Flareon should be a tier C- defender
Espeon and Jolteon are there. Both have immunity tier counters which resist all their moves (Tyranitar/Houndoom, Rhydon/Golem/Donphan). Flareon only has 1 (Omastar), which is rare in most areas. Its other counters (Vaporeon c Golem, Rhydon) don't really have high DPS.
Fire spin is a hard-hitting fast move on defence, though not as powerful as . Flamethrower has a short dodge window.
Answers
Flareon is probably one of the worst defenders that people use somewhat regularly.
Ran a lvl 15 vape with its worst attacking movset against a lvl 40 flareon with it best defensive moveset on pokebattler, guess what:
A level 15 Vaporeon with 1353 CP defeats a level 40 Flareon with 2904 CP in this battle simulation. The attacking Vaporeon was using Water Gun as its quick and Water Pulse as its special move. The defending Flareon was using Fire Spin as its quick and Flamethrower as its special move. The combat simulation was run with the No Dodging attack strategy using Realistic Dodging Pro
Only fire moves so very predictable.
weak to water ground rock; common high CP pokemons.
DPS isn't a issue in gym-meta.
The issue with Flareon (and Arcanine) is that it's weak to multiple of the most common attackers in the game: Vaporeon, Rhydon, Golem, even witout inmunity they make short work of flareon, in the case of the other eevolutions yes they have weak matchups (even weaker than Flareon), but Flareon's are much more common.
Confusion and Volt Switch are EVEN BETTER than Fire Spin on defense. Jolteon has Discharge which is really good on defense.
Beyond that... Vaporeon. Just Vaporeon. Still the easiest to get high tier pokemon in the entire game. Meaning literally everyone has one. Sure Vape's DPS isn't super high... but one Vaporeon will be able to absolutely roll the Flareon and probably the next 1-2 combatants as well.
