Defender Pinsir

For now, the only use for Pinsir is as a niche attacker against Exeggutor. Pinsir is not useful as a defender and not useful as an attacker with Rock Smash.

I would not power up either one and wait for Fury Cutter/X-Scissor, Pinsir in itself is not a defensive pokemon, low def, very low HP, but very good ATK, so you want an attacking Pinsir. Basically there would always be a better pokemon to put as a defender.. most probably

It depends on your roster of Pokemon. I would usually suggest not to power up any Pinsir because there are much better exeggutor counters like Arcanine and Scyther. But if these are rare in ur area u can power up. I would prefer to wait for a Fury cutter/X scissor Pinsir. And Pinsir are crap defenders with too many counters.

Pinsir on defense are crushed by any Fire/ice/flying type, but if you want a defender Pinsir i would pick the first one, better IV, almost the same level, definately the first.

This pincer is usable as attacker against Snorlax with zen head but (bug resists psychic attack and your fight attack is super effective), but still u have to try dodging his charge attacks and rock smash is really slow (not ideal).

The offensive and defensive ratings don't mean that a pokemon is a good attacker or defender.

The ratings are mearly an indication of how much relative damage a moveset will deal offensively if you spam your attacks and don't waste time dodging or defensively given the AI mechanics for how a gym defender attacks.

Pinsir is in an awkward position. Attacking with a big fire type will take down Pinsir pretty quickly, but trying to train against with a half CP fire type will take a lot of damage yourself because of Pinsir's high attack.

Caught it at level 29 so I thought why not. Prestiging against him want super easy, he's still better than arcanine