"What tier lists fail to consider"

#PokemonGO: Prior to a few patches ago, defeating a Pokemon while attacking a gym reduced the gym's prestige level by 500 points, and defeating the "gym leader," the top Pokemon in the gym reduced the prestige by an additional 1500 prestige.That means attacking a level 8 gym and defeating all 8 Pokemon granted 5500, but if you could only beat 7 of the Pokemon, you got only 3500. Lowering a gym from 50k prestige to 30k prestige would probably take more than an hour if you couldn't get to the top of the gym each time.In that meta, a strong CP-efficient Pokemon like Poliwrath in the middle of the gym could trade 1-1 or better with an attacker's Pokemon and make it a lot tougher for them to climb the entire tower in one run. Seeing tough lower-CP pokemon like Poliwrath and Wigglytuff in the lower ranks of gyms could deter some experienced players from even bothering with a gym.Currently, the prestige reduction for each Pokemon beat is 1000, and the gym leader bonus is 1000. That means beating 7 Pokemon in a level 8 gym is worth 7000 and beating all 8 is worth 9000. The gym leader bonus has been reduced from 27% of total prestige reduction to about 11%.That means stopping a player from climbing all the way up a high level tower no longer stops them from tearing it down. In fact, basically nothing can stop a player who wants a gym from taking it, under the current system.When planning defenders, you should no longer assume your choice of defender can stop any attacker from tearing down the gym. Instead, you should assume that when a moderately high-level player comes along and wants the gym, they will take it. You should therefore choose a defender who is least likely to be removed by two kinds of players: 1) a casual player on the other team who may attack the gym, but who won't stick around to tear it all the way down 2) Players on the same team using alt accounts to eject the bottom Pokemon from level 10 gyms to make room for themselves.This means the best defender is the Pokemon with the highest CP, and the defender tier list is:DragoniteSnorlaxRhydonGyaradosVaporeonHonorable mention: Lapras, Exeggutor, Golem, Flareon, Machamp, Arcanine, AlakazamSince most players will put their highest CP Pokemon in a gym, and most people's highest CP pokemon will be one of the top 5, attacker tiers shouldn't be focused on the best all-around attackers, but, rather, the best attackers for beating those Pokemon.That means the best attackers are:For beating Dragonite: Lapras, Cloyster, another DragoniteFor beating Snorlax: Rhydon, Dragonite, VaporeonFor beating Rhydon: VaporeonFor beating Gyarados: JolteonFor beating Vaporeon: Venusaur, Exeggutor, JolteonI invested a lot of dust in Poliwraths, Slowbros, and an offensive Snorlax, so I don't get a lot of pleasure out of this, but I play in New York where gyms are very competitive, and my Gyarados tends to last a lot longer than my Poliwraths on defense. I basically only use Dragonite, Cloyster, Vaporeon, Exeggutor and Rhydon to attack gyms. I use my Snorlax only when a gym happens to be stacked with very high-leveled Pokemon I don't see often enough to invest dust in a hard counter to, because he's a soft counter to everything.Edit: I forgot Gyarados was not weak to Grass. Removed Grass types from list of best attackers vs Gyarados. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2htmYfH