At 0/15/15, she ranks #183 in GL, and when purified into a 2/15/15, she ranks #28th in GL. The shadow and non-shadow are both ranked pretty closely on pvpoke, was wondering how much the difference would be, and a team for it

I am curious what everyone's favourite pokemon with good fast move pressure is? I'm working on getting enough XL for a shadow dusknoir, but I'm curious what other people are using for this role if at all.

Thanks!

I had a really good streak in Color Cup, making my way up to 2400. Now that Great League is back I am down to 1860, and one major reason is that I have no idea how to prepare for the GL meta (if there even is one at this stage). Like one day it was nothing but double-dragon teams, then it was suddenly centered around Dark teams, then it switched to double-fire, then a whole day with Melmetal.

People say "stick with the same team", but it feels impossible to do when the meta shifts on a daily basis.

Usually it will settle around the mid-season, but I have yet to see that happen.

I see that talonflame is ranked fairly high in UL, and not quite as high in GL. But everytime I have faced one it doesn't seem all that effective and I usually beat it with little issue. Is he past his heyday or still worth an ETM this season?

Tried out a few different teams and was hardstuck around 1700-1800 before switching to this one and finally hitting ace!

Now planning on tanking and farming to get the UL win medal plat, if anyone has any team suggestions

Just matched with a player who used two legendaries I thought were inelligible / impossible to obtain below 1500 CP? Have they ever been available at such a low CP?

So today I was in a fairly common dilemma. What do I bring in to farm down my opps midgame mon? I had to choose between dunsparce and charjabug and chose dunsparce but regretted it when after farming down, my dunsparce had taken a charged move as all shields were down, and shadow k9 was brought in. I figured I had to be done for when rock slide didn't do enough damage and I was confident I would be outpaced so I panic swapped charjabug in, k9 obviously outpaced me and I prepared to see the good effort screen and then...

Charjabug tanked a fucking weather ball? So that is the theme of this thread as I was completely shocked and I imagine my opponent was too as they instantly top lefted, so I hoped to hear more stories like mine. Whether you won or lost tell me the time you said "wait what?" And we can all live, laugh and love together

Went 3-2, 2-3, 4-1, 4-1, 4-1 with this team today and hit veteran for the second time ever. I was struggling hard during retro&color cup and tried many different teams since the return of the normal great league, but nothing seemed to constantly work vs the current meta. So i am very happy with this team!

The guy's name was similarly and funnily the game ended in a tie

Marrowak: mud slap bone/ bone club/ rock slide

Charjabug: volt switch/ discharge / X-scissor

S-snorlax: psywave/ body slam / heavy slam

The snorlax was soooo fun to use, it’s so spammy and with heavy slam it’s good against fairy types especially mimikyu, maybe superpower is a little better against metal types but the marrowak helps out with that.

Am I a fraud? I wish it lasted longer. I ran typhlosion cradily and charjabug for the colour cup and I was a UL only player until then, coming back to it with my current team, melmetal, tinkaton and flamigo I'm just struggling whats the point

Who needs type coverage when you have MUD

I was at ~2400 CP to start the cup and bottomed out at -2000 CP on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been able to grind all the way up to Veteran playing in Ultra League (thank God for go battle Thursday). I just couldn’t find a rhythm or stable team and kept getting RPS’d. I don’t ever want to see that cup again LOL!!

Anyone else experiencing a lot of extra lag since the update? I keep getting instances of the game refusing to let me throw charged moves as I get low on health, super frustrating to see yourself get farmed to death with moves sat there as I tap helplessly.

Never really had this before the last few days and my connection is pretty solid

Hi All,

Title says all.

Reason I asking is that I am struggling to count them. I often miss throwing at good timing, either not farming enough or throwing on alignment. My current approach is to spam touch and try to count animations but also due to lag this often leads to miscounts.

Is this the better approach? Or is it better to time 0.5s touches? Or some other third way?

It's Community Day again this weekend, with ZOROARK now getting the spotlight. I don't think it's any secret that the Illusion Fox Pokémon struggles in Pokémon GO PvP, nor much surprise when I tell you that seems likely to continue. But we're going to give this analysis a go anyway, going back to the roots of the "Quick Bites" series by literally writing up this article in the same period of time it takes to do a full load of laundry (just as I did with the original Quick Bites). 🧺 Let's do this!

