Ahoy, a while ago Niantic introduced Mega Levels. I had a post about that which you can find here: @athunderstruck/mega-evolution-update-with-a-mega-moment-event
Since then I have been Mega Evolving some of my already Mega Evolved Pokémon on an almost daily basis to get their Mega Levels up. This includes the Mega Pokémon I made during that post about it.
My first two Pokémon that reached Mega Level 2 were Mega Venusaur and Mega Beedrill.
At Mega Level 2 the Mega Evolution rest period goes from 7-days to 5-days. This doesn't mean you can't Mega Evolve it before the period is up. They just don't require Mega Energy anymore after the cooldown period is finished. And before that the required Mega Energy slowly goes down as the cooldown goes down.
This level also unlocks Great Candy XL Chance and Catch XP Bonus. For the additional chance for Candy XL there aren't any percentages displayed here. But in my blog post about the Magikarp Spotlight Hour I have the stats of the XL Candy I got from catching and transferring Magikarp from that Spotlight Hour. @athunderstruck/magikarp-spotlight-hour-with-mega-level-2-bonuses
The Catch XP Bonus is a flat +50 XP. Which can add up quite a bit during events and spotlight hours.
Mega Charizard Y registry
I've always been Mega Evolving my Charizard to Mega Charizard X, because it's from the Community Day where it got a Dragon-type Fast Attack being Dragon Breath. Since Mega Charizard X is a Fire- and Dragon-type Pokémon I have always Mega Evolved it to that one. I'm still waiting until Charizard can learn Blast Burn again before making one that I can use for Mega Charizard Y.
However, that doesn't stop me from making this Charizard into Mega Charizard Y as well! So I decided for its final (almost) daily Mega Evolution I would evolve it to Mega Charizard Y. Here is its Mega Pokédex registry.
Right now I don't have any Flying-type Mega Pokémon. But since Charizard can Mega Evolve into X and Y and that Charizard shares its Mega Level across both I decided to evolve it. This way if I need a Flying-type Mega Pokémon I can use this Charizard for now! While I wait until I can get Blast Burn on another Charizard from evolving Charmeleon. And while I wait for Pidgeot to get its Elite Attack again too.
Mega Level 3
Now all the Pokémon that I was already trying to Mega Evolve have finally reached Mega Level 3. This took a while, and also a lot of walking! Because I eventually ended up having a shortage of Gengar, Slowbro, Lopunny and Altaria Mega Energy. So I had to switch between some of them daily to walk with them and get more Mega Energy. Of course I could've just waited for the 5-day rest period to be over, but I wanted to rush these 11 to Mega Level 3 as quickly as possible. The 11 Pokémon I have at Mega Level 3 now cover a lot of the types. Not all of them, so I won't be able to always use them. Such as Rock-types I don't have one for yet, but some of them have dual-types and then I could get it boosted with the other type.
Here is a screenshot of the Mega Level 3 unlocks and bonus.
Enhanced Catch Candy Bonus. Now instead of getting +1 Candy of the same-type as your active Mega Pokémon, it will be +2 Candy. As you can see in the screenshot. Niantic did just do another update which doesn't show the +2 above the Candy anymore. In the overview you'll now see the 3 Candy, then it adds the Mega Icon above it and you see the candy go up by 2.
3-day Mega Evolution rest period means it's now quicker to be able to Mega Evolve without the use of Energy. In combination with Massively Reduced Mega Energy cost it's now really cheap to Mega Evolve Pokémon!
Excellent Candy XL Chance means an even higher chance to get XL Candy for catching same-type Pokémon. In the screenshot I caught a random Rowlett and got an XL Candy. I'll try to get stats during Spotlight Hours in June to see how many XL Candy I get each Spotlight Hour with an active Mega Pokémon. I didn't track the stats today with Pikipek's Spotlight Hour.
Enhanced Catch XP bonus. At Mega Level 2 the bonus was +50 XP. Now at Mega Level 3 it's +100 XP. Which you can see in the screenshot above where it says "Active Mega-Evolution bonus 100 XP". This isn't a lot of XP, but if you're catching a lot of the same-type during an event this additional bonus XP can quickly add up!
Comparisons
At Mega Level 1 my Venusaur required 40 Mega Energy to Mega Evolve. Now at Level 3 it only requires 11 after having just Mega Evolved it and Mega Evolving a different Pokémon. So I assume after the natural 8 hour Mega Active decay it'll be 10.
Mega Beedrill at level 1 required 20 Mega Energy, now at Level 3 it's 6 Mega Energy and after the natural decay it should be 5.
Have you gotten some Mega Pokémon to Level 2 and or 3?