Let's GO Gym Defender's Tier List - Gen 2

Greetings Trainers!

There's a new mon in town

This article is going to be updated as lower rungs of the tier list solidify, but I think that some Pokemon have made a very definite name for themselves in gyms since the release of Gen 2, and so today I'll be releasing this tier list with the intention of sorting the lower-tiered Pokemon later. For now, I'll just be including ideal movesets, and will work on write-ups for each Pokemon shortly. This article will be updating daily to explain some of the choices. Overall, a greater diversity of Pokemon types are now viable defenders, which is what you'd have hoped given 80 new Pokemon.

For instance, Gyarados massively improved as a defender in the latest update, but only because of new access to Dragon Tail / Crunch or Outrage. All old Gyarados are still middling, but new Gyarados with Dragon Tail make for much better defenders.

Table of Contents

*List last updated March 8th 2017

• Let's GO: Gym Defender's Tier List
• Summary Tier List
• Fast facts you should know
• Honourable Mentions
• Good, but not-yet-tiered

Summary Tier List

This is the summary tier list. In future updates to this article, I will be expanding these sections into full write ups with explanations of move choices, and suggestions for strategic gym building. I'll also be able to comment on a Pokemon's utiltity as a defender with or without legacy moves, which affects some Pokemon's ranking.

S - Tier (leagues ahead of other defenders)

Blissey - It doesn't really matter, but Zen Headbutt / Dazzling Gleam

Snorlax - Zen Headbutt / Body Slam or Zen Headbutt / Heavy Slam

A - Tier (always good to put in a gym)

Exeggutor - Confusion / Seed Bomb or Extrasensory / Seed Bomb
Dragonite - Steel Wing / Dragon Claw or Dragon Pulse, or Dragon Tail / Outrage or Hurricane
Vaporeon - Water Gun / Aqua Tail

B - Tier (often worth adding)

Tyranitar - Iron Tail / Crunch
Gyarados - Dragon Tail / Crunch (or Outrage)
Venusaur - Razor Leaf / Sludge Bomb
Lapras - Ice Shard or Frost Breath / Ice Beam
Ampharos - Volt Switch / Thunder (harder to dodge)
Slowbro - Confusion / Ice Beam (Water Pulse and Psychic are fine too)
Poliwrath - Rock Smash / Ice Punch or Dynamic Punch

C Tier (worth mentioning, niche use)

Machamp - Counter / Dynamic Punch
Rhydon - Mud Slap / Stone Edge
Golem - Mud Slap / Ancient Power
Donphan - Counter / Play Rough
Espeon - Confusion / Psybeam or Psychic or Future Sight
Charizard - Air Slash / Dragon Claw
Arcanine - Snarl or Fire Fang / Crunch
Miltank - Zen Headbutt / Body Slam
Ursaring - Counter / Play Rough
Clefable - Zen Headbutt / Dazzling Gleam

D Tier (worth mentioning, but others will almost certainly perform better)

Cloyster - Ice Shard / Avalanche

Jolteon - Volt Switch / Discharge

Crobat - Air Slash / Sludge Bomb or Shadow Ball

Tauros - Zen Headbutt / Horn Attack

Golduck - Confusion / Ice Beam

Alakazam - Confusion / Dazzling Gleam or Shadow Ball

Muk - Poison Jab / Dark Pulse

Omastar - Water Gun / Ancient Power or Rock Blast
Jynx - Confusion / Avalanche or Psyshock, though Draining Kiss is its hardest-to-dodge charge move

Fast facts:

