Which pokemon is better?
Right now I have a 1815 CP Dragonite with 87% IV and a 1125 Feraligatr with 93% IV.
The Dragonite unfortunately has steel wing/dragon claw. The Feraligatr has water gun/hydro pump. I feel like the Feraligatr might be the better choice due to good moves and IV but it would require alot of candies/dust. Is that Dragonite a good defender powered up?
Answers
Dragon claw is good, is more spammed but has no damage like OR or DP, i have one Dragonite like that with iv 84, i powered up to 3.3k cp and has been sitting in the top of a gym for like 2 months now, but can be taken down by a 2k cp lapras without problem
As attacker steel wing is good, has good speed and DC is legacy moveset and is really fast, you can spam 3 claws in less time than 1 dp or 1 OR atleast it feels like that
Now you compare two things, feraligatr and dragonite are totally not compared, in attack dragonite wins by far, in defense dragonite wins too, even by only gym placement
Leave the feraligatr as possible prestiger, better off invest in a vaporen, is far better, better stats and more CP, feraligatr looks cool in my pov and can win too, but vaporeon is superior and easier to get
The dragonite depends if you need a gym place holder pokemon, dragontie never fails, but since it has DC i would, that is why i powered up mine, and was good attacker but left in a gym because have better ones
TL;DR - SW isn't as bad as people think. It's decent at attacking, defending and being dodge-friendly.
The Dragonite is better for sure. Most Water Pokemon are just worse versions of Vaporeon when they have the same Water Gun + Hydro Pump moveset.
Despite close to perfect IVs, Feraligatr is still inferior to Vaporeon. A 45/45 IV Feraligatr still has a lower CP than a 0/45 Vaporeon, as well as worse in actual combat because of the HP difference, which doesn't make up for the higher defence a Feraligatr has. You can polish a turd, but it's still a turd.
On the other hand, Dragonites are still one of the strongest Pokemon in the game regardless of moveset. Obviously some movesets are better than others, but even the worst moveset Dragonite are still better than a lot of other Pokemon.
Steel Wing isn't what it used to be, only strong on defense. It's got a decently low cooldown and high base damage, so it packs a punch on both offense and defense. Not as much as DB or DT, but it's definitely not terrible at either by any means.
I myself have a SW/DC Dragonite and I use it for attacking just fine. No doubt it's not as fast as a DB/DC or DT/O Dragonite, but it's not a Lick Snorlax either.
On defense, SW/DC is also pretty good. Dragon Claw is basically the Dragon version of Body Slam, and we all know how much praise Snorlaxes get with that move.
On paper, Dragon Claw doesn't do as much damage as the other charge moves, but in practice, the lower energy requirement of the move makes it less predictable, whereas if you're attacking a Pokemon 1 or 2 bar charge moves, in many cases you can use your own charge move first rather than having to wait for the defender to use theirs so you can get yours off safely.
Against Dragon Claw, if you don't want to risk taking a full damage charge move then you'll wait for the defender to use their move before using your own, even if you are at full energy, which lowers your DPS, in turn allowing the defender to survive a bit longer and therefore get off more hits before fainting. It still won't do as much damage as DT/O but at least the attacker needs to pay more attention.
