GamePress

What next for my attacker squad?

Thanks to all the stardust (and candy) from the event, I made three additions to my previously-genwunner attacking squad, which currently stands at (all L30 wonders):
1. Dragonite with DT/OR
2. Raikou with TS/WC
3. Rhydon with MS/SE
4. Golem with RT/SE
5. Machamp with Count/DP (minor text fix)
6. Exeggutor with Conf/Solar
7. Vaporeon with WG/HP
8. Alakazam with Conf/SBall
9. Espeon with Conf/FS
10. Gyarados with Bite/HP
11. Poliwrath with RS/DP
My L20 Larvitar will definitely join my squad. 160 candy, 30 more to go. That means another 150km. Currently have 640k dust (saving 500k for Gen 3), 86 Rare Candy, 7 Fast TMs, 4 Charge TMs and some dilemmas.

Firstly, I have a L29 14A/14D/10S Gastly, a L24 13A/9D/13S Gengar with SC/SBall and 216 candy. Should I:
a) Evolve the Gastly, spend 10k dust and use TMs to get Hex/SBall?
b) Spend 51k dust on the Gengar despite it being a non-wonder?
c) Evolve the Gastly, then decide based on its moveset?
d) Touch neither since Gen 3 has better glass cannons?

Secondly, November ended with 8 Enteis caught and 27 candy (could earn 4 more by sending non-wonders to the professor). Ironically, the only one with FS/OH has the worst CP; the best has 11A/15D/13S with FF/OH (so only need 1 Fast TM). The current metagame is not kind to Fire-types, but they are crucial for soloing Scyther and attacking Blissey with DG (which Machamp, Dragonite and Tyranitar are weak to). Unsure whether my Arcanine, Charizard and Flareons (no Moltres) with 1600-2200 CP can get the job done.

Should I proceed to spend the Fast TM and Rare Candy? If so, when should I spend the 75k dust? If not, would a wonder Flareon with FS/OH be as good if powered up to L30? Would Gen 3 bring new uses for Fire-type attackers?

Which other species should I strive to add to my team? I have a L30 wonder Venusaur with VW/PB, but what use does it have other than soloing Omastar (which I will not build a grass army for) and attacking the occasional Vaporeon in a gym? As for Scizor, I do not have any; my only wonder Scyther is L17 (Scyther is rare here, so better to get them through solo raids). Could my L30 non-wonder Houndoom with Snarl/Crunch be a slightly worse Tyranitar while I continue to walk Larvitar?

Took Ho-Oh just ten seconds to knock out both my Raikou and Golem. Vaporeon and Gyarados lasted a little longer, before Dragonite held out long enough for the twenty-strong lobby to finish off the Ho-Oh (no damage balls). Could I have done better? Wonder what difference a Tyranitar with Bite/SE would have made. Last slot (unused) went to my Espeon, since my other attackers were at a type disadvantage.

Last but not least, how close is my squad to being able to solo:
i) Porygon?
ii) Scyther?
iii) Machamp?
iv) Gengar?

Asked by hkn7 years 5 months ago
Report

Answers

I assume you mean C/DP for Machamp.

Go and find some Ttar raids.

Evolve the L29 Gastly. TM to Shadow Ball (fast move doesn't really matter). Don't power up either Gengar.

You can already do Porygon with Machamp, Poliwrath, Dragonite, Raikou.

Scyther with Golem, Raikou, Flareons. Entei only if you powered it up, a L20 Entei is only going to drag you down.

Machamp, no. Alakazam needs Future Sight. Try farming Dratinis and getting a Dragonite with Hurricane.

Gengar might be possible if you can get Shadow Ball on the L29 Gengar.
Alakazam, Espeon, L29 Gengar, Dragonite. Focus Blast only. You probably need Ttars for Sludge Bomb or Shadow Ball. Rhydon might work for Sludge Bomb, but it MUST have MS/Eq.

Up
0
Down

Yes, I meant Counter for Machamp. Minor text fixes done.

Evolved the L29 Gastly and got Hex/SBall!

Tried three Tyranitar raids so far; nobody showed up.

Up
0
Down

That's strange. I went to a Ttar raid today, there were 6 people in the first lobby that I joined. I never had problems with lack of players at Ttar raids.

Up
0
Down

I would have powered up SC Gengar as its attack stats aren’t bad and supposedly SC is the move to have. I hardly ever use my Hex Gengar and he’s 96% at level 35

Up
0
Down

You need to bring those pokemon to higher level breakpoints in decisive matchups
(Now Ho-Oh) (potentially Mew2)
For Ho-Oh: Raikou 35.5 (15def), Golem 39.5 (15att)

Up
0
Down

by zap 7 years 5 months ago

The better question is, why they need to solo anything? Wasting resources when you could be building a proper army for when PvsP comes.

Up
0
Down

...because soloing tier 3 raids would help me build my Machamp, Gengar and Alakazam army?

