So I'm looking to power up a blissey for gym defending but I'm debating between these two, which one do you think I should do?
Choice 1: Blissey 1817 CP; 15A 11D 11HP
Choice 2: Chansey 626 CP; 15HP 15A 13D
Should I evolve the chansey to blissey then power up or just power up the blissey, or neither?
First thing I would do is check with my friends to see if they would trade me a Chancy or Blissey for a chance at a lucky one.
Second thing I would do is not power up either of these. Choice One is ok if it was lucky for have the Stardust cost. I wouldn't power it up at full stardust. Choice Two is great 96% but still that would be a huge cost to get to 40.
Just power up the Blissey if you don't have one powered up. If the Chansey was over 1000 CP then I would say evolve and save the dust but these two options will require candy and dust.
Edit: If you are an IV purest like so many are on this site then option 2. The only thing that truly defends gyms with Blissey is the GRB. IV's are not going to matter that significantly.
Because of the State Distrubution on Blissey, as long as it has 15 attack it's all good.
However the difference between catching up Chansey with better IVs to the Blissey is pretty small.
Level 20 Blissey to Level 40 = 248 Candy + 225,000 Dust
Level 15 Chansey to Level 40 = 318 Candy + 246,400 Dust
The dust difference is only about 10% more for a couple extra IV points. So for me, I'd do that.
BUT the candy cost is 70 more. Really depends on how much Candy you have. If you sitting over 300 and just want 1 Maxed defender = go for chansey. If you are more candy limited, go for the blissey since its lower candy.
I think a counterargument can be made that 0/15/15 Chansey or Blissey is better than 15/15/15 on defense simply because it takes longer to knock out a Pokemon that deals less damage. 3219 or 1469 always looks great in a gym, but since dealing damage is more of an inconvenience than something that impacts berry-capping (especially with Chansey, which has trouble KOing anything), maxed attack IVs might be a slight hindrance.
To the original question, both of those will be great defenders and you can't go wrong with either. 15-13-15 isn't an ideal stat distribution for a 96% Chansey/Blissey in my mind (15-15-13 preferable because that's the difference of 1 HP at level 40, or 13-15-15 by the argument above), but in practice it won't matter much. Unless you don't have a good Blissey and Chansey already, I'd probably hold off on powering either up because of the significant investment both require since there's always the chance of encountering a better one (not so impossible if you're on a Discord that reports Chansey quest locations as they're found).
For me, I already had a maxed Blissey and needed a good Chansey, so I powered up a 14-15-14 relatively quickly after getting one from a quest - effectively a 14-15-15 at level 40 because the HP is the same for 14 vs. 15 Stamina IV. I've since gotten a 15-15-13 from a quest that I'm making into a second maxed Blissey. There's no real rush for defenders for me, so the increased investment is worth the high IVs.
I've never found blissey much use as a defender, given everyone has armies of machamp ready, a better option would proabbly be something that resists fighting. But if you arent low on dust, i'd just power the second one up, could be useful for holding a gym before a raid if the first ones already in a gym
That isnt true, blissy isnt the only defender, a good defender is dependent upon what else is in the gym. I mean a full normal tank gym is a compelte joke aside from blissey (and even then, the other normal types go down so easily charge moves arent needed for some of them), but throw a gardevoir and a gyarados before and after any of the normal tanks, takes a lot longer to beat those, and yes blissey is a good defender, but a little planning and type balancing beats that, its a lot harder to beat a gym that one pokemon cant just steamroll through
So you'd fight a gardevoir, gyarados or a gengar with a machamp and that would take less time than a blissey?
Thats also not taking into account all the pokemon that have potential for defenders when gen IV comes out, tanky stat pokemon that arent weak to the same types as other tanks
What you seem to forget is that I don't need to go through all of the 6 pokemon in a row when taking a gym. I can take them all out one by one with the most optimal counters, which puts blissey head and shoulders above any other defender. Blissey is also by far the best recipient of golden razz berries, because it is probably the only defender that is tanky enough to make it possible to heal a gym for indefinite periods of time without hitting the berry limit against a single attacker using the most optimal counter (lvl 40 C/DP machamp in this case). I agree with you that combining resistances in gyms is a good idea, but ultimately it makes no difference against somebody who knows what they're doing.
Another problem with your type balancing argument is that, contrary to what you're suggesting, it does nothing to diminish the importance of Blissey as a defender. Why? Because any reasonable gym defender combination is bound to include blissey anyway, given how much harder it is to take down than any other defender. It's not as though we can't combine resistances with blissey in a gym - that's just not an argument. And I don't know why you are putting so much weight on the fact that it is annoying to attack gardevoir/gyarados/gengar with a machamp - only a doofus would do that anyway. People would either pick a counter, or, if they don't have one, at least a generalist.
If you stack a gym full of defenders that resist Machamp, people will just attack with something else and clear the gym much faster than they could if there was a Blissey.
The fact is that Blissey takes 50s to defeat with Machamp and most Machamp resistant defenders take 30s to defeat with a generalist that deals neutral damage. Blissey is the supreme defender and no amounts of Machamps will change that. I have 4 maxed Champs and Blissey is still the defender I least like to see.
Consider something else. You need ZH/DG in your blissey. Does yours already have it? Do you have enough TMs to get it in a new one? With this moveset either of them will be a great defender. After that, I would chose the cheapest.
The lucky chansey suggestion is pretty good. If you and your pokefriends have any trash chansey, try to get a lucky now and save a lot of stardust.
