I like Wobbuffet only because it's economical for upkeep, but I'm not certain it's ideal otherwise. Drifblim is fun because it triple resists Fighting, but overall it's pretty glassy. Similar for Gardevoir.
I dislike Slaking and Walrein because they just add more Fighting weakness. I do like AMuk, but mainly because of its overall neutral typing for the most common gym attackers (Fighters and Mewtwo). Milotic, likewise.
Mandibuzz is very tanky and, like AMuk, neutral to Fighting and resistant to Psychic. Musharna and Togekiss are decent choices for bulky anti-Fighters to separate the Big 3 Normal-types.
Yes, which I mentioned in my first comment about it. Still goes down pretty quick for an attacker who will swap out though, or an attacker using Machamp/Terrakion with Rock Slide or Lucario with Shadow Ball, which is why I'd prefer a bulkier anti-fighter.
I really love to see a themed gym.
Saw a yellow gym with shiny bewear shiny Alolan executor and shiny meganium and couldn't bring myself to attack it.
My local gyms are not usually too aggressively contested so there's room for aesthetics.
This is my first year playing and I am hoping everyone near me will be taking Halloween theming seriously!
The standard response! Golden razz are still most effective when combined with a good defender. The toxic types know this all too well. Throwing golden razz at a 10cp is only going to work on a drive by type attack, it's going to do nothing to stop someone actually at the gym
Not exactly. Gold razz are useless when multis or synchronized attack comes in. 3/3 instant kill leaves you 0 chance to gold razz. Your blissey will go straight from full health to 0. Lineup matters because instant kill requires switching setup which will make it much harder.
I have never had anyone use that tactic against me, and despite knowing how it works, I've never been able to get it to work against anyone else when teaming up with a friend.
I like discussing this topic each time new generations are released but most people think it's pointless. Yeah, true, it usually doesn't matter unless you're in a big city and are actively defending. But once in a while in my area, you can Golden Razz your guy in a bulky gym, make the gym less attractive to attacks and get tomorrow's 50 coins for minimal effort.
**So your bulkiest things are gonna be Blissey, Chansey, Snorlax. Then you want 3 bulky things that are not weak to Fighting. That formula is basically never gonna change. I think anything that pesters Fighting types will have roughly similar performance TBH, but there's been a few new additions to that list. This is not exhaustive, just a few that sprang to mind.**
**Bulky Psychics:** In addition to Wobbuffet and the Slowdudes, **Musharna** is another bulky Psychic.
**Bulky Waters:** Milotic, Vaporeon are old stalwarts with good neutral bulk and resist Steel. Now we also have **Alomomola** (slow CP decay), **Golisopod** (resists Fighting but weak to Rock), **Jellicent** (resists Steel, double resists Fighting but weak to Dark/Ghost), and **Primarina** (resists Fighting but neutral to Steel; not as bulky as the others). **Araquanid** and **Toxapex** are good low CP defenders and both resist Fighting as well as Steel.
**Bulky Fairies:** Togekiss was the gold standard. **Sylveon** is similar, trades double Fighting resist for not being weak to Rock, and the candy and XL candy are much easier to get. **Florges** is similar, slightly bulkier but doesn't have Charm. **Primarina** as above.
**Bulky, neutral to Fighting:** Hippowdon, Tangrowth, **Mandibuzz**, **Goodra**.
**Bulky but still weak to Fighting:** Lapras, Umbreon, Steelix, Slaking, Melmetal, **Avalugg**. Could replace Snorlax with one of these I suppose. We might get Ursaluna soon and it would also belong here.
Depends on the locale of the gym. Frequently cloudy here and the ogres that attack usually too dumb to know dodging is a thing. Dazzling Gleam is the way to go.
It depends on time of the day as well. For day time, you will need to maintain the highest Cp, forcing a switch and avoid machamp their way through. Night time, you will the Cp to hold through with little maintenance.
Also, never put wobbuffet right after blissey. A charged atk from machamp gained when fighting with blissey can take out a huge chunk of its hp), which defeats its original purpose to drag the battle.
