As a L40 player my goal is to max more pokemon and my long term goal is to build a team of 6, or maybe even 12 for each type, all maxed.
I used to have a 96% threshold to max pokemon but am slowly restricting that to 98% unless it is meta shaking (e.g. MM metagross or similar). Even then, I find that even for the not inconsiderable dust I accumulate I simply cannot keep up, as when I have dust to max a 98%, another relevant one will come up eventually.
For instance, I was maxing two 98% shadow ball mewtwos (from TM glitch) and a 98% gyarados. Then beldum day came along and I have 2 96% MM metagross. I thought, Ok.
Now, one of the mewtwos and one of the metagross are maxed. So I thought maybe its time to move to the other metagross and gyarados. BUT NO. Then I caught a 100% gastly which then I obviously evolved during gengar day and have a 100% lick gengar. With regards to keeping maxing projects down, I'm back to square one.
In this case is it best to wait for a lucky pokemon even if the IVs dont meet my imposed thresholds? You essentially get a buy one get one free for powering up. Then I can actually sit back and accumulate dust to prepare for whatever relevant pokemon gen 4 will bring.
Yes, lately I have been choosing to power up luckies instead of higher iv non-lucky.
I used to have very high standards like you on ivs, high 90s only.
I encourage you to do the math on how much IVs affect the game (they are very very overrated - a 0 attack mewtwo has about 95% the overall attack of a 15). Once you realize how weak ivs are you start to view the "100 or bust" people as simply insane and probably bad at math.
Tldr: yes I choose lucky over better IV non-lucky
Absolutely agree with mattdude.
The cult of IVs says it's near perfect or it's crap. They are wrong.
Sound mathematical policy is to power up a pokemon if:
1) it's meta-relevant,
2) it's likely the best of it's species that you are likely to see over a reasonable period of time, and
3) you have a relatively immediate and pressing use for it.
I have a perfect Kyogre. It's sitting at level 34 (I'm level 40). I'll never get a better one (until Origin Pulse comes out, so not in a reasonable period of time), it's clearly meta-relevant, but there's no pressing need for it now, so I'm not powering it up. Probably will someday, when I need it.
Point two is the one I want to focus on here, though. If someone plays several hours a day, they can get several candidates for powering up that are 96% and above. If someone plays a couple of hours a week, they will have very few pokemon over 89% that are meta-relevant. Figure out how many you need and can afford to power up, and power up your best one, whether it's 82% or 98%.
The canonical example now is Shadow Ball Mewtwo. If you're lucky enough to have a 98% one, power it up. Was useful for Mewtwo raids, and will help against certain raid bosses coming up in G4. All right against Giratina, although Dragons are more effective (higher DPS). But if the only one you have was got in a trade that didn't go lucky, and has stats around 8, and you don't foresee trading for more, power that one up. It will be stronger than almost all of your other pokemon, even with the average stats (using average in the proper sense of the word, among all pokemon, not hatched level ones).
Another good example is Smack Down Tyranitar. After the Larvitar CD ended, you had what you had. We expect that Smack Down Ttar won't come back in a reasonable time, so power up your best one(s) and use it/them.
What this means is that it's perfectly reasonable for a hard core player to set a threshold of 96% or 98% as his or her minimum power up level, while a casual player might set 85% or even 80% as their threshold. (For hard to obtain pokemon like SB Mewtwo or SD Ttar, there may be NO minimum.)
What isn't reasonable is to decide on a threshold that doesn't reflect one's reasonable expectation of getting a better one. Walking around without a powered up double dark (B/C) Tyranitar because one hasn't caught a 98% or better and one wants to 'play like the big boys' is just foolishness.
It's a game. Have fun with it. Power up the best one you're likely to see over a reasonable time and use it. Worst case scenario is you get a better one and power that up too - after all, we fight with teams of six, right, not solo battles. On the other hand, worst case scenario if you don't power up is that you can't contribute to a raid in the same way, don't get as many balls, or even lose a raid that you could have won had you powered up something reasonable.
