"Why you should still want to be the very best"

#PokemonGO: There is a lot of very well-researched commentary on why various things some hardcore trainers tend to care about, like IVs, movesets and power-ups don't matter. You may be familiar with these arguments, but here they are, briefly:The total value of IVs, the difference between 0/0/0 and 15/15/15 is about 10% of total stats. The difference between 82-84% IV and 100% IV is less than 2% of total stats. The practical difference between a fairly common excellent appraisal and a very rare flawless Pokemon is marginal in most cases, and may even be zero in many matchups, due to the way the game rounds damage calculations.Power-ups beyond level 30 only provide half the stats of power-ups before 30, but they increase substantially in candy costs and stardust costs. The cost of raising a Pokemon from 20, the level it hatches or is caught in a raid at, and 30, is 75,000 dust and 66 candy, but the cost of raising a Pokemon from level 30 to level 39 is 130,00 dust and 152 candy. For all those resources, you get only about an 8% increase to all your stats. You can almost have 3 level 30 Pokemon for the same cost as one level 39.These things are well-documented, and they are true. But, despite that, if you want to have the best outcomes you should still try to find the highest IV Pokemon and level them up as high as you can, because all these things that seem slight or marginal individually really add up once you start to accept mediocrity in your Pokemon.Simulated example with a perfect max level PokemonI'm going to use as an example a Golem vs a raid Zapdos. Golem is generally the best attacker vs a raid Zapdos, and any golem is a good golem. He resists Zapdos's electric attacks and his rock attacks hit Zapdos for SE damage. I am looking at Pokebattler stats for Golem vs a Zapdos with Charge Beam and Thunderbolt, and the Golem will be attempting to dodge specials with realistic dodging outcomes.Here is a level 39, 15/15/15 Golem with Rock Throw/Stone Edge. He is the best possible Golem:http://ift.tt/2tPyXLv estimates he lives about 53 seconds, and he deals about 15.5 damage per second. If you've got four of these, and the fight lasts 200 seconds, you'll deal damage equal to 25.1% of the boss's health and the 4th Golem will still probably still be alive at the end.Here's how I am calculating that:You'll notice that the DPS for a particular Pokemon varies when you rerun the simulation, due to whether the simulation has it fail to charge a dodge, or how the damage numbers fall relative to an energy meter in a particular situation.The "time to win" number on the sim page is how long attacking alone with a succession of identical Pokemon one after the other would take you to beat the boss. This averages all those random factors over a longer period, and therefore evens them out. You'll notice this number changes very little as you re-run the simulation. So what I do is take this number, and divide the boss's health by it to get a better average DPS for the Pokemon than a particular simulation.Then, I multiply that number by 200 to get the damage you're likely to deal in a 200 second raid battle where you aren't the only attacker. And then, I divide that number by the boss's total health to get your percentage of DPS.Simulated example with a pretty good max level PokemonHere's what happens when your Golem has the same level and moveset, but have 12/12/12 IVs:http://ift.tt/2vdiFj8 is actually a much greater difference than that IV spread would usually make, because Golem has a DPS breakpoint on Rock Throw at level 39 that he reaches with a 15 attack IV, but doesn't hit with a 12. Most Pokemon will deal the same damage on a quick move with a 12 and a 15 attack IV, but this is a very relevant case where you get an extra damage. At level 39, Dragonite also has a breakpoint on Dragon Tail that he needs a 14 IV to reach. It doesn't matter for most Pokemon or most quick moves which don't have break points that require high IVs to meet, but one damage on each quick move is a big deal when this situation arises. In this case, the 3 attack IVs cause him to deal 6% more total damage vs Zapdos!The Defense and HP IVs also mean that a 12/12/12 Golem lives about six seconds less on average, so if the battle goes to 200 seconds, you'll be on your fifth Pokemon, and you'll deal about 23.5% of his total health in that time instead of 25%.Simulated example with a pretty good level 30 PokemonNow, let's drop Golem's level to 30:http://ift.tt/2tPytVO this case, since he has that breakpoint on his quick move at level 39, he doesn't have one between 30 and 39, so 12/12/12 Golem deals the same damage with Rock Throw at 30 that he does at 39. For almost all Pokemon who don't have a breakpoint on quick move damage at level 39, there will be one between 30 and 39, so the difference in damage that fell off when we lowered his IV will come out of lowering the level in most cases.Golem's Stone Edge deals less damage at this level, and that lowers his total DPS about 3%.Even though level 30 Golem has 9 less health and takes 2 more damage when he fails to dodge a Thunderbolt, the sim usually shows him fainting only a second or so sooner on average at level 30 than at level 39, in part because he usually faints when he misses the dodge, and the overkill damage exceeds the HP/defense difference between the level 30 and level 39 Golem. The impact of these defensive stats varies by matchup and by the defender's moveset, and may be somewhat understated here since Golem has an immunity to electric and therefore takes only 51% damage from Zapdos.You still end up getting to your fifth golem and dealing 22.8% of his total health in a 200 second fight.The result is that a 15/15/15 level 39 Golem deals about 10% more damage and lives about 15% longer than a 12/12/12 level 30. This is roughly comparable to similar comparisons across different Pokemon and matchups. In general, the difference between level 30 and level 39, plus the difference between 80% and 100% IVs is worth 6-10% damage per-second and 5%-20% extra survivability against raid bosses, with the lower values occurring against harder-hitting charge moves, whose overkill damage on a successful hit exceeds the defensive difference between the stronger and weaker attacker.When it really mattersI estimated these values for a 200 second fight, and a player with a pretty good army of Golems does fine if the fight goes that long. But what if the other players aren't as well-prepared and few people show up for the raid, so the fight goes down to the wire?In this particular matchup, six 80% level 30 Golems die at about 276 seconds, costing you your damage bonus, while the 15/15/15 level 39s can hang on for a full 300 seconds.Similarly, the additional DPS can make the difference between getting 2 and 3 balls for damage contribution in some raids, or can carry the team contribution bonus for your team, netting you an additional 3 balls. If you've been getting only 6-8 balls in legendary raids, be aware that players using better Pokemon are consistently getting 10-13.Also, outside of raid contexts, check out the difference between level 30 pretty good Blissey and level 39 flawless Blissey vs level 30 pretty good Machamp attackers.Flawless 39 Blissey: http://ift.tt/2vdkX1R good 30 Blissey: http://ift.tt/2wc3IuN via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2vjH7jO