So it’s been about 9 months since the last article I wrote, so for reference to people who probably didn’t see them, the first two are available here and here.
As promised at the end of the second one, after discussing all the bad move choices you can make, I thought I should focus on helping you make the right decision. With such wide movepools available in the URPG, there are also more ways in which a battle can proceed based on your choices.
Selecting the Most Damaging Move:
STAB:
STAB refers to the Same Type Attack Bonus. Moves which match the type of your Pokemon gain a 50% increase in power. In basic terms, this means that Blaziken’s Fire Punch will deal 50% more damage than Hariyama’s, even though they have the same attack stat.
Super Effective:
On the other hand, super-effective moves deal twice the damage to their opponent. One of the benefits of URPG’s much larger movepools is the increased type coverage available to your Pokemon. Pokemon such as Infernape, Gallade and Dragonite all have excellent coverage, and with a full set of EM’s will likely have a move that is super-effective to deal that double damage. However that doesn’t always mean the super-effective move is your best choice, and using a super-effective move when there are better options is a common mistake.
So what do I use?
Hidden Power is the perfect example of this – people go to great lengths to get the right type for that one 60BP move. In situations where this is super-effective (double weaknesses excluded) that’s a relative 120BP …which actually isn’t that good. Most competitively viable Pokemon will have a STAB move – Flamethrower, Ice Beam, Surf, Energy Ball, Thunderbolt and Psychic are all 90BP. If you do the math, with neutral effectiveness, this makes the resulting STAB-boosted 135BP a better option than the super-effective Hidden Power at only 120. Fire Blast, Hydro Pump and Thunder are all even more powerful again at 165BP after STAB.
Don’t go thinking STAB moves are always better though – it all depends on the situation. A super-effective Brave Bird from Blaziken will deal more damage than neutral-effective Flare Blitz. As they both have the same base power, the 2x super-effective boost results in the higher damage output.
This decisions can often mean the difference between a 1HKO, 2HKO or 3HKO. An extra turn on the field can be the difference in a competitive battle, giving your opponent a chance that they shouldn’t have had to damage or setup against your Pokemon.
That’ll all from me for now! I’ll be continuing this focus on selecting the best move in the next issue!
