Which is more viable and useful in the current meta game?
Not counting rarity, assume the same cp and optimal moveset.
They’re both extremely useful for different things.
Machamp is the champ when it comes to gym clearing and dynamic-punching Tyranitar raids.
Tyranitar is king when it comes to Mewtwo and Deoxys raids, and soon to be an assortment of legendary Psychic types when gen 4 drops.
Tyranitar’s legacy moveset is at the top of the rock-type charts, but with the Birds gone its usefulness is slim right now.
Partially disagree. Mewtwo with Shadow Ball is the king of Mewtwo and Deoxys raids. Tyranitar has slightly higher TDO, but lower DPS, and in raids, DPS is king. Finally, Tyranitar is doubly weak to Focus Blast, even a perfect IV level 40 Tyranitar will get one shot KO'd by it, but Mewtwo resists it.
Tyranitar will still be good against the psychic types coming, but I suspect Mewtwo will be a little better against all of them.
Agree with that, but if you have a powered up SB Mewtwo, it's better than a Ttar in most cases (and way better against FB).
I have 4 SB Mewtwo, so I round out that lineup with 2 TTars (or 2 Gengar vs. FB). It's just important to make sure people know that Mewtwo does better in those raids than Ttar.
Further, as one becomes a higher level player, one has to optimize more. I'd be disappointed if I was doing a raid with a level 40 player and he or she brought 6 level 40 Houndooms to the table. Sure, they're pretty good, but they aren't as good as Tyranitar, who in turn isn't as good as SB Mewtwo.
The CP for a perfect maxed Machamp is 2889 and the CP for a perfect maxed Tyranitar is 3670. At the same CP, the Machamp would be at a much higher level and be more useful.
With the same level (and IVs), a Machamp with Counter + Dynamic Punch (its optimal moves) will be more useful. For Tyranitar, both Bite + Crunch and Smack Down + Stone Edge are equally optimal, but a single Tyranitar cannot have both sets at the same time (not even for whales with hundreds of TMs as Smack Down is legacy).
Of course, local factors also influence their relative usefulness (Machamp is the clear winner in high-density areas).
I'd say at the moment, Tyrantiar, machamo has no raid match ups and im someone who measures relevance by raids as they are a constant for the month/or so. Tyrantiar counters most of the raids and especially mewtwo.
Machamp's usage at the moment is Gyms with blissey and Tyrantiar raids, (I dont consider houndoom or absol becaue they are just inferior versions of tyranitar)
Its kinda like comparing apples and oranges, they uses are very different because of type coverage
Absol is only obtainable through raids and thus definitely worth raiding, even if only for the dex entry.
As for your point that raids usually remain constant for a month, the overall gym meta is far more stable, changing only when new generations are released. Blissey will always be relevant and thus so will Machamp (until it gets outclassed by Conkeldurr).
But you never know what will be on a gym defense line up, i've seen a faily large number of blissey less gyms or machamp counter out ones. But when it comes to raids you always know what will be there.
And my point about absol was that theres no reason to go for it over tyrnatiar from a usage standpoint, dex entry is irrelivent when the concern is what pokemon is better.
