GamePress's Weird Love for Rhydon
I woke up this morning and saw the defender list updated. As I read through and agreed with almost everything with it, I signed heavily seeing Rhydon top on the list again. And it happened before.
Rhydon out tiered Vaporeon and Lapras?
I understood GP's point of view - Rhydon has higher potential CP than Blissey. But then what's the point of having a defender Tier list? Why don't you just sort all mons by CP?
A bunch of mons can beat Rhydon with least effort, aside from Vape. Exeggutor, or any Grass type with the OP Solar Beam, or even Machamp. Rhydon is even bigger a joke on defense than before.
Another question is that why would I need a Rhydon ABOVE Blissey in my gym - he should be at lower place for easier training, say the first one. Putting a Rhydon above a Blissey is one of the most terrible team play.
GamePress, think twice about your love for Rhydon.
Answers
Everything is beatable and really all defense lists are a joke and should end with "Blissey, Body Slam Snorlax" the end.
Rhydon is monster if you like to dodge just power moves (and yes those players are out there).
Which leads into the second side, any dodging slows down the kill. Both from slowing your attacks, and slowing your energy gain. Meaning if your goal is to win as fast as possible, as opposed to as efficiently as possible, Rhydon is downright dangerous.
I will also add Rock move stone edge is one of the harder moves to dodge.
I might suggest Vaperon and Rhydon are equal.
But why do you think Vaperon is better?
My Solar Beaming Attackers do more damage all right to Rhydon then they do to vaperon. But that washes out to the fact Grass takes less damage from Water, It doesn't from ground.
While all pokemon with a Double Weakness take huge damage, but the net results aren't terrible different to a pokemon with a single weakness vs a resistant attacker.
If push came to shove, I'd have put Rhydon on same tier as Vaperon. But I don't think Gamepress is horribly off
I'll show you my experience. I have the same Exeggutor, Bullet Seed + Solar Beam:
1) To kill a ~3000cp Rhydon, Exeggutor launches some Bullet Seed to take out 1/4 HP of the Rhydon (and over charge the energy), then a Solar Beam K.O. the Rhydon before he launches whatever charge attack he has. Whole process ~ 17s.
2) To kill a ~2900CP Vaporeon, no matter how I try, Exeggutor HAS to incur at least one of Vape's charge attack, HP or WP or AT. Also, two Solar Beam will be enough, not one. Whole process ~25s.
I agree that Rhydon is beast, on the condition that you are fighting it with another Rhydon
Dragonite with DT+Outrage, or SW+Dragon Claw, still does a lot of damage; Tyranitar, his Stone Edge / Crunch is also awesome if hit; Gyarados, the Hydro Pump is now the hardest charge attack to dodge, and it K.O. any Jolteon who fails to dodge.
I agree that all of them don't make great defenders, but putting Rhydon in the same tier with the three abovementioned seems like an insult to the three.
Here is reasoning for all placements listed in detail here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/5xnsme/gamepress_have_released_their_updated_defender/
Also Tier 2.5 description
"These Pokemon excel in terms of CP but are also formidable defenders in their own right. They have high damage output but only average battle length, and each defender in this tier suffers from a large weakness."
Rhydon fits that tier description perfectly.
I read through the detail you listed here. I really appreciate dondon151's efforts on making the list. I just have a different point of view and I'm not buying the full list.
I use Pokebattler myself, then it comes to me that those performances are all THEORACTICAL - say "Dodge ALL", it assumes you really dodge all with no misses - perfect operation. But we all know that in practice, it's not true. That's why, IMO, Gyarados with HP earns his place rightfully.
Your assessment of Rhydon assumes you are using a proper counter. So, "in theory", he's easy if you use a proper counter, but that is not the case every time. Try taking him down without a proper counter. For attacking, I usually have a Li/BS Snorlax or my Pound/Hyp Blissey as generalists and a Jolteon to handle the Gyarados there, and a Lapras to handle several Dragonites. If there is a game glitch or I'm distracted (playing in the city this happens a lot) and my Vap gets hit with a charge move well then I'm left using these sub optimal Pokemon and the match up becomes a lot tougher. Vap also has high potion utilization, if I'm running low on Max/Super potions, which is often (and I live above a Stop), I swap out Lapras for Cloyster and Vap is no longer really an option. Again, taking out Rhydon becomes a pain again.
