Powering up and Evolving are two different things, so I think I understand the confusion now.
Is it worth powering up a Pokemon with lower IVs but a higher starting CP, to save candy/stardust? How much do IVs really matter?
You asked specifically about powering up, not evolving. Therefore I offered the advice, and followed up with a reason why'd you ignore low IVs AND the extreme 100% IV case. Because the ultimate goal here is to provide you with information to help you get to a decent stable of attackers (or defenders) faster without wasting as many resources (candy/dust).
It's never worth powering up a pokemon with shit IVs.
So as a general rule of thumb, any combat pokemon should at least be 80% (Mystic - Wonder / Exceeds) to be powered up -- there's no point in holding out for that 98-100% combat pokemon.
Those two statements seem contradictory to me. If there's very little difference then, to me at least, I'd rather conserve my stardust.
Again, you've used Stardust savings as the example which means you're talking about powering up pokemon ... which you follow up with a link from information I have provided that seems to contradict my earlier advice....
... which is all about Evolving pokemon -- not powering them up.
Now... there IS a case to be made for Evolving a lower IV pokemon if it's of a high enough level (CP), this works really well for defending pokemon, but it's not so great for combat attackers. Re: Blissey and Slaking.... but they managed to fuck over high CP pokemon in gyms so they decay faster if they are over 3k... and I think they actually lowered that even further, but I've never looked into it further.
When I started playing this game I was using my girlfriends account, and we both made plenty of mistakes when we started. I made my account almost 6 months later and didn't spend any stardust or candy on that account until I hit around level 25, and the ONLY thing I spent stardust and candy on was a Jolteon and a Vaporeon (about 84% for each) with double STAB moves, as I needed at least 2 decent flexible attackers to take down Gyms. As a result, when I finally hit level 30 and wild pokemon were capped at level 30 I begun working on improving the large stable of decent (read: good, not perfect) IV attackers and defenders of various levels (CP), removing lower IVs and culling the lowest CP/Movesets. At the time, they still had the old gym system which favoured higher CP pokemon to stay in Gyms, so that was a factor which is no longer relevant. Under the old system, Evolving a high CP (level) Chansy was a given, because the evolved Blissey was going to be gigantic, regardless of it's IVs as a defender.
When the raid scene dropped I had to start evolving top tier attackers to put in a decent showing at raids. I focused heavily on raiding Machamps, which I never bothered to power up until I had 6 machamps with over 80% IV with the good movesets (Counter/Dynamic Punch/Close Combat) and then focused on Tyranitar. So when Mewtwo finally dropped for my town, I had a stable of 6 Tyranitar all over 84% which I then fucked around with until I had 3 with Dark/Dark, and 3 with Dark/Stone using TMs.
Without knowing your trainer level, your common spawns in your town, your access to raids and so on, the best advice about powering up pokemon remains the same. Don't waste resources on non-combat pokemon, shit, don't even bother with powering up defending pokemon -- just focus on attackers -- with a focus of pokemon over that 84% (wonder/exceeds) IV barrier.
It's fine to evolve low CP / IV pokemon that AREN'T attackers or defenders for Pokedex completion though!
I'm only trying to give you the benefit of my experience back when I thought it was a good idea to power up things like Cloyster to deal with the massive number of Dragonite spoofers in my town. Oh.. the stardust and candy I have wasted....
This coming community day should be awesome, although because we'll only be catching Larvitar, unless it's a shiny or a 90+ it won't escape my transfer button.
