"A recap on IVs - many people perceive them as more valuable than they actually are"

#PokemonGO: tl;dr: IVs are overblown. The level at which you can obtain something is very important, as a free higher level Pokemon means less dust spent powering something up, means you can save that dust for things that must be powered up (raid/egg/quest exclusives). You may jump to the last paragraph for my final advice.I see this question daily on the sub: "Is this worth powering up?" and they have a Pokemon, usually a rare one like Gible or Riolu, that they are inquiring about. It's not a 100% or 15-attack specimen, so they worry about wasting dust.I write this post to help people get a grasp on IVs and what they really mean for a Pokemon's stats.Here's a tool you can play with. I might have gotten a little carried away with adding some features to it, but toy around with it as you wish. (If you manually change the level in a cell for column A, the stats do update, in case you need a different level than what I gave by default.)https://ift.tt/2Qhz1Ah download a copy to your own Google Drive and then you can edit it as you wish.The gist is that I give you tables where you can see different Level and IV combinations and what the real stats the Pokemon has are. For those unaware, the real stats for Attack and Defense are hidden from the user. Only Stamina is shown. (This is partially because Attack/Defense are not strictly integer values!)I hope that by seeing these real values, you realize exactly the difference between your current Pokemon and the Pokemon you wish you had.Let me run you through 2 frequently asked questions:1) I got this 11/15/15 Gible at level 18. Should I evolve it?My answer? No, not yet. It's 91% sure. But I'm not saying no because of the 11 attack. I'm saying no because of the level. Level 18 11/15/15 Garchomp would have these stats:Attack: ~154.16Defense: ~117.88HP: 143Compare this to the possibility of catching a wild Gible at level 30 and evolving it. At 0% IVs. It's real stats would be:Attack: ~190.97Defense: ~141.22Stamina: 174To take OP's Gible-turned-Garchomp to similar stats of our hypothetical, it would need to be powered up to 27.5, which produces these stats:Attack: ~190.55Defense: ~145.71Stamina: 177And how much does that cost? An additional 60,900 dust and 54 additional candies.A wild Gible can be that much cheaper. In a pretty bad scenario. It's much more likely a wild found level 30 Gible has even moderate IVs. The more IVs this hypothetical Gible has, the more catching up our 11/15/15 Gible has to do.Now, there are other factors: Do you need a Garchomp? Without an electric, rock, steel, dragon, or fire type raid boss, maybe not. So hold off on investing in this Gible: You might get a better one before you need it for a battle.2) "Is a[n] 87% riolu [worth] evolving?"My answer? Kind of, maybe. Lucario now has the best potential as a fighting type with it getting Aura Sphere. Can you use a fighting type, right now? Totally. Big pick in rocket battles, would be a great gymmer too. And back then, we still had Terrakion in raids and it was definitely usable there.OP here has one with 15 attack. We can guess at the other stats: 12/12? Great! At level 20, a Lucario's 15/12/12 real stats would be:Attack: ~149.95Defense: ~94.99HP: 111Is that worth it? Eh. The level 18 Garchomp from scenario 1 at 11/15/15 exceeds those stats. The species matter. The moves matter. All those culminate to determine your damage per second, DPS. But against a Terrakion, I probably would've opted to use Garchomp at level 18, if I had to choose between these two.Which normally, you don't have to. Machamp had long been king of Fighting. It was expected to be dethroned by Conkeldurr, but Lucario did a sneak attack. But your Machamp, that you've caught and/or powered up into the 30s or even maxed them out, are going to be far better than this level 20 Lucario.Machamp's level 35 stats for something at like 10/10/10 IV would beAttack: ~185.82Defense: ~128.70HP: 165This Machamp exceeds in stats by 35 attack, 35 defense, and 54 HP. But it has worse IVs! The difference? The base stats for the species, and of course, the much higher level Machamp has.You can't get a weatherboosted Riolu/Lucario, nor catch them in wild. Best you're going to get is a level 20. You've got to start there.To get to comparable stats to this Machamp, you've got to take it to about level 30. This 15/12/12 Lucario at level 30 hasAttack: ~183.66Defense: ~116.34Stamina: 136And it is still weaker than your current Machamp, per stats. I haven't run the simulations for performance against a raid boss, so it is possible that Aura Sphere's better move stats puts Lucario over the edge here, even if the real stats for Lucario are lesser than Machamp. That's why I'll call this comparable.You need to spend 75,000 dust and 66 Riolu candy to get your Lucario here (plus the 50 (49) for evolution). And do that 6 times over. To get similar performance. You have to go beyond that to start exceeding your Machamp army's performance.So don't toss aside your Machamp quite yet. Lucario hasn't outright replaced them.The other perspective to take in this scenario, similar to the first scenario, is waiting for a better IV specimen.Should you? The difference between level 20 15/12/12 Lucario and 15/15/15 Lucario is ~1.8 more defense, and 2 more HP.That's it. What about level 40? If you max this 15/12/12 today, and later get a 15/15/15, how much of a "loss" did you take on your investment? A grand total of ~2.36 defense and 2 more HP.There is no reason to fear maxing out your 15/12/12 Lucario if that's what you've got to work with, and you can use it maxed out today, just in case you end up with a 100% Lucario later. 2.36 defense and 2 more HP.Heck, take the 10/10/10 Lucario if that's the only one you get, and you have a ton of rare candies with no other use. The difference in the attack is ~3.96, defense is ~3.96, and HP is 4.In fact, those values are (usually) the same for any species, when comparing two of the same species. Because the base stats are the same for them, and it's only the IVs that are different as bonus points.These aren't values to get hung up on. The CPM for level 40 is 0.7903, or practically 80%. 80% of 5 extra IVs is going to be 4 for any stat. (I expect there are some cases where the HP is only up by 3 due to the rounding they do.) That's all the difference is in real stats.For most Pokemon whose base stats are between 150-250, the difference of 4 more points is not a lot.Again, Machamp isn't useless now. And you may find it still useful and worth small investments in. Regice coming up this weekend? You can still use your Machamp. Lucario might perform better, but is it really necessary to have for the 8 hours? Take any Machop you happen to find in high 20s or in its 30s, and evolve it. For no dust, and only using Machop candies, which can only be used on the Machop family, you can get something very serviceable.IVs help you guide investments. Investments of dust and candy. But if you can shortcut those investments by finding something in the wild or use "second best" mons that are already in your inventory or are accessible in the wild at high level, great.Just as species guides investments -- no one is powering up Beedrill for raids (bar fun self-imposed challenges). Just as levels guide investments -- you really shouldn't take a level 1 96% mon up to level 30; that's 120,000 dust. IVs also guide investments. (Even your ability to spend TMs changing the moves of a newly evolved Pokemon is a factor, as a Pokemon with the wrong moves is not going to help you.) All these components need to be considered.But what drives investment is necessity. If you need a Pokemon to fill a role, think about how much it will cost to get something to fit there, and if it is worth waiting for a better specimen. Normally, if you need it, you shouldn't wait. If you don't need it, you can hold off and continue collecting candidates that will be the cheapest to invest in. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2MwDVZ8