Even Blissey is terrible against my Counter/Dyn Punch Machamp, but I only have one and the times when I have to face Blissey without that Machamp...
Again, stop assuming you're always going to be using optimal match ups, especially because you are so vehemently against assuming that you're always going to be able to dodge perfectly.
I think we are living under very different areas. In my area, Eevees are common. I can build a one-off army of Vapes in a week. And it's very competitive playing here, so almost everyone aimed for the best matchup. Which means, worst matchup has much higher weight.
Rhydon hits hard? I'll give you that. But, sadly, attackers of Rhydon just hit harder.
Also, I will stop wasting time arguing about Rhydon. As the other user says, there are only two defenders. The list is just to compare who sucks more.
Ahah, no don't get me wrong, I have access to Eevees for days (I've caught over 500), but finding a good IV one with the right moveset is tough, so the only ones I have (with hydro pump) are L30 wild-finds with terrible IVs that I do not wish to invest in.
Also, my area is ridiculously competitive.. I'm at about 4K battles. My point is if you are taking down a L10 gym with 6 attackers, not all of your match ups are going to be optimal, especially if you are low on potions, etc.
I really don't know what you guys are complaining about. It's basically an argument over who sucks less...Right now there are 2 formidable pokemon...
1. Blissey up to 2900 cp
2. Blissey over 2900 cp
Option 1 is a great defender. Option 2 can be a real show stopper because most pokemon will time out against it.
Body slam Snorlax gets an honorable mention, but he is little more than a bump in the road. After that people are just arguing about which pokemon goes down 5 seconds quicker...
earlier post about same issue: https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/q-a/rhydon-not-good-defender
Reading comments, it's true that EVERYTHING is easy to beat, besides high CP Blisseys. Gym mechanics are not optimal, we know it.
That said, I feel that:
- a high tier defender should at least hurt its attacker significantly, so that the same attacker can't kill 2 defenders in a row. I don't feel Rhydon does that better than others, considering it's superweak to one of the strongest and the most widespread type in the game. To me, Vaporeons and Exeggutors are better at this, possibly Espeon too. I never fight Poliwrath and Slowbros, but I feel they may even be better at defending than Rhydon.
- I understand the high CP argument. I think it's somewhat mitigated by the fact that, at least is some places, Rhyhorns are actually kind of rare. Candy availability limits my Rhydon power ups, not a problem for Vaporeon. A level 33 Vap has the same CP as a level 30 Rhydon, it's easier for me to get a 2800CP Vap than Rhydon.
I think we all agree Rhydon is not good at defending, but yes it remains a useful defender in this game.
So with all this I feel that Rhydon belongs 2 tiers lower in the ranking. That said, it's not so important. I enjoy the list and discussing it :-)
Thank you to the people who made it.
That is what you have to do with gyms the way they are. Make gyms as diverse as possible and make people switch out pokemon because they will have to take a couple hits in the process and/or lose their energy towards the charge move. This works great when you can actually put pokemon that are under 2500 cp in gyms...I love throwing Jolteon, Flareon and Muk between things.
I would also much rather face a Rhydon that a C/SeB Eggman. But I get that the tier list is based on numbers and detailed research, so Rhydon is up there for a reason. Where I live it's just a CP battle so I have started slapping my 27xx MS/SE Rhydon in gyms and he doesn't come back any faster than anything else. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the gym mechanics change has in store.
With the exception of Blissey and Snorlax, nothing is difficult to kill. This is especially true for seasoned players who know how to utilize type advantage and dodging.
For the casual crowd, even defenders such as Rhydon and Dragonite can do a decent job. I know because I have observed how my girlfriend (very casual player) attacks gyms. There ARE players out there who get hit by Mud Slap, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Dragon Pulse, etc etc.
