Over hyped gym attackers, gengar

Labling gengar as over hyped is a little unfair, but sometimes you just have bad luck.

After the November patch alakazam and gengar rose to the status of prime attackers. Both received stellar base attack stats, with alakazam in the lead, but getting a good gengar remained a lot easier.

Fast forward three months and generation 2 hit us with repatched old attacks and the introduction of new ones.


A legacy gengar can have Shadow Claw as a primary attack, which is fast with really good DPS but with a disappointing capacity for powering up charge attacks. A post generation 2 one will have to settle for Hex, which comes with poor DPS but good capacity for powering up charge attacks.

In both cases you'll have to make do with Sludge Bomb as charge attack, a rather fast, two bar, attack.

Basically there's no point in building yourself a post generation 2 gengar. It simply doesn't make the cut.


A gengar should be pre generation 2 with Shadow Claw and Sludge Bomb. It comes with marginaly higher DPS compared to alakazam's Confusion for the primary attack, but the cost is a little slower powering up of charge attacks.

Alakazam's charge attack, however, is superior to gengar's Sludge Bomb. A fast, one bar bar attack makes dodging a lot less iffy.

This isn't where I'd place my stardust.


If you're stuck with a gengar as a general DPS, this ghost / poison pokemon doesn't shine against any defender's you're likely to see in a gym. Maybe with the exception of espeon (but you'll take a beating), and to a certain degree exeggutor. In both cases there are better attackers to use.

Stay away from tyranitar, rhydon, golem and donphan.

Both Snorlax and Blissey are iffy to attack since the best primary attacks for both are Zen Headbutt on top of them being normal type pokemon. Your primary attack will deal less damage, and you're weak against the incoming, psychic type damage.