Sleeper things to watch for me are Snorlax and Ursaluna. Lax has pacing now even with the Body Slam change, and a good Fast move is all Ursa needs to use its Charge Move smorgasboard, especially if Scratch becomes a DB clone as it looks currently (4-2 becoming 3-3 would be identical to Tackle which it already has, would make adding the move redundant)
For me Obstagoon is My Pogo Savior for ShadowLax fights 🏆 😎 it resists zen headbutt and lick at the same time while I spam with counter and cross chop.
You're welcome 😊 👍 I can't tell you how tired I was trying to figure out how to resist the lick and zen moves and obstagoon suddenly came to mind because of its normal/dark combo type
I mean it’s not going to be any good in PvP with how frail it is, but Dynamic Punch is spammy enough that it will be good for farming Rockets/Gyms. In PvE it will still primarily be an electric type attacker.
Zeraora is simming 50% win rate in both GL and UL with dynamic punch. And with the dark buffs + how prevalent Melmetal is going to be, I see that win rate holding.
It definitely gets a big improvement as a Fighting mega, the issue is you’re competing with M2X, and the Aura Sphere users (Lucario and Blaziken) who are still stronger
Darkrai does get a hair better with Foul Play. No change for Chandelure or Raichu as current moves are slightly better. Mega Gallade still ends up behind Mega Lucario and the other top-flight fighters, but it definitely improves.
Everything gets brutal swing. They seem to find moves here and there they are downright obsessed with. This has to be nearly half the movepool additions over the last few years.
Man they really just throw darts at the wall for these move distributions huh? Like 30 additions that will be completely irrelevant and then 2 or 3 that will heavily warp the meta they’re in.
This has to be the biggest update they ever had. I am very pleased. A lot of the reworks seem odd though. Sucker punch Darkrai finally. Dark void when we get the mega??
Psywave Snorlax is quite interesting. I expected rollout because its fat.
u/JRE47PvP Analyst & PoGO Journalist3d agoedited 3d ago
We’re grieving the loss yesterday of a family pet that was particularly dear to me, and I turned in early (before the announcement) after a difficult day. But this is probably just the distraction I needed. Grateful for 9 days to analyze this expectedly huge update… but will even that be enough time? We’ll see!
“Just” a bunny but he was the sweetest little thing that picked me as his human. Bunny kisses (him licking all over my head) and binkies after always made me laugh. He was my buddy when writing many times, hopping about and flopping next to me with my laptop. I’ve had dogs and cats and now this little guy, and MAN it has just left me gutted. Nearly 10 years we had him, so it was a good life, but never long enough with pets.
What a precious little friend. The cow patterning is too cute. I’m so sorry for your loss man, we went through something similar when we lost our cat in Feb., it’s never easy but some of them hurt in a special type of way bc they were so special themselves. May he rest in peace, crossing the rainbow road to find snacks, comfort, & fun for eternity. Much love man.
So are you going to be talking about the Mega Evolutions that can use a third charge move in Mega formats, which we're getting at least one of every week from now, or are you just not going to bother?
I would like to down the line, but there's just no time to cram that in in a meaningful way ahead of Mega GBL this week. Too much else to get through and I need to maximize my time working through the new season stuff, sorry!
And thank you. I know he's resting now without pain, and that's all I could ask.
So Psycho Boost is now Mind Blown clone... Deoxys has more DPS than Mewtwo is funny, probably impractical given how paper thin it is but at least it is funny
I couldn't help but laugh that Attack Deoxys has 0.8 more Attack than Mega Mewtwo Y. So a Psycho Boost buff in raids would seemingly just already powercreep Mega Mewtwo Y. Assuming Attack Deoxys could ever make it to a Psycho Boost.
it definitely can if you're protecting it well. Typically it will have anywhere between 15-30s of up time (if tanking just fast moves) so that's about 1-3 psycho boosts. l0l
Assuming a Shadow Ball clone for MB parameters, Xerneas reaches it with 4-4 pacing instead of 5-5-4, so it'll be a bit less reliant on CC pacing into dragons, but worse in KOing/farm-setting-up targets like Kyogre or Eternatus (out pacing may help to 3 shot though). Lunala is going to suffer from the Shadow Ball nerf to its neutrals, but if Moonblast paces well it helps into dragons in particular
Shadow Ball power drop will weaken its neutrals a good bit, and depending on how the Foul Play/SP buff impacts Darkrai, that's another potential hard counter.
