Which Snorlax to power?
Currently I have three snorlax(es?)
-> 2548 CP - 77.8% IV - ZH/EQ
-> 2446 CP - 44.4% IV - ZH/HB
-> 1757 CP - 17.8% IV - L/HB
Which one should I power up? Or should I wait for a better one?
Sidenotes: Only hatched one Snorlax and caught two
Currently walking Snorlax
Answers
ZH/EQ, high IV: defender (first to power up imo);
ZH/HB, medium IV: durable generalist attacker (second to power up; As you dont put an attacker into a gym, this one could collect candy while being ready to attack)
L/HB, low IV: leave it as it is - perfect durable generalist prestiger, will not earn 1000 xp, but something like 600-800, depending on the gym; You will sometimes decide not to prestige with 50%-1000xp-prestigers, as it is annoying and potion-revive-intensive.
Yeah, like I've been telling kids till I'm blue in the face, CP is the only thing that matters for defenders.
That kid on the other team hitting your gym doesn't care what moveset your Snorlax has. If he's taking it down, it's going down.
Honestly, the people that suffer from the best defensive movesets like this, where you're trying to squeeze out another 5-10% dmg are your own teammates trying to prestige.
Who's going to get hit harder between the upgrade from EQ to HB? The kid rolling through your 2.8k Snorlax with a 3.2k Dragonite or the kid on your team trying to beat it with a 1.4k Wigglytuff?
For Snorlax I'd say IV distribution matters a lot. As it has high stamina IV, low IV examples could make sense to power up if they have high attack/def. The ZH/EQ is probably worth powering up in any case, as it provides passable type advantage vs attackers like Arcanine/Rhydon, and has good IVs.
The ZH/HB one would be a good idea to power up only if it has high attack IV (and ideally some def IVs too). If it doesn't, you're probably better off saving your candies for a better Snorlax to come.
80% IVs on Snorlax is what I'd consider good. 90% is close to a no-brainer, especially if it has ZH. Personally my best Snorlax is 71% IV and I decided to power him up all the way from lvl 8 because he has 15 attack IV (which counts double for cp calculation) and ZH/BS moveset. He is currently lvl 31 with 2844cp and can be a real pain to face in a gym.
Play a bit with
https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/cpcalc#/
and get a feeling, how IVs affect CP. CP is a rough indicator for battle performance too, so you can see, how IVs influence that.
You will notice, that a low IV-Pokemon needs 2 or 3 more levels in comparison to a high IV-Pokemon for similar performance.
You will notice, that a low IV-Pokemon reaches significant lower CP at same Level, and this hurts for Gym-Placement.
You will be able to make your own informed decicion which IVs are acceptable. The rule of the thump: A seldom PKM (Dragonite, Snorlax, Lapras) should be accepted at slightly lower IVs than a common PKM.
