a raid, just use a silver pinap on it since you are already guaranteed to catch it on your first throw!
Special events

Some of these instances will require a bit of luck and some planning. Pokemon Go will put out events that can halve candy walking distance sometimes, pair this up with a poffin and all of a sudden you just need to walk 5 KM instead of 20 KM for the candy! Don’t forget that once you swap your buddy out, you won’t have the same friendship perks with your new buddy. You can only swap buddies 20 times a day also.
Sometimes (not often) there will be limited time research that will have a legendary pokemon as a reward. If your legendary Pokemon gets featured as the catch reward, don’t forget to bring extra ultra balls and some silver pinaps into the battle. This isn’t really an efficient way to get candies since it’s luck-based – saving those rare candy stacks and battling in raids is still the way to go.