Why have the optimal movesets for so many Pokémon been altered in the last few days...?
In 2 days time (between October 7th 2016 and October 9th 2016) for many Pokémon the optimal combination of Quick move / Charge move has been altered... My only question is 'WHY'...?
I've been deleting Pokémon with 97% IV on Friday because of their horrible moveset which only 2 days later seem to be the A-grade moveset for the same species...
What happened... why so many changes....?
Answers
So many... I've checked 60% of all Pokémon so far and my guess is that the optimal moveset is now different for 40% of 'm.
An example would be: I have a 100% IV Persian since 5-6 weeks, regretfully with moveset Scratch / Power Gem, not very good until last Friday. (I kept it because it was at 100% IV, couldn't toss it away). This morning however, both of these moves are A graded for both Attack and Defense...!
Then I started checking others and found similar results... Must have been done during the weekend since last Friday I did 'maintenance' on my inventory and checked almost all Pokémon I have.
If this is the case (actually, 95% I believe you @Kakabuku), this will piss me quite a lot coz I've been deleting a dozen of more-than-95% IV pokemons due to their awful movesets. I'm more like into training my pokemons for increasing prestige lately. Winning with an Exeggutor with CP2100 with a Scyther CP 1000 works for this goal but I transferred many of almost perfect IV of this one.
Share your discovery more, I'll be exploring my bag again.
Shame on you. Never delete high IV pokemon even with bad movesets without trying them out. I like a lot of pokemon with less than ideal movesets.
Even though we pretty much have the numbers figured out by now, you never know if Niantic will change something in the future. The only pokemon you should get rid of are ones that simply won't be any good either way, such as your Persian.
I am in agreement about keeping perfect IV's or even near perfect IV's (as in over 90 percent or better in particular). However that doesn't negate the fact that ALOT of each particular Pokémon move set gradings have changed over the last few days without any notice or more importantly reasoning for the changes. Additionally without upgrading Pokémon storage when you try to keep the "best" you have so far of every Pokémon you can run shy of storage quickly after getting close to a near full living dex.
So why the grading change for a lot of move sets in real action to specific Pokémon?
The Persian was just an example of course. Trust me, deleting a 95.6% Slowpoke with the worst possible moveset is not what I WANT to do... but if I have 6 Slowpokes 90%-100% I'd rather keep the 91% with the perfect moveset... Inventory restrictions make clean up necessary occasionally, I already doubled storage and that's about it for me...
But obviously the reason why I (or anyone else) throw away a Mon is not the subject here. In my opinion you have to explain why and how you change your grading algorithm if you mention this grading for every Pokémon on the site and it's 100% related to something as important as the Gym Defenders / Attackers Tier List... Lots of players have to make inventory decisions sooner or later and hold on to the advice given on websites like this one. If you want to be professional about your advice I would personally make a post under 'News' to explain something has changed drastically in the way all the quick / charge moves of each Pokémon are graded. The impact on how efficient your Pokémon is compared to his almost identical twin brother is just too big not to mention it at all imho...
Completely agree so what changed?
That's the issue I have with this, Not the fact that changes where made, that so many changes where made without explaining the sweeping change.
Playing up the whole thing under an auspice of a completion of move sets without addressing the changes in grades for already present move sets does leave a bad taste though. IMO!
As far as I can see they changed things 'in favour' of the Mons: The ones that had just 1 A grade Attack and/or Defense moveset, now have more A grade movesets. The ones that had certain B/C grade movesets are now all A grade movesets.
I haven't found an A grade moveset that has been changed in a B grade or worse so far...
It would be nice if they have a brief explanation of mons moveset grades like they they did with a couple of higher tier ones. I understand some of them, but not all.
I quite enjoy using the lower class mons for attacking, but they don't get much love on any of these sites for movesets. Usually just "a worse version of x Pokemon" even though they don't share the exact moveset. I don't wanna just use Vapes, arcs, exeggectors, etc
Not only that, but with hydro pump in particular it is the "best" moveset for 6 or 7 pokemon. If this site is followed exactly with no thought to the big picture all their pokemon they spent so much dust on will all have the same movesets and won't have many strategic choices.
Doesn't matter a huge amount now, but maybe when new pokemon are introduced and balances are made it will be a much more dramatic difference.
Unfortunately there is no absolute ranking. But it would be nice to be informed which changes where made to the recommendations and why...
I did a ranking myself. It is quite in line with the rankings here, but there are many factors to consider. There are maybe millions of reasonable rankings.
If all attacks are of the same type things are rather straight forward. If the types differ - like for persian - it gets complicated...
Do i want a general ranking? Persian would be of no use. Then consider the special cases. Against XXX it might be ok with move A. Against YYY it might be ok with move B. And so on.
And: How frequent do we need the special strength? Compared to other PMon available in my Area?
