Optimal Gyarados Defending Moveset vs Jolteon
Dragon Tail + Crunch
Dragon Tail + Outrage
Dragon Tail + Hydro Pump
Dragon tail is obviously the superior fast move, and I know gamepress ranks the charge moves HP>Or>Cr
However, I haven't fought against any DT grayados and don't know what is the most difficult to fight against in the real world.
For those of you that have fought a DT gyarados with Jolteon; was Crunch, Outrage, or Hydro Pump the most annoying/difficult to defeat?
Answers
If he has DT I dodge every time. If he has bite I may just power through some of them to wipe him out. I'll dodge any charge moves.
I use the same moveset (TS/TB). I asked this question because although I'm normally a dodge all attacker, I've been departing from this style in my Jolteon matchups against Gyarados and just letting him hit Jolteon and after both TB bars are filled up I use them one after the other. This has been working quite well, and I wondered what others were doing.
I'd say that crunch is the most annoying but also the one that allows you to play without dodging and survive.
Outrage is stronger, but easier to dodge.
Hydro pump is the best in my opinion. It doesn't allow any mistake. One miss swipe on your screen and you faint. You can count on a high level to shoot his HP once per battle. A level 30 or lower gyarados may not have time if you use a level 30 or higher jolteon. I use a 2500 CP jolteon and I find maxed out Gyar able to use HP.
I have a DT/HP and DT/OR gyarados and I maxed out both of them. In your case I would go for the highest DPS move, OR.
I have fought all of them. I find crunch the hardest to dodge, with outrage also being difficult. On top of that, if crunch is launched, you still can't really throw out your thunder safely, because it might be followed up by another crunch immediately. But maybe I just have to get used to these new moves. Also, if HP hits, it will usually kill your Jolt, which makes it the most difficult move to battle against if you are experiencing the gym bug.
I have a DT/Crunch Gyarados myself and fought him many times for prestiging etc.
All I can tell you is that it's very annoying to deal with him because he is almost all the time spaming crunch. I don't know about Outrage but definetly crunch is better than HP. Even with dodging DT/C Gyara could kill your Jolteon.
If you have a decent Jolteon compared to the defending Gyarados, you can usually beat it before it fires HP, which takes HP out of the running. Between Crunch and Outrage, I think Crunch has the advantage due to being more difficult to dodge and being more likely to get hit while using a charge move, with its less predictable timing.
For similar reasons, a DT/C Gyarados is a pain to prestige up. The only time I've ever changed my mind about prestiging a gym with a Gyarados at the bottom was when I found out it had DT/C and concluded the benefit was not worth the resources (DT/C Gyrados at bottom, Blissey next, dodge bug present, ~9k prestige remains from lev 7 to lev 8). As I look on GymHunter just now, apparently nobody else prestiged it up either, and now it is lev 6 with Blissey at the bottom.
I haven't fought a DT Crunch (or any crunch) gary yet... but I can say that I find an F-rated Bite Twister gary to be more challenging to defeat than a DT/HP one. I suspect DT crunch is more effective than DT/HP against jolteon (but not against anything that isn't a gary destroying electric)
Why? The charge move on the gyarados doesn't mean jack if it's dead before it gets to use it, which is often the case with a jolteon as attacker. Twister is always going to go off, and I find it extremely hard to dodge.
I live in fear of the day I face a DT-Crunch gary in battle with my insufficient stable of electric attackers; I'm sure it will mean that the attacker is only able to kill a single gary. And I only have a single jolteon attacker, and gary is about 20-40% of gym defense around here (lvl 10 towers with only 1-3 non-gary defenders are common).