attacking by type
After the gym rework, I started trying to develop a couple strong attackers for each type. Then I tried to solo a level 3 against alakazam, and had my comeuppance. It was a focus blast one, and took out my ttar and houndoom in no time.
So, should I start developing mon with shields against the type they are attacking. For example, alakazam with shadow ball for attacking psychic mon?
Is rating mon as generalists still relevant in the current meta, for most mon?
Answers
My opinions on what constitutes cheating have recently shifted. For non big city players is it really cheating to look up where raids are a coordinate with other players? Its a disservice to players to have a poor notification system that will only let you know about a raid off you can see it - hardly a notification at all. There's an egg or there isn't. The pop up is fairly redundant. Okay. Maybe looking up the boss moves before hand is cheap. Ill give you that one.
Scanners too. I once thought they were very wrong after meeting dozens of local players since the fire and ice event and seeing what the scanner does that has changed too. First of all let me say the glory days of them are well past. Not knowing moves or IVs in my opinion is akin to not knowing the raid bosses moveset. Let me ask you this, what's worse? Getting a notification of a nearby Alakazam from a third party app, or not getting a notification of the same mon 200 feet away because there's a stop half a kilometer away and therefore the in game scanner only shows the trash littering the nearby space.
I dont know why the three step tracker was removed. Clearly it didn't eliminate scanners and other violations of the ToS. If Niantic wanted to get serious about shutting them down all the need to do is implement an in game system that doesn't suck. I would never use a third party scanner if it worked in the game. This is hands down true for 100% of players.
Really the only thing I consider cheating is falsifying your location. I suppose combined with scanners is even worse. However if you're legit and find a notification of a rare mon around the corner and you run like hell to catch it what's the problem? That seems dangerously close to Niantics original mission statement of encouraging physical activity while gaming.
With the tightening of the stardust supply, you need to choose carefully how to spend it. It would be great to be able to have an army of perfect counters for every raid boss, but that will take a long time to assemble, and who knows if the raid bosses might change in a few weeks or months. I wouldn't get too hung up on countering a particular moveset from a particular boss. Just focus on building the best team you can out of what you are able to acquire.
Alakazam is a tough boss. I've soloed Machamp, Arcanine, and Jolteon, and failed on Vaporeon. My daughter (level 29) and I (level 37) took on an Alakazam with Shadow Ball yesterday, and it took us four tries. She doesn't have many viable 'Zam counters, so I probably did at least 75% of the damage. I think the key was enlisting my low IV wild-caught CP ~2300 L/HB Snorlax, which was able to take some hits and deliver decent damage, after my glass cannons did their jobs and were wiped out. To your question about generalists, yes, I think they are still useful. The L/HB Snorlax and my DT/O Dragonite were able to deliver more damage than my FC/BB 2100 Scyther and my S/C 2300 Arcanine, because the latter specialists didn't have the bulk to survive missed dodges on the Alakazam boss's Shadow Ball.
