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Another dilema...

I know that a lot of people are probably asking similar questions but each case is different so I wanted some advice regards Dragonite.

Currently I have 2 Dragonites, 1 96% IV with DB/HB currently maxed to my level (34) and another one 98%IV but only level 20 (evolved sometime ago), with SW/DP, a pretty good defensive moveset.

After a lot of time farming and with the help of a 10k dratini hatch I am currently sitting at 102 dratini candies, so my question is, would you power up the defensive Dragonite with those candies as much as I can or would you wait for the 125 and evolve another one to get a better offensive moveset? I really wanted a Dragonite with 2 dragon moves (DB/DC preferable of course...), but the idea of probably getting another SW one having this at 98%IV makes me wonder what should I do...

Dratini is really rare on my area, so to get around 100 candies would take me like another 3 months or even more.

Thanks all for the advice ;)

Asked by Meloscomo8 years 4 months ago

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Answers

I'd probably power up the steel wing one first.

Dragon breath/hyper beam, while not optimal, is still a great moveset for attacking. For attacking in general, If you dodge well, you can beat any Pokemon even if it has higher CP.

You already have the best defensive moveset, and for defense you want the highest CP possible, so I would power it up first.

Then, you can save your dratini candies to evolve that dratini. If that dratini evolves into a dragonite with dragon breath dragon claw, spend the rest of your candies on powering that up. (And as you keep getting more candies, spend them on powering it up even more)

Hope this helps

Thanks a lot ;)

The difference between DB with DC or DP compared with DB/HB is not significant enough to be worth evolving another if candies are rare. My advice would be stick with what you have and keep powering them up. A great attacker along with the best defensive Dragonite.

Thank you ^^

You're welcome

That depends on what you need, if you already have a good offensive team (that HB dragonite surely is part of such team), go for the defensive one power up, those are the ones that are worth powering up, as on offense, you already have the upper hand, and in defense all that really matters is high placement on gyms to stay longer (if what you want is maximize time on gyms to get max coins every day). Then again, If you already have a good number of high CP pokemon to put in gyms, then go for a new evolution and see if you get what you want. There's no such thing as a "bad dragonite", it all depends on what you want out of it.

Yes, I agree that there is not a bad Dragonite, my concerns were because here at least on my town there are not many gyms, and a high placement on them does not guarantee you won't be out for the next day, even level 10 gyms don't last long sadly :( . My HB Dragonite is on my attacking team of course, but I really don't know how much a difference it will have if it was a 2 dragon moves mon.

I will max my defense one and save candies for another try on the future ;)

I feel your pain. I have a small army of 3k+ Dragonites sitting around doing nothing 99% of the time.

Gym turnover in my area is crazy fast as well. Even level 10 gyms never last longer than a day or 2. level 3-4 gyms last an hour tops.

Do you have other defending Pokemon already that are 50%+ of the average defender CP to put you in top half of gyms? Not sure about your area, but by me it's about 2700-2800 to get into the top half on average.

If you already have a bunch of high CP defenders, then evolve the new Dratini hoping for offensive moveset and hold onto SW Dragonite for future use. There's no sense having your current defenders sit around while you power up a new one.

If you don't have many defenders which fit this bill, then power him up.

That's exactly my point, having the best defending moveset will only annoy attackers a little, as it will make them use maybe one more potion... but that's it and higher placement on gyms will only save you from getting kicked out if the gym is not taken down completely... and more often than not, gyms are taken down all the way. More than likely, having the top defender with the best moveset, will only buy you 2-5 minutes against a determined attacker.

Honestly, I'd power up the SW (to the level where I'm comfortable leaving it in gyms), and then start working on another one, as you don't really "need" another attacking one, it's just a relatively small upgrade at this point.

Dragonites are garbage defenders, thanks to double weakness to ice it is super fast and cheap to take them down. My Cloysters and FB/Blizzard Lapras love to eat them so much.
Only advantage is high CP, so you could put it on top of really strong gym.

I agree with double ice weakness but most defenders are really easy to take down, probably with the exception of snorlax or lapras, but even that Lapras is a lot rarer than any of the mons on the game, probably on my whole town there are 5-7 players that have a Lapras and most of them at low cp because of the low candy avaliabilty (the biggest Lapras I have seen on a gym was a 2200 one).

Cloyster is a bigger threat because it should be more common and easy to get, but again my town as almost no shellder spawn, only water mons we have are psyduck, magikarp, goldeen, poliwag and staryu, I myself only have a Cloyster and most of its candies came from an egg hatch.

You won't invest on that level 20 Dragonite with SW/DP? Would you evolve another one?

In my area no. If you are sure that most players near you don't have access to cloysters, it could make sense, without this double weakness Dragonite became much stronger defender.
I do not remember how it was to beat Dragonites without Cloyster/Lapras.

False. Unless you define "good defender" as how many potions it makes attackers on the other team use.

I define "good defender" as probability of providing me with future rewards.