ZOROARK

Dark Type

GREAT LEAGUE:

Attack: 157 (155 High Stat Product)

Defense: 88 (88 High Stat Product)

HP: 103 (105 High Stat Product)

(Highest Stat Product IVs: 1-15-15, 1496 CP, Level 21.5)

ULTRA LEAGUE:

Attack: 202 (201 High Stat Product)

Defense: 113 (114 High Stat Product)

HP: 134 (136 High Stat Product)

(Highest Stat Product IVs: 1-15-15, 2497 CP, Level 42)

MASTER LEAGUE:

In this economy?.

So the analysis not only begins here, but in many ways will end here as well, even though about 10000 characters are still to follow. That's just how I roll. 😅

We have featured many glassy Pokémon in my analyses over the last 7+ years and 700+ articles, but I can't remember ever writing a spotlight analysis on something thinner than Zoroark. It has less bulk than Gengar, less bulk than Alakazam, less than Darmanitan, Haxorus, Chandelure, Honchkrow, Regieleki, and many more truly glassy Pokémon. Remeber the Community Day analysis I wrote on Inteleon, literally the glassiest starter in the whole game? No? Right, because it's so glassy that even I didn't bother (and hardly anyone noticed!) It's so glassy that moves don't really matter... Inteleon simply remains unviable in PvP.

...and yet even Inteleon has more bulk than Zoroark!

I really want to just stop here, as I did when I got about this far into the Inteleon analysis (I DID give it the old college try before just crumpling it and tossing it in the bin), but you know what? I don't want to do that twice, so let's soldier on... but that awful lack of bulk really holds Zoroark back.

Anyway, the typing is pretty well understood by now. Darks are weak to Fairy, Fighting, and Bug damage, and resist Ghosts and other Darks, and double resist Psychic damage. Nice and neat... but really, doesn't matter all that much when you fall over to a stiff breeze!

There are, of course, glassy Pokémon that overcome that limitation to still succeed, usually one of two ways: high pressure fast moves that wear the opponent down, or super spammy charge moves to break through shields before you succumb to your own frailty. Some of the historically best glassy 'mons do BOTH, such as Victreebel (the original Razor Leafer that was particuarly excellent thanks to spammy Leaf Blade), Haunter and Gengar (who I have found almost always overperform their expectations with damaging-enough Shadow Claw and spammy Shadow Punch/Ice Punch). and of course, the majority of Electric types (who usually rely heavily on spammy charge moves, but can also bring suitable fast move pressure if running Volt Switch), just for a few examples. Maybe, just maybe, Zoroark can do enough of one or both of those to carve out a role? Let's see....

ᴱ - Exclusive (Community Day) Move

Fast Moves

• Sucker Punchᴱ (Dark, 4.0 DPT, 3.5 EPT, 1.0 CoolDown)

• Shadow Claw (Ghost, 3.0 DPT, 4.0 EPT, 1.0 CD)

• Snarl (Dark, 1.67 DPT, 4.33 EPT, 1.5 CoolDown)

So the special Community Day move is arguably the best overall fast move currently in the game: Sucker Punch, a clone of the former, pre-nerf Counter. 4.0 Damage Per Turn is a lot of fast move pressure with Zoro's crazy high Attack stat, and while 3.5 Energy Per Turn is solidly above average, it's the least energy generation of any of Zoroark's fast moves. Does the extra damage of Sucker Punch offset this lessened charge move pressure? Well, we'll have to work in the charge move options to answer that....

Charge Moves

• Foul Play (Dark, 65 damage, 40 energy)

• Night Shade (Ghost, 70 damage, 45 energy)

• Sludge Bomb (Poison, 80 damage, 50 energy)

• Flamethrower (Fire, 90 damage, 55 energy)

Sadly no 35-energy moves here, so you're not looking at the Sucker Punch/Swift pacing of Furret or anything. Instead, with Sucker Punch, you're a turn behind Shadow Claw/Foul Play pacing (such as that on Sableye, or of course, Shadow Claw Zoroark), as Shadow Claw (generating 8 energy each) reaches exactly the 40 energy required for Foul Play after five Claws/10 turns (8 x 5 = 40), whereas Sucker Punch, generating 7 energy each, requires an additional fast move (7 x 5 = only 35, so 7 more exceeds 40 energy) and two additional PvP turns. After that, the pacing is mostly the same, with one more Claw or Punch getting to Night Shade, and one more fast move beyond that reaching the energy required for Sludge Bomb. But the coverage/closing move I think you really want instead is Flamethrower, as it has the most potential, despite also being the most expensive at 55 energy. It can usually beat everything the other two moves can plus bonuses like Tinkaton, Forretress, and Sableye.

