Hello, I've seen it mentioned that some people level up their Pokemon to level 30, and then stop. What's so special about level 30, that makes powering up beyond that useless/less interesting?
I'm currently level 33 but am maxing all my best Pokemon for which I have candy, even spending rare candy on my Salamence. I'm probably being stupid then? The Pokemon I'm talking about are Salamence, Flareon, Golem (100%), Gyarados, Espeon, some Machamps, Walrein, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Rhydon, Slowbro, Charizard (with Blast Burn), Hariyama, Beedrill (100%), Wailord (100%), Altaria (100%), Electabuzz and Gengar.
Any of those I should keep out of my maxing list? Or should I stop for all of them given they're all passed 30 already. I know the absence of Legendaries may seem conspicuous, but I can only do one raid a day (free-for-play) so enough candy for them is out of the question.
Assume great IVs and optimal moveset for each of them, though no legacy ones (no Shadow Claw Gengar :( )
Any Pokemon you are powering up irrationally perhaps?
Each power up beyond level 30 increases CP and stats by half as much as each power up below level 30, but the stardust cost increases significantly.
I just reached level 38 and have only maxed out a perfect Machamp.
Why would you spend Rare Candy on your Salamence if you do not have enough to power up your legendaries? Walk it instead,
I don't really have good legendaries right now (I started catching them only recently), apart from a Ho-Oh (which isn't meta relevant and has a low attack stat), Zapdos (15/10/15, low attack stat seems like a problem, 10/14/14 also feels not good enough) and a Latios (not meta relevant either). The Moltresses I caught are nothing to write home about either.
If I don't spend the Rare Candies now they just fill up my bag, so I thought why not spend them on Salamence. He's pseudo-legendary after all, and features on a lot of ideal counter lists.
Powering up after level 30 only yields half as much CP (so less addition to the pokemon's stats) while the powerup costs keep going up. That's why it's much less efficient to power up mons beyond level 30. When your team is strong enough you want to do it anyway because it's the only way you can get maximum strength for your pokemon.
At your level, I would only power up the truly exceptional mons and try to get weatherboosted level 35 pokemon to use as the bulk of my attacking teams. Much more efficient since you're investing basically just evolution candy to get competent attackers.
The level 30 rule was just based on a general math of diminishing returns for resource spent but that strategy was popular before a wider understanding of breakpoints. Use a break point calculator and power up the the level that will be most useful for the goals you have for raids. Many times going over level 30 is very much worth is if you reach a critical break point. If you always stop at level 30 you will never have the strongest mon. Personally I think it's better to have a handful of very strong mons as opposed to dozens of half ass ones.
I disagree here...the first step should be to assemble a competitive team of 6 against current legendaries to collect additional dmg balls. That does not mean that you should invest heavily into mons with low IVs or mons that will be surpassed later for sure, but a 89% or 91% 15a Machamp will always be useful and worth some dust to reach a breakpoint or lvl 30 even if a year later he won't be one of your top 6 Machamp. 6 Machamp at 30 will deal significantly more dmg than two at lvl 40 and 4 at 20.
I disagree with your disagree!
Your point: Go for most damage balls, for least dust/candy investment makes sense.
You have to think of Opportunity Cost and use some logic on how many of your attackers actually enter your typical raid. And you have to be complicated and think of the raids in your area
Dragonite vs Latios reaches a breakpoint at level 36 15 attack
Powering up from 30 to 36 is 90 Candy and 81k Dust.
Powering up some hatched level 20 dragonite to 30 is 66 Candy and 77500 dust.
If you won't use that 6th dragonite often, it's not as a good investment as powering up Dnite 1 that is used every raid.
In a nutshell:
Investing becomes a question on Cost vs Powerup factoring in marginal return and part of it is building pokemon 6 who doesn't get used as often vs pokemon 1who does
As others have mentioned it’s about diminished returns on powering up. Powering from lv20 to Lv 30 only takes 75kdust and 66 candies, to go from 30 to 36 is another 78k and 84 candies, but the last four levels to get to 40 take another 72k and 98 candies.
Powering only to 30 as a lower level player is a great strategy since you can quickly powerup a wide range of Pokémon and they will usually be about 70-85% effective. Allowing you to be competitive in nearly aspects all the game. Once you build out your fighting/defending fleet you can then start powering further. By that point you’ll have a much greater sense of how the game works, and what is useful, you’ll have better IV mons, etc and you can pick the very best for the more expensive power ups.
Example: I got two 15a/14/15 Ice Walreins. One at 30 and one at 23. When ice starts to matter I’ll bring the 2nd to 30 first. Then some future day when stardust falls from the sky I’ll inch both of those gradually higher.
Level 20 is step zero. Level 30 is step 1. Level 35 is step 2. Level 40 is step 7 or step 10, depending if candy is easy to obtain or RC is needed.
