next community day - Dratini and 3x stardust
https://pokemongolive.com/events/community-day/
Answers
Rayquaza has the candy issue and Salamence won't outclass it completely (if at all) because of 1 bar moves- Dragonite will still be holding a lot of ground, it's nowhere near a gyarados/vaporeon eclipse or a groudon/rhydon eclipse. Best analogy I can think of is how Flareon 'replaced' Arcanine before the legendaries. Can't really say it did.
Haha I was mostly joking.
Dragonite will still be the winner for gym sweeping with its 2-bar until one gets enough Rayquaza candies.
But to play the devil's advocate here, Rayquaza is far better damage once you are able to max one, and Dragonite is a Pokemon that you really shouldn't have more than one of in a Raid team anyways since its generalist role is to patch holes in a specialist team. Latios will make a better dragon-counter for its added ability to dodge/weave with an otherwise rare legacy set, and Bagon will be an alternative (likely one more attainable for mountain-biome players that cannot find Dratini and cannot reliably find highly-uncommon Dragonites)
You could argue that Rayquaza is the Flareon and Dragonite is the Arcanine. Dragonite has somewhat more bulk, though Rayquaza does take 9 additional HP in exchange for Dragonite's 31 extra defense, to say nothing of Rayquaza's attack stat.
Dragonite will still be relevant because it is the only good dragon that most of us already have a decent amount of candies for, especially after the event. This will change in the distant future, though.
I see this as Niantic's way to get newer and more casual players their first Dragonite similar to how they introduced Tyranitar as a raid boss. I'm totally fine with it because even though I'm nearly to level 38, I have 2 Dragonites (at level a 39 and 36). My dragon medal is at 26, and I have walked my Dratini buddy over 900 km. 3 hours of dratini seems like a dream come true
I think this is the perfect way to "retire" Dragonite and replace him with Salamence.
Easier Dratini candies and dragon medal progress for more casual players or those in non-dratini biomes is very welcome I think. Dragonite is certainly a valuable asset for Rayquaza raids for people who aren't swimming in ice-types and even after Rayquaza raids, not many people will have the rare candy to max multiple Rays.
Personally I can use the progress with the dragon medal since I'm aiming to eventually have at least 1k in all types.
Still going to be worth a couple of starpieces. In a pokemon-rich area one can easily catch 30 in 1/2 hour. With 3x, this means at least 9000 stardust. One starpiece will boost this by another 4500. Not too shabby.
Just too bad Saturday is Day 6 for most players. Starting the day by collecting 15.750 stardust with one catch would have been sweet.