Using my definition of good defender - Since gyms fluctuate in level and don't always drop to 0, then low CP = first kicked out. So while CP alone doesn't make them a good defender, it is a prerequisite. So any Pokemon with max CP under roughly 2800 are immediately excluded.

That leaves roughly 10 (or less) Pokemon that you can even consider as good gym defenders.

By your logic, if having a double weakness makes them "garbage defenders" that would exclude Exeggutor, Golem, Rhydon, Gyarados, and Dragonite....AKA everyone except Snorlax/Lapras/Vaporeon.

I'd love to have 10+ Snorlax/Lapras but that's not exactly an option. Not only are they incredibly rare, but there's not any location where I can go to farm them. So it's not a choice, but RNG.

So what you're suggesting is basically that the only Pokemon worth powering up as a defender who we have control over is Vaporeon.

Not only is it really boring having a gym with 10 Vaporeons, it's also easy to beat with an all grass team. So clearly diversity is preferred....in which case, maybe having a Dragonite or Exeggutor, etc. in there isn't such a bad idea after all..

I you want a double dragon moves dragonite why do you waste so many candies and dust on your DB/HB one? That is the question. The SW/DP is obviously worth powering at least to lvl 30

Because at the beggining of the game on my town there was a pretty solid Dratini spawn, near the river I had 4 spawns together that normally were Magikarp or Dratini, I could get like 3-4 per day in about an hour and a half playing, but on one of the updates some months ago Niantic removed those 4 spawns completely :(.

When I evolved that 96%IV Dragonite with DB/HB I thought I could get more, it had a pretty high level from start so don't need to invest many dust and that was a pretty good offensive moveset to start with, that's they reason why I powered him up.

Now that Dratini has become one of the most rare mon for me I wanted to make sure on which one keep investing, and that's the reason I want one with the best offensive move a part from the defensive one that I already have although it is not powered up.

Even if you were sure you could get more, why power up past 30? Takes 48 candies to go from 30 to 34 and you gain about 200 CP.

Because what is the point of leveling up if you don't power your top tier mons? Without going past level 30 my Snorlax won't be 3k CP or my Vaporeon 2.9K, what's the point of playing from level 30 up if you don't power up anything to use it?

If candies are not an issue for me every mon that I normally use with an IV of 85%+ and a good moveset I will power him up for sure, I have maxed out to my level the Dragonite, Gyarados, Blastoise, Charizard, Vaporeon and Snorlax, all past level 30 until my level that is 34. I use them over and over again and I want them to be as strong as I can.

Defending makes more sense, in some areas the nominal CP does matter, but in the case of the attacking Dragonite, you spent 48 candies for a negligble increase.

It's your candy so do what you want, but unless I have a Pokemon where I wouldn't be disappointed to get a better one and therefore regret my decision to power up the older one, I wouldn't power it up past 30.

I agree with a part of your statement, it is true that the increase from level 30 is very low compared with the cost, but as I said what is the point of level up and keep playing if you don't improve your mons? Dratini was not that rare when I was powering up that Dragonite, I could get like 12-16 candies per day, that is a Dragonite each 10-15 days playing, and anyway even without having candies I still would like to power up my top mons, I haven't caught a Snorlax in weeks, but I walk it to get candies in order to power up my 89%IV one until max level, it could take me months to get to the next level so it is not an issue to power up a mon or 2 by just walking it as a buddy.

Another different issue is power up from 20 to my current level or evolve another one, this can take like 100-125 candies and it is a problem if candies are rare as Dratini are for me now. So anyway, you can stay with your level 30 mons being level 34-35-36 etc...but why even keep playing after 30 if you leave your team at lower level? The difference between you at 36 for example and a level 30 won't exist if you don't power them up ;)

I'd power up the SW one first. The chances of rolling a DB/DC are what 1 in 6? You've got a strong attacker, and the makings of a decent defender for me the gamble on moveset vs the certainty of having two more than decent pokes isn't worth it.

Yes, that 1/6 really scares me, I haven't had good luck with movesets so far on the game...I think I will get the SW first to 30 as soon as I can because seeing the candy count that close to 125 is easy to fall into the temptation to evolve another one hoping to get DB/DC haha xD

My only Dragonite has DB/HB and I hesitated before powering that one up wondering about evolving a second. I'm glad I did power it up. You could power evolve a DB/DC and find that in practice the difference between the two movesets is pretty marginal...

If You dont risk, You will never get this moveset. My first nite had db/hb and i was not very happy about it. Second had even worse moveset for me sw/dc. I was angry like hell. Month later when i had enough candys for my third nite i didnt care about his moveset. And guess what, it came with db/dc. My advice is, dont worry too much. You will finaly get it. Wish You luck.

PS. I dont see big difference between hb and dc. I dodge only charged att, so hb is even better for me.

Thanks for your wishes, hope someday I will get DB/DC ^^

Dragonite's main purpose is an attacker, so I would wait to evolve another one with (hopefully) dragon breath. At least you're giving yourself another chance at it.

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