"Gym Battling Analysis: When to prioritize Movesets vs. when to prioritize Individual Values."

#PokemonGO: I just recently hit level 30 and over the past few weeks I've transitioned from Pokemon hunting to doing a TON of gym battling and I've made some observations regarding movesets and IVs.Before we begin I'm going to make note of the fact that there are three different types of Pokemon when it comes to battling: Gym Defenders, Gym Attackers and Gym Prestigers. We'll break the analysis down into these three groups.Gym DefendersThe only thing that really matters if you're going to defend a gym is CP, and therefore all that matters is IVs. A 100% Gyarados with Dragonbreath/Twister is a "better" gym defender than a 75% Gyarados with Bite/Hydro Pump. (I say "better" because a 75% Gyarados with Bite/Hydro will be harder to take down, but will look less intimidating at face value and will also be placed lower in a gym due to lower CP.) This is because the number one way to defend a gym is to deter the gym from being attacked at all. Because of the massive disadvantage that defending Pokemon have compared to attackers all a good moveset will do is cost an attacker a few more potions. If someone wants to take down your gym they will, so you need to make your gym appear to be too much of a hassle to take down. The only real way to do this is to have a bunch of high-CP Pokemon in it, and the only thing that affects CP is IVs.Gym AttackersAs I said in the previous section, if someone wants to take down a gym then they will, and that includes you! While high IVs will help you take down gyms faster they're way less important than moveset. Let's take Arcanine for example. A level 30 15/15/15 Arcanine will only take down a gym 6.1% faster than a level 30 0/0/0 Arcanine with the same moveset, despite being a full 331CP lower. However an Arcanine with Fire Fang/Fire Blast will take down a gym a full 5s faster per use of Fire Blast. (Assuming perfect DPS, there'll be an even bigger difference if frames are missed.) If you take down 4 defenders with one Arcanine averaging 25s per defender you'll take the gym down a full 30-40s (30-40%) faster with FF/FB than you would with Bite/Bulldoze.Gym PrestigersHere's where things get a bit tricky. (Please note that none of this applies when using bubblestrat or some other variant of very low CP power prestiging like Magikarping.) Just like with attacking enemy gyms your gym prestiger's moveset is the most important trait. However unlike when attacking enemy gyms, when prestiging friendly gyms your Pokemon's CP directly impacts how much prestige you get per training session. So the issue here becomes how much you value attack IVs vs how much you value lower CP. Ultimately I find that for gym prestigers the lower the IVs the better, with the attack IV being the only one that is okay to have high if you're dodging all attacks, while Defense and HP should be the only high ones when tanking quick attacks. In the scenario where you're dodging all quick attacks and using your charge attack exclusively to last hit a defender then ideally your prestiger will have either 15/0/0 IVs with a perfect moveset or 15/0/15 IVs if you're going to be aiming at tackling defenders with much higher CP than you. (I.E. the Butterfree vs Exeggutor strat.) However, as /u/duel_wielding_rouge pointed out, If you're tanking quick attacks and using charge attacks off cooldown then 0/15/15 is the best IV distribution as they affect your CP the least. All in all though the general rule is the lower IVs the better and honestly the difference IVs make is relatively small. Focus on moveset.TL;DR: There are three different types of Pokemon: Gym Defenders, Gym Attackers and Gym Prestigers. IVs only matter on Gym Defenders and Gym Prestigers, movesets only matter on Gym Attackers and Gym Prestigers.This is my first Silph Road post and I would love feedback on my analysis :) via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2dtOR7d