I'm curious - what Pokemon do you intend to MAX out the level of? (This means leveling it PAST 30 to its fullest potential)
With the importance of breakpoints, I've noticed that leveling creatures such as TTars, Golems, etc. is usually limited to 30 or their breakpoint. Even legendaries I often hear of only being leveled to 30. Do you have any Pokemon you intend to max out completely, and why? Are they perfect? Unique? Just a fantastic generalist?
For example, as a level 37 (nearly 38) I've maxed out one Lugia (93%), one Machamp (100%), and one Tyranitar (100%). I intend to max out three Mewtwos (82%, 84%, 87%, and more if I come by them), one Moltres (98%), one Raikou (98%), and one Dragonite (96% Non-Legacy).
I'm also considering maxing one Blissey (98%), one Gengar (100% Non-Legacy), and one Entei (93%).
How about you?
I do not generally max things out, even though I could do it because I leveled up a few days ago.
I will max out Raikou (96%), Blissey 87% P/DG, Mewtwo (which I don't have yet), Dragonite 89% DT/O, Moltres FS/O 93%, Rhydon MS/EQ 93% and Flareon FS/Ft 100%.
For most of them it's because they're useful, and Fire Mons are probably just added in because I like them.
I should actually add my Conf/SoB 93% Exegguttor because it kills and a Bodyslam 84% Snorlax because it's my favourite pokémon.
I forgot my own response:
Lugia is my all-time favorite legendary, a good duel-ability generalist, and tanky. It's also one of the only current tanks to resist (and doubly so) powerful fighting-type attacks.
Machamp is the king of gym attacking, with a wonderful quick move and wonderful charge move (2nd best next to Wild Charge), 2-bar charge move for gym sweeping, and fighting type to take on both a wide variety of general Pokemon and gym defenders specifically.
Tyranitar because it's the best Dark-type attacker for a long time, as well as a decent tanky generalist with some handy resistances (and it's perf)
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I will max all of my Mewtwos I get (or, if they keep releasing them, up to 6). They're one of the all time highest attack Pokemon out there, even when considering future legendaries, while also wielding a great charge move (Shadow Ball) with good type coverage, DPS, and 2-bar for sweeping gyms. 6 Ensures a team of 5 Psychic/Ghost Mewtwos as well as a Focus Blast Mewtwo to take down Normal tanks that utilize Psychic and Fairy moves.
Moltres has favorable typing against its Grass and Bug targets, and wields superior DPS over Entei. It was also my first raid boss captured at such a high IV that I immediately dumped candy into it - figured I'd follow through on the over 100 candy investment.
Raikou is going to be the best Electric type for pretty much eternity. It also is a pretty good (though not the best) generalist, and I was lucky enough to get a pretty darn good one. Luckily, because its quick move builds its charge move so quickly, it's especially good for dodging and taking down weakened gyms.
Dragonite is a good generalist with type coverage and resistances. Because Mewtwo makes a better generalist now with the exception of Tyranitars in gyms, I'm mostly considering this because I still have about 600 Dragonite candy and I don't think I'm going to run into a better Dragonite anytime soon (If I do, I will have the candy still).
Blissey will always be useful. Mine knows Pound/Hyper Beam, and I still remember the days of being a low level in which I would die in gyms often. If this ever is the case, Blissey has amazing duel ability and dodging - its only real penalty is time-to-win.
Though my Gengar is non-legacy, it is already level 25 and candy is easy to come by after Halloween. It will hopefully make a great Martyr in terms of gathering damage balls against Ghost-weak raid bosses that I know I won't lose all 6 Pokes on (such as Mewtwo)
I'm on the fence about maxing Entei. My best is 93%, but its favorable in that its only non-perfect stat is its HP, which it already has a good amount of. Though considerably weaker than Moltres, it has a two-bar fire move (Flamethrower). I have about 35 candies more than necessary to power it to level 30, meaning I can power it up to around level 32-33 before running out. Why stop there? It would be more useful than powering a second Entei to ~2500CP with that, as a level 30 Flareon could do the job better at that point.
