Lugia power up?
Was thinking about powering up a Lugia to complete my Machamp team and just for the overall fun of it. I have the candy and resources.
Is it better to power up an 82% Lugia with 15 attack? Or an 87% Lugia with 13 attack? Obviously they are no longer available and I can't really get a better one.
Answers
My highest CP Lugia at level 20 was 2045 - it was a 93% with 15A/13D/14S - since the Defense was the lowest stat and Lugia has a high base Defense its CP Perfection was 95.6%.
However I also have a 96% Lugia at 2041 CP - with stats at 14A/15D/14S. Even though its CP is lower than the 93%, with a CP perfection of only 94%, it has better duel ability according to Poke Genie.
The CP formula is somewhat flawed and isn't a perfect indicator of performance. Outside of moves, outliers exist. For example, Steelix is a super solid Pokemon with low CP. I compared my 1974 Steelix with a Vaporeon of 1984 CP and Steelix's stats are far superior, with MUCH higher defense and only slightly lower attack.
If OP is looking to solo Machamp which is most likely the case because no one needs an optimised team if they're duoing a level 3 raid, then the Lugia's DPS is a factor.
Defence and stamina are not as beneficial as attack when Lugia has one of the highest defence stats in the game, great base stamina and double resistance to fighting moves. Lugia already reaches minimum Counter damage (3) at level 24.5 with 14 or 15 defence and level 25 with 10-13 defence IV, so defence IV only ends up affecting charge move damage by a point.
With 15 attack IV, Extrasensory reaches it's maximum damage of 13 at level 31.5. Heavy Slam does 26 damage to a level 31.5 Lugia at every possible defence IV, and against Dynamic Punch, 21 at all possible defence IVs except 15 where it does 20, which is not a significant amount of damage prevented.
Close Combat is by far the weakest defending move and the easiest so it doesn't really matter anyway.
Attack IV is a priority for any player who is looking to be resource efficient and spend the least amount of candies to reach quick move damage breakpoints.
It's not any less or more effective on Pokemon with high or low base attack stats, the effect is still the same - less power ups to reach a desired breakpoint.
So that combined with the fact that defence IV has basically no effect on Lugia's survivability vs Machamp, and the difference between 10 and 15 HP IV is a measly 4 HP, why power up the Lugia with 13 attack when you could save yourself 18k dust and 18 rare candies, powering the 15 attack Lugia up to 31.5 rather than 13 attack Lugia 32.5.
And even if it were the case that he were planning to max it which result in them having more or less equal effectiveness, there could be a damage breakpoint in the future (if stats are adjusted or new raid bosses get added) that cannot be reached with 13 attack IV.
Thank you very much for the awesome post! The legendary pokemon are mostly just cool trophies with very few of them being super useful. A major factor for this is they can't be placed in gyms for defense. Lugia seems to be very strong fighting machamp raids. Of course, Alakazam/Espeon are likely better options. The sheer bulk of Lugioa combined with it's STAB psychic moves make it to be a worthy attacker against Machamp. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with your post!
