CP Change Theory
So, PoGo used to average Attack and Spec Attack, and Defense and Spec Defense in such a way that would make pokemon that had good stats in one of the two pretty terrible.
I think they fixed it.
Looking at some of the seemingly big winners from this...
Rhydon has massive attack and defense and terrible Spec Attack and Spec Defense.
Jynx has Good Spec Attack and Spec Defense but bad Attack and bad Defense.
Tangela has good Spec Attack and Defense but bad Attack and bad Spec Defense.
Pinsir is similar to Rhydon.
The losers of this that I've noticed all have almost identical Att and Spec Att, and Def and Spec Def. That includes Wigglytuff, Nidoqueen, Victreebell, and someone mentioned their Arcanine.
Answers
Special attack and special defence. In the main franchise, pokemon have base stats that determine how much damage they deal and take in combat.
Moves have two different damage types, they can either be physical moves, or special moves. Depending on the type, they will use regular attack and defence or special attack and defence to calculate damage done.
For example, Scratch is a physical move, so it would take the attackers attack value and the defender's defence value into account when calculating damage, while Confusion is a special move, so it would use the attacker's special attack value and the defender's special defence value instead.
The base stats for the pokemon in pokemon go are calculated on the base stats of the pokemon from the main series, however, different stats are weighted differently, which is why some pokemon that were good in pokemon red/green/blue are almost useless in pokemon go right now - namely alakazam and gengar, who were strong because of their speed. But in pokemon go, speed has hardly any impact to base stats.
Special Attack, Special Defense.
In the main games Pokemon had 6 stats, HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed.
In Pokemon Go those stats got compressed into just HP, Attack, and Defense. Many people have thought that Niantic did a fairly poor job when they did that. For more info go watch these two videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx04_Q83NLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_jHL18NWs
I don't think they've implemented Special Attack and Special Defense, though that would be wonderful. I think they've just changed how they condensed the main game stats into PoGo stats.
That's still going to radically change the meta soley because the way it used to be was making just about all of Snorlax's potential counters worse than they should have been.
I disagree. If they wouldnt have changed anything but the pure CP, that would not affect Snorlax counters at all and only change the likelyhood of every Defender to be placed in the gyms. (Even less Poly, less Lapras, but more Rhydon, Gyarados, etc, simply because of the higher position)
I would be heavily surprised and disappointed, if that would be the case.