• The general quality of gym defenders has gone up as a consequence of move changes. So while a defender may have improved over its previous performance (e.g. Kingler), other Pokemon have also improved and often more drastically (e.g. Charizard), preventing Kingler from being a tier-worthy defender. However, a lot of Pokemon are now more competent defenders compared with their performance before the Gen 2 update.
• New move distributions have made it a weird challenge to tier Pokemon fairly. People are more likely to have Legacy-move Pokemon right now compared with the new movesets, so I've ranked the movesets of top tier Pokemon as the best of either their current available movesets, or best legacy movesets. I've included both "best movesets" if they're comparable, though one may be better than the other.
• Move base damages and cool down times were updated, changing the dynamic of a number of moves on both attack and defence. Importantly, things like Hydro Pump and Solar Beam received increased damage output, and are now significant nukes. This lets attackers avoid the defender using too many charge moves with good timing of their attacks.
• Bubble was severely reduced in power, and Confusion was increased to base 20. As a result, Confusion is "the new Bubble," and hits like a truck. Volt Switch also has base 20 damage, but has a longer cool down time. Nonetheless, Volt Switch is the definitive best defending move of Ampharos, our first bulky Electric type.
• Lapras being affected by the new base stat calculation changes its performance minimally, but changes its maximum CP significantly, making it much harder to slot into gyms successfully. More importantly, Ice Shard was nerfed and Ice Beam was buffed, making Ice Beam and Dragon Pulse better defending sets than before.
• Espeon is now a readily-available attacker, which means high-DPS Psychic attackers are now easy to come by. Before, Alakazam was the only great high-DPS Psychic attacker. But now, you can automatically generate Psychic-type Jolteons. This makes it harder for Psychic-weak Pokemon to make a name for themselves.
• How stable this current metagame is remains to be seen. Niantic could very easily pull the carpet out from under us again and revamp a number of moves etc..., but after their last update, I'm assuming the dust has settled.
• How much damage the new charge moves do has changed the way gym battles progress. I often find myself OHKO'ing Pokemon like Golem using Solar Beam and sometimes Hydro Pump depending on the level. By using Pokemon like Solar Beam Exeggutor / Venusaur, you can avoid letting the defender charge energy and use its charge moves. That makes it tough for defenders with middling stamina and common dual weaknesses (e.g. Golem, Scizor, Omastar).
• A reminder: my tiering system rewards Pokemon for having a higher maximum CP to some extent. This is because these higher-CP Pokemon can be utilized more easily as defenders, and can be used to build gyms strategically more easily. Some low-CP Pokemon make for annoying defenders (e.g. Wobbuffet), but because Wobbuffet will always be at the front of a gym, it's not really a relevant defender. This is why e.g. Miltank is only C Tier, despite being a literal mini-Snorlax.

Good but not yet tiered

Unsorted (suspected tier)

Note: This section has Pokemon that have not been tested fully yet, and their suspected tier in brackets. Ideal movesets will be included in the completed article.

Heracross (A-B tier) - Seemingly strong defender with one major weakness (Flying). A weakness to Psychic is helped by its Bug typing and access to Struggle Bug which punishes Psychic attackers. Struggle Bug / Dynamic Punch is the best moveset.

Kangaskhan (B Tier) - High HP normal type that got better thanks to new available charge moves like Crunch and Outrage.

Slowking (B tier?) - Worse moveset than Slowbro, all one-bar charge moves. But it still gets Confusion, which is the most important part of Slowbro's defence.

Feraligatr (C Tier) - No strong quick attack, but Crunch is a great 3-bar charge move. Ice Beam is also solid.

Porygon2 (C Tier) - Solid Normal type without a good defensive charge move. Hidden Power is a fun defending move though, as it has a solid base damage and WHO KNOWS what it'll hit super effectively!

Steelix (C Tier) - Steelix has solid HP and incredible defence. A weak attack stat is made up for by its strong quick attack in Iron Tail, and strong charge move options like Crunch and Heavy Slam. I don't have enough experience against it, but I feel like it's the same quality of defender as Poliwrath and Slowbro; strong defenders with relatively low max CP. Unfortunately, Steelix is also weak to water (#Vaporeon), which, coupled with its low CP, makes it hard to find a good slot in a gym for it.

Scyther (C Tier?) - It sounds weird, but I think Scyther is actually better than Scizor as a defender. Defensively, its typing doesn't resist as much, but because GO allows the attacker to choose whatever they want, Scizor's Bug/Steel typing doesn't really do tons for it on defence. By remaining Scyther, you have access to Air Slash (strong flying move) and X-Scissor as two very strong STAB moves for both attack and defence.

Scizor (C-D Tier) - Scizor's higher CP compared to Scyther help it slot into more gyms, but its increased attack stat comes at the cost of losing Air Slash in favour of Bullet Punch as a quick move. As such, Scizor doesn't really hit harder than Scyther... Scizor also has higher defence, but then again it picks up a double-weakness making it weaker defensively.

Houndoom (C-D Tier) - Houndoom's stats don't look all that great, but its moveset is quite strong and its weaknesses aren't crippling. I feel like Houndoom is about as good as Golem. I'm just trying to decide if that says more about Houndoom or Golem...

Kingler (D Tier) - Bubble / X-Scissor. Previously Kingler didn't have a good quick move. Bubble may be nerfed, but it's certainly better than it was before. X-Scissor is also one of the best defending moves around and complements Bubble well, so that may be enough to make Kingler relevant.

Jynx (D Tier) - I just learned that Jynx gets Confusion now... wow that makes a big difference for it. It's got bad HP, but its max CP is 2512, and it has solid Attack and Defence. Confusion / Psyshock or Avalanche are both movesets it gets now.