L28, and thanks to the water event forcing us to trip over zillions of flopping fish, finally got my first Gyrados.
96%IV, Dragon Tail/Outrage.
Gamepress calls this an "A" moveset, and I'm powering it up because I'm in desperate need of another 2500+CP defender (I only have 4 viable defenders right now, and this would be #5).
However, as an attacker, what is it good at?
It doesn't have STAB.
The only thing these moves are super-effective against is Dragon. I'm not taking this in to fight a Dragonite when I have several good ice types that will do a better job (Cloyster, Piloswine, Lapras, Jynx), admittedly, none more than 1700CP though.
So, no STAB, no super-effective.
Is it just a generalist attacker? Use it on Blissey/Snorlax?
Not really seeing a good use for this monster, other than it having high CP and being a defender.
The secret to Gyarados is the Super High Attack score.
Even without Stab, that attack score does more DPS than many other pokemon with Stab.
Dragontail 16.36 DPS 8.18 EPS
vs say Vaperon 12.5 DPS 10.00 EPS
pretty comparable when attacking a Snorlax.
It won't excel at anything, but you can easily use it to beat 2 defenders.
It is good against Dragonite and any water-type defender.
I would personally pick Gyarados over fragile ice-type Pokémon in my line up because of its better HP. It has the ability to serve as a general attacker against other common defenders, in addition to taking out Dragonites.
Imagine attacking a gym packed with Vapes, Gya, Rhydons, and Dragonites, I'd rather have Gyarados take up one precious space in my team of six than to have an ice-type glass cannon that could kill no more than say 1-2 Dragonites. The objective is to kill 10 defenders with only 6 attackers.
Pretty fantastic moveset for defensive Gyarados, the damage output is pretty great. And for those who say Gyarados isn't a relevant defender, that really only applies to Bite variants. Dragon Tail is an incredible defensive (and offensive) quick move, and Outrage hits for major damage even with dodging. Long gone are the days of using Jolteon to chew through multiple Gyarados with ease.
