Between those two, I'm not sure which one would be better, but I think either of them at a higher level would be more useful than your Scizor, at least. I've soloed a few Alakazams before while including two Banettes and a Gengar in my group, but the last time I fought one, while it was raining, I tried replacing two of them with a Scizor and Pinsir because I thought the weather boost would make them better. It didn't. I ended up running out of time with no visible damage left to do, and since it glitched me out of the fight the first attempt, I couldn't try again. Apparently Fury Cutter is so weak per hit that the weather boost doesn't even make any difference.
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Hex Gengar or Shadow Claw Banette?
I've been upgrading my Alakazam team and am considering powering one of these up to add to it. Both have Shadow Ball and are level 20. Gengar is 15/15/10 and Banette is 14/14/15.
Would powering one up make much of a difference in soloing Alakazam? Should I do both? My main concern is how fragile they are.
My current team consists of:
2422 SC/SB Gengar
3486 B/C Tyranitar
2349 S/FP Houndoom (With final Snarl breakpoint)
2792 B/C Tyranitar
2475 FC/XS Scizor
3409 DT/O Dragonite
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Answers
Fury cutters max damage is already 4 without weather bonuses.
Weather is just a 1.2x multiplier in the damage formula.
Bug bite deals 6 damage i.e floor(damage)+1 = 6.
So even with the minimum damage value that fits this statement which is 5, multiplied by 1.2 results in an increase of at least 1 meaning damage is increased because floor(6)+1 =7
In the case of Bug Bite which deals 4 damage its damage value therefore must be between 3 and 3.(9) but only a value of 10/3 or higher would result in a value of 4 or higher (resulting in 5 damage dealt).
If you check the breakpoint calculator, Scizor's max damage against Alakazam is 4 per fury cutter, whether it's raining or not, even for a level 40 perfect one. All the weather boost does is allow Scizor to hit for 4 at a much lower level.
But yes, as others said, Pinsir's bug bite max does go from 6 to 7 in the rain.
I would be hesistant to power up a gengar if your sole purpose is to solo alakazam.
The only really viable moveset for Gengar to be used is Psycho cut/Focus blast. If you land that moveset, Gengar is far and away the best counter.
However, for the other 5/6 of the time you are almost always better served by Tyranitar. Power another Tyranitar to replace the Dragonite is the best option, if you can get access to Tyranitar :)
Gengar is good against all movesets. Against PC/FB you can use 6, against other movesets it's 1-3 depending how much tankiness the rest of your team has and how good of a clear time you're shooting for. Tyranitar's DPS cuts it pretty close in Alakazam raids so you want to bring in Gengars to get ahead of the clock.
I think C/SB is the only moveset I've done without a Gengar in the team.
They'd be more useful than the Dragonite which is the weakest / slowest link in that team.
Maxed out, a Gengar will have better performance, but if against Confusion, Banette has a slight edge in being able to survive 4 Confusions around level 30 (depending on IVs, but the requirements aren't high) while Gengar can only survive 3 until very high levels, so sometimes a Banette will get off 2 Shadow Balls and/or tank a Focus Blast while a Gengar is only likely to use one before fainting.
Gengar is good, its DPS is insane compared to other options. It is squishy, but you basically want at least one to get ahead of the clock. Banette is not great, worse TDO than Gengar with much lower DPS. I would not use one unless you're really short on options.
If you have the correct weather, try to catch weatherboosted Gastlies and make another Gengar that way rather than powering up from 20. Use it to replace your Dragonite in the team.
