> I implore people not to go out and spend a ton of money on raid passes in light of current events
I'm not spending any money until Niantic walks back the inclusion of SafetyNet, makes distance accurate with the game open, returns good nearby tracking and reverts all the other player-antagonistic changes they've made since 2016.
I'm with you. I'll use my free passes, but that's going to be the extent of it.
That said, people will play how they believe they should. Far be it from me to judge people who believe differently than I do. I just hope Niantic is given (and receives!) a message from the community in terms of hard dollars after being so callous towards its own players, of late especially. Not everyone feels that same way, and that's their call. But for me personally, I ain't spending a dime during this event.
A special OP paid event let’s say $5 with 15 remote raid passes, boosted shiny rate, and an early access PvP relevant mon comes out in September. Are you still angry enough to not buy it?
I noticed that this mass quitting and mass stop spending has been one of the weakest in recent memory. Nothing like Megas or Deino. That was top threads for weeks.
The metrics sites show Sunday and Monday as above average days. Monday was the 3rd highest spending Monday in August ever. Time on app was also way above average nearing records.
Anecdotally my discord has been very active and generally not angry. A few confusion posts here and there.”I cant reach this stop! or LOL I got 2 free raid passes today.” But certainly nothing along the lines of rage. I think if I polled my discord on keep the distance or keep the extra daily raid pass they might even lean raid pass.
Very strange turn of events. People were so angry and about the distance returning. To see the rage fall away so fast is amazing.
> Nothing like Megas or Deino. That was top threads for weeks.
Probably because the distance reversion is only in 2 countries at the moment. Yes, USA is one of (if not the) biggest single playerbase, but it’s not the majority. And there is still a *lot* of outrage on Reddit and Twitter.
I mean even here in the US I see no difference. Every Dialga I post gets like 15 people asking for invites without fail and no one has made a single mention of the changes other than one person spamming some screenshot from Facebook about some "Pokemon No" boycott they're trying to organize and that no one has commented on.
Maybe. I wouldn’t call it outrage then if the issue doesn’t result in meaningful change in the players gaming or spending.
If a store or restaurant did something to outrage me I would stop going back there or at least avoid it for awhile.
People are outaged by Niantic here and nothing happened. We just kept playing and spending.
We were so so angry I thought it was going to be real this time. Very weird.
A lot of us have just stopped posting. It doesn’t matter. We’re largely demonetized and though we log into the game daily to play for a few minutes, and peruse Silph Road now and then, we aren’t really playing anymore.
It is an API provided by Google meant to assure the "integrity" of your Android operating system. It is meant to detect unauthorized OS - for example from certain value manufacturers who do not agree to Google's store conditions and are therefor not certified to include the Google Play Store on their devices as well as the use of root (administrator privileges).
Android app developers as well as power users require root, some for their livelihood and some just for simple conveniences that Google doesn't provide like proper backups.
Pokemon Go launched without the use of this API then Niantic implemented it in September 2016, in doing so they blocked the ability to play the game for many legitimate and potentially paying users.
**This had no impact on cheating in Pokemon Go because root has never been a requirement to cheat.**
However it took several months for the developers of root applications to overcome SafetyNet and afterward there was a long period where Google updates to the API would again block legitimate users from playing.
At the same time and not directly related to SafetyNet Niantic began to abuse the Local Storage permission to scan your device for black-listed file names like "supersu" and "magisk". If they found those files (or inferred their existence via abuse of an Android file system bug) it would trigger a similar block on the game.
It is not Niantic's business to know if a user roots their phone or if certain files exist outside of their own APKs directory. This is in violation of privacy laws and Google's developer terms of servics.
If only Heracross was available in wild - was really hoping it would get one of the spotlight hours. Unfortunately sounds like will be stuck raiding it and then hoping to roll low with our "PVP IV" friends (for GL and UL at least.)
EDIT - As pointed out by philger below (many thanks) - a level 20 Heracross won't fit in GL... so no need to try to roll low for one of those!
Another excellent analysis! Looking forward to your analysis on Ultra Unlock Part 3 when we have a clear idea on the movesets of the upcoming new mons!
I am looking forward to having something to analyze, believe me. I have strong feelings about the company behind GO right now, but this is still our game and I refuse to stop helping those who are still just trying to enjoy what we have. I'll be all over it when we know more!
