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PvP optimization

Now that the frenzy (plant) of the Community Weekend has died down, it's time to sit back and take a cool, calm look at the effects of CP capped leagues for PvP.

Which Pokemon will shine in this format. Clearly, some of the stronger legendaries will be excluded from the Great League (GL) because of the 1500 CP cap. But I don't think that will matter.

What does matter, in my mind, are three things:

Resistances: The best resistances make for the best defense. This isn't capped by league, but by the game rules. Looks like Steel will finally have its day in the sun (or the snow, if you like).

Quality of moves: Shadow Ball >> Shadow Sneak, and so forth. Pokemon with strong moves will do better at the same CP. It's easy to scan the moves to see which are best and which pokemon have those moves.

These two make Metagross look like a big winner - one of the best moves in the game (Meteor Mash) and the multiple resistances of Steel and Psychic. Hope you all got yourselves set up with a couple of CP 1500 and CP 2500 Meteor Mashers. (Given the importance of Meteor Mash to the meta, it seems possible that Niantic will have to make it available somewhat often. Maybe another 'everyone' CD in six months, we'll see.)

Finally, stat shape: We don't know if defense will be better, attack, or stamina, or two of those three. Maybe Aggron will finally have a chance to shine - doesn't do well in DPS, but can take a lot of damage between the defense, stamina, and resistances (as long as they aren't attacking with Ground or Fighting). Or maybe the glass cannons will continue their run at the top. We won't know the answer to this until the mechanics of PvP come out.

So which unsung pokemon will be the heroes of capped PvP? Haunter? Scizor? Magnemite? Kingdra? Share your opinions so we all can get a jump on what to catch to get ready. And what CP ranges will land you just below or at CP 1500 and/or CP 2500?

(Obviously, Meteor Mash Metagross will be good. Don't bother starting with that one - everyone knows it.)

My first bet, not quite out yet, but coming to a community day near you in January (very probably). Feraligatr with Waterfall and Hydro Cannon. Decent typing, strong moves, and a good stat shape to crush things not weak to water.

Asked by aeronaut635 years 4 months ago

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To add to the already good list of points you make, I'd also add that the functionality of different moves will be important as well. Up until this point, all we've really cared about are the moves that have the highest DPS against what we're fighting against. PvP will bring a new element in that the opponents we fight will also be able to dodge (something raid bosses and gym defenders cannot do). Thus, move durations and damage windows will likely be important factors in PvP, potentially favoring moves that are hard to dodge with shorter durations over the stronger but easier to dodge counterparts.

There's other considerations to be made as well such as favoring Mons with two or three-bar charge moves over single-bar moves, or choosing between moves with STAB vs moves that provide counter-coverage.

I've been crunching numbers with some friends of mine, and it's interesting to get ideas for which Mons are likely to perform well in the lower of the three tiers. On that note, since you mentioned it in your post, I think Kingra has some excellent potential in the 1500 and 2500 tiers.

I was just going to mention this. I think for instance moves like Stone Edge will excell, as they are so hard to dodge. Even the shitty Thunder. On the other hand, favourites like Shadow Ball are very predictable and most trainers are already trained in dodging them.

I also think some of the multi-bar moves with quick durations will be potential all-stars as well. Dragon Claw, Body Slam, Play Rough, Hydro Cannon, Sky Attack, and company are all tricky to dodge and can be used pretty frequently.

Also, I completely agree with you that, moves like Hyper Beam, Outrage, Solar Beam, Overheat, Shadow Ball, and Earthquake are easy to dodge, so I doubt they'll have as big of an impact on the format. I'd rather get off a weaker move that my opponent is unlikely to dodge rather than a strong move that will likely get dodged and have 75% of it's damage mitigated.

All this said, there's no dodging in the new battle format. Just a shield that blocks a charged attack (presumably for a short while). So this will be different, but the shield will still require good timing.

I absolutely agree with BlameScott's point. The speed at which the move hits matters. Against a neutral foe, it's clearly better to do 100 points base damage with Stone Edge (an attack that doesn't do a lot of damage for a 1 bar move, but hits very fast) as opposed to 45 points base damage with a dodged Solar Beam (largest damage attack in the game, but hits slowly).

And to do that dodging, one needs a fast attack that permits dodging. Here is where Lick clearly outshines Shadow Claw, for example. And while Confusion hits like a truck, it's also slow and allows the opponent to get a charged attack in pretty easily.

So, given that, moves like Brave Bird, Stone Edge, and Thunder might finally show their strengths.

I'm sure there's other dimensions that will open up new areas to explore in the game.

Another point to consider is how the nature of the defender is changed in a gym. Unless I missed a change here, a gym defenders stamina is doubled, by he attacks only half as often.Thus he is weak, but bulky. Compared to that opponents in PvP can be expected to have the same behavior as your own attacker. They will be like glass cannon defenders in many regards. This should make weak, but fast moves more useful. Shadow Punch might turn out to be a better choice than Shadow Ball in the end.

I understand Dr. T's point, but I disagree with his particular example. For the Ghost charged moves, there's Shadow Ball, and then everything else. Any other Ghost move only does about half as much DPS*DPE as Shadow Ball.

Two and three bar moves will retain their advantage of continuing to store energy; further it will become even more important when one has to dodge a lot. Making absolutely sure you can dodge that potent Solar Beam might mean accumulating a lot of energy in small amounts.

Further, against a foe that is dodging, a three bar move gives one the option of hoarding energy, and then quickly firing off two charged moves in rapid succession, making it more difficult to dodge both.

I also look forward to facing defenders that have their regular stats, not doubled HP and nerfed attacks. I think people will be surprised at how fast Blissey goes down without the doubled HP. It won't be instant, but fighting Blissey in PvP will seem a lot faster than fighting Blissey in a gym.

Another big winner from all this - Breloom. Already slightly better DPS than Machamp, and now can gain either Sludge Bomb (so-so) or Seed Bomb (pretty solid plant damage with 3 bar speed).

I think people may be disappointed with <1500cp metagross. To hit that CP the metagross will have to be around level 15, a CPM of around .5 versus .73 for level 30. That is almost 1/3 less defense and less attack. So, a 257 base attack stat becomes 169. At that, registeel's 143 base attack stat doesn't look so shabby, especially when you consider that registeel will have much higher defense in this scenario. Or maybe steelix, which is strictly better than registeel, using heavy slam would get the job done.

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