I'm going through all my Pokémon now. I sort all my mons by moveset ranking (#) and IVs (letter), so I know exactly which moves were previously designated.
So far I can confirm Butterfree, Beedrill, and Pidgeot have been revised. For example, for Butterfree Bite/Buzz was previously only the top ranked offensive moveset but now it is also tied for top ranked defensive moveset (still listed as second however). Pidgeot is more 'extreme' though, because Steel/Hurricane was previously the top ranked defensive moveset, but now it is a 'B' rank and listed fourth.
I'll reply to this with more I find.
Parasect -Five out of the six possible move sets now share an "A" ranking for defensive move sets. I have a 100% IV Parasect that was previously 'garbage' but now Cutter/Poison is an "A" d combo, and is listed fourth.
Dugtrio - My 100% IV Dugtrio now has the top defensive moveset (Slap/Bomb). Slap/Earthquake is still an "A" moveset on both sides (though now it is listed third for D).
the dodgabilty (new word) of long cast moves like hurricane has called to question some of the previously top ranked defensive movesets. some argue they people dont dodge so these should be ranked best and others argue that people do dodge the big attacks so those that cast more frequently have more value. So from what I have seen they have upgraded some to share an A ranking and some they just downright downgraded.
Relax guys. As they have explained in the 'moveset grades explanation' site in here, that rating those movesets is impossible to be done without leaving some doubt there.
Mostly it is because of move types differ, and there is no way to accurately measure how big a difference will be. One way would be to rank purely by DPS, which is not smart, and they have been changing the movesets ranking from DPS to more 'suitable typing' kind of direction.
For example: slowbro's charge moves: ice beam is probably the worst DPS, but personally I hate it when defending slowbro has an ice beam: imposible to exploit and mostly used exegguttor is rendered useless against ice beam.
Once more, the job these guys are doing, is pretty much impossible to do, and it always comes down to opinion in the end. Opinions change, don't use this site's moveset ranking as the ultimate truth, but as an opinion which moves these people prefer - because that is closer to the truth.
I'm collecting all or most moveset combinations for all pokemon, if its over 82% IVs. Naintic could change the moves, their dps, or mechanics and all of a sudden a garbage moveset could be best or viable. Takes a lot of inventory but I upgraded to the 1000, if I had to be picky, then i would do top ten or top 20 pokemon. Hunting these different movesets even the ones not so ideal actually is giving me something to hunt for since i have caught all 142 i can catch ages ago.
lol - is this for real or a joke?
You guys are really arguing about defensive moveset rankings for Parasect, Dugtrio, Persian, Porygon, etc.?
Can you let me know where all these gyms are where you see them please? I'd like to come steamroll them and put a real defender up.
Not only is a lot of this subjective (because assumptions have to be made about what you're doing with the Pokemon to decide what moves are better) but all of the Pokemon you're naming have all their movesets so close because they all are terrible!
For example, Persian's Defensive "TDO" or "Total Damage Output" (a widely recognized metric to see how much dmg a Pokemon will dish out before it faints against an average Pokemon of similar level) for 5 of 6 of its movesets is between 87 and 93. So while you may have the 5th best defensive moveset, it's so close to the 1st that you might as well put A for all of them...simply because there's not much difference between them.
I really think you guys are confusing the "A" or B" or whatever rankings. It's relative. Every Pokemon has an A graded moveset. That doesn't mean it's good. It just means it's the best moveset for that Pokemon, even if it's terrible compared to other Pokemon.
If a Pokemon has 6 terrible movesets (like Dugtrio) but they're all equally terrible, they'll all be listed as "A".
To put that "87-93" Defensive dmg. output in perspective, Snorlax's dmg goes from 202-276. So even Snorlax's "F" ranked defensive moveset is still going to be doing 2-3x as much dmg as Persian's "A"
Also, when you're talking a difference of over 70 dmg (aka what Persian does on his own) between one moveset and another, there's a meaningful difference. ... not 6-7 dmg which is splitting straws
When someone has to state that a metric is widely recognized you have to wonder why they are so defensive right off the ball about a metric. I am not saying it is not, just curious after all. And not everyone who plays lives in or near somewhere like New York or LA so look in ahh I think y'all call us fly over country. And when you are done I bring team R (for rattata) to clean your clock unless you plan on camping out with a few friends to hold one of the two gyms in my hometown.
Ok enough counter trash talk.?
As far as the topic of this debate the point was that their were sweeping changes made across a slew of Pokémon in their already accepted relative grading system. Our collective query and debate topic was what changed in the eyes of GamePress for such a grand change of opinion.
If you only care about a few Pokémon that you and your buds have that are practically Impossible to find unless you live in somewhere like NewYork, and you can quickly or easily get to a nest or frequent spawn area where in "flyover country" most of us have yet to even hatch any from an egg even though we have hatched 500 eggs. Well we don't have a stable of Lapras or such to "steamroll and put up a real defender."
