low cp/decay defenders
so, i've recently been thinking of changing up my gym defenders as i often gym late at night and though i have plenty of blisseys/snorlax with some over 3k they are usually decayed into the redzone by morning rendering their high CP useless overnight.
firstly i'd like to ask what cp i'd need to be under to last 8 hours in a gym and still require 2 fights (as a benchmark) and secondly (as i've read motivation decay REALLY ramps up after 1300cp) what defenders are best under this threshold ? my thoughts are anyone passing would smish a solo redzone defender but requiring a couple of fights against a lower cp 'mon may be more ofputting than one fight against a demotivated blissey.
i know chanceys are the #1 in this regard so i have several but i've also had strong showings from azumarills and gut/old gym prestiging experience says faeries like wigglytuff and clefable are good fighters and possibly even wobbuffet could provide that tough 2nd battle that would discourage attackers.
appreciate peoples thoughts. high CP doesn't work as i know for sure anything i put in won't be attacked for at least 6 hours but also not reinforced/fed either so i'd rather use lower cp requiring 2 fights than a 3k+ blissey decayed to 500 and instant kill.
Answers
I'm not worried about my own coins, I've only missed between 200 and 250 free coins since the new gyms. If I place late at night I want my color to have an opportunity to fill the slots in the morning before an opposing color quickly sweeps my weakened guy out. I feel that builds team support and keeps my color at least keeping the app open.
from what i've read decay increases exponentially after 1200cp until 2300cp when it slows back down. there is no decay cap or faster decay for evolutions so a 999cp 'mon won;t last any longer than a 1001cp 'mon for example. higher CP always means faster decay but i'm trying to find a sweet spot of 2 battles left after 8 hours while still being a viable defender - chancey and azumarill are strongest contenders so far. i'll still use my blisseys etc. during daytime but they are worthless in overnight gyms as they decay too fast to be a deterrent come the morning.
I've settled on just getting into more gyms and placing high CP defenders to hopefully deter attacking until at least after midnight. If they get kicked after a single pass by someone up early at 4-6am, that is already most of the way to my 50 coins. I am in a busy enough area that none of the gyms I take will usually last until the next night. If I take 3-5 gyms, they each need to last about 2 hours.
I did some research on this over the summer to determine the rate of decay vs CP.
I can't recall the actual loss of CP per battle, but let's say that it is 33% of the initial CP. Therefore, to have 2 battles remaining, you need to have lost only 33% over 8 hours, which is 4.125 % per hour.
If you look at my graph from my previous post:
https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/q-a/rate-motivation-decay
then you will see that 4.125 % per hour corresponds to a maximum CP of about 1550.
The best defenders will still be (according to the GamePress Best Defenders list): Blissey, Snorlax, Chansey, Steelix, Dragonite in that order. Given that it is unlikely you will have any Blisseys, Snorlaxs or Dragonites with a CP below 1550, or any high CP Chansey, Steelix may be the optimal defender in the 1400 to 1550 CP range.
