Evolve Magikarp Quest
I am currently at the "evolve a Magikarp" stage of the Mew quest and fortunately have a whopping 1,017 Magikarp candies because my luck with catching high IV Pokémon is atrocious and I have never caught anything good enough to evolve into a Gyarados. Recently however I caught this guy and I am wondering whether it's worth evolving:
Lvl. 24 | CP 143 | 86% | A: 14 | D: 12 | S: 13
I know I have plenty of candies to spare but part of me thinks I should wait until I find something with better IVs because then I can power it up with all those candies. Magikarps are neither common nor uncommon in my area but I've been playing since launch and so far this is the best one I've ever caught.
I also have higher level, weather boosted Magikarps, including one shiny, but those are in the 50 to 70% IV range. What would you recommend?
Answers
Evolve the shiny for now and don't power it up. It's a trophy.
You'll have over 200 candies leftover for AFTER your next evolve, so by the time you get one worth evolving (let's say 94% with 15 attack or better) you'll have no issue maxing it.
Win-win.
You can raid or do research to get the good Magikarp. No rush though, since you've already evolved the shiny. I mean, think about it. Once you finish maxing a perfect one, you're going to evolve the shiny aren't you?
Source: Was in the exact predicament (except only around 870 candy) and that's what I did...
Excellent advice from TTT. Dude, you have a shiny who could be a nice red trophy, and in addition with that CP it could even be a bit useful sometimes. It could be your #5 or #6 water attacker or dark attacker into focus blast Mewtwo. That is until you have a better candidate, in which case the shiny will go to retirement after having served you well.
I have 4 Kyogres, 3 of which are in the mid 70s to low 80s in terms of IVs and so remain at level 20 (including one shiny). The other one however is at 95%. I've powered that one up to level 30 so far and will probably max it out eventually depending on stardust and rare candy availability. I know I don't really NEED a Gyarados but I'd still like to have at least one really strong one in my arsenal, and plus I will need to evolve a Magikarp at some point to complete the Mew quest.
Evolve it to progress in the quest. While 14/12/13 isn't a 100%, it's not terrible, and the difference between that one and a perfect in battle will be very small. Plus, if you find a better one later, you'll have plenty of candy to evolve it too. Don't power it up until you NEED it.
I have the opposite problem, I have two strong Gyarados with WF/HP, and a few others with other moves. During the end of water week I caught a level 30 100% Karp (best possible on a non-rainy day). I also have plenty of Karp candy, over 1200. I'm waiting until dark forms are out and we know exactly what the deal with them is - I'd hate to pass on a perfect Mega Gyarados if they have to be evolved from the base form. Also, I have three great Kyogres (100%, 96% with 13 Stamina, and 93% with 12 stamina) that are all over level 30, and going up, so I'm good on water attackers.
To be honest, how many can actually tell if it is a good or bad IV mon they were fighting with? Be it in gyms or raids.
A year ago I was very picky what I leveled up. Now, not so much. Last winter I maxed out two IV 75% Lapras as a part of my Duo-Raquaza team. Went just fine.
It is only in very few shortmanned raids with small marginals and important breakpoints that IV actually matters.
IV is much more a vanity thing that anything else. But so are shinies, regionals and very much else ;-)
Evolve the Shiny, use it on Gym Defense so you can toss Berries at it and maybe get an extra Candy every now and again. Get that Mew Quest finished before Celebi is released! (Not that I expect that Celebi will REPLACE Mew, but this is Niantic we're talking about - I wouldn't want to take the chance that there's an error and Niantic deletes your Mew Quest progress by accident.)
I had a similar problem to you where my best Magikarp was Level 30, Attack/Stamina 15, but overall IV 71%, so I evolved it just to get out of the Magikarp part of the Mew Quest. Then in short order I've caught 10 Magikarp who are all over 90% IV's with Attack 15 each - one of which is a Level 35. (Now I'm stuck with 10 Magikarp in my inventory because I'm one of those idiots who can't bring himself to delete potentially useful Pokémon that have high IV's because, like yourself, I've gone long periods of time where I didn't get any high IV Pokémon from a species.)
It's all just "R"NG. You'll eventually get a good Magikarp - either through a Research Task, or a Wild Spawn, or a Raid. You've got enough candies to evolve that one when it comes, even after evolving one for the quest. Don't delay that quest just to get a better Magikarp.
