Poliwrath's Best Charge Move?
I currently have two Poliwraths that I'm considering powering up to use as a defender. One has Bubble/Ice Punch and the other has Bubble/Hydro Pump. I'm not sure which is the better charge move of the two. I can see Ice Punch being useful since it's a multi-charge bar move and it's super effective against Grass types (will most likely be attacked by Exeggutor). On the other hand to my understanding Hydro Pump is better because it allows Poliwrath to get off more Bubbles. In my opinion Hydro Pump is easier to dodge though. Any advice would be appreciated!
Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies. I'll power up the Ice Punch Poliwrath. :)
Answers
I think that the same logic does apply to Slowbro. IB is superior to Water Pulse as a defender, but nothing can compete with STAB Psychic charge move. It's largely unresisted in the current meta, and two-bar charge move with STAB on defense is going to hit harder for longer -- similar to IB on a Lapras.
For Slowbro, Confusion / Ice Beam is a serviceable defending moveset -- just not as good as Confusion / Psychic.
Why would you want to be using Bubble more often when it does less DPS than your charge moves?
As a defender, you want to be using your charge move more often to increase your overall DPS, and Ice Punch does that better than Hydro Pump, and on top of that, like you said, it provides better coverage against Pokemon that are likely to be attacking into Poliwrath.
Also 100 energy moves tend to have more energy wasted because the gym AI sucks, which is also a bigger deal on Poliwrath because Bubble has 25 energy per use.
For example if a Vaporeon uses 2 Water Guns at full energy before using it's charge move, that's only 14 energy wasted. If a Poliwrath uses 2 Bubbles at full energy, that's 50 energy wasted.
