"Dragonite? Gyarados? Try these more powerful, common attackers"

#PokemonGO: Top-tier attackers are well known and rare, but Gen2 makes some more common Pokémon surprisingly powerful attackers. Looking beyond the usual suspects of Gengar, Dragonite, Machamp, Charizard, Exeggutor, Alakazam, the various Eevolutions, and the new Tyranitar, what can deal out serious damage? Here’s my list of these easily overlooked but effective attackers—their relatively lower CP make them excellent choices for prestiging gyms. These Pokémon have higher DPS than a Gyardos with Bite/Hydro Pump or Dragonite with Steel Wing/Hyper Beam:• Urasring: 50-candy evolution of the fairly common Teddiursa. With the new fighting quick-move, Counter, the Ursaring is a top-tier attacker. Hyper Beam is its strongest charge attack, with the beefed-up 150 HP hit benefitting from an extra STAB bonus. With this move set, the Ursaring is the most powerful non-legendary attacker in the game aside from some Gengar, Dragonite and Machamp. A Counter Ursaring is powerful regardless of its charge move.• Heracross: Early reports show that this is merely uncommon in some biomes, but Snorlax-like rare mostly. If you’re lucky enough to get a quality Heracross with the Counter quick-move, you have a serious attacker regardless of the charge move (though ideally with Close Combat—as a Blissey/Snorlax hard counter—or Megahorn as a grass-killer).• Haunter. The new Gengar is so good that even its precursor, Haunter, is high on the league list of attackers. The top combo is Astonish/Sludge Bomb, but any pairing with Astonish is powerful. Also good are Shadow Claw with Shadow Ball (legacy) or Sludge Bomb. Like its big brother, Haunter’s greatest weakness is its low HP, so dodging is a must.• Primeape. Like Ursaring and Heracross, Primeape benefits hugely from the new Counter quick move. Paired with Close Combat, a quality Primeape is more lethal than any Vaporeon, particularly attacking into Normal types. Weak on stamina, you’ll need to dodge, a task made easier by Counters very fast (900 ms) duration.• Piloswine. In my biome, Piloswine are frequent, and their precursor Swinub are as common as Pidgeys. With the Powder Snow/Avalanche combo, though, a Piloswine is a superb Ice attacker. Unfortunately typing, however, leaves Piloswine vulnerable to nearly all common attackers (water, fire, grass, steel). Great counter to Dragonite (except those with Steel Wing).• Crobat. Although it requires two evolutions, Zubats are very common, so acquiring the 125 candy needed to evolve one into a Crobat is easy for most players. Crobats benefit from new, powerful Air Slash quick move. Combined with Sludge Bomb or, a bit worse, Shadow Ball, and you have a top-tier attacker, particularly against fighters and grass-types.• Jynx. These under-loved Pokémon got a big boost in Gen2, particularly with the Confusion/Avalanche combination. Jynx suffers some from its typing, but it is neutral versus the most common attacks.• Xatu. A 50-candy evolution from the common Natu, Xatu is a powerful attacker with Air Slash/Futuresight combo. Xatu’s Flying/Psychic typing and attack make it a hard counter to all fighters and excellent against a broad range of attackers.Have some fun at the gyms using the hidden gems from deep in your Pokédex! via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2mai61H