"December Community Day priority breakdown for casual players"

#PokemonGO: Hello, I have several friends who are casual players and requested help with knowing what pokemon to prioritize for the upcoming CD weekend. This is what I cobbled together from reading analyses here on TSR, and accounting for the significantly lower bar on what counts as "strong" for my friends. Placements for where a pokemon is (approximately) in the meta were roughly figured out by looking at Grouped counters on pokebattlers against a handful of raid bosses. Charge TMs are exceedingly rare resources for most of them, so the guaranteed moveset from CD is valuable. If you find any errors please let me know, and otherwise hopefully this can be useful for other players somehow. December Community Day Priorities:---- 2018 CD Pokémon (found in raids and eggs) ----Highest priority, super essential they get their CD move:Beldum - seriously, it's effectively useless without its CD move, you should never bother evolving a Metagross outside of a specific CD event for it with access to Meteor Mash. #1 Steel attacker by a significant margin. Also a top Team Rocket counter.Arguably Larvitar, because it's frequently extremely useful. See below.High priority, this CD move allows the Pokémon to become a top tier attacker for its type:Larvitar - Smack Down/Stone Edge Tyranitar is the third best Rock type attacker now that Terrakion's available, and its typing gives it resistances that are extremely useful at times. Also a top Team Rocket counter.Bulbasaur - Frenzy Plant Venusaur is a top 5 Grass attacker, sometimes reaching the #2 spot depending on who it's up against. Can also be useful against Team Rocket.Charmander - Blast Burn Charizard is a top 4 Fire attacker, sometimes the #2 depending on who it's attacking, and the top non-legendary Fire/Flying attacker (basically a slightly worse Moltres)Can be quite useful, depending on your personal situation:Dratini - Dragonite with Draco Meteor is nearly exactly as strong as Outrage, though it is just a hair worse of an attack. However, evolving for the guaranteed Draco Meteor during CD hours means no risk of needing to use Charge TMs for Outrage. Quite useful if you're frequently short on Charge TMs.Eevee - Umbreon with Last Resort is quite strong specifically in Great League (1500CP max) PvP, and some of the other evolutions can have PvP uses with Last Resort as well. It's a useless move outside of PvP, however. Also it will eventually have 8 total evolutions (7 currently) and those shinies can be fun.Chikorita - Meganium with Frenzy Plant is quite strong in Great League PvP, but unfortunately isn't useful outside of PvP.Squirtle - Blastoise with Hydro Cannon can be useful in Great League PvP, but not outside of PvP.Effectively just for fun:Pikachu - Pikachu with Surf is a callback to one of the original games, Pokémon Yellow for the Gameboy Color, where you could surf with your Pikachu. It's useless in battle and doesn't retain Surf when evolved into Raichu.Mareep - Ampharos with Dragon Pulse is a reference to its Mega Evolution (not currently available, may never become available) that is part Dragon type. While it is technically a strong move, Ampharos isn't a strong fighter in general and this is effectively a useless attack boost.Cyndaquil - Blast Burn Typhlosion is a top 10 Fire attacker, if you're really needing those. However Blaziken and Charizard will also be having a repeat CD, and they're both a top 2-4 Fire attacker. Plus CD Infernape will be available and is slightly better as a top 8 Fire attacker. ---- 2019 CD Pokémon, found as wild spawns ----Highest priority, super essential they get their CD move:Arguably Bagon, because it's an improvement to an already strong Dragon attacker and saves on Charge TMs. See below.High priority, this CD move allows the Pokémon to become a top tier attacker for its type:Bagon - Outrage Salamence is a top 4 Dragon attacker, frequently approximately tied with the #2 and #3 attackers. Plus you save on Charge TMs with the guaranteed move, instead of hoping for Draco Meteor at other times.Treecko - Frenzy Plant Sceptile is a top 2 Grass attacker, situationally the #1 attacker if Roserade's Poison typing works against it.Torchic - Blast Burn Blaziken is a top 2 Fire attacker, sometimes the #1 instead of Moltres.Mudkip - Hydro Cannon Swampert is a top 3 Water attacker, and situationally can even be the #1 (ahead of Kyogre!) attacker. Also does quite well against Team Rocket, especially with Mud Shot as its Fast move.Catch as many as you can while they're available, but the CD move is optional and not necessarily useful:Swinub - Mamoswine is the #1 Ice attacker with its standard move Avalanche. Its CD move Ancient Power can be useful in using up Rocket Leader shields, but is useless outside of Rocket battles or PvP.Ralts - Gardevoir is the #1 Fairy attacker, and a top ~6 Psychic attacker with its standard attacks Charm and Psychic, respectively. Synchronoise is notably weaker than Psychic, but can still be used as a top ~8 Psychic attacker. Gallade is a top ~6 Psychic attacker and a poor Fighting attacker with its standard attacks, so Synchronoise can serve a Charge TM saving strategy if you really want a Gallade. However, Gardevoir is significantly better than Gallade so generally you don't want to bother evolving into Gallade.Can be quite useful, depending on your personal situation:Turtwig - Frenzy Plant Torterra can situationally become a top 3 Grass attacker, however those situations are rare and in general it is a poor attacker. If you don't have a full team or two of Grass Knot Roserade, Frenzy Plant Venusaur, or Frenzy Plant Sceptile, then it can be worth evolving.Totodile - Hydro Cannon Feraligatr is a top 5 Water attacker, but Swampert is just so much better that you want to prioritize that one. Obviously also try to get these, especially if you're low on Kyogre/CD Swampert/Crabhammer Kingler. Water attackers approximately equivalent are Gyarados and Crabhammer Crawdaunt.Chimchar - Blast Burn Infernape is barely a top 8 Fire attacker, and you'll have access to Blast Burn Charizard and Blaziken, so you should prioritize those. However if you really need more Fire attackers, and happen to have some Chimchar to evolve, it is an option.Effectively just for fun:Slakoth - Slaking may have amazing CP, but it's a horrid attacker thanks to its fast move Yawn. Technically the CD move is an improvement on any of its other options, but it's still just a trophy.Trapinch - Again generally useless as an attacker, and while its CD move is again technically an improvement it's still unable to become a strong Ground attacker. There are niche cases where it'll reach a top 10 counter status, but it's basically only against pure Electric attackers (eg: Raikou/Jolteon) and you're still better off with Ground attackers Groudon/Excadrill/Garchomp/Mamoswine/Rhyperior anyway. If want some variety in your teams and/or are really hurting for Ground attackers, then you can promote this one to "can be quite useful" status. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/2RGiyaX