What is the strategy to beat Dragonite?
Dragonite is nothing special. Ok, it has high stats and a few resistances but the same tactics work on it. Dodge its attacks and try to get type advantages.
If you haven't read it already, this question has answers about how to dodge optimally. It applies to all pokemon, but is especially important against higher CP opponents, which Dragonites usually are.
Dragonite is a Dragon/Flying pokemon. This gives it a double weakness to Ice, making Ice moves extremely effective. It is also weak against Dragon, Rock, and Fairy moves. A pokemon with one or both moves of this type can deal a lot of damage.
Bear in mind, however, that Dragonite's resistances include Water, Fighting, and Ground, which Ice and Rock pokemon often use. It's also resistant to Fire, Bug, and Grass. Make sure neither of your attacks are these types.
Dragonite has a few attacks- fighting the Dragonite once to discover them will make fighting it a second time much easier. Its basic moves are Dragon Breath and Steel Wing, with Dragon Breath being significantly more popular due to its STAB bonus.
Steel and Fairy pokemon are resistant to Dragon moves. Dragons are weak against them but unless you are using your own Dragonite, that's not an issue.
Steel Wing Dragonites are less popular but are extremely dangerous. Steel is super effective against Fairy, Ice, and Rock pokemon- all of Dragonite's weaknesses. Steel is, fortunately, ineffective against Water so a Water/Ice or a Water pokemon with Ice moves can do well here.
Dragonite has 3 possible special attacks. Dragon Claw and Dragon Pulse are dragon- see above. Hyper Beam is normal type. It's also Hyper Beam. Don't worry about type advantages here- if it hits you, you'll probably die.
And so, the best options I've found:
A bigger Dragonite. Obviously.
Non-dragons with Dragon attacks. I have two Gyaradoses for this- they know Dragon Breath and Dragon Pulse and between them have destroyed CP 3000 Dragonites.
Water/Ice types with double Ice moves. Lapras is the strongest option here but Cloyster or Dewgong also work. They do need to both be ice moves (in Lapras' case, ice and dragon) because of Dragonite's resistance to Water.
Magneton. Neutral effectiveness, resistant to everything Dragonite can use.
Fairy types. Clefable and Wigglytuff are bad against Steel Wing, but resistant to Dragon and can have at least one super-effective STAB Fairy move.
Slowbro is also good because it has lots of health and can have Ice Beam which does 65 damage now
The strategy behind defeating Pokemons lies in the "Type" of Pokemons; by using a Pokemon with a super effective move. Dragonite is a dragon type Pokemon, which is weak against Dragon-type & Fairy-type moves (Fairy types come in later generation of Pokemon series).
So, 1 strategy is to use a Pokemon with Fairy-type moves against Dragonite to defeat it.
There are many Pokemons in Pokemon GO that may know Fairy type moves (refer to the wiki linked above) and you can use those moves to effectively defeat Dragonite easily.
An alternative solution is to look at the other type of Dragonite and which is - Flying.
Flying type Pokemons are weak against - Ice, Rock and Electric.
But here, Electric won't work well as Dragonite has high Electric moves resistivity.
So, the key to defeating Dragonite is to use a Pokemon with Rock or Ice type moves in Pokemon GO.
Here are the possible Rock and Ice type Pokemons you can use against Dragonite (if they have ice or rock type move):
- Dewgong - An Ice type Pokemon which is sure to have either a Basic or a Special take of Ice type. I've again and again used Dewgong's Ice type super-effective moves to defeat Dragonite.
- Slowbro - Again, Slowbro would sometimes have Ice type move like Ice beam which is a super effective move.
- Golem - A Pokemon with rock type moves
- Aerodactyl - Aerodactyl is Rock and Flying type Pokemon which may have those super-effective rock moves against Dragonite.
There are many other Pokemons like Diglett, Shellder, Kabutops, Lapras, etc which may have Ice or Rock type move which can be used to defeat Dragonite faster as these moves are super-effective to it.
I have had great luck with Clefable. Fairy type, for whatever reason, is super effective against Dragon types. Clefables are beefcakes, and they can put out a surprising amount of damage. Alternatively a decently powerful Jolteon will do just fine.
Remember, you only get a 20% bonus either way for typing. Focus on building a diverse, high CP team and you'll do fine.