Gen 4: Not much happened
Water: Kyogre is still king, Palkia has a bulk advantage against Fire, but that's about it. If and when Swampert gets a community day, it'll be a flexible generalist, (WG/HC) but it still doesn't hold a candle to Kyogre.
Winner: Kyogre, undoubtedly.
Fire: Heatran and Magmortar got Niantic'd, although Heatran is a serviceable bulky Fire attacker. (If you haven't already invested your RC budget in Moltres and Entei) Blaziken with Blast Burn will be a neat glass counter as well, having higher DPS than Entei, Overheat Moltres, and Charizard. (Sky Attack saved Moltres)
Winner: Moltres, thank Sky Attack. Makes it viable as a generalist, and a Flying type attacker.
Grass: Tangrowth and Leafeon are just average, coming out around the Exeggcutors. Roserade has better DPS than Frenzy Plant Venusaur, but it's a lot more fragile and it might die with a partially charged bar.
Winner: Venusaur, it can survive longer, and successfully launch more Frenzy Plants. (Two bar, 100 power.)
Electric: Electivire beats Raikou with no Rare Candy investment, as Raikou lost a bunch of its bulk. They're still fairly close to one another, both having tradeoffs with DPS and TDO. Magnezone and Luxray also present cheap, non legendary investments if there aren't enough of Electabuzz in the area, that both have DPS almost up to par with Zapdos.
Winner: It took a little bit of thinking to decide, but Raikou takes the title. People have already invested RC to take down targets such as three man Kyogre, and many Pokemon with a Flying sub typing. It has better bulk as well, allowing it to perform about the same against heavy hitting opponents.
Ground: Mamoswine and Rhyperior aren't upgrades to Groudon, and Garchomp can only claim to be better vs Electric types where it sports an extra resistance, and a marginal DPS difference.
Winner: Groudon, no question.
Rock: Rampardos is the first Pokemon to completely blow Kyogre out of the water vs Fire types, at the cost of TDO. Rhyperior has a huge TDO advantage over Tyranitar, the cost being a tiny bit of DPS. So Tyranitar remains viable, but it is outclassed in this role more so than its second type.
Winner: Rampardos. Even with the TDO disadvantage, it more than makes up for it with Rock Slide.
Ice: Jynx and Ice Beam Mewtwo are no more, with three clearly better Pokemon. (Mamoswine, Weavile, Glaceon)
Winner: Mamoswine. Best Ice type attacker in this generation.
Fighting: Machamp didn't get many contenders to its throne like in Gen3. Toxicroak, even with the coveted Counter/Dynamic Punch set is still slower than nerfed Hariyama, and Blaziken. (Comes out slightly ahead of Heracross) Not to mention it's double weak to Psychic, which doesn't do any favors vs BlissLax. Lucario has the simple case of "being unable to learn Dynamic Punch."
Winner: Machamp.
Bug: Pinsir remains the top Bug type, although they're usually outclassed whenever they're needed. Scizor is the loser here, with Yanmega taking better DPS and TDO than it, and a good typing, which gives a double resistance to Fighting and Grass, plus an immunity to Ground.
Winner: Pinsir, as X-Scissor is easier to dodge with, as well as the fact that its DPS is higher. Yanmega isn't that far behind, however, and this decision took awhile. (Bug isn't a useful type anyway, as the only two doubly weak bosses I can think of are Exeggcutor and Shiftry)
Flying: Suprisingly, Rayquaza pulls through with it's only competitor being Moltres. (Honchcrow and Staraptor got screwed)
Winner: Rayquaza, it still comes out on top whenever weather isn't to Moltres' favor.
Steel: Metagross + Meteor Mash. Scizor has been beaten in it's only two niches, with the added pain of Dialga also being better.
Winner: Metagross. What's weird is that it was already the best Steel type, despite having horrible moves.
Dragon: Rayquaza remains relatively safe, with Palkia posing less DPS but way more bulk. Outrages two bars are an advantage though. Garchomp is also competition, but only for the other non legendary Dragons. (Dragonite and Salamence)
Winner: Rayquaza. It does better in almost every raid where it's needed DPS wise, allowing teams to pull ahead of the clock.
Psychic: Azelf is the best Psychic attacker since Mewtwo, but that's not saying much. (Mewtwo is still way better) Unfortunately it doesn't learn Psyshock, which would make it much more flexible. (It learns C/FS currently)
Winner: Mewtwo.
Dark: Weavile may have slightly higher DPS, but Tyranitar often surpasses it due to lasting much longer, and less of a liability for a sub typing. Honchcrow can't really compete with Dark Pulse, and you'll probably only get one Darkrai.
