Depends on availability. I live in a rocky/fiery biodome so I get a lot of geodudes, rhyhorns and growlithes (besides commons). I am lucky to oftenly find enough high-level rhyhorns and have enough candies to evolve a couple 1300+ CP every week, regardless of IVs. Whatever their attacks end up being, having an army of Rhydons ready for any situation has come in very handy for me. When it comes to rare spawns or hatches (at least for me) I prefer to hold on until I get something that is high enough in IVs until I decide to evolve it. Hence, I only have a 98% Tyranitar and an 84% Dragonite with legacy moves. All else is just filler. My highest level Rhydon is only 69% and it stands at 2963 CP which is good enough for me. Whatever gets the job done.
High level vs High IV?
Which you guys prefer and why?
- evolve level 20 Pokémon with great ivs and spend 75kdust+; or
- evolve medium/low ivs with high level (like level 28~30).
Answers
Stardust is the limiting factor for nearly everyone, so high level > high IV except in some cases e.g. 100% IV, favorite pokemon, sentimental value etc. It costs 75k dust and 66 candy to get a pokemon from 20 to level 30 (by level 30, a pokemon is 90% as strong as it will ever be, leveling 30-40 only gives you 10% more stats.) But if you catch a level 30 you wont have to spend any dust and only just the evolution cost in candy.
Plus, the stat gain between medium IVs and high IVs is very low, I believe between 50% and 100% you only see about a 5% gain in each stat. Unless you're trying to solo raids or develop a perfect team for PVP, IVs are overrrated and amount to little more than a carrot on a stick.
I have a 93.3% BP/HS machamp at level 20, but i'd need TMs and 75k dust to power him up to level 30. In the other hand i have a level 28 Machop caught in Santiago with ~45% ivs and 137 candies, its not 15A. Worth evolve this guy (and hope for C/CC or C/DP) and power him up to level 30 (like 19.5k dust)? i rlly dont want spend 75k dust on any Machamp and Machops are soo rare here. His CP at level 30 will be betwen 2277~2280 while a 100% one is 2476CP.
No, with Machamps being available in raids, I wouldn't ever evolve a machop, even a high level one. You could just as easily get a 93% machamp from a raid (that already has a good moveset) and save yourself the TMs and the 125 candy it costs to get from chop -> champ. When candy is what's stopping you from powering up a mon, you don't really want to waste 125 on the full line when that could mean nearly 2 near fully powered up Machamps from raids (66 candies to go from level 20 -> 30)
Only go with the higher level if you don't play very much
Or if you need a team to raid right now, like for birds. Initially it was only three weeks, so I just evolved 2 more lvl28-30 geodudes and now it feels like right decision. Normally I need a couple of months to collect extra 150 candies to power up high iv ones 20>30, and 2 lvl30 60-80 iv Golems are much better than 2 perfect ones at lvl20.
Any 125 candy evolution (geodude, gastly, abra, machop, etc) would require good IVs and decent level
It depends: if you want to spare some dust but swimming in candies why not to evolve high level 2-stage evolutions?
Or in case of non-raidable mons you could save candies by evolving high level catches.
IMO it rather depends on whether you are going to power up over 30, because it costs a lot, and boost is tiny, so it could be cheaper to achieve same stats with higher iv hatch, and way more satisfying.
