I prefer Gyarados as it can be extremely powerful with dragon dance and can counter some of the commonly used Pokemon like Dragonite. Overall though, Lapras is an extremely usable choice, I would base the final decision on what nature's and IV's your Pokemon have. If your Lapras has a better nature and ivs, then I would use the Lapras, and vice versa.
As UV said it comes down to the nature and IV's of a pokemon. Personally, I would go with the gyarados as it's a heavy hitter and with dragon dance it can be used a sweeper pokemon given you have the right move set. The lapras is a tanky pokemon and so you might consider using that if you want to survive a few more hits.
I don't know what nature and IVs are one a pokemon,sorry I am a noob. Can you link me with a thread or something that will be highly appreciated!
Alrighty so there's two links you can check out, one for nature and one for ivs, however both of the links come from Bulbapedia and contain extra long explanations so I'll also summarize the important points to the best of my ability! Nature: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nature Ivs: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Individual_values Explanation of Nature: So if you've hovered over your Pokemon with your inventory open, you'll notice there's a black box that will appear containing a bunch of information about your Pokemon. At the bottom of that box, there will a list of statistics (ie. Attack, Defense, Special Attack, etc.) . If you look below at the picture, the statistics are circled in blue, and the nature is circled in pink. You'll notice one of the statistics, in this case attack, is highlighted in red, and that the special defense statistic is highlighted in green. You'll also notice that the nature is "Calm". Depending on the Pokemon's nature, one stat will be increased by 10% and another decreased by 10%. So in this case, calm nature decreases a Pokemon's attack stat by 10% and increases its special attack stat by 10%. In the first link I provided to Bulbapedia, there is a chart containing all the different natures and what they increase/decrease. Natures are important as they can boost a Pokemon's highest stat, whilst lowering another stat that is less important. For your case, Gyarados is an attacking Pokemon, that has no use for its Special Attack stat. Therefore something like Adamant Nature (+attack -special attack) or Jolly Nature (+speed -special attack) would be an amazing nature. For Lapras, its the opposite. Lapras is a tanky special attacker (usually) so you would want something that is +special defense, +special attack, or +defense, with -attack or -speed as it does not usually need attack or speed. So perfect nature for Lapras could be something like Modest (+special attack -attack) or Sassy (+special defense -speed). Explanation for IVS Ivs stand for individual values and they are basically add on stat points. If you have a rank in Pokefind, you can do /iv to look at a Pokemon's ivs, if you do not, Scientist Fred, an npc in the spawn pokecenter, can check the ivs of your pokemon for you. The above picture is an example of what a Pokemon's ivs can be. Every Pokemon can have a total of 186 ivs, with 31 ivs being the maximum amount of ivs per statistic. It's probably self explanatory that the higher the ivs, the better. At level 100, each iv will increase a Pokemon's stat by one point. For example, if my Pokemon had 286 as an attack stat at level 100, and it had 20 attack ivs, its attack stat would be raised to 306. When comparing your Gyarados and your Lapras, you're looking for which one of the two have better ivs, and which one has a desirable nature. For Gyarados, you want a nature that is +attack or +speed (with the decreased stat as preferably special attack, but -defense and -special defense are okay too) and for lapras, you want a nature that is +special attack, +defense, or +special defense (with the decreased stat as attack or speed). After making this thread I've realized it's quite long and may be confusing so if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask!
Wow thanks so much,but I have some other questions because as you said at the end these are a lot more confusing, especially if you play pokemon for your first time in this server and you don't know anything about pokemon. Can you change your Pokemon's nature? Also,can you decrease or increase IVs?What's the differences between IVs and EVs(Effort Values)?
Alrighty so your first question: Can you change your Pokemon's nature? The answer is no, it is permanent. Your second question: Can you decrease/increase IVs? The answer is no, both nature and Ivs are permanent for a Pokemon. What's the difference between IVs and EVs? This question is going to have a rather long answer if that's good with you as I'd have to explain evs . What are EVs? So like my last post, I'll provide you with the Bulbapedia link although it's a bit confusing, so I'll also summarize it. Link: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Effort_values EV's are similar to ivs in the case that they will increase the stats of your Pokemon. While IV's come with your Pokemon when you catch it, EV's are stat points that you gain as you battle other Pokemon. Every single Pokemon in the game will give your Pokemon EVs. However, they will all give varying amounts of EV's for different stats. For example, if you battle and kill a Pidgeot, it will give whatever Pokemon you used to fight it, 3 Speed Evs. You can check how many evs your Pokemon has at Aunty Alma who is in a house on the road to amber from foretree. You can have a total of 510 evs on your Pokemon, and a maximum of 252 Evs per statistic. Once your Pokemon is level 100, every 4 evs that your Pokemon has in a stat, will account for 1 bonus stat point. So let's say my Gyarados has 252 evs in Attack, that means it will have 63 bonus attack stat points. You can decrease EV's by feeding your Pokemon berries that you can also buy at Aunty Alma. What can you do with EV's? Each Pokemon will have 2-3 main statistics that you will want to utilize the most. For a Pokemon like Jolteon, the 2 most important stats for a Jolteon is Speed and Special attack, so in this case, you would want to EV train a Jolteon with 252 speed evs, and 252 special attack evs. That would give the Jolteon 63 bonus special attack stats and 63 bonus speed stats at level 100. For your case, if you did end up choosing the Gyarados, the 2 most important stats for Gyarados are attack and speed, so you would train your Gyarados so that it has 252 attack evs and 252 speed evs. Best Pokemon to fight for EV's As I previously mentioned, each Pokemon will give specific EV's when you battle and kill them. Some will drop 2 evs, others will only drop 1, and some will drop 3. When EV training, you want to fight Pokemon who will give 3 evs in your desirable stat. Here are some of the best Pokemon to fight for this: Attack : Machamp, Nidoking (Both drop 3 attack evs) Special Attack : Alakazam, Gengar (Both drop 3 special attack evs) Defense : Poliwrath, Golem (Drop 3 defense evs) Special Defense : Blastoise, Bellossom (Drop 3 special defense evs) HP : Nidoqueen, Clefable, Wigglytuff, Azumarill, Blissey (All drop 3 hp evs) Speed : Raichu, Pidgeot (Both drop 3 speed evs) How to EV train? Take one of the Pokemon I've listed above, catch one, and put it in a gym. Then repeatedly fight your gym over and over again and your Pokemon will gain 3 evs in a specific section each time you defeat that Pokemon in your gym. I hope this helps! If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask!
I'm still in the grinding phase of my PokeFind experience, but I'm dreading the day I'll have to understand all of the EV AND IV techniques. Thankfully we have nice folks like @UV_Hail to help us all out ;D
