Configuring the perfect gym attacker

There are a number of extremely stupid game mechanical implementations in the game.

I'll quickly describe one of them below.

Your perfect gym attacker comes with the following stats: 15 attack, 15 stamina and 0 defence. In reality you just don't care about stamina at all since you probably plan on making short work of the defender anyway.


So, 15 attack makes sense, but why on earth is zero defence optimal?


Let's have a look at the combat mechanics of the game. The formula means you take extra damage the lower your defence is.

Which is a good thing?

Well, yes. There's another aspect of the combat mechanics. For every two points of damage you take you power up your charge attack by one point. In other words, you want to take damage faster.


Now, realistically, the 0 - 15 range of a stat is a very small addition compared to base stats, but it definitly goes to show that an attacker with a truly poor base defence stat is preferred over one with a good one. Assuming, of course, equal base attack stats and equal attacks.

Compare, for example, omastar with vaporeon. Omastar comes with a 227 base defence stat versus vaporeon's 177. That, over 20%, difference means the extra damage taken by an attacking vaporeon more than makes up for the 207 versus 205 base attack stat in favour of omastar.

In other words, vaporeon has a higher Effective DPS than omastar, not the other way around.


Oh, and yes, it means you should avoid dodging anything but high damage charge attacks if you live where replenishing your bag is comparatively easily done.