The legendary Schedule and speculation
They seem to be outputting legendary raids in dex number order, and if the patern holds true for generation 4, the first set or raids will be the lake trio, followed by dialga and palkia, then heatran, regigigas (who may or may not require all three regi's to fight) then giratina and cresselia.
it doesnt seem likely they would start gen IV right on dialga and palkia, they're going to make rayquaza look like a joke by comparison, he lake trio'd be a nice warm up as well as biding time to get the better counters to the gen IV dragons.
Palkia's seems like the tricker of the two at face value with only 2 weaknesses, one being dragon. Seeing as Gardevoir's the only fairy type that can do anything, and togekiss' viability is yet to be seen, kirlia seems like the best raid option, easy to pinab and can be solo'd to get mass amounts of gardevoir easily. Dragon types may be viable so long as it doesnt have a double dragon set.
Dialga's going to be the much more difficult one, its a steel type so all of its dragon weaknesses are gone, and steel's fire weakness is as well, leaving only ground and fighting. This is basically like fighting a Lugia that actually has high attack power. MAchamp and haryama may be viable, but unlike similar bulky raid bosses like tyranitar, dialga doesnt have a double weakness and its STAB isnt resisted, combined with its noticeably higher attack stat, they will likely be whipping out a lot. Infernape and Blaziken could be better against steel sets because fire resists steel, but that is only specific sets. Its other weakness is ground, which the best of them are Groudon and Rhydon/Rhyperior (who is weak to steel) and potentially Garchomp (who is weak to dragon) The only real hope for ground is if Earth power is added and its a good ground move, or precipice blades for Groudon/its primal form
Giratina's going to be the easiest, having 5 weaknessed, but dont let that fool you, that doesnt mean it will be an easy fight, yes Tyranitar and houndoom will be great options, resisting ghost, having high DPS and being on most mewtwo raid teams already, but if it packs earth power or aura sphere (which may or may not be added) theyre going to take a serious hit, as we've seen with the regi's, Niantic is not above giving legendaries movesets designed to counter out their best perceived counters (ie focusblast/earthquake/rock smash to counter out new smackdown tyranitar and regirock getting Zapcannon to counter our water types) If it's Altered forme is the raid boss, it's going to be more tanky, but if its Origin forme, it's going to more offensive. Gardevoir and ghost types are going to be weak to its ghost moves, dark and ice types wont stand a chance against aurasphere or focus blast if it has that, and dragons are weak to dragon, leaving Togekiss, if it has usable moves, to be the fairy type, and only pokemon, that seems reliable against it
Answers
DPS has been important before, but these legendaries are, quite bluntly, nothing like what we have seen before, previous ones were either bulky, but didnt possess a large amount of DPS, as their counters resisted the legendaries best moves and STAB, such as gyarados resisting groudon's moves and tyranitar resisting lugia, but that isnt the case here, these three have a lot of both bulk and attack power, while kyogre and groudon were similar, they has easier types to counter as well as the options were better
DPS doesnt matter as much if you cant survive to do many charge attacks, as well as many of the better options will require HEAVY investments in dust and candy, like rhyperior or garchomp, it will take a lot of candy to evolve up to there, and to power up, or for legendaries a lot of rarecandy, as pokemon that previously weren't useful are going to become counters or new pokemon altogether. Thats why I prefer to think of registeel as practice for dialga, if ground types work on it, they will also work for dialga, but most people will be using fire types against it, which dialga's not weak to
I said the same thing about Houndour being hard to come by the other day, which apparently isn't a shared opinion.
While Rhydon raids are a thing, finding wild Rhyhorn can vary on where you live. The last time I consistently say wild Rhyhorn was the earth day event (Kanto event? whichever of those two was more recent) where luckily I bagged some +level 30 ones with high attack IVs (14 or 15).
Palkia is Dragon/Water type. Water cancels out Dragon's weakness to ice, so Mamoswine and co. would only end up doing neutral damage. It's only weaknesses are Dragon and Fairy, so currently, the only strong DPS options against Palkia are Dragonite, Rayquaza, and Salamence. Gardevoir will be a nice tanky option against a Palkia with double Dragon moves.