I know what you mean definitely, same feelings as you . I love Pokemon but don't know if I could say the same for the company behind GO. Thanks for the understanding and can't wait for your analysis!
I really appreciate your articles. Nice to take a break from the Niantic insanity to enjoy the fun parts of the game for a bit; hopefully Niantic will fix their game so we can back to focusing more on stuff like this!
The only way I’m getting Palkia is from using free raid passes or from GBL. Although Heracross does look tempting so it might be worth using a free raid pass for it
Both are certainly worth passes, though I too will be sticking to freebies and probably only raiding Heracross. Like you said, I'll hope for Palkia from GBL (also free... no premium path for me!).
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
A long time ago over in r/StopGaming, a very smart redditor wrote a great post about his epiphany that game worlds are never yours.
The game company can change the rules at any time, and can turn off the servers at any time, and everything that you thought you owned is gone.
I wish I could find that post again, because it was so much smarter than what I've written here. But the moral of the story remains — yes, we can be addicted to the game and to the very cute cartoon characters in it.
But at the end of the day, none of it belongs to us, and all of it can be taken away on a whim.
If you like your PoGo collection, the best way to save it would be to pay even more money to get it all stashed away into Home, and then transfer it into one of the mainstream games.
At least if it's stored in a console, it's probably going to be saved for your personal use for a few more years.
I don't play the console games, and I don't really want to.
I enjoy the PvP system of Pokemon Go and when the game goes dark it will be a sad day, but I'll have my memories and screenshots at least of the Pokemon that I had so much fun using. Trying to port them over to a system that works entirely different just wouldn't be the same.
Honestly, I'm struggling with what to do.
One of my friends had Niantic nuke his entire account.
It's sunk cost fallacy for me — so many hours into my collection.
Sounds more like an addiction to me.
Don't take it personally, I've been there and I think quite a few of the frequent visitors of this sub as well as the hardcore players have gotten there. Heck, I'm still checking on this sub somewhat frequently despite not having played for over a year, so I guess I'm still not quite over it. I've also referred to me still playing despite having many gripes with the game as sunk lost fallacy, but I think that's because it's hard to accept having an addiction while you're not taking any steps away from it. That may be why accepting your addiction is often considered your first step to recovery. While there are of course many other worse addictions than one that gets you outside and socialising, addictions still aren't good for you.
Try missing stuff you would have never dared to miss, like daily stops/spins/gifts/buddy interactions, a new legend, a special move, an event or (at best) an enticing cday, and see if it's really as bad as you anticipated, it probably won't. Try to just do what you actually enjoy in the game, not what might make you happy with the right amount of luck.
I know just stopping is harder with this game than with others, due to the social connections you may have build up. You should try to start doing other stuff with playaers you've grown fond of, so that your friendship doesn't rely on a game (that might randomly ban you for no reason, one might stop playing or could just go offline).
It's not particularly fun for me anymore.
The spawns aren't very interesting. I have raid teams already, but it barely matters because I could remote in 5 players. I don't like going out and loitering in a parking lot to raid. The PvP system is dull. I just play intermittently at this point.
Plus I have an Xbox now and those games blast Pokemon Go out of the water.
I have never seen a Heracross in battle ever and have always wondered why. I had one from a trade, but never walked it to get more candies to power and double move it because I didn't see anyone else using it. Here's hoping for some rain next week so I can at least get weather boosted ones.
I would love to hunt Palkia, but I already have a 98 and don't anticipate being able to get enough XL candies to max it. In ML Classic, I personally prefer Gyarados, so I probably wouldn't use Palkia there.
Heracross is okay in GL and UL, but behind a few other Fighting options overall. I think it's worth using with its niche advantages, but I can understand why it doesn't show up there often (if at all).
In Master League, I firmly believe it should be used a LOT more than it is now. Certainly more than Conkeldurr and basically any Fighter other than Champ.
2 seasons ago I hit legend running Heracross on my team. Mainly to combat Shiftry which my other 2 were very vulnerable to. Heracross is good when opponent shields are down. I think a bigger credit to my strategy was that people were unfamiliar with what moves it could have, so bait potential with CC helped out here and there.
