Buddy
So now that Tyranitar community day is over and we're still in the water event with no sign of a 2x+ buddy candy event on the horizon..
Should I still be walking Tyranitar? I have five very powerful dark ones, whereas my rock ones are level 30 with mediocre IVs and no strong larvitar to boost. I have a full (non-regional) Dex, so I don't need to work on that. I'm considering Dragonite, as I am 88/100 of the way to evolving a 15/15/14 and have another 2 dragonair that could be used to round out a team of six; however, I also have two Rayquaza and a Salamance so potentially they would just deepen my bench for Rayquaza's inevitable return.
I have 6 strong Machamp and Gyarados, and at least one strong copy of every other non-legendary, meta-relevant mon.
Answers
Personally, I am currently walking Swinub in preparation for Mamoswine in Gen 4. Mostly because I am sitting on a 100 IV Piloswine and will definitely max him out as the best Ice type. I think he is a good option for a buddy since him and Rhyperior will be the top beasts in Gen 4, and most people have a lot of Rhydon candies already from the rock event.
There's nothing wrong with walking the Ttar right now; having a strong double Rock team of Ttars is a good idea. How difficult is it for you to get in on a Ttar raid? You've got a strong team of Machamps, so it sounds like you might be able to Duo Ttar, so if you can reliably Duo a Ttar, that could save you 55 - 105km of walking (depending on your luck in catching it). You probably don't need any strong Dark Ttars anymore, but who knows if Niantic will decide to make it possible to TM to a Community Day move in the future? They've already made it possible to get Legendary's without having to do a Raid, so it's not out of the question that sometime in the future Niantic will release a way to use a TM (maybe a specific TM, or another item, or whatnot) to get a former CD move, so it might simply be a case of having to hold an extra Ttar or seven to see if that happens.
That said, what about walking a Ralts or better yet, a Togepi? Gardevoir is a great counter to Rayquaza, and Togekiss Is Coming. (my line up of Dragon Pokémon just rolled their eyes and pointed to the lack of a Fairy Quick Move, but I'm pretty sure that when my back is turned, my Steel Wing/Hyperbeam Dragonite is sticking her tongue out at all my other Dragons and retweeting all their "Worst Moveset EVAR." tweets about her with a picture of Togekiss and a random sarcastic emoji.) Ralts is pretty common around me (when there isn't an Event going on, anyway), but I'm currently walking a Togepi until I've got 500 Candies so when Togekiss is released, I can power up at least 1 of my Togepi's (I have two that are 89% with Attack 15, so I'm also hoping to hatch a good Togepi too... when they're available in Eggs again. Sigh.). I've only ever seen 1 Togetic in the Wild (it was reported in a Discord Poke-Spotting chatroom in my area, I didn't actually see it personally), so that's why I decided to walk a Togepi - only way I can reliably get candies for it right now.
But yeah. Walking a Ttar right now isn't a bad thing. It may not be the BEST thing to do, but it's not a bad thing.
1) My RNG loves Togepi. I don't love it, but it loves me.ETA: Just checked - I get on average 1 every 2 weeks or less, and I try to avoid walking 2K whenever possible. I usually only run the infinite incubator, though have probably bought 75 eggs worth of incubators since Jan 1.
2) No shiny, nothing above 90%...but it loves me
3) Ralts is also out of egg pool, sooooo...
I'm probably biased because Ralts used to be relatively common here during our 3 months of always Cloudy winter and I hatched a fair bunch of them earlier as well. Pokedex says 114 caught.
Togepi on the other hand, 17 hatches and they come with a tiny amount of candy. I'd say it's one of the hardest to get candy in the game and would welcome if they loved me as well.
Well I would keep they tyranitar for now, rock tyranitar will have use, but it wont be for a while, as everyone is already aware of, so that will give you a lot of time to work o getting the candies for them
If rayquaza raids are your immediat concern, I would go for the dragonite, as that is a very good dragonite and rayquaza will be a while off, so you have time to get the necessary candies.
My Tyranitar (both sets) are 'good enough.' I'm not particularly concerned about any remaining Gen III raids. It's more of a 'what's the best use of my resources' issue; Swinub, Ralts, and even Togepi all seem like a more solid investment. I can always raid a Tyranitar, etc., but I can't predict the future; I stopped paying attention to the main line games slightly before Gen II dropped, and only know a bit about that. Literally the only thing I knew about Gen III was they dropped a baby Marill.
The only thing I know about Gen IV is that there are evolved forms of some Gen I forms; I couldn't tell you about the legendaries or the possible meta-breakers.
Or maybe not. You know, for a sense of accomplishment and fair play. My account is more than strong enough to duo the Ttar - I just am unable to raid enough to do more than the occasional one on a premium pass. Legendaries (for the XP + rewards) > Solo 3* > Ttar-Absol > any other 4* as a challenge, unless I need gym XP. Then I'll hit anything!
I am not doing a lot of raids, on average one raid/day but I prioritize Legendaries >Ttar>lev4>lev3. In my opinion it is not the best strategy to buddy a Mon that has been so easily accessible in Raids, such as Tyranitar. From these raids I usually receive 20 candy, sometimes 10 if unlucky, this is compared to the usual 3-6 candy from other raids. There are also a lot of Mons not available in raids that are much more difficult to obtain. I have now walked Togepi for a while, but there are several others I could think of before I would walk Larvitar/Tyranitar.
I definitely think walking Larvitar isn't worth it for you anymore. Your dark team is set and it's unclear when the rock team will be useful.
Swinub, Togepi and Ralts have already been mentioned and I think Tangela deserves a mention of a potentially strong cross gen evolution whose candy is quite hard to come by for most people.
Since we don't know the movesets yet, I wouldn't invest heavy effort into any particular one, instead just make sure you have a good amount of candy for each cross gen evo with potential. That includes the aforementioned as well as Yanma, Magmar, Electabuzz, Roserade(will get boosted spawns in two weeks), Magnemite, Murkrow, Eevee, Sneasel and Rhyhorn, in no particular order.
Personally I'm still walking Chansey, but I'm getting close to changing to Togepi, which will most likely stay my buddy until gen 4.
Thanks for your input. I have held on to strong ones of several you've mentioned (my 100% Murkrow is the gem of my collection) and have adequate candy for most of them. I've decided to go with Ralts for now, but may switch depending on how spawns change after event - it's alternating between cloudy and windy so I may see more Ralts.
