So, I was wondering if I should evolve a 100% machop (already have 5 high IVs Machamps) or maybe save it for a CD? What can a CD actually do for already awesome Machamp other than give us a shiny version?
It could give us a fighting move comparable to ultra Necrozma’s Z-move “Light that burns the sky”.
In al seriousness, Niantic could do anything but it doesnt hurt waiting and why would you even want another Machamp when you already have 5 high IV machamps. Power them up first :)
Edit: this is how the move looks
https://youtu.be/h1Xi3BTlHrg
Machop seems a likely candidate for a community day at some point, so I'd probably hold onto that 100% since you don't really have a strong need for a 6th Machamp.
As for moves, a few spring to mind that could be introduced: Seismic Toss, Superpower, and Focus Punch. Hopefully something potentially better DPS than Dynamic Punch, but with a different energy structure so that it doesn't render DP completely obsolete, e.g. a single-bar high-powered move.
Going to echo some of the responses here and say "Hold off on evolving." I don't predict a Machamp event of any kind, ever, but I also didn't expect an event with guaranteed evolution items either, yet we're getting that on Swinub day.
So hold onto that %100 for now. You don't need it immediately (5 Machamps is usually enough for any battle that requires Fighting, unless you're trying to short-man something like Heatran and want the challenge of not using Ground moves against it) and it might potentially get even better in the future.
Again, I doubt it, but...
There's an array of fighting attacks it can learn in the main series that are very powerful there; some are listed in other posts above. Any of these COULD make their way into a Machamp CD and with the Swinub announcement it's can't be ruled out anymore. Still, there's some reasons I can list that *might* make Niantic think twice about a Machop CD:
- They have to know at this point that anyone who started playing even semi-recently and longer has at least one team's worth of high-IV, powered up Machamp thanks to its high presence in raids. There have also been multiple events resulting in higher Machop spawns. A Machop CD is likely to upset a large chunk of the playerbase that have already taken advantage of them and maxed a team's worth accordingly.
- Machamp being the closest thing to a permanent raid boss indicates a sizeable portion of raid traffic comes from it. If Machamp were to suddenly get an exclusive move that lapped the already powerful Dynamic Punch the result would likely be a sharp decline in Machamp raids being done, i.e. lost money from raid sales. Machop isn't exactly hard to accumulate candy for being a nesting species, 2k hatch, and 3k buddy. Using my own raiding community as an example, nobody cares to raid Metagross even for candy - two chances to amass Beldum candy has filled most people's Beldum candy quota despite it being much harder to obtain outside of said events.
Admittedly some of those attributes apply to Swinub as well, but the biggest draw to its CD is the introduction of its evolution, something a Machop CD won't have going for it. We also don't know what Mamo's move will be; if it's an all-powerful ground attack then Piloswine raids will still be desirable after the CD to buff up ice squads.
I'm not saying a Machop day definitely won't happen, it very well could. More that it's one Niantic will need to weigh the pros and cons of much more heavily.
Didnt even think about the raid revenue.
Machamp's a pokemon most point newer players to, when I first started it was the first 5 raids I did (after the initial mawile one a friend of mine had me do to learn the ropes) If the stigma around CD moves also goes to machamp like it did with Tyranitar or gengar, that could negatively impact pass sales, despite it still being top tier offense wise, it wont be the 'quote unquote best' set out there.
I could see them doing similar to the breloom grass knot or Raid day and get maybe cross chop back as a fast move, but those still might also have a similar effect, after gengar day I noticed my raid chat didnt care about raiding the big purple ghost anymore.
Tyranitar wasn't affected by this for a couple of reasons. It still has a viable non-CD avenue as a premier dark type attacker. Metagross in contrast is sadly pretty much useless without Meteor Mash. While non-Lick/SC Gengar isn't exactly useless, it's pretty outclassed by legacy variants. Machamp would fall into a similar role - sure you could still have all the success with Dynamic Punch versions you have today but why bother if something better is made available?
With part of Tyranitar's rock move set being legacy, you need to keep rock parties and dark parties separate. This means there will always be a higher candy need than for Metagross, Gengar, or Machamp since the latter three for the most part only have one dominant use.
Gengar raids being less enticing - from my experience - has more to do with raids becoming easier and less about Shadow Claw and Lick being unobtainable. Gengar was always something of a fun solo for me since it could wipe my ~L30 team if I was careless with dodging. Now there's no skill to beating it.
Im not saying tyranitar was affected, but every so often the occasional "should I save this for smackdown" comment comes around here, a lot of communities seem to think tyranitar needs smackdown to be good, even though it isnt true. Im agreeing it wasnt affected, but people seem to think if X pokemon doesnt have its CD move, than its not good comparatively anymore, which isnt true. Ive had to routely remind some of the newer players (likely having overheard things about community day mon), and even a few older ones in my discord that what made tyranitar was its dark set, and I have seen multiple question on gamepress of very similar topic, they are differing effectiveness and thus different roles. Tyranitar's not the only ive heard this happen with, but its mostly what comes to mind, people in my, and some other communities seeming to think every community day move aside from dragonite and ampharos is like metagross. It might just be the exclusivity value that gives people the wrong impression
So gengar raids were always more about the challenge of doing them, and less about getting the move.
Partially. Some would argue Gengar was always easy which isn't entirely wrong, it has always been an easier solo. I remember it as being pretty dodge-reliant, though my Pokemon were much lower leveled than they are now. Even before factoring rebalances I could probably breeze through one now without worrying about dodges.
Keep in mind Shadow Claw went legacy in early 2017, well before TM's, trading, and event exclusive moves were a thing. It's hard to say there was no interest in getting a non-SC Gengar for actual use since that was the only option available for near 18 months, or however many months were between February 2017 and trading's implementation. No one really anticipated it getting Lick either, so until then if you didn't have someone willing to trade you Shadow Claw you had to make due with one of its other moves.
I guess people are missing one point on: why Swinub has CD.
5 February is Chinese New Year. And guess what, Year of the Pig.
Remember dog-themed event we had last year? Yup, coz now we still have Year of the Dog. So I guess Swinub CD is their way of celebrating new chinese year. And to be honest, Mamoswine was really awaited cause of awesome Ice dps. So if you think about it, it's not very strange of Niantic to give use awaited pig in shiny version on Year of the Pig.
Some people even expected it cause of pig-theme loading screen, but they were expecting event, not piggy CD.
So imho even with Swinub case being out of CD-scheme until now, Machop is highly unlikely to get CD.
