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Gym attacker rating/Raid attacker rating

Ive been thinking about this for a long time, and the more i think on it, the more i think it does need to be stated.

Raid attackers and gym attackers arent always the same. Look at machamp, it cuts through the uber tank normal types like butter, but when it comes to raids, most of the big target legendaries (mewtwo, lugia, the birds, Rayquaza, etc) its garbage against, only really coming into use as a raid attacker to get the good legendry's counters (note i said "good" legendaries, not the regi's) ie, Tyranitar. (Houndooms just an inferior tyranitar, and absol, theres research tasks) Serving only an indirect use that isnt required unless going for 2-3 man takedowns

On the other side, theres pokemon that are great for raid offense, but not all that great for reliable gym offense, like gengar, shadow ball mewtwo, gardevoir, some Rhydon sets, pokemon whose offense and in some lack of bulk, is more suited for taking down raids faster rather then be healed up for every gym battle

And yes, there are pokemon that excel at both, Tyrantiar, Dragonite, assorted legendaries, but more often than not, a pokemon's use is either raids OR gyms, and having a rating system for just offense in general can mislead the usefulness of many pokemon

Asked by MetagrossMaxis6 years 8 months ago

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The raid scene changes, so they always post a flavor of the month. Which hasn’t changed too much becaus Registeel is like a mini Regice. However, most are true in most cases. A shadow ball Mewtwo is amazing at attacking gyms, just not Blissey. Blissey is not all gyms, so just because it’s not good at Blissey, doesn’t make it a great gym attacker. And have you tried attacking a gym that had a 3000+CP Dragonite, Gyrados, and a strong Gardevoir? Better not try a Machamp at that gym, it will get crushed like nothing.

So generally good attackers are good at both, just have to be at a certain time.

I have, and it wasnt fun. i did it to prove a point to a friend who had a machamp obsession (one of the sources of my distance for it because he never shut up about it when it had no use against legendaries) but those rarely pop up, and my group and i do go out intentionally to stack gyms like that as most people default to the uber tank normal types so most other plays use fighting centric teams for gym take over.
keeping in mind those were just examples, not "only these cant be used here" there are exceptions every so often, but not as consistently as some others. As well as the favorite of the month is generally <4 pokemon that are counters to the legendaries, and isnt always accurate to the lower raids

I have. My gym team always has Raikou and Mewtwo and they would take care of Dragonite, Gyarados and Gardevoir easily. In fact this is a common tactic among people who fight gyms and aren't too lazy to change their attackers (the non-Machamp attackers included vary ofc).

And I agree that SB Mewtwo is a fantastic gym attacker, it's a swiss army knife that takes care of almost anything that gives Machamp trouble.

I hope for gyms like that. Normally the gyms have at least 5 pokemon weak to fighting. I got rid of my "sweep" team for a 6 fighting pokemon team. I wish I had more chances to use my high level Muk and maxed out Zapdos. Lugia and Latios also make great gym sweeps. Unfortunately tho, it's usually Machamp that I end up using.

My last 5 raids: Absol, Tyranitar, Registeel, Absol, Tyranitar.

I used the same 6 Machamps. Absol and Tyranitar are good for trading and easy bosses to beat (partly bc Machamp is so good)

Never said it wasnt, just that its uses are very limited to 2 things, the tanky normal types, or 3 same type raid bosses (2 of which are outright inferior to the third) other than that, and for solo raiders, there isnt much for them thats weak to fighting AND is useful

Raids change every month, so the great Pokemon for raid offense change too. Thats why the rating takes into account only gyms, which only change when new pokemon are introduced.

That isnt always true, in the past few weeks, ivs seen a massive shift from the normal tanks to only blissey, maybe a slaking and 5/4 competent fighting resistant pokemon, as the game goes on and more players get more machamp, especially in places with large, nonteam exclusive group chats, the utility of normal tanks drops drastically when trying to hold gyms before raids

Golden razz are worthless right now, 1 Blissey ends up being quite a bit more than just 1 CP rundown.

What?

I pinap every raid boss. I don’t really want to retake a gym, so I Golden razz everything in all my gyms. Other people likely same case, remote berry feeding is a chore with regular berries bc no cp is gained...considering how devalued GRZ are right now and how blind people are about raid spawns...they check, then likely GR berry a Blissey/meta

How have GRB been devalued?

You just cant accept it, do you? We all know that you for some reason dont like Machamp. Also you wanna make a simple and one dimensional game (which should be and is playable for a 5 year old) more complicated and diverse than it actually is. But it isnt.
Attack wise its always a fight against the clock. In raids for real and in normal gym attacking you want to finish quick because its boring, annoying and no challenge what so ever.
good in raid = good in gym attacking
The only exception to the rule I can think of are ghost types which have the problem to be resisted by most gym defenders. While fighting types do profit that most defenders are normal types.

