Unfortunately, the movesets have no uses in raids whatsoever. (Except for Ice Beam, which is only useful against DOUBLY WEAK bosses) I mean, look. Would you invest rare candy into a legendary that even Flareon can outpace? If you really want to play by the weather just get yourself a team of Moltres and some Raikou. Not saying your opinion is straight up wrong, but just that there's more optimal things than JUST Mewtwo. Shadow Ball Mewtwo is quite common among the playerbase, so it will continue to be the 2nd best generalist in the game. The other movesets however.... won't.
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Mewtwo
I love how everone got super TO'd when shadow ball was confermed to be no longer obtainable, and then Niantic hits us with 3 moves that are debatably better than shadow ball. The main handy cap of shadow ball was also its main draw, high neutral dps (note the key word, 'neutral'). While high neutral DPS is good, it does not come without draw backs, most raid bosses arent weak to ghost, yes theres alakazam gengar, mewtwo itself, Deoxys and 5 gen IV legendaries are weak to that, we have no idea when the assorted gen IV legendaries will be out and Deoxys quite frankly is a joke of a raid boss from its moves you could probably throw murkrow at it and they'd win (i'm exaggerating of course), and alakazam is, as my friends put it, "Mewtwo light" and gengar is not in current rotation. Against those shadow ball is the best set, but outside of those raids, shadow ball likely wont be seeing much use. Reason being that the new moves have super effectiveness as well as more likely to be weather boosted. These three sets are now some of the better counters to teir threes and legendaries adding more options for solos and trios. Thats not to say shadow ball's obsolete now, its still got great DPS and does hit these newer mewtwo very hard, but it seems like for greater usage of mewtwo in raids, these three newer sets will be more prevalent simply because they have type effectiveness that is far more common
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Rare candy on mewtwo? Why would anyone do that right now? with al the catch candy rare candying a mewtwo its completely useless
And considering that dragons flying types, and ground types like Donphan (and when Garchomp comes is goign to be everwhere for show off reasons) are common gym defenders, ice hits those harder than shadow ball, thunderbolt does the same with water and flying types (like gyarados) plus Tyranitar's also there on occasion Yes zapdos and raikou are better, but those cost a lot of RC, all these mewtwo can easily be powered up with just the catch candy and trade candy from these raids without the need to spend RC. Ice beam will destroy rayquaza, and thunderbolt makes it the third best coutner to kyogre plus against Suicune it resists extrasensory (in addition to not needing rare candy to power it up any more giving it a sizable advantage over people who didnt mass raid zapdos and the level 15 raikou from research for players that didnt have them prior)
Wait, what?
"Rare candy on mewtwo? Why would anyone do that right now? with al the catch candy rare candying a mewtwo its completely useless"
"Yes zapdos and raikou are better, but those cost a lot of RC"
By your very logic, Zapdos should also cost zero rare candy to power up. Zapdos was available for a week after Go Fest 2017, then available with the other birds for a whole month. Then it was brought back as a research breakthrough for a month. Then it was available as a raid boss at every gym everywhere for 3hrs on Zapdos Day. Then it came back with the other 3 birds again for a week as part of the Ultra Reward with extended raid timers. So by your logic, given how many times Zapdos has come back, it should cost absolutely zero rare candies.
The truth, however, is that not everyone raids every day. Or maybe they do, but only use free passes. Not everyone has a 100% catch rate either. Most don't have close to that. I know a several people doing their first Mewtwo raids ever this last week only to have most or all of them run. Not everyone has ultra friends with a scad of legendaries they're willing to part with for distance trades. Players who raid hard probably won't need to invest any rare candies into Mewtwo, and probably never really needed to spend rare candies on any legendary they wanted to power up. Those who don't play as heavily, however, will need to spend rare candies on Mewtwo, despite it being available for a month.
Mewtwo went from a top generalist to a Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none specialist. With the new moves Mewtwo is the top ice attacker until Mamoswine is released. Mewtwo is a top electric attacker but is of course outclassed by Zapdos and Raikou (and possibly Magnezone and Electrivire) who get STAB. Mewtwo is also a top fire attacker but again, is outclassed by Fire-type legendaries with STAB. Granted, getting a bunch of weather-boosted, high-iv Mewtwo with the various moves are a cheap investment for future raids. I’ll probably use Mewtwo with Ice Beam whenever Rayquaza comes back, that way I don’t have to power up an Articuno.