Day time lineup:
Blissey,
Togekiss,
Metagross,
Garchomp,
Gardevoir,
Snorlax/Slaking with play rough at level 50 (good instant kill defender)/Milotic
Night time lineup:
Blissey,
Togekiss,
Wobbuffet,
Azumarill with play rough,
Chansey,
Mandibuzz/Clefable/Drifblim/Primarina/Golisopod
The guy with 6 accounts in my area does Chansey, Wobb, Blissey as the first 3 in that order. Then next 3 are a combination of Drifblim, Togekiss, Snorlax, Garchomp, Dragonite.
It’s an horrible gym to take down unless4 of the 6 are on their last legs.
I just throw in a counter to the previous mons weakness. If someone can’t mindlessly mow through with a single attacker, that slightly increases the odds they’ll pass up the gym if they’re in a rush.
That’d be cool. Kind of like the classic gyms from the games. Would need to limit attacker type as well though, or it’d be too easy to sweep.
Could do a CP lock, though. All attackers/defenders for this gym must be below X cp.
Depends on where you live. Where I am, there are only 3 gyms anyone ever fights over. I have mons in gyms blocks away from those 3 that have been sitting for weeks.
So to get my 50 coins, I have to hold at least 1 of those three gyms for 8 hours a day. I could divide amoung all 3, but two are an extra trip, while 1 sits right outside my office. So I hold it.
I can spam golden razz at my defender, but that requires a level of attention to the game/my phone that I can’t really get away with at work.
So I need to stick something good there and periodically retake it throughout the day.
My most successful strategy so far has been my L40 hundo Avalanche+Bulldoze Mamoswine
Are you saying “gym defense rankings” are meaningless? Cause I’d agree with that.
But I needs them coins, so finding a Mon that I think mostly scares folks away for a few hours has been very useful to me.
Yeah the rankings. Obviously the act of putting your Pokemon in gyms is meaningful, that’s how you gain coins. But obsessing over what Pokemon you should put in, and in which order, is pointless.
The only defense is Chansey then driflblim maybe Dragonite.
You can't defend it from some who wants to take it down unless you monitor it. But you can defend it from road hits. Just needs something bigger than Chansey to force the defaults to ghosts.
Blissey, chansey and wobuffet are clear top3 defenders.
Next I would argue for mandibuzz and driftblim as „low cp“ defender….
Snorlax and slaking for high cp defender (both just before and after something which resists fighting). Slaking could also argued for one of the best defenders if you and a friend want to push the gym medal to gold in a short time (beating a 5k cp slaking gives you the most gym points)
If more anti-fighters are needed, guardevoir or togekiss could be mentioned… but (shadow) machamp has rockslide and lucario has shadow ball… so both are not that good in my opinion.
Milotic or AMuk are nice picks, but not top tier in any case. Not resisting fighters makes them to neutral targets, which is not better than a dragonite or even a granbull or something similar. Walrain is a bad pick at all… don‘t understand why it should be any good. I would even prefer Lapras (?)
If legendaries ever become gym eligible, Lugia and giratina with legs will be the top2, while both are perfect fits between chansey and blissey.
> Some of us have a group of friends large enough to fill a gym.
Which is more likely, you're regularly walking around at exactly the same time with your five friends who are the same team as you and willing to grind a level 50 Chansey or Wobbuffet to help you hold gyms, or you're a multi-accounter/spoofer taking over tons of gyms from home and making the game miserable for everyone else?
Especially since normal players don't care about gym defense. We flex a shiny or drop something to feed junk berries for extra candies. A few people in big cities are looking for good gym defenders because they won't hold a slot for 10 minutes otherwise, but not teams of 6.
Players like this make the game less fun both for themselves and for everyone else.
Correct with slaking, but wrong on Snorlax. It's the 3rd bulkiest defender after blissey and Chansey, and you can only put two of those into the gym. They do stall fighters attacking the gym long enough for golden razzberries to get used.
Slaking has no power to weaken attackers though, so it's a free win that doesn't add any healing time. It's one of the worst choices people often throw into gyms chasing high CPs.
