Evolving Pokemon based on CP vs Moves
Many people are evolving their pokemons based on the CP. However, there's a growing number of people evolving based on Moves instead of CP. In other words, choosing pokemons that have the highest Moves to keep, even if it isn't necessarily the highest CP. I am new to pokemon and don't quite understand the difference between the two. Thus, which strategy is better?
You shouldn't care too much about moves unless it is the final evolution. Since you're not guaranteed to get any move from a previous evolution you should evolve solely based off of CP. In addition CP plays a larger role on battles unless the CP difference is less than 100 to 200. I've won several gym battles against a type my pokemon was weak to simply because my CP was higher.
Honestly, it's a bit of both. Generally speaking (at least in my experience), if you have a high CP pokemon with a good special move, it'll evolve and still have a good special move (if not perhaps the same one).
Take a couple of examples of mistakes I've made: I had a relatively high level slowpoke but it had water pulse as a secondary. I evolved it hoping it would change and... it didn't. And it does about as much damage as my water gun primary attack. My Seel ---> Dewgong was even worse; it learned Icy Wind, which is probably up there with the worst moves in the game.
On the flip side, evolving one of a significantly lower level just because it might get a better move can make it pretty expensive (in stardust) to level up to a reasonable CP. Sometimes there's just no point, you may as well wait for a better one to evolve. I'd rather sit and wait for a high CP pokemon with a good secondary than rush and regret it.
There are different tiers of moves for instance, golem with mud shot is vastly superior to a golem of the same rank and another basic move. Same thing applies to aracnine with bite and vaporeon with water gun. Aside from that, I evolve all the pokemon I can get. I don't care about spending sd if I can get the perfect move set.