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Better Machamp raid counter: ES/BB Ho-oh, or ES/FS (or SA) Lugia?

For all the people who are salivating over ES/BB Ho-oh as a Machamp counter, I'd love to hear the reasoning. Lugia gets STAB on ES, and a choice of two superior charge moves, either of which more than compensate for his lower base attack stat. So, Lugia hits harder, and is also considerably tankier.

It seems pretty obvious to me that ES/BB Ho-oh lags behind not only Lugia with ES/FS or ES/SA, but also behind the less tanky but much harder-hitting DT/H Dragonite.

Ho-oh's stats, while high, are not so off-the-chart that giving him a better charge move like sky attack or hurricane, or perhaps a flying quick move, would "break the meta," as so many people seem to fear.

Asked by ScooterJameson7 years 8 months ago

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I thought about Ho-Oh with ES/anything as a Machamp counter because I didn't have a raid group when Lugia was out there to catch, and have none. I'm not near a Sponsored gym (and don't drink coffee,) so my chances of getting a Mewtwo are small.

However, I've been disappointed with my D/H Dragonite as a Machamp counter (especially against the steel moves). Most of the damage seems to come from Dragon Tail, so the weakness to flying isn't helping a lot. Now, if it were Salamence with double flying moves, that's solid.

That's a fair point about not having a Lugia. Ho-oh fills a similar role, just maybe not quite as well.

DT on Dragonite (with STAB) hits Machamp a little harder than ES (with type effectiveness) on Ho-oh, and if you don't like the damage that hurricane does to Machamp, you sure aren't going to be impressed with BB on Ho-oh.

I think Ho-oh is an awesome pokemon, and I feel they way overcompensated for his high base stats by giving him weak movesets. I suspect they used the moves to indirectly nerf Ho-oh before they decided to directly nerf his stats. That's understandable in the context of a 4600+ CP, but post-nerf Ho-oh can handle some better moves without unbalancing the game.

The other nod to Ho-Oh in this scenario is that Ho-Oh singly resists both fighting and steel. Lugia doubly resists fighting, but does not resist steel at all. And 2/3 of the Machamp bosses will have one or more steel moves. So with Ho-Oh, you get some resistance no matter what the moveset, and he'll resist a lot better against BP/HS.

My unhappiness with DT/H Dragonite stems from the fact that in that combination, about 2/3 of the damage comes from the DT (before damage to energy). Damage is the same as Outrage for twice the energy, but without weakness. I was having trouble soloing Machamp with 2 Espeons (futuresight on both), 2 Dragonites with DT/O, and 2 Exeggutors. Replaced the weaker Exeggutor with a Dragonite DT/H after I powered him up, and it didn't seem to get any easier.

I looked at my CDPS calculator, and gave Ho-Oh Overheat, just to see how it would play out. Here's the results with the existing quick moves (add in Fire Spin, and it gets worse, I'm sure). All are total Cycle Damage per Second against a neutral defender, with no damage to energy conversion built in.

C-Move ExtraSensory SteelWing
Brave Bird 18.15 18.91
Fire Blast 19.57 19.94
Solar Beam 19.46 19.84
Overheat 21.58 21.53

All of these are around 'normal' and are all way less than Dragonite with DT/O putting out 25.17 CDPS. Of course, nothing is weak to Dragon except Dragon, which makes it easier to make it higher. Maybe we'll get a move update when Gen3 comes out (chuckles quietly to self).

Ho-oh is actually comparable to Lugia which is why they perform about the same in simulations, Ho-oh in theory actually being faster.Look at their adjusted attack stats i.e. after IVs and multipliers.

Assuming 15 attack IV, Lugia has (193+15) x 1.2 x 1.4 = 349.44 effective attack while Ho-oh has (239+15) x 1.4 = 355.6 when using Extrasensory - so a Ho-oh could actually do more DPS if it hits a breakpoint that Lugia can't, which is actually the case at level 39.5 with 15 attack IV, Ho-oh reaches 14 damage while Lugia maxes out at 13.

Sky Attack is a better move than Brave Bird - comparable to Dynamic Punch vs Close Combat on Machamp, but both Lugia and Ho-oh have the same multipliers, due to both having flying typing, which means that Ho-oh's higher attack makes up for Brave Bird's lower cycle DPS compared to Sky Attack.

Against a Machamp what separates the two is the typing, Lugia being more survivable against fighting moves and Ho-oh against steel moves. If it's got both they're about the same.

I'd initially written off Ho-oh as a dex entry due to it's suboptimal moves but it does have it's uses. It's not a game changer unlike Mewtwo whose neutral DPS can rival that of supreme counters with type advantage.

If you bring both to a Machamp raid then it should make things even more trivial, as you'd cover all movesets. Use glass cannons to get ahead of the clock, and after that since at least once of your tanks will have defensive type advantage they should last the rest of the raid with ease even with missed dodges. Maybe you don't even need to dodge at all.