Other than that it is not very fair to say Machamp sucks because he isnt good against Lugia, Mewtwo and co. It says "not effectiv" for a reason. The good thing on attacking is that you can chose. Why would you chose a fighting type against flying or psycic types?
He has a lot of good matchups (Ttar, Regis, Absol, T3 solos) and a lot speaking for him:

- C/DP is among the best movesets in the game
- best fighting type
- fighting is super effectiv against 5(!) types
- cloudy weather is very common
- quite common and cheap to obtain (just evolve those 1000+ Machops for a 2500 Champ)

Of course the Regis do suck. But at the end of the day T5 gives +3 RC/bundle and is therefore still the raid to go for for most high level players.

the reason i dont like machamp is that i've heard so much about its use, and never seen anything of it, even having a maxed out perfect one. I hear all this hype and it amounts to absolutely nothing, from the way people talk about it, they act like its the only pokemon that can do anything in this game, when all ive seen of it is subpar compared to any other my other pokemon, and yes, i do raid tyranitar, the regi's and gym battle against the normal tanks.

Saying it "isnt fair" to compare it against psychic and flying types isnt a valid statement, its a simple fact, because it ISNT useful for them, the point of that statement is that machamp sucks at things like all pokemon, it has it uses, but isnt this god of the game that bests everything like people act like it is, it looses match ups like any pokemon, and most people simply refuse to acknowledge when it does, or somehow spin those losing match ups in machamp's favor. It matches 5 other types, but how many of those other types are current raids or dont have better counters? The only one is tyranitar, which more or less is the only pokemon machamp matches in raids that is useful, machamp's entire usefulness is derived from the much greater usefulness of other pokemon

Just because a pokemen is good in gyms doesnt mean it is by default good in raids, Tyranitar is a good gym attacker, but not a lot of raids it has advantages in, same with dragonite, they are useful in some, but far from the best

it isnt expecially easy to get, i have never seen a wild machop outside the fighting or kanto events, and raid passes are in your own words worth more for the rarecandies when spent on tier 5's so why spend it on a tier 3 that gives less

You are correct that Machamp has it's strengths and weaknesses, as all Pokemon do. However, as the previous poster suggested, citing Machamp's uselessness against Lugia as a strike against it, is a pretty meaningless argument. Lugia deals super effective damage to Machamp, while resisting Machamp's moves because Lugia is a counter to Machamp. I don't hear anyone saying that Raikou is bad because it gets crushed by Groudon, or that Rayquaza is bad because it would get absolutely murdered by Regice. All Pokemon have their strengths and weaknesses.

That said, Machamp's strengths have given it a great deal of meta relevancy.

In legendary raids, it's currently a top counter to Registeel, was a top counter to Regice, and will be a top counter to Regirock. During the tier 1-4 raid rotations, Machamp has always been useful against at least a handful at any given time: the ever-present T-tar, Absol, Houndoom, Snorlax, Rhydon, Lapras, Piloswine, Golem, Cloyster, and probably several others that I can't remember.

In gym battles, Machamp is the uncontested best-in-class against the predominant normal-type tanks (who also happen to be the best overall gym defenders). It's other strengths against rock, ice, steel, and dark are often relevant against other Mons in gyms as well.

It also currently has the combination of the best fighting-type quick and charge moves, has remained top dog for fighting-types over three generations, and may even remain top dog in Gen 4.

In summary: Machamp has been a safe investment of candy/dust with little competition for 3 generations, has been the most relevant gym attacker, and a consistently relevant raid attacker across all all raid tiers despite raid rotations. Like it or not, Machamp is one of the best in PoGo.

Yes, it does match raid bosses, but answer this, how many of those have better counters elsewhere or arent worth going for?

Golem, rhydon both are double weak to grass and water

Cloyster and lapras anre useful, as they're only mediocre as defensers, snorlax isnt a much of a viable defender anymore so raid passes are better spent elsewhere piloswine as more weaknesses to list than i care to, and again, absol and houndoom are just inferior tyranitar

The only worth while raid boss it matches is tyranitar, as matching a raid boss that isnt much use doesnt say much for a pokemon

That is all ive been saying, its uses that it holds the best counter for are a small handful of pokemon that arent always there, or arent worth going for, Tyrantiar raids are very rare, and the normal tanks arent always in gyms because a full normal gym is extremely easy to knock over and as far as ive seen, isnt used as often

I get that is good damage, but unlike other high damage pokemon like tyranitar which will be fantastic no matter what comes out, machamp is always reliant on there being something weak to fighting of worth, neutral damage from it doesnt do much, and it really cannot take neutral hits that is what i want people to understand, and they dont seem to., its bulk is somewhat glamourized by its resistance to dark/rock because of how well it does against tyranitar and the normal tanks, pokemon that cant do much damage against it, when putted againt something with an actual attack stat and neutral damage, it goes down fast. (i did a tyranitar raid 2 man yesterday, iron tail/fireblast, machamp didnt even get out 2 dynamic punches)

So Absol is not worth raiding? The Regis are not worth raiding for TMs and RC?