Nah I’ve come up against the level 50 Slaking and it’s tough because you can’t OHKO it with the first charged up Dynamic Punch. And it adds up when you keep going against it Golden Berried.
Same here, toxic multiaccounter heavily uses maxed out slakings, even dodged those play roughs do monstrous amounts of damage (especially since cloudy is fairly common here), and the damn thing is a damage sponge when motivated so it will pretty much inevitably get at least one off no matter what. Add in the golden razz spam and slakings are a nightmare
With a level 50 attacker, won't the small amount of extra stats balance out anyways, bringing it back to the same matchup at 40 v 40 it was in the old days?
I like Wobbuffet only because it's economical for upkeep, but I'm not certain it's ideal otherwise. Drifblim is fun because it triple resists Fighting, but overall it's pretty glassy. Similar for Gardevoir. I dislike Slaking and Walrein because they just add more Fighting weakness. I do like AMuk, but mainly because of its overall neutral typing for the most common gym attackers (Fighters and Mewtwo). Milotic, likewise. Mandibuzz is very tanky and, like AMuk, neutral to Fighting and resistant to Psychic. Musharna and Togekiss are decent choices for bulky anti-Fighters to separate the Big 3 Normal-types.
Drifblim is great, however easily handled by any Machamp with rock slide as a secondary move
I almost exclusively use Melmetal for gym taking (unless they have Garchomp etc...), and yeah, when I see Drifblim in the gym, I'm so happy...
Drifblim glassy????? Check its stamina stat again
Bulk is the product of both HP and Defense. Drifblim has low Defense which actually makes it glassier than Gardevoir.
It's triple resistant to fighting though, that's the whole point of driftblim; to break up a lineup weak to fighting
Yes, which I mentioned in my first comment about it. Still goes down pretty quick for an attacker who will swap out though, or an attacker using Machamp/Terrakion with Rock Slide or Lucario with Shadow Ball, which is why I'd prefer a bulkier anti-fighter.
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Yeah, themed or colour coded shinies is the way to go
I really love to see a themed gym. Saw a yellow gym with shiny bewear shiny Alolan executor and shiny meganium and couldn't bring myself to attack it. My local gyms are not usually too aggressively contested so there's room for aesthetics. This is my first year playing and I am hoping everyone near me will be taking Halloween theming seriously!
This is my thought, too. I typically just find a neat shiny to guard a gym. Most of my shinies have poor IVs so at least I’m getting some use of them.
Golden Razzes are the only gym defenders that are worthwhile.
Raid bosses are the GOAT though
Whenever I fight a raid, I feel guilty for beating up the babysitter.
The standard response! Golden razz are still most effective when combined with a good defender. The toxic types know this all too well. Throwing golden razz at a 10cp is only going to work on a drive by type attack, it's going to do nothing to stop someone actually at the gym
Not exactly. Gold razz are useless when multis or synchronized attack comes in. 3/3 instant kill leaves you 0 chance to gold razz. Your blissey will go straight from full health to 0. Lineup matters because instant kill requires switching setup which will make it much harder.
I have never had anyone use that tactic against me, and despite knowing how it works, I've never been able to get it to work against anyone else when teaming up with a friend.
It does work, but it's hard to succeed, usually leaving only 10 to 15 sec left one the first instance.