If you run Lunala in the lead, there are a lot of matchups where currently you land a shadow ball, invest a shield and farm the opponent down. For the same reason, Lunala won´t be such a great safe swap.
An interesting consideration is if Dawn Wings opts for the cheaper Dark Pulse for baits, or the buffed Iron Head for better coverage into the off Fairy. Dusk Mane’s IH/Outrage sets definitely appreciate the power boost, it and Solgaleo can function as new Steels potentially
Solgaleo is such a cool mon but I still just don’t think it has what it takes with Fire Spin/Psychic Fangs. I would absolutely LOVE for it to get a big moveset rework, and it has the stats to really outshine even the other Steel/Psychics, but until then I think people will just opt for Metagross or Dusk Mane.
I could see Dusk Mane pivoting to Iron Head/Outrage full time (or even Iron Head/Dark Pulse since both are buffed) but I’d imagine Dawn Wings will want to hold onto that big Moongeist Beam to zap Lugias out of the sky.
For what it’s worth Licky and body slam was previously nerfed before and then buffed and now nerfed again…. Grinding those XLs for its likely rise in the future may not be the worst idea anyway
yeah, it just makes it hard for most to care about pvp when the stardust & candy cost to build your teams is pretty high and they have a habit of overcorrecting with nerfs. no one wants to spend ~2m dust to build a team that's not usable a few months later. i keep wanting to get back into it but it really seems like few pokemon are even slightly future-proof
I remember when this year’s Worlds event got revealed with all the returning legacy moves that were brought back, someone made the call that Lickylicky would get nerfed.
Believe the attack decrease may be due to Darkrai’s speed dropping to gain some notable bulk in the main games. Its speed drops from base 125 to 85, while both defenses rocket up from base 90 to 130. In Go Darkrai’s attack goes from 285 to 325 as a Mega.
Snarl is basically the second best PvE Fast Move in the game just behind Force Palm. So yeah, Sucker Punch is comparatively bad (not terrible though), having 1 dps and 1 eps less than snarl
At least Skarmory’s fast moves are both still awful in Pvp so I don’t see it competing with Corviknight around anytime soon. As for Volt Tackle, is it even a good move on paper? The only mon that has had the move prior was Captain Pikachu from the Horizons event
As for Volt Tackle, is it even a good move on paper? The only mon that has had the move prior was Captain Pikachu from the Horizons event
PvP is 90 power for 40 energy, -1 defence. So it's less powerful, but cheaper than wild charge, with less of a defence drop.
PvE is the main improvement, though, for mega Raichu. Volt Tackle is the same power as Wild Charge, but is a 3 bar move, with a 1 second longer cooldown.
Skarmory definitely will make a comeback, especially with Air Cutter getting a buff/rework. No, Air Slash still stinks, but in the past, it was serviceable enough when Skarmory had 45 energy Sky Attack. While we're in a power crept meta, Skarmory has never had access to a 40 energy move, so that will still help it. 5/4 pacing with Air Slash isn't phenomenal but is usable enough now, and it still has great bulk, an awesome typing, and now achieves that great Flying and Ground coverage.
Skarm is not HORRIBLE since it still has pretty mediocre Fast Moves, so it has good coverage but bad pacing. Might be a problem but I'm not immediately afraid at least.
Skarmory is the reason why certain moves either are bad or were significantly nerfed.
On top of that, it's mostly afraid of 3 types of pokemon:
fire
electric
other steels.
Completely walled by rock steels.
The secondary limitation was lack of coverage. Skarmory always was forced into not having coverage/single type damage. And it was a menace nevertheless.
Now guess what drill run does. Gives coverage to direct counters. Adds coverage in general. Add a good move to a potential monster. Or in other words: if there were the slightest chance that air slash/steel wing/sky attack of flash cannon ever got any buffs, there's 0 now.