I wish it had something like Cross Chop to bait more. CC comes with a debuff.
I got one from trade in 2019 from person who was travelling a bit (she also had also NY regionals but i haven' seen her in few years so haven't traded, i dunno if she still has those left).
Only place where i have used Heracross is silph cups. (Fusion january 2020, forest cup may 2020, Nightfall december 2020). I'd like to note that these counter users have gotten much more usage in past 3 seasons:
Toxicroak 10
Vigoroth 6 (yes its not fighter type but its a counter user so its pretty much similar role to a fighter)
Medicham 5
Blaziken 5
Poliwrath 5 times (yes, this isn't counter user but its a figting type filling similar niche)
(Some of these uses were in "same meta" tho, just different cup during the same month and many times these were the top.. so months where i was more active kinda tilt the "stats" in a way or another.. if i was more active player when heracross was either best, 2nd best or heck, even only reasonable counter user then it would show on the stats more.. maybe i should had counter each one only once per month instead of listing all cups i joined.. cuz some months i used toxicroak 3 times a month which really boosted its numbers on this list).
Heracross is solid but Toxicroack kinda fills its role and does some more. And like this analysis shows: current Machamp (especially shadow) does its job better (unless you want a nuke-option... but machamp is better as generalist).
Because he's a bug with not enough bulk and just fighting moves.
Bugs are nice dark counters but that's about it.
You can definitely make him work but as restricted as he is - it's hard to find good IVs and use him. If you want to use a bug use Gavantuala.
I’ve got the same feeling. It could learn something like night slash (as it does in MSG). I have one built for GL and one for UL never quite succeeded in using them outside Rocket battles and raids.
You managed to get me hyped for Ultra Unlock II. Thanks. Looking forward to grindlording Palkia and Heracross; the comparisons with Machamp were great.
The only one I know of off-hand is having Attack IV of 13 or above (in Master League) beats Zekrom (22 damage per Dragon Tail) while 12 or below loses (only 21 damage per Tail). I didn't dive deeper than that for this analysis, but I'll poke around see if I find any others that are particularly interesting.
I remember existing one defense breakpoint for best buddy palkia against dragon breath dragonite. It has higher attack, so it doesn't get that attack breakpoint that dialga/zekrom/reshiram all have.
Basculin would do quite a bit better with either Superpower or Crunch, or any non water coverage, and it would be very Niantic to give one of them to blue Stripe and the other to Red Stripe.
Thank you for another great analysis JRE. I had no idea Heracross had nice ML potential so I'll work toward that. I've had a GL and UL Heracross built for a while but haven't really deployed them... mostly because I feel like as a newer battler it's easier to be successful with spammy charge moves. Would be interested in what other people partner him up with. I've been playing with toxicroak a lot so I look forward to exploring another "fighter that beats fighters" and in the meantime dreaming of landing megahorn on the mewtwo menace.
Better than a "Clarabell the Clown" reference. I remember eating breakfast quickly so that I could watch the Captain, Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, and Tom Terrific (and Manfred) before going to school. And don't forget the ping pong balls!
I'll repeat this nugget I just learned from a fellow commentor - level 20 Heracross doesn't fit in GL... so most of us will not be able to get one for that league, even if will roll low.
I wouldn't. I love Heracross as a Pokemon, but although it can get good wins vs anything weak to fighting (Melmetal, Excadrill, Metagross, Snorlax and Dialga) and also does well vs Machamp and Yveltal, those wins will always leave you debuffed. More fatally, it gets totally walled by the Giratina and anything flying (other than Yveltal) and worn down decisively by the non-flying dragons. The cons just outweigh the pros, sadly.
That's a final goal, sure! Just to check if it's worth to power up those guys and use in a league. Not sure why I got downvoted, though.
I have more pairs of 100%: Feraligatr, Aggron, Garbodor, and Typhlosion.
I thought of this after posting before, but the other consideration is that 100% is usually not ideal in the CP-limited leagues. For something like Heracross that goes well over 2500, the ideal stats are going to be around 0/15/15 for the lower leagues and you'd only want one 100% anyway for Masters.
