Smack Down VS Bite for PVP
Just hatched a 100% Larvitar, and considering making him a dark-type attacker/Master league 'mon to compliment my Lugia. However, I was wondering; which is better for the PVP Masters meta: Bite or Smack Down? Not sure if I want to save this guy for the return of Smack Down in... a year hopefully.
Answers
More importantly, Bite Tyranitar will be very useful this year, for Deoxys, the lake trio and Giratina-O. Even if SD does return, saving a perfect Larvitar for so long is a huge waste.
(Of course, we do not know how many Tyranitars the OP already has and their local meta, including access to Tyranitar raids.)
I'd honestly take bite, it hits mewtwo harder, same for giratina and latios. Smack down is also a much slower attack than bite, bite allowing you to quickly charge moves to shieldbreak or just spam crunch.
But thats just PvP, smack down as a fast move gets a bit overhyped, as in to the point of making people think a tyranitar without is worthless, when bite is not only the set that made tyranitar, but its also the most widely useful, hitting many, many legendaries for super effective damage in raids across all gens, being one of the most worthwhile pokemon to invest in, while rock is also top tier, it match ups are far fewer. Smack down's not bad, quite the opposite, just gets overhyped sometimes
Smack down generates energy at a rate of 2.67 per turn, Bite does this at a rate of 2 energy per turn.
I don’t know where you get your numbers but you are very wrong most of the time. As I want every one to learn. Here are the spreadsheets for fast move damage and energy per turn and as a bonus, I give you the charge move DPE spreadsheet aswell.
Fast:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TBUP9yFULM8yc6ZJHnbkX2A9IhJRtJVcLP8-xXDosyQ/htmlview
Charge:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A3MfMtnSUQOsK5KDulOmflDMWKwjcivJefMiHYao6ys/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true
Many people just look at DPS spreadsheets and conclude that B/Cr Tyranitar is worthless compared to the likes of Weavile and upcoming Darkrai. Those are also the ones that do not understand how important it is consistent DPS over time with tankier Pokémon and spammable charge moves. For example, Foul Play is awesome on paper, but its energy cost is astronomical compared to Crunch, and Ttar can get hit a lot to charge it quickly.
Bite does a lot of damage, 4.8/turn with STAB, Smack Down a bit less at 4.0/turn, but Smack down generates 2.67 energy/turn (fairly low) vs. Bite which generates 2.0 energy/turn. So, as was said above, it's about the matchups. Presumably you plan on buying both Stone Edge and Crunch. Unless you have a wayback machine, I think Bite is your only option for now, and it isn't a terrible one.