Does that small cp increase reflective of only a tiny increase in overall strength? To the point that it's not worth the extra increase in candies and stardust to power up really high level pokemon (32+)?
Correct. Power ups post level 30 are basically half as effective, despite costing more.
It's only worthwhile if it's needed to get higher spots in a gym (or if the candy and stardust are in surplus). Right now you're probably better off just bringing everything to 30. However in a few months you'll regret not being inefficient and going over 30 as more players reach 30+ and go above and take out your pokemon.
This may be interesting to you, and give a good answer to your question: https://pokeassistant.com/stardust
In a few words, that reduction on CP gains per power up is for get a balance between the high level players and the ocasional players and to keep the game playable for the low level players. It's like a socialistic thing.
The thing is that it takes millions of experience to go from level 30 to level 34. This means hundreds of thousands of star dust.
At level 25 you need 10 to 15 gym defenders and 2 to 3 gym attackers. At level 34 you still need 10 to 15 gym defenders and 2 to 3 gym attackers.
If you're not spending your stardust/candy to power up your defenders then what are you going to do with your stardust/candy?
I am level 34 and I currently have 20 defenders powered up to level 34 (these are stuck in gyms and can't be powered up until the gym comes down) or level 35.5 and my 2 main attackers are also powered up to 35.5
I currently have 490,000 stardust.
I would have like 1,500,000 unused stardust if I didn't power up my defenders past level 30. What point is there in stockpiling stardust?
I try to keep 300,000 stardust for each level up. But otherwise I use it liberally on defenders.
The key is don't waste stardust on attackers. You only need a few attackers. And level 30 attackers will work just fine.
Defenders need to be bigger. It was well worth the stardust candy to power up my Snorlax to 2,882 cp.
I'm already seeing 2400+ Snorlaxes being at the bottom of the gym so unless things change and you "want" to still be in a gym, I think people in many areas will be forced to power up well over 30+ even though it might not be worth it. This makes extremely high IVs a must even more and limits gym diversity further.
I know I plan to when I actually get to 30+. I'd rather have 1 ultra high CP defender than 10 2200+ decent defenders since in my area, you'll always be in the 9-10 spots already...meaning you're knocked out daily...
