Charizard or Arcanine as your attacker?
Hello everyone,
For a while now I had been forced to use an Arcanine with bite/flame thrower as my go to attacker against mons weak to fire as well as Lapras. I love bite for attack but FT sucks.
I recently got 2 new options as my go to fire attacker to replace my old Arcanine.
1) Arcanine, Level 20, Bite/Fire Blast, 93 IV
2) Charizard, Level 20, Wing Attack/Fire Blast, 93IV
They both essentially have the same IV, level and the best offensive move set.
I have a lot of dust saved and more than enough candy to power both up. I really just want to power one of them up though. Which one would you power up in my situation?
I am leaning towards Arcanine because it is just as good against pokemon weak to fire as Charizard but it also does better against Lapras than Charizard. Am I correct?
Are there any common meta game pokemon that Charizard does better against than Arcanine?
Answers
First of all, why do you think Bite + Fire Blast is the best move set for RK9? I know for a fact that a LOT of people say "because it charges energy faster". But really, without STAB Bite has lower DPS than Fire Fang. Also, it's rare to have an enemy which can be taken down in just one Fire Blast. I'm leaning to that FF+FB is OVERALL better than B+FB - but not in every case.
Secondly, your conclusion that RK9 does better than Charizard against Lapras is correct.
Thirdly, Grass-type Pokemons with double Grass moves are hard countered by your Charizard. So it could be a Razor Leaf + Solar Beam Venusaur. Exeggutor, with Solar Beam/Seed bomb, is a good matchup too.
In conclusion, I would choose Charizard. To throw a cherry on the top, Charizard's Fire Blast is so cool as if the move's animation was customized for him.
I love using bite a lot more than firefang. FF is so wonky and bite allows for easier dodges. Also one of the main pokemons I use Arcanine against is execgutor which takes effective damage from bite as well as fireblast anyway.
Charizard is better than arcanine against grass types but honestly in this meta game the only defending grass type I see relatively often is Exegutor which will take effective damage from both attacks from an arcanine with bite/FB.
What is really making me lean towards arcanine is the fact that he is better against Lapras than Charizard.
Every damage simulation I've seen / heard of shows that Bite outperforms Fire Fang on attack. The increased energy generation allows Arcanine to unleash more powerful charge attacks, and this allows the lower DPS Bite to outperform FF over time. When you're determining "real DPS" the inquiry isn't just which fast move performs better on its own ... you have to factor in energy generation and increased use of charge moves. Fire Fang may be slightly better DPS than Bite on its own but as all the simulations show, even without STAB, arcanine's movesets with bite outperform fire Fang in terms of actual cycle DPS.
As for Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, if you're dodging all attacks because Bite is incredibly quick and this is easy to do, then there are many situations where FT can actually outperform FB -- specifically if you are experiencing energy waste while you wait to use Fire Blast during the cooldown of an enemy pokemon's charge move.
You are right, Arcanine is more usefull since he is good vs Lapras while Charizard isn't.
They perform roughly the same vs Exeggutor. And Charizard is only better vs Venusaur that we dont see much in gyms, and who will be destroyed by Arcanine anyway.
Arcanine is also a little bit better vs SNorlax.
These are exactly the reasons why I am leaning towards arcanine. I made the thread to see if I was missing something about Charizard regarding common meta game pokemon.
Like you said the only common grasstype defender is Exegcutor which bite/FB arcanine will destroy anyway.
As for Venasuar, I have not seen one defending a gym in my area for months.
I like Bite/Fireblast too...More than Fire Fang.
FireFang just feels too slow and probably for some defenders, you can't spam 2 attacks easily?
As your mons are higher and higher level, seems easier to just steamroll over things and dodge only the charge move so use Bite/charge up, once full, use immediately...
The defender then will probably use their move soon so after that, can use FB again normally...
So much misinformation about fire Fang on these boards. Run the damage simulations for yourself, Bute outperforms FF in terms of actual cycle DPS and in dodging efficiency in every single relevant matchup.
Bite/FB is the best moveset for attack if you aren't wasting energy waiting to use FB. But in most real world situations where you are dodging every attack, Flamethrower performs just as good if not better.
Bite/FB and Bite/FT are both very good movesets, but in the hundreds of battles I'm which I've used Arcanine I definitely prefer FT because of dodging and the absence of energy waste you experience with FB.
