How good is metagross actually?
From what i heard from here metagross seems bad while salamence seems good, but to be honest both were underwhelming.
So how good or bad exactly metagross is? Like it's the best steel attacker but it meant nothing when steel is a bad offense move?
Answers
You're right in that steel isn't a great offensive type.
The uses for Metagross I can think of are:
Tank for Machamp raids with psychic moveset. It's like an upgraded Exeggutor, better damage, better survivability on average. Not as tanky as Lugia or Ho-Oh but much better DPS than either one.
Gardevoir murderer with steel moveset. Watch out for Shadow Ball though.
Gym defender with psychic moveset. Puts the hurt into Machamp and takes NVE from Dragonite. Or you can put steel moves on it to deal SE to the Tyranitars people will bring in to counter it.
All-in-all I think the high stats make it a desirable pokemon worth grinding for. It's obviously not the meta star Machamp and Dragonite are, but it's a pseudo and the playerbase will find a use for it.
1. You may notice I didn't say anything about resisting fighting, since it doesn't. Metagross is tanky enough that it's fine even taking neutral. It's much better against steel moves than fighting moves, which makes it overall one of the best TDO counters, but with better DPS than Lugia and Ho-Oh.
2. Indeed it isn't. But Scizor doesn't kill Gardevoir without charging 100 energy either, so Flash Cannon being 1-bar isn't a big drawback. Metagross is 1 second slower but finishes the fight with more than 50% hp without dodging, while Scizor is almost dead.
3. It's 50/50 chance if Tyra and Metagross are the same level. Even if the FC doesn't fire or Tyra dodges it, it'll still lose more than 40% HP which is more punishing to Tyra than many other defenders.
Metagross will definitely pump out damage and stand on the field long, only held back by it's meh movepool, doubt it's gonna be a top-threat in the meta. Defensively there are pokemon like Tyranitar and Moltres/Entei and shadow ball Mewtwo to be there to take it down. Perhaps it can be a strong raid pokemon, even in the future versus the Regi-trio.
