Another Power Up Question!!

Lots of players will say high IV's are important cause it ultimately decides how high a mon can be powered up and placed in gyms. My argument against that thinking is once a gym has been marked for a takedown, it doesn't matter ONE BIT how high you are... everyone gets knocked out. So instead, I enjoy the game by accepting any frequent gym turnovers and lowering my IV expectations when evolving/powering up. Anything above 50% is good enough. Above 70% is great. Above 90% is "perfect."

I try to make it as hard as possible for the opposing team to take down the gym with the toughest defender with the best moveset while taking the gym's present lineup into consideration, BUT don't be afraid to throw some maxed out variety in the gyms every now and then...it keeps the game fresh for everyone:)

Well I powered up my 100% Butterfree just because, even tho' got no chance to stay in a gym! IMO it really depends on gym turnover and the end-game you like to play. In my area, most of the gyms are level 10 and don't turn over often, but they do get "chipped" and the lowest defender gets kicked out and usually replaced with a higher CP defender. That leads to gyms have a very concentrated collection of vaps/gyarados/rhydon/dragonite that are all in the 2.8-3K CP range. To compete, you have to have a high base-stat mon with great IV to get the CP level up, so 80% vs 90% IV could make a difference on staying in a gym or not.

If you spend dust just so you can be at the top of gyms then you'll run out of dust real fast. But if you must power something up then choose top tier mons with high IV and good moveset. I'm not picky when throwing a mon in a gym because it's gonna go down if an enemy team wants to no matter what.

I only power up 93% or higher IV on tier 1 mons with best moveset for offense or defense. For tier 1.5 96% IV or better. Tier 2, 98% or higher. I stick to my rules and always have anywhere between 500k to 1 million dust on hand.

Also, I evolve high CP Eevees and Magikarps regardless of IV because I got thousands of candies and don't need to spend dust and they take up gyms after evolve to collect rewards for me daily. Another rule I have on dust is only power up if I can max it out in one shot but I have powered up a little on some good prestigers to get to a certain sweet spot CP to train against friendly gyms. Doesn't cost a lot for that.

I think you can power up all ur favorite mons until lvl30, above lvl30 i suggest u power up only Dragonite,Snorlax,Lapras,Gyarados & Rhydon (i included Rhydon because of its high CP for gym placement). >90% IV would be ideal, but if it's Dragonite/Lapras/Snorlax then >80% is already good.

Attackers:

The bulk of my attackers come from evolving the best lvl 28-30 Pokemon I find. Generally I aim for 50%+ IV with a focus on ATK stat, but as with any rule I've made exceptions.

The attackers I DO power up are the best attacking Mons with the best movesets at least 80-90%+ IV (Depending on rarity/luck)

I generally only power up one of each Pokemon, except for a few of the best. Vape, Venusaur, Dragonite, Snorlax, Exeggutor, etc I'm not afraid to have multiples of. Going from 20 to 30 is only 75k dust so it's not the end of the world, and the attacker depth is worth it

For defenders, I only pick the cream of the crop.

I prioritize CP first and foremost. I don't care that Poliwrath and Slowbro are "stronger" defenders than Gyarados. To me, the best defender is the one that gives the best chance of staying in a gym. It's nice if the attacker had to use a few extra potions, but that doesn't put coins in my bank! If you're in a level 10 gym and you keep an eye on it, it often fluctuates a few levels as ppl attack it and get bored/run out of items. It's not like it always goes lvl 0 to 10 to 0 to 10. You don't want to be the guy getting shuffled out.

That doesn't mean CP is the ONLY thing that matters...but it's certainly the most important and thus my first consideration. The ~2900 CP range is pretty deep so there's no reason to ever power up a defender that's below that b/c you're pretty much guaranteed to be on the bottom.

After CP, I prioritize the better defenders obviously. But candy becomes a limiting factor for the top tier guys

I especially enjoy powering up baller defenders that can double as attackers. Ex: Vaporeon w/ WG/Aqua, Rhydon w/ Mud/SE, and basically any Lapras are all examples of this.