About Tangela's moveset. If Power Whip has a 28.93 DPS and Solar Beam has a 28.16 DPS, why Vine Whip/Solar Beam is listed "A" for attack and Vine Whip/Power whip listed "B"?
Answers
Um, I'm not sure that's entirely right. SB does about double damage, yes, but also takes about twice as long to cast as VW. Thus, both moves have the same damage output.
What is different is the amount of energy used: using SB you convert 100 energy into 120 damage, but you would need to use almost 200 energy to get the same amount of damage out of VW. I think SB is ranked higher because it is more energy efficient, not because it does any more DPS. In other words, SB has a better DPE rate - "damage per energy."
Short answer is that with Solar Beam you will be spending more time using your charge move than with Power Whip so over time it will end up doing more damage. Here's an example (not factoring in STAB because all moves have it):
Imagine both Tangela's using Vine Whip to generate 100 energy. After this both Tangelas use their charge move, one with Solar Beam and the other one with Power Whip. Power Whip has a 2,8 second cooldown while Solar Beam has a cooldown of 4,9 seconds. So after casting Solar Beam, the other Tangela has had extra 4,9 - 2,8 = 2,1 seconds to use its quick move. During this time Power Whip Tangela can use its quickmove 2,1s / 0,65s times dealing 2,1/0,65*7 damage = ~22,62 damage which doesn't even close to make up the difference in their charge moves (120 - 70 = 50).
In reality the difference is not quite that big because Power Whip Tangela gets to use it charge move faster the second time because it has already accumulated roughly 23 energy before Solar Beam Tangela has generated any, but this is still not enough to overcome the difference in damage of the moves. I hope this clears it up for you.
It has to do with how they calculate DPS. It's not calculated in the way you're probably thinking - as in damage per second done over a battle. That would be impossible for them to calculate without making certain assumptions about the length of the battle, defender's HP, etc.
It's calculated by literally just taking the damage the move does divided by the cooldown.
70 damage / 2.8 sec = 25 DPS
This is just a useful quick glance way to gauge about how 'good' a charge move is.
LOL you must be joking?
You do realize that first you say that it's not calculated like damage per second, and then right after that you say it's calculated like damage per second. I don't think you understand what does damage per second mean.
Damage divided by cooldown IS DAMAGE PER SECOND.
For Solar Beam it is 120/4,9 = ~24,49 which is lower than Power Whip's DPS.
Luckily I just explained it above how it's done.
