Unusual pokemon in gyms
Now that the gym system has changed I'm starting to see a lot of different, and unusual, gym defenders. Round here, people are starting to realise that they shouldn't put a very high cp defender in as they want it kicked out so they can get coins. I'm seeing less gyarados, dragonite, blissey, snorlax and tyranitar. I did see a weedle defending a gym yesterday. This is my local gym (about 500m from where I sit right now).
Is anyone else seeing this as well. What are the most unusual pokemon you've seen?
Answers
Gyms are now more of a show-off podium, but I kind of like the variety in what people put in them nowadays. It helps fill the pokedex. I've seen a Tauros and a Heracross, which are not found in Europe. Also, I have seen an O-shaped Unown. I also put some of my unusual ones in, such as Mareep, Lickitung, Quilfish, Politoed, Miltank... I should put that Hitmonchan up there some time soon.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Oh noes its a CP 800 Azumarrill!!!! I don't know it's weakness! Well, I hope my CP 3200 dragonite works...
The reason we are seeing this awesome variety in gyms is people have figured out defending is irrelevant. About half the people anyway. I still see some blisseys and snorlaxs in gyms.
The problem with making gyms defensible or gym defenders to begin with is that making a gym take VERY LONG (say an hour like before for most level 30 trainers) was why they would stagnate to begin with...
Even with 3.1k Blisseys, if it took, say 1 fight to clear a level 10 gym, no gym would really stay standing...All gyms were easy before (no skill), it just took an hour and add the time to farm potions/revives which made it not worth anyone's while...
If, say it was changed where you got 10000 stardust to attack a gym, then no gym would be left standing neither...
This is why I've mentioned that there is a fine line and maybe actually no line in gym defense.
For Niantic, either they want the game to have territories, make gyms hard (like 1 mon to prestige when it started which actually made level 10 towers pretty rare), make gyms take a very long time and require a lot of resources (nerf potion/revive drops), etc...
or...you get rid of defense and have instant slots, easy to tear down, useless defenders/defense like we have now. I don't think you could every have both honestly. It's never going to work.
What I find strange is even with it taking faster to tear down gyms now, I really REALLY don't want to award all my rivals after they've been in there for 8+ hours, and in turn, get kicked out in < 1 hour...
It also seems even less satisfying and just more of a chore to attack gyms since the fights are insanely easy, but all the splash screens, gfx, etc...loading, makes it even more annoying for me (yes, I'm on a slow phone too which doesn't help)...
Good thing with all this is I spend practically 0 time dealing with gyms since I don't need to prestige anymore (it was a daily thing for people who thought it was wake up, press collect) and after 1 month after the new gym meta, EVERY SINGLE MON in my inventory is now healed...Even crap things like random larvitars I may have used in gyms or to prestige strange cp mons, etc...
Potions and revives are endless now for me...
All this said, I don't think Niantic will ever make the gyms hard again honestly. The majority of people LIKE the changes since before, they got 0-30 coins...Now, they normally get 50 for little/no work.
I've noticed only a few people actually attack gyms, then the lazies just dump stuff in...instant win...you can see why they like it...
My thinking is the game will continue to setup to be easy/easier and more inclusive so things which makes the game harder, more challenging, less casual will not be done.