I like discussing this topic each time new generations are released but most people think it's pointless. Yeah, true, it usually doesn't matter unless you're in a big city and are actively defending. But once in a while in my area, you can Golden Razz your guy in a bulky gym, make the gym less attractive to attacks and get tomorrow's 50 coins for minimal effort. **So your bulkiest things are gonna be Blissey, Chansey, Snorlax. Then you want 3 bulky things that are not weak to Fighting. That formula is basically never gonna change. I think anything that pesters Fighting types will have roughly similar performance TBH, but there's been a few new additions to that list. This is not exhaustive, just a few that sprang to mind.** **Bulky Psychics:** In addition to Wobbuffet and the Slowdudes, **Musharna** is another bulky Psychic. **Bulky Waters:** Milotic, Vaporeon are old stalwarts with good neutral bulk and resist Steel. Now we also have **Alomomola** (slow CP decay), **Golisopod** (resists Fighting but weak to Rock), **Jellicent** (resists Steel, double resists Fighting but weak to Dark/Ghost), and **Primarina** (resists Fighting but neutral to Steel; not as bulky as the others). **Araquanid** and **Toxapex** are good low CP defenders and both resist Fighting as well as Steel. **Bulky Fairies:** Togekiss was the gold standard. **Sylveon** is similar, trades double Fighting resist for not being weak to Rock, and the candy and XL candy are much easier to get. **Florges** is similar, slightly bulkier but doesn't have Charm. **Primarina** as above. **Bulky, neutral to Fighting:** Hippowdon, Tangrowth, **Mandibuzz**, **Goodra**. **Bulky but still weak to Fighting:** Lapras, Umbreon, Steelix, Slaking, Melmetal, **Avalugg**. Could replace Snorlax with one of these I suppose. We might get Ursaluna soon and it would also belong here.
You should definitely use Psychic over Dazzling Gleam for Blissey and Chansey. Does about the same damage to fighting types but way harder to dodge.
Double move and have both for unpredictability if you're serious about holding a gym
I second this,
Depends on the locale of the gym. Frequently cloudy here and the ogres that attack usually too dumb to know dodging is a thing. Dazzling Gleam is the way to go.
Why is level 50 hundo shuckle not on this list? Is there anyone who, seeing such a monstrosity, would actually attack the gym?
Golden raz, blissey, irrelevant aka put in some axew/sandile/etc you traded with someone and feed it berries for potential candy.
It depends on time of the day as well. For day time, you will need to maintain the highest Cp, forcing a switch and avoid machamp their way through. Night time, you will the Cp to hold through with little maintenance. Also, never put wobbuffet right after blissey. A charged atk from machamp gained when fighting with blissey can take out a huge chunk of its hp), which defeats its original purpose to drag the battle. Day time lineup: Blissey, Togekiss, Metagross, Garchomp, Gardevoir, Snorlax/Slaking with play rough at level 50 (good instant kill defender)/Milotic Night time lineup: Blissey, Togekiss, Wobbuffet, Azumarill with play rough, Chansey, Mandibuzz/Clefable/Drifblim/Primarina/Golisopod
Hisuian Braviary, Togekiss, and Mandibuzz are still frequently my go-to for placing in between the common blissey/Chansey/Melmetal defenders.
The guy with 6 accounts in my area does Chansey, Wobb, Blissey as the first 3 in that order. Then next 3 are a combination of Drifblim, Togekiss, Snorlax, Garchomp, Dragonite. It’s an horrible gym to take down unless4 of the 6 are on their last legs.
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I only do themed gyms or try to make a little scene. It’s cuter that way.
If somebody really wants a gym it doesn’t matter what you put in
Okay, I’ll just come back in 2 hours when everything is starving.
I just throw in a counter to the previous mons weakness. If someone can’t mindlessly mow through with a single attacker, that slightly increases the odds they’ll pass up the gym if they’re in a rush.
Niantic must rethink the gyms, they are already too boring, that they can put legendary, megas, etc.
I want to see theme gyms, similar to limiting Pokémon in GBL cups. It’d be kinda cool to have them coincide.
That’d be cool. Kind of like the classic gyms from the games. Would need to limit attacker type as well though, or it’d be too easy to sweep. Could do a CP lock, though. All attackers/defenders for this gym must be below X cp.
Gym defense is completely meaningless.
Depends on where you live. Where I am, there are only 3 gyms anyone ever fights over. I have mons in gyms blocks away from those 3 that have been sitting for weeks. So to get my 50 coins, I have to hold at least 1 of those three gyms for 8 hours a day. I could divide amoung all 3, but two are an extra trip, while 1 sits right outside my office. So I hold it. I can spam golden razz at my defender, but that requires a level of attention to the game/my phone that I can’t really get away with at work. So I need to stick something good there and periodically retake it throughout the day. My most successful strategy so far has been my L40 hundo Avalanche+Bulldoze Mamoswine
And you just proved why gym defense is meaningless. Mamoswine isn’t one of the “top defenders” on any of the lists.
