Favorite less-common defender

I still love my boys Poliwrath and Slowbro, but I prefer my maxed 98% Gardevoir and my 91% Shiny Aggron these days if I seek for non optimal defenders (yeah, I know Aggron sucks hard, but fuck it, that shiny steel eating dinosaur deserves his spotlight)

I usually throw in random stuff in the 1,000-2,000 CP range. It's usually the cool but otherwise useless stuff like Claydol, Camerupt, Octillery, etc.

Granbull, mr.mime
Way too common around here, totally disposable and useful to an extent

Muk, Steelix, Slowbro, Gardevoir, Hariyama, and Donphan. Not exactly esoteric choices, but my go-tos outside the usual suspects. As soon as my perfect Cradily is powered up, he goes on the list.

L33.5 Seaking; most expect it to be another crap water pokemon until it unleashes Dragon Breath/Outrage.

L30 Scizor; attackers expecting Fury Cutter/X-scissor get wrecked by Bullet Punch/Iron Head.

Bellossom and Jynx

When I thought of favorite less common I thought of Clefable too

I hardly ever use Blissey/Chansey/Snorlax because I like variety, even if kicked more easily. Not all of them are as good, the weaker ones are usually not what I enter in the first slot.

It can be anything I like: Muk (100%), Milotic, Porygon2, Steelix, Ampharos, Flygon, Shiftry, Metagross, Heracross, Gardevoir, Swampert, Donphan, Miltank, Armaldo, Wailord, Forretress, Umbreon, Espeon, Raichu, Altaria (shiny), Victreebel (100%), Lapras, Sceptile, Scyther/Scizor, Granbull, Poliwrath/toad, Masquerain, and sometimes Mantine/Whiscash/Lanturn. Also I liked Zangoose before it got introduced in Europe.

Anything more attractive than Gyarados Blissey Chansey Snorlax Vaporeon Rhydon Exeggutor Dragonite Tyranitar.

I like to use Muk. What other Pokémon will flip the bird and throw a trash can at you?

I just wanted to say that people that place Tyranitar in gyms are idiots and deserve to be slapped in the face

I like putting in, Alakazam, Ampharos, Steelix, Slowbro, and Poliwrath. I'm probably forgetting some, but other than my blissey those are my main defenders.

I’m usually the one taking down gyms in my area, so B/S/C 90% of the time, or sometimes L39 DT/O Dnite. The only unusual defender on my main account that I place is VS/DP Ampharos.

My alt account has all the unusual defenders that I usually slot. Azumarill, Ludicolo, Clefable, and a 100% Milotic coming soon.

I have a 93% Clefable that I use.
Then I started putting in my 100% Azumarill after someone mentioned that it's surprisingly annoying to knock out.

There's quite a few that come to mind, but my favorite is probably my maxed C/DG Gardevoir simply because it forces the attacker to switch out their Machamp that they're using to take on the other common defenders often sitting in the gym as well (Blissey, Chansey, Snorlax, Slaking, Rhydon, Aggron, and Lapras). I'm also often surprised at how often people aren't sure of what counters to use against Gardevoir, so that helps as well.

Conf/IB Slowbro! Thanks to the Mareep Community Day, I also have a VS/DP Ampharos.

Maxed a Woboffet and Skarmory.

Woboffet is actually the third best defender when it comes to wasting your enemies time. If theyre fighting solo its easily a 40+ second kill.

I like putting Wobbuffet (Counter - Mirror Coat) in there.

I also like placing the Shuckle and Tropius I caught during my holidays just to show them off. I know Shuckle is not regional exclusive but he seems to be extremely rare, since I've never seen anyone else place him in a gym here. I wonder what it's like fighting him, given his high defense stat. I like the idea of him being generally underestimated, little guy in between all those Snorlaxes and Blisseys, but maybe that's me overestimating him.

My current dream for a gym though is to have it consist solely of Eevee and all of its current evolutions, with Eevee in the middle.

I have some I like to throw in:
Flygon
Salamence
Metagross
Aerodactyl (usually at a statue for aviation, or at a museum)
Armaldo and Lileep (usually at a museum)
Altaria (usually at the aviation statue)
Milotic
Shiny Aggron, Banette, Ampharos, Raichu, Venusaur (male & female) & Dragonite.
Clefable
Wigglytuff
Granbull.

Here it's normally Blissey-inbetween mon-Chansey-inbetween mon-Snorlax-inbetween mon. Inbetween mons are of course those that force Machamp to change either by wrecking it with offensive power, resisting fighting, or both. That means Gardevoir is as common here as Snorlax, while Clefable, Muk and Wobbuffet are very popular, etc.

My favorite less common defenders that I use for gyms that I don't care about defending are stuff like my maxed Arcanine, maxed Ninetales etc. Just trophy mons that I put out for display.

Dugtrio

I have three approaches to gym defenders beyond blisslax chanking.

1. Beldum, bagon, trapinch...things I need more candy for. Feed them as many berries as possible before running out or being kicked out. I generally revive these because they’re rare. Lather, rinse, repeat.
2. Disposable stuff. Save revives.
3. Optimal/fun stuff. Gardevoir is top choice. Slowbro, C/P or C/Se exeggutor, clefable, azumarill, wobbuffet come to mind when I decide against strategy 1 or 2. I am generally able to toss azu and wob (strategy 2).

I like putting my 100% Slowbro in gyms. It was my first 100 IV I hatched back in July 2016.

Also my 100% Granbull; he's an annoying defender for enemy Machamp and Dragonite.

My choice