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Potential Gen IV Defenders?

I've been thinking about some of the gen IV pokmon, not just the old gen evolutions, but the new gen IV lines, and some of them seem like they'd make decent defenders, having tanky stats, but also types that can possibly counter current top tier attackers

Yanmega; not the tankiest bug type, but with a double resistance to fighting, high attack stat and possible access to flying and bug moves, could threaten machamp and Mewtwo not as much tyranitar with the double rock weakness

Vespiquen, same type as yanmega, but much tankier stats, suffers from a similar problem agaisnt tyrantiar but could have its signature move attack order which Tyranitar's weak to

Galade, at first glance, it seems bad, and for offense, it will be. But if access to both psychic and fighting moves lets it threaten both Machamp and tyranitar, something no other pokemon has been able to do (dazzling gleam gardevoir barely tickles tyranitar and doesnt resist rock) so it can help slow the pace of a rampaging machamp through a gym of blissey and fighting weak tanks if placed between them

Rotom, for starters, no, Rotom's not a legendary, its a common misconception, it's use hinges heavily on its alternate forms, coming in, electric paired with either Flying, grass, water, fire or Ice, and having identical stats, think castform only actually useful. The grass one seems like it would be the most useful, only being weak to fire and bug, both of which can be threatened by rock types

Spiritomb, Having some decent tanky stats, a singular weakness to fairy, and the only fairy type players have for offense is gardevoir who is weak to its ghost type, Togekiss' moveset pending, plus its resistances to fighting and psychic help to eliminate and slow common gym clearers like machamp and Mewtwo (who's weak to both its STAB)

and lastly, Garchomp, with higher CP than tyranitar, greater attack than Dragonite and without the weakness to smack down tyranitar (actually resisting it)its only real Achilles' heel being the plethora of ice types in gen IV, but if given iron head, it could easily threaten those and fairy types alike

Togekiss gets an honorable mention as while it does doubly resist fighting, it's weak to 5 types; rock, electric, ice, steel and poison

Asked by MetagrossMaxis6 years 9 months ago

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Answers

Yanmega: Strictly worse than Togekiss. Much less bulk, as many weaknesses, worse resistances.

Vespiquen: Less tanky than Yanmega, glass cannon tier tankiness.

Gallade: Without double resistance to fighting, it's not even nearly as potent at stopping Machamp as Gardevoir. The best fighting move in the game currently that it could learn is Focus Blast, which is awful for defense and will never fire against an attacking Tyranitar before Gallade is dead.

Rotom: Glassier than Gengar. Even if people get confused about its type, it'll go down fast.

Spiritomb: Another extremely frail mon, glassier than Alakazam.

Garchomp: Double weak to ice, gets wrecked by whoever our new ice king ends up being. Keep your Garchomps for attacking, they're likely going to be amazing for that.

Togekiss: Actually the most potential gym defender of the entire generation barring legendaries. With double resistance to both fighting and dragon, it's a wall against the most popular attacker unlike we've ever seen. It's fairly tanky and even taking SE damage takes almost as much time to kill as Gardevoir does with neutral damage, which somewhat mitigates the fact that its easier to counter than Gardy.

Another bulky pokemon would be Hippowdon, which as a pure ground type doesn't have that many exploitable weaknesses and could for example be placed after Togekiss to force attackers to change from Raikou or SD Tyranitar.

EDIT: Gamepress has all the gen 4 stats in the pokemon list already where it's easy to check them (although the legendary stats are pre-nerf). You really should get used to checking the actual stats before you claim that something is tanky when it's in fact extremely glassy.

Is there a way to access the DPS/TDO charts for Gen4?

The reason gen 4 mons don't show up is that they don't have movesets set into the chart. You have to manually edit every species to have a movepool and you'll see them in the chart. It's a lot of work to do for the whole generation, but if you want to check how TS/WC Electivire compares to Raikou or something like that, it's fairly easy to do.

The speed mod really cut into those pokemon stats that hard?

Does that comment on Rotom take into account only its base form stats or its alternate form stats, because ther is a difference between them

Does it matter? With all forms having terrible base HP and average main series stats it's not making an impact on any front.

