Do you guys think its better to let Pokémon evolve at their natural levels or to delay evolution?

Superfox

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    In terms of stats, which is better? Have you found that your Pokémon are more powerful when you purposefully delay their evolution or do you find it to be the other way around?
     
    I delay in some cases to get certain moves.
     
    The only Pokemon that I hold back from evolving are those that evolve via stones, for instance Growlithe, only because if you use a stone they usually stop learning moves/get less moves than without evolution. I usually evolve Pokemon as soon as I can, exceptions to that select few, just because of stats growth. Cranidos for example has an already mammoth 125 Attack, one of, if not the highest out of all unevolved and basic Pokemon. Evolve it to Rampardos, and you get the highest Attack out of all non-legendary Pokemon - even then, it's really close in Attack stat to Kyurem-Black - the second placed highest Attack Pokemon. Evolution makes a Pokemon stronger by boosting their already strong points, while holding back lets them learn better moves quicker. I usually evolve immediately.
     
    Like most, I only delay evolution when I want them to learn certain moves. This happened fairly recently with my Growlithe. I've also learnt to not evolve Eevee immediately. :P
     
    Like Nonon said, some pokes that evolve via stones I hold back. Just in my recent Leaf Green playthrough I held Vulpix from evolving into Ninetails until it learned Flamethrower. Needless to say, it's now one of my favorite pokes lol.
     
    I once tried holding back evolving Pokemon who evolved at a natural level to teach them moves they only learned in that form (for example, in RSE Mudkip could learn Hydro Pump but its evos. couldn't). However, I had trouble doing so since I liked giving them held items other than the Everstone and didn't want to have to press B all the time, plus, I prefer evolving those Pokemon ASAP because it'll be harder for them to win battles the further in-game I get. That being said, I do delay the evolutions of Pokemon who evolve via stones, as many of them don't learn new moves upon evolving, or miss out on learning moves their pre-evos. learn. A lot of them can hold their own in battle even when not fully evolved, too, which helps a lot.
     
    Not going to lie, I am pretty lazy sometimes when it comes to Pokemon. It really depends on how many levels I will have to wait and what the Pokemon is. For a middle evo starter, no problem, I'll wait a couple levels. But something like Noibat or Rufflet? I'm going to evolve those as soon as I can, since compared to other Pokemon at lv 50 they are not able to stand up to any of them. They gotta start pulling their own weight on my team! ;)
     
    If I ever evolve the Pokemon, I usually end up evolving them as soon as possible if they've learned or can learn all the moves I want them to.

    Some Pokemon are incredibly frustrating because they have to level up to high levels before learning a good move, like Poocheyena and learning Crunch around the level 50 mark!
     
    I normally let pokemon evolve when they want to not always but most of the time I do.
     
    Sometimes I do delay evolution, usually when I want something to learn a specific move that it gets much earlier than its evolved form does. In a recent White 2 challenge I did, I kept my Aron as it was until Level 43 when it learned Heavy Slam, because Aggron wouldn't get it until 57, and I thought it was worth the 11 more levels as an Aron given how Audino can't do anything against it.

    For that matter, in XY, you gain a 20% boost if a Pokémon is past the level it can evolve at, so when i'm trying to evolve a two stage fast if i'm not gonna use it (for the sake of breeding, Pokédex entries or such), I keep it as first stage until one level before the second stage would evolve, or it learns the move I want. Interesting feature they put in there.
     
    I don't think delaying evolution has any effect on Pokémon stats-wise. Regardless of when you do it, their base statistics would always be the same. I have done this personally, though? Yes, plenty of times; last time I did it was with Shroomish, I believe, so that I could teach it Spore. This is a very useful move, and could be learned a couple of levels after it's set to initially evolve. Another Pokémon I've done this with was Combuskin in Ruby, just to see how far I could go without having Blaziken on my team. Wound up evolving it eventually, though, because things were beginning to get a little difficult.
     
    Nah, I don't think there's any benefit to delay evolution. I mean, I don't delay evolution unless the Pokemon evolve by stone (which case I just eyeball a good level to evolve) or have certain pre-evo moves that I want. That said, I don't necessarily think it's better to delay it or otherwise, if there's no foreseeable practical reason for it. Six in one, half a dozen in the other, as they say.

    pippitha said:
    I don't evolve any of my pokemon until level 99/100. They level up much faster if you can wait it out.
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    I never actually thought of it that way, haha.
     
    I never really delay evolution unless if it's like, a stone-based evolution and I need moves that only the pre-evo gets so I wait to reach that level first before I evolve it. As for those that naturally evolve by level, I usually let them evolve at said level.
     
    It is much better to wait and see if you have the moves you want first, because you get them earlier if you haven't evolved the pokemon. The only risk is that your stats are lower.
     
    I usually look up the moves the entire evolution line can learn. If there's a move I want than only the pre-evo can learn, but not the evolved form, then I wait until it learns that move and then evolve it. This is usually the case with stone evolutions. Or if the pre-evo learns a move at a much lower level than its evolution, and it doesn't really have any other good moves, then I might wait as well.

    Other than that, I see no benefit in running around with a weaker Pokemon, since stats are the same, regardless of the level it evolved at.

    pippitha said:
    I don't evolve any of my pokemon until level 99/100. They level up much faster if you can wait it out.
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    Are you sure? From what I've noticed, all the Pokemon in an evolution family are in the same growth rate group, so it shouldn't matter if they're evolved or not. Unless they did change it in XY, like Stargazer is saying?

    Stargazer said:
    For that matter, in XY, you gain a 20% boost if a Pokémon is past the level it can evolve at, so when i'm trying to evolve a two stage fast if i'm not gonna use it (for the sake of breeding, Pokédex entries or such), I keep it as first stage until one level before the second stage would evolve, or it learns the move I want. Interesting feature they put in there.
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    Wow, really? Do you have a source? I don't seem to find any info about this... Nevermind, found it on bulbapedia. I had no idea though, I think it's pretty cool :)
     
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    MIAU said:
    Are you sure? From what I've noticed, all the Pokemon in an evolution family are in the same growth rate group, so it shouldn't matter if they're evolved or not. Unless they did change it in XY, like Stargazer is saying?
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    It's always been that way. It's a pretty significant increase of exp points you need to level up already evolved pokemon as opposed to unevolved.
     
    pippitha said:
    It's always been that way. It's a pretty significant increase of exp points you need to level up already evolved pokemon as opposed to unevolved.
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    How come? For example, Lotad, Lombre and Ludicolo all have medium-slow growth rate, so they all need 117,360 total exp points to reach level 50; and 7,766 from level 49 to level 50.
     
    MIAU said:
    How come? For example, Lotad, Lombre and Ludicolo all have medium-slow growth rate, so they all need 117,360 total exp points to reach level 50; and 7,766 from level 49 to level 50.
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    I don't know how you came to that. Maybe that's just if you evolve them at the normal levels.

    I can try to test that out if you want, but even in the games an NPC will tell you that you can hold off on evolution to level up your pokemon faster.
     
    pippitha said:
    I don't know how you came to that. Maybe that's just if you evolve them at the normal levels.

    I can try to test that out if you want, but even in the games an NPC will tell you that you can hold off on evolution to level up your pokemon faster.
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    I got the numbers off bulbabedia: link.

    And upon further inspection of that page, turns out that there is indeed a 20% boost if you hold off evolution, like Stargazer said, but that's only in gen 6.

    I apologize if you were only talking about gen 6 as well :)

    So okay, looks like I have another reason to delay evolution in XY.
     
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