New kids on the block, donphan

An entirely new entry, donphan shares an almost identical HP-bulk with dragonite, landing it in the 150 max HP area.

This ground type pokemon comes with a rather high max CP at around 3000.

Primary attacks are Counter and Tackle. None of the attacks benefit from a STAB bonus, and Tackle is a fast attack best suited for attacking into gyms. The fighting type attack Counter is a middle of the road attack, but it's still the best available for defence.

Charge attacks are Earthquake, Heavy Slam and Play Rough. While Earthquake comes with a STAB bonus it also comes with an animation making it more or less impossible to fail dodging.

That leaves us with Heavy Slam and Play Rough. Both are two bar attacks, and none comes with a STAB bonus.

In normal circumstances I would have recommended Heavy Slam, since it's fast with decent damage. However it's a steel type attack, and since Ground type pokemon are weak against water, ice and grass you're likely to be attacked by vaporeon. Heavy Slam is ineffective against vaporeon.

What about lapras and exeggutor? Could happen, but they're less common and comes with substantially lower CP. It's easier to dig up a vaporeon with Hydro Pump.

So I recommend Play Rough.


Your donphan should come with Counter and Play Rough.


Donphan makes perfect company with non maxed out aporeon in a gym, even though that will invite attackers to search for that exeggutor rather than line up several jolteon in a row.

It's not really that good a defender, but it's uncommonly enough found in a gym to give attackers a pause.

For the attacker who brainlessly grabs the biggest mon in the deck a couple of months down the line, Counter will come as a nasty surprise since fighting type attacks are supereffective against tyranitar.


I'd primarily place donphan in remote gyms and those with occasional traffic.