Which to make a venasaur?
So i finally have enough candies to evolve a bulbasaur into a ivy and then a venasaur..
I'm lvl 29.I try to hold down 6 gyms each day to get bonus.. (team instinct so 10 gyms is out of the question haha) Got 710,000stardust.. Only 129 bulbasaur candies i will use up 125 during evolve.
Bulbasuar
A- CP 725, IV 68% (15/3/13)
B- CP 596, IV 89% (13/13/14)
So which would you evolve. A or B?
Answers
Defending gyms
IV>move set> cp
Cp raises higher with better IV's.
Higher IV = higher Cp = higher in gym
Attacking gyms
Moveset > IV> cp
If you can dodge a quick attack you can dodge a charge attack; in which case you'll outlast the AI regardless.
Boosting friendly gyms
CP>movset>IV
Having the optimal Pokémon to boost a friendly gym is the most efficient to saving items thus the right cp matters the most.
I can somewhat relate to your post, but in my opinion the move set is what matters most in the end.
Defending gyms
You are indirectly implying that CP is the eventually most important here. IV can attribute to a higher CP, but IVs alone won't give you a high CP.
Attacking gyms
Again, I don't see how IV > CP here. A 1500 CP (0% IV) pokemon will always do better than a 100 CP (100% IV) pokemon for any Pokemon. Making CP the driving factor.
Boosting friendly gyms
Move set is for me more important than CP. E.g., there is a 2100 CP flareon in the gym. I prefer to train it with a gold duck wg + hp of 1400 CP, rather than a gold duck with confusion + psychic havin 1300 CP.
Your point is still moot as that's clearly not the case here or in general. We all catch enough Pokémon to get rid of the ones with the lower cp AND bad IV's. A 100% Dragonite will hit 3500. And 0% will be 100's of cp lower. 31 is late game, and not knowing what's worth investing in and what isn't is your loss. (This means if we were the same lvl, evolve the same pokemon, with the same cp, and one had better IVs, it'd have higher cp.
As for gyms, yes, generally speaking everyone has their own playstyle. However, for defending, yes, IVs will give you higher cp as IVs determine how much of a boost you get per investment. The Machamps I evolved are a good example. The one with lower cp and better IVs jumped 62 cp higher than my high cp bad IV's one. What's worth 125 candies? The one with better IVs. It's a top tier pokemon like Venasaur with over 90%? B will pass A by who knows how much, probably more than my lower tier Machamps example.
Attacking is somewhat preferential but lets assume I have 3 1500 Arcanine, (and we all have plenty Arcanine I'm sure.) -if I have a 0/15/15 I can tank more hits and just dish out DPS (if I like). If I have a 15/0/15 or 15/15/0, it's probably best I dodge the charge moves at the least rather than waste hp and have to heal more often(plus use more resources) as gym battling is often time sensitive. If I have a fourth Arcanine with 15/0/0 I might as well cash it in for candy because there's no cushion for error or even the one hit it'll take before it switches out (50% of the time, for me usually cause of lag). Ultimately it can take on small Fry's but the better IV stat distribution, the more useful or potentially useless a pokemon is, regardless of moveset
As for attacking, again, straw man. I can still build up gyms with really low cp pokemon, especially now that I get 6. -Plus, that's a terrible example. Golduck gets stab with both, and it's clear that one moveset is better for defending and a different moveset is better for attacking.
TL'DR: you can control which pokemon you evolve, thus choose better IVs and get better CP. Moveset is 100% luck, changes EACH evolution regardless.
I disagree on your first point that all of us can catch enough Pokemon to have the luxury of only powering up the near perfect ones. I am myself living at the boarder of Rotterdam and, honestly, I barely ever encounter something else than Rattata, Pidgey and Weedle. Evenmore, I have only seen 4 wild Growlith in my entire journey.