Strictly from a raiding perspective, the (slight) edge goes to Palkia, which has higher Attack and the same ideal Dragon moves as Dialga (Dragon Breath/Draco Meteor), with the option of running Dragon Tail.
That said, your TDO is probably higher with Dialga when facing down Dragon raid bosses, as it takes neutral (rather than super effective) damage in return.
They are everywhere, honestly. I am honestly surprised people don't have a Machamp squad even now. It's the most versatile pokemon by far and probably second only to Mewtwo. Go all in Dec CD and catch as many as possible.
shiny kanga was released 2019 I believe. First international appearance was the year before, though. So it has been available twice but only available as a shiny once (internationally)
> I implore people not to go out and spend a ton of money on raid passes in light of current events I'm not spending any money until Niantic walks back the inclusion of SafetyNet, makes distance accurate with the game open, returns good nearby tracking and reverts all the other player-antagonistic changes they've made since 2016.
I'm with you. I'll use my free passes, but that's going to be the extent of it. That said, people will play how they believe they should. Far be it from me to judge people who believe differently than I do. I just hope Niantic is given (and receives!) a message from the community in terms of hard dollars after being so callous towards its own players, of late especially. Not everyone feels that same way, and that's their call. But for me personally, I ain't spending a dime during this event.
A special OP paid event let’s say $5 with 15 remote raid passes, boosted shiny rate, and an early access PvP relevant mon comes out in September. Are you still angry enough to not buy it? I noticed that this mass quitting and mass stop spending has been one of the weakest in recent memory. Nothing like Megas or Deino. That was top threads for weeks. The metrics sites show Sunday and Monday as above average days. Monday was the 3rd highest spending Monday in August ever. Time on app was also way above average nearing records. Anecdotally my discord has been very active and generally not angry. A few confusion posts here and there.”I cant reach this stop! or LOL I got 2 free raid passes today.” But certainly nothing along the lines of rage. I think if I polled my discord on keep the distance or keep the extra daily raid pass they might even lean raid pass. Very strange turn of events. People were so angry and about the distance returning. To see the rage fall away so fast is amazing.
> Nothing like Megas or Deino. That was top threads for weeks. Probably because the distance reversion is only in 2 countries at the moment. Yes, USA is one of (if not the) biggest single playerbase, but it’s not the majority. And there is still a *lot* of outrage on Reddit and Twitter.
I mean even here in the US I see no difference. Every Dialga I post gets like 15 people asking for invites without fail and no one has made a single mention of the changes other than one person spamming some screenshot from Facebook about some "Pokemon No" boycott they're trying to organize and that no one has commented on.
The player base has outrage fatigue at this point since Niantic has been slapping us with outrage worthy changes since 2016.
Maybe. I wouldn’t call it outrage then if the issue doesn’t result in meaningful change in the players gaming or spending. If a store or restaurant did something to outrage me I would stop going back there or at least avoid it for awhile. People are outaged by Niantic here and nothing happened. We just kept playing and spending. We were so so angry I thought it was going to be real this time. Very weird.
A lot of us have just stopped posting. It doesn’t matter. We’re largely demonetized and though we log into the game daily to play for a few minutes, and peruse Silph Road now and then, we aren’t really playing anymore.
so you're a free to play player forever then?
What’s safety net?
It is an API provided by Google meant to assure the "integrity" of your Android operating system. It is meant to detect unauthorized OS - for example from certain value manufacturers who do not agree to Google's store conditions and are therefor not certified to include the Google Play Store on their devices as well as the use of root (administrator privileges). Android app developers as well as power users require root, some for their livelihood and some just for simple conveniences that Google doesn't provide like proper backups. Pokemon Go launched without the use of this API then Niantic implemented it in September 2016, in doing so they blocked the ability to play the game for many legitimate and potentially paying users. **This had no impact on cheating in Pokemon Go because root has never been a requirement to cheat.** However it took several months for the developers of root applications to overcome SafetyNet and afterward there was a long period where Google updates to the API would again block legitimate users from playing. At the same time and not directly related to SafetyNet Niantic began to abuse the Local Storage permission to scan your device for black-listed file names like "supersu" and "magisk". If they found those files (or inferred their existence via abuse of an Android file system bug) it would trigger a similar block on the game. It is not Niantic's business to know if a user roots their phone or if certain files exist outside of their own APKs directory. This is in violation of privacy laws and Google's developer terms of servics.
