Regice's Anouncement and possible use
With the announcement of regice being the next tier 5 raid boss, I got thinking about that it would be useful for, and well, I was suprised to think it will be useful.
While it wont have the DPS of Jynx or possibly even Articuno, it will have vastly more TDO because of its monstrous defenses, that and the fact it isnt crippled but the other 2's poor secondary typing. Agaisnt rayquaza it could do a lot more damage because it wont take as much damage from ancient power it it has that and will also just take less in general from defenses and agaisnt groudon, it wont be weak to solar beam like walrein and lapras
Regice may not be the *best* ice type for DPS, which is actually could do well if it gets good moves, but it could have a lot more TDO and be more potion friendly, this is just what I think based on regice's stats, the real preformance may vary a lot, but I'm hopeful.
Answers
Regice should fall within the lower mid-range for ice-type DPS (outclassed by Cloyster, Walrein, Jynx, Piloswine, and Articuno but better than Lapras) but with a high TDO given it's massive bulk. So it will fall within the role of a "tank counter" as far as ice specialists go.
That said, unless you're sitting on lots of rare candies and stardust, it's probably not worth the investment to power up. DPS is the name of the game for the raid meta, and there are a handful of non-legendary ice options that outperform Regice in this sense that can be caught with weather boosts and don't require a massive rare candy investment.
Plus, Mamoswine in Gen 4, which will also be tanky but have much higher DPS output as well.
Edit: unless Niantic does some last-second change, we already know the moves for Regice. Rock smash/frost breath for quick moves, and focus blast/blizzard/earthquake for charge moves.
While I (and many others most likely) prefer the highest DPS I can afford, Regice /does/ have the highest DPS*TDO ranking against all Dragon Tail sets as well as Air Slash/Outrage. All this with a respectable DPS of 21. For potion efficiency you may actually be onto something. That said, the top counters have DPS of upper 20's so you may still be screwing yourself out of balls in larger groups :/
Something else I noticed while checking poke battler. Given that there's a wide array of good counters, it seems the weather plays a larger role in Regice raids. (Yes, it's fairly useless, but we'll be doing them anyway, for candy and TMs.)
In Sunny weather, Fire dominates (obviously) with Moltres, Flareon and Entei leading the way.
In Cloudy Weather, the Fighters win out, with Machamp, Breloom, Hariyama and Heracross doing well.
In Partly Cloudy, we get the chance to trot out our shiny (in some cases, literally) new Smack Down Tyranitars. SD Ttar still takes down the top spot even if Regice has double Fight moves (Rock Throw/Focus Blast). They will go down fast, but hit hard until they do (as long as you get a Stone Edge off).
And finally, if it's Snowing and Regice is buffed, Metagross with double steel moves is best counter. Scizor and Aggron are well down the list there, with Moltres (the general best counter, resisting everything and hitting a weakness) taking the second spot.
I'm intrigued that we got something that really demands three separate raid parties for the most common weather types (Sunny/Clear, Partly Cloudy and Cloudy). Wish I could have a few more parties - I'd even pay some game coins for them.
