Cash in and evolve or wait for a better Pokemon?

[Illusionss]

So I'm debating whether I should evolve the following pokemon after saving up candies or wait it out and evolve them when I find higher CP ones, I'd like your opinions (I'm level 24 btw)

Bulbasaur 603 cp, 93% iv's into Ivysaur.

Ekans 457 cp, 84%-91% iv's, or Ekans 502 cp, 51%-77% iv's.

Nidoran (f) 483 cp, 82%-91% iv's all the way into Nidoqueen.

Nidoran (m) 467 cp, 88% iv's all the way into Nidoking.

Clefairy 680 cp, 97.8% iv's.

Jigglypuff 485 cp, 73%-75% iv's (think I should definitely hold out for a better one on this)

Exeggcute 548 cp, 84%-86% iv's

Ryhorn 659 cp, 86%-93% iv's

Horsea 437 cp, 82%-88% iv's

All of these evolutions will be new Pokemon to my Pokedex so it's obviously took me a while to grind the candies to get enough to evolve them, hence why I want to only evolve ones I know I'll use and wait it out for better ones where necessary, I'd appreciate peoples opinions on what to and what not to evolve, thanks!

 

[VisualJae]

Exeggutor and both Nido's have good potential for gym battling, with Exeggutor sitting up top. Obviously it's all dependent on movesets. Both your Nido's will end up in their final forms around CP1300-1400, while Exeggutor should be close to CP1500.

Exeggutor runs best with Zen Headbutt + Solar Beam (really just pray you don't end up with Seed Bomb). Psychic is a good alternative for charge moves if you need a Psychic attacker since there aren't many other options. Meanwhile Grass attackers have great alternatives in Victreebel.

Nido's need Poison Jab + Earthquake. No other combination of moves for both offensive and defensive Nido's can compare.

Both Clefable and Wigglytuff are fairly good for attacking, but they tend to make better early gym defenders (Wigglytuff > Clefable) due to their big HP pool and the fact that they can put a dent in attackers leading off with Dragonite (unless it has Steel Wing; the rare logical time an offensive Dragonite can put the move to use). Then again, Pound (surprisingly) now has the highest DPS output and Wigglytuff pulls it off best so if you're ever interested in building a powerhouse Wigglytuff, it's not out of the question (I'm personally in the process of doing so for the giggles).

Arbok, Rhydon and Seadra are either outshined by other options or they don't have a place in gym meta, so they're basically one-time Dex entry fodder. I'm personally hoarding Horsea candies for the possibility of Gen II and Kingdra.

That's a solid Bulbasaur, but again it's dependent on movesets (Razor Leaf/Vine Whip + Solar Beam) and if you're only on your way to your first Ivysaur, then you got a while to go. I'd be willing to invest all the way to a Venusaur.

But just based on personal experiences, I already set an early goal to complete the Dex first and then worry about optimizing individual Pokémon. You get more experience for filling out new entries and more experience means higher player levels which means potential to find higher level Pokémon in the wild.

Example being your Exeggcute. It's pretty low level and Exeggutor has a pretty high CP ceiling. I'd still evolve it since it's rated well, you can still power it up if it has a great moveset, plus a Dex entry is a Dex entry.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I would wait until the Monday update and see if they add trainer battles, if they don't then it doesn't matter how competitive your Pokemon are in battle because gyms are so easy to take down. It looks like candies are about to become easier to come by so evolving more Pokemon is going to become less of an issue.

 

[Illusionss]

I would wait until the Monday update and see if they add trainer battles, if they don't then it doesn't matter how competitive your Pokemon are in battle because gyms are so easy to take down. It looks like candies are about to become easier to come by so evolving more Pokemon is going to become less of an issue.

There's an update on monday? I thought the next major udpates were in december/start of 2017

 

[Illusionss]

Truth? You won't be able to hold gyms until you're in high levels, and attacking gyms is fairly easy. If I were you, I would hold on to these until I get some that are better. Specially that Bulbasaur, they are extremely rare to come in high IVs. Best piece of advice I can give is: Worry about leveling up, start worrying about competitive when you're in high levels. 28+

Should I go ahead and evolve the Bulbasaur then if they're so rare with high iv's?

 

[Neltharion83]

Best practise is to save up 60 evolutions, use a lucky egg, and do the 60 evolutions in 30 minutes. Evolutions that give a new pokedex entry should be included for the added XP.

It makes no difference if you power up the pokemon before or after you evolve them, except that after you evolved them, you know if the movesets are any good.

I would rather evolve pokemon that are not that strong but that have excellent IVs than to evolve the highest CP one even if its IVs are bad.

Keep all your strongest pokemon of any species and also keep the highest IV ones.

For me, it is difficult to see what could go wrong or be lost if you just evolve these and then keep them around, because the IVs are rather good. Sure, you will find stronger ones, but in the end, IVs are more important, when you finally power some of them up, you want to power up your top IV pokemon and not the strongest ones.

The officially announced new buddy feature also greatly reduces the chance of regrets. So if you find a rare one of these and its 100% perfect IV, but now you do not have the candy to evolve it and power it up (because you evolved a different one), then that will be the one you walk around with for candy.