Up
0
Down

i) porygon you can already solo: Machamp, poliwrath, raikou, Espeon, dragonite. Should be enough.
ii) scyther maybe: golem, raikou, flareon, dragonite.
iii) not yet, your fastest route is to tm alakazam to FS, get another Espeon (regardless of iv, find a high level eevee), and power up Ho oh with ES/BB. then you have alakazam, Espeon x2, exeggutor, Ho oh, dragonite. Should be good.
iv) power up the legacy gengar, he is much better than a non legacy wonder. Than you should be able to solo a FB gengar: gengar x2, Espeon, alakazam, dragonite, gyarados. Dodge FB with the first 4 and tank with the dragon and gyarados. If you still time out, get another Espeon instead of the gyarados.

Up
0
Down

Don't power up Ho-Oh! At least for now. He has no other use, it's just a waste of stardust and candies

Up
0
Down

"The current metagame is not kind to Fire-types, but they are crucial for soloing Scyther...." Umm, what? I think you mean Golem. To solo Scyther, get yourself 3 strong Golems. Power them up to level 31. Put them at the top of your Scyther lineup. After they are all knocked out, Scyther will be in the red and you'll be about halfway around the clock. Easy from there with almost anything reasonable.

To solo Machamp, I'd get another Espeon, and try to get a Ho-Oh with Extrasensory and Brave Bird (since you don't mention a Lugia with Extrasensory and either Future Sight or Sky Attack). Also a Dragonite with Hurricane would help, but that's not an easy get. I've also had good success with Scyther with double Flying moves - he doubly resists Fight, and Machamp is weak to his air moves. But don't use him against Heavy Slam, his advantage is almost all gone against Steel attacks.

Against Ho-Oh, since your Golem went down in one hit, I assume it had Solar Beam. Solar Beam is a totally different animal than the other two attacks. Brave Bird or Fire Blast can be fought successfully by 5 level 35 players with good counters, Solar Beam takes seven. Best success against Solar Beam is to use Dragonite, dodge the Solar Beams (not hard, you dodge a few moments AFTER the "Ho-Oh uses Solar Beam" message pops up) and hit it with as many Outrages as you can between the dodges and Dragon Tails. (There's probably a better way to dodge than that, but I don't know it.)

For Tyranitar, find a raid group, and take some down. Much faster than walking one (although that's good too, I still don't have Pupitar in my pokedex), and you get 10 Ttar candy if you make the catch afterwards (or 20 if you're Brave enough to use pinap berries).

If you can, build up a Eggy with Bullet Seed and Solar Beam. Good for Omastar, Golem, Rhydon (if he ever comes back), Kabutops (if he ever comes), Vaporeon and Gyarados (in Gyms), and probably some Gen3 that are weak or doubly weak to Grass. However, if there's a better Gen3 user of Solar Beam, do that instead, so wait on this until Gen3 is out there and understood.

Up
0
Down

In my biome, Dratini is more common than Geodude; I have four Dragonites and only two Golems. Could Fast TM and power up my L22 Dragonite (14A/14D/11S) with SW/Hurr, but unsure about its usefulness beyond soloing Machamp, especially with Gen 3 around the corner. My other Golem is L20 (15A/12D/11S) with RT/RB. Almost forgot about my other L30 Exeggutor, which has Conf/Psyc, and my spare L29 Espeon with Conf/Psyb. Perhaps I could add them to my Machamp solo team?

Up
0
Down

OK, power up this golem and you are definitely good to go on scyther. He will also be good against Ho oh. Also, you almost have a machamp team. Tm the alakazam to FS, power up the dragonite. Zam, Espeon, eggy x2, dragonite x2. You will need to do some dodging to get 2 FS from each of your glass cannons, take some practice but not hard with a decent phone. With the extra Espeon you can probably solo FB gengar.
Hurricane dragonite is also good for scyther raids and future celebi raids. (Flying effective against bug and grass).

Up
0
Down

Curiously, the auto select picks my 2700 cp Dt/H dragonite rather than my 3000 cp DB/O dragonite for Ho-Oh with Solar Beam. It seems to do pretty good. That said, the auto select also picks a couple ttar but not raikou. I think the auto select algorithm is flaky...again.

Up
0
Down

Autoselect mistakenly thinks Hurricane deals better neutral damage than Outrage. Just ignore it and pick the Outrage Dragonite and Raikou.

Up
0
Down

With both of your Espeons, both of your Exeggutors, the DT/OR Dragonite and Alakazam or Gengar, you have a viable Machamp solo team. Close Combat should be relatively easy if you dodge it a few times, HS and DP will be much harder.

Espeons, two Gengars, Alakazam/Houndoom, Rhydon wins easily against Gengar with FB. Sludge Bomb will be harder and Shadow Ball will require a lot of dodging if you don't get yourself Tyranitars

Up
0
Down

Porygon is almost as easy as tier 2 raids, you should be able to do it easily.
Scyther you should be able to do with Golem, Raikou, Flareons. Dragonite DT/OR doesn't quite have the DPS for this matchup but can finish the raid in case you're worried about your team fainting and wasting time with rejoin.
Commented about Machamp and Gengar in another post but you should be able to do some movesets with the mons you have now.

Up
0
Down