Best defensive mons
Pokebattler has updated its rankings. It shows Dragonite and gyarados are still top 6 defenders. Other are Blissey, Snorlax, Lapras and Steelix. This is quite surprising because of double weakness. But maybe this is the case because Dragonites and garys counters are relatively weak (electric and ice mons). However pokebattler will make more simulations and the situation might change, but I think it doesn't change that both of these are still relevant defenders.
https://www.pokebattler.com/rankings/defenders/levels/35/attackers/levels/30/strategies/DEFENSE_RANDOM_MC/DODGE_SPECIALS?sort=OVERALL&dodgeStrategy=DODGE_REACTION_TIME
Answers
This will be interesting to see how it plays out. It seems my two Lapras I hatched both came with HP. Initially I thought I was doomed but maybe it will still be a good defensive move to combat fire attackers.
Ice Beam can be annoying though as it is 90 damage - two bar move so could be going off a lot more and in the end do more damage.
As has been the case, I assume this is because of the amount of damage they deal before going down. Dragon tail still hurts a ton, along with mud slap on Rhydon. You might be on to something with their counters being weaker, or at least not having that hard hitting charge move like solar beam or overheat. Of all the current defenders, just based on my experience, I think Rhydon takes the biggest step back.
I wouldn't say he was squishy, he suffered from that double weakness. His counters (Vape and Eggy) are just a lot better than the counters to Gyarados and Dragonite. He did a lot of damage if you don't dodge all against him, and stone edge would KO my Tangelas all the time (a lot of it due to the dodge bug) when prestiging against him.
The basic premise of Pokebattler could be wrong.
Premise is Level 30 Attacker vs 35 Defender.
In old Paradigm people stopped leveling attackers for most part at 30, and leveled defenders past that.
In new paradigm, people might level attackers more often past 30. And might not if Gyms turn over quick quick not even bother to level defenders.
Will have to wait and see
This isn't realistic because it averages the Pokemon's best 15 counters.
15.
Nobody with any knowledge of what they are doing is using a defenders 14th best counter. Hell if you are using their 3rd best you are either very new or just don't know what you are doing.
Defenders are only as good as they do against their best counter, how rare the best counter is, and how good maybe the other three are. If your attacker was randomly selected or something this would be more realistic but it just isn't.
I don't. You are placing defenders with the plan that someone will run the wort possible option against it thus making it better?
So these rankings are numerically altered by sims of mons with double weaknesses running into resistances and immunities like that really happens and we think that is realistic?
ANd the best are run with their "5 best" movesets? On some that includes movesets for mons, that while may be good in other situations are nothing that we would run or recomend here.
There is one obvious thing that the attached article shows that is worth noting. What I have been saying all along about Blissey/Snorlax being the only real defenders has become even more pronounced especially if you don't just throw darts at your attacker group to pick it. All of those mons not named Blissey and Snorlax are around 50% or less. They are getting crushed and ruined by any and everything even when their best counter numbers are weighed down by counters no one would choose. So there is really zero discussion to have about all the other mons and where they rank. None of them are stopping any even mediocre attack squad or trainer and no matter what you do any decent trainer will ruin any of the the defenders in there.
Unless there are changes we don't know of yet of course.
So is your stance that there is absolutely no reason to talk about or discuss any defenders other than Blissey and Snorlax?
If that is your stance, I ask you, what will you put in a gym if there is already a Blissey and Snorlax?
At the end of they day, I think they really made a mistake by lowing it from 10 to 6 pokemon. Now it is truly a defender vs its worse match-up. At least when it was 10 pokemon vs 6 attackers, a diverse team would cause people to have to make decisions. If they didn't add some kind of mechanism we are yet to see, they made battling the pokemon even easier than it already was...
We can discuss it. Maybe even come up with a few slightly better than average versions. But it won't prevent the gym from falling for the reasons that you mentioned plus increased damage and often resistances. In the way your defenders effect you-coins, etc-it won't make a difference although there will be theoretically better mons.
To answer your question I am not sure exactly what I will put in. I do know that I have loads of candidates that will all act about the same. So I may be able to concentrate my dust expenditures better by investing in large attack groups for raids. There my dust could potentially pay much larger dividends. But like the rest of us I'm just waiting to see how it all actually plays out. I expect to be surprised by a few unexpected changes tbh.
Inagree with you from a knowledge perspective. But is proven by anecdotal stories and some questions asked that the majority of players will not use the optimal attackers.
So in a small comunities where only top players are left that methodology is flawed, but on larger, high turnover areas might be quite realistic.
Except there is no reason to defend your gym against idiots. You are defending against dedicated trainers who will take it down. Why rank anything for a guy who doesn't have the knowledge to counter any mon? What you put in there makes zero difference. Only your luck on how bad of an attacker choice he makes. You could beat him with anything.
Sort of. There were certainly spoofer made gyms here that would test your mettle with mulitiple Blissey and Snorlax. Plus you had to figure out beefy mons and time honest ones...
Now you just run the best counter head to head. It may not have been impossible before but let's not pretend that if there are no unknown surprises for the actual gym rollout it won't be easier by orders of magnitude than before.