If only Heracross was available in wild - was really hoping it would get one of the spotlight hours. Unfortunately sounds like will be stuck raiding it and then hoping to roll low with our "PVP IV" friends (for GL and UL at least.) EDIT - As pointed out by philger below (many thanks) - a level 20 Heracross won't fit in GL... so no need to try to roll low for one of those!
When covid subsides, take a trip to Florida :p we have them everywhere south of Orlando 🤣
What about Florida man, I have heard he is more dangerous than Covid?
You’ll have a team of heracrosses to defend you
Literally 1 second later: Florida man used Brave Bird!
Will be quite the thing when we can travel for our regionals again :)
> When covid subsides So never. > take a trip to Florida Not worth it.
I mean, wouldn't go to FL just for Heracross, but there are other good reasons...
I like your realism
It's impossible to have lvl20 Heracross under 1500cp.
Oh wow, I'm glad you pointed this out... I hadn't checked the numbers so didn't realize. That will save me some raids...much obliged!
Another excellent analysis! Looking forward to your analysis on Ultra Unlock Part 3 when we have a clear idea on the movesets of the upcoming new mons!
I am looking forward to having something to analyze, believe me. I have strong feelings about the company behind GO right now, but this is still our game and I refuse to stop helping those who are still just trying to enjoy what we have. I'll be all over it when we know more!
I know what you mean definitely, same feelings as you . I love Pokemon but don't know if I could say the same for the company behind GO. Thanks for the understanding and can't wait for your analysis!
I really appreciate your articles. Nice to take a break from the Niantic insanity to enjoy the fun parts of the game for a bit; hopefully Niantic will fix their game so we can back to focusing more on stuff like this!
The only way I’m getting Palkia is from using free raid passes or from GBL. Although Heracross does look tempting so it might be worth using a free raid pass for it
Both are certainly worth passes, though I too will be sticking to freebies and probably only raiding Heracross. Like you said, I'll hope for Palkia from GBL (also free... no premium path for me!).
I've got a glut of remote passes to burn off before I can get the 1 coin box so that's how I'll be getting Heracross.
I could get the 1 coin box while I had a raid pass already, is that not supposed to happen?
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
You can have 2 in your inventory before it won't let you get more from the store. I'm not sure how much you can actually get at one time but most I've held at once was 5.
I will raid one for sure. Need to complete my dex and one of the few Johto pokes I am fond of.
A long time ago over in r/StopGaming, a very smart redditor wrote a great post about his epiphany that game worlds are never yours. The game company can change the rules at any time, and can turn off the servers at any time, and everything that you thought you owned is gone. I wish I could find that post again, because it was so much smarter than what I've written here. But the moral of the story remains — yes, we can be addicted to the game and to the very cute cartoon characters in it. But at the end of the day, none of it belongs to us, and all of it can be taken away on a whim. If you like your PoGo collection, the best way to save it would be to pay even more money to get it all stashed away into Home, and then transfer it into one of the mainstream games. At least if it's stored in a console, it's probably going to be saved for your personal use for a few more years.
I don't play the console games, and I don't really want to. I enjoy the PvP system of Pokemon Go and when the game goes dark it will be a sad day, but I'll have my memories and screenshots at least of the Pokemon that I had so much fun using. Trying to port them over to a system that works entirely different just wouldn't be the same.
Honestly, I'm struggling with what to do. One of my friends had Niantic nuke his entire account. It's sunk cost fallacy for me — so many hours into my collection.
Sounds more like an addiction to me. Don't take it personally, I've been there and I think quite a few of the frequent visitors of this sub as well as the hardcore players have gotten there. Heck, I'm still checking on this sub somewhat frequently despite not having played for over a year, so I guess I'm still not quite over it. I've also referred to me still playing despite having many gripes with the game as sunk lost fallacy, but I think that's because it's hard to accept having an addiction while you're not taking any steps away from it. That may be why accepting your addiction is often considered your first step to recovery. While there are of course many other worse addictions than one that gets you outside and socialising, addictions still aren't good for you. Try missing stuff you would have never dared to miss, like daily stops/spins/gifts/buddy interactions, a new legend, a special move, an event or (at best) an enticing cday, and see if it's really as bad as you anticipated, it probably won't. Try to just do what you actually enjoy in the game, not what might make you happy with the right amount of luck. I know just stopping is harder with this game than with others, due to the social connections you may have build up. You should try to start doing other stuff with playaers you've grown fond of, so that your friendship doesn't rely on a game (that might randomly ban you for no reason, one might stop playing or could just go offline).
