What is good stardust and candy management?
Subjective, I'd say, so I'll just give you my personal preferences and the reasons for them.
My stance
I'm a firm advocate for the zero stardust, and candy, collection. I also believe in pushing a pokemon to max despite the diminishing returns.
As for candy there's one exception -- I save 12 candy (or multiples thereof) for pokemon currently locked inside a gym to be able to push the the last clicks when that gym is torn down.
Whenever I get enough stardust to power-up one of the pokemon I'm pushing I do exactly that. That translates into me very seldom having more than 10000 stardust.
My reason
My reasoning is that stardust, and candy for that matter, is worthless until it's applied inside a gym or when I'm attacking a gym.
Whenever I power-up a pokemon it becomes a tiny bit stronger, be it for the purpose of defending a gym or attacking one.
While the cost for pushing a lot of pokemon to their limits means a horrendous cost in stardust as well as candy, it also means I can place high quality defenders in a gym while minimising the risk of taking on the bouncer role.
A CP 3200 snorlax, or a CP 3100 vaporeon, might not be all that much better in terms of game mechanics when it comes to defending a gym compared to their 2900 and 2800 CP counterparts. However, they usually place above gyarados, rhydon and, quite often, even dragonites in gym.
They almost always place above defending blissey.
My goal
My first goal is to have a dozen maxed out quality defenders. Despite my explicit playstyle and my being level 38 I still only have nine.
Sure, half a dozen high CP crap defenders and a dozen 'for lolz' pokemon, added to that line-up, but apart from vaporeon, candy and not stardust is the limiting factor.
The process
I'm currently pushing a blissey and a snorlax from very low levels with a zero candy collection. Needless to say this is extremely slow.
In the meanwhile I max out my prime defenders that aren't locked inside gyms, or rather did, because that part is done now barring the defenders I haven't seen the last weeks.
For now I'm finishing off doing power-ups to the 'fun' pokemon while waiting for more snorlax and chansey candy, mostly because I can simply forget about those mons after they receive one power-up each. That should keep me occupied for another week or so.
After that I'll pick one, or possibly two, vaporeon to push a little extra and rotate adding power-ups to another stiff dozen pokemon. That will last all through level 38, which is about two more months of playing.
Level 39? Maxing out those close to 50 pokemon and start looking at the 100 IV crap I have lying around. I quite frankly don't have any use for more than fifteen maxed out first class defenders.
What about a maxed out 100 beedrill with poor attacks instead? Or a sneasel? Level 39 will be all for fun.
I guess I am a stardust hoarder, compared to your style anyway. I like to have 500,000 in reserve as well as at least 50 candies for everything, everything worthwhile anyway. Most of my Mon I leave at level 31, until needed. They make good back-up defenders and come on now… Most players are putting them I gyms like that. I can always give a defender a few hits (to level 33 or 34) before putting it in, therefore giving me a few spots up. But yes, I have many maxed out good iv Snorlax, Blissey and the other basic defenders. Fun to see a 3100 Blissey or 3200 Snorlax sit on top of Dragonites and Gyarados.
ReplyDeletePumping them up this way is not wasted. You usually get them back and have them that much larger for the next gym or to pump up a little again. With Pokemon harder to capture as you get higher level, it comes slow and goes really, really fast! I have had million stardust days where you only get a few Pokemon to where you really want them. Candies are not my stumbling block, stardust usually is.