Dragonite is almost certainly duoable as a T4 - but with Dragons, not Ice. I just checked Calcy and my pretty strong (but not amazing) Dragon team had 22-27% damage in 100-111s, neutral weather, no friend boost with several break points left to hit between them. That's with 1 14 atk Rayquaza at level 32.
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Why aren't Dragonite/Salamance raid bosses?
Tyranitar has been a permanent tier 4 raid boss, and yet Dragonite and Salamance have never been as far as I know.
This seems sort of odd, given that Dratini had a community day first, so I'd assume there's no worry about giving too easy Dratini candy out... with Tyranitar having a double fighting weakness and Dragonite having a double ice weakness, they'd probably be similar difficulty? (unless ice types are just too much weaker to make Dragonite not duo-able? I suppose that would be a reason to hold back on it, as most people like to be able to duo tier 4s).
Salamance I can understand as he hasn't had his community day yet, however Tyranitar raids lasted long before Larvitar day. Likewise seems like it would be a highly desirable raid boss, although again is only double weak to ice which may make it not duo-able right now... that's really the only thing I can think of.
Which on that note, with Mamoswine, Glaceon, and Weavile coming out in gen 4, these dragons should become duo-able if they're not already - right? So would they potentially become raid bosses?
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Unfortunately Rayquaza sneaked into my Go gap I'd really like to see it come back sometime later. For dragonite, as a Gen 1 generalist I managed to have a full team of > lv30 & > iv 89 with various move combinations (I'd like to have a Dragon with claw but not lucky to get one in time). I still have 700+ dratini candies so Dragonite raid won't ring a bell. Yet Salamance could be a more tempting boss since it's Gen 3 and it's really hard to find a Bagon biome. Not many trainers have many full-powered blue dragon.
People would trade level 20 Dragonite and Salamence til they got 3 to 6 high Attack luckies. I’ve traded legendaries as my special trade everyday, no luckies. I switched for one day, traded a level 30 Milotic to an account that didn’t have one, for a level 14 shiny dratini...lucky trade. Dratini 15a/14/15. Less of a chance now bc of the lucky angle.
My only theory as to why Tyranitar has remained a raid boss when others like Dragonite are not, is because there will always be those interested in picking up a T-tar (either for candy or chasing a high IV one) to bring to a Mewtwo raid. In the last year, the 3 big constant raid bosses have been Machamp, Tyranitar, and Mewtwo (as an EX boss). In a sense, it's almost like a progression form of raiding. You build up your team to solo Machamps. You catch the Machamps and power them up, which let's you plow through Tyranitars with a smaller group. You then catch the Tyranitars and power them up to help bring down Mewtwo.
That's all I've got for trying to make sense of Niantic's logic. 😋
I dont think they can change Machamp, at least as long as gyms stay the same.
If you are a new player, you need to catch enough Machop/Hariyama candy to defeat Blisseys. This can take a long time depending on your biome or how much you play.
The answer to this is Machamp raids, everyone has the opportunity to play in gyms, just raid 2 or 3 Machamps.
I'm guessing they're able to monitor raid traffic from specific bosses and that Machamp and Tyranitar are consistently among the most raided bosses. That makes the most sense to me anyway, given how Machamp has literally never been rotated out and Tyranitar was only pulled for Kanto week.
To OP's point, I've said this in a thread yesterday and I wouldn't mind another pseudo entering the T4 fray. Maybe Salamence since it's been the hardest to acquire candy for (in my experience) or Garchomp when Gen 4 drops.
