As far as gym placement recommendations, I usually target gyms that have higher turnover and enter or take down gyms usually if I see they're over 8 hours and 20 minutes to give them 50 coins so it's like giving them a favor and hoping they do the same in return. I now have 10 gold gyms and numerous that are silver, 4 of which are within reasonable range to becoming gold as well so I'll be targeting those more frequently until their mission is accomplished. I have 2 types of pokemon that I usually place in gyms:
gold gyms: pokemon that I don't necessarily need to feed berries to but others might, they include blissey, snorlax, vaporeon, gyarados, ampharos, porygon2
silver gyms: pokemon that I'll more likely give berries to: they include tyranitar, dragonite, machamp
Believe it or not chansey is an excellent gym pokemon so I've been keeping most of the ones I've hatched to date for that purpose. I only power up pokemon that I expect to frequently use in raid battles or sweep in gyms. powering up for defending gyms is almost useless as I usually never have a problem with getting my daily goal of 50 coins per day especially since I'm within a block from one of them.
For those of us in the USA we are now raiding for suicune as it seems tougher to catch compared to the others as I'm 0 for 3 in my attempts so far. I had a streak of 16 consecutive legendary catches between raikou & entei and since I failed in my last 2 chances to get a better entei I'm at a losing streak of 5 now with legendaries. I would be satisfied with at least one suicune for pokedex caught. I already have some good enteis which I don't expect to power up anytime soon until I find a need to, maybe for possibly a metagross raid.
I am unfortunately now 0 for 6 in getting a mewtwo invite as it seems incredibly ridiculous how they've been given out.
For your coins, how many do you put in Gyms per day to collect your 50 coins? I live in the Bay Area and here there are many active users, as this is close to the Niantic HQ, so I frequently see Gyms get attacked, and turnover is high.
I think it depends on geographical luck, if you live in areas with high turnover you have to maximize the likelihood of not being kicked out. Simply having high level Pokémon with defensive capabilities isn’t just making it take longer to be taken over, it’s a deterrent. In my area, I don’t Attack Gyms that have high CP or high Defense Pokémon, I go for the ones who are in the morning the Pokémon that lost CP when people put them in the night before. I minimize my work, and then put in my Blissey or Snorlax so that way by the time someone wakes up to Attack my gym, it will be likely because the high CP has whittled down and I have earned enough coins to not care if it will be removed. That and I put in Pokémon in Gyms the night prior to, so by the time I wake up while everyone else was sleeping and didn’t Attack, it will have been the 8 1/3 hours.
P.S. How do you keep track of all of the gold and silver gyms?
Why not power up a TTar then, it has more CP anyways and will actually get useful in fights
I already have maxed out 3 of my best Tyranitar. With #4 on its way up, as well as 2 maxed Dragonites (3rd on its way), Vaporeon, Lapras, Alakazam, Blissey, etc.
I do put Tyranitar in Gyms, but it has a 4x weakness just like Gyarados, Dragonite, and Rhydon do, plus with higher HP Blissey/Snorlax last longer in battle and deter fights.
breh - you didn’t ask them if there were 6 Pokémon over 3K in a gym... what if Snorlax is the last one to face out of the 6? I stand by my point... in one instance you changed the CP from 3.2K to 1K, in the next you make it as if there is only a Snorlax in the gym as a deterrent... my original scenario remains unchallenged: 6 Pokémon in a gym over 3K each... including Snorlax. Quote for reference:
It takes forever to defeat a gym (I mean taking it over not just a single round of defeating the defenders) of 3K Tyranitar, Dragonite, Blissey, Snorlax, Rhydon, Vaporeon/Gyarados which discourages people from attacking the gym, and coming back when the CP has whittled down. That allows people to accumulate coins... especially if attacking a gym alone.