The stat conversion formula really does affect some Mons pretty heavily. Here's Vespiquen's stats in Go. In short, it will be terrible on offense and defense. At high levels, it will likely barely outperform Beedrill as a gym defender.

Speedmod is one part of it and the stat conversion favoring unbalanced physical/special splits is one part. It's very hard to tell with a glance how the main game stats will look in pogo, better to just look up the pogo stats.

I think you are talking about them based on the main games. Spiritomb, Vespiquen and Rotom are somewhat bulky in the main games, but their stats are not well compared to them on GO. Then, Garchomp and Togekiss would be good defenders, but about Gallade I'm not totally sure.

I was, I didnt think the speed mod would cut into them as drastically as they did

Galade could be a good defender as it could counter machamo and tyranitar at the same time, soemthign that doestn exist in the game right now

Gallade wouldn't really be able to counter both at the same time, as it would want a psychic moveset to threaten Machamp and a fighting moveset to threaten T-Tar. And even then, if the best fighting move it could learn is Focus Blast, odds are that Gallade is going to faint long before firing it off even once.

I'd even argue that Gardevoir with C/DG would perform better in this role. She completely walls Machamp and can potentially catch T-tar off-guard with Dazzling Gleam which would be much more likely to fire off compared to Gallade's Focus Blast.

there is no such thing as defenders in this game short of throwing golden raz after golden raz.

For me game errors are the best defenders, they have forcesd me to give up more attacks then any amount of golden razzing.

As it's been mentioned before in other speculation threads, a good deal of viability for Gen 4 mons as defenders will depend on the moves they get. Take Gen 3's Metagross, for instance. With it's high stats and exceptional typing, it had all the makings of an exceptional defender. Unfortunately, since it only has access to mediocre 1-bar charge moves, it doesn't perform as well on defense as many were hoping (it's not all that great on offense either). The same will be true for Mons from gen 4 as well, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Like others have mentioned, you should start looking at what the base stats are before making claims and assumptions, Vespiquen vs Yanmega being a prime example. HP stat matters a lot more on defense than defense stat does and Yanmega's extra HP over Vespiquen more than makes up for Vespiquen's extra defense over Yanmega. Not to mention with Vespiquen's attack stat being simply awful (149) Tyranitar has nothing to fear, even if Attack Order does get added to the game.

As usual... You forgot to do your research.

That said, I expect Garchomp to be the new Ttar. Only reason to have it defend is candy...So we'll see it everywhere.

This seems very likely. The first people to have their Garchomps will want to show them off by leaving them at gyms and everyone will feed them like no tomorrow hoping for candy. Earlier in gen 3 it was common in the city to see the non-nesting rares (Gardevoir etc) in gyms with a berry count in the hundreds.

Starter:
Torterra 197 def and 190 st. Good stats

Starter:
Empoleon 193 def and 168 st (resist Ttar but afraid Machamp) I think is quite good.

Garchomp has excellent stats but gets much damage from ice moves. Gen 4 have some new ice mon which have high attack.

Hippowdon has very good stats. It's similar to Dophan but I think Hippo will get good moves.

Drapion has high def but sta is a bit low. I think is still ok because its type- dark and poison.

Magnezone has high def and iron type can resist many types. *ground type say hi

Lickilicky is a weak version of Snorlax.

Rhyperior has monster stats. I think some water and grass mons which have low att or sta can not take him down.

Tangrowth have very good stats. I think it will have a good move pool too.

Electivire and Magmartor if have good move. Maybe can do a defender.

Togekiss has high def and med sta. Double resist to dragon, ground and fighting types. Tank of fairy is sure an excellent defender.

Yanmega's stats are not bad. *rock type say hi

Leafeon and Glaceon has high def especially Leafeon. Glaceon afraid of rock and fighting types. Sad that they both have 130 sta maybe not a good choice to put them on gym especially Glaceon.

Glicsor has high def and mid low sta. Its type give it some advantage for resist fighting moves.

Mamoswine has high sta and mid low def but afraid of rock and fighting moves.

Gallade has high def but low sta. 136 sta may be quite glassy it put it on gym.