Legendaries, what are they good for

We've had access to four of the legendaries for a while now. To begin with we can't assign them as defenders to a gym, which means we're talking dedicated attackers.

From a usefulness perspective I'd rank them the following way:

• zapdos
• moltres
• articuno
• lugia

Zapdos

It's got the same stamina as ampharos and a little better defence to further bulk it up. While zapdos' defence lags a little behind jolteon's the huge difference in stamina between zapdos and jolteon makes zapdos the clear winner as a tank.

Zapdos comes with a higher base attack stat than both ampharos and jolteon.

Zapdos has access to better movesets than ampharos, but jolteon comes in ahead with Thunder Shock and Discharge.

I'd say that jolteon remains the best attacker against gyarados, but its poor bulk has zapdos come out ahead against any target with only a single weakness against electric type attacks.

Zapdos makes ampharos obsolete as an attacker, and would usually be the goto electric type attacker for any trainer who has yet to build one.

Configure your zapdos with Charge Beam and Thunderbolt.

Moltres

Moltres has such a huge lead in stamina compared to flareon that the lower stamina doesn't matter. As a tank moltres is superior to flareon.

Moltres has a slightly higher base attack stat than flareon.

Moltres and Flareon share the optimal fire moves, Fire Spin and Overheat.

Moltres is a better flareon than flareon. Having the bulk to run right through a defending grass type pokemon makes all the difference.

Configure your moltres with Fire Spin and Overheat.

Articuno

Articuno outtanks all the usual ice-type attackers. Lapras is still a better tank however.

Articuno comes with a better base attck stat than lapras, piloswine and cloyster. For all practical purposes articuno obsoletes these attackers.

Jynx is a superior ice-type attacker compared to articuno, but it comes at the price of a huge discrepancy in bulk.

Since lapras is a grade A defender, articuno does a good job at replacing it as an attacker. Basically building an articuno will free up a superb defender to place in gyms.

Configure your articuno with Frost Breath and Ice Beam.

Lugia

Lugia basically doubles the bulk of alakazam and espeon, if not even better. Comparing lugia to those two from a tankiness perspective isn't even fun. Even exeggutor is easily outtanked.

Lugua comes in far behind both alakazam and espeon in terms of base attack stat. Exeggutor also has a solid lead here.

Lugia makes up for some of its poor attack value compared to exeggutor due to the latter only having access to Psychic as a charge attack.

Alakazam runs in circles around lugia for the short time it stays up in battle, and espeon also leaves lugia in the dust.

The main problem with alakazam and espeon is that you need two of them.

For the player with a limited line-up, and who has yet to build a psychic type attacker, lugia functions as a work around to fix that problem for half the cost.

Configure your lugia with Extrasensory and Future Sight.