Thoughts on the new bosses:

Rank 1: Useful for new players who can't do much more than just solo these. Ivysaur seems the most useful here but I guess that Wartortle may be harder to get in areas without much water. Even Metapod isn't that terrible considering I had to walk it 30km to evolve my first Butterfree. The Kanto starters were available as Rank 4 in their fully evolved forms before but very few people would do them and only Venusaur would barely see play here; so while that was an easier out to get those registered, this is more consistent but takes patience. Higher level players don't really need to touch these unless they want to burn away a day's Pass or get a high IV Venusaur base... but that would take 166 Candy to get to Level 30 and there are better Grass options than Venusaur so meh.

Rank 2: I guess Magneton can be a fine Electric attacker if you can't get Raikou/Ampharos/Jolteon and I was using those for Suicune for a very little bit when I still didn't have good counters. Sableye is that one Pokemon the high-level Shiny collectors will solo en masse, just like Magikarp before. I was afraid it would be hard to solo because its only weakness was Fairy and there's no good attacker for that type (the best DPS comes from Play Rough Granbull which has to cope with a Dark fast move) but I guess the very low CP compensates fine for that; like wow seriously, less than 10000 CP for Rank 2s?! Way to go, Sableye and Marowak. Sandslash/Marowak should be easy-to-beat Ground-types, Tentacruel and Cloyster are more tricky; the former has ways to punish Grass or Ground attackers so Electric/Psychic are better, the latter has the highest CP and some good defense and will probably be the hardest to solo, and Grass doesn't cut it either here. But I'd like to believe I can solo them all if need be, I haven't tried but I have all the counters needed on paper.

Rank 3: The interesting part, where everyone's trying to solo these. Ninetales apparently has been solo'd by very few players in the world and it's pretty hard... but also worse-than-Arcanine so I care little. Scyther is the most useful for sure and it's got a 4x weakness to Rock, yet it seems like its high CP doesn't let that be exploited too much; I may actually attempt powering up Golem to their breakpoints and do these if I need Scizor urgently for a Mewtwo EX Raid. Porygon is also nice for us who haven't played in the Valentine Event and desperately need Candy for it, but soloing it should be even harder but in theory possible with 6 Machamp. Omastar would be worth it more were it not for the optimal moveset being legacy, it's got a 4x weakness too but also high CP to back it up.

Rank 4: WHO THOUGHT NIDOKING/QUEEN AS RANK 4 WAS A GOOD IDEA?! Seriously, I haven't found ONE player so far who was very positive about this addition :( Especially here where both Nidoran are super common and we use them as 25 Candy mass evolve fodder (you may actually get 2 Nidoran sooner than 1 Pidgey...), not sure how it works in other biomes but I really can't see enough people having interest in them as a Rank 4. Victreebel is a nice out for a fully evolved Grass-type and could see some play... but Venusaur might've been better and very few people were interested in it. Everyone loved Exeggutor as a Rank 2 instead, and for good reason. Poliwrath's also not taken well, since Machamp is better and remains as a Rank 3. Golem is the only saving grace here and I know it's very hard to get in other biomes (to the point high level players have the Geodude line as buddies) even though we can get loads of them here; I still prefer Tyranitar and Snorlax who thankfully stayed though.

In any case, most players I know of have negative reactions to these changes and I can totally see the reasons why. Personally I only mind the Eeveelutions being gone, even though I never ended up doing them it was a good way to be sure of which one you would get if you really needed to. I'm glad they haven't taken the actual high demand Rank 3s and 4s away, especially Tyranitar; that would've hurt bad :(

ncG1vNJzZmiapaGvorPAq5uepl6jsrV706GpnpmUqHyzrcidZJuno6iytHnHmq2eZZOdrq%2BzxJ1la2xlaIByew%3D%3D