Home Tips and Tricks Getting ready for PvP: IVs, Pokemon levels and Combat Power

Getting ready for PvP: IVs, Pokemon levels and Combat Power

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Getting ready for PvP: IVs, Pokemon levels and Combat Power

With Pokémon GO PvP coming really soon (or PvP might already be out by the time you’re reading this) most of you are wondering what can you do to prepare yourself and start winning those battles against your friends as soon as possible.
For starters, we recommend that you don’t spend any stardust, candy or even your TMs until Pokemon GO PvP comes out and we learn more about it.

Until then, you can prepare for Trainer Battles by deciding what Pokémon you’re going to use, what moves they should have, and what are the best IVs for a Pokémon in Ultra and Great League.

Choosing Pokémon for Ultra and Great League

We won’t be talking about Master League in this one, as we all know, for Master League you want your strongest Pokémon with the best IVs powered up as much as possible.

But what should you choose for Ultra and Great League, should it be low level Legendary beast or just a regular Pokémon that maxes out just below 2500 CP (or 1500 respectively)?
Also, should you be hunting for that 100% IV Pokémon or should you look for that weird 0/15/15 IV combination?

Let’s compare Moltres and Charizard and see where it gets us. Be aware, this is an in-depth post with lots of tables and numbers. You’ve been warned! 🕵️

Moltres
MAX CP BASE ATK BASE DEF BASE STA
3465 251 181 207

Effective stats (scaled for Level and IV):

ATK IV DEF IV STA IV LVL CP ATK DEF HP SUM
15 15 15 25 2475 177 130 148 455
13 15 14 25.5 2500 178 132 149 459
0 14 12 27 2499 174 135 152 461
15 1 2 27 2499 184 126 145 455
15 2 1 27 2500 184 127 144 455
0 15 3 27.5 2499 175 137 147 459
0 4 15 27.5 2496 175 129 155 459
1 3 15 27.5 2499 176 128 155 459

Charizard
MAX CP BASE ATK BASE DEF BASE STA
2889 223 173 186

Effective stats (scaled for Level and IV):

ATK IV DEF IV STA IV LVL CP ATK DEF HP SUM
15 15 15 30.5 2497 174 138 147 459
0 13 15 35 2500 169 141 153 463
15 0 0 35.5 2495 181 132 142 455
0 15 1 37 2499 172 145 144 461
0 2 15 37 2500 172 135 155 462
0 15 15 34.5 2494 169 142 152 463
  1. We added perfect IV (with Moltres we also added a combination that grants you every stat better then a perfect IV)
  2. We also added IV combinations provided by redditor named u/Exaskryz that give you greatest: stat product/sum, attack, defense, stamina and bulk

As we all know, Moltres has much better stats, but as we can see in these tables above, when we have a 2500 Max CP cap, those two Pokémon will perform almost the same. In fact, there is a combination of IVs for those two Pokémon in which they will have almost the same effective stats.

Effective stats (scaled for Level and IV):

NAME ATK IV DEF IV STA IV LVL CP ATK DEF HP SUM
Moltres 0 15 3 27.5 2499 175 137 147 459
Charizard 15 13 14 31 2498 175 137 147 459

So, which one is better? A Legendary bird Moltres or starter evolution Charizard? There really isn’t an answer to this one. Although they might have very similar stats and are the same typing, they are still so much different.

Moves

If you’re using Moltres, you really want to have Fire Spin Fire as your Fast move, and Sky Attack* Flying and Overheat Fire as your two Charge moves.
Where if you want to use Charizard you would probably go for Fire Spin Fire as your Fast move, and Blast Burn* Fire and Dragon Claw Dragon as your Charge moves just so you can have a little diversity and more options to counter your enemies.

That’s just one area in which they are different. And you’ll have to choose what your team needs and what Pokémon you want to counter. (read more about the importance of Type Coverage in this article by Fitz City)

* We still don’t know everything about PvP and PvP energy mechanics so we won’t compare what Pokémon has better attacks.

Availability

The two Pokémon that are mentioned above, expecially with those moves, are really hard to get. They both have one Charged attack that you can’t get any longer, apart from by trading with someone that has them.

Charizard has to be powered up to a higher level, so depending on what you have in your Pokebox, you might have to spend different amount of Stardust on one or the other. Same goes with Candy, it might be hard for someone to get their hands on Moltres candy without using Rare Candy, so you’ll have to put that in consideration when choosing between these two.

Be aware…

…that if you’re going for that greatest attack stat or greatest bulk of your Pokémon, you’ll have a pretty hard time finding it. Not just with these two Pokémon we were using to demonstrate everything, but with almost every other Pokémon.

I.e. the only way to get a Pokémon with one of the IV stats 0 (zero) is to catch it in the wild when it’s not weather boosted. Almost impossible these days.

A few extra comparisons

Raikou  vs Luxray

Effective stats:

NAME ATK IV DEF IV STA IV LVL CP ATK DEF HP SUM
Raikou 14 15 14 25.5 2499 172 141 149 462
Luxray 14 15 14 30.5 2496 181 126 150 457

In this example you can choose if you want to deal more damage with Luxray, or you want to take less damage from opponents and go with Raikou. Also, they have different movesets, Raikou has a little bit better Fast move, but Luxray has more variety with Charge moves.

Rhyperior  vs Golem

Effective stats:

NAME ATK IV DEF IV STA IV LVL CP ATK DEF HP SUM
Rhyperior 14 15 15 23.5 2497 165 132 172 469
Golem 14 14 13 30 2498 164 155 148 467

When choosing between Rhyperior and Golem, you’ll mostly have to decide do you want more HP or better defense. Also, you might want to use Surf Water with your Ground Rock type Pokémon, in that case Rhyperior will be a better choice for you.

Conclusion

When it comes to Trainer Battles, we don’t think you should worry about aiming for the perfect IV combination (at least in Ultra and Great League), just look at what you have and choose the best from your Pokébox. There are a lot of spreadsheets for checking out what Pokémon will have the best stats at certain level with certain IV combination (i.e. there is one by redditor u/Trudisheff), but keep in mind that the better the IVs are, the lower level your Pokémon needs to be to get to that 2500 (or 1500) CP mark, that usually means less Stardust and less Candy you’ll need to spend.

So, instead of spending too much time looking through your Pokébox looking for that perfect IV combination, try to spend your time thinking what Pokémon will work well together in a team. What attacks should you use and what are the best counters for a certain Pokémon is the key here.

We think that focusing on those kinds of things will get you more wins against your friends, rather than a normalized spreadsheet of your Pokemon and their IVs.