"[Discussion] [Guide] [X-post] How to tear down L10 Gyms, aka solving Gym stagnation by being active"

#PokemonGO: Hi travelers, I have seen countless posts on how Gym stagnation is a huge problem and Niantic needs to solve it. I have also seen a fair amount of posts that ask advice on how to fight with L10 Gyms. In this post, I am not going to comment on whether Niantic should solve the Gym stagnation (or how they can). Instead, I will take a different approach and teach you how YOU can solve Gym stagnation. This post will be lengthy and welcomes discussion since most of it will be based on my personal experience about the game. Observation: It is much more difficult to build a L10 Gym compared to tearing a L10 Gym down.When I previously mentioned this, there were mixed feelings. I still think that tearing down a L10 Gym is much more easier compared to building a L10 Gym because:To build a L10 Gym, you need at least 10 players of your team. Otherwise, you can pray for random strangers to pass and put Pokemon in that Gym. In short, it requires more coordination. On the other hand, a dedicated trainer can tear down a L10 Gym solo, albeit it takes quite a bit of time and items. For tearing down Gyms, you can also team-up with other teams (e.g., Valor and Instinct teaming up against Mystic) whereas the same cannot be done for building L10 Gyms.Training is a Gym is considerably more difficult compared to fighting against a Gym. Yes, when training, you can potentially increase prestige up to 1000 per Pokemon. However, sweeping a Gym (which is quite easy for Gyms below L7) gives the attacker extra 1500 prestige, cancelling things out. Again, I have rarely seen that a L10 Gym can be defending back once there are dedicated attacker(s) around. If you agree with this information, then you understand that YOU can stop Gym stagnation. After all Gym stagnation is (IMHO) a physiological war. If you keep attacking and tearing down a Gym, the other team will realize that it is no longer worth their time to build/maintain that Gym. After a while, they will look for other places and/or give up. One can argue that building L10 Gyms using "Bubblestrat" (or similar techniques) is much more easier than tearing them down. This is true, if you cannot attack while the other team is exercising Bubblestrat. However, building a proper L10 Gym still requires the other team to gather 10 people, whereas you can take down that Gym by yourself. Do it long enough, Bubblestrat or not, they will give up. Requirements to tear down L10 GymsTearing down a L10 Gym is not an easy task and it should not be. It requires either many people attacking at once or a few very dedicated people (even a single person). For the remaining of the post, I focus on soloing. Since I focus on soloing, note that the remaining part of the post is for semi-hardcore, advanced, high-level, and dedicated players. Access to multiple Pokestops during the day to replenish item stocks is also a requirement.Items: You need a good reserve of potions, super potions, hyper (or max) potions and revives. Max-revives are not required but nice to have. I cannot tell you how much you need; it depends on your attacker team (more on this below). Once you start soloing you will have a better understanding on what you need. With my current team, I generally need: 5-10 revives, 10-15 hyper (or max) potions, 5-10 super potions, and 5-10 potions to tear down a L10 Gym with 2000+ CP Pokemon, by myself.Time (aka dedication): if you solo a L10 Gym, it could easily take 30 minutes. Depending on the line-up, it can even take an hour. Plan accordingly.A good attacking squad: you need high-CP monsters that are capable of taking down the common defenders as well as have counters for some uncommon ones. This point is not that easy to explain therefore I will go into the details below. The summary: the better your team, the faster you will clear Gyms with less items used during the process.Knowing how to dodge: Dodging is VERY important, especially for the first 1-2 runs since you want to clear all Pokemon in the Gym to get the bonus 1500 prestige. This includes potentially dodging quick attacks, so study and get used to this. As you can see, tearing down a L10 Gym is not easy. You will lose quite a bit of items and time, and it requires investment for a good attacker Gym. So, why would you do it? Let's remember the advantages:10 coin Gym bonus and 500 stardust. Easily forgotten, but still important to keep in mind. That being said, you won't always get this.Experience: tearing down a L10 Gym with 50K prestige will give you 5000 experience.Most importantly, winning the psychological warfare and solving Gym stagnation problem. What makes a good attacking squad?Basically, you need high-level (CP), good attackers that can counter the current meta for Gym defenders. Different people have different opinions on investing stardust and candies on attackers. IMHO, it is worth to invest on attackers until they are L30 because the better they are, the less time/items you will use, which is equally important. IMHO, IVs also rarely matter for Gym attackers, so you can just evolve/use the highest CP Pokemon you have and invest on them regardless of their IV. Below, I