"a CP 300 Natu or something and still get 50 coins with the rest of us". Probably you live in a less competitive area.
The reason why they can get the coins is that someone throws in Blissey at the bottom of the gym. And feeding them if needed (when motivation decays).
I would remove such "35+" leech from my group if he/she does it on a daily basis.
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Do people still power up defenders?
Hi. I'm on the verge of level 30 and don't have many good pokemon yet. I recently got my first Blissey, which I remember being told was the ultimate must have pokemon for gym defense. For that reason, I started investing all of my candy and stardust into levelling it up.
A level 35+ player told me however that Blissey isn't worth having anymore because only attackers matter in the new gym system. Another level 35+ player told me she only powers up Tyranitar and Dragonite. I thought about it and realized that while I always put my highest CP pokemon into any gym I capture, I'll often see level 35+ players just throw in a CP 300 Natu or something and still get 50 coins with the rest of us. So that said, and keeping in mind that this is my first and only Blissey (haven't gotten a Snorlax yet), should I be powering it up or focusing on attackers? I levelled it to about CP 1900 so far but paused when the higher level players told me it was a waste.
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I agree. I'm level 38 and I continue to fill gyms with Blissey, Snorlax, etc because I just can't get myself to throw pidgeys into gym. To the OP i would leave your Blissey at 1900 I have two at 1822 and 1802 they are basically better than my 3000 Blissey because cp decays less but do not fall into the 300 natu crap that those players are doing in your area.
The first 2 sentences - yes. The rest is a guess with no evidence that it applies to the OP's situation. In my town there is a highly-contested zone where you need Blisseys and 5 other good defenders to get your coins (and even then they might not last an hour), and then areas further out where it's totally pointless to stick more than a Pidgey in there because it's just going to sit there for 3 days or a week until someone gets out there to take the gym. You only need a single gym to last 8 hours to get your max coins. Therefore there are much better, smarter uses of stardust than powering up a more than a few Blisseys/Snorlaxes, even in a highly contested zone.
It depends on the area and what time if day you take gyms. For me, I usually go out at night when there are less people active so pokemon in the 1800-2400 range are offen good enough and will last at least 3-4 hours, if not through till morning getting the full 50 coins from one defender.
High powered defenders are not really a big priority anymore. Anyone that raids frequently will have strong counters to whatever you put in a gym. Anyone else can wait a few hours and quickly sweep through a demotivated gym. And anyway, you want your defenders to eventually get kicked out so you can get your coins.
The main time when having good defenders is worthwhile is to help secure a gym while an egg timer is counting down to a raid. Powering up one Blissey is good enough. Otherwise go for diversity in your defenders to cover different type advantages so you can try to avoid having multiple defenders in a row that are weak to the same type.
Between a Lapras and a Steelix, who is the thougher defender? I found Steelix so intimidating in a battle, because of his enormous size and his serpent-like moves, its kind of unpredictable whenever he gonna launch a charged attack, and Lapras is a prolonged battle mon too but I don't find her so tough, mainly because most of them carries Frost Breath and not Ice Shard, so rarely it's at her full potential
Blissey is the only defender worth to power up in the current system - if you care about getting gym badges.
I don't power up any mon with defensive purpose since the gym rework. But I had plenty of high level defenders before that and I continue to use the most appropriate. Don't like putting a 300 CP anything in gyms.
I make do with the defenders I have from back when they mattered, and also usually just whatever else I feel like putting in a gym....
I dont put utter garbage in, but it doesnt have to be the most elite defender either, its just got to last the day.
Its usually some high lvl Vaporeons or whatever if I have nothing else.
At the moment I wouldn't really invest much into a defender I don't think...however I hope for the day when they are more useful again
it almost feels like they have removed a big chunk game/pokemons uses, by making defenders kinda redundant, when compared to before anyway
suddenly the tanky pokemon are not as desired, suddenly the best defensive moveset less valuable.
But i do think it will one day change. All it would really take is a change to the current coin system, if suddenly having several defenders is important, the current defending meta will change.
I have a list of defenders I want to power up one day. But with the new focus on raids, all of my resources have been going to attackers. So I primarily use my old standbys (Snorlax, Lapras, Blissey, etc). I would, however, love a return of defenders to the meta. I don't want a return of the level 10 Blissey towers; those were no fun at all. But I do want more challenge from the gyms as they currently are.
The primary reason I'll take over multiple gyms any more is to play with my mon. I enjoy test driving new legendaries as I get them (Raikou rocks, BTW) and increasing the number of battles won for my favorites. So I do want something more engaging than a gym full trash like Pidgey, Caterpie, and the like. Those are no fun, either.
Seeing as it's slightly easier to take down Gyms nowadays, you don't really have to power up a lot of defenders.
Sure, a maxed out Blissey might deter some players from taking on the gym (especially if there's other strong Pokemons in it as well), but if there's lots of players in your area, then someone will take it down anyway. With raids, I feel most people now have strong Pokemons to take down Blissey and similar strong Pokemons.
I have a Blissey similar to yours and I put it in gyms all the time, but it gets knocked out almost immediatelly (unless I find a remote gym).
If I make it stronger it will lose CP quicker, but will probably not last much longer in a gym.
So unless you live in a town with few players who also aren't that good, then I doubt it will matter much what Pokemon you put in a gym.
So I think that focusing on attackers is slightly more important at the moment. Although personally, I rarely power up my attackers. If I go to raids, there's usually enough people to beat it even without maxed out Pokemons and when I take over gyms, I can do it with less than great ones. I don't need a 3000+ Pokemon to beat a Snorlax or a Blissey.
I did invest some stardust and candies on my best Machamp just to make it easier to beat really strong Blisseys, but that's it.
I think it's worth having 1 or maybe 2 good defenders (aka blissey). For the most part, you shouldn't really use it in your area (since it's not very competitive) unless it's to hold on for a day or two to get a gold gym badge, however, if you travel somewhere for vacation or business it might help you get some coins or a silver gym badge.
I wouldn't consider it high priority, but if you want a longer term project to work on this isn't a bad one.
It depends on play style and your gym situation!
If you put something in a highly contested gym, a 3000+ Blissey can deter attackers so you can earn some coins. But in more calm gyms that don't change sides every day, a low level mon is a lot better, so anyone passing by can knock you out for the 50 coins.
But in general, if you walk around putting mons in a few gyms every day, lvl 20s are just fine, no need to waste stardust on defenders. Having one good one just in case is quite useful, though.