After this month, I dont think anyones ever going to need to spend rare candy on a mewtwo again
Assuming you do just one mewtwo raid daily, and trade for 3 candies, thats over 240 candy considering most people will likely be doing a heck of a lot more than 1 per day, I think rarecandy wont be used on mewtwo soon.
"most people will likely be doing a heck of a lot more than 1 per day"
Certainly not "most people". A lot will, but not most. Because "most people" have jobs and real life requirements. A lot of people can raid several days a week (and do 1-2 raids maximum those days), but certainly not "most people" can raid every day for a full month.
That being said, I can mitigate that by saying it may happen more in large cities when you just have to show up at whatever raid is close to your home/workplace, do the raid and move on. No organisation, no long transportation needed. But that's not the situation of "most people" and even in large cities I doubt most people will raid 7 days a week.
I still like SB Mewtwo in that it hits psychic type pokemon for huge damage and resists their attacks. It will always have a place.
I don't think the new attacks add anything people don't already have. Most of us have top electric and fire attackers, and ice isn't that useful compared to Mewtwos other movesets...psychic and focus blast. Mewtwo is hands down the best psychic attack and Mewtwo with focus blast is a great gym sweep as most of the major gym defenders are weak to fighting.
I would personally invest in a legendary with dual fire and electric attacks over a Mewtwo. My 100% Lapras can hold the fort down until gen 4.
Shadow Ball Mewtwo has been and likely will continue to be a top-tier raid generalist, a top specialist against psychic and ghost types, and a powerful gym sweeper against not-normal-types. It really is quite good and versatile, and likely won't have much competition for it's niche from Gen 4. Sure, you can say that it gets beat out for neutral DPS by Rayquaza and that generalists aren't as meta relavent as they used to be. You'd be correct on both of those points. But let's look at Mewtwo's new moves.
Flamethrower: there is no place for a Mewtwo with this move, as there are several fire-types that currently outclass it as a fire-specialist. Honestly, you'd be better off powering up a BB Charizard or an OH Flareon. Beyond that, it's far too weak as a generalist move.
Thunderbolt: Mewtwo with this move currently lags behind both Zapdos and Raikou, so they're better investments for someone who wants to throw rare candy at an electric Mon. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I imagine TB Mewtwo likely performs around the range of Jolteon, which is not where Mewtwo wants to be.
Ice Beam: this is the only one of Mewtwo's new moves that's worth considering, as it places him at the top spot for ice-type DPS. That said, he's likely going to get dethroned by Mamoswine, and potentially Weavile and Glacion as well (depending on moves). Still, if Ray Ray comes back before Gen 4 drops, Ice Beam Mewtwo will be the top counter.
TL;DR: not one of these new moves offers the versatility or raw power of Shadow Ball. Ice Beam is the only one I'd consider having any use.
This was a comparison of mewtwo with these moves to shadow ball and shadow ball mewtwo only, *not* these moves to other pokemon of those types. Going back to that, would you say a mewtwo with shadow ball would do more damage to kyogre than a thunderbolt mewtwo, or a groudon or rayquaza with an ice beam one? No, these moves are better against those legendaries than a shadow ball mewtwo, that was what I was trying to say, not "how does it compare to others of those types"
About thunderbolt your point is about rarecandy, but considering its 5 candy per catch and candy for those other 2 arent able to be caught, mewtwo doesnt need the rare candy, already did a rough calculation for 30 days with max distance trades and its 240 candy at minimum for one raid daily (we all know people are going to do more than 1 daily). I dont think anyone'd spend rarecandy on a mewtwo at the moment.
We also dont know when get 4 is coming or if those pokemon will get good moves
Why are you even comparing Mewtwo's moveset among each other against 1 specific enemy? This is like comparing apples and oranges. When people make comparison, they get mons with the same SE moveset against the same enemy. Nobody in their right mind will use a SB M2 against Kyogre. People will use SE mons like Raikou, Zapdos or even Jolteon. So we compare these SE mons with TB M2 and sadly, lots of people don't think TB M2 will outclass these mons. Same with FT M2.
