On gym defence, part four, medium sized raid building a gym

We'll use the same gym locations as the last post.

For the purspose of this post a medium sized raid is any group that decides to build the gym but lacks the ability to fill it with ten pokemons.

The goal should be a level seven gym, or 20000 prestige. Observe that for each free slot in a gym the prestige-requirement for a given level is lowered by 2000.

This post will only concern itself with the composition of a gym. The mechanics behind building it is for a later post.


High traffic

As for the drop and walk scenario it'll go down quickly. Basicaly it's questionable wether it's worth the effort running a medium sized raid in this environment, but sometimes you just want to do it.

Glass cannons are more important for this situation compared to the drop and walk one. Unless you use three glass cannons make certain the proper defender has higher cp than the squishies. This to maximise the speed at which you kick the gym to level five.

You want to fill the three vacant spots immediately in order to prevent the sniping of a spot. In these days of automated bots and joystick players it's sometimes a matter of seconds before free slots are occupied by an 'invisible' player.

Increase prestige and slot in your highest cp defenders as you go. If your proper defenders have lower cp than the glass cannons you may have to risk it and increase prestige with empty slots in the gym.
I personally wouldn't risk it, because even three or four players should be able to increase the 2000 prestige needed to allow the insertion of a new pokemon at a decent pace, no matter which pokemon stands in the bottom of the gym, well, barring chansey.
After 20000 prestige, and gym level seven, this is no longer true.

All in all, focus on high damage pokemon rather than really good defenders, because this gym is going down within an hour or two anyway.


The alternative is showing off.

It's high traffic after all and as such highly visible.

Been travelling far away? Show the local players that Mr. Mime / Tauros / Farfetch'd / Kangashkan that is normally unavailable in town.
Or got yourself a 100% pidgeot that you maxed out?

If it's for showing off you can go wild. The gym is going down soon after all.



Occasional traffic

This is normally the best type of gym for a medium sized raid.

I recommend a single glass cannon and a speedy increase of prestige to whatever gym level you're aiming at with only one pokemon inside the gym.
It might even be worth it to increase prestige all the way to 34000, which is enough for building the gym to level 10 by means of inserting eight pokemon.

Of course, if your local metagame has this specific gym a common target for bots and joystickers, then this won't work. However, arguably such a gym should be redefined as a high traffic one.

But for the one glass cannon you should insert the best defenders available here.

Either slot in snorlax / lapras only (and I really mean just lapras OR just snorlax), or make sure you mix your defenders well.
In the latter case you should aim for a composition where two defenders of the same type (or rather the same type-weakness) never sit as neighbours. This should force attackers to shift pokemons between each battle, which makes them take a little extra damage and leaves them with a large number of pokemon needing healing.

Observe the total lack of chansey here. Chanseys are best used in a chansey-only gym. You're building the gym beyond level three, and trust me, you really, really, really don't want to increase prestige against a chansey.

Either way, built properly, this is a gym that could very well stay up for a few days. If you've built it so passersbyes can add pokemons to empty slots, then this gym could take on a life of its own and stay up for a couple of weeks.



Remote

The same building principles as for the occasional traffic gym is valid here. However, focus on high class defenders at medium capacity. Basically the highest cp lapras / snorlax / vaporeon, etc you haven't done any extensive powerups on.

Be prepared to say byebye to that pokemon for a few weeks.

You made an extra effort going to this gym. Make sure it's prepared to go all the way to level 10. That means it should hit 50000 by adding pokemons to the empty slots.

Basically you're aiming at deterring every solo player who happens upon the gym.

2500 cp or better per pokemon is a good goal. There is no real reason to go above 2800 cp, which leaves room for a maxed out arcanine or machamp or similar pokemon. Depending on how many players you are there should be room for one or two of those gimmicky pokemons.


Tomorrow we'll look into the full raid.