First, I want to say I am a fan of FuNKyShO's work. I believe his Youtube comparison videos have busted a lot of common misconceptions about IV's, movesets, etc.
Recently, FuNKyShO's research on the subject has made "breakpoint" one of the top trending buzzwords in the PoGo community. This trend has in turn led many trainers to be almost obsessive about attack IV's, to the point where, for example, one poster on this site recently chose to power up something like a 15/12/11 (A/D/S) mon over a 14/14/14 one of the same species, due, presumably to the 15 attack IV. And I believe the mon in question was either a Zapdos or Moltres, which already has attack as its highest base stat.
I was reminded of some of FuNKyShO's earlier work, where he compared high-IV attackers to similar ones with low IV's. Here are the links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P43Iiu7-PTo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWsgvMVXr1M
Spoiler alert: the low IV attackers take only about 1-3 seconds longer to defeat the same defender.
In case people prefer Pokebattler simulations over FuNKyShO's excellent vids, I just ran comparison simulations with three different level 30 Dragonites against a perfect 15/15/15 level 30 Snorlax. Dragonite #1 had IV's of 15/15/15 (again, A/D/S); #2 was 0/15/15, and #3 was 0/0/0. The Snorlax had ZH/HS for its moveset, while the Dragonites all had DT/O. Attack strategy was Dodge Specials with Realistic Dodging.
Dragonite #1 defeated the Snorlax in 34.0 sec.
Dragonite #2 defeated the Snorlax in 36.9 sec.
Dragonite #3 defeated the Snorlax in 37.5 sec.
1 lost 96 HP during the battle
2 lost 118 HP during the battle
3 lost 117 HP during the battle
I did a similar comparison using a Blissey as the defender, with similar results, but in the interest of space, I won't post all the details here. Feel free to run your own simulations.
My point/conclusion is that the practical difference between a 0 attack IV and a perfect 15 attack IV was only 3-4 seconds battle time, and that was against tough defenders like Snorlax and Blissey. So, yes, the attack IV and resultant breakpoint do make a difference, but it is a lot smaller than one would think based on the common recent obsession with 15 attack IV's, and it is hard to justify sacrificing several points on the defense & stamina IV's simply to go from a 14 to a 15 on the attack IV.
One more point: I tried one more comparison, changing the Dragonites quick move to DB, since one would expect the breakpoint to matter more with a faster, lower-damage attack. Indeed, the battle time difference is a little greater, but only by about a second.
I hope at least a few people will give this some thought before choosing to power up a 15/11/11 attacker over a similar 14/14/14 one.
But, but, but...
If Quality doesn't matter, what does?
If you have caught 51,000 mon, as I have, quality of mon is the main criteria that would help you decide which ones to keep in that relatively small Pokemon storage bag.
Some prefer IV as their quality gauge; others prefer breakpoint, etc.
Relax, play, farm, have fun., and don't over-analyze.
That's an impressive number. At level 38, I've only caught 27,000.
Of course quality matters, but I feel that people are getting carried away with the latest hype (breakpoints and attack IV's), and are favoring inferior mons with slightly higher attack IV's because they don't fully understand how these stats work in practice. I intended this as sort of a PSA, but obviously, people are free to play however they want.
Did you mistype some of your numbers or am I misunderstanding something? Here's what I've got:
Dragonite #1 15/15/15 (A/D/S)
34.0 seconds, 96 HP lost
Dragonite #2 0/15/15
36.9 seconds, 118 HP lost
Dragonite #3 0/0/0
37.5 seconds, 117 HP lost
• Shouldn't #2 and #3 have taken the same amount of time given the identical attack stat, or does attack strength go down as stamina is lost?
• Why was less HP lost in the battle where the Dragonite had 0 defense and took longer? Wouldn't that mean defense IVs are meaningless?
• Should HP remaining be considered as well, as that would be different between 2 and 3?
I didn't run the simulations multiple times, so randomness might be the answer to some of your questions.
You can consider HP remaining if you want. Obviously, #3 starts with lower HP (133 vs. 144, I believe), so I thought HP lost would be more meaningful. And yes, I was surprised that the numbers were so similar between #2 & 3.
Gotcha. If that's the case, I'm having trouble seeing how this makes a case against focusing on attack IV. (And I say this as someone who has always paid attention to overall IVs rather than favored attack.) If a Mon with 0 defense will take the same damage (or one less) than one with 15 defense, wouldn't that mean the defense stat shouldn't even be considered? If the randomization of the battle means the numbers are too erratic, can we learn anything from them?
Basically, the damage your attacker outputs per attack is dependent on its attack stats. But how frequently your attacker can drop charge moves depends on how fast it can charge its energy bar, which itself partly depends on how fast you take damage from your opponent. So with two mons of same type and attack stats, but different defense stats, the low defense one can charge its energy bar a bit faster, which in some cases can result in getting off a extra charge move and finish the defender quicker compared to the high defense mon. I hope this explains your question. If you take a closer look at your simulation results, you may see a difference in how often the individual attackers performed charge moves.
Good analysis, and all.
