Gym defence is a matter of defenders, design and traffic density. While the article, and the one it links to, is a little dated, the main points still hold true.
Since the last article covered the bare bones defenders we'll have a closer look at design.
Whenever I'm bolding something it means it's the best pick whenever more than one is viable.
Design is a function of traffic density. Or at least it should be. I've read all kinds of crap stating that the same design is optimal for every gym, and that design being you should avoid motivation decay at all costs.
Lot's of camel dung being smoked there.
For an extremely low traffic density gym just assign whatever is in your recent list and you plan to transfer anyway. It's been a few days since anyone was here, and maybe within a week someone will visit the gym and kick you out.
Actually you want to avoid dropping your cared for chansey here. It'll drop to zero eventually, and what's worse, you risk getting it locked in.
For a standard low traffic density gym, which usually includes even central gyms when night is closing in, you can apply the numbers game and search for CP 1000 to 1999 pokemon to insert. I personally can't be arsed to do that. When the attack comes at five o'clock I'm usually asleep anyway.
These gyms are the only ones where the mainstream moronicity is applicable.
For a high traffic density gym you use maxed out defenders of top quality. These are also more or less the gyms gym raiders are truly interested in.
You expect the gym to come under attack with a depressing regularity.
Basically it means that a blissey and at least one of snorlax and chansey should be assigned to the gym. Preferably all three.
Sandwiching
The dilemma with these three defenders is that machamp is the preferred attacker for all three, which is the reason you should consider sandwiching in defenders which are problematic for machamp.
Clefable and gardevoir are your best bet since machamp is ineffective against these and they are supereffective against machamp with STAB for Dazzling Gleam to boot.
However, a maxed out example of the latter could be out of your grasp, and you may already have put in a lot of resources into vaporeon, lapras, steelix or donphan since before the release of the generation three pokemon.
Maybe you're pushing a milotic. If so I recommend you to stick with Waterfall / Surf despite the information given elsewhere. Reason being that attackers are far more likely to hulk into your water type defender with an electric type pokemon, read raikou, than using an exeggutor. The main culprit here is the overabundance of gyardos in gyms, and grass type pokemon simply doesn't compete when it comes to shredding gyarados.
Of these I recommend that you keep lapras out of the gyms until rayquaza vasnishes as a legendary raid boss.
A Counter / Play Rough donphan would do the job.
Observe that sandwiching only helps with cutting down attackers who walz right through the gym, and only if they're two or less.
Bulking up
If your local meta is defined by shaving then sandwiching won't help much. You're better off either bulking up och going for the throat.
Bulking up is primarily effective where you very seldom see more than two players attacking and shaving a gym.
This means dumping vaporeon, lapras and, surprisingly, wigglytuff into the gym.
If you're using your brain instead of smoking camel dung you're running with a Pound / Play Rough or Dazzling Gleam setup for wigglytuff. Wigglytuff is a fairy / normal type pokemon, so it's doubly moronic to suggest that you pick Feint Attack as your primary attack.
STAB pumps Pound to the same level as Feint Attack, and since there is very little reason for an attacker to swap out machamp (due to doing neutral damage to wigglytuff) and start digging up a steel type pokemon, you don't want a dark type attack which is ineffective against fighting type pokemon, which is why Feint Attack sucks.
Why not have a steel type pokemon in the standard attacking party? Well, this is the bulking up meta, and you're having vaporeon in every gym, and steel type attacks are patently crap against water type defenders.
Going for the throat
There are comparatively few gyms where you play, but pokestops are everywhere. This means all players are starved for potions and revives.
In this meta you want to pump out as much hurt as possible.
You'll be assigning some previously rather dubious defenders to gyms for this reason, and dragonite with Dragon Tail / Outrage is your best friend here. Despite battles taking next to no time this pokemon is worth pouring golden razz berries into in this meta.
Slaking suddenly starts to look like a decent defender since Play Rough is easy to miss, and it will wipe out the attacking machamp. Notable drawback is that it must be fed a berry between fights to do any damage at all.
Gardevoir and Espeon can be used for the combination of Confusion and superior attack stats. Tyranitar negates Espeon though.
If you're lucky enough to have a legacy Exeggutor with Confusion, just give it Seed Bomb as a charge attack and it's ready to go.
A Waterfall / Crunch gyarados will inflict a surprising amount of damage to the attacking electeic type poekmon during the very few seconds the fight lasts. If you're currently out of dragonites you can afford assigning to gyms this might be an option.
All in all I'd aim for a combination of sandwiching and going for the throat. Save vaporeon for relative outlier gyms.
Feed berries every second combat unless you're feeding a slaking or there is intensive agressive traffic into the gym. In that case either give up or pour in a berry every fight. Otherwise you'll end up losing defenders further into the gym as staggered attacks take down defenders inside the gym simultaneously.
The first golden razz berry is your greatest deterrent. My experience is that it immediately kills off half of the attacks. For the rest you're likely going to need coordinated feeding, which means you need to be in contact with a second defender who can take over when you're running out of feedling slots.
More on berry feeding in the next article.
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