I have a question regarding gym defense, and wether or not to power up my main defender.
Currently my main defender is a 93%IV, 2983 Blissey with Zen Headbutt and Dazzling Gleam. I purposely kept her under 3000CP due to the ridiculous motivation decay rate Niantic introduced to Pokemon over 3000CP. Now it seems that has been removed, and it decays based on their actual CP, rather than it being above 3000 or below.
I’m now unsure what to do. Would it be better to power up this Blissey and to max her out, or would her decay rate then be too high? Or should I keep her at her current CP (considering her decay rate is already a little ridicolus)
Any help on this subject would be much appreciated 
I don’t think there’s much of a difference between 2900s CP and over 3000 anymore, so if it’s really good IVs, I would go ahead and power up. Just make sure you give her a berry once about every hour to keep her motivation up. And yes, zen head but + dazzling gleam is AMAZING on defense! Hope this helped, and good luck with your gyms.
Thank you! She maxes out at just under 3200 with her IV set, I’m worried about her motivation decreasing too rapidly if her CP is that high. So you’d say once an hour would be enough? 
Anyone else?
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Yeah, once an hour should be good with remote feeding, and make sure to give a berry when you actually drive(or walk/bike etc.) by the gym. And, I have to say, I’m proud that you are actually concerned about having a good defender! Lots of players just want their coins so they put rattatas in gyms.
…Im always happy to see people actually trying to hold down their local gyms.
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With the bug fix to the rate in which a Pokemon’s motivation decays it has now been observed that on average a Pokemon looses 10% of its total CP per hour. Let’s take a look at the numbers. Below I compared a 100%IV Blissy maxed out at 3219 CP to my 91%IV Blissy at 2977. I too intentionally kept it under 3,000 because of how fast Mon’s decayed above 3,000CP.
Hour 0 maxed Blissy: 3,219 / my Blissy: 2,977 (CP difference = 242)
Hour 1 maxed Blissy: 2,897.1 / my Blissy: 2,679.3 (CP difference = 217)
Hour 2 maxed Blissy: 2,575.2 / my Blissy: 2,381.6 (CP difference = 193.6)
Hour 3 maxed Blissy: 2,253.3 / my Blissy: 2,083.9 (CP difference = 169.4)
Hour 4 maxed Blissy: 1,931.4 / my Blissy: 1,786.2 (CP difference = 145.2)
Hour 5 maxed Blissy: 1,609.5 / my Blissy: 1,488.5 (CP difference = 121)
Hour 6 maxed Blissy: 1,287.6 / my Blissy: 1,190.8 (CP difference = 96.8)
Hour 7 maxed Blissy: 965.7 / my Blissy: 893.1 (CP difference = 72.6)
Hour 8 maxed Blissy: 643.8 / my Blissy: 595.4 (CP difference = 48.4)
Hour 9 maxed Blissy: 321.9 / my Blissy 297.7 (CP difference = 24.2)
Hour 10 maxed Blissy: 0 / my Blissy 0 (CP difference = 0)
After both Blissy’s have been in the gym for an hour they will be at 90% of their full combat power if the gym goes uncontested and no berries fed. After two hours they will be at 80% of their full combat power, after three hours 70%, etc, etc. I’ll be powering mine up as soon as I walk another 50km even though I know that after about two hours in a gym its easy enough for a competitive trainer to take down. Hope this helps you decide how to use your stardust.
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Thank you! That’s really helpful to see it all laid out like that. What would your personal advice be then, considering the situation with my Blissey?
Power her up, place her in the gym you’re trying to get a gold gym badge for and give her a golden razz during peak hours of play.
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That’s a great comparison, thank high very much for sharing @SCArsenalGunner!
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Thank you for this, it’s an amazing overview of the new motivation loss!
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I usually keep Pokemon over 3000 out of Gyms because of how fast Motivation bleeds out for them. Personally, I think they need a new mechanic for keeping defenders in check. The new system kinda makes me miss the old system. They could’ve kept the old system but made necessary tweaks to it like only having one of each Pokemon and such. But they succeeded in making me wanna go out and battle Gyms. Lol
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…Im always happy to see people actually trying to hold down their local gyms.