I max my favorites. These clowns and their breakpoints fail to tell you that all the extra defense and HP can enable you to fire off an additional charge move (or more with dodging) and therefore greatly increase TDO.
Thee fact of the matter is this game is not competitive. There is an emphasis on strength in numbers (for raids) and patience (for lowbies trying to clear out a 3100 Blissey gym)
Power up what makes you happy without regrets. Otherwise be patient and wait for the gameplay to shift before spending your dust and have equally no regrets.
Sometimes, having lower defense allows you to fire off an additional charge move, due to the faster energy gain.
If you play around with simulations using the same attackers at different levels, it becomes clear that breakpoints often make a huge difference. For example, I have a 96% level 30 SC/SB Banette that I was considering powering up to a higher level, until I ran some simulations and discovered that it basically performs the same at level 30 as it does at level 39 against Alakazam raid boss. It hits a breakpoint at level 39.5, and suddenly gets much stronger, but I'm not willing to put that much dust into a Banette at the moment.
That said, I pay a lot more attention to breakpoints for very fast, low-damage quick moves, like fury cutter, psycho cut, and bite, for which the breakpoints are very important, and not so much to the slower high-damage moves like confusion, where the breakpoints matter much less.
I don't doubt that you can 'fire off a charge move faster' with lower defenses. That however requires you tanking hits. What I'm saying is if you dodge everything with higher levels, defenses, and overall health you can actually fire off even more charge moves.
The simple truth is even this doesn't really matter much anymore. With the change of damage bonus mechanics in raids you don't need to survive. It was not uncommon for me to be on my 4th mon while other people were already respecting their team. That's because my pokemon were maxed and theirs were 30 or just past.
Should PVP ever come out ill be looking forward to people telling me how much of a waste it was to max out my pokemon.
I have a few that I maxed, at the time, to level 38.5 (I am now level 39, so they are no longer technically maxed). That was back when (1) CP mattered for gym placement, and (2) stardust was more easily attainable, due to the higher gym rewards of 5,000 stardust plus 100 coins per day. At the time, having high CP defenders was critical for holding gym spots, due to shaving. Now, with the raid-centric meta and the tighter stardust supply, I tend to max attackers to either level 30 or a critical breakpoint, and then move onto another project.
The ones I have at level 38.5 are:
100% Exeggutor C/P
89% Rhydon MS/SE
91% Gyarados DT/O
73% Shiny Gyarados DT/O
100% Kingdra DB/B
In the future, I will likely max out a Mewtwo if & when I get a decent one (not the 67% 10/10/10 I have currently), my 100% DT/O Dragonite, and possibly one of each other legendary. After that, I'll consider maxing other high IV relevant attackers, if I have no lower-level projects with priority. At the top of the list would probably be a 100% Scizor FC/XS, 96% Machamp C/DP, and 98% Gengar H/SB.
For a long time the only one I've been maxing is my 96% Exeggutor I've had since I was level 20-something, but recently I added my Mewtwo (93%) and best two Tyranitars (100% and 98%). I know it doesn't help the Tyranitars much, but I just wanted to do it. Everything else is at or near 30, while I'm level 37.
I max everything out that has good IVs and if it’s currently non meta relevant cause they will be with Mega Evolutions. I can only go to Level 37.5 for now til but I have
2 96% Blisseys
1 100% Charizard
1 100% Blastoise
1 91% Alakazam
1 96% Houndoom
1 100% Golem
1 96% Espeon
1 100% Jolteon
1 93% Vaporeon
Bunch of Level 34 and above Pokemon too of other species not listed.
So far I have mewtwo, tyranitar, 2 dragonite, snorlax, blissey, vaporeon, espeon, donphan, exeggutor, golem, machamp, alakazam, arcanine, jolteon (100%) and omastar (100%)
Not really sure what to max out next. I have a couple Gyarados and rhydon over level 35 that I stopped powering up after the gym system changed