Of course, if Niantic puts Dialga out before Palkia, double Dragon moves Dialga will be an excellent option against Palkia, being neutral to both Water and Dragon, and doing damage that Palkia is weak to. But I doubt they would give us that gift, just like Groudon came out before Kyogre. Switch the order, and Kyogres crush Groudon raid bosses.
Im not saying machamp wont be useful, im saying theres going to be better things, it wont do as well against dialga because most of what machamp counters in raids are either double weak to it (tyranitar), or machamp resists its moves (tyranitar/absol/golem), or in the case of rhydon, its moves are so weak, against dialga, those arent going to be there, and those factors are the reasons its able to do as much damage as it does, for an example of how neutral damage tears into it, look at body slam snorlax
I'm not sure I'm seeing the same pattern that you are.
Dex order for the gen 3 legendaries would be:
Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Latias, Latios, Kyogre, Groudon, Rayquaza.
Raid release order (for Americas, since the Latis got released in a different order for the other half of the world):
Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Latios, Latias, Regice, Registeel, Regirock.
So far they haven't followed the Dex order at all. Same goes for Gen 1 and 2 as well. So I wouldn't count on any pattern that we can reliably follow to determine the order gen 4 legendaries are released.
If they do that, it would be like lugia raid's all over again, these legendaries are loke nothing before because of their type combinations, that and they dont share a whole lot of weaknesses with other raid bosses, a good number of legendaries shared weaknesses so if you had one covered, you had 3 or 4 other legendaries covered, but thats not the case, there's very little overlap in their counters so it will take a lot more stardust to get the best counters powered up if you dont already have them.
look at machamp, its good against dialga, maybe Gigas or heatran (though groudon will beat it at heatran by a mile) but utterly useless against the lake trio, cress and giratina, yes those 5 are weak to dark, but they could pull a regi trio on us again and give them all counter coverage, the best counters arent measured in pure DPS, but DPS and TDO
Lugia and Articuno dropping in at the beginning of the raid scene was fun as hell, outside of ball distribution glitches. It was a magical time when people were less organized and beating a legendary with less than 10 people was something worth writing home about. Dialga and Palkia having unconventional resistances while hitting their counters hard with neutral/SE damage will make their battles fast and frantic, and I for one look forward to it.
I ask you this again, what's Machamp being resisted by psychic and ghost types have to do with anything? You wouldn't throw Machamp against those any more than you'd throw an electric type against a ground type, a flying against an electric, or a fire against a rock. You keep bringing up simple type matchups like it obsoletes a certain Pokemon when it doesn't and it is the most maddening shit. You simply don't use that specific Pokemon in that particular matchup, that doesn't make it useless.
The regi's are a bit of an oddity among legendaries, like pikachu in CD's, they shouldn't be factored into pattern breaking because they're more or less a link between gens III and IV, the lati's I agree with you there, but others in the past I have heard were released in dex order, like the birds and beasts
None of the 3 gens had their legendaries released in order. If the gen 1 birds had been released in order, we would have gotten Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres. Instead, we got Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos.
Gen 2 was out of order since Lugia was released even before all the Gen 1 legendaries were out. The beasts were released in order (Raikou, Entei, Suicune) but only if you lived in the Americas. Other regions in the world got them in very different orders.
And even if we take the argument that the Regis are an intro to Gen 4 because Regigigas, they still didn't release by the Dex order for Gen 3 legendaries at all.
There is no pattern of legendaries being released according to their Dex #.
Gen 3 started with Groudon and will end with Regirock. To say they've been releasing them in Pokedex order is just not true. So instead of trying to predict what exactly they'll start with it may be best to plan ahead for all of them in a general sense of the word.
Lake Trio & Cresselia: I'm lumping these together since they're mono psychic. At this point most people who have played for a moderate amount of time will have the usual go-to's: Tyranitar, Gengar, and the like. You could likely use the Mewtwo guide as a reference for all three, making slight adjustments when moves get revealed. If they do all of these right after another it'll make for a long 4 months of using the same shit over and over again - plan for small groups as you may need them once excitement dies down.
