Because it hits the current raid boss and lot of future raid bosses for a lot super effective damage? Has a ton of Dps? Everyone has easy access to gastly candy? Lick, Shadow ball Gengar are as common a pidgey after its raid day? Or maybe just because it’s an awesome Pokémon? Or maybe you simply don’t understand the Tier list works?
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Updated Attackers Tier List
How does Gengar belong in the same tier as Tyranitar and MM Metagross, even higher than Dragonite and Groudon?
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I agree, the tier list alway's has seemed a little off to me.
Machamp I got pre-CP nerf, as its thing was crushing normal tanks in gyms and tyrantiar in raids. But since the Nerf, all but blissey have left (and is rivaled by metagross as a gym clearer since meteor mash, even before the Nerf), and Tyranitar's not currently in rotation, while machamp is still great agaisnt blissey, its use has greatly diminished. Gengar on the other hand has some of the highest neutral DPS in the game coupled with several current and future legendary match ups as well as being somewhat common. However it might not make tier 1 because its low bulk combined with being weak to the types its supposed to counter (however I and my discord haven't seen many wild gastly lately). Dragonite and Tyrantiar also share having numerous legendary match ups as well as being great gym clearers in the post Rebalance world, and meteor mash metagross is also a new fantastic gym clearer since getting that move, becoming better with the lost of the normaltanks sans blissey in gyms to the point of rivaling and some cases surpassing machamp, all of which seemed like they'd be perfect for tier 1, having fantastic neutral DPS great coverage, and a lot of bulk to keep that damage up.
Personally the one thats bugged me is Groudon. This legendary really isnt that good, ground's an extremely niche type that matches up against another extremely niche type, and while it can double as a pseudo grass type, theres other grass types that do the same job and better without the RC cost, it beign ranked equal to dragonite never really made sense when looking at how much each get used and compared to their alternatives, and how those ranked below it also are more widely useful, if it had precipice blades, that'd be different.
Yes is bulky, but its DPS, the most important thing in the game when not counting glass counters, is terrible (for comparision agaisnt anything that fighting has the same effectiveness agaisnt as ground, even in clear weather machampskeeps even DPS, and regardless of weather agaisnt things ground and steel have the same effectiveness against meteor mach metagross outclasses Groudon) Yes with solar beam is good, but theres still much easier to get pokemon that also do more damage than it, but its also weak to water, one of the types you'd want to use grass aganst
But even in clear weather there still other pokemon that out DPS it outside of drafts (moltres, Charizard BB). the tier list is for pokemon over all, not specifically a draft league tier list. And including weather for one specific pokemon would mean weather needs to be included for every other pokemon as well
But that's irrelevant. Your goal when soloing a tier 3 raid or duoing a tier 4 raid isn't to beat it with the most amount of time remaining on the timer. Your goal is to just beat it. A Pokemon doesn't have to be best at everything in order to be good.
There's a long held belief in this community that if something isn't the highest DPS, then it's worthless. That's not true and it's really damaging to newer or more casual players because it causes them to disregard good Pokemon because they're not "the best."
That Groudon is considered to be really good in a Pokedraft format highlights how versatile it is. The tier list isn't aligned with Pokedraft's goals, but it stands to reason that Pokemon good in the draft format are reasonably good investments in general.
And how many tier 4's have groudon as the best coutner? None. The only thing thats a tier 3 where its the best is Jolteon, a notoriously difficult raid boss that requires so much rarecandy and groudon I dont know many people who are willing to invest that much just to solo a tier three with a specialist when they can invest in other legendaries that are more useful in many other scenarios, its also a thing of practicality. Jolteon is the one outlierin favor of groudon, outside of that it sees next to no usage, expecially in tier 4's where machamp and nonlegendaries generally are king.
I never said groudon was "Worthless" but DPS is what the game's best metric is, and that is soemthing groudon sorely lacks. There only raid you'd need a groudon for to solo is Jolteon, which post rebalance might change. Damaging to newer players is telling them groudon is good, it is very, very niche use, and while the same applies to ground on offense in general, that still leaves groudon as the best of the worst, for newer players, would you want to tell them a pokemon is a top tier attacker that requires rarecandy on something that isnt useful for what it costs?
Theres no pokemon good at everything, not even shadow ball mewtwo, machamp or metagross, but groudon is good at very little unlike those other pokemon. its extremely niche use like double psychic mewtwo, bug offense Scizor/pinsir and other hard specialists, Groudon's only good as a hard electric counter or in instances where a pokemon is double weak to ground and nothing else, that only happens in 2 types of current pokemon, Alolan geodude's line which are not raid bosses, and the legendary Heatran.
There are numerous pokemon in tier 2 and even tier 3 that have far more either match ups over all or have small numbers of match ups, but those match ups are some of the most meta relevant. Groudon isnt a worthless or terrible pokemon, but its a specialist, and like any specialist it wont see much use.
Lets look at tier 4's right now, putting aside best coutner lets see what it can duo. Aggron (which is an impossible duo without machamp maxed out or possibly maxed level *weather boosted* groudon from current information) and alolan marrowak, who also requires very specific high level coutners to duo. Even without being the best option, it still isnt able to duo.
Absol is neutral to groudon and Alolan exeggutor outright resists it.
I do play the game, but last I checked aggron was meta irrelevant and only came back recently. Most of the meta irrelevant raid boss guides dont get updated often or get enough intrest to even be raided. Even at that, its number of viable duo coutners sans friendship bonus it still extremely limited.
Case and point agrron's duo guide doesnt even include friendship bonus.
Gengar is best at what it does best - Ghost damage. It surpasses all other Pokemon by a far margin (even Shadow Ball Mewtwo). With many Psychic bosses to come, Gengar will continue to be very meta-relevant. Hence it deserves Tier 1.5.
Dragonite is outclassed by Rayquaza, post CP rebalance. Its advantage on TDO is not enough to offset its disadvantage on DPS compared to Rayquaza. Groudon operates in very limited situations - Raikou and Heatran are probably its only two niche. Generally its DPS is disappointingly low.
We put more emphasis on specialists who are best of their type. By the way, this list is the result of a group work and therefore we are very confident with it.
I was actually wondering that about groudon (and to a lesser extent, Rhyperior). If it is so limited, why is it tier 2? It is the best ground type, but it is extremely limited in usage, but its very similar to double psychic mewtwo in that respect, it has very few match ups. So do specialists that are the best at their type, even if their type isnt useful get placed above a nonbest specialist of their type even if that nonbest specialist better/widely useful?
Mewtwo is placed above Groudon as well as other attackers, for the simple reason that it's neutral DPS is extremely high even though it doesn't receive STAB. Let's use the ice type as an example. A Mewtwo with Confusion/Ice Beam will still be doing a neutral 16.2DPS. That alone makes Mewtwo worth considering when taking on bosses weak to ice. It will soon be outclassed in the ice category when other variables such as weather, typing, etc... are considered, but M2 is still a top attacking mon based off it's stats alone.
But of course good stats doesn't mean everything. Mewtwo also has a great moveset to abuse with those stats. Many of it's moves do great damage as well as charge up fast, like Shadow Ball. In comparison, Groudon likewise has great stats, but it's move pool is terrible. Mudshot/Earthquake is just bad. Earthquake in particular not only deals way to little damage, but it's also slow. It's because of this reason, that other types are preferred over ground type attackers. Ground is hands down one of the best types in Pokemon period. It hits a whopping FIVE types for super effective damage and all five of those types are among the most common types. But sadly, for the time being, ground types as a whole are stuck with trash moves. Let's hope that Earth Power can change that.