Oh, and, level 24 is good enough to take arenas and to cash in on the defender bonus, and no matter what your level is, you will not be holding any arena anyway. In my town a high-level group got together and took an arena, leveled it up, all the way to level 10, and they added 9 dragonites (all CP 2500 or better, some above 3000) and a 2800 snorlax (that player had no CP 2500+ dragonite).

The arena still did not last the 21 hours. No matter how strong an arena is, if someone with a few strong pokemon and lots of spare time walks by and wants to take it down, its going down. A very strong arena just has an even higher chance to be seen as a challenge by some random bored player, turning that bored player into a temporarily dedicated player.

Take a safe, put 10 dollars inside, and drop it off at a big machine shop where plenty of bored mechanics are hanging around, working on their projects, and let them know that there are only 10 dollars inside and that they can do whatever they want. It wont last 21 hours, no matter how good the safe is or if its the best safe in the world. They will probarbly ruin a few tools that are worth more than 10 dollars, and a stronger safe will just motivate them even more and make the fun last longer.

 

[Illusionss]

Best practise is to save up 60 evolutions, use a lucky egg, and do the 60 evolutions in 30 minutes. Evolutions that give a new pokedex entry should be included for the added XP.

It makes no difference if you power up the pokemon before or after you evolve them, except that after you evolved them, you know if the movesets are any good.

I would rather evolve pokemon that are not that strong but that have excellent IVs than to evolve the highest CP one even if its IVs are bad.

Keep all your strongest pokemon of any species and also keep the highest IV ones.

For me, it is difficult to see what could go wrong or be lost if you just evolve these and then keep them around, because the IVs are rather good. Sure, you will find stronger ones, but in the end, IVs are more important, when you finally power some of them up, you want to power up your top IV pokemon and not the strongest ones.

The officially announced new buddy feature also greatly reduces the chance of regrets. So if you find a rare one of these and its 100% perfect IV, but now you do not have the candy to evolve it and power it up (because you evolved a different one), then that will be the one you walk around with for candy.

Oh, and, level 24 is good enough to take arenas and to cash in on the defender bonus, and no matter what your level is, you will not be holding any arena anyway. In my town a high-level group got together and took an arena, leveled it up, all the way to level 10, and they added 9 dragonites (all CP 2500 or better, some above 3000) and a 2800 snorlax (that player had no CP 2500+ dragonite).

The arena still did not last the 21 hours. No matter how strong an arena is, if someone with a few strong pokemon and lots of spare time walks by and wants to take it down, its going down. A very strong arena just has an even higher chance to be seen as a challenge by some random bored player, turning that bored player into a temporarily dedicated player.

Take a safe, put 10 dollars inside, and drop it off at a big machine shop where plenty of bored mechanics are hanging around, working on their projects, and let them know that there are only 10 dollars inside and that they can do whatever they want. It wont last 21 hours, no matter how good the safe is or if its the best safe in the world. They will probarbly ruin a few tools that are worth more than 10 dollars, and a stronger safe will just motivate them even more and make the fun last longer.

iv's aren't always the best choice though. For example I have a perfect 100% vaporeon, but it only has 549 cp, so it would take way too much stardust to power up to the level of my other vaporeon's and would be very inefficient

 

[Illusionss]

Do Diglett's always have low cp? I have like 6 (most from eggs) and they're all betwen 230cp-250cp

 

[Illusionss]

They're ones of the lowest CP pokemons, yeah.

May aswell just evolve a 250 cp one then since I won't be able to use any competitively regardless

 

[Kid=1412]

Only held out on Magikarp-Gyarados as I would want to have at least 2k CP so that's 190-200CP karp. My current highest is 153CP with 80-ish IV%.

Will probably do the same to Dragonite as my current and only dragonair with 800+CP just have above average IV. Still far from 100 dratini candies though. What's the multiplier for this pokemon upon evolution?

All others I cashed in, including Arcanine as I needed to level up faster and I am fairly confident in getting some of their basic form in the wild.

 

[tjumper78]

i evolved a dratini into a dragonair back when i didnt know anything about the iv values. it has 1075 cp but only 70% iv. im currently holding onto a 91% dratini (550 cp) until i get 25 more drantini candies. hopefully, i'll catch one with better iv/cp before i evolve.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I would hold out until getting 125 dratini candy, you are very unlikely to get a better IV dratini before getting to 25 but you might evolve that dratini and then end up getting a higher IV one before getting enough to evolve to dragonite

 

[tjumper78]

caught a 630 cp dratini 91% iv which evolved to a 1182 cp dragonair, then to 2377 cp dragonite. i just turned level 28 and it looks like i can power this baby up at least 8 more times before maxing out. only 2 dratini cadies left...

 

[Phoenixstarz]

caught a 630 cp dratini 91% iv which evolved to a 1182 cp dragonair, then to 2377 cp dragonite. i just turned level 28 and it looks like i can power this baby up at least 8 more times before maxing out. only 2 dratini cadies left...

Wow nice one that's impressive, I have a strong dratini and a dragonair that I desperately need candy for to evolve for a similar level Dragonite, unfortunately my current dragonite has low IVs (64%) and not high CP so I've got to wait for a battle ready dragonite