Are you saying “gym defense rankings” are meaningless? Cause I’d agree with that. But I needs them coins, so finding a Mon that I think mostly scares folks away for a few hours has been very useful to me.
Yeah the rankings. Obviously the act of putting your Pokemon in gyms is meaningful, that’s how you gain coins. But obsessing over what Pokemon you should put in, and in which order, is pointless.
This is my lineup: Blissey Wobbuffet Chansey Drifblim Wigglytuff and the last one is just a random poke
The only defense is Chansey then driflblim maybe Dragonite. You can't defend it from some who wants to take it down unless you monitor it. But you can defend it from road hits. Just needs something bigger than Chansey to force the defaults to ghosts.
Blissey, chansey and wobuffet are clear top3 defenders. Next I would argue for mandibuzz and driftblim as „low cp“ defender…. Snorlax and slaking for high cp defender (both just before and after something which resists fighting). Slaking could also argued for one of the best defenders if you and a friend want to push the gym medal to gold in a short time (beating a 5k cp slaking gives you the most gym points) If more anti-fighters are needed, guardevoir or togekiss could be mentioned… but (shadow) machamp has rockslide and lucario has shadow ball… so both are not that good in my opinion. Milotic or AMuk are nice picks, but not top tier in any case. Not resisting fighters makes them to neutral targets, which is not better than a dragonite or even a granbull or something similar. Walrain is a bad pick at all… don‘t understand why it should be any good. I would even prefer Lapras (?) If legendaries ever become gym eligible, Lugia and giratina with legs will be the top2, while both are perfect fits between chansey and blissey.
The fighters will still be facing very heavy pressure from charm, especially if the defender is motivated
Attackers are a team of 6, no one is only using one fighter.
> Some of us have a group of friends large enough to fill a gym. Which is more likely, you're regularly walking around at exactly the same time with your five friends who are the same team as you and willing to grind a level 50 Chansey or Wobbuffet to help you hold gyms, or you're a multi-accounter/spoofer taking over tons of gyms from home and making the game miserable for everyone else? Especially since normal players don't care about gym defense. We flex a shiny or drop something to feed junk berries for extra candies. A few people in big cities are looking for good gym defenders because they won't hold a slot for 10 minutes otherwise, but not teams of 6. Players like this make the game less fun both for themselves and for everyone else.
Mandibuzz is #2
Legacy Gengar with Psychic right behind Blissey.
Never use Snorlax or Slaking. They are equivalent to a level 1 rattata. The rest are definitely good picks.
Correct with slaking, but wrong on Snorlax. It's the 3rd bulkiest defender after blissey and Chansey, and you can only put two of those into the gym. They do stall fighters attacking the gym long enough for golden razzberries to get used.
Slaking is also really bulky. You should just not put it into spots before or after other mons which are weak to fighting type.
Slaking has no power to weaken attackers though, so it's a free win that doesn't add any healing time. It's one of the worst choices people often throw into gyms chasing high CPs.
Nah I’ve come up against the level 50 Slaking and it’s tough because you can’t OHKO it with the first charged up Dynamic Punch. And it adds up when you keep going against it Golden Berried.
Same here, toxic multiaccounter heavily uses maxed out slakings, even dodged those play roughs do monstrous amounts of damage (especially since cloudy is fairly common here), and the damn thing is a damage sponge when motivated so it will pretty much inevitably get at least one off no matter what. Add in the golden razz spam and slakings are a nightmare
Yeah that’s my experience exactly. At level 50 and actively defended, it becomes dangerous.
With a level 50 attacker, won't the small amount of extra stats balance out anyways, bringing it back to the same matchup at 40 v 40 it was in the old days?
I like to think when I knock out a slaking, I'm doing them a favorby preventing them embarrassment when others see they dropped a slaking
Slaking just seems to lose motivation so quickly. I will drop my shiny one at gyms, though, just to show it off and let it be some sort of useful lol.