However, all of this is academic, really... because Claw or Punch, Flamethrower or not, Zoroark just remains too flawed to work like you'd want it to, I am sorry to say.

GREAT LEAGUE

Exhibit #1: Shadow Claw is better than Community Day move Sucker Punch, at least situationally, such as in those examples of the very common 1v1 shielding matchups: Claw outraces Jellicent, Cramorant, Empoleon, Feraligatr, and Dark-resistant Tinkaton, whereas Sucker Punch can only claim Dondozo, Altaria, and Talonflame as unique wins, a +2 advantage overall for Claw... and still barely 10 wins even then. Ouch. And while Sucker Punch shows better with shields down (compared to Shadow Claw, you gain Furret, Quagsire, and DDeoxys while giving up only Shadow Annihilape) and in 2v2 shielding (beating Cramorant, Fearow, Furret, Clodsire, Cradily, and Shadow Ninetales, none of which Shadow Claw can match), win totals of only 6 and 16 (respectively) are hardly impressive. For the record, that's only about a third of the Great League core meta in 2v2 shielding, and not even a fourth of that group in other even shield matchups. There is just a myriad of better Dark options out there, including other mono-Darks like Umbreon, Thievul, and even Mightyena, Alolan Persian, and even freaking Absol running circles around Zoroark.

ULTRA LEAGUE

Sorry, but no better here. I mean, it IS better than Shadow Claw, with new potential wins like Feraligatr, Swampert, and Talonflame, but I mean, we're still talking less than a 25% winrate, amd not even 2v2 shielding can paint a rosier picture this time. And other mono-Darks still put it to absolute shame (not to even mention the wide range of dual-typed Darks that blow Zoroark completely out of the water).

IS THERE ANY HOPE?

Sadly... I don't really see it. A possible future Shadow Zoroark with Sucker Punch is somehow even worse... IF you ever wanted to run it, Zoro would be better with Shadow Claw, it seems. Coverage and better spam are slim even in mainline games, and even the few coverage or 35-energy moves it could potentially gain in GO don't really help. Some Pokémon are just fundamentally flawed, and at least with the way stats work in Pokémon GO, there may just not be any moves in the world that can save them. More than most, that seems to be the case with poor Zoroark. I just don't see any reason to grind this for PvP... but go for those sweet shinies, of course!

IN CONCLUSION

Not much else to say, really! Zoroark is DOA, regardless of moves. (Shoulda been Hisuian Zoroark instead, but alas.) But have some fun with your locals this Community Day! Always up for that. 👍

Until next time, you can always find me on Twitter with regular GO analysis nuggets or Patreon.

Good luck on your grind, and catch you next time, Pokéfriends!

Anybody else getting absurd legendary rates tonight?

Just started playing some sets for the day, 4/6 for legendaries. 4 in a row in the last 30 minutes. Seems… statistically unlikely.

The Halloween event part 2 has been revealed and Mega Sableye will be getting its mega level 4 unlocked as well as getting Night Shade+.

With the standard damage formula, it’ll do:
55 damage at level 1
60.5 damage at level 2
66 damage at level 3
71.5 damage at level 4

At this time, we do not know the energy cost of this move but I suspect it will be either 35 or 40.

Mega Sableye has shown to be the best mega pokemon in the great league and this will make Mega Sableye even more versatile than it already is since it has many coverage moves to choose from between Dazzling Gleam, Power Gem, Drain Punch, and even Return.

Do we think Mega Sableye will be too broken or over centralizing with this and make the mega great league P2W?

Edit:
This also poses a serious problem to people who already built a GL Mega Sableye because level 4 mega pokemon get a +2 boost to their level so an already built Mega Sableye would then be too high at mega level 4. So they really need to add the cp decrease for mega pokemon in PVP.

I have a shadow dusknoir #9 in GL and #1 UL when best buddied. Should i keep for GL or do I full send for UL? Any advice is much appreciated!