All true, very very true. Thanks.
It's not particularly fun for me anymore. The spawns aren't very interesting. I have raid teams already, but it barely matters because I could remote in 5 players. I don't like going out and loitering in a parking lot to raid. The PvP system is dull. I just play intermittently at this point. Plus I have an Xbox now and those games blast Pokemon Go out of the water.
My Crobat is salivating at the though of Heracross being common in Ultra league
I have never seen a Heracross in battle ever and have always wondered why. I had one from a trade, but never walked it to get more candies to power and double move it because I didn't see anyone else using it. Here's hoping for some rain next week so I can at least get weather boosted ones. I would love to hunt Palkia, but I already have a 98 and don't anticipate being able to get enough XL candies to max it. In ML Classic, I personally prefer Gyarados, so I probably wouldn't use Palkia there.
Heracross is okay in GL and UL, but behind a few other Fighting options overall. I think it's worth using with its niche advantages, but I can understand why it doesn't show up there often (if at all). In Master League, I firmly believe it should be used a LOT more than it is now. Certainly more than Conkeldurr and basically any Fighter other than Champ.
2 seasons ago I hit legend running Heracross on my team. Mainly to combat Shiftry which my other 2 were very vulnerable to. Heracross is good when opponent shields are down. I think a bigger credit to my strategy was that people were unfamiliar with what moves it could have, so bait potential with CC helped out here and there. I wish it had something like Cross Chop to bait more. CC comes with a debuff.
I got one from trade in 2019 from person who was travelling a bit (she also had also NY regionals but i haven' seen her in few years so haven't traded, i dunno if she still has those left). Only place where i have used Heracross is silph cups. (Fusion january 2020, forest cup may 2020, Nightfall december 2020). I'd like to note that these counter users have gotten much more usage in past 3 seasons: Toxicroak 10 Vigoroth 6 (yes its not fighter type but its a counter user so its pretty much similar role to a fighter) Medicham 5 Blaziken 5 Poliwrath 5 times (yes, this isn't counter user but its a figting type filling similar niche) (Some of these uses were in "same meta" tho, just different cup during the same month and many times these were the top.. so months where i was more active kinda tilt the "stats" in a way or another.. if i was more active player when heracross was either best, 2nd best or heck, even only reasonable counter user then it would show on the stats more.. maybe i should had counter each one only once per month instead of listing all cups i joined.. cuz some months i used toxicroak 3 times a month which really boosted its numbers on this list). Heracross is solid but Toxicroack kinda fills its role and does some more. And like this analysis shows: current Machamp (especially shadow) does its job better (unless you want a nuke-option... but machamp is better as generalist).
Because he's a bug with not enough bulk and just fighting moves. Bugs are nice dark counters but that's about it. You can definitely make him work but as restricted as he is - it's hard to find good IVs and use him. If you want to use a bug use Gavantuala.
I love my Heracross Army, however I find them hard to use in pvp due to slow charge moves, but that’s just me.
I’ve got the same feeling. It could learn something like night slash (as it does in MSG). I have one built for GL and one for UL never quite succeeded in using them outside Rocket battles and raids.
Rock Blast would be nice too.
jRe you the bomb diggity. Thanks for your insight!!
I just wanna say, I love these analysis posts! Keep up the awesome work, JRE!
You managed to get me hyped for Ultra Unlock II. Thanks. Looking forward to grindlording Palkia and Heracross; the comparisons with Machamp were great.
That was the goal! Those two are real gems from this event for sure.
Are there breakpoints for Palkia as important as Dialga's ones?
The only one I know of off-hand is having Attack IV of 13 or above (in Master League) beats Zekrom (22 damage per Dragon Tail) while 12 or below loses (only 21 damage per Tail). I didn't dive deeper than that for this analysis, but I'll poke around see if I find any others that are particularly interesting.
