Consider this, say your machamp will have 160 HP. That means he will get 80 energy units from taking damage regardless of the def. This means reducing the def will definitely reduce the TDO.
Since lower def will charge the energy a bit faster it can, in rare cases, increase the dps if it let you fire an extra charge move faster (you will not fire an extra charge because the energy gain depends on HP, but you might do it a bit faster which can matter in extreme cases). I think it's a gimmick.
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High defense vs. low defense
So the lower the defense of the Pokemon, the more damage it takes, charging up it's charge bar faster allowing it to get off that extra charge move pushing it ahead of a max defense mon. Or does it? Is there any truth to this? It seems gimmicky, and it is certainly counter-intuitive. I understand the theory, but would you also faint sooner, negating the higher energy gains?
The reason I ask is that I caught a level 23 Machop with 15 stamina, 15 attack, and 4 defense. I'm intrigued because this is the first time I've actually personally considered this low-defense strategy. Does anyone have any insight or personal experience with a Pokemon like this?
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When talking about the potential 15 difference of IVs, the effect is generally very small.
The place where it can be more noticeable is when comparing two pokemon of different species that have much larger differences in base stats. For example, Lapras vs Cloyster or Hariyama vs Machamp. Lapras and Hariyama have lower base defense and much higher HP so they can generate more energy throughout their life and use more charge moves.
This whole low defense thing was a fluke based on a specific Golem matchup. It turned out that in this matchup, a weaker defense Golem would still take the same total number of charged attacks before getting knocked out, but the extra energy from the extra damage done would allow it to get off one more Stone Edge before being knocked out, giving it a higher DPS. It's possible, but a very small probability event, and in most battles, sticking around longer (from higher defense) is more useful than a little extra energy (from a lower defense).
So the effect is real, but is probably buried in the noise of the randomness of battles, where raid bosses use the charged attack half the time once it has sufficient power.
It's a gimmick and most of the time there will be no gain.
If we look at sims against a maxed perfect Blissey, at levels 30, 35 and 40 your 4 defense Machamp would perform outright worse than a perfect one, winning slower and having less hp left.
Higher def IV is better in almost all cases and the few cases where low def IV would be beneficial are not worth it. It's very unlikely because you need to hit a breakpoint for incoming damage, half the breakpoints don't count for energy gain and then that very small amount of faster energy gain needs to translate to a charge move.
