High CP or high IV?

[Merlok707]

Hi everyone, I am new to the forums and relatively new to Pokemon Go. I have been playing a lot so I'm pretty quickly up to Level 20, but I'm a bit confused and hesitant about the best strategy for powering up and evolving my best Pokemon.

When you're trying to select the best Pokemon to evolve and power up, is it ALL about the iv, or would you EVER pick a Pokemon with lower iv but higher CP?

For example, I am ready to evolve an Eevee, and I have one that has 389CP but looks to be 84%, with another one that is 533CP that looks to be 50%.

Another example, I have a Staryu with HP 120 and 84% iv, and another Staryu with 409CP and 64%. Am I correct that the 120CP Staryu is the one to stick with, even with his low CP?

I know that Staryu isn't the most glamorous Pokemon but I'm using this as an example because it is pretty extreme.

Thanks!

 

[Phoenixstarz]

With both those examples I would still wait for a better one, maybe evolve the high CP ones for now if you want the pokedex entry and to use it to battle in short term but realistically you want to be looking at 91%+ for powering up long term. (I use that figure as a realistic figure that it's going to take a long time to catch a better IV one. If a Pokemon is rare to your area and you are unlikely to find a better IV one I would consider an 80%+ for example my exeggutor is 80% IVs because I rarely get exeggutes so I won't be likely to replace it for some time but I still won't spend too much stardust on it because I will eventually (long term) find a better one

 

[Merlok707]

Thanks, I know you're right about waiting for the 91%ers. Particularly with Eevee, since I seem to catch a lot of them, and I already have each of the 3 Eevee evolutions.

So I'm asking more for hypothetical purposes with the Eevee. But with the Staryu, I may evolve it during a Lucky Egg spree I'm getting ready to go on, because I also don't have a Starmie.

 

[fulltimekiller86]

i will choose high cp pokemon (currently 20 level)

 

[Hiatus]

Say, is there any possible way for us to check IVs?

 

[Neltharion83]

i will choose high cp pokemon (currently 20 level)

That is generally a mistake, and it is certainly a mistake in the long run.

Say, is there any possible way for us to check IVs?

Are you serious? Read this forum, you will learn that there is an ingame feature and that there are IV calculators.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

Are you serious? Read this forum, you will learn that there is an ingame feature and that there are IV calculators.

Perdition Haze
Moderator
Posts: 11,701

He trolling ;)

 

[Neltharion83]

Perdition Haze
Moderator
Posts: 11,701

He trolling ;)

I overlooked the metadata :)

Anyway, you can turn a high IV pokemon into a high CP pokemon (if its one of those that are competitive), but not the other way around, a high CP pokemon with low IVs is doomed to be mediocre.

So the dust should always go to very high IV pokemon that have good movesets.

Using candy does not matter too much because it is easy to get more if we are talking about common pokemon, eevees and starmes are common, you will evolve many of them anyway. Dust is the rare resource.

 

[Marsha1aw]

i use silph road for my iv calculator, its pretty solid IMO. im only lvl 14 not competitive yet but trying to build a team i will level up when i have the right Iv's mixed with the right move sets. had my 92% evee evolve in to flareon with heat wave, not terrible. i just hatched a 97% jigglypuff recently lol. they are all still very low cp nothing even close a 1000 yet. but im not gym battling just trying to save dust and collect high iv mons.

the problem is you can get a high iv pokemon that you power up but if you evolve it later and it lands a bad finishing move your screwed.

there is a know issue with iv's that pokemon need to be above 10cp and 10hp before the iv rating kicks in. so youll need to dump some dust from time to time.