I was lucky enough to catch a 96% Kyogre (13 stamina, weather buffed) early on that had Thunder. Powered it up to use against Kyogre (I had NO good electric attackers, even my Jolteons were bad), got good use out of it, then TM'd it to Hydropump, powered it up to 33, and used it well in other raids. Later, when Kyogre returned (with shines), I caught a 100% (mentioned above). Was I upset I had powered up the 96% - hell no! That and my 93% meant I had three strong ones to power up (and many more with lower IVs.) It's a good problem to have, too many pokemon to power up. As long as you keep playing you'll keep accumulating dust, so you can get to everything that matters to you eventually.
In conclusion, higher IVs are better, and attack is maybe a bit more important than defense which is a bit more important than stamina, but IVs are the smallest part of what makes a pokemon good. (Please don't barrage me with a glut of replies about breakpoints - I get the math, and it can make a small difference, but not one that powering up a half level or more can overcome). Take your best ones, power them up, and go into battle. Have fun. Don't sweat the small details, just the big ones.
Most of the relevant gen 4 pokemon you can already get, we know Weavile, Mamoswine, glaceon, Electavire, Magnazone, Roserade and Rhyperior will all be very powerful attackers of their type and Togekiss will likely become a very viable defender that we can get working on all at the moment
For me its kinda situational what IV's I go for, I have a lucky 13 attack, 12 hp/def Rhyhorn but a 93 15 attack/hp rhydon, but im going to power it up because ive got nearly 1.5k candy for it, same with my lucky lick gengar I evolved on or two attack iv's doesnt really matter so long as you hit a breakpoint. Got a 13 atk, 14/15 hp/def Rayquaza I got via trade maxed it in a heartbeat.
I'd suggest trading for the relevant pokemon before they become super relevant (like trying for lucky swinub/piloswine before Rayquaza comes back for instance) if you dont end up getting luckies, i'd power up your best ones (for me, iv threshold depends on rarity of the pokemon, so I dont have a hard set one for everything)
I came back to this game during Larvitar CD day and I started to learn more about ivs and such. Sooner or later, I got caught up in the whirlwind mentality that "Ivs matter... (a lot)" and you should only power up high iv ones (even that ones that come at low cp).
What I should have done actually:
- Keep the high cp mons I caught regardless of ivs and tweak them to the meta if needed.
- Save more stardust by avoiding powering up high iv, low cp mons unless they're meta-relevant.
Now, with the introduction of lucky pokemon and learning that ivs matter for about 5-10% of a pokemon's potential, i've been powering up my luckies way more often because they afford me to save on stardust even if those luckies happened to be 87%.
I would agree that ivs are definitely overrated. I would value level over ivs to a degree.
Morons focus on IVs, the difference between an IV 15 of 14 is ZERO, the difference between 15 and 13 IVs is completely unnoticeable even to hardcore raiders, and the difference in 12 and 15 IV is completely unnoticeable to the average player.... But still most players will trash a weather boosted high Lv Larvitar with average IV in hopes of finding a near perfect one.... personally I have been 2 manning Giratina in windy weather since it came out.... Not a single Dragon out of the 24 used is above 89 IVs
If you need to use that pokemon for battle, i will use that Lucky especially the high level one and if it is in the level 35/8000 Stardust, it is battle ready already. If not, the cost for it to lv 35 is cheaper (i stop worrying so much about breakpoint now, lv 35 is more than enough in everyday raids situation)
The new lucky now atleast have 12-12-12 A/D/S, and it is STRONG.
The 100 one can have a better performance if all you do is Time Attack Raid kind of thing, but for everyday raid a so so IV get the job done
And if in the future you get better pokemon, you can power it up at a "relaxing" pace and the older one can go to your 2nd squad
PvP "maybe" can give IV more important role, but we dont really know what kind of PvP we will get.
And looking at the way Niantic tend to keep this game as simple as possible, i am affraid that what we get with PvP.
If you have problems accumulating enough stardust, then yes, luckies are probably the way to go, if you can get them. But it's all about what you find worth in. Do you want to make teams for battle or are you creating a collection? Probably both, but which one is more important? If having functional teams to do battle with is more important to you, go lucky regardless of their IVs.
Personally I find a lot of enjoyment from only powering up mons with extremely good IVs, even though I'm acutely aware that it rarely makes any difference. But I live in a stardust rich environment.
