Gym attackers, starmie, omastar, cloyster

I've received a few questions concerning these pokemon as attackers. Looking through the stats I basically couldn't understand why until I ran into yet another tier ranking list.

Cloyster as a lapras replacement:

• 186 base attack versus 165 base attack translates into almost 13% more damage done with charge attacks.
• 100 versus 260 stamina and 323 versus 180 defence means you'll have a slightly lower effective HP bulk to play around with, so don't screw your dodging up.

For someone good at dodging cloyster is a perfectly reasonable replacement for lapras. If you're planning to build one now it should come with Frost Breath and Avalance. If you have a pre generation 2 one, Frost Breath and Blizzard is the way to go.

And you're probably not interested, since you're playing high level Pokemon Go and already invested heavily into that lapras you already had, only to see it brutally nerfed with the introduction of generation 2.

Starmie and omastar as a vaporeon replacement.

The short version -- I don't know what the guys at Pokeassistant have been smoking. Just don't do this.

The slightly longer version:

• vaporeon -- stamina 260, attack 205, defence 177
• starmie -- stamina 120, attack 210, defence 184
• omastar -- stamina 140, attack 207, defence 227
• gyarados -- stamina 190, attack 237, defence 197

All three come with Water Gun and Hydro Pump as preferred attacks. Gyarados

prefers Dragon Tail and Hydro Pump.

If you want to replace your easy to collect vaporeon that you already maxed out for a 2% or 1% higher damage output on the Hydro Pump, and risk getting one-shot by the defender then, by all means, go ahead.

The rest of you keep looking for a Dragon Tail and Hydro Pump gyarados if you're unhappy with the attacking performance of vaporeon. Hell, even a Bite and Hydro Pump gyarados is a better option.