To continue on this, I was extremely lucky to catch a wild Arcanine on my vacation in France having 62.2% IV having Fire Fang and Flamethrower. Now, I was patient enough to hatch enough eggs and evolve a "better" Growlith, only to let it come with the worst move set possible (Bite + Bulldozer). Regretted this decision really badly, it really felt like a waste of 50 candies. For me personally, similar stories have happened to many evolutions (gyarados, wigglytuff, vaporeon, poliwrath, slowbro, nidoking) as well which really suck when Pokemon not common in your area. From now on I won't simply take the risk anymore if I already have something which is quite decent but not perfect.
Therefore, as possibly in the OPs case, I wouldn't evolve the lower CP Bulbasaur straight away and really let it depend on the rarity of the Pokemon in his area. I don't think the difference in IVs offsets the "extra" CP gain it gets in evolving as you stated (which I must admit was not aware of - Machop example).
To come back to training gyms. I am basically the only team valor member fighting here against all kind of mystic players. If I don't train up a gym myself to a certain level, no one will bother putting his Pokemon in. I find training really time consuming and therefore prefer to train gyms with low CP Pokemons having a good move set to save me time. Anyway, I guess it is a matter of preference whether you look more into CP or move sets.
Finally, I would like to ask you your opinion about my Bulbasaur matter. Take in mind that starters (except for squirtle) are extremely rare in my town. Currently, I have two potential Bulbasaurs and I can only evolve one in the future.
1: CP 804, IV 86.7%
2: CP 610, IV 97.8%
Now which one would you evolve? I'd pick number 1 for the reason to save some candie and dust. Would you choose differently? I haven't made my final decision yet so perhaps you can change my mind. I would like to use it as both attacker and defender as my Victreebell is quite slow for the attacking part and doesn't have an optimal move set.
First of all, I stand corrected, you're absolutely right. I don't live in a rual area but nothing interesting spawns here (until the most recent update when jolteon and flareon started showing up.. >_>) but before then, outside of time constraints I had the luxury of going somwhere crowded where people play and lots of pokemon spawn (L.A. area of California) I kind of assumed everyone in rual areas got fed up and quit. I imagine it's only mostly true but for that I'm sorry.
First, personal experience, I hate Arcanince with bulldoze in gyms, they screw me up and catch me off guard. Second, while the move set is "garbage" it still resists lapas and ground is super effective against ice. Third, due to lapras bulkiness, It sometimes takes two Arcanine to wrestle it down even successfully doging charge attacks. So both your Arcanine are still useful.
As far as the wasted candies, I get it. I do have growlith common in my neighborhood but even travling to different areas, I don't see jiggly, clefy, gastly, or drowzee, and wasted candies feels worst than egg hatching in the early pokemon games because you could at least try again. Here, that's it, unless you find another one (or hatch it) your our of luck. So for your delimena, level is important.
Something I overlooked that I didn't know about because it's past level 30 is pokemon gain half cp from power ups after that point, so past level 30, boosting matters much much less. Your level and the level of your bulbasaur is something to take into consideration as the lower the bulbasaur the more it'd take to power up even with perfect IV's. That kinda blows the CP vs IV's, and Moveset out of the water.
After a bit of reading, the best advice I'd consider myself (I only have like 30-40 bulbasaur candy myself) is just to wait to find one close to your trainer level WITH good IV's so even if the moves suck, it'll still be strong. Plus, Venasaur is a tank, most of it's possible movesets will fall in at least one useful category, so less stress there.
Personally I'd rather have the more perfect pokemon ONLY if the investment would be worth it, afterall, it's a looooong way to level 40 and perfect pokemon are plenty rare. I personally only pick a few to invest in for gym placement and the rest I evolve or eventually replace. Beyond that, nothing that isn't out of nessessity.
TL'DR: still having patience when evolving I guess and for rare evolutions, even more patience and caution.
PS: there's an IV calc called pgoiv.com that'll give you a pretty good idea where you're CP will be when you fully evolve either pokemon, and where it could end if you powered it up. Might be worth checking out even if it's a rough estimate.