I just wanted to raise a couple of tiny factors that will over-shadow all these analytical minutia:
Breakpoint method works, but be wary of its gimmicky nature. Essentially, you are trying to reach a higher damage value per attack, against a specific mon, while at a relatively modest level, say around low 30s.
Nothing wrong with that, until you hit L38, which you will sooner or later. Well, the real problem is, now you have invested a lot of resources in these sub-par mon in the L30-34 range, too trashy to power up to L39, and too invested to transfer away.
I support the TC's caution - mind the overall IV of your mon. And add this: power up with a longer-term perspective in mind.
That's exactly what I always prioritised investing in 87% or higher. If you are playing this game long term you want the best possible IV pokemon.
Obviously when you are starting, your first 80% strong attacker/defender may become a treasure. But when you reach level 37 and look back you usually regret having spending as much stardust by the time.
This misses my point. I'm not trying to argue that the difference between a 0 attack IV and a 15 attack IV isn't meaningful. I'm trying to argue that the difference between a 15 attack IV and a 13 or 14 is not enough to justify sacrificing considerably more IV points on the other stats (e.g. it's not worth investing in a 15/11/11 mon over a 14/14/14, simply because the first has a 15 attack IV).
I compared 15 attack IV with 0 attack IV to show how small the difference really is. If the difference between attack IV's of 15 and 0 is three seconds, then the difference between a 15 attack IV and a 12 attack IV is probably around 0.6 seconds of battle time. And the difference between a 15 attack IV and a 14 attack IV is probably around 0.2 seconds. Yes, this could conceivably make a difference between winning and losing a battle, but if you're accepting an 11 stamina IV over a 15 stamina IV just to get the one extra point of attack IV, you are probably more than negating the time advantage by sacrificing survivability.
When the lvl 39 level cap for pokemon will be removed you will regret powering a 14/15/15 Golem :) instead of 15/14/12. He has a +1 Rock Throw damage at level 40, 15 attack IV, vs. Moltres :).
I'm partly joking, it is an extreme example, and for duoing Moltres you are enough at the lower breakpoint if you and your team mate have 6 of them :).
I agree with long term, but also with breakpoints. I will not power up with maxing in mind anything less then 91 IV and 15 for attack. While grinding for lvl 40 you will find your desired pokemon(even multiples) with that IV spread.
But for leveling to lower/mid 30s, yes, I looked for 15 Attack IV just for breakpoints vs. my target boss: -
- Espeon vs. Machamp - total fail, both mine have 9 attack :(; luckily for Confusion the increase is minimal
- Ala vs. Machamp
- Gengar vs. Ala,
- if not the birds Golem vs. Arcanine (however I maxed mine for the dream solo Flareon)
- Machamp vs. Tyra/Snorlax/Lapras
- BS Exe vs. Vape - this one was harddddd, 7 for attack (a wild catch at lvl 30, only SoB before TMs), the rest okish (10 defence, 15 stamina); I needed lvl 39 for final breakpoint, reachable way earlier if better attack.
yes, if you are for medium performance. For the moment I'm into extreme performance with Golems, that is what keeps me playing.
After that Machamps will probably came, since I found another player in my city that is into this so it will worth pursuing a Tyra duet.
Otherwise yes, all you need are lvl 30 counters and splitting in medium teams in order to get +3 personal damage bonus in most cases. But for what final goal?
because i can have a good team for mewtwo, the birds, the beasts I can cover the crappy charge moves like focus m2 and SB ho-oh, i can start saving dust for gen 3 fairly early and with the likely power creep that will render many of the level 40 mons of gen 1 and 2 obsolete.
In the meantime I can solo all level 3 except jolt and flareon and 4 man moltress, zapo, tyrantar (probably 3 man but hard to find another trainer that has a full squad of fighters) and have already got my squads for the next raids sorted and can start stockpiling dust for either overpowering my favs or just shits and giggles.
Because against any raid i fight all the way to number 6 while holding a demanding job and looking after my family.
and assuming a dust income of 15k a day maxing each mon in a squad (assuming you can get 6 supreme counters worth maxing in which case you are getting better spawns then me) you can create 4 squads in a year (versus 12)
4 man Moltres and Zapdos is not extreme performance. Moltres was duoed, Zapdos was done in 3 with double digits spear seconds. This is performance for team of lvl 30 counters (not lvl 30 players, there is a significant difference), I agree with that. If that suits you, fine, just keep in mind there are others that have even more focused purposes even if they are not lvl 40 (in fact barely 38 fwiw :) ).
I just want 2 supreme teams in short term (1 month): one of 4 Golems (almost done, 3 maxed, 1 lvl 37.5) and one of 4 Machamps (way more to go, right now 30-32 levels and dust and candies just for 2 and half of them).
I might change my mind and switch from Machamp team to Tyra team, depending on another player.
BTW, I stopped leveling Dragonites way back in time, at the moment a level 33 double Dragon was able to defeat the highest city ZH/DG blissey (funny enough was mine :) ). Same for Gya, they are now as they were 4 months ago. And I'm resisting leveling up any legendary, even my team's bird.
