Evolving - what to look at?

Hey, when evolving a pokemon, what should I be looking at? I originally thought CP only would be a safe bet, but I'm looking at evolving a Bellsprout right now and one with high CP has an attack that does only 15 damage where one with much lower CP has an attack that does 60 damage.

Which pokemon should I be evolving based on their stats?

 

Moveset is probably most important, then IV and CP. Message me and I'll help you figure out how good it will be.

 

Is it not best only to look at the CP meter, and evolve pokemon who have it nearly filled up for your level? I know this is going to sound dumb, but doesn't move-set change once you evolve? I'm level 21 but I've yet to evolve any pokemon I truly care about / like as I've been playing the pidgey / rattatta grind so far in hopes of catching higher CP pokemon, so I haven't really been paying attention to movesets. I could have sworn that I heard that they change upon evolution though.

 

Yes they do change (not all the time, certain moves stay). The best strategy is seeing what moves the base forms know and then finding out what those moves will become once that pokemon evolves.

As for CP, no that's not correct. In many cases, the higher the CP the higher the evolution will be. However, that doesn't mean it will be a good battler, which is the whole point of pokemon in this game (unless you're just trying to complete the pokedex). The first thing you look at to determine strength is the moveset and damage per second. The next thing is the IV (the closer to perfection your pokemon is, the higher its CP will be when you're level 40), and only then do you check the current CP. For Pokemon like Magikarp, it's of course important that it has as high CP possible before you evolve it (because of the 10.55x multiplier), but once you start powering it up you'll only be able to take it so far if you haven't made sure it has high IVs (attack, defence, stamina, hp).