Yes i have but really only a couple attackers with good movesets from like 700cp to 1000cp
And gyms around me 1800-2000cp are in the top 3 spots so have only powered up like 6 defenders from 1800cp-2100cp. Don't need more than that at the moment because team instinct can't hold more than 6 gyms.. Haha
I'm just really patient i guess
My pick is A considering that Bulbasaur candies are quite rare in general and you would need about 25 candies to power up B to make it as strong in CP as A. Candies that could have been used to power up A as well.
Move sets are way more important than IVs and will influence your choice whether you want to power it up or not.
For the same reason I am going to evolve my 804 CP (86.7%) over the 610 CP (97.8%) Bulbasaur. With that amount of dust, story might have been different if candies are more common in your area.
Speaking from experience (and the numbers) I'd say to go with B.
If you want to see for yourself; evolve two easy to obtain pokemon with thee stages at about the same differences. One with lower CP and better IV's and one with much higher CP and low IV's (preferably similar to your bulbasaur.)
I have evolved several Pokémon with differences of 100-200 CP to have the one with lower CP and better IV's pull out ahead sometimes by a lot depending.
Small recent example:
679 machop evolved into 1418 machamp.
Iv's 73-75%
619 machop evolved into 1470 machamp
IV's 93%(15 atk/ 13 def/ 14 HP)
That's a 20% difference like your bulbasaur and mine came out 62 ahead after starting 60 below. That's 122 CP difference. Just my 3 cents.
Edit: just might add in regards to candy rarity. What's 6-10 candy in 4-5 +35 cp power ups (140-175) verse 125 candies to evolve a whole nother Bulbasaur. Plus, the odds are that it will be good for at least one job (atk or def gyms) is pretty high.
2nd one no doubt. A is useless.
You want either High IV bulbasaur to get a good defensive Venusaur (like A one, hopping for good movesets) of High CP bulbasaur to get a already High CP Venusaur ready for fighting without spending any candies/dust. For Attacking IV doesnt matter so a 800-900CP bulbasaur even with lower IV will be better than your B
You can also wait to reach 200-250 candies and see if you get a better one. Because for the moment you Venusaur would be useless, wainting for candies to power him up. 89% is good but not fantastic. Imagine you spend 125candies on this one and you get a 96% bulbasaur right after. I would wait
It all depends on what you want your venusaur to do... the "better choice" would definitely be B in the long run, because you'll be able to power it up further than you will if you choose A, but if you want to inmediately use it to hold gyms or attack them (because of a metagame call would be my guess), then probably A, and wait till you get enough candy to evolve B. Movesets are not a consideration here, because they'll be random no matter which one you choose.
Yeah, pretty much the case. Although, I know how hard it is to resist the urge to evolve that would be first time Dex entry. I'm not as high as OP but I have a 14/13/14 charmander at 534cp that I want evolve and use for gym battling. 91% but if I find a better one, I'll invest in that instead during late game closer to OP's lvl, but I'm pretty sure it'll do me better getting coins until I happen across that nicer one 500,000 exp later, y'know?
I'd vote neither. It appears "B" is a Level 20 and "A" is likely around 25. You are 29? Be patient.
Level 30 is a soft end game. Anything you evolve at Level 29, you have to think about taking to 30, after which power-ups become far less useful.
To bring A to Level 30, you'll need about 39 candies. To bring B to Level 30, you'll need about 68 candies...that's more than half of what you'll need to have a second one!
If you're not dying for a good grass Pokémon, I'd hold off until you find something decent at Level 28-30.
For me would depend on if you already have enough high cp pokemons to defend gyms.
If answer is yes:
I would go with B, if it comes with bad moveset you won't power up it, it will be just pokedex filler. If it comes with good moveset, congratz you have good pokemon to power up (set bulbasaur as your buddy and hurrayyy to grind candies).
If answer is no:
I would go with A, if it comes with bad moveset you won't power it up, but at least you have high cp pokemon to defend gyms. If it comes with good moveset you are most probably not going to power it up anyways, but still at least you have high cp defender which would be even tougher thanks to good moves.