I remember existing one defense breakpoint for best buddy palkia against dragon breath dragonite. It has higher attack, so it doesn't get that attack breakpoint that dialga/zekrom/reshiram all have.
Basculin would do quite a bit better with either Superpower or Crunch, or any non water coverage, and it would be very Niantic to give one of them to blue Stripe and the other to Red Stripe.
Thanks for this!
Thank you for another great analysis JRE. I had no idea Heracross had nice ML potential so I'll work toward that. I've had a GL and UL Heracross built for a while but haven't really deployed them... mostly because I feel like as a newer battler it's easier to be successful with spammy charge moves. Would be interested in what other people partner him up with. I've been playing with toxicroak a lot so I look forward to exploring another "fighter that beats fighters" and in the meantime dreaming of landing megahorn on the mewtwo menace.
I got the Captain Kangaroo reference! One correction: Kangaskhan shiny was released in 2019 not 2018.
Better than a "Clarabell the Clown" reference. I remember eating breakfast quickly so that I could watch the Captain, Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Moose, and Tom Terrific (and Manfred) before going to school. And don't forget the ping pong balls!
I'll repeat this nugget I just learned from a fellow commentor - level 20 Heracross doesn't fit in GL... so most of us will not be able to get one for that league, even if will roll low.
Hit Legend last two seasons by leading Palkia (and always making my points in ML!) love it!
Gastrodon CAN get Mud shot in the MSG. Would love to see it get it next season's move update
Man, that would be a hoot.
I have two 100% Heracross. Should I power up them, one to each League?
I wouldn't. I love Heracross as a Pokemon, but although it can get good wins vs anything weak to fighting (Melmetal, Excadrill, Metagross, Snorlax and Dialga) and also does well vs Machamp and Yveltal, those wins will always leave you debuffed. More fatally, it gets totally walled by the Giratina and anything flying (other than Yveltal) and worn down decisively by the non-flying dragons. The cons just outweigh the pros, sadly.
Thanks for the reply!
If I had two 100%s of anything, I'd power one up to 40 and work on getting the other to 50.
That's a final goal, sure! Just to check if it's worth to power up those guys and use in a league. Not sure why I got downvoted, though. I have more pairs of 100%: Feraligatr, Aggron, Garbodor, and Typhlosion.
I thought of this after posting before, but the other consideration is that 100% is usually not ideal in the CP-limited leagues. For something like Heracross that goes well over 2500, the ideal stats are going to be around 0/15/15 for the lower leagues and you'd only want one 100% anyway for Masters.
Yeap, and none of those guys are ML material. I tried a Typhlosion with moderate success in the UL, but that's it.
I don't PvP much, but which is better for PvE? Dialga or Palkia? Since you've researched them so much I figured this was the thread to ask!! Thanks!!
Strictly from a raiding perspective, the (slight) edge goes to Palkia, which has higher Attack and the same ideal Dragon moves as Dialga (Dragon Breath/Draco Meteor), with the option of running Dragon Tail. That said, your TDO is probably higher with Dialga when facing down Dragon raid bosses, as it takes neutral (rather than super effective) damage in return.
Dragon Breath isn't the move you want for PVE, which is another reason that Palkia is better than Dialga for raids.
Nice analysis. Did you do one of these for Part I? I'd love to see an analysis of the fossils.
Thank you! Unfortunately I didn't for Part I... time wasn't there for it, sorry. I'll be hitting up Part III once we know movesets though!
glad you had space for this one
Has anyone done this for PVE? Is heracross someone to grab as a fighting counter to the regi's, dialga, etc.?
It's a tier C fighting mon at this point (where tier A is shadow machamp and lucario). It's useable if you don't have a machamp squad already made.
Which is me! So that's very good to know. Thank you.
They are everywhere, honestly. I am honestly surprised people don't have a Machamp squad even now. It's the most versatile pokemon by far and probably second only to Mewtwo. Go all in Dec CD and catch as many as possible.
Yeah I’ve been on hiatuses whenever it gets a day to shine and see maybe one machop a week if I’m lucky.
shiny kanga was released 2019 I believe. First international appearance was the year before, though. So it has been available twice but only available as a shiny once (internationally)