Common defenders, tyranitar

And here comes the second generation 2 pokemon, tyranitar.

Tyranitar has the highest possible CP of all pokemon obtainable in the game, and for that very reason quite a few caught and unmodified mons have already made their way into gyms.


It's a dark and rock type pokemon.

Primary attacks are Bite and Iron Tail. Bite is a fast attack with STAB, while Iron Tail lacks STAB and is a slow attack. As usual the slow attack is preferred for defence.

Observe that if your metagame is filled with vaporeon the advantage of Iron Tail diminishes as it's ineffective against water.


Charge attacks are Fire Blast, Crunch and Stone Edge. Fire Blast is a no-go, since it lacks STAB, is stupidly slow and does poor damage for the long wait.

Crunch is very slow for a three bar attack, but 70 damage with STAB is brutal when they stack up. At the other hand Stone Edge also comes with STAB and is very fast for a one bar attack, even though the damage done is underwhelming.

I've encountered both, and my personal experience is that I prefer handling a fast one-bar defender compared to having to dodge all over the place. For that reason I recommend Crunch, but then I'm a poor dodger. Stone Edge may very well be the better attack even for a defender.


My recommendation for a defending tyranitar is Iron Tail and Crunch, but I may be wrong here.

Tyranitar comes with over 160 max HP, which makes it a little less squishy than dragonite but still lacking a few HP compared to rhydon.


Tyranitar is another high CP pokemon unsuitable for defence. Vaporeon is supereffective against it, but doesn't destroy a tyranitar the way it crushes rhydon.

So why unsuitable?

High level players have built their decks for handling snorlax. Snorlax is a normal type pokemon making fighting type attacks appealing. In the end machamp just didn't make it, but they're still lying around in the pokedex.

As people get more and more used to seeing tyranitar in gyms it's only a time before players in general find out that tyranitar suffers from double weakness against fighting type attacks. Doing less damage and receiving extra punishment is not acceptable for a defender lacking in bulk.

To add insult to injury the new version of machamp can get a Counter / Close Combat combination, which will quite simply destroy a defending tyranitar. It might even work decently against snorlax.


Tyranitar is best used for the WOW-factor or placed in a remote gym.