Why is Gengar not a good gym defender even after the CP update?
Gengar is extremely weak against snorlaxes, followed by nidokings and nidoqueens, then Gengars and Hypnos. Only weak to 5 kinds of strong Pokémon, and eventually not weak against dragonites at all. Unfortunely, one thing bad is its STA, but it can be done by getting high Stamina IV gengars.
Answers
Do you use him a lot attacking? What do you find him most effective against?
I agree that Gengar is super cool and wish he was at least a little tougher on defense. I love seeing him powered up in gyms.
Same with my 2500 Alakazam. I put him in gyms every now and then just to see him standing there looking cool.
I just use him against 18xx tentacruel poison jab/blizzard and 23xx vaporeon wgun/pulse and then 28xx gyarados bite/pulse. almost dodged every single attack and all charge moves. He beat tentacruel and vaporeon at last 1/3 hp gyarados. :D I am 33 lvl now. and as you can see below I have lots of options for attacking/def. gyms.
High stamina IV doesn't mean squat. They're only additions to base stats.
The actual base stat is far more important, hence why Snorlax and Lapras are really good, among other reasons, their stamina is really high so even with 0 IVs they're going to have way more HP than weaker Pokemon with 15 stamina IVs.
Gengar's 120 base stamina with 15 stamina IV is barely half of Lapras' base stamina with 0 IVs, hence its crap HP, which makes it weak to any attacker, not just those that are super effective against it.
Having perfect IVs on weak statted Pokemon is like polishing a turd. It's like saying 15 attack IV on Chansey makes it a good attacker - it doesn't when it's attack stat is still going to be lower than almost every other Pokemon in the game.
