"The top 10 defenders"

#PokemonGO: I've done a bit of analysis of the new meta looking at pokebattler simulations, empirical data from how people play (mostly from YouTube) and general statistics which include above all else Tankiness which will be far more important now battles are shorter and most defenders no longer have significant amount of time to get charged attacks off. Also accounted for double type weaknesses, the attacking strength of individual types, type obscurity and resistances to strong neutral types (particularly dragon) and tankiness nerfs based on CP being greater than 3000. Putting all this together I've generated quantative quotients based on all these factors with significant error bars. This allows for more of a gamepress tier style list. I'll list the top 10 in tiers and then explain how I arrived at this.Tier 1 (100%) : BlisseyTier 2 (80-85%): ChanseyTier 3 (50-55%): Snorlax, SteelixTier 4 (40-50%): Vaporeon, Umbreon, Lapras, DonphanTier 5 (35-40%): Wobbuffet, MiltankThe top defender is still indisputably blissey. I do not need much explanation here.Chansey moves to 2nd place ahead of Snorlax. This is for a few reasons, firstly tankiness is now far more important and Chansey is about 50% tankier than snorlax. Secondly chansey does not see the CP based nerf that Snorlax sees (equivalent to a 10% loss in defensive capability). Thirdly chansey better covers its only (but very significant) fighting weakness with both quick and charged attacks.Snorlax is still a strong defender in tier 3. However Steelix joins. Steelix has the 4th highest tankiness after Snorlax (which has a significant edge) however Steelix's typing is slightly superior. This may seem counterintuitive but bear with me. Steelix has many more weaknesses than Snorlax but shares the most significant weakness fighting. Fighting is now an extremely strong attacking type, attacking steelix with anything other than a good machamp is counterproductive so Steelix does not loose out substantially from its additional secondary weaknesses. This also takes into account the widely known merits of Machamp; Machamp although difficult to obtain will only become more important over time due to its unchallanged utility in both gyms and raids. Secondly although everyone knows that Snorlax, Chansey, and Blissey are weak to fighting people may not realize this with steelix which was completely absent from the old gym game. This brings me onto my final point. Steel/Ground is a very obscure typing that many people will not know how to exploit from memory which combined with a resistance for the high powered neutral dragon type and a large number of other resistances and immunties means human error is punished severely.Tier 4 represents Pokémon with decently high tankiness and no huge type based weaknesses. Umbreon is in this tier by virtue of its relatively high tankiness. Lapras is slightly less tanky but has the ability to cover its weaknesses to some degree. Vaporeon's main weakness is to high powered grass types, however double grass exeggutor are still rare, particularly since half psychic exeggutor have very high utility (psychic is possibly the strongest attack type along with fighting) whilst other grass types suffer from rarity or relatively low attack stats. Vaporeon also benefits from a lack of a weakness to fighting which pretty much all Pokémon on this list have. I feel that a lack of a weakness to such a high utility type compensates for the grass type weakness. Finally Donphan behaves like a lite-vaporeon with a weaker typing and lower tankiness. It is obviously the weakest of the four in this tier, but still better than anything in tier 5.Miltank and Wobuffet are mediocre defenders but still benefit from being a bit tankier and with less of a typing liability than many other Pokemon. Beyond this tier (and I'd say even including it is dubious) there is no clear advantage of any one Pokemon over another. Slowbro, Slowking, Hypno, Tentacruel, Lanturn, Noctowl, Kangaskhan, Politoed, Skarmony, Poliwrath and many others are all decent enough defenders functioning at a little under of 1/3 of a Blissey with very little between them. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2tqYARN