Yes, I'll concede Lugia's sky attack being about even with brave bird, but I was originally just thinking about Lugia with FS, which totally outclasses brave bird. As an afterthought, I threw in SA as an alternative. And the cycle DPS doesn't take into account the smoothing of damage with a two-bar move, although that is admittedly less important for extremely tanky attackers like Ho-oh and Lugia.

Good point about Ho-oh resisting the steel moves, and Lugia resisting the fighting moves.

To your point about Mewtwo, the problem I see is that shadow ball is double resisted by normal types, limiting its usefulness as a gym attacker, and focus blast is resisted by flying, psychic, and (doubly) ghost types, limiting its role as a raid boss attacker. A slightly better psychic move would be a big improvement. Again, I could understand these moveset limitations in the context of a 4700 CP, but with the 9% nerf, Mewtwo becomes a little too ordinary.

The more I evaluate these legendaries, the more I become convinced that Dragonite is still the best pokemon in the game.

Sky Attack is better than Future Sight. And if Brave Bird is on par with Sky Attack then that would imply that it is also better than Future Sight.

i.e. SA ~= BB, and SA > FS. ∴ BB > FS.

If Lugia had Future Sight and Brave Bird then yes, Future Sight would be pretty much strictly better but it's on Ho-oh who has a higher attack stat which almost makes up for it.

Your original post states that Lugia's STAB makes up for it's lower attack which it doesn't, that Ho-oh lags behind Lugia which is untrue - it's actually faster, and is also "considerably" tankier which it isn't, it depends on the moveset.

Yes it's slower than Dragonite but so is Lugia. That doesn't make either Lugia or Ho-oh a worse Machamp counter than a Dragonite. Ho-oh still gets it done in reasonable time and has the advantage of resisting all of Machamp's moves and having more bulk than a Dragonite, so what's the problem with it?

If Lugia is accepted as a strong Machamp counter, and Ho-oh has comparable survivability and DPS then by that logic Ho-oh is also a strong Machamp counter.

Exactly how much better (or worse) it is than Lugia isn't that important, it's good enough that someone can justify powering Ho-oh to use for soloing Machamps and expect results from their investment, which was your original question - asking people to explain why they think Ho-oh is a good Machamp counter.

Wrong (and I'm only being a jerk about it because you are). Let's leave out sky attack as an intermediary, and compare Lugia's FS directly to Ho-oh's brave bird. FS deals 120 damage, to 90 for BB. Both get STAB, and both are super effective against Machamp. Ho-oh's attack stat is 23% higher than Lugia's, but FS is 33% more powerful for the same energy. The move duration difference of 0.7 seconds isn't even enough to allow Ho-oh to get in a full extra ES. And Lugia gets STAB on his own ES, which Ho-oh doesn't, thus almost completely offsetting the 23% attack stat difference for the quick move alone. Lugia does more damage overall, AND is indisputably tankier.

Dragonite is less tanky, but it is plenty tanky enough for Machamp raids, and it deals WAY more damage than Ho-oh. Since the key to soloing Machamp is high DPS glass cannons with one or two tanks thrown in, Ho-oh is an also-ran on a Machamp raid team that already has a ES/FS Lugia and a DT/H Dragonite.

If you happen to know in advance that the Machamp has double steel moves, then it's basically a tie because of Lugia being 29% tankier. Otherwise, the Lugia wins hands down.

So, to my original question, ES/BB Ho-oh is underwhelming as a Machamp counter, and adds value only if you lack better counters such as ES/FS Lugia or DT/H Dragonite.

Lugia's ES has the last breakpoint at LV 31.5 (13 damages) against Machamp, while Ho-Oh's last breakpoint is at LV 39.5 which deals 14 damages. With this breakpoint, Ho-Oh is superior in terms of DPS since its high attack stat compensates its poor charge move.

Ho-oh's 23% higher attack stat does not compensate for Lugia's 33% more powerful charge move.

Ho-Oh is better than Lugia.

As explained above, Ho-Oh has slightly higher DPS than Lugia.

But more importantly, there are a lot of high DPS counters which resist a fighting Machamp: Alakazam, Espeon, Mewtwo, Dragonite. So the high tankiness of Lugia against fighting Machamp is not needed. On the other hand, the high tankiness of Ho-Oh against steel Machamp is very appreciable.

With Lugia's higher defense and stamina, the difference in tankiness against a double steel moveset (a 1 out of 6 possibility) is very smallin favor of Ho-oh. Against any other of the 5 out of 6 movesets, Lugia is tankier.

And the math shows that Ho-oh clearly does NOT have higher DPS against Machamp than ES/FS Lugia, unless you cherry pick a level where Ho-oh has just reached a breakpoint, and Lugia is just short of one.

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