So, what happens to gengar now?
Just finished reading the type effectiveness rebalance article, and it got me thinking about my 28 Lick gengar.
Most of those I evolved specifically to trade away, and most of my raid catches aside from my perfect on the first raid and perfect attack shiny on the third to last were all subpar. Only around 5 or so I plan keeping, with most being prior had gastly I evolved. With Gengar always being at a disadvantage agaisnt what its going up against (Psychic and Ghost types) as a ghost specialist, is it as reliable as it was before? I know from a lot of people during mewtwo month where I was struggled with the raids because gengar died too fast and found themselves wasting energy even before the rebalance, and did similar damage to people using equal level tyranitar.
After the rebalance, I assume it would happen more often. Now of course pokemon like Cresselia and the most defensive of the lake trio (never could remember which has what stats I think mesprite?), Lugia, Defense and potentially speed forme deoxys will still be easily preyed upon by gengar, but many of the harder hitting ones like Giratina, mewtwo, the lati's, Azelf, and a number of the confusion packing tier 3's might not be Gengar's place. Neutral moves, while not as damaging to gengar as they were before, still to deal sizable damage
Dragons, I had been a bit concerned about this, but after thinking it over, dragons arent quite in the same boat. In most every match ups gengar is in, it goes up against either a fast or charge move it fears (given its frailty, fast moves are a problem) but dragons, especially dragonite and eventually garchomp, pack a bit better bulk than gengar, in addition to not as reliably being on the receiving end of a super effective move, and dont fear fast moves as heavily unless its Salamence taking a dragontail (hope salamence gets a better dragon move). That and they also tend to either find neutral match ups, and against palkia, will resist 2 of its three moves, more often.
So, now im left with these gengar and decision of go for better counter agaisnt some sets, but inferior in others, or go reliability with dark types. I know some (well, probably everyone) might disagree here, but I am a little glad Gengar got knocked down a peg, as it gives other pokemon a better shot, and maybe, just maybe dark types can finally get their spot in the sun without always being in Gengar's shadow
Answers
At least it will make all those revives we get from raid more useful.
Against A-deoxys, its a bot of both ends, both taking heavy damage from the other given both sides stats, Good to know it is a good option against them, that it is still a powerful attacker, though fainting fast against hard hitting moves.
For reference for that raid: I used two Gengar, two Mewtwo, and two Tyranitar. My fiancee's account used a mix of Hex Gengar, Mewtwo, Tyranitar, and MM Metagross (she's more casual than I am, hence the filler option). We got down to our last but neither one of us needed to relobby and the fight lasted about 100 seconds. I should also mention it was windy, meaning ZH hit even harder than usual.
Gengar's as good if not better than before. The effectiveness change reduced Mewtwo's dps (slightly) as a competitor, leaving Gengar on its own throne. It also got quite notably stronger in matchups where it resists the boss's moves. You can still run Gengar against just about any matchup that you could before and do well, although things like Uxie's and Cresselia's Future Sight are dangerously close to oneshotting, while they didn't do so before.
My impression is that Gengar may now be similarly glassy as before the stats rebalance, but also more powerful when it's SE. So if you were using it to get ahead of the clock on raids against psychics and ghosts before the rebalance, the good news is Gengar will be even faster.
I do agree however that other Pokémon have it easier to shine, which is a good thing.
