If I left anything out, or didn't explain myself enough please add in what I left out, but enjoy this little rant:
With the exception of the legendary weather trio, and azurmarill all raids can be dealt with-with either of two Pokemon, Machamp/Hariyama and Tyranitar. All 1 and 2 star raids can be beaten easily with any team, including machamp and tyranitar, so they're not the focus here. Of 3 star raids piloswine is countered by Machamp and jynx is countered by tyranitar. Machamp can be solid with a team of good machamp, if you don't already have a team of espeon and want to stick only needing machamp. And Azurmarill being the only one that resists both machamp and tyranitar it is still weak enough that you should have other Pokemon, raikou, jolteon, and any grass type, that it shouldn't be a problem. For 4 star raids every raid except feraligatr is best countered by Machamp, even bute/crunch feraligatr, or cloudy weather makes machamp a top pick. For 5 star raids the weather trio has their own counters, but they will be gone soon, so that leaves only a few legendary left. Mewtwo, mew, jirachi, celebi, deoxys, latios, and latias are all weak to tyranitar. Leaving only the Regis, which are weak to machamp. With all this in mind, Azurmarill, Feraligatr, kyogre, and groudon are all weak to grass and rayquaza dragon/ice/rock, with rock being filled by stone edge tyranitar, that an appropriate grass team would suffice for such raids.
TL;DR
The overall best counters with the current and future raids and legendary raids can be boiled down to having a team of Machamp, tyranitar, and a few grass types.
There are better and alternative answers to all of these
The better question to ponder is that Tyranitar and Machamp/Hariyama are just insanely good because they have great stats and pretty good movesets. Machamp/Hariyama have nearly the best possible set in the game, with the 3rd best Charged Move and best Quick Move. Fighting is also the best type in the game, and Dark counters Psychic-type, which is one of the most pervasive types and the most pervasive Legendary type alongside Dragon.
I do realize there are better alternatives, and I should have added a strardust budget for only wanting, having the strardust to make the 2 teams, but for only being allowed 3 teams, those 2 and a grass team for the few I mentioned you would excell against most raid bosses and that anyone wondering what to use their strardust on is those Pokemon if they want minimal investment.
Sorry, forgot to finish typing before i hit okay.
There are better alternatives, but all of these alternatives are only good for their niches, and armies of them can be easily caught as weather-boosted low IV, no stardust needed. I would only spend stardust on a Tyranitar, and maybe a Machamp or two.
Machamp as a Machamp counter is very questionable. If it's weather boosted (cloudy), then it will get the job done, but with normal damage, it is not a reliable counter against itself as a raid boss.
Other than that, I generally agree with your analysis, and concur that C/DP Machamp and B/C Tyranitar are two of the most important attackers in the game, with C/DP Hari and B/SE T-tar being respectable substitutes.
The loss of Alakazam and Gengar as raid bosses somewhat reduced the importance of T-tar, and took a lot of the fun out of soloing T3's. Both were challenging fights, and Alakazam in particular was a good Mewtwo proxy, for those of us who invested in developing a strong Mewtwo-counter team. Now, Machamp is the only T3 that is reasonably fun AND useful to catch, but he is not that much of a challenge, and I already have a full squad of C/DP Machamps. I hope Niantic will consider bringing back Alakazam as a boss, or come up with some other challenging and useful T3 bosses.
You basically need a team of level 40 Machamps and good dodging to pull off Machamp vs Machamp.
I agree that we desperately need new tier 3 bosses. I'm doing a lot less solo raids since the change and I imagine this applies pretty universally to soloists out there. Gardevoir would be amazingly fun but it's unlikely we get it. Still, there are a bunch of possibilities that would make for good challenging tier 3s.
Couldnt aggree more
Only doing grup raid on weekend, so weekdays is boring in term of raid, i only do raid whenever my free pass is about to expire now..
Back in the first raid boss, i gladly pay the premium pass for a tier 3 raid for solo
It reduce to only gengar, machamp, alakazam amd then only alakazam the most interesting one i believe
Now, i wont spend for solo raid..
Yes it is true that they counter a lot of meta-relevant mons. And rice is a pretty staple food for people around the world.
But why let that stop you having fun or change your cuisine around a bit?
You can always run "sub-optimal" mons that still get the job done. God forbid you play a game and actually do something you have fun with, instead of being dragged by the meta treadmill.
I'm not at all disagreeing with OP. I too, have a team of 6 Machamps and Tars because that's the simplest answer to a lot of problems.
Because of innate power difference, you won't really find that balance in this game when the battle system is still very linear. This comes very close to the issue of easy-access legendaries surpassing the need to invest in anything found in the wild.
I think you're cutting corners a little bit here, especially with Machamp being viable for countering Machamp, but the overall message I agree with. Very few mons in the meta are actually "worth" pouring significant numbers of resources in and Machamp/Hariyama and Tyranitar are at the top of this list. I would say a good dragon type or three are also worth it considering their use in the upcoming raid bosses and for generalist gym clearing. Mewtwo, Groudon and Kyogre are also good for pouring resources due to their raw power but not necessary.
For most things, 30+ mons that require minimal resources do the job. Most players would be fine getting a good core team and then spending their dust on things they want instead of worrying about what's meta.
