Is ho oh worth powering up at all
Caught a 93iv today but ho ohs moveset from what i know is garbage so in the end is it really worth it
Answers
If it had Overheat, if it had a fire fast move, if it had Sky attack and a flying fast move, it could be good. Maybe when we get Ho-Oh's raid day, it will have all of those options. Or maybe we could get an Alolan Ho-Oh (yes, I know, that's not a thing) with a flying grass or fire grass typing.
Should be good, especially with those massive stats, but just doesn't have the moves to cut it.
For it to get a fire- or flying-type fast move a new one would need to be added to the game. Remaining fire-type options would be Burn Up, Incinerate, and its signature Sacred Fire which if added would very likely be as a charge move. Of the unused flying-type moves Ho-Oh can learn in the main series this leaves Gust, Pluck, and Sky Drop.
Extrasensory and Brave Bird do a nice job against Machamp, especially if Champ has steel moves (and 2/3 of the time, it has at least one, 1/6 of the time, two). Lugia double resists the fighting moves, but has no resistance to the steel moves, and has an anemic 193 base attack, while Ho-Oh has a 239 (not strong, but 40 points better than Lugia). I like the fact that Ho-Oh resists everything Machamp attacks with, not just the fighting moves.
I've had a level 31 Ho-Oh (average IVs for a legendary, caught weather buffed) on my Machamp team for a while, and am very happy with it. And one would think that since Solar Beam is such a pain to fight against, having it would be good. But of the things weak to plant, Ho-Oh is weak to both water and rock (doubly), so it's real niche is against ground attackers. Against groudon, Ho-Oh resists Fire Blast and Earthquake, and doubly resists Solar Beam. So, if you want to power up a fairly good ground attacker, Solar Beam Ho-Oh is for you. Personally, though, against Ho-Oh or Groudon with Solar Beam, my preference is to use Flying Dragons.
So, to answer your questions, if you have a use for one, power it up. I'd prefer a weather buffed one, to save the 28,000 candy, and I'd shy away from using rare candy on it. Pretty hard to justify spending RC on a Ho-Oh when it could go to a Mewtwo, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Moltres, Raikou, etc.
I maxed out a 98% just because I like Ho-Oh, but overall, I'd agree with everyone else that right now Ho-Oh doesn't have much use. On occasion, it's had a niche as a tanky option against certain raid boss movesets, but it's never the best option for anything, given it's pretty poor movepool. When we eventually get PvP (or Ho-Oh is given its signature move, sacred fire), Ho-Oh may end up as a strong contender, but that day is not today I'm afraid.
I've never poured RC into them as far as I can remember, but I did max a perfect one and got a second perfect one to level 32. I left one with Steel Wing/Solar Beam and used it for a couple of raids, and made the second one a Fire Blast bird that came useful vs Regice. Nothing too exciting; power one up if you get a lot of Ho-oh candies, but save the RC for better things to come.
Well depending on PvP, it could become one of the most annoying pokemon to deal with, most rock types are double weak to grass and it has solar beam (one of the reasons it was such an asshole to deal with before SD tyranitar) and steel wing for charge and fast moves.. That coupled with its very tanky stats, could find more use in PvP than raids, but as it stands presently, no, it isnt worth powering up, there are better fire and flying types that are easier to get candy for.
I powered up one a bit in that context: Looking for Machamp tanky counters, having few Lugia candies and rare candies, my Lugia having future sight and me having no CTMs. On the other side, I had a weather boosted Ho-Oh with ES/BB and some Ho-Oh candies. It's true that SA Lugia is better than Ho-Oh in this role, but FS Lugia and Ho-Oh against double steel Machamp have similar performance. In others situations, Ho-Oh is still a decent tank with good survavibility and decent DPS. So I powered up my Lugia to level 27 and Ho-Oh to 26.5, 2nd to last extrasensory breakpoint for both. Those 2 are my cheap anchors for any moveset with Machamp. I am using some high DPS mons for the other slots. That's enough for not weather boosted HS Machamp. Lugia alone would probably be enough for DP Machamp. I have yet to meet a weather boosted one with this moveset.
TL;DR: You can power up Ho-Oh as a Machamp tanky counter if you have the resources to do so and no possibility to power up an E/SA Lugia.
I powered up a Solar Beam one after its debut because it proved to be a fairly solid tank against Groudon, resisting all of its attacks except Dragon Tail and hitting it for SE damage. Even now it's still the tankiest option against a Solar Beam Groudon, having the highest TDO with okay-ish DPS. That's a pretty niche use though, and with the amount of options available now with much better DPS (Kyogre, FP Venusaur) it's hard to justify the candy sink.
I like Ho-Oh. I want to power up a Ho-Oh. Before the Legendary's started coming back, I was planning on raising up a Ho-Oh (I had 80 Ho-Oh candies to spend, so no RC's were needed) - the only reason I didn't do it was a lack of Stardust.
I have the Stardust now, but I won't power up any of the Ho-Oh I've currently got because it's possible that Ho-Oh might be released again, and it might have a better move set. So I wouldn't advise powering up a Ho-Oh right now; let them take up room in your Inventory. Maybe - MAYBE - when you've got Best Friends with someone and you are willing to spend the 20,000 Stardust (?), try trading a Ho-Oh or two and see if you can get one that's Lucky. Maybe.
(I dunno - that's an awful lot of Stardust to gamble on a Pokémon without a decent move set, so that might fall into the "Bad Advice" category. But if I managed to get a Lucky Ho-Oh... I might just power one up with a Meh moveset anyway. I really do like Ho-Oh.)