The only comparable attacker into Blissey (which will remain the best gym defender for all generations) is Mewtwo with Focus Blast. Dazzling Gleam is also super-effective against Rayquaza/Dragonite and Tyranitar.

In the Attackers Tier List, Machamp is not in a tier of its own (like Blissey rightfully is in the Defenders Tier List), but one of five species in the top tier, alongside Tyranitar and three legendaries.

Yes, many of those raid bosses do have better counters. Grass/Water Mons will typically do much higher damage against a Rhydon or a Golem raid boss than Machamp will. That said, my point was on the fact that Machamp's relevance is based on it's versatility within the meta. It isn't always a top counter to some raid bosses such as the ones mentioned above, but it's still a respectable contender. After the Kanto/Fighting events (that featured a ton of Machop spawns), I don't think it's uncommon to see people with quite a few boosted Machamps, often for the purpose of bulldozing down gyms full of Blissey and friends. Those people may not have a squad of Gyarados, Kyogre, or FP Venusaur to bring against a Golem or Rhydon raid boss, so their Machamps will make solid go-to options instead, and still likely come out way ahead on DPS compared to whatever the auto-select algorithm picks (likely Aggron).

Also, the usefulness of a raid boss is often relative. I've done plenty of Absol raids in the search for a shiny, the occasional Houndoom or Lapras because someone needed it for the Dex, and I did quite a few Golem raids back before Larvitar CD when it was the best rock attacker by a mile.

True, Machamp's bulk isn't exactly stellar, but then again, neither is Rayquaza's (one of the best generalists in the game). Machamp's job is to deal high DPS to targets weak to fighting in a short amount of time. No one is arguing Machamp's tankiness.

"unlike other high damage pokemon like tyranitar which will be fantastic no matter what comes out, machamp is always reliant on there being something weak to fighting of worth"

First off, Tyranitar's damage is not always fantastic no matter what. It has it's weak matchups just like anything else, and it's DPS against neutral targets is just ok. Against Mons weak to rock and dark, Tyranitar excels (it is the top rock attacker, after all). But as a generalist, its just ok. In fact, a T-tar with double dark moves does less DPS against a neutral target than Machamp does against a neutral target. Counter and Dynamic Punch are just that good.

I'll also point out that you can run down a gym with 3-4 of the normal defenders and use your remaining Machamp to beat up the Gyarados or Espeon or Dragonite or whatever because they're just that versatile even against less than optimum matchups.

You have 20ish gyms in your raiding area but Tyranitar raids are very rare? At 81 raids a day (20 gyms * 2.7 raids/day), how many are you seeing? Or are the gyms seeing no activity and therefore not spawning raids?

ok, I try once more.

Typing is a thing:
You dont seem to get that. There is no wonder weapon who is good against anything. Fighting is the best solution against normal and against dark. Also it is effectiv against ice/rock/steel

This game is about:
beating the others up as fast as possible. Defence stats dont really matter that much attacking wise. Machamp isnt great in survival but he can take the first charge attack of nearly anything.

Champs neutral DPS:
His stats are not that good. But his moveset is. Just make some calculation. There is almost nothing that beats him. He can even hold his own against Moltres/Entei and Kyogre which are Legendaries. Needless to say that he requires a lot less ressources and candies are easy to get.

The only T5 bosses are relevant thing:
counts for players who arrived in the endgame which means they already have everything else. I think I wrote this clear enough that only people who want to misunderstand (like you) didnt get it.

Champ and Ttar:
are the best none Legendary against raidbosses. Even with Legendaries included I'd say they are the best if u arent at a point where you have the resources for 12x maxed out Legendaries of each species. Prove me wrong with your own list when u say "they are useful in some, but far from the best"...

It's like saying Frenzy Plant Venusaur has ZERO use because we're gonna have Moltres day.

For the love of God just keep Machamp's name out of your mouth/off your keyboard with this ridiculous bias. I wish we could mute people so they're questions don't pop up for us when we look through the Q&A.

This is not an opinion that Machamp is one of the best attackers, it's math. It's super effective against a good amount of types, raid bosses, and tanks in gyms. It's moveset, mathematically, is one of the best in the game. I can't tell if you're really this thick or just a troll at this point

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