Weird post, there are very few grass defenders or raid bosses, so not much use for fire in that department. It is useful in taking out Metagross though.
Metagross is currently the highest DPS to rock and ice, outperforming Machamp in DPS and TDO. Add to the that the neutral DPS and bulk and you get a monster.
GamePress
Don't get why Steel has higher Meta relevance than Fire.
here's my point:
So rant-aside, Steel has higher meta relevance than Fire(??), but Steel not really demanded from any threats at all.
Whereas Fire has a legitimate and pretty much uncontested SE over Grass. And where it doesnt (Flying) those mons have better move builds than the Flying option.
We're inflating Metagross' impact and trampling over Firepower.
But don't take my word for it, on the Tier chart, Moltres moved up from (i think it was....) Tier 3 to Tier 1.5. (Incidentally also where Metagross sits).
Guess I'm saying give me a reason why I should keep a Metagross on offense.
Thoughts on the mechanics below:
Let me cite that Chiefly Fire is SE against Grass.
Going down the list the other Elements SE against grass include
Bug (lacks power, in the main game utilized status effects to work around that, but there's no equivalent in Go)
Flying
( in which case Flying is a 2nd type and a step down from the best damage the mon can do - ie Rayquaza. The Dragon set is ideal)
(alternatively the mon has a fast move like Sky Attack but doesn't have a flying quick move, ie Lugia and Moltres. Limiting their match ups)
Ice
(nothing needs to be said about the mediocre playing field Ice provides when even Articuno is sadly disappointing, has Mammoswine come out and rolled over everything else like a Zamboni yet?)
Poison,
Best claim to fame is Muk, and before you say Gengar, see the 2nd type argument up above, only this time its swap out Ghost set for Poison Set.
TLDR Fire is not going anywhere long as Frenzy Plant anything gets thrown about and is touted like some miracle gro.
So Fire has Meta Relevance 2/5 "Fire types aren’t demanded, but occasionally useful." Despite it being in my humble interpretation, the go to counter for anything that grows out of the ground.
I said all that because Steel has
Meta-relevance
4 / 5
Top DPS counter to Fairy, Ice and Rock-types, with many resistances.
Machamp takes care of Ice and Rock and Machamp wears the belt cause he's best at punching ice and rock into wee bits.
That just leaves Fairy. And competitively, what's that, Gardevoir...which is also Psychic so treat it like a psychic and use those counters, not a contender.
Togekiss? what do we know about it now?
No fairy risks even come to mind in Gym defense or something that isn't a joke in Raids (granbull looking at you)
So if you ask me, that says Steel type is running second fiddle to Machamp (and fighting types in general) while bringing little much to the table.
Metagross, 3rd highest neutral after Rayquaza(Dragon set) and Mewtwo (Psy / Ghost Set) ... least the latter two have potential for being used in favorable SE matchups.
Context
I've been spending a few hours agonizing over whether an investment of all my Dust on a Lick / Shadow Ball Gengar should take priority over partitioning some of it to a Punch / Mash Metagross given Cresselia is roosting until the 18th Dec.
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Answers
You do realise that metagross out DPS's machamp agaisnt both ice and rock types?
Gardevoir's fairy type removes the weaknesses of bug and dark from it leaving Ghost, poison and (ehem) Steel. Poison is taken out of the picture by that fast move confusion. Ghost's best attacker is gengar who's also part poison, so...problem. That leaves just steel and more so metagross, who also does out DPS gengar because it doesn faint out.
Please explain what you mean by "least the latter two have potential for being used in favorable SE matchups." Mewtwo's weak to ghost, which is what shadow ball coutners, and while shadow ball's also good agaisnt psychic types, however Tyranitar, weavile, both trade a little DPS for more TDO, resisting both of those types harder. Also Dragon rayquaza is weak to dragon which, huh, dragon also coutners. Both of those two are weak to the match ups they are more favored in, aside from the case of shadow ball mewtwo vs psychic types. In match ups where mm metagross is favored, Rock, fairy and ice it super effects all three of them not only supremely in DPS but *also* having some of the highest (if not the highest) TDO agaisnt them due to its great natural bulk and resistances to types its mean to counter.
You're acting like this one raid boss of cresselia makes mm metagross a bad investment for all time. At the moment it might not be the best coutner to legendaries, but its one of the best, if not the best gym sweeper, a beyond fantastic defender, and having neutral DPS so good it's viable in raid solos and cresselia Fourman's, and even TRIOS depending on what your buddies have, where it gets neutral damage while also having that same fantastic bulk. You really need to get your facts right.