Winner: Still Tyranitar, being the best all round option. And again, you can only get one Darkrai, which limits its influence in raids.
Ghost: Mismagius can't learn Lick or Shadow Claw. Gengar beats itself, but only if players catch a Gengar in a 3 hour window and TM the charge move to Shadow Ball. And before you ask about Girantina, I'll just tell you that it got Shadow Sneak. I was thinking of considering Shadow Ball Mewtwo, but I decided against it since he's not a Ghost type.
Winner: Gengar. Nothing even comes close.
Poison: Roserade takes the title from Gengar and Victreebel, but it wasn't much of a competition anyways.
Winner: Roserade. It's attack stat is so high that with any two Poison moves it would always outdo Victreebel.
Normal: With the hyped Regigigas not even getting Hyper Beam, any Pokemon with a decent attack stat and Hyper Beam can take this throne.
Winner: Snorlax?
Even with all these new Pokemon, most old ones remain at the top. Considering that most of these Pokemon have been the same for the past generation, and all that Gen4 has to offer are slightly/flat out worse alternatives, it isn't all that exciting.
Answers
I'd still say Raikou' the loser in electric DPS if you havent powered on up, which I think is a good number of players, so its really down to each person own experience playing. Being someone who hasn't powered up one, I can already say I am never putting anything in them now that Electavire out DPS's it, and theres competent nonlegendary competition so that my RC can be better spent on other legendaries (like rayquaza)
Yes theres a lot with them, but theres also a lot without, a lot of people stopped playing before raids and only got back recently. so
Machamp's still got time to be outdone by Gallade, they added drain punch and power up punch, but that doesnt seem overly likely.
Dark, we dont know if they'll make Darktai an EX, deoxys is a mythical, and they made it an EX raid boss, and with how much people want Darkrai for how good it is, niantic'd be dumb not to make it an EX
In rock, theres still situations Tyranitar wins, Glass cannons rarely hold the title spot of type unless they type's (good) attackers are only glass cannons (which for example ghost is and nonlegendary psychic are) theres also match ups like Steel wing ho-oh which rampardos will have a rough time with or really just hard hitting attackers in general, alakazam's not the supreme coutner to machamp, its a glass counter. Keeping in mind that Rampardos is a fossil pokemon as well, which are exceptionally rare, things like SD tyrantiar can get candy from raids, and Rhyperior(as rhydon)'s been aroudn since gen 1 and is also much easier to get candies for. Avalability is also a factor, such as why vaporeon was still highly raited as a water attacker despite being very inferior DPS to Gyarados
I think you severely overestimate the amount of people who have invested into enough Raikou to trio Kyogre. I'd guess far less than 1% of playerbase has enough RC for that kind of investment, seeing how the weather trio and Mewtwo were always higher priority investments for the long term.
Darkrai: Deoxys set precedent for mythicals being in EX raids. Since Darkrai isn't another Mew clone, we can't predict which way it'll be distributed.
Like BiggestLeaf said, with most of Gen 4 being unreleased, this is premature. Niantic could easily change the movesets before releasing these pokemon.
It's always fun to speculate but I really don't like your tone when talking about this topic. You seem to already have decided what pokemon will remain relevant despite the fact that, like others have said, the majority of Gen 4 hasn't been released. Only when it's fully out can we really decided who's best. I mean it's Niantic? Who knows what can happen.
Regarding your post. I think Roserade will be best Grass and Poison Attacker. Electivire will be better because, lmao, do you really think most players even have a a highly invested Raiku? I think Darkrai will be best dark type. But then again these are just predictions. I'm going off on DPS just like you did for the most part on your post. We never know, maybe in the near future, bulkier pokemon will outclass glass cannons. For now, let's have fun predicting.
Agreed. The op suffers from a predetermined conclusion.
Gen 4 takes over on Ice, Poison, and Grass. While rock, electric, and dark have strong mon taking the top dps spots. Thats 6 types that get new top choices.
Sounds like a good balance to me. The new shouldnt make the old trash nor should it be completely unnecesary.
But really, looking at just the'best' of each type is ocer simplifying the game. Its good to have a mix of glas cannons, generalists, and tanks.
It's because niantic gave them garbage moves for the sole reason of not wanting you to invest in them. They didn't want you to spend resources on anything but those pokemon you mentioned that are at the top, and it's pretty intentional and clear.
If they want you to invest in stuff, they sure won't make them worse than swellow or hypno.
