What's with the T3 solo difficulty ratings?
Starmie (intermediate) is much easier than Vaporeon (Easy). Jynx and Pinsir (Intermediate) are both easier than Machamp and Gengar (Easy).
Answers
Jynx and Pinsir have much higher defense than either Machamp or Gengar whole boasting respectable attack, therefore putting you at higher risk of timing out and fainting out if you’re Pokémon aren’t leveled sufficiently. Starmie is also harder than Vaporeon for this reason, and it learns moves of differing type, unlike Vaporeon with very predictable moves
HP isn’t a factor since all raids are set to a certain amount of it. I believe all L3 raid bosses have 3000 HP
They have already increased it! Yesterday while doing a Machamp with 3 minutes to spare it was bugging so much that despite using 2 Mewtwos, weather boosted gardevoir, Espeon , Alakazam and Lugia, I somehow failed because it was simply not registering the charge attacks and the animation for the charge moves was not showing, so I couldn't dodge.
Definitely an impossible tier 3 that consumed my pass, potions and revives....
Why increase the difficulty, they are already hard to do unless you have armies of legendaries and top tier mon in addition to being very high in the levels on those mon.
ITs only 'easy' for players who have those, and nost everyone does, so increasing the difficulty would make it nearly unplayable for those that dont, and lock them to just teir 2 and 1's for solos
It's almost as if soloing T3's isn't meant to be inherently easy and would require top tier Pokemon to do so.
They also definitely don't need to be very high level (barring a few exceptions), I can solo a decent chunk of the list with Pokemon at level 30, maybe a few power ups past that for a nearby breakpoint. Level 30 only sounds big until you realize the cost to go from 1 to 30 is similar as the cost from 30 to 40, where those last 10 levels yield much smaller gains for your spending.
Starmie and Vaporeon are very similar, Starmie has more viable counters but its movesets are much more punishing. A team of FP Venusaurs will wreck Vaporeon 100% of the time but can get wrecked instead against a Psychic Starmie.
As for Pinsir (base def 197) and Jynx (base def 182) being easier than Machamp (base def 162) and Gengar (base def 156), I don't know what you're smoking. What makes raid bosses hard is primarily high defense stat and secondarily high attack stat. Breloom is a joke despite its high attack, but Onix isn't soloable if you lack the DPS.
Pinsir: 3 weaknesses, 9 viable level 35 counters
Jynx: 6 weaknesses, 17 viable level 35 counters
Machamp: 3 weaknesses, 19 viable level 35 counters
Gengar: 4 weaknesses, at least 24 viable level 35 counters
From personal experience (200+ solos) I would rate them the exact same as GP.
This entire conversation is subjective to so many variables now. Weather, moves, mons available.
I look at is as Jynx, Starmie, and Gengar are easy to me because I have 2 maxed out B/C TTar. Starmie with HP can hurt me, but dodging HP is fairly easy IMHO. But the bulk that I get from them is awesome. Vape to be is super easy because of FP and A Eggy. Pinsir is harder. I can do it without weather boost because of Moltres and fairly easy with weather boost. Machamp is the hard one for me because I do not have enough bulk to handle HS or DP ones. I can do CC with a lot of time to spare. Everyone's situation is different.