Your logic seems a bit flawed here. Comparing, for instance, TB Mewtwo to SB Mewtwo without taking into consideration the competition from other specialists is pointless. As a specialist, SB Mewtwo has competition only from Gengar with legacy SC, and even then, SB Mewtwo has significantly higher TDO. TB Mewtwo is entirely outclassed by both Raikou and Zapdos against, say, Kyogre, and has similar DPS to Jolteon.
Of course TB Mewtwo will deal more damage to a Kyogre than SB Mewtwo. By that same approach, SB Mewtwo does more damage to Alakazam, Gengar, and Mewtwo itself than one with TB. That's not the point though. SB Mewtwo, apart from being a strong generalist (which TB, FT, and IB Mewtwo are not), has a valuable niche with almost no competition. TB Mewtwo does have completion for it's niche, and serious competition at that. FT Mewtwo is borderline worthless. IB Mewtwo is the only one with reasonable use, for now.
Your assumptions are faulty:
1) 100% catch rate? This isn't a shiny.
2) 100km+ trade distance
3) Competing coin priorities (incubators anyone?)
4) Ability to raid. Even serious players may not be able to do a 5* daily, because life. Enjoy your time at college, because you'll never have as much free time again, ever.
I think he/she meant "raid one T5 raid per day".
Didn't do enough Mewtwo raids for my numbers to be relevant, but I always needed 8+ balls (pinap for the first 3-4 then GRB, great curved throw every time) to catch Mewtwo... when it doesn't run. Even in EX raids. And It's even worse with weather boost.
Will Ice Beam Seaking do more damage to Rayquaza than Water Pulse Seaking or Megahorn Seaking? Yes. With that in mind, will you use Seaking in a Rayquaza raid? I don't think so.
Just saying that comparing moves of a pokémon against one another without factoring in competition from other pokémon doesn't make sense when you are looking for good counters against an enemy. You want the 6-12 best combinations of pokémon+moves+IVs that you have or can have given your resources, period. Only exception being if you really really like the pokémon and really enjoy using it in battles, then if it's fun by all means go ahead. I just hope for you Seaking is not your favourite pokémon.
Just repeating what everybody else has already said, none of the new moves even comes near challenging Shadow Ball as Mewtwo's best charge move. IB is the only one that puts it above STAB attackers but Ghost is a more relevant attacking type than Ice, and isn't at risk of getting outclassed by a gen 4 non-legendary. Considering gen 4 legendaries, none is weak to ice, 5 are weak to ghost. And on top of that, of course, we have the second highest neutral DPS in the game.
2 gen 4 legendaries are weak to ice Giratina (yes it is weak to ghost, but it is still weak to ice) and shaymin, depending on how its alternate form works and if its in raids, thats effectively a third. Ghost does have wider coverage, but youre still wrong about none beign weak to ice.
Theres also the glaring thing of Rayquaza being double weak to ice (not gen 4 but still will return to raids at some point and we dont know when gen 4 comes out or if mamoswine will get any good moves)
I admit I forgot Giratina's weakness to ice since it's fairly irrelevant, Dragon, Ghost and Dark will be far better counters to it. Shaymin is a mythical with Mew stats so highly unlikely to become a raid boss.
Rayquaza's rerun is going to happen at some point for sure, but that's still only one raid boss against which Ice is particularly useful. Like I said, Ghost just has far more coverage of relevant targets.
Do I really need to say this? The moves have different types and SE is a big deal. It's painfully obvious that there are cases where the new moves are better. Your post comes off as arguing that Shadow Ball isn't as valuable as the new moves and there you are quite simply wrong. Shadow Ball is and will continue to be more valuable as Mewtwo's charge move than any of the new moves.
Deoxys is not a Mew base stat clone. Celebi is, and it came out as a special research mon just like Mew. Based on current observations, the safe assumption is that any mythical with even base stats of 100 in each stat in the main series is a special research mon that can't be traded or transferred.
