Alakazam on Defense?
I just evolved a good IV Alakazam with Confusion/Psychic -- is it worth the dust? Does anyone here have experience with a defensive Alakazam and can testify regarding performance? Thanks in advance!
Answers
Alakazam is a glass cannon. It is really easy, fast and painfull to defeat him. It can be killed super effectively with gyarados or arcanine (bite); Non dodging attacker takes a surprising high amount of damage.
Alakazam is not neccesairily worse than other "defenders" like gyarados or rhydon, that are easy to kill but are put into gym with their high CPs.
I am much more deterred from a gym full of Snorlaxes than a gym with a variety of Alakazam, Gyarados and Rhydon. These 3 mons are so incredibly easy to defeat, thanks to low effective health (Alakazam) or double weakness to lightning or grass/water
I am not convinced at all that variety is any good. I have a good attacker for each defending pokemon, but a gym full of Dragonites would be a serious challenge for me, as I don't have good Ice attackers.
While diverse gyms take some seconds to pick an appropriate attacker they also makes sure I can attack with my perfect Moveset attack team for each Pokemon, and I don't have to fall back on less-than-ideal back row attackers because the good one already fainted.
If your Alakazam sits in a gym for a long time already it's either because there are lots of lower CP higher quality mons below it, or because the gym is not frequented too much.
Pretty much any gym that requires people to step out of a car and walk a few minutes are the best gyms...I try to seek these out since walking is no big deal for me (850+km and started in Sep).
My wife is in one where we put her's in over 4 weeks ago...and we only had to walk less than 5 minutes honestly.
The rain/snow/cold now doesn't help neither so I try to time some gyms before a big rain storm to see it last a few more days, even if there are no other mons in there...Dirt/mud trails preferred (assuming no spoofers of course).
This is why some gyms stay up honestly rather than people caring what's in the gym. That and the time required to knock them out, especially if you have to spend time to walk to one.
Even though this is Pokemon Go, it's more Pokemon Drive I've noticed...
And the new nearby doesn't help since I've noticed I would walk around less to find things in sightings since we don't get sightings anymore.
I'm not saying that my Alakazam has been in the gym for three weeks because he is a great defender. I'm saying that I evolved a high-level Alakazam, and he got Confusion/Psychic, so I decided to power him up the three or four levels to level 30, and use him as a defender. I have been occupying 10-15 gyms consistently for a few weeks, and with my two decent Snorlaxes and two high-level Laprases already pressed into gym defense duty, along with my two or three defensive Vaporeons, I still need another 7 or eight defenders, and the Alakazam is one of them.
When I am attacking a gym, I find it easier if there are four defending Vaporeons in a row than if there is a Rhydon, Alakazam, Machamp, and Gyarados with good defensive moves. For the Vaporeons, I just put in two strong grass pokemon, and spam away. For the other "weaker" group of defenders, I have to switch pokemon two or three times.
It's also just plain more fun when people put a bigger variety of pokemon in gyms.