Does it get relevant type coverage at the moment on offense, not overly (though it does have 90% tyantiar'd DPS when both are fighting cresselia) But it is still a beter generalist than all but 2 pokemon. Few pokemon in gyms are also bug, or grass (which seemed to be your main point) and while fire is effective agaisnt a defending metagross, theres also other things that out DPS fire against metagross. Metagross also out DPS's firetypes agaisnt pokemon both are at the same level of effectiveness. Fire wont be made a more relevant type unless we get something weak to it (as you said grass, se that as an example) as a tier 5, which there arent many legendaries of, and while metagross also doesnt have super effective damage against current tier 5's, make makes it relevant isnt is type coverage on offense, its its massive bulk and its high neutral DPS with a very defensive type combination. Its not "steel" itself thats relevant, its really metagross in particular.
Yes well I could elaborate on that, I was referring to Rayquaza and Mewtwo having sets that complement SE.
I had in mind when writing that Mewtwo would be pitched against other Psychic types, so it would be resisting psychic attacks while dishing out SE dmg with SB. (I ruled out unfavorable matchups, so I was not considering your point of using Mewtwo on Ghost types. Although I will give you that in a SE head to head fight between Gengar and Mewtwo, gengar's lighter bulk would cave first. Gengar's poison double typing actually hurts it in this matchup.)
With Rayquaza, since Ice leaves much to be desired, fighting Dragon with Dragon makes a whole lot more sense. Another point I was making, that the Flying / flying set on Rayquaza is an inoptimal set since you could sub a Fire type for the types you'd be using Flying on, except for Fighting, but there's lots of Psychic options for that. Let Rayquaza do the Dragon / dragon work. It's both best neutral and has SE against other dragons to boot.
You hadn't mentioned what specific match ups you were looking at, but also disregarding "unfavorable match ups" while havign super effective damage and then stating those pokemon are more likely to get favorable match ups with super effective damage and another pokemon weakens your point.
But back to the match ups, in raids, a gengar will not faint before mewtwo when a gengars the raid boss (in PVP, its unlikely we will see gengar at all) Mewtwo is weak to all of Gengar's fast moves as well.
About the dragons, Rayquaza doesnt preform as well compared to ice types when considering the gen 4 new ones. Mamoswine's DPS Is absurd, and its not weak to dragon, which is Rayquaza's Achilles heel,vs ice weak dragons, which likely wont come back until after mamoswine comes out (palkia's only weak to dragon and fairy) there are instances agaisnt pokemon like latias and latios, where despite mamoswine having lower raw DPS, it having more TDO actually gives it higher actual DPS because it doesnt faint out as often, this is why gengar in practice doesnt preform as well as we think it should theoretically. You also didnt specify double flying ray Vs flying weak things that are also weak to fire. I agree agaisnt things both fire and flying have the same effectiveness against, fire does win, that is still a very narrow part of the type match ups. Not to mention a double dragon rayquaza can also be Tm'd back and forth to flying and dragon moves.
Oh I should also add, as to a Gym Sweeping Metagross, lest we forget Machamp has the hold on SE to Normals, unless the Neutral Dmg of steel to Normal outpaces the SE dmg of Fighting to Normal, I'd still default to Machamp to gym sweep.
Side thought, didn't the prevalence of Ice and Rock raid bosses go out with Regi Trio? Tsk tsk if we'd only gotten Meteor mash a few months earlier in prep for the regi trio.
Youre acting as though machamp is still the best agaisnt those types, which it isnt. You cant look at a pokemon we have now and say that a pokemon that is out classes is better than it because we didnt have it before.
Metagross's neutral damage, and more importantly bulk, makes it competitive with machamp because it doesnt need to dodge or faint out which machap does need to do, and which does cut into DPS.. Also remember gardevoir and togekiss? machamp cant deal with those. Metagross' bulk and type being favored by the auto select means les time needs to be spent healing and selecting your team for battles. Time spent in the battle and out of it matter equally, thats something a lot of people seem to forget. And about super effective damage, Breloom actually out DPs's machamp agaisnt blissey, but you seem to have either not known of left that out.
You're looking at such a narrow portion of the spectrum and treating that as though it is everything, not to mention since the CP rebalance, all the normal tanks aside from blissey have largely vanished from gym defense.
that much was obvious. The games not the same thing it was last month, judging whats good now by what was good before then is simply nonsensical.
So much has changed. Gyms are almost completely different, machamp's not the best gym sweeper anymore, and other things people thought were set in stone to always be the best arent anymore. A lot of people still seem to be in denial about the full extent of how much has changed.