evaluate most common Gym defenders and give suggestions on how to defeat them. Once you know these, it is very easy to create your Gym demolishing squad. Please note that I only evaluate Pokemon with potential of reaching 2000 CP or above since other Pokemon are either rarely seen in Gyms or they are easy to beat regardless of your choice. Vaporeon: A very common choice and because electric and grass types generally suck in PokemonGo, difficult to counter. Against, Vaporeon, I use Dragonite. Dragonite deals normal damage to Vaporeon while resisting water. My L30 Dragonite can cut through 3-4 Vaporeon over 2000 CP before fainting. If you are not lucky enough to have a Dragonite, you can use a powerful grass type (Exeggutor, Venasuar, Victreebell, Vileplume, etc.), Parasect with Solar Beam, or even a powerful electric type (Raichu or Jolteon). In any case, you would like to dodge Vaporeon's charge attacks, especially Hydro Pump.Arcanine: Used mostly of his high base stats as well as high CP. Arcanine is not a good defender thanks to current meta. Use Vaporeon against him. Dodge special attacks, especially Bulldoze (since Vaporeon won't resist it).Dragonite: If you have Lapras, there is nothing to be afraid. My Lapras can kill 2-3 Dragonite that is 500-100 higher than her CP before fainting. If you don't have Lapras, use another Ice type, e.g., Cloyster or Dewgong. Dodge everything unless the quick attack is Dragon Breath. Steel Wing hits like a truck and if you dodge quick attacks, it also becomes easier to dodge charge attacks.Exeggutor: I use Arcanine against it. Flareon also works alright. Confusion/Psychic Exeggutor is very painful since it gets STAB but fire type cannot resist it. Again, dodge everything as Exeggutor hits like a truck. Some people also like to use Parasect or Scyter with Buz attacks against Exeggutor to utilize double Super Effective.Snorlax: Unfortunately, there is no good counter for Snorlax. I use Vaporeon with Hydro Pump because its quick attack is fast (Water Gun) and DPS is high. You can also use Arcanine thanks to high DPS, but be careful because Snorlax might use Earthquake, which will be Super Effective against Arcanine. There is no need to dodge Lick, but dodge charge attacks and Zen Headbutt.Lapras: Similar to Snorlax, there is no good counter against Lapras. I use Arcanine and would suggest a good fire type. However, be careful for the charge attack as there are a lot of Lapras with Dragon Pulse. Dodge Ice Shard as it hits quite a bit as well.Gyarados: Although not very common, I see them as well. Use a lighting type, either Jolteon or Raichu. There is no need to dodge Bite (if you don't want to), but dodge charge attacks, even if that is Twister. On top of usual counters, there are also all rounders that you can (and you should) include in your attacker team just in case. For example, Snorlax is one of them. Snorlax does okay against almost any Pokemon, however does not really counter any of them. If you don't have Snorlax, Wigglytuff is similar. Combining these information, my squad is the following:PokemonQuick AttackCharged AttackLevelCPDragoniteDragon BreathDragon Claw302954LaprasFrost BreathBlizzard302497ArcanineFire FangFire Blast272217VaporeonWater GunHydro Pump302382SnorlaxLickHyper Beam272213The 6th Pokemon is empty because it depends on the Gym line-up. As I mentioned, if there are Gyarados(es) in Gym, I use Jolteon. Otherwise, I get another Fire/Water depending on the line-up. Note that you don't need to have the perfect squad to clear a L10 Gym. Same can be achieved with the following mediocre Pokemon that should be common at many places.PokemonQuick AttackCharged AttackParasectAnythingSolar BeamDewgongFrost BreathBlizzardFlareonEmberFire BlastVaporeonWater GunHydro PumpWigglytuffPoundHyper BeamEach Pokemon in this team is a sub for the team above: e.g., Parasect does the same job as Dragonite above as Vaporeon killer. There are also many other alternatives. For example, you can use any big grass (Vileplume, Tangela, or Victreebell) instead of Parasect. You can use other ice (Cloyster) instead of Dewgong. /u/-2BAMaster- suggested that Tentacruel with Blizzard works as well. Further, /u/cxerophim suggested that Golem is also good for killing Dragonites if you don't have ice. Similarly, /u/cxerophim suggested that for Lapras, Omastar with the legacy moveset (Rock) is the perfect counter, if you are lucky to have it. In my experience, for Gym attackers, quick attack is extremely important whereas charge attacks are more questionable. For example, for Jolteon, I actually like Thunder Bolt better than Thunder since I can use Thunder Bolt after a charge attack (of defender) and guarantee dodging whereas with Thunder even if I do it after a charge attack, I can get hit with the next charge attack. For Jolteon, you want to ensure that you dodge as much as possible. However, for Snorlax, e.g., I prefer Hyper Beam to Body Slam since I don't care that much even if I get hit with a charge attack while doing Hyper Beam. For quick attacks, always go with the faster/more energy generating one. The list in gamepress is very good in my opinion. Hope that it helps, let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2f1k7v0