What is the tankiest Pokemon between Defense and Sp. Defense in Gen VII?

Question

I'm accepting eviolite strategies.

Comments

There are a lot of high-defense Pokemon that are bad in practice because they don't have enough HP. Good tanks have some kind of balance between their three defensive stats, as well as the right resistances and moves (ie. not Regice).

Answer 1

Using the metric HP x (Def + SpD), the champion is Assault Vest Blissey with 152 HP EVs, 104 in Def, 252 in SpD, and a Calm, Careful, or Sassy nature, which scores 474,721. However, this does leave the physical side rather exposed; you're probably better off maxing out Def EVs at the expense of HP to better shore up the stray physical hits that may come its way; that configuration scores only slightly worse with 473,352. Assault Vest Blissey isn't actually the greatest idea, since it means you have no access to Softboiled (among other things), but that just shows you shouldn't be trusting one metric as the end-all be-all.

Other notables:

Eviolite Chansey: 430,782
Assault Vest Cresselia: 385,392
Assault Vest Shuckle: 345,992
Eviolite Type: Null: 321,110
Eviolite Rhydon: 305,948
Itemless Arceus: 288,156
Itemless Aegislash-Shield: 251,100

Comments

how about Zygarde complete form?

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Assault Vest Zygarde-Complete can theoretically get to 479,544, but it won't actually be in complete form without dropping to 420 or less HP, and a hit that deals 420 damage can OHKO it without giving it a chance to transform. Furthermore, an Assault Vest means it lacks the ability to use Rest and get back to the full 636, so giving it credit for the full HP in that form is disingenuous to say the least. Without the Assault Vest, the best it can do is 383,161