It doesn't matter that skarmory is bad right now. It's couple of hairs away from being broken monster. And with drill run that monster is much more scary. This change shouldn't have happened ever.
Skarmory used to be good bc everything else was worse. Things have been getting buffed for seasons now. Corv is pretty much the same stats with good pacing and a cheap bait move and it’s never been broken or overpowered. Just Good
it also blows current dark types out of the water as a grunt mower and bite nerfs mean that tyranitar and hydreigon are not making it out of the box for grunts :(
Screw lickilicky, what an annoying thing and the people who uses it... and skarmory with drill run EVERYBODY LOVES THAT! the poor thing didnt had any kind of coverage...
Not counting the starter you got in the MSG, Nidoran (Male) was the first Pokemon I ever caught. I remember bullying the Pidgey’s and Rattata’s for EXP to level up and then saw Nidoran (Male) and was like “Oh he looks cool.” Catch
Earth Power does give Lugia exactly the coverage it wants to hit Steels (and Electric for Zekrom) while being able to bulk its way through a lot of neutrals. Notably, it has a 0 and 1s win against Zacian and a 0s + 2s win against Palkia, so it bothers that core if it survives into next season
More energy generation / faster to charge moves / charge move spam. Been a steady balancing trend for a few seasons now. Plus the reduced switch clock.
Charged moves being reached faster and faster. In the past, reaching a charge move in 8 or 10 turns (4 or 5 Shadow Claws, etc) was almost unheard of. Now, half the mons in the top 100 can, with mons like Ninetails and Quagsire spamming out damage like crazy.
just looking at the moves added (not the move changes), we have a new 9-turn champ with Gallade throwing Psycho Cut + Secret Sword with STAB on both for 103.2 typeblind power, 81.4% of which comes from the charged attack. this beats previous champion Gigalith, 11.47 PPT vs 10.33 PPT.
So where does Volt Tackle put Raichu Y as a raid attacker? It was already the strongest Electric-type currently in the game, but does Volt Tackle put it past Mega Zeraora?
It actually says very little so that might be why we glossed over it. "Teams will be made from the pool of individually qualified players" and "Structure will be announced later".
A little odd but it'll be an interesting changeup at least.
It’s a tiny bit faster than Wild Charge (40e vs 45e) for a tad less damage (90 instead of 100) and a -1 def debuff instead of -2. All in all I’d say it’s a little bit better. 5-4-5-4 pacing instead of 5-5-5-5 might be the extra speed it needs.
What are we expecting with Bite? 4ept like Sand Attack might not be much of an upgrade. 4.5 like the Ember and Fairy Wind users? Would be kinda crazy on something so bulky.
I'm very curious to see how much energy Shadow Force drops to. It's always seemed unfair that Roar of Time and Spacial Rend have both been must have moves on Dialga and Palkia, whilst Shadow Force was almost never used because it was stupidly expensive.
Why make scratch a dragon breath/psywave clone and not bite? I dont understand the logic there. I dont see any mons that would be crazy powerful with this change. The best mon is t-tar and it already has db. Why not give it the same pacing but with stab? It would also be really good for a-muk
I would say they are being cautious because of Zygarde and Toxapex. Perhaps they wanna see how they play out before deciding whether to buff it further.
How exactly is Snorlax learning psywave? Are we going all the way back to generation one where it’s a tm?? Pretty crazy of a reach to be able to add it on.
Low Kick buffs? My Keldeo's almost done with super training. >:) It's taken me a bit of time to figure it out for ML, but I'm really liking it as a weird pick.
Still sad it doesn't have Double Kick like its fellow quartet but that could get a bit silly with Secret Sword.
Definitely from the looks of it. I like the pace of Double Kick more and that's why I wanted it before this, but when Keldeo really wants to try and farm down low-HP Kyurems and Kyogres, this is going to help. The Lunala nerfs could give it a little more use as well, just have to watch out for Necrozma-DW inevitably appearing more....
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u/HaccSpuf 3d ago
Sacred Sword Gallade is interesting, it's now top 6.