With only 2 moves to play with, building your Pokemon GO best moveset takes a lot of extra thinking.
In the mainline Pokemon games, your Pokemon have access to four moves at once. Choosing your moves can be quite restricting when looking to make the best Pokemon. This choice becomes even harder in Pokemon GO.
Pick the Right Movesets for You
In competitive Pokemon, there are two main ways to approach movesets. Making use of Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) to deal huge amounts of damage (1.5x), or to have type coverage. Type coverage is when a Pokemon has moves that are super effective against different Pokemon types, not just the ones that STAB covers.
With only 2 moves to pick from, many of the best Pokemon Attackers ignore coverage and focus on double STAB. Your quick move should always be a STAB with decent DPS that builds charge fast. Highly rated attackers like Mewtwo, Kartana and Reshiram double up on their STABs to deal out consistent damage.
For example, a Generation 5 VGC Blaziken would use some of the following sets.
Set 1
- Flare Blitz (STAB)
- Sky Uppercut (STAB)
- Rock Slide (Coverage)
- Protect
Set 2
- Flare Blitz (STAB)
- High Jump Kick (STAB)
- Shadow Claw (Coverage)
- Protect
In both sets, each of Blaziken’s types (Fire / Fighting) are present. The fighting type move changes depending on whether you want to take 100% accuracy Sky Uppercut or a riskier but more powerful fighting type move High Jump Kick.
The moves marked “Coverage” are to hit Blaziken’s fighting type weaknesses (Flying / Psychic) for super effective damage. Rock Slide is for Flying types that would otherwise check Blaziken, Shadow Claw checks Psychic types.
Pokemon GO Best Moveset Practice
Practice and combine different move-sets to find what works best in all scenarios. There is plenty of resources online for all the best Movesets for each Pokemon and against each opponent, or try theorycrafting your own.
Credit: Pokemon GO
Some top-rated choices do split their coverage while retaining STAB, a privilege for dual-type Pokemon. Pheromosa for example has a Bug-type quick attack, but as Bug-type isn’t that strong offensively, Focus Blast is its charge move of choice.
The best moves depend on what type of Pokemon you want to make, and if you need it for raids, gyms or PVP. Coverage is quite important but in Pokemon GO, STAB is king.
Read next: Pokemon GO Type Chart – All Pokemon Types
This article was originally published here