Palkia: Basically a Kingdra on steroids with its typing. With water negating dragon's key weakness of Ice and dragon negating literally all of water's weaknesses all that's left are dragon types and fairy types. By DPS alone the usual dragon suspects take the crown - Rayquaza will likely be a must for fast damage output regardless of whatever Palkia knows. Palkia with double dragon movesets will lay dragons flat on their ass, which brings us to fairy types. Gardevoir stands out here with much higher survivability but much lower DPS, a full 5 points behind Rayquaza. Moves pending, Togekiss is another possibility but depending on the release timetable many players may not have one when Palkia drops. Same goes for Garchomp. Whatever happens here, battles will likely be fast and frantic.
Dialga: Likely to be the toughest T5 to date, possibly in Go's existence. Steel negates all of dragon's weaknesses leaving only ground and fighting. The go-to fighters Machamp and Hariyama stand out with the highest DPS, and Groudon with monstrous base stats despite lackluster moves. Other possibilities when Gen 4 drops include Garchomp, Rhypherior, and Mamoswine but they face the same issue as Togekiss above - lackluster moves could make them unviable, and depending on release they may not be around when Dialga drops. Expect Dialga to kick your shit in six ways to Sunday.
Giratina: For one it'll be interesting to see how different formes are handled. For two, both forms have stupid amounts of bulk, altered much more than origin. Luckily its dual typing doesn't pose the same challenges as the other two in the creation trio. Dragons, Tyranitar, Gengar, and Gardevoir are safe bets to be shuffled around depending on moves Giratina may know. Incoming helpers (moves pending, again) include Togekiss, Garchomp, and Mamoswine to prey on fairy, dragon, and ice weaknesses respectively.
Heatran: Fortunately the best fire type to come will be easy to take down. For once ground types have the spotlight here, alongside Machamp, Hariyama, and Kyogre. Other counters should be pretty obvious.
Regigigas: Get your four-armed fisters out, it's clobberin' time! By this point most people have a small army of maxed/near maxed Machamps, making this an easy fight in spite of gargantuan base stats. It'll be interesting to see if they incorporate its ability somehow as well as the gimmick of needing the other three Regis to fight.
But heres the thing, as we've seen with the regi's they arent above giving legendaries counter coverage, as I said before, if Gigas has Zen headbit, the machamp wont be usable at all, blissey's pitiful attack can still dent machamp noticeably it may not be a lot, but it is noticeable, becayse of that super effective coverage, now put that coverage behind Gigas' monstrous attack and that super effective damage will knock fighting types out left and right (and this seems likely because of what they've done with the regis)
Yes, high DPS gets damage out, but theres also this, the DPS loss from whipping out, machamp and haryama can dish it out, but not take it like groudon can, every time they got knocked out, that eats up precious time which is also a factor that should be taken into consideration as most players tend to have 5 or 6 machamp and a few haryama, when they get KO'd, they'd need to eiter revive their best ones, or go to their weaker ones
You say this like the Regis counter coverage means anything given their less than stellar attack stats. My Tyranitar can reliable tank a Focus Blast from Regice. In case you missed it, my Tyranitar - that's DOUBLY WEAK to fighting type moves - can survive a Focus Blast from a Regice and dish out sweet double rock DPS. In most cases Focus Blast would fill the charge meter, letting me return with Stone Edge over Smack Down. Registeel doesn't even have counter coverage - in fact Moltres resists every single attack Registeel can throw at it bar Hyper Beam.
In Regigigas's case, Machamp and Hariyama have the highest available DPS*TDO against a Zen Headbutt/Hyper Beam variant. Regardless of Regigigas's moves these two will be invaluable to beating it.
I don't know which Regis you've been facing but with Regice I've never had an issue with fast moves being problematic. I've yet to face a Registeel but given its lower attack and the fact that Moltres and BB Charizard resist both its fast moves I doubt it'll be troublesome then.
Groudon doesn't even factor against Regigigas, I'm not sure what point you were trying to argue there..
