Leveling Pokemon with the current best defender movesets might be a bad idea in the long run(?)
I have a Dragonite that has the perfect defensive moveset. So, I should probably be happy about it. I however am not. If they ever update the gym "AI", there is a risk that many of the current best defenders might not continue to be the best defenders. That could definitely be the case with Dragonite. The Steel Wing is really weak compared to the Dragon Breath. Only thing that makes the SW version viable is the current gym "AI", which is probably subject to change in the future, as it is far from polished at the moment.
Any thoughts?
Answers
Well, you're right that if they change the AI there will be somewhere between a small and massive reordering of the best defenders. However, none of us know when, or even if, Niantic will change around the combat system, and if they do, what specifically the changes will be. Given our lack of knowledge, my advice would be to focus on playing and planning which pokemon to powerup based on the current parameters.
One other thought: unless Niantic goes in and changes the base stats for some mons (which I don't see happening, but I've been wrong before), the current best defenders will probably remain at or near the top of the list in the future. So what if your A ranked moveset gets downgraded to a B or C rank moveset? It'll still be better than sticking a Pidgeot in the gym to defend!
The thing is that e.g., in case of Dragonite A ranked moveset could become D rank moveset, so inferior SW is compared to DB. Still better than..., but yeah.
In case of defending Dragonite, basing on the current parameters, I would power up one with DB and DP, if I would have the pleasure of having one. Almost par with the current best defending moveset and, imo, least subject to negative changes, if gym "AI" is altered.
Yeah, in the case of Dragonite, I would power up a DB/DC or DB/DP Dragonite before any Dragonites with SW. That's because I think Dragonite's main purpose is to be an attacker, and SW isn't much good for attack. I mean, Dragonite can defend (and its really high CP is nice when you want to get a safe upper slot in a gym), but that's secondary in my mind. And I agree - while a DB/DP Dragonite might be sliiiiiighly worse at defense than SW/DP, I would still choose it because it would be more useful all around and less likely to be nerfed.
Besides, I think moveset is a bit overrated when it comes to defense anyway. Don't get me wrong, some movesets are clearly superior, but for defense I think what matters more is a pokemon's CP, HP, and name/type (be honest - if you saw 6 Snorlaxes in a gym wouldn't that at least make you think twice before attacking it?). Note that none of these things will likely ever change, even if Niantic updates the combat system.
I can forsee Niantic making adjustments to "gym balance" as they say (i.e. changing moves), but highly doubt they'll overhaul the entire AI any time soon. The entire purpose (in my opinion) of having these different moves are just that, to have moves better for attacking and moves better for defending.
The gym's AI was always meant to give attackers the advantage, Niantic recently changed the training interface in order to balance out training to make it just as easy to train up a gym as it is to take it down. I see level 10 gyms everywhere since the new update and anyone that has experience attacking a gym knows how time and resource consuming it is to take down a high level gym. A level 10 gym can easily take 45 minutes to an hour to defeat single-handedly. If they changed the AI of gym defending, it would likely make it nearly impossible to take down a high level gym alone, regardless of the amount of time needed.
