Dragonite evolve decisions
Been saving a CP 754, Dnite, 51% (4/11/8) with DT/OR because of the moveset and meanwhile collected 160 candies.
Just did a battle simulation (at lvl 30) and compared how this guy and a 100% Dnite would do against a 100 % Blissey at lvl 30. Turns out that both will win with 9 and 34 HP left.
Why do people spend som much candy (grinding time) to get that perfect Dnite when it almost doesn't matter at all when attacking? And at level 36+ any Dnite above 50% will have a sweet spot in the gym.
Just awating gym rebalance and then this guy will probably be fed with all the candy.
Answers
To reach 3178 CP (Level 36.5) with your Level 8, 51% Dragonite, you'll need 202 candies and 199600 dust.
To reach 3172 CP (Level 32) with a Level 20, 100% Dratini, you'd need 210 candies and 97000 dust.
Both are rational options to pursue for different reasons. Your Dragonite has the moves you want for attacking and if you want an attacking Dragonite with those moves, it's a sure bet and I doubt you'd regret powering it up.
On the other hand, a 100% hatch would save 100k dust to reach the same CP, and it would have the potential to grow even further in order to be a top placeholder in tough gym-shaving environments. But of course the downside is needing to gamble on move set.
Also: as toytracker said, you might see more of a difference with different kinds of match-ups. When I tried to duplicate your results, the 100% Dragonite (as opposed to the 51%) overkilled the Blissey by an additional 18 HP, and retained an additional 5 HP for the next battle.
I see that a Level 30, 100% SW/HB Dragonite beats the Blissey as well, needing 8.4 more seconds, overkilling by only 3 HP and retaining 24HP (as opposed to your 51% DT/O which overkills by 18 and retains 34).
So using your metric it seems that a 100% SW/HB Dragonite isn't all that bad either. Sounds like good news for any dragon lovers!
It's all about the CP for me...I've now hatched 4 Dratini's and only 1 usable for me...
Since the candies are so rare to begin with (for my biome, NEVER seen a Dratini), do I really want to waste them on a low IV mon?
Sorta like people saving high IV Magikarps.
Again, I can see for people who don't do gyms at all not care a lick about IVs or gym shavers or anything since that aspect of the game is a different beasts, but CP is still king in gyms and it's nice being on top of most towers.
For attack, movesets are key (look at Machamp)...and in your example, yeah, IVs matter little for attacking mons.
As mentioned also, powering up further at the higher levels means having great IVs can save you literally tens of candies/powerups since your natural high IVs could be worth hundreds of CP alone.
I responded to a post a while back that a 0% Dragonite vs. a 100% Dragonite had 400+ CP difference at level 40. The 0% is useless in a gym and will never be off the bottom slot.
Even though a high Dragonite can have a sweet spot, what really happens in a Dnite gym is they tend to ALL be Dragonite or Tyranitars...If yours is much worst IVs, you won't have a spot anymore due to gym shavers even though we may have invested the same amount of candies to power it up...
