"Defense is criminally undervalued and attack/defense are calculated in a way that provides unrealistic and extreme benefits to mixed attackers."

#PokemonGO: When you think of the hardest hitter in gen 1 (not including legendaries) you think about a pokemon that was extremely dominant in the meta, able to break through almost every wall, Alakazam. Because of the way attack stats were combined and imported into PoGo, Alakazam the glass cannon finds himself with a lower attack stat than Weepinbell. Yes Weepinbell, a second stage pokemon that is not even fully evolved. We also find fighting pokemon such as hitmonlee and hitmonchan below Weepinbell's pre-evolution Bellsprout. Does this seem like it should be correct? It might not be very apparent in gen 1 but when gen 2 arrives it will be extremely clear that Defense is not valued nearly as high as it is in the main games. Gen 2 introduced a pokemon that had literally no purpose other than to take hits: Shuckle. The way most of us are ranking the offensive and defensive capabilities of our pokemon are based off of a Spreadsheet created by /u/Professor_Kukui. This spreadsheet calculates defensive ratings by multiplying HP*DEF. Unfortunately for Shuckle, this leaves him as a worse defensive pokemon than the likes of Gengar, Drowzee, and Clefairy. With the lowest attack stats in the game it's very clear that he will be the worst fully evolved pokemon in the game by a wide margin. It would be in Niantic's best interest to change the formulas that calculate defense or HP if they wish to release gen 2 without the embarrassment that would be shuckle. Here is an infographic that explains how the Attack, Defense, and Stamina stats are calculated: http://ift.tt/2aHshZ6 Note that I didn't create it and I don't know the source but it displays all of the formulas. Also note that the move data at the bottom is a bit outdated as water gun has since been nerfed. How do we fix this?Here are some of my ideas on how to better balance pokemon relative to their power in the main games. 1. Either take only the highest attack stat into account or weigh the highest attack stat more than the otherMost of the glass cannon pokemon in the main games have one extremely high attack stat and one low attack stat (in this case Alakazam has a special attack stat of 135 and an attack stat of 50). Generally they would also only be using one of those stats as there are not many pokemon suited for using both physical and special attacks. In PoGo, these pokemon are taking a huge hit offensively and can't deal the dps that a mediocre mixed attacked like Dewgong can.In addition to both attack stats being taken into account equally, it is more favourable to have balancved stats than lopsided ones in the PoGo formula: 2.6(Spatk0.46)(Atk0.46)*(Spe0.04)+3. Take two different pokemon, one with a Atk of 190 and an Spatk of 10, and the other with Spatk and Atk at 100 each (assume both pokemon have a speed of 80). Both attack stats add up to 200 but when put through the formula, the first pokemon receives an Atk stat of 103 which is less than half of the Atk stat of pokemon two (217). This also affects the defense calculation which is why pokemon with lopsided defenses like Cloyster and Onix are so awful in this game. It also just doesn't make sense to be multiplying attacks instead of adding them 2. Add a flat bonus to the health formulaRight now, PoGo is completely dominated by high hp pokmon. Snorlaxes, Vaporeons, and Laprases are seen at pretty much every gym with their gigantic health pools. Traditional tanks like Cloyster and Onix (highest gen 1 defenses) are nowhere to be found as they cannot take a hit. In the regular games, a pokemon with a Health rating of 25 can have 254 hp at max level, a pokemon with a Health rating of 50 can have 304 hp at max level, and a pokemon with a Health rating of 75 can have 354 hp at max level. Note that max IV/EVs and a beneficial nature are involved. They seem to be following a formula of HP=(2*Health)+Constant. Unfortunately PoGo has dropped the value of this constant significantly. A lvl 20 lapras has 3.7x the hp of a lvl 20 shellder whereas in the main games a Lapras will have 1.7x the hp of a similarily leveled shellder (assuming max IVs and EVs in boith cases). Anyways, discussion is always welcome, I just made this post because it seems so odd to have some of the attack greats be at the bottom of the barrel and some of the tankiest pokemon falling in any sort of light breeze. TL;DR: Niantic should value mainly the highest attack stat when combining their attack stats as Alakazam is one of the weakest attackers right now and the HP formula should have a higher constant so that defense matters again via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2bbcnof